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The Church lacks a compelling LGBTQ+ vision

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.”

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What They Are Saying About Us

Fundamentalist leaders used to describe progressive Christians as a shrinking heretical sect, if they noticed us at all.  Now they condemn us as an existential threat to the survival of evangelicalism.  Their rhetoric should inspire in us a healthy vigilance, as America drifts into deeper polarization and ominous threats of violence. 

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The 60s and Today

Our understanding of God is impacted by the historical context in which we live, and often changes with the season. A comparison of the 1960s with today is a case in point. It is also a span of time that brackets the theological journey of some of us, including myself.

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Sermon for St. George’s Chapel

8/15/21 - Tenants Harbor, ME

I believe that God’s love undergirds creation and is at work always in our world, sometimes despite the seeming evidence to the contrary. And I believe that God’s love is for everyone – it is indeed the bread of life, no matter what symbols or metaphors we use.

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It’s (Past) Time to Raze Hell

Some orthodox believers argue that the flames of hell should not be taken literally since hell is also described as a place of utter darkness. The point is, they argue, hell is a bad place, a place where God is not to be found, and a place where there is no hope. Literal flames or not, the traditional doctrine of eternal punishment should be an unacceptable belief for followers of the one who ate with sinners, blessed little children, and forgave his executioners.

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Finding the middle we can walk together

How can we stop the hate and bring the far right & left together to find the middle we can walk together and work for the USA’s survival?

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The Creatures We Love

A new hymn by Amanda Udis-Kessler for The Blessing of The Animals Services

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Secrets of Our Faith

What the Pastor has been taught, What is preached from the pulpit, And ... why the difference!

Much, if not most, of what is preached on Sunday mornings is different than what is taught in reputable Christian colleges and seminaries. This disconnect is fast becoming the leading factor in the continued decline of Christianity in the United States.

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LOVE is what we are made for!

1 Cor. 13 and Romans 8:37-39

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:”

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Tokyo’s Tokenism

What mutuality, what enduring training, what end outcomes!
Yes, unique opportunities to serve and not to count the cost,
to see the outcome not of individual medals or near misses
but the true sharing of the Common Good.

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Blessing of Smart Phones

  Not long ago, I “mused” about my new friend at USC, Shane Cole – whom I refer to affectionately as a “digital Mennonite”.  He’s founding a student club he is calling “Digital Detox” – to promote a radically …

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Our Dark Wicked Side

We have a dark wicked side. It controls many of our thoughts and actions. It ensnares the smart and the dumb, the privileged and the non privileged, the healthy and the sick. In today’s world it undermines many of our economic, social, political, philosophical and religious structures.

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There are many ways to the truth (salvation)

If there are many ways to the truth (salvation), can we preach that Krishna (or any other God) as one of the ways to attain salvation? Or, can we proclaim “In the name of Krishna your sins can be forgiven”?

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The Land is Not Empty

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.

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Dear White Peacemakers

Dismantling Racism with Grit and Grace

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.

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Christian Mindfulness

It’s a tough task to be spiritually mindful in the midst of the chaos in a world where most of our moments have been seized by a mindless environment. A framework is needed to accomplish purposeful mindfulness throughout the day while attending to our necessary obligations, ideally leading to mental, physical, spiritual health.

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In our own Image

All my life, I have been taught by the church that I have been created ‘in the image of God’.   This is one of the fundamental teachings about human beings that has been given to me by the church. 

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Paul, a Jewish Christ Mystic

Both Jesus and Paul were mystics, as, indeed, were most of the prophets.  The insights and experiences of Christian mystics are important to any evolving understanding of Christian faith.  Mysticism (mystical experience) reveals the significance of imagination, feelings, and intuition in the human spirit as human beings continue to explore the wonder and mystery of relationship to the Spirit.

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Chinese Version: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism

Eugene Lo Wei is an American Presbyterian Elder and the representative for ProgressiveChristianity.org in China.

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Change Begins Here: Adopt the Mind of Christ and Build a Better World

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

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On communion.

Who gets to receive the goods?

  House for All Sinners & Saints was only about a year old when I took a Sunday morning phone call from a young parishioner who had gone home to Grand Rapids for a weekend visit. I …

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The Self-Destructive American Church

I talk to a lot of people who grapple with religious doubts. Many of them harbor doubts about traditional faith, including a personal, supernatural, providential, and interventionalist God. An even larger number of them express doubts about institutional religion.

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The search for Hope, Trust and Contentment for the Nones, Dones And Discouraged

Are you curious why the church is “way out of tune” with today’s times?
…how a 21st century None, Done or Discouraged might be attracted to a 21st century understanding of church and Jesus??

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Eclipsing Empire – DVD Version

Join preeminent New Testament scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan on location in Turkey as they trace the Apostle Paul’s footsteps throughout the Roman Empire.

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Saving Jesus Redux – Home Edition

Saving Jesus Redux Home Editionis a 12-episode video exploration of a credible Jesus for the 21st Century. Join 25 experts for a conversation around the relevance of Jesus for today.

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Celebrating the Cosmos Liturgy

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.

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Swimming upstream against bias toward black hair at Olympics

The least of the Olympics’ concerns should be that of swim caps for black hair. However, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) of the IOC said the design of the swim caps does not fit “the natural form of the head,” a statement eerily reminiscent of the Eugenics Movement propaganda to substantiate both black anatomical and intellectual inferiority. 

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Oops. Seem to have had a revelation…

Some things done in the name of God by people of religious communities have been some of the lowest acts of humanity.

While I’m not the clergy-person who might have caused you hurt, I would like to apologize on their behalf. Because, it seems, they owe you an apology—and at this time they are unable to give it to you.

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United, Undivided

We are all Americans – of all ethnicities, cultures, and political persuasions.  We won’t allow ourselves to be divided.  We stand up, speak out, and we vote for preserving our democracy through free and fair elections to express the will of our majority, so that we can secure liberty and justice for all.

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Memorial Homily for Disability Rights Leader Bob Alllamand

Over fifty years a quadriplegic, Bob Allamand was one of four spokespersons at the historic San Francisco Federal Building sit- in which precipitated the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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Creating Every Day Thought by Thought

I was not one who believed in a geographical expanse between Heaven and Earth. It all pretty much boiled down to the one moment we had right in front of us. The eternal now. The kingdom is within and all around you is the Biblical phrase I stood by.

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Natural disasters and God’s self-restraint  

Traditionally, religions offer a God who is omnipotent, all-powerful, almighty, the cosmic sovereign in control of everything.   He/she/it is also said to be all-knowing, omniscient, so he knows not only what he is doing but what everybody and everything else is going to do, and will do, from beginning to end.  This is brave belief of what God is.   But is this the sort of God we observe today?  

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Heresy is Good

The “Heresy Is Good” podcast is about fighting back against the right-wing evangelicals’ disinformation and distortion of the gospel, their hypocrisy, and their willful ignorance of Christian history.

The “Heresy Is Good” podcast is about fighting back against the evangelicals’ disinformation and distortion of the gospel.

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Here We Go Again!

We can no longer deny that the seeds of racism and hatred are growing at a pace which threatens to choke our long-ago dreams of a multicultural paradise.

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How do we catch up with friends when we are still figuring out who we are now?

On AA, Lazarus, and Our Emotional Bodyguards

How do we allow for who we are now and allow for who others are as well. How do we remember to show the curiosity toward our friends that we need for others to show toward us. How do we not treat others as if they are the same, when of course they are not?

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Beautiful words from Asher Callahan

God is still creating you. You are no less beautiful and wild than a sunset or a beach or a puffin. You are loved. You have a place here.

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