Meet Pat Conover

Pat Conover
Pat talks about his interest in progressive Christianity.

Pat Conover

The great thing about retirement is that I can now follow my call without any compromises to make a living.

After spending a lot of two years recovering my physiological health, including the slow process of de-stressing from so many years of felt pressure, and after a detour into interim employment and then the adjustments of re-retirement, I became ready to dive into my calling of writing/teaching/networking around diverse issues of progressive Christianity.  The first fruit of that work was the writing of Seekers Church: Case Study of a Progressive Christian Community.  Now I'm following up that work in a variety of ways: additional writing in the same area, sharing and networking in regard to the case study, and following up various connection with other interesting congregations and communities.

I continue to follow a path around the nexus of issues concerning the relationships between Christian theology and science.  Some of that work can be found in my book, Transgender Good News.  A more general philosophical perspective can be found in an unfinished long document posted under the heading of science and theology, under the Christian tab, on my website: www.patconover.com .

Developing and filling my website has been another active part of this call.  I've enjoyed learning about websites and the aesthetic aspects of building my own website.  The website allows me to share my writing more easily and also allows me to more easily network around my interests. The website makes me feel naked as I have presented a lot of autobiographic material, the most important of which is my updated spiritual autobiography which I wrote at the time of becoming a Steward of Seekers Church.  I also feel naked in that I have shared several pieces considering the transgender part of my journey.

There are many other things I do in Seekers that also embrace calling: preaching, teaching, the hospitality work of Koinonia Mission Group, and various kinds of plain old helping out.  I love doing these things but I am also trying to preserve space for my thinking and writing concerning the mix of theological, philosophical, sociological, and experiential aspects of progressive Christianity.  Perhaps I am circling around toward another try at writing a book that I would now tentatively entitle: Framing Progressive Christianity: the stories we live by.