About the Name

After (prep) subsequent in time to; at a later time than.

The phrase, after progress, from one perspective is critical, thinking of the political and cultural changes in this country as a project or experiment, filled with more promises broken than kept. Now that we, or some of us at least, see that, then we perhaps can reexamine our priorities and adjust them, moving back again from where we started. Many individuals within the Christian tradition are sympathetic to these thoughts. In the midst of a so-called cultural war, it is those within the Christian tradition who call for a return to what is perceived as the moral foundations of this country, without which we as a people will be as lost as travelers without a compass.

After (prep) in quest of or pursuit of.

In another light, after progress is a call for more change, more progress, more justice. A small, yet growing, voice within the Christian community is focusing its attention upon the need to separate the basic message of Christianity from the political platform of the religious right. Christians are realizing that the marriage of religion and politics not only hurts the political process, narrowing the scope of political debate, but hurts religion as well. People are turned off by Christianity if they think it is not only a worldview but a political identity as well. Jesus calls us to care about the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned. But are the followers of Christ doing that?

This blog, in its finer moments at least, will be a synthesis of these two thoughts. Working through the rhetoric and hewing to no agenda, our thoughts will focus on looking at how a Christian worldview should affect our lives, both politically and culturally. It will be a conversation, with diverse viewpoints, united in our connection with the Christian tradition. And hopefully, it would hold nothing sacred, at least nothing that wasn't sacred two thousand years ago.