What’s the difference between “liberal” and “progressive” Christianity? It’s a good question. Roger Olson, who knows a thing or two about American liberal theology, vents his frustration with a publisher who insists that “progressive” is the new “liberal.” Nonsense, Olson says. Progressives are mostly disaffected young evangelicals who are in favour of the unqualified inclusion of LGBTQ people.

The latest edition of the Journal of Biblical Literature has an article by Katherine Shaner entitled “The Danger of Singular Saviors: Vulnerability, Political Power, and Jesus’s Disturbance in the Temple (Mark 11:15–19).” It’s a nicely provocative piece on two counts: it suggests downgrading the role of Jesus in the incident; and it demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of imposing—in keeping with the Zeitgeist—a decolonising and womanist hermeneutic on the biblical text.

We are between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. A few days ago Jesus rode into Jerusalem to excited cries of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mk. 11:9). The acclamation comes from Psalm 118:25-26: “Save us (hoshiʿ naʾ), we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!” In the psalm the words come directly on the tail of the saying about the stone rejected by the builders, which Jesus will shortly direct at the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people at the end of his story about a mismanaged vineyard (Mk. 12:10; cf. Ps. 118:22). The crowds may be fickle, but the leadership of Israel is convinced that Jesus is trouble, a threat to the security of the nation.

It’s funny how quickly a book can go out of date. Admittedly, I’m reviewing Jennifer Butler’s Who Stole My Bible? Reclaiming Scripture as a Handbook for Resisting Tyranny from a safe distance, and maybe there’s a lot that’s not visible from here. But the book was written in the middle of a fierce political storm that now seems to have blown over.

Butler is firmly of the opinion that America was in thrall to a right-wing, white supremacist, nativist, exclusivist (how we love our -ist words these days!), patriarchal, anti-democratic, imperialising tyranny, and that a large part of the church had been deceived into worshipping the beast. “Money in politics and a new type of gerrymandering advanced in the nineties is close to locking political power in the hands of one party: the Republicans. America is one election away from a one-party system.”

I got flung against a wall by a good friend for my defence of a narrative-historical perspective on Christendom—not literally, but a vigorous pushback on Facebook. I’ve replied to him there, but I’m posting the main points I made in response here as an addendum to the piece. Perhaps it will make things clearer. Perhaps it won’t.

I’m getting into the bad habit of answering questions raised in the comments with another post. The reason is that the questions are very good and merit consideration at length, but I wonder if the practice is conducive to good debate. Anyway, Jo says that he has trouble accepting that “European Christendom was the full embodiment of the kingdom of God.” Surely we are led to expect something more “glorious and enduring.” He also introduces the perspective of two black theologians who regard European Christendom as a “whitewashed Christianity” allied to an oppressive imperialism.

What is the kingdom of God? The standard evangelical view is that it is the aggregated rule of God in the hearts of believers in advance of (“now and not yet”) a glorious future kingdom, usually confused either with heaven or the new creation. The main alternative these days would be the “progressive” idea that God is behind social justice developments and expects the church to get with the action—or with the activism.