Bean was the first black openly gay gospel singer to join Motown. However, his time at Motown was short-lived when he refused to croon heterosexual love songs. Bean eventually left Motown in the 1980s, abandoning his singing career. 

Read some of the tributes that have been written on the occasion of the death of Bishop John Shelby Spong. 

In a recent article in progressivechristianity.org Jim Burklo wrote about the possibility, if not likelihood, that there will be a flood of disaffected folks leaving the evangelical churches and that progressive congregations should be ready “to attract them by making changes in our styles of worship and congregational life that are necessary to seize this remarkable moment.” 

We cannot be separate from God or from each other. Yet, we can spend much of our lives imagining that this is the case.

What would happen if other faithful people began to ask questions instead of arguing with answers they don’t like?  What would happen if we followed St. Paul’s advice and stopped returning evil for evil?  What would happen if we asked serious questions instead of behaving defensively in response to religious or political bombast?

In the face of enormous danger and spreading death that seems pointless, there is a tendency to ask: “Where is God? How could God let this happen?” This is the same spirit that fills up space on cable news channels with critics complaining about all the things that are going wrong.

I wonder if fiddling around on the periphery on the issues of gay and lesbian rights can ever yield what the Church lacks: a compelling vision which, if received and fulfilled, would improve humanity as a whole. Christianity has no unique truth and its claims, like those of all various religions, is that it must rest upon a “Thus saith the Lord.”

1st  Corinthians chapter 13. Danna recited it from a brand-spanking new translation of the Bible; you may remember, if you are of a certain age, it was called “Good News for Modern Man:”

In The Land Is Not Empty, author Sarah Augustine unpacks the harm of the Doctrine of Discovery–a set of laws rooted in the fifteenth century that gave Christian governments the moral and legal right to seize lands they “discovered” despite those lands already being populated by indigenous peoples.

Dear White Peacemakers is a breakup letter to division, a love letter to God’s beloved community, and an eviction notice to the violent powers that have sustained racism for centuries.

We are in a time of transition, the midst of a cultural shift—what some have called “The Great Turning.”

This presentation is a celebration of the cosmos and its processes. Why? We are living in a time not only of the meltdown of glaciers but also of ideological systems.

It is not something new to begin with cosmology—Genesis One does that.

Religious communities have a rich opportunity to contribute to a global goal of restoring forest ecosystems as part of the current UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

To those affected by the discovery of mass graves of First Nations’ children In Canada.

This week is Canada Day and July 4, two celebrations of national life in North America. Both holidays are particularly complicated – even painful – this year as citizens in both Canada and the United States struggle with legacies of colonialism and racism in history and our political lives.

In mystical activism, we live more and more in the divine flow of here and now, and experience the sacred world in everything we do – raising our children, loving our family and our friends, performing our work, being kind and considerate, caring for community and environment, pursuing climate activism, and even in the simplest human acts of eating and drinking and loving – they are all sacred in awakened consciousness.

Love can be a tricky business because it’s not a feeling – not really. We may have desire or longing or other feelings that we equate to love, but I believe love, or loving someone, while certainly is inherent, is largely something we have to learn, like a skill.