A new Bible app claims to provide a way to keep your faith but ditch the baggage of your religion, catering to more Progressive-leaning Christians.
I found a recent review of a relatively new faith app called “Our Bible app.” From what I can tell, the “our” refers to people who identify as Progessive Christians.
Your impression of Progressive Christianity surely depends on how close you feel to the more traditional teaching of churches. Traditional Christian teachers often claim Progressives are somehow out to destroy the faith.
Progressives, on the other hand, argue that they’re trying to cut through the political dogma that too often has transformed church into uncomfortable places where people feel there’s too little focus on Christ, the person in whom our faith is supposed to be focused.
But while I tend to lean more in line with Progressive Christian pastors I’ve read, I also tend to be skeptical of a Bible app that purports to support that arm of the faith.
I downloaded the app and looked around. There are a lot of devotionals available on the app, and one of them is a three-part devotional titled, “What If I’m Wrong?” I have to admit that I was really pleased to see that question.
Too often, those traditional Christians who ever engage with people who don’t share their precise beliefs are too busy bowing up or tossing out talking points to ever ask such a question.
One of the devotionals quotes pastor and author Leonard Sweet:
“I warn my students that at my very best, 80 percent of my theology is correct, 20 percent is wrong. The problem is, I’m not sure which is the 80 percent and which isn’t.”
I love that quote.
Perhaps it’s the fact that Progressive Christians actually do ask that question that is worth noting.
It was nice to see that.
But in exploring the app, which Sojourners says “curates various Bible translations, devotional readings, books, and podcasts within its digital interface,” I find that it’s not as robust as I somehow expected.
There’s one free Bible version, the “Common English Bible,” which is one of several that attempts to present the Bible text in easier-to-understand language. There are a couple of others to be downloaded, but others that have to be purchased.
Other than the devotionals, which are definitely worth some exploring. there are podcasts, but none jumped off the screen at me.
Maybe all I should expect out of a Bible app is the text of the Bible. Or maybe I should expect that it’s the devotionals that make a Bible app unique.
But are you turning to Bible apps for devotionals and podcasts or just for the text itself?
