The St Thomas Collective provides a safe community for Biola students/alumni who find themselves doubting, frustrated, and spiritually homeless.

Since 1936 the Lemurian Fellowship, headquartered in Ramona, California, has spread these teachings to individuals longing to fulfill their true place in life, build noble character, and find inner peace and satisfaction.

Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.

A life with renewed purpose, healthy spirituality, embodied values, meaningful connection with others, and hope for a more just future. I write, speak, podcast, and build community surrounding faith shifting issues and anxieties. I want to build the world I want to live in—together, with you.

  And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist

These interviews were conducted by ProgressiveChristianity.org at a Westar meeting as part of a series on Christianity, spirituality, religion, church, God, Jesus, sacred community, social justice, youth, and social transformation. More to come soon!

Reinhold Niebuhr's brother, H. Richard, argued for faithfulness to the example of Jesus's nonviolence, while Reinhold believed this was naive and unrealistic in an imperfect world. H. Richard was the purist to the Christian faith, believing that following the Golden Rule, no matter the consequences, is what Jesus and God called us to do -- the success of the mission being in God's hands rather than our own. Reinhold, however, looked at the more practical side of things, substituting his or the world's idea of what was possible and changing his ethics accordingly. H. Richard thus trusted more in the providential moral arc of history as M.L. King, Jr. , would call it rather than a realist's version of what humans believe is attainable given their corrupt nature. In essence, H. Richard focused on the power of God's grace to transform our spirits and the world for the better, while Reinhold accepted a more cynical view of our ability to be radically changed as a specie.

What Happened: On November 8, 58% of voting-age citizens cast ballots in the presidential election. In 2008, when Obama was elected, 64% cast ballots. When all the ballots are counted, Clinton will have won the popular vote by at least a million. Trump won the electoral college by squeaking ahead in some of the swing states: he was only 68,236 ahead in Pennsylvania, for example.

Another way that religion can do a body good is through the mindfulness practices that are embedded in it. It's no news that it's part of Buddhism. But for most Christians, it may come as a surprise to find that it has always been integral to contemplative prayer. You can't confess the truth of your heart unless you know what's in it.

In "The Spiritual Child", psychologist Lisa Miller presents the next big idea in psychology: the science and the power of spirituality. She explains the clear, scientific link between spirituality and health and shows that children who have a positive, active relationship to spirituality: * are 40% less likely to use and abuse substances * are 60% less likely to be depressed as teenagers * are 80% less likely to have dangerous or unprotected sex * have significantly more positive markers for thriving including an increased sense of meaning and purpose, and high levels of academic success.

Against or Through? With or For? But or And? Skits for worship

If I were to condense a definition of mindfulness into a single word, agape would be the one. Every time I teach a five-week mindfulness course for students and staff at USC, I introduce the class with a simple definition of the state we are trying to reach in the practice: a loving awareness of thoughts, feelings, sensations, urges in the present moment, while letting go of judgments about them.

"Love the sinner, but hate the sin." This phrase has been used countless times by some Christians to pretend to offer welcome to LGBT people while condemning the natural consequence of the way God made them. It speaks for a shallow kind of love at most: one that claims to be okay with a person's same-sex orientation while stigmatizing its fulfillment. This noxious phrase also summarizes the underlying attitude of many people of other religions towards sexual minorities. It is a phrase whose time has come - and gone. More than ever, it needs to be excised from the vocabulary of faith, once and for all, as it pertains to homosexuality.

Many saints of the Church’s history appear to have had contempt for their own bodies. The mortifications to which they subjected their flesh are incomprehensibly grotesque to Christians today. It is hard to reconstruct the cultural milieu in which these mortifications had meaning and purpose. There is a lingering disdain of the body still evident in most branches of the faith, and it is problematic. For too long we have viewed our faith as just a head-trip. We Christians need to take better care of the rest of ourselves, and to embody our spirituality more fully.

