As early Christianity began to grow and spread in Europe, in Rome, (interestingly enough) much of it was coined in Egypt where a lot of the origins of the New Testament are centered.
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.
A Study of His Biblical Masterpiece as an Act of Rebellion
It is widely known among biblical scholars that The Book of Job is an outlier among other biblical books in that it provides overt criticism of established Ancient Hebrew beliefs and doctrines.
A Critical Examination of the 'He Gets Us' Superbowl Commercial
The Superbowl Commercial "He Gets Us" misses the mark by presenting a narrow view of Christianity where narcissism is disguised as altruism.
I’m not sure why we can be so idealistic about human love when human love is profoundly imperfect and so often unreliable.
Patriarchy probably started about 12,000 years ago. If you google the word, there’s a good chance that you will be more confused than before you started.
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.
There is no question that the voices of marginalized people are found in the Bible if you look carefully. The New Testament also presents a picture of a beautiful man who talked about a God of love and forgiveness and who urged his followers to create communities that practiced nonviolence, inclusion, and the pursuit of social and economic justice.
The second in the series that looks at the life of Jesus.
Some of the most important aspects of Jesus teachings were repressed from the beginning. The Hebrews started the repression. The Roman Catholic Church expanded it. And by and large the Protestants followed.
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.
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.
Unlike many would-be messiahs who took up arms to evict the Romans, only to be crucified for their efforts, Jesus proposed and lived a path of peace and love.
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!”
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.
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 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)
So who is right? Did Jesus live and move in a society that was doing alright economically, or one mired in poverty? Or does the question not really matter?
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.
Money, wealth, financial power, economic power, call it what you will, extreme wealth disparity destroys societies from within, eating away at the bond between people and the fabric of society.
At no time in modern American history has conservative leadership shown such little regard for following how the scriptures tell us Christ wants us to live our lives and for whom he wants us to show love, care and compassion.
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.
Palm Sunday is a festival celebrated by Christians around the world. Jesus went to Jerusalem; that much is certain. The details are less clear.
About 2022 years ago a man called Jesus was roaming the countryside of Galilee in Palestine. That’s the first we know about him. Before that, nothing.
All my life, I have been taught by the church that I have been created ‘in the image of God’. This is one of the fundamental teachings about human beings that has been given to me by the church.
Both Jesus and Paul were mystics, as, indeed, were most of the prophets. The insights and experiences of Christian mystics are important to any evolving understanding of Christian faith. Mysticism (mystical experience) reveals the significance of imagination, feelings, and intuition in the human spirit as human beings continue to explore the wonder and mystery of relationship to the Spirit.
As violence and division erupt here at home and around the world, we are forced again to ask of ourselves: who are we? What is the essential nature of human beings? Are we inclined to do good, or are we bound to pursue what might be named evil? Good, or bad? A seemingly simple question but one that drags in its wake a multitude of ramifications that are not so simple.
I’ve always assumed that the grief Mary Magdalen expresses at Jesus’ tomb had a particularity to it. We know that he had cast seven demons out of her and that she supported his ministry out of her own purse. I do not know what it is like to be a woman 2,000 years ago who was the village demoniac, but I cannot imagine it was a pleasure.
What has always “tainted” mankind and kept people from living ethical, inclusive, and caring lives? The answer is what drives our contemporary enormous cultural divide: Bad choices often rooted in tribal-based anger and hatred.