I started RedLetterLiving twelve years ago yesterday to try to answer the basic question of how strongly Christian churches follow the teachings of Jesus. That part of my spiritual journey lasted six years. It was during that period that I went from a passive Sunday morning observer to actively growing my spirituality. I grew a lot during those years and since.

What I found during this initial six-year period was that while there are now almost 39,000 different versions of Christianity practically none of them appear to center their doctrine or practices around Jesus’ words as found in the red letters of many bibles. Many seem to almost ignore his words and especially his commands! They want to concentrate on the man-made rules and beliefs that were formulated many years after Jesus left this earth. It surprised me that some denominations are even fixated on what to believe and how to exclude those who don’t align with their beliefs than how to act and how to love!

When I started this blog in 2008 I was a somewhat naive Christian in an Evangelical Lutheran church. I was eventually thrown out of that church during this period for asking the wrong questions and publicly proclaiming via this blog that I did not believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old or that Jesus is the only way to heaven. But, in the end I think the pastor just got tired of not being able to answer my questions. He hated saying he didn’t know… This is my 558th post here and I can browse all of them via the homepage.

This blog has been in hiatus for six years, why bring it back now?

I am doing it to stake myself out in defense of the words of Jesus and keeping them the center of Christian life. Given what has happened to the Church in recent times, I believe that a major part of it has seriously abandoned the words of Jesus to promote a very wrong-headed political agenda. An agenda that I MUST speak out against!

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Going forward from here, I will be posting at least a weekly basis trying to convince those who have been totally turned off by recent actions of the “Political Arena Christians”, who ignore the words of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount.

The church of Jesus, much like America in general has separated into two distinctly different and opposing camps. One group is generally called Evangelical. As mentioned above I call them “Political Arena Christians”. I don’t think I have to tell you what they stand for. It has been glaringly demonstrated during these obnoxious political times.

The opposing group, that I now call my Christian home, are broadly called Progressive Christians. They unlike the first group primarily focus on the words of Jesus.

If Progressive Christianity interests you, you can find them on Facebook, or at their site https://ProgressiveChristianity.org I want to particularly call your attention to “The 8 Points of Progressive Christianity” of which I will cover in more detail soon. Check it out to see if it aligns with how you see God. I think you will find a dramatic difference in the two major groups. If you have any questions I will humbly try to answer them.

I can’t really tell you exactly where I am heading in this new venture into RedLetterLiving but I can assure you my words come from my heart and a foundational love of the teachings of Jesus.