My friend Barbi makes an interesting point over at her blog: http://feathersandfaith.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-dont-believe-in-god.html. Briefly put, she alludes to the challenge Progressive Christians may face in engaging in dialogue with progressives, and particularly GLBT folks, who reject belief in God. Here's the response I left on her blog:

I've known and know a lot of decent folks who proclaim that they don't believe in God--as a group, I find they're often more loving and decent than many of the folks who make noise about believing in God.I've found it useful to ask folks when they tell me they don't believe in God, what exactly they mean by that. I often find that I don't believe in the god they reject, either. That can be an interesting place from which to begin dialogue.Such folks are rarely thorough-going nihilists. At least implicitly and practically, they base many of their choices on unexamined assumptions that there is a kind of implicit moral order within and beyond the creation, by which actions and decisions can and must be judged. When pushed, they are often willing to affirm that that implicit order cannot be something sub-human, but must in fact represent something that transcends our indivdual states and forms at any particular moment. And, that is partly what--or perhaps better, whom--I'm referring to when I speak of God.On that basis, I often find I share much common ground with professed atheists; often more than I share with a great many self-described Christians or other theists.In fact, the atheism of some of my GLBT and other friends often seems to me a moral advance over the theism they once embraced, and which many professed Christians still embrace.The challenge for progressive people of faith is, first, to articulate a vision of God clearly distinct from the authoritarian tyrant and/or naively anthropomorphic image quite reasonably rejected by both atheists and progressive theists. Secondly, to make a case for how such a vision can be in continuity with the religious traditions to which we belong. And thirdly, to point out why progressive participation within such tradition is better than trying to operate completely outside it (not an easy task).