Menu
  • About
  • All Columns
    • Samples
    • Videos
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • My Account
Expand
    • Categories
    • Date
    • Column Title (Phrase or Keyword)
    • Column Content (Phrase or Keyword)
 
1-25 of 926 « ‹ Page 1 of 38 › »
  • Habits Can Help or Hurt…

    Column by Toni Reynolds on April, 22 2021

    While I am not personally optimistic about the idea of opening things up with the speed I see in my local community, it is happening. Without much help I find myself questioning if I will be more like the Osprey or the wasp.

    God, as viewed in the Old Testament is a God who demands that we please him. He was a God of Punishment, and reward. Those who pleased him …

    Answered by Rev. Fran Pratt
  • Easter People

    Column by Rev. Fran Pratt on April, 15 2021

    This past Lent I practiced lying fallow. I avoided news and social media. I wrote all my Lenten liturgies ahead of time. I gave myself permission to do the bare minimum of work (I’m a pastor and parent, so this part was flexible). I imagined myself as a field, unplanted in a year of Jubilee.

    I wonder if fiddling around on the periphery on the issues of gay and lesbian rights can ever yield what the Church lacks: a compelling vision which, if …

    Answered by Rev. Irene Monroe
  • We Must Call Out Hate

    Column by Rev. Irene Monroe on April, 8 2021

    Entertaining Long’s sexual addiction as a believable explanation for the killings diverts attention from his acts of intentional xenophobia and racialized misogyny. The fetishization of Asian American and Pacific Island women has constantly made their lives expendable to sex traffickers and men’s violent fantasies.

    How can we stop the hate and bring the far right & left together to find the middle we can walk together and work for the USA’s …

    Answered by Rev. Jim Burklo
  • Otherdoxy: A Questionable of Faith

    Column by Rev. Jim Burklo on April, 1 2021

    There are many questions that mainstream science can’t answer, at least at the moment.  Ethical and moral questions, such as: who should get the Covid vaccine first?  And how can such a prioritization be made understandable and acceptable to the public?  Science provides data upon which such judgments can be made, but ultimately we can’t trust science itself to sort them out. 

    If there are many ways to the truth (salvation), can we preach that Krishna (or any other God) as one of the ways to attain salvation? Or, can …

    Answered by Rev. Lauren Van Ham
  • We are Wonder-FULL

    Column by Rev. Lauren Van Ham on March, 25 2021

    Why, in all of this relatedness, do we feel so disconnected?  Depleted?  Empty?  Because we mistakenly turn that which is divinely relational, into something inhumanely transactional.  And, to make this sin livable, we turn our heads and forget our neoteny.  Children don’t allow this sort of behavior.  We are born into relatedness and unity. 

    I am an Anglican, but having accepted the concept of a non-theistic God, I feel uncomfortable attending church with all its outdated forms of worship. To leave …

    Answered by Rev. Gretta Vosper
  • If Not God, Then What?

    Column by Rev. Gretta Vosper on March, 18 2021

    Using the word “god” to conjure an all-powerful deity with biblically-proportioned prejudices and condemnations is dramatically different from using the word “god” to call us to a “no matter what” sort of love. I talk about this a lot. About ditching archaic language. About reading more than just the Bible or not reading the Bible at all.

    Am I the only one out here who makes sure my people understand the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper/Communion service has its roots in the Passover story …

    Answered by Rev. Roger Wolsey
  • The Soul of Progressive Christianity

    Column by Rev. Roger Wolsey on March, 11 2021

    Lent is a time where we’re invited to engage in deepened soul-searching. I’ve been feeling called to search the soul of progressive Christianity.

    * In general, what is the Progressive Christian understanding of the word “grace”?

    * Specifically, what is the grace referred to in the 5th point of Progressive Christianity, which says that …

    Answered by Rev. Mark Sandlin
  • The Bible is Political

    Column by Rev. Mark Sandlin on March, 4 2021

    The Bible has a political agenda. Even with all the different writers who contributed to different books, there is a clear biblical bias against the powerful using their places of authority to step on those who are already suffering. That’s political.

