Here’s another effort to help Christians better understand Bible stories do not conflict with science, as they are mostly metaphorical. They need not fear and disrespect science, as so many now do, creating havoc in our religious and political worlds.

I have to say that I have more respect for panentheism than classical theism because it at last respects the problem of evil and suffering more than classical theism. However, I want to ask a question: can God (from a panentheistic view) perform a miracle in history such as the bodily resurrection of Jesus? 

If one chooses to interpret the story of Jesus fasting in the desert symbolically, the story becomes an allegory of transformation.

Since it is impossible to say with 100% accuracy what the man from Nazareth looked like, we all need to seriously question our own perception. Who is the Jesus we accept, or reject? Are we open to thinking new thoughts, or are we captivated by the past?

I embrace today’s “new age spirituality” where Mind, Body and Spirit are aligned under a new paradigm of oneness with all –  that no longer supports the dogma of traditional religious institutions. My question is whether there is still room for my bible from which I have found so much comfort and wisdom? 

Can prayers be narcissistic? A great many prayers are in the first person, like the laments in the Psalms. “God help me, rescue me, forgive me, heal me” are typical petitions in the first person. But praying for oneself can become narcissism when concern for oneself supersedes loving our neighbors. 

You can “walk” these stations by practicing one station per day, from March 20 through Good Friday, April 2 – or at any other time or manner during Lent (Ash Wednesday, February 17, until Easter Sunday, April 4).  

Jesus told the first apostles, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Does that mean we’re supposed to “catch people” for Jesus and convert them to Christianity?

  With or Without God: Why the Way We Live Is More Important Than What We Believe by Gretta Vosper is a book designed to reconstruct the Christian church, to free it from doctrine and superstitious belief. …

Pastor and author Martin Thielen has compiled a list of ten things people need to believe, and ten things they don’t, in order to be a Christian.

Do you think that Jesus believed he was the Son of God/Son of Man (Daniel 7) and that he physically cured people of diseases and serious disabilities.? If not,what do you think he was trying to achieve by wandering around the countryside with his disciples?

A friend of mine recommended the book, “The Case for Christ,” by Lee Strobel. Have you read the book and if so, is it a good read?

This past Wednesday was the Feast of Epiphany, the day when Christians celebrate the long journey of the Wise Ones who, according to our foundational myth, arrived at the birthplace of Jesus, who is described in the Scriptures as the embodiment of DIVINE WISDOM.

How can something be lost if it never existed? Jesus was not the person many Christians make him out to be. He was never a Christian so how can we speak of the Christianity of Jesus? The historic Jesus must be understood as a first century Jew.

Out of the mouths of babes comes either curiosity and wonder or doubt and defiance. On either extreme the truth that emerges is always a question: “Why?”

Jesus is, in fact, no longer the reason for the season. But the reason this is so extends far beyond the cultural and commercial contamination of a quaint old tale.

I work in an Episcopal church with Holy Eucharist at the majority of services. The liturgy includes phrases such as “this is holy food” and “come to the feast” when there actually might be five or ten calories in a congregant’s tiny wafer and nip of wine. Following the service, there is usually a coffee hour with sweet snacks and cheese, hundreds of calories per person!

A couple of hurdles to deriving the greatest possible meaning from the Bible are orthodox literalism (everything in the Bible must have happened just because it is in the Bible) and secular denial (since hardly anything in the Bible really happened, the book is of no value).