Madison Shockley is is Pastor of the Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, California. Here he describes his presentation at the 2009 Compassion & Choices Symposium held in Washington, DC September 13-14.

Brenda Peterson is a nature writer, born into a family that believed that we are living in the end times. We talk to her about her Southern Baptist background, what fundamentalists and environmentalists have in common, and about her new memoir, I Want to Be Left Behind.

Progressive Books Group Study Guide 1of 10 Have You Been Left Behind? Book-Based Discussion Guides for Progressive Christians Why Christianity Must Change or Die, John Shelby Spong The Seat of the Soul, Gary Zucav    

Immeasurable compassion is the aspiration, “May all beings be free from suffering and its causes.” With the cultivation of compassion we can achieve a state of mind that is non-violent, non harming, and nonaggressive. It is viewed by many great teachers as the heart of a true spiritual path.

Drawing on medical records, surveys of prayer recipients, prospective clinical trials, and multiyear follow-up observations and interviews, Brown shows that the widespread perception of prayer’s healing power has demonstrable social effects which can in some cases produce improvements in health that can be scientifically verified.

This report examines an American religious movement called progressive Christianity and what it can tell us about religion in the modern world.

Would that we could read plainly all the words ever spent in the pursuit of truth and that they might direct us to its fullness. Would that, coming upon it, we would know it in an instant …

Another Breath is a collection of prayers and liturgies that can be used in a faith community, at home, or in one’s own personal practice. It is inspirational, creative, progressive, and deeply spiritual. It is the prayer book those leading gatherings of spiritual communities have been looking for. there seems to be a prayer or meditation for each moment and occassion. This book is highly recommended.

Music is, to my mind, the purest form of artistic expression, even when, as in most of these religious works I am examing, it is wedded to Biblical texts and thus tied implicitly to the doctrinal expressions of faith they proclaim.

A brief literature review of cancer survival trials is employed by the author to raise questions on their design and to bring speculatively into discussion concepts such as “worldview”, “intentional normative dissociation”, and “psychosomatic plasticity-proneness”. Using prayer’s psychological dimension as …

Compassionate, Intelligent, Inter-Spiritual, Non-Dogmatic

Imagine being truly happy, inside and out. Why not?
Imagine being completely at peace with yourself and the world. Why not?
Imagine living a life that matches your highest vision. Why not?
Imagine changing destructive habits with ease and replacing them with life affirming activities that fill your life with meaning. Why not?

Dr. Mic Hunter has spent years assisting people with diverse backgrounds to identify, develop, and apply their spirituality. In his most recent book he focuses on the original principles taught by Jesus without attention to the miraculous aspects of the stories usually associated with him. 

For the Honolulu OCCUPY movement 2012- sung to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

The great broadcast of divine indwelling which beams to the human heart, his inner sanctuary, a hologram of the cosmic Temple, is a receiver. It therefore also depends on our attunement to receive the broadcast.

This worship service combines the contemplative spirit of Taizé chant with the Celtic liturgy of the Iona Community.

A look at how Christians today still want the kind of physical power Messiah that the Jews hoped for and who will change the world for us, when the actual need is for a spiritual change within ourselves and for us to respond to a vision and a challenge.