What is your opinion of St Paul?

One of the reasons I wanted to reread his book was to see if I could get a different viewpoint on being a Christian within the “church.” I am still flummoxed as to why Bishop Spong is a Christian. He appears to be more of a humanist (non-capitalized).

I’ve always heard that Jesus’ ministry was three years long. Now I hear that it was only one year. How does something like that change?

Pelagius’ view of Original Sin and his conflict with Augustine might be something one of our gifted writers would write about. The ninth Article of the Anglican 39 Articles don’t look very favorably on him and his followers.

Many of my peers use the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) because it is the updated version of the classic Revised Standard Version (RSV) upon which many of us grew up. Published in 1989, the editors recognized that much misunderstanding had entered into the interpretation of the text because English is inherently biased toward the masculine. In order to mitigate such abuse of the text, all references to humanity are gender-neutral. So it is really one of the better “inclusive language” texts despite it continuing to provide exclusively male language in references to God. At the very least, I would recommend that you not read anything that hasn’t managed to get to a place of gender neutrality with respect to humanity.

Are there parts of the Old Testament that are said to be relevant today and why?

  Question & Answer   Mike from SanFrancisco asks: Question: I am interested in spirituality but not in religion but isn’t spirituality the

These questions were put to me by an Italian philosopher on the occasion of the publication of my book on education, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human, into Italian. I felt they were deserving of sharing with an American audience as well.

Even though I find redemptive suffering to be horrible theology, it does seem to be the underpinning that 1 Peter's author is using to encourage Christian slaves to endure the suffering that they are subjected to under their masters. The larger implication, however, is that you are doing it because you are “following in [Jesus's] footsteps.”

The truth is no one really has any idea what we mean when we use the term God. And when we use he and she or father or even “father/mother” we are just using terms that the ancient people used. We have to remember that they thought the world was flat and God was in the sky. They believed we could see god through the dome they believed covered the earth at night when they were in fact looking at stars that may have been 300 million miles away. They may very well have been “seeing” light from a star that had burned out several million years before.

I was wondering however, what the separation between Progressive Christianity and the Ba'hai faith is, if any. I have only just finished reading the study guide, and though I don't agree with all of the tenants set forth, it is a very interesting concept. It just seems very similar to the Ba'hai faith, and how different it is even from the standpoint of a Liberal Lutheran denomination.

From your website I have had many of my questions answered. I am a member of a relatively progressive Lutheran Church, but have more of a Methodist or Wesleyan concept of Grace. I could not find any ideologies on Grace or even Faith in your website or other sources on Progressive Christianity. Personally my faith is based on continuing my quest of “the Truth” or “the Logos” and I believe that salvation is by Faith, but it must be followed by a Discipleship much like that of Bonhoeffer. I could likewise not find a position on the Trinity, something that I feel is necessary in an absolute monotheism. Finally, the idea of a soul, immortal or not, was not revealed in your doctrine as I in my brief and incomplete review of Progressive Christianity. Thank you for any enlightenment or source of clarification.

The idea of a second coming of Christ is a mystery, if not explicitly controversial. Jesus’ followers apparently believed he would return during their lifetime after he was crucified. When that didn’t happen, later followers gradually changed the belief into an indefinite “someday.” After two thousand years of waiting, most Christians no longer look for it to happen in their lifetimes and acknowledge that Jesus may have been speaking metaphorically about his return. It is just as likely that those words were put into Jesus’ mouth by the gospel writers themselves. Wishful thinking?

How do you speak with integrity of belief when your audience is seemingly traditional and literal?

Do you consider yourselves as followers of Jesus even though he came for the Jews, the lost sheep of Israel, and not to the Gentile dogs?