Recent Posts
Elaine Pagels on What Revelation Reveals
From the Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2012. The Book of Revelation is the strangest book in the Bible, and the most controversial. Instead of stories and moral teaching, it offers only visions—dreams and nightmares, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, earthquakes, plagues and war. In the climactic battle scene, Jesus appears as a divine warrior, Satan is thrown into a pit, and all humans who had died faithful to God reign over...
Read MoreThe New Atheists are Christians
I remember when it was easy for me to identify a label for myself in the Christian arena. In fact up until about 5 or 6 years ago, I had no trouble at all describing my niche as Conservative-Non-Denominational-Evangelical-Charismatic…aka: the apex of evangelicalism. Branding my belief was an important step in being able to draw a clear philosophical and theological line in the proverbial sand. Today, it’s way more...
Read MoreBishop John Shelby Spong Comments
The Roman Catholic Bishops: Are They Killing Their Church? I never thought I would live long enough to see birth control become a major political issue. Nor did I think I would ever hear the desire to provide women with safe and effective contraception be referred to as “a war on religion on the part of the Obama administration.” Granted that presidential election years frequently reveal the politically bizarre, it still seems that...
Read MoreResponses to Rachel Held Evans’ Questions
Before her presentation for AzFCT on “Evolving Faith’ Rachel asked two questions on her blog: 1. What made you leave, or consider leaving, the Church? (or, What made you stay?) 2. In what practical ways would you like to see folks from older generations come alongside us as we evolve and make our faith our own? The responses were thoughtful and often beautifully written. If you are wondering what Gen-Xers are thinking...
Read MoreNo Ordinary Time: The Rise of Spiritual Intelligence and Evolutionary Creativity–February 24-25
No Ordinary Time: The Rise of Spiritual Intelligence and Evolutionary Creativity with author/artist/activist Jan Phillips. Many momentous things have happened to you in your life and each one of them is grist for your creative mill. Each one has provided you with the raw materials to create a life that is meaningful, joyful and spirit-fueled. Had it not been for those breakdowns, catastrophes, and miracles...
Read MoreQuantum Theology: Our Spooky Interconnectedness
It’s possible to avoid God-talk for long stretches of time. Any canny Christian can do that, in order to make friends and influence people. Or just to get relief from bad clichés. But, at a certain point, one has to face up to the profundity and brilliance of the conceptual work that was done in the Western world for more than 1500 years, when it was dominated by the discipline of theology. But we don’t want to reduce...
Read MoreRachel Held Evans–January 21, 2012
Rachel Held Evans is an award-winning author and popular blogger from Dayton, Tennessee—home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Rachel’s first book, Evolving in Monkey Town explores the relationship between faith and doubt and recounts the challenges of asking tough questions about Christianity in the context of the Bible Belt. She says, ”It’s about moving from certainty, through doubt, to faith. It’s...
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