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Progressive Christian

2021-06-03T19:11:10-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What Do You Do When the Well Runs Dry?

Last updated on: June 3, 2021 at 7:11 pm By Vance Morgan

Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12 In his collection of essays Breakfast at the Victory, James Carse writes about the spiritual lessons he learned when the water at his family’s rural New England cabin started tasting funny one summer. It turned out that the wooden cover over the cabin’s well had collapsed under the weight of a deer or a bear, and was polluting the water that fed the well. Carse’s essay explores, with some... Read more

2021-06-07T16:40:43-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

How Did Covid-19 Affect Your Most Significant Relationship? A Birthday Reflection for Jeanne

Last updated on: June 7, 2021 at 4:40 pm By Vance Morgan

Over the past year, I have read and heard reports of marriages either on the rocks or completely falling apart. The reason? Covid-19 seclusion. A colleague told me that the legal system in China was overwhelmed with divorce petitions once things opened up over there–I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar is happening on this side of the world as well. Why? Because once they were forced to be in each other’s presence 24/7 for a year or more, many... Read more

2021-06-07T14:53:46-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Everything Does Not Happen for a Reason

Last updated on: June 7, 2021 at 2:53 pm By Vance Morgan

The last text of the semester in my “Apocalypse” colloquium was Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven. The apocalypse in question is the “Georgia flu,” a fast-spreading virus that kills over 99% of the human population. The story skips nimbly back and forth between the pre-and post-pandemic world; one of the many fascinating features of the novel is tracking how a person’s seemingly benign attitudes and beliefs take on a life of their own under apocalyptic pressure.... Read more

Emily St. John Mandel

faith

God

teaching

2021-05-31T14:28:33-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Learning From Our Inferiors

Last updated on: May 31, 2021 at 2:28 pm By Vance Morgan

As the world begins to open up after fifteen months of pandemic restrictions, as things begin to return to “normal,” a few surprises are undoubtedly around the corner. The Episcopal church that I attend will be returning to two services in person at 8 and 10, after more than a year of services primarily on Zoom. I am a regular lector at the early service; when the summer lector schedule came out a few days ago, I was pleased to... Read more

2021-06-03T14:11:34-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

God is Doing the Most that God Can Do

Last updated on: June 3, 2021 at 2:11 pm By Vance Morgan

Frank Tupper, an important Baptist theologian who argued that God is in control of very little in our world, died last year. According to an online eulogy and summary of his life, the thesis for Tupper’s writing, theology, and life was that “In every specific historical context with its possibilities and limitations, God always does the most God can do.” As a response to the problem of evil, to pervasive questions about why a good and omnipotent God allows pain,... Read more

2021-06-01T21:13:53-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

God is Change, so Get Used to Different

Last updated on: June 1, 2021 at 9:13 pm By Vance Morgan

All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change. God Is Change These are the opening lines in “Earthseed: The Books of the Living,” a collection of notebooks compiled by Lauren Olamina, the main character in Octavia Butler’s dystopian, frighteningly believable vision of the near future, Parable of the Sower. Lauren is a late teen who lives inside a gated community with her Baptist preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from... Read more

2021-05-31T07:21:14-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Memorial Day Question: Is Our Experiment in Democracy Failing?

Last updated on: May 31, 2021 at 7:21 am By Vance Morgan

Memorial Day is a great time to honor those who have made sacrifices over the years, including the ultimate sacrifice of their lives, to protect our freedoms. This year, Memorial Day is also an appropriate time to remember the close to 590,000 U.S. citizens who have died of Covid-19. Finally, Memorial Day is a good time to pause and consider how well we are living out the freedoms that these sacrifices were made for. In an early season episode of House... Read more

2021-05-28T11:29:59-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Trinity and Adult Beverages: A Reflection on Trinity Sunday

Last updated on: May 28, 2021 at 11:29 am By Vance Morgan

Next to Lent, the part of the liturgical calendar that I have always found least attractive is the stretch of endless weeks in green from Pentecost to the Sunday after Thanksgiving: Ordinary Time. Catholics and Episcopalians (as well as many other Christian denominations) follow the same liturgical calendar and readings—I recall that, when on sabbatical a dozen years ago, a fellow resident scholar at the ecumenical institute where I was spending four months, who happened to be Catholic, told me... Read more

Collegeville Institute

2021-05-26T16:46:54-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

How To Be a Person

Last updated on: May 26, 2021 at 4:46 pm By Vance Morgan

Not long ago, I read Hilary Mantel’s long-awaited The Mirror and the Light, the final entry in a trilogy of novels about Thomas Cromwell, the consigliere and fixer for Henry VIII. Cromwell is the son of a blacksmith, a violent and abusive father whom Cromwell flees as a young teenager. Over many years as a soldier, a merchant, and ultimately a self-made lawyer, Cromwell begins to make his presence known at court through his sharp insights and practical wisdom. Those... Read more

2022-04-15T13:52:52-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Do You Believe In the Human Heart?

Last updated on: April 15, 2022 at 1:52 pm By Vance Morgan

The central theme of my ethics class this past semester was human dignity. Through short stories, excerpts from novels and plays, and philosophical articles we explored the reasons why we believe that human beings, simply by virtue of being human beings, are morally set apart from everything else. This is a high stakes issue, since our commitment to universal human rights and equal treatment of all human beings, despite our obvious differences, is built on our claim that a human... Read more

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