On July 21st, the Chaplaincy Institute had the pleasure of having Rev. Dr. Polly Moore teach a course on 'Walking with Jesus: Perspectives from Progressive Christianity.' This class was part of ChI's Interfaith Ordination program module, which focused on Protestant Christianity this month.
Rev. Dr. Polly Moore began as a mathematician, with a PhD from the University of Washington and industrial positions in aerodynamics research at Boeing and in pharmaceutical R&D at Merck. When she and her husband, Dr. Stuart Builder, came to California to work for Genentech in the early ‘80’s, her career morphed into computer management. By the time she retired 18 years later, both biotechnology and computing had undergone major revolutions. Polly was named Vice President at Genentech in 1994, the first woman at the company to have that title.
Retirement allowed for another change, this time to religion. Polly completed a Master of Divinity degree at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, and was ordained in 2008 as a minister in the United Church of Christ. She serves as an Associate in Ministry at her home church, College Heights UCC in San Mateo, but her call is to work for The Center for Progressive Christianity. Dr. Polly Moore is the Director of the Liturgy Project at TCPC. The project is a website that allows progressive clergy to share liturgy (prayers, music, rituals, etc.) that they have written, and to borrow ideas from others. In 2011, The Liturgy Project will contact hundreds of congregations and individuals to collect a wide variety of litanies, hymn lyrics, dramas, chants, and art and design concepts.
"The focus of The Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC) is on rethinking and re-conceptualizing the theological and Christological foundations of the Christian faith … and creating healthy, dynamic Christian communities. … TCPC is building an international network of progressive Christians ... reaching out to those for whom organized religion has proved ineffectual, irrelevant, or repressive, as well as to those who have given up on or are unacquainted with it. …It supports those who ‘embrace the search, not certainty.’ "
From The Center for Progressive Christianity’s mission statement
Further Reflections by Rev. Fred Plumer, TCPC Founder: “A progressive religion is not an easy path because it can question the veryground upon which we thought we were walking. Change is seldom easy, especially when we are dealing with subjective and even sacred issues in our lives. … (Yet) the truth of the matter is that the early Christian movement, or what we now call the church, was always progressive. Jesus and his followers were change agents. Jesus healed on the Sabbath, he ate with the so-called unclean, and he confronted the powers and principalities of his culture as well as his religion. He demanded change in the religious belief system of his people if it was unjust or oppressive to the outcasts or to the marginalized people.” (From “Progressive Faith vs. the Illusion of Control,” by Rev. Fred Plumer)
To read more about other guest faculty members, click here>>
