****YOU HAVE REACHED THIS WEBSITE IN ERROR
-THIS WEBSITE IS NO LONGER ACTIVE****
PLEASE OPEN A NEW WINDOW
AND GO TO OUR NEW WEBSITE AT

WWW.PROGRESSIVECHRISTIANITY.ORG 
THANK YOU!

Please resist me
Because resistance brings evolution
and you’ve resisted me consistently I thank you for your contribution
I’m a happy man
Your stupidity has made me strong
I’ve developed wings, a thick skin and this here opposable thumb
It holds my pen which loads my explodable tongue
So without loading a gun I’m killing high quotas of unemotional…

Many people are familiar with the devotional practice within Christian churches of praying the “Stations of the Cross.” In this book Bishop Marc Andrus and spiritual theologian Matthew Fox challenge believers and non-believers alike to develop a new practice based on very ancient teachings and the new cosmology: The Stations of the Cosmic Christ.

Pastoral care is not an exclusive responsibility of the clergy. As a matter of fact, pastoral care is often more effectively done by the laity. That reality became abundantly clear during my six month ministry at the Frankston Methodist Church in Frankston, Victoria, Australia.

The path to spiritual development isn’t all that complicated. It’s the motivation to walk that path which tends to stymie people.

Lent has come again (quite early this year!), and we should use it to start developing some of our atrophied spiritual muscles, like practicing solidarity. At its best, Lent is an opportunity to take up a spiritual practice, as opposed to superficially avoiding sweets. Learning how to listen for the sake of building solidarity is an essential practice for progressive Christians. Doing so is necessary if we are to break out of the mold we so often find ourselves caught in when it comes to relating to the suffering of others.

Courage does not mean fearlessness and is a quality that exists within all beings and can be accessed at any time. We need only to turn inward to face life’s challenges with the courage that is already ours. Feeling anxious or fearful of new outward circumstances is normal for most people, but finding the courage to face those circumstances means recognizing that our divine nature is perfectly equipped and we have the inner resources to handle challenges.

One way we can build an awareness of our inner wisdom, as well as create a spiritual life, is through prayer. God, the Divine Presence, the Spirit of Life and Love — whatever names we use for this Mystery permeating and holding all things in existence — comes to visibility in the human reality we are … Prayer is the means to deepen awareness that we are intimately connected and bonded with our planet, our universe and all that is in this Presence. It is the means to accept our responsibility for making the Presence of God visible and effective in the human species. Prayer is a way to express our commitment to give the best possible expression we can to this sacred presence. Prayer has to both encourage and challenge us: we pray to be better than we are. Prayer is not about words expressed to an elsewhere God. Prayer is about reflection on life and the interconnectedness of everyone and all things within God’s Presence. Prayer is an affirmation of this presence and of our dignity.

Gentrification of neighborhoods always disrupts existing communities within them. In the past several years, Harlem’s empty lots and burned-out buildings have sprung up luxury condos, upscale restaurants, boutique shops, hotels, B&Bs, and unimaginable improved services in an area the city had long forgotten. And the resentment of this shift has targeted both Harlem’s recent and life-long LGBTQ communities.

So let’s see what’s inside, quite literally unpacking our metaphor. First we find another bag hidden inside. This represents hidden spiritual baggage we carry with us even when we claim to be traveling light as progressive Christians. We may discover hidden dogma: hidden expectations, latent prejudices, unintended biases, beliefs that don’t play well with others.

Most people would define work as something that is hard to do and creativity as something fun. But when we are open to the sacred guidance that is abundant in the universe, work and creativity become the same thing. The most creative and inspiring work can be accomplished when we are open to all possibilities.
Being open to infinite possibilities means letting inspiration flow freely — and not blocking that flow with thoughts of what we want to happen or what other people might think of what we are doing.
Children can learn to feel for the right direction within and to recognize that every impulse is not the right one simply because it is there. Every time we remember to put our highest self in charge, the more inner joy and freedom we experience.

91 year-old, Johnny Barnes is a Bermuda native who embodies the LOVE that dwells in him. How might we embody the LOVE that dwells in us? What does, would, could, will the embodiment of LOVE look like in you?

Replace “slavery” with “global warming” and Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address in 1865 hits home not just in the ears but in the gut. Lincoln’s rhetoric still reaches into the soul of America and swells it with emotion and conviction. And integral to its impact is its use of Judeo-Christian language.

In the controversy over the lack of black nominees for Oscars, one Academy member facetiously asked if we were now to have an ethnic category “for your consideration.” I doubt very much that the man who asked the question is racist; after all, he has a black adopted daughter and black grandchildren.

In this revised edition—with a luminous foreword by Deepak Chopra and a new preface that
brings the book up to date with the cataclysmic events of the new millennium—Matthew Fox shows how, contrary to mainstream church teachings, flesh is the grounding of spirit, and how spirit and flesh are entwined with each other in a felicitous and spiritually nourishing bond. Firs published in 1999, Sins of the Spirit is Fox’s redefinition of sin for our time: pointing the way toward a deeper and more compassionate way to live while eloquently revealing the means to confront evil both within and without.

The first three questions of the Bible are of great significance to me.

Before I continue, let me explain my thinking about the Bible, albeit quickly and (perhaps a little) crassly: no one in the airline industry intended for the instructions about putting an oxygen mask on oneself before assisting others with their oxygen masks to be a moral lesson. Nonetheless, it is. Similarly, I do not believe that one needs to believe that the Bible is “The Word of God” to take moral lessons from it.

After a generation of being a leading progressive voice both in the pulpit and in the print media of Springfield, Missouri, Roger Ray has collected one hundred of his essays on topics of social justice, religion, sex, economics, warfare, and race as a collection for use in college classrooms, in adult discussion groups, and as an enjoyable collection of thought provoking articles that once appeared on the opinion page of the Springfield NewsLeader.

To move forward, congregations need to address these challenges and recruit, train and support leaders who can function effectively in a context marked by volatility, unpredictability, complexity and ambiguity. This will mean working in partnership with the clergy, and not in opposition to them, and accepting their need for training and accountability.

Renée Scheltema spend 4 years to create a Feature Documentary with a focus on the big picture of why humans have inadvertently been putting our planet in peril: climate change, species extinction, the depletion of critical natural resources, and industrial control of our food production.