If traditional religion no longer holds you, yet you yearn for a deeply spiritual and intellectually satisfying communion with the great Mystery, this book offers the New Story, the Universe Story, that is evolving out of all that has gone before. Author Don Murray invites us into a quantum leap of consciousness that is now happening. He takes us through the 13.7 billion years of an evolving universe and assesses where humanity is, and how we can live into a creative future. Quantum physics, depth psychology, the human journey – which includes the biblical story – provide the material with which he weaves the New Story.

This book is a friendly survival guide to help followers of Jesus navigate the strange and confusing landscape when shifting from conservative to progressive Christianity.

Lenny Duncan is the unlikeliest of pastors. Formerly incarcerated, he is now a black preacher in the whitest denomination in the United States: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Shifting demographics and shrinking congregations make all the headlines, but Duncan sees something else at work--drawing a direct line between the church's lack of diversity and the church's lack of vitality.

Most congregational leaders find it difficult to resist the dominant cultural expectation that different cultural and ethnic groups should stick to themselves–especially when it comes to church.

From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans comes a book that is both a heartfelt ode to the past and hopeful gaze into the future of what it means to be a part of the Church.

Mainline Protestant denominations are dying, while conservative traditions are flourishing. "Nones" are the fastest growing religious demographic in the United States. A pastor and self-proclaimed former "none," Heath possesses an excellent understanding of church growth and the lack thereof, and frequently draws upon that experience when look for ways to welcome people to church.

Now a New York Times bestseller, Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term "pastrix"(pronounced "pas-triks," a term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors) in her messy, beautiful, prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith.

Third wave womanism is a new movement within religious studies with deep roots in the tradition of womanist religious thought—while also departing from it in key ways. After a helpful and orienting introduction, this volume gathers essays from established and emerging scholars whose work is among the most lively and innovative scholarship today.

The Christian story, from Genesis until now, is fundamentally about people on the move—outgrowing old, broken religious systems and embracing new, more redemptive ways of life. It’s time to move again.

Publications from "Progressive" Australian and New Zealand Authors

Building Bridges combines an exploration of the life and work of Letha Dawson Scanzoni with stories of people she continues to empower through her writing and the Evangelical & Ecumenical Women's Caucus - Christian Feminism Today, an organization she cofounded.

Using insights from the brain science of emotions, Love Beyond Belief: Finding the Access Point to Spiritual Awareness narrates two millennia of lost-and-found stories about love beyond belief as the access point to the heart and soul of spiritual life. Many of today's "spiritual but not religious" people - one in four US adults - have found the access point to spiritual experience that Western Christianity lost: unconditional love. Love Beyond Belief tracks the history of this lost emotion.

In True Inclusion, public theologian and pastor Brandan Robertson shares how to move your church from mere welcome to radical embrace. Pointing to a clear biblical imperative for radical inclusivity in the sanctuary and in the public square, Robertson presents a paradigm-shifting vision of community, "where nothing is simple, nothing is easy, but everything is beautiful." Learn practical, step-by-step approaches to becoming deeply, robustly, and richly inclusive of all people regardless of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and socioeconomic status.

Winner of the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, this classic text explains what feminist theology is and how we can rediscover the feminine God within the Christian tradition, offering a profound vision of Christian theology, women’s experience, and emancipation. First published in 1992, it immediately caused a groundswell reaction for and against the concept of women's participation and role in the Christian church. It is both controversial and thought provoking. It served as the seminal text in the analysis of woman and Christianity. This 25th anniversary edition, with new content, will keep it in the forefront of the feminist theology conversation.

Barbara Brown Taylor continues her spiritual journey begun in Leaving Church of finding out what the world looks like after taking off her clergy collar. In Holy Envy, she contemplates the myriad ways other people and traditions encounter the Transcendent, both by digging deeper into those traditions herself and by seeing them through her students’ eyes as she sets off with them on field trips to monasteries, temples, and mosques.

College is a time to learn, explore, and grow, but what does faith have to do with it? In this collection of essays, gifted writers in their twenties and early thirties reflect on their college years by telling stories—some hilarious, some heart-wrenching—on the intersection of faith and college.

Being Christian in the Twenty-First Century was written out of a concern for the graying of the church and decline in church affiliation especially among younger generations. It promotes an understanding of Christianity that avoids literalism, dogma, and doctrines—all factors which many believe is driving people away from the church.

