Christianity

Sinners United for Justice

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Someone asked me recently why I have gravitated toward the church as a context for justice work. Is there something different, he asked, about doing social change work from a Christian perspective, or is it just convenient to work within a body of people who are already assembled? It’s a good question, and it’s one that both the Christian lectionary of recent weeks and my life have been speaking to in surprising and disorienting ways. As some of you know, I spent the first week of June at Duke Divinity School, taking part in a Christian summer institute on reconciliation. It started on a Monday night, and we began, appropriately enough, in a garden.

Christianity

Are the New Atheists Wrong to Suggest Religious Moderates Justify the Extremes?

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I want your opinion about something. I’m a liberal religious person who doesn’t believe in doctrines, dogma or a supernatural God. 19% of members in my tradition identify as atheist, 30% as agnostic and the rest Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Pagan or otherwise. Many of us have been wounded by the bigotry, homophobia and dogma in the religions we grew up in and find refuge, support and community in my tradition. We come together on Sunday mornings to enjoy music and hear sermons about social justice, the power of community and how to live inspiring and meaningful lives.

Christianity

God Doesn't Play Favorites: A Religious Person Rethinks Prayer

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Crossposted from Common Sense Religion
God does not answer prayer. There, I’ve said it. I know for some my assertion is scandalous, while for others it is mere common sense. But before you summon the inquisitor to prepare the rack or brand me a heretic or rush to my defense, hear me out. I used to believe that God answered prayer.

Christianity

Atheists are Beautiful: A Religious Person Defends Atheism

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Being an atheist in America means being less than human. I know from personal experience, not from being an atheist but from being raised Christian in a conservative Christian town and holding negative biases about atheists. Like many others I thought that a belief in God was the foundation of morality, that Christians were superior to others and that atheists were a threat to believers. I didn’t, however, reach this conclusion consciously after weighing the facts and examining the issue independently. But rather it was something so ingrained within the culture that it permeated the social conscience.

Christianity

Homodoxuals and Heterodoxuals in the Church

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Can homodoxuals and heterodoxuals find a way to get along, sit in the same pew, or is schism the only answer? My friend, the Rev. Jim Burklo, just sent me his latest “Musings” post from the Center for Progressive Christianity, and I immediately knew I had to share it (with his permission of course), with all of you! Musings by Jim Burklo
www.tcpc.blogs.com/musings for this and previous articles
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jtburklo
5/19/10
Homodoxuals and Heterodoxuals in the Church
(Lately I’ve seen many uses of the term “heterodoxy” in my reading about current trends in religion in America, referring to people who mix a variety of religious traditions and beliefs in their spirituality. That got me to thinking about what its opposite would be: “homodoxy”. This struck me as an ironic twist in language, since so many “homodoxual” people oppose homosexuality, and so many “heterodoxual” people are open and affirming towards gays and lesbians.

Christianity

Infiltration and revisionism in Texas

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The New York Times ran an engrossing and very timely look back in February at the momentous yet curiously under-reported battles that have been waged for decades in the Lone Star State over the religious, scientific and political message of its school textbooks. The stakes are a lot higher than you might guess. Given the endless complaints one hears on the Right of the tyrannical hold on American intellectual life enjoyed by liberal “cultural elites”, you’d never guess that in matters of curriculum most schools in America are far less affected by multiculturalist educators in the Manhattan or San Francisco than evangelical activists in Dallas or Austin. Yet, according to the Times article, thanks to the state’s buying power and the difficulty other states fortuitously have in adopting natural rival California’s exactingly customized curricula, Texas finds itself unexpectedly the national trendsetter in the domain of public school textbooks. The issue of Texas’ influence is a touchy one in education circles.

Christianity

Holy Fathers

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The global Catholic Church is confronting an extraordinary crisis not faced since the Reformation, which began with sharp criticisms of the Church and ended with a schism out of which emerged the establishment of a separate Protestant Church. Today, sexual abuse allegations against priests are surging in a startling array of nations: the United States and Canada, New Zealand, Australia, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Bolivia, Mexico, Brazil and Chile. New abuse scandals erupt daily. The John Jay School of Criminal Justice estimates that, in the U.S. alone between 1950 and 2002 hundreds of thousands of children have been sexually abused by Catholic Clergy. In fact, the Catholic Church has a 2,000 year history of sex abuse.

Christianity

Bravo for the Pope! He's Facing Reality.

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At last Pope Benedict XVI is moving the Catholic Church toward the truth: the victims need justice and the Church needs transformation. In this, he shows the human struggle for and against change — and the path of renewal ahead. Last Easter, the Roman Catholic Church, my beloved church, seemed to retreat into a shell of institutional defensiveness. Some of the top clerics absurdly complained of an anti-Catholic backlash similar to “anti-Semitism” when, in fact, it was facing the cry for justice among the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests for decades. But when you love someone, or some community, you see the greatness that lies within the heart.

Christianity

Faith Among the Millennials

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Here’s a little video on living in community as a practice of Christian faith. Christian Community w/Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove from The Work Of The People on Vimeo. A few years ago my friend Dorothy Bass, who directs the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith, wrote to ask me if I’d help write a book presenting the Christian faith to “emerging adults.” At the time I didn’t know what an “emerging adult” was, but when I heard the description, I knew that it fit. This was me, in many ways.