Brights News Feed

The Center for Progessive Christianity in the US has launched “Pluralism Sunday” (which will be May 27th) in order to “celebrate diversity” (in Ekklesia’s words). The idea is to “celebrate the harmony and understanding that is possible among followers of different religions and spiritual traditions”, says TCPC.

Potentially this is a worthy aim. But of course this is limited pluralism, restricted to the religious and based on shared religiosity, not shared humanity.

In fact, the announcement qualifies the scope of “pluralism” even further: “We are encouraging the progressive Christian community…” (it also uses the phrase “…For Progressive Christian Communities” even in the title). And the co-sponsors are the “Institute for Progressive Christianity/CrossLeft, CrossWalkAmerica, and The Network of Spiritual Progressives” (according to Ekklesia); all Christian organizations that lean toward evangelism, rather than a diverse mix of different religious groups and denominations.

And the event is to be held to coincide with Pentecost (rather than choosing a religiously neutral date).

Furthermore, Ekklesia report that Pluralism Sunday is “being billed as an opportunity for Christians to share their faith with those of other religions”. The phrase the Center for Progressive Christianity actually use in their own announcement is “it’s an evangelism opportunity”.

As announced in the most recent Bulletin from “Brights Central”, a collaboration at the official Brights Forums have designed and produced a naturalistically themed calendar for 2007, from which profits go to the Brights Net. You can purchase the first ever Brights calendar here. (It’s only February, and maybe it will have souvenir value!) A 2008 calendar is also in the planning.

But what to do this year?

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