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Progressive Christian

2019-08-08T15:09:57-04:00

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 Adventurous Lectionary – Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – August 11, 2019

Last updated on: August 8, 2019 at 3:09 pm By Bruce Epperly

The Adventurous Lectionary – The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – August 11, 2019 Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:22-30 Get your spiritual GPS on track. Synchronize and calibrate your time pieces. Get your house in order and your values in line. The time is coming when values and actions, our relationship with God and neighbor, will go trump financial success, secular power, or material consumption. God invites us to be the change we want to... Read more

2019-07-30T06:15:40-04:00

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.

I am an Alien and You are Too! The Virtues of Being a Stranger

Last updated on: July 30, 2019 at 6:15 am By Bruce Epperly

I child from our congregation recently noted, “To the aliens, we are aliens.” This child was speaking of extraterrestrials, but their words seemed apropos to these days of government-sanctioned race baiting and child separation. I think of myself as normal. After all, most days my life goes on effortlessly, as one of those often described as privileged, law-abiding, and socially responsible. I’m a citizen of the USA. This is my home I belong here. No one looks at me as... Read more

2019-07-28T12:03:48-04:00

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.

Mystics as Social Activists: Howard Thurman’s Holistic Spirituality

Last updated on: July 28, 2019 at 12:03 pm By Bruce Epperly

Can you be both a mystic and a social activist? Can you hold a progressive, activist, theology, and be a contemplative? Can you be both heavenly minded and earthly good? The way of Jesus and his mystic followers transcends the polarities of activism and contemplation, inner journey and outer activity. Jesus’ path is both personal and social. Jesus’ embodied a prophetic spirituality reflected in his welcome of the marginalized, affirmation of women, expansion of the scope of salvation and ethical... Read more

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Howard Thurman

mysticism

progressive spirituality

social action

spirituality and social justice

2019-07-24T17:32:29-04:00

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 Adventurous Lectionary – The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost – August 4, 2019

Last updated on: July 24, 2019 at 5:32 pm By Bruce Epperly

The Adventurous Lectionary – The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost – August 4, 2019 Hosea 11:1-11 Psalm 107:1-9, 43 Colossians 3:1-11 Luke 12:13-21 Is God apathetic or passionate? Is God beyond concern for this world and its waywardness or does God have skin in the game? Does God view our human joys and sorrow as an observer, “from a distance,” or is God the “fellow sufferer who understands?” Abraham Joshua Heschel asserts that the prophet’s passion is energized by her or... Read more

2019-07-25T17:40:28-04:00

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.

Does God Choose the President of the United States?

Last updated on: July 25, 2019 at 5:40 pm By Bruce Epperly

Several times this week, I’ve seen Facebook posts or shared articles asserting that God chose Donald Trump as our president and implying that challenging Trump either on policy or character goes against God’s plan for the USA. In 2000 and 2004, I saw similar articles describing the divine anointing of George W. Bush as the USA president and asserting that opposition to “W” would be opposition to God. I’ve seen this mantra recited from conservative Christian leaders as well. Ironically,... Read more

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divine sovereignty

divine-human relationship

faith and politics

God and the presidential election

presidential election

2019-08-14T11:21:51-04:00

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.

“Challenge and Stay: A Prophetic Response to Xenophobia”

Last updated on: August 14, 2019 at 11:21 am By Bruce Epperly

In the wake of the political firestorm involving a presidential suggestion that four outspoken congresswomen – all citizens and three of which were born in the USA -should return to their nations of origin, the pastor of the ironically-named Friendship Baptist Church in Appomattox, Virginia, placed the following message on the church marque, “America: Love It or Leave It.” When queried about the sign, the pastor responded, “People feel hard about our president and want to down the president and... Read more

2019-08-08T15:42:09-04:00

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.

Reinhold Niebuhr: We Need Him Now More than Ever

Last updated on: August 8, 2019 at 3:42 pm By Bruce Epperly

Theology can cure or kill. Theology can promote compassion and self-transcendence and bigotry and selfishness. When theology is connected too intimately with politics, these polarities emerge in ways that can lead to tolerance and affirmation or persecution and judgment of those who differ from us. In these times in which religion has, in some quarters, become aligned with the idolatrous practices of nation-first, bullying of those who do not hold our viewpoints, and reliance on falsehoods rather than the quest... Read more

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civility and incivility

Reinhold Niebuhr

truth and falsehood

2019-07-21T19:47:35-04:00

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.

There’s an “Echo in the Canyon”: More Than a Memory But Living Within Me

Last updated on: July 21, 2019 at 7:47 pm By Bruce Epperly

There’s a joke that says “if you remember the sixties, you weren’t really there.” I am a child of the sixties. I remember a teenager, rail thin, long-haired, scruffy, growing my first beard, a pilgrim on a magical mystery tour with Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, Siddhartha, and Steppenwolf as my companions and the Sermon on the Mount, Thoreau, Whitman, Lao Tzu, and the Upanishads as my guides. I remember soaring eight miles high with the Byrds, tripping with the Chamber’s brothers... Read more

2019-07-20T21:52:41-04:00

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.

Trauma and Tragedy: American Style – Colson Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys”

Last updated on: July 20, 2019 at 9:52 pm By Bruce Epperly

One moment can change your life. A chance encounter can destroy a promising life. Elwood Curtis, a idealistic black high school student, inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, hitches a ride to an advanced class at a local college, not knowing that the driver, another young black man, is wanted by the police. Though innocent, he’s found guilty – after all, he’s a young black man in the early 1960’s and sentenced to spend the next two years... Read more

2019-07-19T09:27:05-04:00

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.

Amos, Amaziah, and American Christianity

Last updated on: July 19, 2019 at 9:27 am By Bruce Epperly

Recently, we’ve heard the chants of “send her back” and “go back to where you came from” at rallies, on tweets, and in conversations with the press. These “love it or leave it” mantras remind me of a similar encounter recorded in scripture, this one, between the prophet Amos and the court priest Amaziah, in which Amaziah tells the prophetic critic Amos to go back to Tekoa, in the Southern Kingdom, and stop troubling his Northern Kingdom siblings. Though Amos... Read more

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