Colorado Springs is a city of beauty and pride. Framed by the grandeur of Pikes Peak, it embodies community spirit, military service and the entrepreneurial drive of small businesses. But beneath this vibrant exterior lies a civic imbalance: the dominance of conservative politics and evangelical Christianity has narrowed the moral conversation in our public square.

What Colorado Springs needs is more progressive theological voices. The health of our civic discourse, the depth of our public compassion and the future of our common life depend on it. Indeed, a richer moral imagination is vital for our civic life.

We need these voices, not as an ideological counterweight, but as a necessary ingredient for civic health. Without them, we risk impoverishing our moral imagination, leaving pressing issues such as inequality, housing development and affordability, and political polarization to be addressed with half the wisdom and compassion available to us.

To the outside world, Colorado Springs looks like the fortress of conservative Christianity, frequently referred to as the “evangelical Vatican.” Indeed, with 656 Christian nonprofits, most of them evangelical, it is easy to see why. The city is home to many high-profile evangelical organizations whose influence shapes local and national politics.

But our nearly half-million residents are not a monolith. More people here identify as independents than ever before. The Republican Party is fracturing. Controversies over annexations, housing and city planning show that residents are not content with one-note answers. What’s missing is not diversity of opinion, but rather the willingness to bring progressive faith perspectives into public view and be taken seriously. There are progressive Christian organizations in this city, but too often they speak separately, diluting their voice.

The progressive vision of Christianity —rooted in justice, compassion, and inclusion — remains on the margins. That silence is costly, for it robs our civic debates of a moral framework that insists on addressing the causes of poverty and exclusion, not just their symptoms.

Progressive Christianity does not abandon tradition; it retrieves its most radical elements. It remembers Jesus proclaiming freedom for the oppressed and dignity for the marginalized. It recalls the abolitionists, the civil rights leaders and the countless others who found in their faith the courage to confront injustice. This tradition sees Jesus not only in sanctuaries but in streets and shelters, among the unhoused, the working poor, the undocumented, and the incarcerated. It insists that faith cannot be confined to personal salvation while ignoring systemic injustice.

That conviction challenges the notion that material success results from divine favor. Such theology leaves the vulnerable feeling blamed for their suffering while absolving unjust systems of responsibility. Progressive faith counters with a different truth: God stands with the poor, the excluded, and the voiceless. Public policy is not a secular distraction but a spiritual responsibility, one that measures success by how we treat “the least of these.”

Our civic discussions too often stall at the level of tax rates, crime statistics, and property values. But those are secondary to the deeper moral questions: What kind of community do we want to be? Who is being left behind? What responsibilities do we owe to one another as neighbors? Budgets, after all, are moral documents. Democracy cannot thrive without compassion, and social justice is not an optional add-on to faith — it is its heartbeat.

This isn’t about replacing one orthodoxy with another. Our city doesn’t need a progressive echo chamber any more than it needs a conservative one. What we need is dialogue: a fuller moral conversation in which conservative and progressive voices sharpen, challenge, and correct each other. Our public life lacks a model showing how to disagree without dehumanizing, how to stand firm in conviction while still working for the common good.

Unlike partisan politics, progressive theology retains a prophetic independence. Its loyalty is not to a party platform but to the Beloved Community. That gives it the freedom to challenge injustice wherever it appears — on the right or the left. It can confront economic systems that exploit workers, policies that degrade creation, and wars that undermine peace. At the same time, it calls for reconciliation, humility and love of enemies.

When progressive voices fall silent, the public square becomes brittle, narrow, and morally impoverished. The dominance of one perspective leaves our community unprepared to face the full complexity of human need.

Now is not the time for progressive Christians to withdraw. Our city needs you. It needs you to risk the hard conversations, to stand publicly with the marginalized, to remind Colorado Springs that the gospel is good news for all, not just for the privileged few.

This means speaking into debates about housing, health care, education, climate resilience and racial equity. It means claiming the public identity of Christianity as a faith of compassion, justice and liberation. It means resisting the temptation to stay safe in private sanctuaries while the public square grows harsher, meaner and more divided.

Colorado Springs does not need progressive voices because conservative ones are always wrong. It needs them because the conversation is incomplete without them. Without progressive perspectives, we miss the chance to comfort the afflicted and to hold the comfortable accountable.

Douglas Sharp is a retired professor of theology, religion & society.