The year ahead: A resurgence of liberal Christianity?

Ed Kilgore:

This year there are indeed tidings of great joy — or at least intimations of change — that call into question the usual identification of American Christianity with monolithic and triumphant Christian right.

The first and most obvious is the sudden and surprising change of tone and emphasis introduced by Pope Francis. .... 

Suffice it to say that Francis has made it vastly more difficult to identify religious orthodoxy with political conservatism. And even more surprisingly, there are similar stirrings among conservative evangelical Protestants. ...

There is even good news for liberal Christians on the demographic front, which must come as a shock to those who have for years assumed the only vibrant and growing elements of Christendom are conservative in doctrine and politics. The growth of agnosticism and atheism among American “millennials” has received enormous recent attention. But the latest survey of American religious attitudes by the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research Institute also found that among the majority of millennials who do have a religious identity, 38 percent self-identify as religious moderates, 23 percent as religious progressives, and only 17 percent as religious conservatives. The median age of religious progressives is 44, and for religious conservatives is 53. The idea that non-conservative Christianity is outmoded is itself outmoded. 

.... 

For liberal Christians, that very absence of self-righteousness is what makes it possible not only to keep faith with Americans of different or of no supernatural beliefs, but just as important, to keep communion with our fellow Christians who are convinced this political party or that issue position is The Way. This Christmas it may perhaps be easier to look across the pews and recognize each other as seekers after truth rather than its exclusive possessors.