Following his life in Nazareth that possibly included day trips to Sepphoris looking for work, the next training ground for Jesus was a brief time with this same John the Baptist in the wilderness, hearing again that injustice is not the way of the Lord.

  The Easter experience is about the birth of a new consciousness.  It is a consciousness that burst upon the followers of Jesus

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.

The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers

For believers, understanding our relationship with God is essential.

It isn’t just Jesus’ birthday. The whole of creation is reborn.

Today there are Bethlehems all over the world as families are forced to leave home environments, travel to places unprepared for them, and find a way to survive on their own.

Don't try so hard. Be ok being a bit disappointing.

In this season of Advent, may we all be a little more perfected in love so that we may hear, perhaps for the first time, the message of Jesus and the angels, “Do not be afraid.”

This week’s reading is a Sunday school children’s favorite — the story of Zacchaeus, a tax collector who climbs a tree to see Jesus.

Revisioning ancient faith for the modern world is not an easy task. No simple answers exist. The process will be long, complicated, conflicted, and uncertain.

Jesus was out to reform society—to change the way humans treat one another during their earthly journey. 

Suffering love is the pinnacle value of Christianity.  It is rooted in the suffering of Jesus on the cross--a reality we can never fully fathom: the aching loneliness, the wrenching pain, the sense of total abandonment. 

I’ve been convinced that the Sermon on the Mount is all about Jesus’ lavish blessing of the people around him on that hillside who his world—like ours—didn’t seem to have much time for: people in pain, people who work for peace instead of profit, people who exercise mercy instead of vengeance.

Although we don’t often think about it, the Lord’s Prayer is a takedown of Roman economics and politics. Jesus teaches his followers to leave behind the whole system of indebtedness that obligates people to Caesar.

Let us celebrate this wondrous thing called love.  The kind of love Jesus was talking about in his Sermon on the Mount was agape – unconditional love. 

Join Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines for the highlights from his Sunday service on Reproductive Rights on June 26th, 2022!

So, if thoughts and prayers (of petition or intercession) cannot produce any salvific change when uttered to an imagined divine – who for anyone with eyes to see, or ears to hear is too deaf, indifferent or impotent to intercede — then with whom can we bargain, or utter any plea for help?

Many people are confused, angry, and worried about the future — while others feel their longest hoped-for political dreams have become reality. The air is full of tension, even on these sunny summer days, and it seems as if the nation has somehow cracked open.

It’s fair to say that two points of view concerning the life and death of Jesus developed early within Christianity. One was carried by the Christian West and is still prominent in the West today. The other was carried by the Christian East and may not be as well known to a lot of Western Christians.

Many of the things the Christian church professes are things that happened over 2,500 years ago. We know by science and technology that certain things simply could not have happened the way the Bible says. It might have been all right in those early years to believe in certain ways because nobody knew any different, but to continue to propagate ancient beliefs and myths is unconscionable in my opinion. I remember one theologian saying, “You wouldn’t take your sick child to a doctor who practices medicine like they did some 18 centuries ago, would you?” So why do we practice our religion like they did that long ago?

Donald Trump won the Presidential election of 2016 because he campaigned as strongly pro-life. Roy Moore, despite allegations of sexual misconduct with teenagers, came close to winning the recent Senate election in Alabama because he was also right on this issue among Evangelical Christians. The sacredness of human life is a fundamental conviction of millions of Christians—Evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and mainline Christians alike. Finding the right answer to the agonizing question of when to allow for a legal abortion has done more to divide Christians than any other political issue.

We have begun our Year Two Project! With over 300 groups using A Joyful Path, Year One, with only positive results, we've had a lot of inquiries lately as to when the second year of A Joyful Path, is coming out. We are pleased to announce that, thanks to a recent, generous donation, we are now ready to begin A Joyful Path, Year Two! We are committed to continuing the high level of scholarship, creativity, and quality found in A Joyful Path, Year One, so we are not expecting to have Year Two ready until Spring of 2013.