ABOUT REV. RICH LANG
Rev. Rich Lang is Pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle
His ministry is characterized with a passion to promote social and economic justice. He affirms that God has blessed us with grace, strength and power to create a world of cooperation, equality, and compassion. As a Pastor his desire is to help the Church articulate and develop a Wisdom Culture that welcomes everyone to the table, and calls forth everyone's gifts for a common good and a common wealth.
Rich has also been a voice of resistance to the emergence of both Christian and militaristic fascism in America. He continually lifts up warnings that the path we are on is leading to deep sorrows. From a Biblical basis he teaches that empire building is a way of death and destruction.
As a Christian he affirms the values and vision of Jesus as it is understood through nonviolent persistence, economic redistribution of wealth, inclusion of the outcast, welcoming of perceived sinners and compassion and reconciliation with one's enemy. He affirms both the inward journey of self examination and the outward journey of prophetic critique. The spiritual path is goaled toward union with God in which we experience the merging our heart with God's heart: we experience both the sufferings of the world, and the hopes and affirmations of life as God experiences them. This journey into God is a hard, difficult path to walk. Thus our need for companions; hence our need for the church, the fellowship of the Body of Christ.
Rich is married to Cathy and has two sons, Mike (18) and Andy (14) and invites you to visit Trinity United Methodist Church.
Find out more about Rich's Ministry:
WHAT IS PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY?
Rather than reinvent the wheel I want to lift up two progressive affirmations that, I think, get to the nub of what a
liberal progressive Christianity is all about.
The first comes from Jim Burklo and The Center for Progressive Christianity -->
THE EIGHT POINTS OF PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who:
1.) proclaim Jesus Christ as our Gate to the realm of God;
2.) recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the gateway
to God's realm;
3.) understand our sharing of bread and wine in Jesus' name to be a representation of God's
feast for all peoples;
4.) invite all sorts and conditions of people to join in our worship and in our common life as full
partners, including (but not limited to):
** believers and agnostics,
** conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,
** homosexuals and heterosexuals,
** females and males,
** the despairing and the hopeful,
** those of all races and cultures, and
** those of all classes and abilities,
without imposing on them the necessity of becoming like us;
5.) think that the way we treat one another and other people is more important than the way
we express our beliefs;
6.) find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions than
in the answers;
7.) see ourselves as a spiritual community in which we discover the resources required for
our work in the world:
** striving for justice and peace among all people, and
** bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers;
8.) recognize that our faith entails costly discipleship, renunciation of privilege, and
conscientious resistance to evil - as has always been the tradition of the Church.
The second confession comes from Cross walk America --> is called The Phoenix Affirmations.
The public face of Christianity in America today bears little connection to the historic faith of our ancestors.
It represents even less our own faith as Christians who continue to celebrate the gifts of our Creator, revealed and embodied in the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Heartened by our experience of the transforming presence of Christ's Holy Spirit in our world,
we find ourselves in a time and place where we will be no longer silent. We hereby mark an end to our silence by making the following affirmations:
As people who are joyfully and unapologetically Christian, we pledge ourselves completely to the way of Love. We work to express our love,
as Jesus teaches us, in three ways: by loving God, neighbor, and self.
cf: Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-31, Luke 10:25-28; and Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18
Christian love of God includes:
1. Walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God
may provide humanity;
2. Listening for God's Word which comes through daily prayer and meditation, studying the
ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and attending to God's present activity in
the world;
3. Celebrating the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God's
Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and
secular, the Christian and non-Christian, the human and non-human;
4. Expressing our love in worship that is as sincere, vibrant, and artful as it is scriptural.
Christian love of neighbor includes:
5. Engaging people authentically, as Jesus did, treating all as creations made in God's very
image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability,
nationality, or economic class;
6. Standing, as Jesus does, with the outcast and oppressed, the denigrated and afflicted,
seeking peace and justice with or without the support of others;
7. Preserving religious freedom and the Church's ability to speak prophetically to government by
resisting the commingling of Church and State;
8. Walking humbly with God, acknowledging our own shortcomings while honestly seeking to
understand and call forth the best in others, including those who consider us their enemies;
Christian love of self includes:
9. Basing our lives on the faith that, in Christ, all things are made new, and that we, and all
people, are loved beyond our wildest imagination - for eternity;
10. Claiming the sacredness of both our minds and our hearts, recognizing that faith and science,
doubt and belief serve the pursuit of truth;
11. Caring for our bodies, and insisting on taking time to enjoy the benefits of prayer, reflection,
worship and recreation in addition to work;
12. Acting on the faith that we are born with a meaning and purpose; a vocation and ministry
that serves to strengthen and extend God's realm of love.
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