In the majority of Christian churches every Easter and frequently around Christmas, we hear scripture reading proclaiming, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them, light has shined,” and I have to say, it really bothers me.
While many political operatives are trying to inch away from Trump, his everlasting white Evangelical base- churchgoers and voters- loves him, comprising approximately 60 percent of the Republican presidential primary electorate.
I have spent my life working on the inside of organized religion, even though my love/hate relationship with most God-talkers makes me an outsider.
The transition from a Medieval to an Enlightenment way of thinking does not come easily. When I was a kid in the Norwegian American Lutheran Church, a bigger-than-life portrait of Jesus praying in Gethsemane was stationed over the altar, a Sunday reminder that his all-important death, soon to come, was our salvation. Jesus loved us, this we knew because the Bible told us so. And the Bible did not lie.
When current events and self-perpetuating systems pin me in the extractive, enslaving, short-sighted story, there are 3 practices that help me to listen for divine guidance and to re-engage in the love story’s emerging plot.
A majority of those who are now identifying as “Progressive Christians” are converts, so to speak, those fleeing other Christian traditions that had no real knowledge of Progressive Christianity.
There’s been a lot of conversation recently about whether we still need to use the term “progressive” as a qualifier for Christian. As a movement, we’ve been using the label for about 3 decades, and with so many cultural shifts, it’s only natural to raise the question of whether it still fits.
Systemic racism and oppression of marginalized folk’s experience is ingrained in all of us and in every system. Even if every person became anti-racist and radically inclusive, our systems would still be a huge barrier to the liberation and equality of all.
If you’re on a quest for the afterlife, you’ve plenty of options. Heaven, Nirvana, Paradise; She’ol, Limbo, Purgatory; Jahannam, Hell, the Chinvat Bridge to Darkness.
Christian nationalists – who are overwhelmingly white – think they are privileged and that their privileged status comes from God. Historically, they see the United States as the new Israel, a nation designated by God as a shining light on a hill to the rest of the world.