what happens, in our striving for social justice, when we discover that God offers us something entirely different than the promise of victory? In this love letter to the disheartened activist, pastor Timothy Murphy reflects on his own journey of disappointments and despair and rediscovers a faith – and a God – who inspires us to continue fighting, even when it feels like we’re losing the battle.

Dorian Gray was above it all, privileged and pampered and proud, without good promise or purpose. Wilde’s implication is that conscience is necessary for the soul to survive.“What does it profit a person if, in gaining the whole world, loses the soul?”

If a woman is denied the right to choose for herself whether or not to complete a pregnancy, in what sense can she, or any of us, claim rights of any kind?  The right to have an abortion is the mother of all others.  Denying a woman’s sovereignty over what goes on inside her body is an extreme attack not only on her freedom and God-given dignity.  It is an attack against freedom itself.

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.

White lies can cover your ass, but, warns Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, they start to cover up the real you, too

In the fourteenth century, a German priest, Conrad of Megenberg, wrote “The Book of Nature”.   It was based on the assumption, shared by some theologians in that era, that God’s revelation was shown equally in nature and in scripture.  It was presumed that the two “books” were seamlessly compatible. 

Christians have taken it upon themselves to spread spiritual literacy by sending missionaries to the far reaches of the planet. However, refocusing on promoting educational literacy within our own nation would be to our next generation’s benefit.

The first webinar in the Faith and Climate Webinar Series with the Parliament of the World’s Religions will begin with faith-based perspectives supporting the plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States, the youth climate suit.

Drawing from Scripture, science, philosophy and various theological traditions, Thomas Jay Oord offers a novel theology of providence―essential kenosis―that emphasizes God’s inherently non-coercive love in relation to creation.

During the early 1980’s, when AIDS was first discovered, the Regan administration not only did virtually nothing in response, but when asked about it in press briefings, the response was laughter and gay bashing jokes.

“Trans lives are real lives. Trans deaths are real deaths. God works through other people. Maybe you can be those other people.” We are those other people.

I am a physical being with an immortal soul! I have lived many, many times on this earthly plane. Now, today, in our Aquarian Age, is the right time; the consciousness of my life as well as the lives of my fellow human beings. I want to help us all live in Light and Love.

As we grapple with the existential crisis of human-caused climate change, we will have a hard time making the transition away from fossil fuels if we show disrespect to the people in this industry.  We must carefully craft our language to attract rather than insult the people who labor still to this day, extracting the fuels that power our vehicles and warm our houses. 

The poor of the planet stare us in the face. Disparity of wealth, in our country and elsewhere, is an outrage that cannot be endured. The numbers are literally unbelievable. The earth provides, but greed monopolizes the table, a select few taking it all while the many stare and starve.

The idea of Adam and Eve as representing consciousness and unconsciousness, as discussed in the Adam and Eve essays Part 1 and 2, was not neglected in later writings of the Bible. It was repeated again and again. For example, in the “begetting” chapters of Genesis we see an interesting pattern. It’s written that many sons and daughters were begotten but only certain ones are mentioned by name.(Gen. 4:17-5:32) This has metaphorical meaning and relates to the three states of being, the three types of consciousness, and reincarnation. The names and the numbers in these “begetting” chapters are a treasure house of Cabalistic information but is beyond the scope of this essay and my capabilities.

The Parliament of the World’s Religions is thrilled to announce the launch of the Climate Commitments Project. This web-based resource is the virtual face of the Climate Commitments Project, our effort to coordinate and strengthen interfaith and faith-based climate action campaigns.

Can we convince white people that their future will be better without racism? Can we convince them that there is a place for them in a more open, diverse, inclusive world?

Is that a word? Tittynope? Really? Who says it is or not? And, this leads Rabbi Brian to wonder about the seat of our own spiritual authority. A light video. Fun with spiritual stuff. Enjoy.

During the three hours we spent in the Old City, I heard lots of nice stories—myths about God forming Adam, about God declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital, about Muhammad flying to heaven, and about Jesus’s crucifixion and burial. The problem with these nice stories is that people fight over them.

