Many of us are aware that Pentecost ranks among our greatest feasts in the liturgical calendar. Still, few Christians, including clergy, comprehend the in-depth meaning of the events of Acts 2: 1-13.

The Human Calling is a vigorously researched and profoundly spiritual narrative history of the world’s religious movements as they relate to society’s collective understanding of the duties they have to fellow people and looks ahead to what lessons from history can be applied as people navigate a technological age.

Growing up and attending a southern Baptist church, I was constantly aware of the term salvation. I am now, thankfully, attending a more progressive and open minded church (PCUSA), but still hear this word. I have never been comfortable with this term and would like to know how you see salvation and what it actually means in progressive Christianity.

In his important book, “Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes”, John Shelby Spong pointed out that the followers of Jesus who wrote about his life were all Jews

A previously recorded live event exploring Creation Spirituality and Sacred Activism hosted by Matthew Fox and Andrew Harvey. Enjoy over 10-hours of dialogue from Matthew Fox and Andrew Harvey and BONUS FOOTAGE from Joanna Macy and Bruce Chilton.

How can Christians get a firm foundation with scripture that has been influenced by the spirit of political influence by Kings and Popes and transcriptionists who were influenced by governments? A bit of a crisis of faith here. Can there still be a Divine Jesus without true historical knowledge of Him?

The practice of contemplating the Stations of the Cross, depicting the final hours of Jesus’ life, is a very old one. Many Catholic churches have gardens or sanctuaries in which the stations are situated.  Each of the 14 stations marks a point along the way to Jesus’ death.

Have you ever wondered what Jesus did to deserve being tortured and crucified to death? How could someone so good be treated so inhumanely?

The Christian Church has a disgraceful legacy of Christians fighting Christians. In the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Christians fought among themselves for two hundred years over the nature of Jesus.

What have we learned and can apply today from the Nag Hammadi Scriptures?

If Jesus did not die on a cross to cover our sin, then what was the purpose of him dying? What was the purpose of his life? Was it to show us how to simply be “good people?”

For some time now, Progressive Christians have distinguished themselves from Fundamentalists and Evangelicals by ignoring gender differences, rejecting Biblical literalism and emphasizing the importance of Jesus’ vision for a “kingdom of God on earth.” But the primitive belief that propitiation can be attained through substitutionary atonement still lives on in most Progressive Churches.

Throughout Holy Week, two competing approaches to peacemaking collide. What if we’ve embraced the wrong one? At the start of Holy Week, tears streamed down Jesus’ face as he cried out, “If only you knew the things …

Celibacy was not compulsory until Pope Gregory VII declared such in 1074. However, inside information suggests that this edict was not about sex but inheritances and lots of free labor. Since celibate priests don’t have families, now their inheritances go to the church. Celibacy = money.

Herod, who is a ruler on a throne of power, and Joseph who is a peasant in an unconventional marriage. One man is powerful and one man is not. And yet the text only describes one of these men as being afraid. 

The religious culture in which Jesus lived was the sacrificial culture centred on the temple in Jerusalem. It provided the background to his thinking and that of most other Jews including Paul, and the idea of sacrifice continued to influence the thinking of the first Christians.

The Christian cross, taken as a modern working symbol, can also find a new role, a complementary one to its original deep association with the crucifixion. One that speaks a common language in cross-religious or interfaith contexts.

Like Jesus, Paul was a radical egalitarian.  He was also, it turns out, a first century feminist.  In all the churches he helped found and nurture, he insisted on gender equality.