The Final Days: Walking from Palm Sunday to Easter

We Christians are now in the midst of Holy Week, the
most solemn season of the liturgical year. This
sacred time still exercises compelling power since
church attendance …

Oklahoma! A State in Transition

When we hear the name of America’s 46th state, many
images fill our minds. “Oklahoma” was the first of
Rogers and Hammerstein’s ten Broadway musicals,
putting the name …

The Lamb of God: Jesus for the Non-Religious, Part III

In this series, to which I am returning periodically
through the year, I seek to draw our attention to the
person of Jesus before the creeds were formed …

CrossWalkAmerica: Are You Ready to March for a New Christianity?

On Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006, a group of people
will begin in Phoenix a 2500 mile, 141 day,
5,000,000-step walk across America. Their destination
is Washington, D.C., where a public celebration …

Dawning Hope: The Supreme Court and the Case of Lewis v. Harris

The Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey will
sometime in the next few months hand down its ruling
in the case of Lewis v. Harris. The final …

The Rise of New Religious Voices to Counter the Religious Right

When religious leaders are heard speaking in the
public arena in the United States today, the
overwhelming probability is that they will be
conservative evangelical or conservative Roman
Catholic …

Jesus for the Non-Religious, Part II

In the first column in this series (published on
February 15, 2006), I sought to establish the fact
that the memory of Jesus, including his words,
parables and actions were recalled …

Truth and the Present Administration

“Thou shalt not bear false witness” That is the ninth
commandment in the famous group of ten that are so
frequently invoked by members of that Republican
political …

Jesus for the Non-Religious, Part I

Most Christians seem to assume that the details of
their faith system dropped out of heaven in a fully
developed form. Nothing could be further from the
truth. The …

The Church and the Flu

Dear Friends,

This week I introduce you to the first guest columnist
of this year 2006. Each year I try to identify four
unique voices of those who labor in …

Facing the Abortion Issue as Mature Religious People

There were many issues raised at the confirmation
hearings on the nomination of Samuel Alito to serve on
the Supreme Court. Yet only one of them, the issue of
…

To Hell with Limbo / The Newest Act of an Irrelevant Christianity

Perhaps the second silliest thing that religious
institutions and its leaders can do is to pretend that
they know what will happen after one dies and then to
…

A Post Christmas Look Back at the Stories of Jesus” Birth

The Senate of the United States has recently engaged
in a protracted process before voting on the
President’s nomination of one to sit on the nation’s
highest court. …

A Conversation in Grebenstein, Germany

This week, I begin a series of columns on the claims made in the

New Testament that Jesus of Nazareth had the power to raise the dead back …

Did Jesus Really Raise the Dead? Part II – The Widow’s Son in the Village of Nain

Last week we began a series on the gospel narratives that purport to

show that Jesus had the power to raise the dead. There are only three

accounts …

A Post Christmas Look Back at the Stories of Jesus” Birth

The Christian Church has just completed the
celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. It may
come as a big surprise for most people to be told that
…

The United Church of Canada Strikes Again

I have long admired the United Church of Canada. Born in
the prairies of our northern neighbor in the 1920s by a
merger primarily of the Presbyterian and …

A Meditation at the End of 2005

We human beings live consciously inside a medium called
time. We experience everything in life as having a beginning
and an ending. We count our age with annual …

The Virgin in the New Testament — Part 2

Last week we looked at the New Testament’s portrait of the mother of Jesus
and the Virgin Birth. It is scant, late developing material filled with
mythological details. …

The Virgin in the New Testament

As the Christmas season arrives, the icon of the Virgin Mary enters the consciousness of the Christian world in a significant way. She is universally recognized with her …

Was Jesus a Feminist in a Patriarchal World?

If, as I have argued, organized religion is almost
universally anti-female and even misogynistic, was Jesus
different? Did he stand outside that pattern? Certainly, the
religion developed by …

How Religion defined Women as the Source of Evil

We began this series of columns by searching for the
source of the almost universally negative definition of women
that is held in religious circles. Somehow it has …

The Bias Against Women in the Judeo-Christian Tradition

Last week I began an exploration of the origins of that
incessant religious negativity toward women. I located its
deepest root in the evolutionary process where survival
becomes …

Women: Religion’s Traditional Victims

Have you ever noticed that organized religion has
historically been a major force in the oppression of
women? Have you ever wondered why? The battle over
abortion being …

Troy D. Perry – One of God’s Original Saints

It all began on October 6, 1968. On that day, twelve
people gathered in a house in Los Angeles in response to an
advertisement in a four-page magazine for homosexuals …