The selling of the Bible so recklessly attempts to stain and overshadow the Gospel. It seeks to imagine and promote an unholy alliance that is antithetical to my faith.
The church of the future must change to help its members develop further along their own spiritual journeys. Seminarians should spend less time studying the Bible, Church history, and Christian theology. Instead, the focus of their training should stress positive child-rearing strategies, meditation in its many forms, and psychological therapy.
I’m currently sitting in the 10+-year-old chair, listening to the sounds of rain on the top of the tent, and writing the words that will turn into this very article you are currently reading. It is my tradition to spend the evening and the day of Yom Kippur in a tent.
One of the things I’ve gathered from reading scholarship about the historical Jesus is very little about him can be said with certainty. Historians generally agree he existed and was crucified, but, beyond that, almost everything is debated.
My hope is that you are interested in changing and evolving in your life. In order to change, we need to know where we came from, what we were originally taught (in religious school or by our parents and teachers), whether it is still applicable today, and what new directions we might want to follow.
Too much of politics caters to our craving miracles; faith is often about finding some magical safe place. But mystical experiences are
It can be scary to have doubts because we imagine that we are moving away from God. In reality, we are only moving away from our comfortable and established ideas about God.
Part Two
The four searchers now realized that there were two Jesus stories, one pervasive across the Christian churches, the other hidden in the background.
If I had to summarize my religious journey with one Bible verse, I would choose Matthew 28:17, “When they (the early disciples) saw him (the risen Christ), they worshiped him; but some doubted” (NIV).
Part One
How did the wealthy accrue the power to change the thinking of the church about who Jesus was and what he did? That, our four researchers discovered, is -up to now- a mystery hidden in history.
If Jesus had been asked to summarize the Prophets, as Hillel had done for the Torah, his reply would probably have been something like this: “Wake up, open your eyes and ears, repent, and start treating others with compassion and justice!”
The bodhisattva has one pair of hands at rest. One pair of hands is praying. 500 pairs of hands are acting in
I believe neither that Hades exists nor that anyone would be sent there even if it did. But as a critique of the manner in which wealth neglects the poor, this is pretty powerful.
This week we celebrate beginning of summer (Wednesday). Let us remember how generous the universe is. For example, the sun. The entire energy of the earth runs on one billionth (!) of the energy the sun emits every day.
The early Christians looked to Abraham as their progenitor – even if they weren’t Jewish Christians. They remembered the words attributed to John the Baptist: “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. “ (Matt 3: 9)
It would be a service to humanity for the church to discard the doctrine of original sin and, in the process, accept a different interpretation of the Adam and Eve story that emphasizes the positive content the story predominantly contains and implicitly rejects the dark and negative Augustinian interpretation that has done and is doing such damage in the world.
The non-religious are by far the fastest-growing religious demographic in America. So how shall we who are progressive Christians talk about our faith with them, when the appropriate occasions arise?
but, like in a good way
The one thing that enraged most people about Jesus of Nazareth was that he had the gall to tell people that their sins were forgiven when clearly there were systems of civic and religious power that were set up to make sure people got what they deserved.
I have a caveat: never read the Bible without some sort of reliable scholarly information by your side.
The Easter experience is about the birth of a new consciousness. It is a consciousness that burst upon the followers of Jesus
The Bible is a very human book with differing positions on who Jesus was and what he said. The result is you can find a passage in the Bible to support any political position you choose to take.
When all is said and done, what then are we to make of the mythic tale of Jesus’ death and resurrection, metaphorically told to convey what all of us might like to assert to be the “gospel truth?”
When I look at the writers who examine the relation between religion and politics, most take their cues from the Bible. There are two problems with this approach.
By Janet Douglass
This is the result of a careful reading and comparison of all 48 scriptures mentioning a Mary. Other ideas come from decades of reading books, essays, and watching movies, ideas from which have entered my subconscious.
Scripture teaches that nature is our first Bible, suggesting that the eye is to look to her for the vestiges, images, and patterns of God to recommend to the heart, thereby confirming our faith (Rm. 1:20). As such, we are to be on the look-out for seasonal sights and sounds that arrest our attention.
Foundational ideas/ principles for understanding the universe and ourselves
I want to share some reflections on process thought, known as process theology when applied to God and religion.
It is stories like this one that reminds me that a living Jesus — Jesus the optimistic contrarian — still walks among us in many guises; to tell and retell those human tales of how to truly live, with hope for this world.
The four gospels all tell a different story with regard to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The facts are all different, but the essence is the same: something divine was present in Jesus. The values he taught and lived were sacred.
Wading out of a hard time is awful. But it’s really all we can do. There is no panacea. No miracle fix. No post-it note on the side of a monitor—“take time to notice what is right”—will instantly un-funk a funk.