Progressive Christianity and Debates
One of the ironies of basing their platform on deconstruction and challenging/questioning their beliefs, is how rarely Progressive Christian influencers and leaders actually engage live in such challenges; namely: debates.
By contrast, Christians regularly do so, with Justin Brierley leading the way via Unbelievable, followed closely by such greats as William Lane Craig and John Lennox, and even local-area groups like The Bible & Beer Consortium (and I don't think most Ratio Christi such events are recorded).
One thing that's important to note about this is that most of these debates are facilitated by Christians: the Christian hosts them or initiates them, or they are moderated by Christians. So this isn't dominantly an "atheists occasionally invite Christians to the table", thing. This is definitely more of a "Christians are creating and maintaining the table."
The same, however, cannot be said of Progressive Christians. While I'm sure I don't have a truly comprehensive list, I rarely ever see them engage likewise, and even more rarely host such events on their platforms, despite how often they imply insult to Christians for supposedly not inviting them to their platforms.
Granted, I haven't run proper numbers on this, but just estimating based on my decades of experience in both apologetics and opposition circles and seeing the playlists, I think certain apologetics platforms and individuals have each, individually, hosted more debates/opposition-conversations on their own channels than the entire PC community has participated in on any platform. And it definitely seems like apologists do such engagements far more regularly than Progressive Christians do.
So, let's see how many debates I can find...
- On PC platforms:
- Keith Giles:
- Debate: How Do We Read the Old Testament Scriptures? - Giles (PC) v Wolcott
- Hell Debate: David Wolcott and Keith Giles debate the Doctrine of Eternal Torment - Giles (PC) v Wolcott
- What is the Gospel? A Debate with Darryl Giles and Keith Giles - Giles (PC) v Giles
- Keith Giles:
- On Christian Platforms:
- Unbelievable
- Deconstruction, doubt and finding faith again - Lisa Gungor and Alisa Childers - Gungor (PC) v Childers
- Randal Rauser & Doug Groothuis - Is Progressive Christianity a false Gospel? - Rauser (PC) v Groothuis
- Reasonable Faith
- Capturing Christianity:
- Will Everyone Be Saved? Annihilationist (left) vs. Universalist (right) - Date v Giles (PC)
- Sean McDowell
- Conservative vs Progressive: Jesus, Culture, and the Bible (with Brandan Robertson) - McDowell v Robertson (PC)
- Queer & Christian - Brandan Robertson in Dialogue - McDowell v Robertson (PC)
- Another worship leader loses his faith. What's going on? Jon Steingard & Sean McDowell - Steingard (PC) v McDowell
- Progressive vs Evangelical: A Dialogue for Clarity - McDowell v Martin (PC)
- LGBTQ Relationships and the Bible: A Progressive and Evangelical Dialogue - McDowell v Martin (PC)
- Apologia Studios
- Debate with LGBT Theologian Brandan Robertson - White/Durbin v Robertson (PC)
- Dealing with Deconstruction
- Is Progressive Christianity Another Religion? w/ Randal Rauser and David Wolcott - Rauser (PC) v Wolcott
- Am I A Christian Nationalist? A Discussion with Tim Whitaker - Hull v Whitaker (PC)
- Discussing Jon Steingard's Deconstruction From Christianity - Hull v Steingard (PC)
- The Great Debate: Explorin Christian Deconstruction With Dr Tom Oord - Hull v Oord (PC)
- 10 Reasons People Leave Church with Tim Whitaker - Hull v Whitaker (PC)
- Is There Another Gospel? with Randal Rauser - Hull v Rauser
- Deconstructed-Christian and Christian Have a Conversation - Hull v Rory
- First Lutheran Houston
- James White / Keith Giles "What is Marriage?" Debate - White v Giles (PC)
- Austin Molt
- Ruslan
- Unbelievable
What debates or appearances am I missing? Please reach out so I can keep building this list.
If you'd like to add anything, or have corrections or recommendations, just reach out.
