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Rev. David Felten interviewed Bishop John Shelby Spong on September 18, 2018 at his home in Virginia.

I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.

“The Christian life is not about pleasing God the finger-shaker and judge. It is not about believing now or being good now for the sake of heaven later. It is about entering a relationship in the present that begins to change everything now. Spirituality is about this process: the opening of the heart to the God who is already here.”

I was recently a bystander on a Facebook thread about being Buddhist and Christian. My name was raised as an example of someone, how shall we say, “spiritually fluid.” A lovely term coined by Duane Bidwell, a professor at Claremont School of Theology, Presbyterian minister, and long time Buddhist practitioner.

At the end of a short story by Heinrich von Kleist there is the line: “I would not have found you to be such a devil if you had not presented yourself as being so angelic.”

I realized that this can apply to our conceptions of God. We have been told many bizarre things about God that have led to unrealistic expectations. So I start with the famous quote from Bonhoeffer “God is weak and powerless in the world…” and explore a proper relationship given this fact.

In Fr. Rohr’s fourth stage of spiritual development, he describes the Christian model of incarnation: that Jesus lived on earth in a human body. Ann and Debo help us understand this phase, describing how liberating it can be to fully experience ourselves in our own bodies. As we turn inwards into ourselves, we grow beyond just the doctrine of the church and begin having a real-life inner experience of the Holy Spirit.

These pages represent more than a book. Actually they present a revolutionary call to personal, societal and cosmic wholeness.

In Miracles, Messages and Metaphors: Unlocking the Wisdom of the Bible, Norm Carroll searches beyond the literal to embrace a biblical interpretation that is based on the meaning intended by the sacred author.

Deacon Norm Carroll has published two new books: “Miracles, Messages and Metaphors: Unlocking the Wisdom of the Bible” and “The Whole Story: The Wedding of Science and Religion”

God’s grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God’s grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word … it’s that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit.

I’m considering attending a United Universalist Church, the closest thing to Progressive Christianity I can find in my area. I hesitate because I don’t want to lose my focus on the Christ path as it has been so fruitful in my life.

For thousands of years the Adam and Eve story has dominated the lives of billions of people. Two small chapters! How is this even possible? With today’s social media we can see how an idea, no matter how ludicrous or absurd, can spawn and flourish in a matter of days resulting in riots and mass social upheaval. The same process worked thousands of years ago over longer periods of time but with the same net result. In many ways the old methods were more effective because they were backed up by legions of sword bearing devotees and enthusiasts or people just trying to make a buck.

This post is an orientation to our virtual pilgrimage — which I am so excited about! Together, we will journey to 12 Black Madonnas all over the globe — from the Caribbean to Latin America to Asia to Africa and Europe. Each stop on our pilgrimage will include four invitations — (1) to consider my own brief reflections about how cultural perceptions of race and gender impact our experience of the Divine, (2) to engage an idea/piece of art/beauty as we think about our own experiences of the Divine, (3) to reflect on several questions either individually or in community, and (4) to practice a different way of interacting with the world that will hopefully open us up to new experiences of the Divine. 

Many of the things the Christian church professes are things that happened over 2,500 years ago. We know by science and technology that certain things simply could not have happened the way the Bible says. It might have been all right in those early years to believe in certain ways because nobody knew any different, but to continue to propagate ancient beliefs and myths is unconscionable in my opinion. I remember one theologian saying, “You wouldn’t take your sick child to a doctor who practices medicine like they did some 18 centuries ago, would you?” So why do we practice our religion like they did that long ago?

You say you won’t serve a woman who is outsides God’s definition of marriage. It is sin.

So, I ask is your plan to provide services only to those without sin in their lives? Will you turn away those who are divorced? Surely, their sin is equal to hers. What about those who harbor resentment to a family member? Will you screen them out as well?

Durham Street Methodist ChristChurch New Zealand (Aotearoa) January 20, 2019 service led by Rev. Bill Wallace featuring some of his hymns. Our theme today is Christian Theology and global warming.

As anyone who’s read or listened to me share my journey over the years knows full well, I have now arrived at a place (at least for now!) where – in my thinking, and with the window through which I see the world these days – I call myself a “post-theist.”

In light of the many thousands of neglected, abandoned, and starving children in need of stable homes, there are palpable and important benefits of adoption. At risk of repeating a tired cliche, what do you think Jesus would do if faced with the choice of having his own children versus taking children in from the street and adopting them as his own? After all, according to Matthew 1:18, Jesus was adopted by Joseph and without him would have been raised fatherless and solely by Mary.