Missouri, in an attempt to make obtaining an abortions more difficult, expensive, and humiliating, recently required a medically unnecessary second pelvic exam for all women who sought to obtain an abortion. This inexcusable and invasive addition of a medically meaningless invasive exam can only be called sexual assault, made much worse because it is mandated by the state government.

Meister Eckhart’s fervent plea: “I pray God, rid me of God” becomes a sort of mantra for me whenever the task of contemplating the Trinity rolls around on the liturgical calendar.  

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Green New Deal proposes a set of goals that enumerates the changes necessary to simultaneously save our environment while transforming our economic system. We have already started the 6th period of mass extinction in earth’s history and to avoid a repeat of “the Great Dying” of 250 million years ago, the changes recommended in the Green New Deal are not radical, they are, realistically, necessary.

    May Day is recognized as a workers’ holiday in 66 nations but not in the USA. In America, May Day has been too closely associated with communism and labor unions and so, from the 1950’s, …

Dr. Flunder is an American singer and Senior Pastor of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ in Oakland, California and Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries. She was born in San Francisco, California and raised in the Church of God in Christ.

Sermon by Rev. Elizabeth Durant delivered on June 18, 2018 at First Congregational UCC Portland.

Every Sunday I stand at the altar and preside over a mystery. A mystery that has its roots in the events we remember this Holy Thursday. On Maundy Thursday, we gather together to contemplate MYSTERY. We know what will happen tomorrow as Good Friday plunges us into darkness. So is it any wonder that we cannot fully comprehend this MYSTERY.

The Christian tradition is now in the midst of Holy Week, the high holy days of our religion, concluding the season of Lent, the six-week period of repentance, prayer, fasting, and reflection in preparation for Easter.  The language and tone of Lent address the ego, known in traditional language as our ‘sinful nature.’  According to traditional Christian theology, Jesus died to ‘save’ us from our inherently depraved nature inherited from Adam & Eve, because we can’t do it for ourselves.  For the sake of biblical and religious literacy, we need to acknowledge a disclaimer.

You may have sung this morning’s hymns and heard the gospel reading and wondered “Is this make-believe?” Perhaps you’ve never entered this church before, let alone attended on an Easter morning. You’re home for the weekend with your family or boyfriend or girlfriend or you’re here alone. Are you’re sitting here struggling over some of the details of the resurrection story that leave you perplexed, cynical or simply scratching your head. These are claims made by the apostle Paul and others who struggle to convey an experience of possibilities that cannot be fully expressed in words.

I am indebted to Amy-Jill Levine’s book “Short Stories by Jesus” and Bernard Brandon Scott’s book “Hear Then the Parable” for challenging me to look beyond the Christian bias of interpreting Jesus’ parables through the lens of the repentance and forgiveness and attempting to hear this story in ways more in keeping with Judaism.

Part historical exploration, part theological inquiry, part meditation, the new audio series “The Last Week” vividly brings to life the key moments leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection and provides space for personal reflection.

Top Jesus scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan join together to reveal a radical and little-known Jesus. As both authors reacted to and responded to questions about Mel Gibson’s blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, they discovered that many Christians are unclear on the details of events during the week leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion.