The very foundations of my religious beliefs revolve around the teachings of Jesus. I no longer call myself a Christian as that word has become so tainted by those who think they need to add their input to what Jesus said. Jesus made it clear that THE root thing in following him is for us to love each other as God loves us. To me, … Continue reading Loving Jesus…
I, and I imagine many of you, are tired of the fake-news and dishonesty that invades almost everything now days. We seek out those things, and people, we think we can trust. For me, that seeking out especially include politics, pandemic reporting, and religion. This post is about the last item mentioned. I constantly lament the fact that many American Christian institutions are turning off … Continue reading Longing For Honesty…
I really don’t know if all those who praise Mother Teresa know the full extent of her spiritual beliefs? I think she was an extraordinary woman who followed her beliefs more than about any soul on this earth. I have not read extensively about her life, but the bits and pieces I have seen tell me that she had serious doubts as much as the … Continue reading Just Doing What’s Right…
I’m going to keep this Sunday’s post short and simple. Richard Rohr, via the words above, has spelled out almost everything that I see as misguided about most of today’s versions of religion. Belonging and Believing something is simple, actually doing is the hard part. If you want to learn a little more about this, see the DVD or book entitled “From Jesus to Christ”. Continue reading Worship Instead of Follow?
There have been hundreds of utopian communities spring up across America during its history. Some lasted only a few years, some longer, but none of them survived. I am a dreamer and when I read the words “heaven on earth” in the Lord’s Prayer, I think utopia. To me, that is what Jesus’ core message to us was. Love each other and everything else will … Continue reading Utopia… On Earth As It Is In Heaven?
I was looking at some early 2021 posts here on RJsCorner and saw that I promised some more posts about Humanism, but haven’t delivered on that promise since then. It’s about time I talked about this subject a little more deeply. I still remember all the disdain, and even outright hatred, that the white Evangelicals I once shared pews with spouted against “secular humanists” during … Continue reading Being A Humanist…
I have linked up with my virtual friend Philip Gulley in yet another way at https://www.philipgulley.com/ The name of this site is called “PlainSpeech”. That is a Quaker thought that basically means “Mean what you say, and say what you mean”. Because I have Aspie traits, that has been a central part of my life like forever.😎 It has often gotten me in trouble because … Continue reading About The Second Creation Story
For anyone who cares to learn about it, there is a very clear history to Christianity. What it is today has little resemblance to what it started out as. You might call the things that have been added over the centuries as baggage, but for the purposes of this post I will call them spin. I kinda like a tornado analogy for this. The center … Continue reading Spin, Spin, Spin…
Rob Bell is one of those Christian authors that is able to condense his thought into a few words. He doesn’t beat around the bush, he comes right at you with the point he is making, and I happen to agree with everything in his words above. The bible is a book of poems, letters, and stories, compiled together to try and teach us how … Continue reading About How To Get To Heaven…
I think the words above from Marian Lee, who self-identifies as a Progressive Christian, deserve to stand on their own, so I won’t add too much here. I can still remember the whinging that seemed to be a constant thing in our weekly Bible classes. The “Poor Me” syndrome was annoying even then, but it is especially loud today from White Evangelicals. If only they … Continue reading Being Held Accountable
Perhaps the thing that has turned me off the most to today’s version of organized religion is that each version is absolutely convinced that their truths are the only real ones. No matter how small or large the group is, they believe that the pieces of the Bible that they gleaned from the rest are the “true” messages from God. As John Spong said above, … Continue reading Pretending To Have All The Answers
America has for most of my lifetime been a country who welcomes others. That was severely changed for the four years that despicable person occupied the Oval Office. It is just strange to me that so many who call themselves Christians do the exact opposite of the above! Thankfully, there are enough progressive Christians who will carry this mantel. Those who are afraid of so … Continue reading Welcoming Others…
I am going to get back on my Old vs New Testament soapbox for this Sunday, but first I want to bring up some interesting statistics that I recently discovered. For the first time since data has been taken, less than half of US citizens proclaim to belong to a religious congregation. Of course, one of the primary reasons is likely MAGA/White Evangelicals. A big … Continue reading Good God / Vengeful God…
There is so much of the Old Testament that still drives many versions of Christianity, especially among White Evangelicals. They seem to be fixated on the wrath of God rather than the love of Jesus. The vast majority of the source of that wrath comes from the Old Testament. It’s time for a new version of Christianity that focuses totally on the words of Jesus. … Continue reading It’s Time For A Divorce
When I was a child in a small Catholic school I was taught that Jesus was going to come some day and save the world from itself. That, like so many other things I was taught about Christian doctrine scared me. It scared me almost as much as the thought that I would be in heaven but many of my friends would be anguishing it … Continue reading Count Me Out On Apocalypses
There was a particular group of people back in Jesus’s day who loved to burden the Jewish faithful with extra-Biblical commands. They were called the Pharisees. By the time Jesus came the Pharisees had developed a list of over 600 different laws and laws about laws that were completely unrelated to the Jewish Bible. Some say the Pharisees were making all these commands up so … Continue reading Modern Day Pharisees
