Part Three
Friends of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, Brookings, Oregon Update: Good and Bad News in Two-pronged City Attack on Oregon Church’s Ministries to Poor
All atonement theories get it wrong by substituting beliefs about Jesus for the way (his virtues, values, and practices) of Jesus that he taught us by word and deed.
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.
Part Two
Friends of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, Brookings, Oregon Update: Good and Bad News in Two-pronged City Attack on Oregon Church’s Ministries to Poor
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.
The cross, the symbol of the Christian faith, has been the subject of much theological discussion through the ages.
The Second Coming of Christ is an erroneous idea that developed among Christians in the last third of the first century AD. It weakened the assurance that the first Christians had that the kingdom of God had come.
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.
It has been so hard to watch the events unfolding in Gaza and not fall into the ease of a hardline
It is now possible to answer the question of why Christians should engage in politics. The answer is simple: God is calling on them to do so with the whisper thoughts that float through their awareness
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.
So it was a great irony that some of the most homeful people in Palo Alto were the houseless. And some of the most homeless people in Silicon Valley were the housed.
Tim Scott is running for president. It's an impressive feat as the only African American Republican in today's U.S. Senate and the first Southern Black senator since Reconstruction.
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.
There are a few words I have had “allergies” to over the years. Words like discipline, obedience, and accountability. Some have a more intense allergic reaction than others, such as difficulty breathing, maybe getting itchy or nauseous. Of course I jest, yet they are words that have produced some measure of tension in my body because of previous life experiences.
If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. + Matthew 18:15-16
Meeting the Moment for Progressive Christianity
There’s a lot of criticism about Big Pharma, Big Government, and Big Business. And there’s been plenty of talk for decades about the dangers of the military-industrial complex. What about Big Fundy? We should name it for what it is: the fundamentalist-industrial complex.
The rise of Christian nationalism is a worldwide problem. In the United States, it begins with the idea that God chose America, that we as a nation are especially blessed.
The luminous web. What quantum physics suggests is that everything in life--molecules, particles, and sub-atomic particles--is inter-connected. We are all caught up
How about the “me” that I think I am? Is that a constant? Not really. The person that I thought I was a decade or two ago, is not totally the person I think I am today.
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).
New discoveries leading to new products are coming at a rapid rate of speed. This new approach to processing and integrating data is becoming interwoven into all aspects of life.
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.
Part One
“Father Bernie” Lindley of Brookings, OR is the Episcopal priest of a parish facing harassment by a scofflaw city government attempting to fine it up to $720-a-day unless it stops certain ministries.
Global warming is the latest proof that we have crossed a boundary into a truly apocalyptic age, for we now live in a period when anthropogenic change is overpowering nature and life itself.