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To the Hawaiians, Aloha means “God in us.”

The Center for Open and Relational Theology exists to promote… open and relational thinking, networking among like-minded people, projects that build upon or advance open and relational ideas, announce news, and provide open and relational theology resources.

Though our culture tends to praise youth while apparently being embarrassed by aging (offering a multi-billion dollar industry to hide it) the ancient sages did not see it that way. In fact, even though very many young people are very smart, it is difficult to be wise without first living a long time. The aged, according to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Marcus Aurelius owe a debt of meaningful guidance to the world. Those who can retire should retire to something rather than simply retiring from work.

There was a time when neither Jesus nor his followers thought of or described him as God. Why is it that so many Christians are now required to confess that Jesus was always God?

A school district in Pennsylvania, in attempt to collect about $20,000 (against an $8 million budget) of unpaid lunch room bills, sent letters to parents with accounts in arrears threatening to have their children placed in foster care if they did not pay. It forces us to wonder how people whose careers are in the care and nurture of children could become so callous and lost?

I wanna be good, I wanna do better
Wanna live long, be strong, but I know I won’t live forever
So while I’m alive, I’m gonna make a spark
And I hope that my life will be a light, shining bright for those who are lost in the dark

For Jesus, for Gandhi, for Dr. King, for the 3.4 billion people who participated in non-violent resistance in the 20th century, pacifism isn’t… well, passive. It is active and creative and frequently uses systems of domination against themselves. Those of us who wish to follow the teachings of Jesus should look to the early church and their non-violent practices and then spend more time understanding how this works and then, ultimately, replicate it in our lives.

What is “evidence based faith” and how does it inform the progressive faith movement? This important lecture was delivered in April at the Anderson SC Progressive Theology Forum and in June at the Secular Liturgies Conference in Exeter, England. This recording was made at the Annual Conference of the Emerging Church in Springfield, MO.

Two mass shooting events took place on Saturday morning, August 3, in Texas, and that night in Dayton, Ohio. In both incidents, the shooter was stopped, the first in 6 minutes, the second in less than a minute. Still, in both cases people were killed and many more wounded because of the insanely powerful, military style weapons available for purchase all over America. This cannot go on.

Finding peace through social justice.

Imagine how your own relationship with the divine might evolve if you stopped worrying about believing in God and began to belove the DIVINE MYSTERY we call God. What might it look like in your life to belove the DIVINE that lives and breathes and has BEING in, with, through, and beyond you; in, with, and through, and beyond your neighbours?

Physicists, Buddhist monks, and Christian mystics affirm in unity that “we are all connected.” This is fundamental to a spiritual world view. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars, if others are poor. I can never be truly healthy while others languish without healthcare. The opposite of spirituality, a perspective sadly seen not only within secular culture but also at the heart of many religious communities, is to see the world only from the perspective of how to advance our own cause, increase our wealth, comfort and sense of security.

Sermon Video: Scripture Reading – 1 John 4:7-21

    Bishop Yvette Flunder is a native San Franciscan and third generation preacher with roots in the Church of God in Christ. Bishop Flunder is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and holds …

Sermon Video: Scripture Reading – Luke 10:1-11 – Allysene Watson

Softly and tenderly Jesus is callingCalling for you and for meWalking his pathway toward joy and compassionCalling for you and for me

Sermon Video with Rev. Mark Sandlin, Church of the Covenant (PCUSA), Greensboro, NC.

What we know about the gospel-storyteller that we call Luke is that he wrote close to the end of the first century. Some 50 to 60 years after the life of Jesus of Nazareth; a time when the full force of the mighty Roman Empire was being brought to bear upon the Jewish people and upon the followers of Jesus’ Way of being in the world.