Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/emancipatory-spirituality/christianity/page/8/)
First, they acknowledged that Christianity alone does not have the resources to resolve these problems and recognized that other religions, having deeply reflected on the question of greed over the centuries, have significant wisdom to offer. I want to push a bit further and suggest that religious communities cannot afford to do our work for peace in isolation from each other anymore.
I’ve had the privilege of working with a kaleidoscope of issues from local to global: disarmament, economic justice, labor justice, decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, homelessness, urban ministry, community organizing, gang diversion, immigrant rights, hospice, food justice, water rights, environmental protection, fair housing, literacy, solidarity, inclusion — not to mention all the relational work that glues together (or doesn’t) such work.
Melanie Klein says the more resentment grows, the less room is left for gratitude, and the more gratitude grows, the less impetus toward resentment. I believe it. I believe it! I’ve experienced it.
I’m struggling with this right now, and I’ve struggled with it for thirty years … self-care and soul care and close-circle-of-friends care are not distractions from our work for tikkun olam or the kingdom of God, but rather are integral to it.
Christmas and Chanukah share a spiritual message: that it is possible to bring light and hope in a world of darkness, oppression and despair.
I was invited to reflect here on the topic of “spiritual visions for social healing,” under the general heading of “creating a caring society,” but first, I’d like to turn the topic upside-down to look at religious visions for social suicide.
As a Greek scholar, I undertook a new translation of the New Testament to give a chastely modern, literary version of a major world text.
There is a psychosis that permeates many churches with regard to the presence and involvement of same-gender-loving (SGL) people, who have great love for God and for their church communities.
To many in my faith, I’m a walking contradiction. I’m a Southern-bred evangelical Christian pastor and a “gay ally” (as straight advocates for the gay community are so awkwardly called).
From Peter Rollins on ways in which he denies the resurrection … and so do we all.
A Palestinian Christian appeal to Jews, Muslims, Christians and the entire world, issued in 2010.
The atheists have all the best arguments. They find the religious world utterly indefensible, both morally and intellectually. Thankfully the God the atheist denies is not the God that people of true faith affirm.
There is a consensus among Biblical scholars that Jesus and the New Testament can only be understood in the context of the ancient Jewish sociocultural system. However, Christian theologies over the centuries have largely developed in synthesis with Greek philosophy.
If I sought a conviction for the last thirty years, it would be this – every one has a right to life. Equally, no one has the right to kill – no individual at home or on the street, no doctors in abortion clinics nor any Dr. Jack Kevorkian, no government through war or death row. God alone reserves the right to kill. And then, never does.