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spiritchatter

2015-05-19T15:41:40-07:00

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 Promise of Pentecost You May Not Know

Last updated on: May 19, 2015 at 3:41 pm   By Jack Levison

In the days prior to that first Pentecost, Jesus’ followers were huddled together, gathered around a single command, a solitary promise. Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem for the “promise of the father” (Luke 24;49). So they did. What would that promise have looked like to them? What exactly were they waiting for? A clue to the answer lies in Peter’s sermon, which he delivers after the upper-room faithful are filled with the holy spirit and speak in... Read more

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Bible

Christianity

gospel of Luke

homelessness

Isaiah

Joel

justice

migrant workers

Pentecost

poverty

2015-05-07T15:46:12-07:00

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.

Scot McKnight’s A Fellowship Of Differents

Last updated on: May 7, 2015 at 3:46 pm   By Jack Levison

What happens when you cross a top notch New Testament scholar, a genuinely funny guy, and a former fundamentalist? You get Scot McKnight, who has ample skill to imagine the world of the New Testament (that’s the scholar part), who can happily compare the church to a salad (that’s the funny guy), and who can relate to many of his readers by talking frankly about his upbringing in a conservative church—though without rancor (that’s the former fundie). Scot McKnight is... Read more

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2015-02-25T13:35:15-08:00

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.

When Will the Untold Stories End? Another Entry for Black History Month

Last updated on: February 25, 2015 at 1:35 pm   By Jack Levison

Guest essay by Priscilla Pope-Levison Around the turn of the nineteenth century, Emma Ray and her husband L.P. experienced conversion to the Christian faith at an African Methodist Episcopal church in Seattle, Washington. Not long after, they experienced that distinctive, instantaneous experience of the holiness movement called sanctification. In her autobiography, Twice Sold, Twice Ransomed,  Emma describes a jolt like a lightning bolt that struck her head and coursed through her body “from head to foot like liquid fire.” As... Read more

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African American history

Black History Month

Christianity

Emma Ray

evangelism

Kansas City

poverty

racial uplift

Seattle

slavery

social justice

2015-02-17T20:11:46-08:00

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.

Can o’ Corn! A Simple Practice for a Significant Lent

Last updated on: February 17, 2015 at 8:11 pm   By Jack Levison

“Can o’ corn!” my high school baseball coach, Coach Hogan, used to quip whenever one of us popped up. “Can o’ corn,” in baseball slang, means “Easy play.” Boy, did I ever give Coach Hogan opportunities to say, “Can o’ corn.” Patheos’ Deborah Arca has asked some of us, If we’ve never considered a spiritual practice for Lent, what is a first step, or a first experience, we might consider? Heck, the answer to that is a can o’ corn.... Read more

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Christianity; baseball; Lent; spirituality

2015-02-16T16:35:27-08:00

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.

Why Do We Give Up Something for Lent?

Last updated on: February 16, 2015 at 4:35 pm   By Jack Levison

Deborah Arca, director of All Things Patheos, from my perspective, asked the question, Why does Lent typically involve giving something up? My trusty Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church tells me that Lent was originally a time of fasting. “During the early centuries the observance of the fast was very strict. Only one meal a day, taken towards evening, was allowed, and flesh-meat and fish, and in most places also eggs and lacticinia [I figure that’s milk products], were absolutely... Read more

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2015-02-08T22:14:06-08:00

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 Holy Spirit: so much left to learn!

Last updated on: February 8, 2015 at 10:14 pm   By Jack Levison

If you, like me, feel you’ve still got much more to learn—much more to experience, too— about the Holy Spirit, then this book is for you. It’s not a seminary textbook. It’s certainly not the final word on the Holy Spirit. It’s intended to prompt you to reflect at your own pace and to absorb, slowly and deliberately, the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, your community of faith, and the world. I hope, too, after you’ve spent 40 days with this book, you’ll say, There is so much more to learn about the Holy Spirit! Read more

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Christianity

church

discipleship

faith

God

Hempstead

Holy Spirit

Jesus

Lent

Long Island

New York

prayer

spirituality

2015-02-13T15:15:07-08:00

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 Holy Spirit From Day One

Last updated on: February 13, 2015 at 3:15 pm   By Jack Levison

At this point in the Bible—about the seventeenth word—God hasn’t yet dipped a ladle into the soup, pouring some out as mountains, some as valleys, some as coasts. But God’s Spirit is there already, above the dark deep with the promise of confusion come to order, with the hope of muck made into mountains and soup into seas. I know what that Spirit has meant for us, our family, for me over the years, and I hope to offer, too, something of what that Spirit can mean for you in the days ahead—a rare, elusive blend of stability, hope, and challenge. Read more

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Holy Spirit; pneumatology; Bible; Christianity; Judaism; Genesis; creation; spirituality; Chicago; Eugene Peterson; Richard Rohr; Pentecost; God

2015-01-30T13:06:14-08:00

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.

Is the Spirit in Everyone, even Richard Dawkins?

Last updated on: January 30, 2015 at 1:06 pm   By Jack Levison

This morning I watched, in a half-embarrassed sort of way, while Nicola Menzie, of  The Christian Post, interviewed me. At first, the angle of my head was odd: I looked like a balloon–fat around the jowl–with glasses and a little tuft of hair on my narrowed head. Once I got over that, I settled in to listen. The interview started with the provocative point that the holy spirit—the spirit of God—is in everyone, including, as the people of The Christian Post noted,... Read more

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2015-01-26T20:24:57-08:00

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 Dare You! A pre-Lenten Challenge

Last updated on: January 26, 2015 at 8:24 pm   By Jack Levison

What struck me in the aftermath was how much—I think this was genuine—the Seahawk players trusted their teammates. Each one credited the others, as they should have, since most of them made serious mistakes. Each one said his teammates still believed in him; Russell Wilson, with four interceptions, needed that. So did Jermaine Kearse, who didn’t catch a pass until the game-winning one in overtime, as I recall. I got to thinking that I don’t really need to trust my teammates-in-the-pew in the same way. I got to wondering why. Why don’t I need most people in my church to believe in me? Why don’t most people in my church need me to believe in them? Read more

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Aaron Rodgers

apostle Paul

Bible

Christianity

community

football

Green Bay Packers

homelessness

Jermaine Kearse

Joe Namath

justice

Lent

New York Jets

poverty

Religion

Russell Wilson

Seattle Seahawks

spirituality

Super Bowl

2015-01-20T11:26:59-08:00

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.

Life After a Shooting: The Metamorphosis of a College Campus

Last updated on: January 20, 2015 at 11:26 am   By Jack Levison

The real test of a community is not its immediate reaction to grief -- but its tenacity. Even after a shooting that rocked us to the core, we can't turn inward. Even after plummeting into a vortex of grief, we can't turn isolationist. Even after numbness, we can't turn away. What happens down the road tests the mettle of a community, when tragedies are put in perspective, when memories fade. That is when communities can build borders and raise walls -- or, as SPU has done, stay the stubborn course of hospitality and hope. Read more

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Christianity

community

grief

homeless

homelessness

poverty

Seattle

Seattle Pacific University

shooting

Tent City

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