     

    If there is no theistic God does prayer even make sense, who would I be praying to?

    Answered by Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers
  • Saving God From Religion

    Column by Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers on February, 25 2021

    Let’s be clear, this is an audacious idea.  Writing a book about God is an audacious project.  In fact, claiming to know anything about God is more than audacious—it is intellectual blasphemy.  So, to begin, let me be clear.  I have no idea what I am talking about.  

    I’m agnostic and if it’s true there is no hell it would be a relief, but this has raised some questions: What about those who have sinned? What …

    Answered by Rev. Aurelia Dávila Pratt
  • We are the Spacemakers

    Column by Rev. Aurelia Dávila Pratt on February, 18 2021

    Because I choose to remain within the church, I have to ask myself regularly “why do I believe what I believe?” and also “why do I stick around?” Why do I choose to stay put when the church has caused so much harm?

    How important and relevant is the Gospel of Thomas in our continuing search for the real Jesus? How does it help us to interpret his message and mission?

    Answered by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox
  • What is Patriarchy, anyway?

    Column by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox on February, 11 2021

    There is – and ought to be – plenty of criticism of Patriarchy at this time in history.  But for that very reason there needs to be a critical understanding of what it is – and is not.

    In my studies of the ancient Israelites, I am learning that the Israelites were very possibly Canaanites broken away from the various sites of Canaanite cities and that …

    Answered by Dr. Carl Krieg
  • America’s Greedy and America’s Gullible: Ezekiel Speaks

    Column by Dr. Carl Krieg on February, 4 2021

    From Ezekiel to Jesus to the voices of the gospels, the proclamation is clear: civilization will not, indeed cannot, survive if wealth and power, and therefore food and shelter, are in the possession of but a few. Equally so, democracy will not and cannot survive if the bullies are allowed free reign.

    What are your thoughts on Divine Ground?

    Answered by Rev. Deshna Charron Shine
  • What Pulls At Your Heart

    Column by Rev. Deshna Charron Shine on January, 28 2021

    My church was my extended family. And in my years of searching, I have yet to find a church like it, although I am sure they are out there.  So, why did I feel like, at 29 years old, that I was done with Christianity?

    Trying to figure out what Christianity is all about, I ask a lot of questions. All I want is a simple answer, but I keep getting different opinions …

    Answered by Rev. David M. Felten
  • At Cross Purposes

    Column by Rev. David M. Felten on January, 21 2021

    As one who’s had to endure a career in a denomination whose global trademark is a burning cross, it once again raised the question in my mind of how the cross, burning or otherwise, had become a symbol of hate and White Supremacy.

    I have a question about the relationship of Progressive Christianity and Jesus. I have always been told that despite their denominational difference all Christians understand Jesus to be …

    Answered by Brian McLaren
  • Doubt, Faith, and Why Breaking Up (with Authoritarianism) is Hard to Do

    Column by Brian McLaren on January, 14 2021

     

    I grew up in a 6-day creation sector of Christianity. Evolution, we were taught, was a Satanic deception to make us lose our faith. It was a banana …

    What Christian principles can help us make it through difficult times like these?

    Answered by Toni Reynolds
  • My Penny

    Column by Toni Reynolds on January, 7 2021

    I feel a small bit like the woman who threw her last penny into the offering pot in the temple. This article is my penny, this column is the offering pot, the readership is the Temple. Because this is the most precious penny I have at the moment.

     

    I was on a Zoom social with a few friends recently. They are of various races, but mostly black. I am white and good friends …

    Answered by Rev. Irene Monroe
  • Where Do We Go from Here, Redux

    Column by Rev. Irene Monroe on December, 31 2020

    The year 2020 has been a stressful one. With George Floyd’s death as an inflection point about race and racism in America, an unprecedented presidential election, and social unrest during an ongoing pandemic with a rising death toll, something is deeply broken in America’s body politic. 

