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.
Ahead of Pentecost, the month of May offers International Labor Day, Beltane, and Mother’s Day (United States). Each one is ripe with spirituality, and combined, they invite us to choose one another, to look out for one another’s wellbeing, and to move continually toward the kin-dom of God.
We live in a world defined by the cheapness of human life, indeed, all life. Migrants and refugees are treated no better than the Amazon rainforest. And yet, as entanglement shows us and as the tolling bell reminds us, all is One.
There. I said it. I know I’m not the first, and I surely won’t be the last. It’s time to embrace and promote. My way of proclaiming the good news of psychedelic plant medicines as part of our salvation and healing is writing.
Namasté: “The Divine in me honors the Divine in you.” In my way of seeing it, namasté includes the understanding that we all are one.
Progressive faith communities are rightfully skeptical of the language of “evangelism.” In modern history, the word has come to mean something like “forceful conversion” rather than a demonstration of and an invitation to the way of Jesus.
Christianity is the only major religion where many followers believe the death of their founder is more important than his life.