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.

This is a plea for Christians to realize the significance of Isaiah 53 for their understanding of who Jesus was and what he did. I believe that he was motivated by love to take on the role of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53.

We live in a world of what I sometimes describe as disproportionate parity, where the ancient version of justice (lex talionis) that’s still widely practiced today provides justification for an excessive retaliatory response.

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.

For context to the comments to follow, it is suggested one read Matthew 13. Verses 1-8 are deemed to likely be attributable to the historical Jesus; while verses 18-23 are an interpretation and application by Matthew’s early church community.

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.

If you think God is a Christian, then you are mistaken. He isn’t a Muslim or a Hindu, either. We can't pin labels on God; he is not a tribal or sectarian deity; too often, organized religions make God absurdly small and petty in order to fit their own prejudices and small-mindedness.

I’m not sure why we can be so idealistic about human love when human love is profoundly imperfect and so often unreliable.

What I know is that I need to not beat myself up for having a hard time when I’m having a hard time.

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.

Lent is not about giving up chocolate. It’s about uncovering the blindness in our perception and being open to what others have to share with us.

We recently celebrated the life, faith and non-violence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The moment triggers within us a host of emotions-thankfulness for heroes such as he, distress about the state of our country, anxiety about the future, and fear for the present.

Spirituality is all about seeing, inclusivity, and reconciling apparent opposites via the "narrow way." The strait gate/kingdom that the spiritual Janus (Jesus) holds the keys to.

To what extent do churches accommodate the values of their worshippers and merely give them a sense of comfort, and to what extent do churches set high standards and encourage Christian growth and social commitment?

Neil deGrasse Tyson is reported to have said that “the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” No doubt true, but how about the inverse: are we under any obligation to make sense out of the universe?

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 mystic seeks direct experience of the divine to explore its perceptual, emotional, and metaphysical nature. For the mystic, the entire universe is conscious and alive, saturated by an all-encompassing eternal and loving Presence.

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.

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.

This is the first in a series that looks at the life of Jesus and contrasts the story that has come down through the ages with what probably really happened.

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

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved,[e] with whom I am well pleased.”

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.

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).

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