Vicky Beeching, called “arguably the most influential Christian of her generation” in The Guardian, was an international poster girl for evangelical Christianity as a recording artist and worship leader, but she was living with a debilitating inner battle: she was gay. The tens of thousands of traditional Christians she sang in front of were unanimous in their view: They staunchly opposed same-sex relationships and saw homosexuality as a grievous sin. Vicky knew that if she ever spoke up about her identity it would cost her everything. But eventually, she did.

This handbook is perfect for clergy, healers, therapists, interfaith ministers, as well as those interested in developing their own spiritual practice or starting their own home church, study group or community using integral frameworks.

Some sixteen hundred years ago St. Augustine, the bishop of Hippo said, “To think of God is to attempt to conceive something than which nothing more excellent or sublime exists, or could exist.” But to think of God assumes that the notion, or the idea of (a) god, is already present. What is the idea of God? What is the origin of the idea? Is it God? If so, how did we get it from God—is it innate or discovered in experience? Or, did we simply invent it? (“I wonder?”) Questions, questions, questions.

Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism were both catapulted from the Land of Israel in the first century. Even though they came out of the same soil, the Hebrew Bible (Tanach), they ended up a distance from the starting point in opposite directions. This book is an attempt to restore the true Biblical Messianic faith described by the Tanach. Wearing deerstalker caps with pipes in hand we need to follow the evidence from the first century C.E. before the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem to about the middle of the second century. This investigation will require us to peer through the dust of Roman destruction to evaluate the often fragmentary details. We need to sort through the orthodox and less traditional interpretations of the facts to get closer to the truth.

The Nicene Creed was both a religious and a political tool, a humanly constructed statement of belief that gave order and meaning to the world of its time. The question this book raises is whether it still gives order and meaning to our world--or rather, what kind of order and meaning does it give to our world.

This book presents the biological principle of emergence and applies it to culture shifting in congregations. The universe knows how to do life from the inside-out. By moving away from cultures of command and control to a more natural organic model, congregations discover the key to their power and the secret to sustained vitality.

Showcasing some of his most enduring and insightful writings, including many previously unpublished works, a concise and illuminating introduction to Marcus J. Borg, the late spokesman for progressive Christianity and one of the most revered and influential theologians of our time.

Today, the churches of the Global North are in decline and younger generations no longer seek meaning there. Traditional "church Christianity" is gradually giving way to some new way of faithful living. From a Nazi prison cell, German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer imagined a future "religionless Christianity" consisting of contemplative prayer and righteous action in the secular world. A Conspiracy of Love presents the contours of such a faith based on the "way" of Jesus. It calls us to become troublemakers, revolutionaries, seekers of change, and agents of transformation engaged in conspiracies of love to establish justice and peace in a postmodern world. It offers many different people--those who remain in the church,those who have left, and those who have never ventured near--with a life of faith that is meaningful, intelligent, and passionate.

Through her intriguing explanation of the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, Parkinson sets out compelling reasons why a real commitment to following the vision of Jesus of Nazareth can bring to reality the best possible world. In another age the author of this book would have been convicted of heresy at the very least. Her case for a 21st century new Reformation of the church is a must for all who have doubted or rejected the old Christianity and are looking for the way forward.

The headlines are clear: religion is on the decline in America as many people leave behind traditional religious practices. Diana Butler Bass, leading commentator on religion, politics, and culture, follows up her acclaimed book "Christianity After Religion" by arguing that what appears to be a decline actually signals a major transformation in how people understand and experience God.

How can Christians offer grace in a way that is compelling to a jaded society? And how can they make a difference in a world that cries out in need?

The political, social, spiritual, and economic history of most of the Western world has been defined by the belief articulated in the literal application of John’s gospel to personal and social piety. If Christianity is to survive with any relevance to postmodern, twenty-first century realities, the theology of condemnation and substitutionary atonement associated with the fourth gospel has to be scrapped. Not only is the future of Christianity at stake. This theology threatens the further evolution of human consciousness, and life as humanity has known it thus far on Planet Earth.

Through the lens of evolutionary Christianity, Sanguin works through moral, spiritual, and scientific issues raised in Mad Men, the writings of Richard Dawkins, tales from the Bible, and other stories that inform our views of the world. Sanguin's reflections will revitalize your faith and leave you celebrating that you don't need to sacrifice a rational, evidence-based worldview to be a person of faith in the twenty-first century.