    I have been an on and off member of a Assemblies of God church  15 years –  the pastor is more liberal in his style of message giving. They …

    Answered by Rev. Jim Burklo
  • Just Looking at Christmas

    Column by Rev. Jim Burklo on December, 24 2020

    Such is the looking at the figures in the crèche scene at the birth of Jesus. The crèche is a window into the eternal quality of the now, an icon of the divine point of view. It is the slack-jawed, timeless, aimless, free, worshipful Awe that is Love that is God. 

    I find the notion of human sacrifice abhorrent, and yet the whole dogma of the church is based on the crucifixion of Jesus.   The cross wasn’t even …

    Answered by Rev. Lauren Van Ham
  • Getting Beyond the Usual: Giving Birth to Jesus in the 2020s

    Column by Rev. Lauren Van Ham on December, 17 2020

    There are 3 parts of Jesus’s birth story that we want to open here, like gifts.  There are many parts of this story that, once unwrapped, hold great truth and importance including dreams, angels and what was going on for Joseph. 

    How do we really know what Jesus said?  They get so much wrong.  Is it not a house of cards?

    Answered by Bishop John Shelby Spong
  • Except for God… freedom never kneels.

    Column by Rev. Gretta Vosper on December, 10 2020

    It has been a burdensome year and it is likely to get worse before it is over.

    I am officially a Roman Catholic. Over the past 10 years I have suffered a number of adverse life experiences which have seriously weakened the aforementioned faith. Basically …

    Answered by Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.
  • Grateful & Communal Creatures: ZOOM & The Dynamic Reality Of Being Saved

    Column by Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. on December, 3 2020

    When you gaze up into the night sky, perhaps from the sateen darkness of Glacier National Park, or the cozy vestibule of your backyard, what do you see? Pin-wheeling galaxies? Endless expanse of interstellar space? Familiar special neighbors such as Orion or Ursa Major?

    I’m an interested non-believer who is very fond of progressive faith traditions and their communities. I just finished reading the chapter in the book

    Answered by Rev. Roger Wolsey
  • Ball of Confusion

    Column by Rev. Roger Wolsey on November, 26 2020

    “Man [Humankind] can’t become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs. To free him of all social pressure is to abandon him to himself and demoralize him.”

    Can’t say I disagree on your article

    Answered by Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer
  • A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, Part III

    Column by Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer on November, 19 2020

    Too many whites argue that slavery is a thing of the past for which present day whites are not responsible. In the previous two essays, I tried to debunk that myth. It is the cause of so much pain today for black and white Americans.

    I love your writing and your views that embrace compassionate deeds rather than creedal concepts. It seems to me that your message would have a much broader appeal …

    Answered by Bishop John Shelby Spong
  • Surrendering to the Will of Earth

    Column by Jennifer Wilson on November, 12 2020

    The origins of the word surrender come from the French roots for “to give back,” and “over.” And that is exactly what surrender is. It is not laying down our arms, it is not choosing peace over justice, it is not breathing deeply and meditating our way out of our pain. True surrender speaks to our relationship with our common mother, the Earth. It means to give back to her, over and over again, above and beyond what we think we are capable of giving. 

     
    “I stopped going to church because it just seems to be the same thing all the time. Same sermons, same actions, same results. I’m not sure we …

    Answered by Rev. Mark Sandlin
  • Eternal Totality: On a More Rational God

    Column by Rev. Mark Sandlin on November, 5 2020

    Religion prefers a definable God. By definition, one of the purposes of religion is to draw us closer to God. The way religion has typically been practiced, this implies some degree of “knowing” God. To know God we must be able to define God. The problem is, in the act of defining God, we are limiting God.

    I embrace today’s “new age spirituality” where Mind, Body and Spirit are aligned under a new paradigm of oneness with all –  that no longer supports the dogma …

    Answered by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox
1-25 of 926 « ‹ Page 1 of 38 › »

Ask a Question and have it answered by us!

Ask Us

Join us for enlightened, progressive thinking.

Subscribe
  • Progressing Spirit
  • ProgressiveChristianity.org
  • Contact
  • Signup
  • Privacy Policy
  • Help
  • About
 

Progressive Christianity
4810 Pt. Fosdick Dr. NW
#80
Gig Harbor, WA 98335 United States
© 2021 All Rights Reserved

Cancel