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Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and those who have no money, come, buy and eat!

By: Julia Baird.  From Newsweek.com.  Few would argue that the recession should not force us to rethink what we want and love—and how we behave toward those who have less than we do. It is clear that we should be self-sufficient and not rely on debt. That we should live more simply, consume more wisely, think of generations to come, and wonder what desires we want to plant in children’s hearts.

How Christianity not being news is actually a large portion of its very strength.The truth is… Christianity isn’t news. I don’t mean in modern terms either; I mean in ancient terms. Christianity isn’t news, and it never really was. When Christianity came along, it was literally nothing new. The amount of parallels between Christianity and various other religions around the world (the oldest of course dating back to Ancient Egypt or even earlier) is astonishing.;Nothing in the Bible was original. Almost every last item attributed exclusively to Jesus, for example, including the things he said or did (or anything that happened to him), can be readily traced back to another source far more ancient than Christianity or the birth of Christ.

First celebrated in 1898, the Universal Day of Prayer for Students is observed on the third Sunday of February; in 2010 it is celebrated on February 21st. The UDPS is one of the oldest ecumenical days of prayer.  In line with WSCF’s theme for 2010 the UDPS theme is ‘Climate Justice’.  Former WSCF Chairperson Rev. Ejike Okoro of Nigeria has prepared the 2010 UDPS liturgy and accompanying Bible study on behalf of the Africa region.

By: Rich Lang. It seems to me that one might find folks who have a dialectical relationship with any two, three or four of these historical sensibilities and value orientations within progressive Christianity. I’m going to guess that progressive Christianity can mean very different things to different people, depending upon whether they are primary engaged in the pre-modern/modern dialectic, the modern/post-modern dialectic, the post-modern/trans-modern dialectic, or are seeking to reconcile all four historical sensibilities (religious, secular, eclectic and integral) within a dialogical and paradoxical whole. I wonder if the future of Christianity (and other religions and ideologies) in the pluralist society and global age” is one of constructing a critically reflective and constructive dialogue between the pre-modern, modern, post-modern and trans-modern sensibilities, all of which make a powerful claim upon our common human nature and resonate with our richly diverse experience.

There are two vastly different Christian approaches to evangelism being practiced today. One can be described as inclusive and invitational; the other is dualistic and confrontational.

Just because the Bible has been hurtfully employed to validate oppressive policies and practices that control, subjugate, exclude and condemn “the other,” is no reason for tossing this great book (or library of books) aside. Our sacred Scriptures, when interpreted wisely and compassionately offer rich resources for personal, communal, and even global transformation.

The ultimate problem for most of the early theologians was their need to identify Jesus as a divine messiah sent by an intervening God to save humanity from humanity’s God-given nature. Rather than accepting Jesus as a profound teacher of another way to experience reality (The Kingdom of God), all the emphasis has been on an outside force, (being), going through some horrible heroic act on our poor behalf, and then only if we repent.

A small article discussing a common criticism in the mainstream to being a Child-Free Christian.

By: Rev. David McClean. “Sin” is not a word about problems with our body images or our bad relationships or our tempers or our spending habits, and how we can, in some piecemeal way, fix them. It isn’t a word about specific failings, it is a word that frames a different kind of discourse about those failings. It is a word that bespeaks a complete spiritual and existential condition, a condition that seems to be pretty much proven out if you look at the way human beings tend to treat one another.

There is a kind of moral rigidity that is the province of youth. The less experience one has of the slings and arrows, the easier it is to see the world in primary colors; a sense of moral nuance, like an eye for tints and shades, takes time and experience to develop.

Obviously how we think about sin changes how we think about repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.  If we understand sin to be primarily personal… the burden is on us individually to change our behavior. Change in personal behavior is always good when we identify behaviors and thoughts that we know we need to change.  But personal change does not adequately deal with destruction and hurt and evil that can come from the corporate, communal sin. For example: we might know that we have to change our attitudes toward homeless persons…and be more generous in our personal charity.  And it is good to do so.  But that still does not change the structural economic and political situations that will continue to result in more and more homeless people.  Or we might become aware that we personally need to be more open minded to those who are different from us.  So personal transformation is good.  But that does not change the systems of racism, sexism or homophobia. That infuses much of our cultural landscape.

There can be no peace, their can be no beloved community, the kingdom of God will not be realized on earth until we are all convinced that every person, whatever one’s faith or religious affiliation, whatever one’s ethnic origin, culture, or social state, whatever one’s mental or physical abilities or disabilities, is a child of God, precious and loved, and that every person—wherever they live, or whatever they believe—has access to God.

A Jungian psychoanalyst and former Presbyterian minister offers a perspective on Christianity and the Church from Jungian psychological perspective.

When I was more dualistic in my faith the key question was: Are my beliefs correct and how do I get others to believe the right things? Now that I am more inclusive in my thinking the key question is: How can I fall in love with an unconditionally loving God and share this love with others?

Re-discover AWE in your life.  Listen Here

Morwood’s books have been especially insightful and helpful to adults struggling with prayer and ritual while radically reconstructing their Christian faith.  This book is for adult Christians engaged in this shift, now asking the vital questions: How do we educate children into this new faith perspective?  How do we pray with them if prayer is not about addressing an external, listening Deity?

Over the last few weeks I have had the opportunity and the privilege to meet with two different groups made up of people who are all in their own way searching for new ways to tell the Christian story.

