No matter what happens this election year in the United States, there is going to be further polarization, hateful rhetoric, and very likely, violence.

Today’s “Ask a Progressive Christian” with ProgressiveChristianity.org Board Member Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin Q: Is the Bible the Inerrant Word of God?

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

The great Christian monk Thomas Merton once compared the spiritual life to the search for a path in a field of untrodden snow: "Walk across the snow and there is your path."

This collection of 200 dialogue and dialogue-related quotations is gathered from a wide range of sources – ancient and modern.

Decompress. Share. Feel seen. Be real. Stay as anonymous as you wish. Your parishioners, congregants, local colleagues, subordinates, and superiors needn’t know that you are cracking around the edges, losing hope, etc.

Each day you will receive a different email message from this enlightened hot mind. Every day the one who is eternally alive will throw a ray of his light into the depths of your life. Every day a different facet of the comprehensive revelation I have described will flash its brilliance into your soul.

We're delighted to announce that the recordings from our June 17th and June 18th Anti-Racism Workshop are now available for purchase. To honor what you all paid to attend in person, and to encourage folks to join future classes in real time, we've priced both classes together for $25, and made each individual class available for $15.

Join us for a monthly conversation on CREATION IN CRISIS

We knit our hearts and intentions together in this solemn moment to resolve individually and as family, friends, and community to honor and support these two in the vows they now make.

For the 2018 -2019 academic year Rachel will be touring her signature live lecture exploring the history of feminism through the lens of race. Uncover layers of unlearned details, revealing the problematic effects that white centered activism has had on the past and present of the feminist movement and action items you can take to be more intentional and inclusive.

Home is more than a house. It is a sacred location, a place of aspirations and dreams, of learning and habit, of relationships and heart. Home is the geography of our souls.

"Love is what God is, love is why Jesus came, and love is why he continues to come, year after year to person after person... May you experience this vast, expansive, infinity indestructible love that has been  yours all along. May you discover that this love is as wide as the sky and as small as the cracks in your heart no one else knows about, and may you know, deep in your bones, that love wins."

My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.

And this is it. This is the life we get here on earth. We get to give away what we receive. We get to believe in each other. We get to forgive and be forgiven. We get to love imperfectly. And we never know what effect it will have for years to come. And all of  it…all of  it is completely worth it.

I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.

Spirituality emerged as a fundamental guidepost in Wholeheartedness. Not religiosity but the deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to one another by a force greater than ourselves--a force grounded in love and compassion. For some of us that's God, for others it's nature, art, or even human soulfulness.

"I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-lief. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life.  That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is." 

"Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstances whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else."

“The Christian life is not about pleasing God the finger-shaker and judge. It is not about believing now or being good now for the sake of heaven later. It is about entering a relationship in the present that begins to change everything now. Spirituality is about this process: the opening of the heart to the God who is already here.”

If there is any one message the Bible delivers, it is the message that God loves outcasts and that Jesus was born into the world an outcast to rescue and renew outcasts from religion gone bad. He was born poor and died poor, yet the legacy of love he left us, the legacy of inclusion and acceptance and understanding, will endure forever.

God's grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word ... it's that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit.

When John accuses "evildoers" of leading gullible people into sin, what troubles him is what troubled the Essenes: whether—or how much—to accommodate pagan culture.

Christianity did not begin with a confession. It began with an invitation into friendship, into creating a new community, into forming relationships based on love and service.

This post is an orientation to our virtual pilgrimage --- which I am so excited about! Together, we will journey to 12 Black Madonnas all over the globe -- from the Caribbean to Latin America to Asia to Africa and Europe. Each stop on our pilgrimage will include four invitations -- (1) to consider my own brief reflections about how cultural perceptions of race and gender impact our experience of the Divine, (2) to engage an idea/piece of art/beauty as we think about our own experiences of the Divine, (3) to reflect on several questions either individually or in community, and (4) to practice a different way of interacting with the world that will hopefully open us up to new experiences of the Divine. 

Friend and frequent contributor to ProgressiveChristianity.org,  Rabbi Brian, has compiled conversations with 12 of his Biblically literate friends in a series of podcasts that both delight and educate. Join Rabbi Brian as he talks to Reverend Jim Burklo, Dr. Tracy Hartman, Rev. Irene Monroe, Pastor John Pavlovitz and more as he seeks to find out what the bible is and how to use it to fight oppression.

ver the last few years, I have collected a number of quotations that relate directly or indirectly to the field of interfaith dialogue. These are attached. You may find various ways to use these quotations.

In this final book of his storied career, Spong continues to integrate a rigorous scholarly tradition with the Christian faith and so offers a new approach, one that challenges Christians to explore their beliefs in new and meaningful ways.

GPSA Founder Steve Robertson stated, "We've had so many amazing music and video submittals. What an honor its been to be exposed to such music and videos and then be able to share this music with our world. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that we announce the 2017 GPSA WINNERS

We're celebrating 10 years this summer, and this stunning new video has us all sorts of sentimental. We are overwhelmed with gratitude for this family and can't wait to reunite with you on August 11th-14th for the best Beloved yet.