God is less tangible than a neutrino
(taking a short-cut? Or faster than light?
The growth of a progressive Christian congregation may not lie in its ability to make believers out of skeptics or to talk conventional Christians into switching their loyalties. Rather, the increase in membership is most likely to be the result of evangelism, that is, letting secular discover what others have found of value in the life of the church.
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Out in Suburbia has just been re-released on DVD
and is still selling to colleges, universities, and libraries.
To celebrate, we’d like to offer our fans a home video price.
The process the early followers of Jesus went through that resulted in the Church of Jesus Christ is fairly long, fairly obscure, and full of pitfalls for those who seek to recreate it.
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Shortly before his deadly rampage in Norway in July, Anders Behring Breivik posted a rambling Christian jihadist manifesto on his Facebook page. Within days, a self-professed Christian fundamentalist who blogs online claimed the mass murderer was no Christian because he “supports Darwinism and human logic, demonstrating a rationalist worldview rather than a Christian one.” Uh-oh. While I would also identify myself as some kind of “Christian,” I couldn’t resemble either of these two characters less. So what kinds of beliefs and behaviors do I accept and refute to describe my own “Christian” identity? What kind of a “Christian” am I? …
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We have much to be excited about here at ProgressiveChristianity.org- new staff, new projects, new website, new liturgy. Here is a summer’s end update from the President.
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I had the opportunity to do some extra reading this summer and I want to recommend three books that I found uniquely helpful and interesting. Two of these are big picture kinds of books and the other is a more scholarly but still a relatively easy read and simply fascinating.
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Rest now Peter, the next footsteps you see will be us, carrying you in our hearts.
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Soul Searching
In 1907, a physician name Duncan MacDougall from Haverhill, Massachusetts, set out to not only prove the existence of the human soul, but that it had a physical presence and substance, much like the heart and lungs, flesh, bone and blood. With the use of a large scale he recorded the weight of terminally ill patients at the moment of death, and discerned a drop of ¾ of an ounce. He deduced the fleeting soul not only existed, but left the body for who knows where, weighing a mere 21 grams.
The human heart has always longed to believe little ‘ol me is made up of something more than the dust of the earth, to which all mortal flesh returns. It has been part of the stuff of religious thinking since the beginning of human thought. For all its persuasive power to drive human beings to believe what cannot be known, and behave in the most radically extreme ways sometimes, the promise of an afterlife and immortality often remains void of much critical examination.
This commentary build on the earlier article, “Moving Heaven and Hell,” which can be found in the Center’s Library.
A god who favors me and people who are like me is just too small.
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Gandhi teaches us an important lesson about what to pray for.
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Whatever form prayer takes for us, we are in need of its medication.
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Religion is being bombarded from every quarter—by scientists, spiritualists, agnostics, ex-believers, non-believers and even those who had never bothered with it in the first place.
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Good is God…All the time!
I will say it again, Good is God…All the time!
Did you hear something different?
The world has grown too small and the stakes for mankind have grown too high for any of us to engage our faithas if our understanding of God represents the only way God s presence may be known in the world.
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Jesus speaks a great deal about possessions and priorities. What really matters in this life?
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If you are the light of the world, do you attract people to yourself or do you illuminate others?
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