When you reside at the intersections of multiple identities, anniversaries of your civil rights struggles can be both bitter and sweet. And, May 17th was a reminder.

I believe every adult must be her or his own Messiah or Christ and choose a foundation stone to live her or his life by. One could choose money, power, crime, sex, pornography, drugs, a religion, or a cult—to name a few.

For me, the historical Jesus is the guru who provides my foundation stone, agape.

Designed for the layperson and professional peacebuilder alike, the World Peace Library has over 425 audio and video interviews with some of the most remarkable, inspiring peacebuilders in the world available to you at NO COST.

The mortality rate is 100% and while traditional religions often offer unverifiable assurance that death is not final, this progressive message seeks to take reality on in honest acceptance. From this perspective, death does not call for either denial or the anesthesia of false hope. Rather, it asks us to cherish those whom we love and to make the most of the life that is known to us.

Religious Naturalism (RN) has two central aspects. One is a naturalist view of how things happen in the world—in which the natural world is all there is, and that nothing other than natural may cause events in the world. From nature we came, in nature we are, to nature we go… The other is appreciation of religion with a view that nature can be a focus of religious attention – the ‘cosmic religious feeling’ as Einstein called it.

Politically Speaking host Dave Szollosy interviewed me and our conversation revolved around the issues relating to how our religion informs our politics.

When was the last time you participated in something sacred with 1.5 billion people? The thought of that may sound exciting or possibly a little daunting, but I can tell you it is enlightening and deeply rewarding.

Nobody wanna talk about it
She used to say I’m too dark, habibi
She used to say I’m too thick, habibi
But even then she was so thin, habibi

Reminding us symbolically of this union of body and spirit, Jesus took a loaf of bread, broke it like we are often broken in our relationships with one another, and showed us the way to reconciliation by asking us to share our bread with one another in remembrance of his own example.

The Charter created a Islamophobia Handbook a few years ago. The first section, “Speaking Out and Taking Action,” may be very helpful to all of us as we navigate through these difficult times.

Sexual abuse in the church erupted in the 1990s when it was reported on in the Boston Globe and Hollywood brought it to the world’s attention. However, this isn’t merely a recent problem; the history of sexual abuse goes back centuries.

The story of Job shows us that our wishful thinking is not the case and that if we are to engage “evil” effectively as progressive Christians, or even live meaningfully in the world, we must first imagine what a just God’s expectations of, and trust in, us would involve and what expectations we should have about God.

Christianity appears impossible if we focus on the admonitions in the New Testament that Jesus gave his followers. Love your enemies? Good luck with that. Turn the other cheek? Ouch. If a creditor demands your coat, give him your cloak as well? That means you’ll be left naked. If a man lusts after a woman who is not his wife, he’s an adulterer. No heterosexual male can pretend to meet that standard. And the list goes on – culminating in Jesus’ demand that we be perfect, as God is perfect. Nobody can fully follow his marching orders.

In the horrible crucible of the Civil War and the Indian Wars, Walt Whitman, in the Leaves of Grass, attempted to describe American greatness, not in our legislatures or executives, but in the inherent goodness of individual Americans. Many of us have lately been humiliated by the juvenile tweets of our chief executive and the morally bankrupt race in several southern states to take away women’s rights, but, as Frankel said, no one can take away from us our ability to decide how we will react to what they do. We get to choose who we are and to reject being defined by the racism, sexism, misogyny, classism, and xenophobia of our current political environment.

Today’s discoveries in Big Science, innovations in technology, along with the globalization of society and empowerment of the individual are bringing about ever-increasing benefits for humanity. Nevertheless, worldwide justice, peace, equality and understanding still elude us. For a more humane society, there is an overarching global imperative that we reconsider and reevaluate the claims of religion, the messages of science and our vision for society.

The language of faith is mytho-poetic, not literal. It describes the meaning of reality, not the facts. Thus the contemporary question of whether Jesus was factually born of a virgin or was the biological son of God confuses the very intention of the ancient authors.

America continues to struggle with its battle against white racism. However, what’s not addressed is the internalized racism people of color struggle with, too consciously and unconsciously. And, it’s called “colorism” or “intra-racism.”