What are the big questions that religion answers?
I know what you are thinking, this being St. Andrew’s, and St. Andrew’s being a good liberal Protestant church: “Bob, it’s not about answers but about living the questions.”
We can say that, yet we do need answers. Questions are fine in church, but we live day-to-day by answers, no matter how tentative and incomplete they may have to be. Whether or not there are any definitive ones to be found, we’re all hunting for answers.
One traditional formulation of the questions that various religions seek to answer is: Where did we come from? What happens to us when we die? How are we to live?
read moreAt the root of the current political, economic, cultural, and ecological chaos is a national spiritual unrest, a fragmentation that has inhibited society’s self-awareness and slowed theological progress to a glacial crawl.
In a nation where three-fourths of the population identifies as Christian and religion salts the political discourse, unrest has manifested itself as the talking-head debate between atheists and believers. In All My Bones Shake, Robert Jensen reveals the multitiered complexity of the conflict and offers a progressive approach to its key theological questions. While fundamentalists on both sides have fought to an intellectual standstill and moderates seem content to ignore the battle, Jensen pushes for answers that make sense for anyone trying to exist in the modern scientific world, concluding, “There is no God, and more than ever we all need to serve the One True Gods.”
read moreThe abortion debate in Texas—and throughout the country—has dead-ended: pro-life v. pro-choice, saving the unborn child v. protecting the rights of the mother, responsibility v. freedom. Every encounter leaves each side more dug in.
read moreIn All My Bones Shake, Robert Jensen reveals the multitiered complexity of the conflict and offers a progressive approach to its key theological questions.
read moreReligious, national, and market fundamentalisms are frightening, but they may turn out to be less dangerous than our society’s technological fundamentalism.
read moreIn times of political and economic, cultural and ecological crisis, Jensen asks us to evaluate the risks we are willing to take to work for social justice and ecological sustainability. He discusses his personal experiences and view points of recent political events and presidential actions. Urging us to listen to our own hearts, he calls us speak our truth to defend against evils of established systems, and practice a balance of passion and humility in order to cope and promote positive change.
read moreThe values of church in confronting a world in collapse.
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