“[W]hen you move from conservative to progressive Christianity, that’s the Shift.” That is how Colby Martin explains the title of his new book. The transition can be nasty: “[T]his deeply pastoral work acknowledges the reality that many who leave fundamentalism behind might experience PTSD,’ a Library Journal review attests. “Christians already on the path of change,” Publishers Weekly reckons, “will find this a well-written, thoughtful road map.”
“The ideas in this book,” Martin observes, “represent an almost 180-degree shift from the belief system I grew up with and practiced for most of my life.” In an interview in Sojourners, he explains how, along the way, pilgrims’ beliefs and religious practices “might have to die so that something else can be born.” He adds: “Even though the journey is hard, once you have gone through it, you realize there’s a lightness and a freedom here.” The magazine calls it “a more open and expansive faith”.
Martin’s publisher, Fortress Press, calls him “a leading voice in the progressive Christian movement,” and points out that he, co-founder and pastor of San Diego’s Sojourn Grace Collective, helps lead Launchpad Partners, Inc., “which seeks to plant and resource progressive Christian communities across the United States.”
The Shift
By Colby Martin
Fortress Press, 2020
