This is the most common question that I am asked when discussing non-theistic options for God.  If God is not a person who can listen and respond to my prayers, then what is the purpose of prayer? 

This book is not a step-by-step “how to” for the Christian spiritual life. It is a book of spiritual wrestling with God and Scripture, written “from the foxhole” in the clash of faith and doubt.

There are so many theories on who or what god is, or if they even exist. Whether god is in us or around us, separate from us or above us. For me the bottom line is there is more to our existence than can be explained by science.

I have a question about the relationship of Progressive Christianity and Jesus.

Randomness produces the beauty of the snowflake, the security of encryption, the method of evolution, and now, the deadly COVID variants. Randomness is both neutral and powerful. It shapes our universe, our lives, and our deaths.

O God, let us take in the moment of this day of crucifixion, not remembering it in the context of what came after it, but how it left Jesus’ disciples and followers in tragic sadness and heart-wrenched disillusionment.

Death does not speak the final word. Resurrection does. Christianity stands or falls with this central confession: God raised Jesus from the dead.

While you can choose to believe in anything, I think faith requires a little more structure. Something more rigid. Something with tradition and maybe even ritual. Something with, God forbid, rules. For a while the faith we choose, or make up, is dependent on the limits of our knowledge, culture and experience, so that faith, definitively chosen, or made up, limits our expression of free will as it imposes on us rules not to be violated.

The following church service was conducted by George Stuart at Toronto New South Wales in Australia March 2021.

People gather in churches around the world, week after week, and I wonder how often we stop to consider who God actually is.

“What does it mean to be a Progressive Christian? Listen to ProgressiveChristianity.org Co-Executive Director Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines examine the 8 Points of Progressive Christianity throughout Lent, continuing with Points 3 & 4.”

I found some parallels between then and now in a nationalistic church with little or no interest in the Christian gospel, at least as I understand it, but what I was most impressed with was Bonhoeffer’s treatment of Christian ethics. The only thing that mattered to Bonhoeffer was how one lived.

The Scriptural evidence of this has always been right before our eyes. Yet, it is only in recent years that we have come to appreciate the Jewish roots of Christianity.

Serendipity is my favorite word and speaks volumes to me about life as I have come to understand it. Serendipity is defined as, “The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.”

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?

Amanda Gorman mesmerized a nation with her inauguration poem “The Hill We Climb.” The beauty of her presence and the power of her words captured a country battle-scarred and looking for a lifeline.

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).