Gary’s third and final book – Lots Of Love – is an urgent and loving testimonial to the simple but fundamental building blocks of our human and spiritual DNA – that “love is the beginning and the end of our journey.” Each day physical life may conspire to ebb out of Gary’s body but his spirit flows through his pen and his glorious fight to bring us all a message of hope at the holiday season. Lots of Love is an ornament to be hung on every tree, a candle to be lit on the last night of Hanukkah, an Eid prayer at Ramadan and a strand of lights at the new moon of Diwali.

But we keep pruning away, and as we prune, domino after domino falls, whether it be connected with revelation, the person and role of Jesus, the meaning of salvation, doctrine, worship, prayer, death and afterlife.

On the 4th Sunday of Advent, we welcome you all to this inclusive spiritual community that invites and supports ALL people to know God’s love…and we join together with UNITY churches all around the world to proclaim our commitment.

We welcome you to this inclusive and universal Celebration of Light, on this Winter Solstice—the longest, darkest night of the year.  Since ancient times…this drama around the return of the actual physical light that sustains us…has served as the basis for myth and ritual—symbolizing perennial new life, the birth of Gods, and the center of Hope—throughout human history

Published on the online newsletter/blog of John Shelby Spong, www.johnshelbyspong.com “I want to share with you something written by a priest in the Church of England, who is under pressure from his Bishop to conform to traditional Church teaching and practice. He is, so far as I can discern, a faithful priest who is caught in that awkward position where he must violate his own conscience and integrity in order to conform to ecclesiastical expectations. Many clergy live in that place today as the Church becomes more and more closed minded and afraid and as its leaders move to put unity ahead of truth. I was so impressed with his work that I wanted to share it with you.” ~ John Shelby Spong

Christmas both mutes and heightens this impression that something under the sun is ferhoodled. On the one hand, people are often more civil and decent to each other. On the other, anything painful or ugly stands out more glaringly against the festive background, even taking on a tint of moral injustice. If people die in June, it’s sad; if they die in late December, it’s “a shame.”

By: Chuck Queen,  The “Advent” of God in the person of Jesus not only challenged old ways of thinking about God and old patterns of relating to God, Jesus’ Advent marked the beginning of a spiritual revolution, a conspiracy of love.

From Living Waters: if one is to pass beyond the childish and the external to the core of what Christmas is all about, it’s an essential step. What one has to realize first of all is that the story of the birth of Jesus is a myth. No, not a fairy tale, not a legend, not a piece of fiction to be seen through and dropped at puberty or before, but a spiritual myth-in other words, a truth so vast and so important to our human condition that it can only be told in the most profound language of all, the language of symbolism, allegory and metaphor.

I trust it will come as news to very few that the canonical gospels offer us two Christmas stories, and to those who have actually read the accounts it is clear that the two bear little resemblance to one another.  To be sure, the names of the infant, his mother, his nominal father, and the place of birth are the same; but nearly all the other details stand in striking and irreconcilable conflict.  Does this mean that Matthew’s narrative or Luke’s—or both—are simply to be rejected as wildly unreliable? Not if we adopt the strategy of understanding the two tales not as failed attempts at history, but as brilliantly conceived and wonderfully effective parables.

It seems to me we can best say what God is not and leave it at that which will leave that which God is but cannot be said remaining. Although God can not be proven in the physical sense alone to someone else, God can be and is subjectively experienced by being the substrate of existence/Life itself.

What is paradise like and how do we find it? Is it actually a place or a condition or is it the way we approach life?

A layman’s perspective on the pursuit of damnation within the Christian faith. I feel the fundamentalist and/or conservative (and/or mainstream?) view of Hell and damnation is akin to an abusive marriage: If you don’t come to God, and do it in this precise way, you go to Hell and that’s that. Similarly, an abusive marriage works on the same principles if you think about it.

What a powerful affirmation of Interfaith-God “takes anyone who does
what is right” and “it does not matter to what nation they belong”.

Until well into the modern period, Armstrong contends, Jews and Christians both insisted that it was neither possible nor desirable to read the Bible literally, that it gives us no single, orthodox message and demands constant reinterpretation. Myths were symbolic, often therapeutic, teaching stories and were never understood literally or historically. But that all changed with the advent of modernity.

Hell is a religious myth intended to hold you captive to fear and the church’s teachings. Stand up to the myth and pull its beard. You will find that it comes off in your hand. You can not be denied. You are an adventurer, storming the gates of hell and fear.  The good news- There is no reason to believe there is an actual place of eternal suffering after life called hell.

It is impossible for us today to fathom the world view that the ancients who created these stories must have had. We really cannot grasp what it was like to look out in the stars, to travel, to watch the days get shorter with no obvious reason, to deal with the seasons, watch babies be born without an understanding of basic biology, science, without airplanes, space ships, Hubble telescopes, physicists, calendars, let alone computers and GPS. These were people, after all, who believed that the earth was flat and covered with a dome that had holes in it. For them, the stars were God’s or the god’s light shining through those holes.

The way to be all that you can be is to be more yourself. I mean you right now, not after some spiritual makeover; but as you are now, without any pretence and with the layers of conditioned thinking stripped bare. When you hear an inner voice say, “Yes, I am fully myself and authentic in this moment”, then follow that voice. I’m talking about the sort of moments when your skin tingles with the goodness of life and your place in it. sbnr.org

After listening to it dozens (hundreds?) of times now, I’m pleased to report that this is the real deal: an album that kids adore, and that grownup folks will also continue to enjoy after countless hours of repeat listening. The album is musically vibrant, surprising and exciting: it blends styles as diverse as bluegrass, country, jazz and gospel, in a way that brings out that characteristic joy and lilt and humor of American folk music. And the lyrics (all written by Matt Boulton) are quite wonderful: linguistically inventive, poetically playful, and at times also theologically serious and reflective.