>We all have moments when we have to make tough decisions quickly, and sometimes the way is not clear. How will we recognize the highest good when split-second decisions are needed? And how do we prepare children for the inevitable difficult decisions they will face? The answer to both questions is practice. We can’t expect to understand inner guidance in a crisis if we haven’t listened for guidance any other time in our lives. Every day presents opportunities to feel for the right direction. Every decision we make should be made with soul intuition and not just mental reasoning. Children can learn to feel for inner guidance and use that understanding in all life’s challenges. Your true self is a spiritual being housed in a human being. If we can access the voice of our true selves, the guidance we are looking for will always be available.

Spiritual Activism is a concept originating from the understanding that youths’ incredible energy can be guided into living a life based on the “will to good” and positive social change. This begins by seeking inner peace and a connection to our consciousness. You can and you will activate your own calling for a life of meaning reflected in daily actions and service for the greater good.

Re: the Oregon mass shooting: "Harper-Mercer's mother, Laurel Harper, shared her son's passion for guns... I was so appalled by the Roseburg incident that I needed to deal with my despair by flying my fingers across my computer keyboard. This is the result – a spoof on the absurdity of owning guns for self-defense:

I am a bit of a unicorn – a Black Puerto Rican, third generation Lutheran. I was baptized, confirmed, married, educated and called to ministry in this church. The past year has been difficult for me to reconcile my cultural identity and my denominational identity.

What follows is the text of a “sermon” that I gave as a “congregational reflection” to an all White audience at the Bethel Congregational United Church of Christ on Sunday, June 28th. The sermon was begun with a reading of The Good Samaritan story, and this wonderful quote from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah. Credit for this speech goes to Chaédria LaBouvier, whose “Why We Left” inspired me to speak out about racism; to Robin DiAngelo, whose “White Fragility” gave me an understanding of the topic; and to Reni Eddo-Lodge who said “Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race” long before I had the courage to start doing it again.

Pope Francis and the Environment: Yale Examines Historic Climate Encyclical. What follows are the transcripts from the Panel on the Papal Encyclical held at Yale University on April 8, 2015.

  "If faith communities lead the way in honoring the reality of same-sex marriage, the law will eventually follow." -- Jim Burklo, BIRDLIKE

In my pocket, all my waking day, I carry a device that enables me to communicate instantly with practically anyone around the globe. I'm a cog in a vast international system of manufacturing, trade, and consumption. Sure, we're all connected in these ways. But in our face-to-face encounters with other people, or when we walk in wilderness and commune personally with other living beings, we sense this connection in a much deeper way.

Our prayers igniting, cast out into the shire and the song of our struggle came straight from the fire, it goes: holy holy grandmother, we sing wash us clean of our pain and suffering give us strength for our new beginnings From my deepest grace I sing wash away, it will wash away

A very sweet song and video that encourages women to love who they authentically are and to not give in to pressure to change the way they look, to be someone they aren't. Perfect to share with young women in your life.

Beyond all the things that divide us, both from ourselves and each other, awareness brings us back to our essential oneness. In June 2014, Ian Lawton, founder of soulseeds.com, had a series of transformative conversations with renowned spiritual leaders from many traditions on the topic of awareness. Whether you caught the conference live or not, you can now access any or all of it in the way that best suits you.

Children will experience enough obstacles in life; there's no reason to start them off with a sense of guilt, fear, and a lack of freedom to make their own choices.

This past Sunday morning in Los Angeles was bright with strong wind blowing clear air over the mountains from the high desert. The palm trees swayed along Highway 10 west into Santa Monica. Two right turns at the Cloverfield exit took me past the garbage company and into the chain-link gate of Bergamot Station, a former warehouse complex turned into dozens of art studios. In the back corner, in a galvanized iron building, is the "Writer's Bootcamp", a complex with offices and meeting spaces, where I found Thad's.

Between sex as sin and sex as sport is an embrace of sexuality as a good gift. Between the teachings of "just say

Do the right thing, do the right thing, do it all the time, do it all the time. Make yourself right, never mind them. Don't you know you're not the only one suffering. I hear a higher calling, better here than there I guess so long.

This incredible short film shares an Indigenous Native American Prophecy that links all of life and the future of our planet.