ProgressiveChristianity.org

9 hours ago

How to Read the Bible: A Progressive Christian Guide
by Rev. Jim Burklo

Suggestions for reading, understanding, and making creative spiritual use of the Bible.

Excerpt: "1) The Christian Bible includes the Jewish Torah and prophetic and other scriptures, along with a selection of Christian texts, assembled in roughly its present form in the 4th century AD by the emerging Catholic Church as it became the state religion of the Roman empire. It is the work of many human beings over thousands of years, dating back to early Near Eastern civilizations that existed before the Jewish people. It is called “holy” because of the spiritual intentions of the people who composed its books and the devotion of readers. None of its authors had any idea that their works would be part of what we now know as the Bible. There were other early texts used in the early Christian church but left out of the “canon”, or official church list of scriptures. An important one is the Gospel of Thomas, a book of quotations attributed to Jesus."

READ ON here. Free helpful resource for spiritual evolution.

progressivechristianity.org/resources/how-to-read-the-bible-a-progressive-christian-guide/ ...

ProgressiveChristianity.org

2 days ago

Sermon by Rev. Dr. Roger L. Ray, Community Christian Church - Demanding Answers from the Universe

Telling ourselves that “everything happens for a reason” may be comforting but there is a minority voice in the Bible that screams out that it “just ain’t so!” In Job, Ecclesiastes, and much of the Proverbs, we find a rational counter argument to other witnesses that insist that God is active in human history and that there is a divine plan that justifies human suffering. This progressive church chooses to accept that Job got it right. Things don’t happen for a reason unless we can choose to bring meaning to the events.
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Dr. Roger L. Ray
pastor, The Emerging Church
www.spfccc.org
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ProgressiveChristianity.org

3 days ago

The Matthew Shepard murder revisited
by Rev. Irene Monroe
With October being LGBTQ History Month it allows the LGBTQ community to look back at historical events. And Matthew Shepard’s murder is one of them.

This October 12 marks twenty years since the death of Matthew Shepard. In October 1998, Shepard, then 21, was a first-year college student at University of Wyoming. Under the guise of friendship, two men (Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson) lured Shepard from a tavern, tortured and bludgeoned him with their rifles, and then tethered him to a rough-hewn wooden fence to die – simply because he was gay.

That’s the story the world over has come to know. And, for the most part, the LGBTQ community is tenaciously sticking with it, resulting in numerous hagiographies on Shepard as the quintessential LGBTQ icon.

However, with all iconic narratives, apocryphal tales abound, too, resulting in queries concerning the truth.

READ ON...
progressivechristianity.org/resources/the-matthew-shepard-murder-revisited-2/ ...