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“Without contemplation people just don’t really grow because they’re so addicted to their way of thinking. That’s the universal addiction. Your way of thinking is what you’re addicted to…I am, too. And without contemplation I wouldn’t have known how to loosen my grip on my way of thinking.”

What is the ending to the human drama? Will all be reconciled to God in the end? Does God demand an altar, a corpse, and blood? Or, rather, is the Christian God set apart from all the other gods throughout history? All Set Free sets out to answer some of the more difficult questions Christians today are faced with. It will challenge the Augustinian understanding of hell and the Calvinist understanding of the atonement; replacing them with a more Christ-centered understanding of both doctrines. This book will also use the work of René Girard in order to reshape how many understand “what it means to be human.” Then and only then should we ask: “Who is God?” Come explore what has become Matthew’s theological pilgrimage to this point. Come discover the God of peace.

Spiritual awareness often begins at the point where our inner thoughts reflectively seek meaning in the external world of our drama. This search empowers the transformation of unconscious perception into awakened vision. Such clarity creates the understanding that we are always, consciously or unconsciously, choosing and co-creating our existence.

“Don’t you believe in the Trinity?” a friend asked last week, after I reacted negatively to a stranger saying that Jesus is God. I admit, I overreacted a bit, calling the latter belief idolatry, though discretely not to the person who asserted it. The person declaring Jesus their God did not affirm this in the context of Trinity: Jesus apparently stood as “Lord” all by himself in this man’s view.

The Earth’s diverse yet mutually supporting systems are forcing a limit on the continued increase in the human population. If the increase continues, in the near future extreme suffering will result. Our species’ extinction is a possibility. The harsh reality is that males impregnate females. Females then produce babies. Our species is producing too many babies.

Unlike other forms of life, we humans have a measure of control over our thoughts and actions. That control is exercised through what the renowned ethicist Herschel Elliott called our conscious behavior. One form of that behavior is seen in the way the male sex views the female sex and both view the continuation of family. That is the subject of this essay.

Christ for Unitarian Universalists is an engaging and thoughtful inquiry into Christianity for Unitarian Universalists and other spiritual seekers–including skeptics, non-religious people, liberal Christians, and those who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious.”

To the extent that Progressive Christians seek to reform Christianity, and to the extent that Progressive Christians seek to overturn deeply held faiths, Progressive Christians are pursuing contradictory goals. Getting someone to give up his or her foundational beliefs requires the power of persuasive facts. But there are no facts regarding the existence and nature of Divinity. Therefore, a more realistic goal is to persuade people that it is valuable to them to exchange personal testimonials to faith experiences, without judgment, and to create a reformed church where this is fostered.

From a rich lode of speeches, articles in eBulletins, and numerous publications, Fred Plumer has mined those that define the Progressive Christianity movement as it evolves to meet new challenges in a rapidly changing world.

Accepting that the world has a beginning and an end leads to a dismissive view of poverty, pollution, warfare, and social classes. While everyone certainly has a right to their personal beliefs about life after death, Muslims, Christians, and Jews must focus on the life that we know and to root our faith in what we can see in front of us. The early church was so confident that Jesus was coming back soon that they ignored many important matters of ethics. We cannot afford to make that mistake.

El Shaddai, Eloheim, Rauach, Chokma, Rechem, YAHWEH, these are the ancient biblical Hebrew names for the reality that we call God. El Shaddai which translates as “she – breasted one, ”Eloheim which is the feminine plural for “majesty,” Rauach a feminine word for “wind” “breath” “spirit,” Chokma, a feminine word for “wisdom.” Rechem also a feminine word which translates as “ womb love” mother love, compassion. YAHWEH – I AM, WHO AM or I shall be who I shall be Ancient biblical Hebrew names for the reality that we call God.

In the US, now is a better time to be an atheist than ever. A serious candidate for the presidency has declared on national television that he does not believe in God. The percentage of declared atheists and religiously unaffiliated people in America has risen substantially in recent years. To lack or reject religion is becoming considerably more socially acceptable.

That’s why the non-religious, and avowed atheists in particular, need theistic allies to defend them, more than ever.

The important question for most biblical scholars is not whether the Ascension actually happened but rather, what did the Ascension mean to the author in his context. And to that question we might add a more pressing question: Given what the Ascension meant in the first century, does it continue to have any relevance for those of us who live in the 21st century?

This is the message sent out to the world by a well-known spiritual leader. “Life without God is like a non-sharpened pencil. It has no point.” If you are triggered, first start by noticing your trigger, and breathe. At least that’s what I had to do.

Seriously? Please tell me I did not just read that? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! My thoughts focused on how divisive the statement is. You just alienated atheists, secular humanists, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and God knows how many millions of others! (Pun intended!) I don’t know about you, but I am in no position to tell an atheist, or anyone else for that matter, their life is pointless. I feel confident that brilliant and compassionate atheists like Bill Gates, Simone de Beauvoir, Butterfly McQueen, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mark Twain, to name a few, would disagree as well. Not to mention, I see their atheist lives as anything BUT pointless!

Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.

If we give up our rights to peaceably gather, protest and to question the motives of our elected officials under the cowardly fear of being labeled unpatriotic, then clearly, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, we deserve neither liberty nor safety. We appear to be on track, as planned, to succumb to the paranoiac and insistent boil of fear and terrorism as feed through the media and those who pull at the strings of power. If this happens and we do not move quickly, then like a frog placed in a pan of cool water on a stovetop…we will not discern the change in the water’s temperature as it is steeped to a boil. Jump, as it (or we) could out of the pan at any time, the frog never does, and thus dies as a result of confusion while in the boiling water.

Once we had known, with clear conviction, the difference between right and wrong. As a people we were taught to protect the weak, right the wronged and fight for freedom. Now however, the moral compass of our heart had been turned, and with this, our minds rebuffed into submission. Values of goodness, which once defined our great nation, were now being defined by powers, we were told, were more wise than ourselves. They knew better and had our best interests at heart. They would protect us from what we were told to fear and what was beyond our capability to understand. We willingly allowed ourselves to be guided into a cauldron of water which was quickly being brought to a boil by flames of fears and fascism.

Faith is the doctrine for happiness
Love, a scripture of life;
Service, our processional
Peace, the eternal rite