When my wife and I made plans to visit Provence, France along with two dear friends this spring, I anticipated a true vacation of rest and relaxation, good conversation, good food and lots of great wine…away from emails and phone calls. I did not plan to even think about Progressive Christianity or any Christianity for that matter. I should have known that my life does not work that way for three different and conflicting experiences changed my plans. Admittedly, I was a little ignorant of the rich and deep Christian history in the Provence area of France.

What about Semi-theism and Semi-atheism? Can these concepts better express our known and experienced reality? My answer is “yes”. Such a view of God is multi-dimensional and takes into account at least three levels of God-analysis, namely God-theology, God-talk and God-truths. We can start with God-theology, the traditional “Queen of the Sciences” in the context and thinking of the West’s intellectual history.

This ten-part series of half-hour programs (3-DISC DVD) explores the notion that the guiding mythologies of modern civilization are undergoing a metamorphosis of historic significance.

It’s always refreshing when religious leaders strive to embody the very best values their faith has to offer. I have been reminded of this often over the past year, which is shaping up to be banner one for Christian leaders in the “practice what you preach” department.

2) The Hebrew scriptures, or the Old Testament, represent a religious tradition that is independent of the later Christian faith. The Hebrew scriptures aren’t about Jesus, although the Christian scriptures include many references to the Hebrew scriptures. To honor the fundamental differences between the two sets of scriptures doubles the spiritual significance of the entire Bible.

Hungers of the Heart is written especially for persons who tend to be “turned off” by organized religion, but want to develop a deeper personal spiritual life.

Embracing heresy is a way of asserting my place—however tenuous—in this ancient tradition, while acknowledging that most of what I think and do will not pass creedal litmus tests. In a religion of more than two billion adherents, this is hardly a surprise.

Progressive Books Group Study Guide 2 of 10 By: Carol Ballantine Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time Marcus Borg Conversations with God Neal Donald Walsch  

The epic, yet intimate, story follows the life journey of Jack O’Brien (played as an adult by Penn), the eldest son of a fractured Midwestern family. Pitt delivers a powerful performance as the cataclysmic force of nature in Jack’s world, his complex and rigidly authoritarian father.

…while they no longer accept such teachings as the virgin birth, nor the miracle stories, some still consider Jesus to have been divine, and most, if not all, consider him a model of the most perfectly spiritually developed human on the planet, the perfect example of the love of God on earth.

The word spirituality fills me with anxiety. As the member of our department of religious studies who teaches contemporary religion, (New Age, popular culture, Asian religion in America, that sort of thing…) I should be a spirituality expert, ready to use the word as a clever retort for my cynical family members, as a piece of sage advice for my sincere, confused graduating majors, or as a contextualizing quote for the religion writer from our local paper.

Rev. Jim Burklo is the Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California. An ordained United Church of Christ pastor, he is the author of books on progressive Christianity: OPEN CHRISTIANITY: Home by Another Road and BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS: Meditations, Prayers, and Songs for Progressive Christians. His latest book, HITCH-HIKING TO ALASKA: The Way of Soulful Service, will be published late in 2012. You can read his weekly blog, “Musings”, at www.tcpc.blogs.com/musings , and his personal website is www.jimburklo.com .

Rev. Ernest Harrison begins his provocatively titled third chapter of his 1966 book “A Church Without God” by asking, “If Mother Church is dead, we cannot long delay asking the question: What about God? She offered herself as his one true agent; and we must ask if this God, in whose name she acted, has also died.”

Bridging the God Gap: Finding Common Ground Among Believers, Atheists and Agnostics shows how to build mutual understanding between seemingly irreconcilable religious viewpoints.

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