Christianity

Pope Francis’s Encyclical and the Coming of Age of Creation Spirituality

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Pope Francis believes that our generation is very much involved in “the pains of childbirth” as we try to learn anew how to cooperate with the Creator, that “God … can also bring good out of the evil we have done” (80) since the Holy Spirit is so powerfully creative. There lies his hope and ours, that we can change our ways, that we are endowed with immense intelligence and creativity, that if we pull out of denial and away from destructive economic systems and relationships and beyond a dulled consciousness anything is possible. Or, I might add, citing eco-philosopher David Orr, “Hope is a verb with the sleeves rolled up.” We can go to work, and we must.

Culture

A Krisis With a Creative Solution

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Technology has become a cipher for the collective anxieties of a society in the throes of florid death denial. Even though we think we “cheat death” and “steal time,” the piper always demands his due, and the price is the return of the repressed. Technology isn’t the death of Spirit; it is its efflorescence. The choice is ours, to embrace or deny. And we already know the price of denial.

Christianity

God(s), Same-Sex Marriage, and the Colossal Joke

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How can individuals and denominations who all claim to know the True God/Gods while apparently praying to the same God(s) be touched in such different ways and have such differing visions of divine will? Does God/Do the Gods send us mixed and often contradictory messages? Does God/Do the Gods change his/her/their mind(s) from time to time?

Culture

Interdependence Day Celebration

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Faced with July 4th celebrations that are focused on militarism, ultra-nationalism, and “bombs bursting in air,” many American families who do not share those values turn July 4th into another summer holiday focused on picnics, sports and fireworks while doing their best to avoid the dominant rhetoric and bombast. We in the Network of Spiritual Progressives believe that this is a net loss.

Culture

Before the Dawn

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On this fast day, I remember that many U.S. people worry, like anyone anywhere, about the hardships a new day may bring, in a dangerous and uncertain time that seems to be dawning on every nation and the species as a whole. In the U.S., we carry the added knowledge that most of the world lives much more poorly – in a material sense, at least – than we do, and that were the sun to truly rise upon the U.S., with familiar words of equality and justice truly realized, we would have to share much of our wealth with a suffering world.

Politics & Society

Syriza: Plunder, Pillage and Prostration

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From the very beginning, Syriza gave into the Troika’s dictates, even as they play-acted their ‘principled resistance’. First they lied to the Greek public, calling the Troika ‘international partners’. Then they lied again calling the Troika memorandum for greater austerity a ‘negotiating document’. Syriza’s deceptions were meant to hide their continuation of the highly unpopular ‘framework’ imposed by the previous discredited hard rightwing regime.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Palestine at the Crossroads

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The Palestinians’ struggle for a homeland is affected by the language used to describe their rights and to mount opposition against them. I simplify this language into two kinds: that which demonizes and is violent, and that which creates hope and is nonviolent. That’s the format for my observations in the parliament.

Culture

Looking Back: Rachel Dolezal and the Wages

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Dolezal may be personally mendacious and manipulative, but her construction of herself, however contrived, struck a raw nerve in the American psyche. The “white” woman turned ‘black” is even more transgressive than transgenders. Her professed bisexuality attracts less attention than her racial identification.