****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-THIS WEBSITE IS NO LONGER ACTIVE****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!

It is Written in The Message, Ephesians Chapter 1, that Christ rules the Universe, all of it, from galaxies to governments, no one exempt from His power, He has the final say on all things. I have been trying to reconcile this for two years, to understand if this is a metaphor or actual truth, what is your perception?

I want to give some thought to one of the most often invoked rituals in Christian and secular circles, namely giving of thanks. Thanksgiving, depending on the bible translation, is used about thirty-five times in the bible. The word “thanks” counts over a hundred times. Thank, thanked, thanking, thankful, thankfulness and thankworthy, all are used in some translation of the bible.

The story should be approached more carefully in order to capture its spirit, its “message,” and less doctrinally. Though we have come to celebrate this gem as a—perhaps the–Christmas story, I’d urge us progressives to put aside the story’s Christian provenance while still admiring its central, its deeply humane affirmation. And we should above all appreciate the profoundly secular arena in which it plays out.

Today: the Feast of St. Nicholas, the ancient precursor to the modern Santa Claus, will pass without much ado. Some will try to encourage us to resurrect St. Nicholas to save us all from Santa’s powers for we have gone astray. To those well meaning souls who would rid Christmas of its flagrant consumerism, I can only offer up a feeble, “Baa Humbug!”

It’s fair to say that two points of view concerning the life and death of Jesus developed early within Christianity. One was carried by the Christian West and is still prominent in the West today. The other was carried by the Christian East and may not be as well known to a lot of Western Christians.

My friend, Aria Nostic (self-proclaimed agnostic, if not atheistic) asked me how I pray to God, if God is not a personal god. “We know there is no supernatural god in heaven intervening in nature and human affairs.”

The Christmas message therefore, is not for the Wall Street billionaires and department store owners. It’s not for powerful politicians or military leaders. Rather, Christmas is for the working poor, the disenfranchised, the homeless, and the teenage single mom who chose to keep her baby and is struggling to finish school so she can support her child.

  Honest to Goodness proposes a new Christian presence that is free of dogmatism, exclusivism, and biblicism. It charts a way back to the spiritual and ethical revolution begun by Jesus of Nazareth, one that can make …

What happens when a former Zen Buddhist monk and his feminist wife experience an apparition of the Virgin Mary?

“This book could not have come at a more auspicious time, and the message is mystical perfection, not to mention a courageous one. I adore this book.”—Caroline Myss, author of “Anatomy of the Spirit”

A people’s spirituality derives, slowly, in association with their daily perceptions, feelings, reflections, occupations and actions. And from time to time we assess who we are in this process.

It is commonly assumed that Jesus had 12 male disciples, the number being fashioned after the 12 tribes of Israel. Whether or not there were 12 tribes named after 12 men is a question for next week. The question for today is: did Jesus have women disciples, and who were they?

The Peoples’ Bible highlights the role of cultures in shaping the Bible and the way people read the Bible today. Relying on the best insights of historical-critical, liberationist, postmodern, and postcolonial interpretation the contributors include the editors of the volume plus Kosuke Koyama, Randall C. Bailey, Fernando
F. Segovia, Elsa Tamez, Clarice Martin, Hee An Choi, Gale A. Yee, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, and many more.

Toward Decentering the New Testament is the first introductory text to the New Testament written by an African American woman biblical scholar and an Asian-American male biblical scholar. This text privileges the voices, scholarship, and concerns of minoritized nonwhite peoples and communities.

A few weeks ago, I stood on a hill in Edinburgh, Scotland, at sunset. Somewhere on that mound, one of my ancestors was burned as a heretic by the Catholic Church and died as martyr to the new Protestant faith. As the sun fell toward the horizon, the sky turned red – a fitting fiery tribute – and through the blazing clouds a double rainbow formed. A sort of divine apology for whole mess? I couldn’t help but wonder.

The idea of a theocracy was despised by the founding fathers of America as the ruinous combination of kings and religion in the history of Europe demonstrated. A king is basically a form of theocracy in that kings are supposedly placed there by God and they all claimed to be so! Caesar claimed not only to be placed by God but he was an embodiment of God. But, Jesus said, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar and give unto God what is God’s”.

I Found God in Me is the first womanist biblical hermeneutics reader. In it readers have access, in one volume, to articles on womanist interpretative theories and theology as well as cutting-edge womanist readings of biblical texts by womanist biblical scholars.

Womanist Sass and Talk Back is a contextual resistance text for readers interested in social (in)justice. Smith raises our consciousness about pressing contemporary social (in)justice issues that impact communities of color and the larger society. Systemic or structural oppression and injustices, police profiling and brutality, oppressive pedagogy, and gendered violence are placed in dialogue with sacred (con)texts.

Building on the enthusiastic reception of and critical acclaim for The Peoples’ Bible, hailed as “a rich resource” (Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza) that “will empower people to reclaim the Bible as a multicultural, dialogical, and living tradition” (Kwok Pui-lan), this colorful and engaging biblical textbook brings those same new perspectives in biblical studies to the college classroom.