The Episcopal Church on Monday overwhelmingly voted to allow the ordination of transgender people. At its triennial General Convention in Indianapolis, the church House of Deputies approved a change to the “nondiscrimination canons” to include “gender identity …
read moreTotal corporate profits for 2011 were $1.97 trillion. Corporations paid $181 billion in federal taxes (9%) and $40 billion in state taxes (2%), for a total tax burden of 11%. The poorest 20% of American citizens pay 17.4% in federal, state, and local taxes.
read moreWisdom is often mistaken as knowledge, prudence or pragmatism; whereas foolishness is equally regarded sometimes to be the kind of fool-hearted thing Jesus would have characteristically espoused with many of his confounding ideas about God, God’s ways and how we ought to treat one another. Truth be told, there are plenty of people who consider themselves much too smart to take seriously some of the darn fool things Jesus actually said and meant. But Jesus was no ordinary fool. A Words and Ways Commentary by John Bennison.
read moreFirst Light: Jesus and the Kingdom of God is a 12-episode DVD study of the historical Jesus and the Kingdom of God with John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, two of the world’s leading Jesus scholars, on location throughout the Galilee and Jerusalem, now available in a Home Edition for personal home viewing.
read moreLiving the Questions 2.0 Home Edition brings together over thirty highly acclaimed scholars, theologians and other experts in a video exploration of an open, inclusive, broad-minded Christianity. Already utilized by thousands of progressive Christian communities, LtQ2 Home Edition is licensed for private home viewing and includes three DVD discs with twenty-one 20-minute episodes.
read moreOnce again I left the freaking hot, dry, arid, climes of my home in Boulder, CO to head into the freaking, hot humid ones of the deep south to attend the 2nd annual Wild Goose Festival at the Shakori Hills Campgrounds south of Durham, NC. And, once again, I was enlivened, enriched, inspired, and renewed.
read moreJesus taught us to allow love for neighbor and concern for human beings to trump other concerns – even if it leads to healing on the Sabbath or eating sacred bread. Even if it means to breaking other laws, laws which according to the Bible were laid down by God himself.
read more(Reuters) – Austria’s Roman Catholic Church has laid down the law to its rebel priests by telling them they could not support a reform manifesto criticized by Pope Benedict and stay in an administrative post. One priest …
read morePaul insists, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”
Yes, freedom.
Paul was the Apostle of human freedom.
Basically, the Church was developing within a strongly partiarchal and heirarchical society…. Despite the freshness and hopefulness we see in Jesus and Paul, it is not surprising that male domination would soon assert itself and claim exclusive leadership privileges. Maybe women could lead among women, of course… no real complication or threat there.
read moreAbiding Spirit, you know us, and all of your Creation, better than we know ourselves.
read moreWho can know the different pathways
that have brought us to this day,
sharp felt scars, forgotten mem’ries
words affirm, or facts betray?
1. We embrace the urgent task of clarifying what it means to follow a “spiritual path” or a “faith” that is Christian in some manner. With this, we know we must increase dialog and exploration between two often-warring camps divided as “conservative” and “liberal.”
read moreIn every conflict, insurgency, uprising and revolution I have covered as a foreign correspondent, the power elite used periods of dormancy, lulls and setbacks to write off the opposition. This is why obituaries for the Occupy movement …
read moreWilliam Countryman points out in his book Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today that people in biblical times lived with an understanding of limited resources—there was only so much to go around. Thus greed was the greatest sin, because to desire something for oneself was to take it away from somebody else.
read moreIt lurks in the shadows, hidden from our vision;
It lurks in the shadows, often disguised with patronizing deeds;
If one were to honestly assess Occupy’s current strengths and weaknesses as a movement, confusion must be the inevitable result. This is because Occupy is not one movement, but an umbrella term that encompasses several different groups that …
read moreA small table with an unlit candle
sits in the center of an open space.
Those who have come to The Feast
form a circle around the table.