I want to use this post to try to do a “check in” about my spiritual life. I need to do this on a periodic basis to be sure I am moving forward spiritually. It is just too easy to sit back and say “I have learned enough”. That will never happen to me as long as I draw a breath. If you are not … Continue reading I Believe
There is a difference between worshiping Jesus and actually doing what he told us to do. I remember the documentary entitled “From Jesus to Christ” in 1998 on PBS Frontline. It was the serious beginning of my spiritual search for meaning. Becoming more familiar with the actual events of the period of the first 150 years of the common era (CE) helped me understand how … Continue reading RLL – Worshiping vs Following
One thing I like about Progressive Christians is that they call out hypocrites when they see them. We have to let the world know that White Evangelicals do not represent Christianity. Following Jesus is the basis for my spiritual life, but it is hard to convince others of that possibility, when there are so many hypocrites using his name to exclude others. Continue reading RLL – The Hypocritical Version…
Before I get started talking about those who proclaim the Progressive Christian mantel I thought it would be best to give you what I see as the foundations of both Evangelicals and Progressive Christians. Of course, in about 500 words, so this has to be a truncated version of the story. Progressive Christians Progressive Christianity has been around for more than 500 years now. It … Continue reading RLL – The Fundemental Differences Between Evangelical and Progressive Christians
I think I have probably spent too much time lately talking about the problems of modern Christianity. It’s time to concentrate on those who cling to the words of Jesus as I do. This post was originally made in February 2019. With the pandemic that seems like a lifetime ago now. It’s time to dust it off and maybe add a bit here and there … Continue reading What Does Being A Progressive Christian Mean?
Most of my spiritual life has existed between Catholicism and Evangelical Christians, with doses of agnosticism in between. I swung in and out of these three modes for almost seventy years before I discovered my true Spiritual home. The Catholic traditions tarnished my spirituality early on by declaring that almost all my childhood buddies, and everyone else for that matter, would not be joining me … Continue reading Progressive Christianity
When I came across the book with the quote below in 2013 it solidified my belief that, for the most part, the church has tragically drifted from the words of Jesus to the words of man. I had been pondering that thought for a couple of years; I didn’t know that it was thoroughly thought out by such a powerful person as Tolstoy. It is … Continue reading Terrible To Think What Churches Do To Men…
This post is an expanded response to a comment to last week’s post about Christian giving. I gave the person commenting a short answer, but I think this topic deserves more attention. Here is the comment on which the post is primarily based: Plainly speaking, Christian giving is almost always overstated by most Christians. In reality what they give at best covers about 1% of … Continue reading Christian Giving
It’s been pretty obvious to me since I seriously spent four years reading the words of Jesus that his teaching have strong socialist roots. So, why are so many who claim to be Christian against any form of socialism? Just say that word and they go into the immediate attack mode. That is just another of a long list of things I don’t understand about … Continue reading Jesus Was A Socialist
I know from personal experiences that saying you doubt something in your church can get you in some pretty serious trouble. I will make a bold statement for you. I am sure you have doubts, probably even serious doubts, about what you are told to be facts in your church too. Even Mother Theresa had them so don’t even bother to deny it! But, all … Continue reading Doubts are seldom allowed In The Church…
For this Revisit Wednesday I want to go to a post I wrote here over 12 years ago. It was the first time I seriously looked at the idea of Jubilee, but it would not be the last. I know from personal experience that the idea of giving someone something that they haven’t earned is much against what many white evangelicals believe. I can still … Continue reading Jubilee – Revisited
Of course, everything I say here at RedLetterLiving is my opinion, but sometimes it seems particularly necessary to make that declaration. Since I am going to compare some religious establishments on the post, this is one of those times As a little bio for this post, I give you a quick history of my six stages of Christian life: I was baptized into the Catholic … Continue reading The Church Needs Shame…
November 12, 2009 I found an interesting book a while back by Phyllis Tickle entitled “The Words of Jesus”. Phyllis Tickle is the founding editor at Publishers Weekly and is author of more than two dozen book about Christianity. In this book she attempts to take the red letters found in the Gospel accounts and separate them from the surrounding text. She does this, among … Continue reading The Words of Jesus
We need to get over the idea that those who pray the hardest get special favors from God and if he doesn’t answer our prayer requests then we are simply not praying enough. In my mind that is total fabrication and rationalization. Like so many other things, the religious establishment has had centuries to hone this particular message. Yes, I frequently pray to God. Except … Continue reading Those Who Pray The Hardest Get Special Favors
Divine Intervention means different things to different people and religious organizations. For many in the religious community it means that we must pray to God not to get cancer or even be sick, and if we do get sick, we must leave it up to him to cure us. Doing this puts everything in God’s lap and practically no responsibility to us personally. In coordination … Continue reading Divine Intervention
This is the second of three revisits to my initial posts on a book that changed my spiritual view of the world. I do these revisits so that you might better understand where I am going now by showing you where I have come from March 12, 2013. I was certain if I could preach the perfect sermon the altar would fill with people overcome … Continue reading If Grace Is True – Revisit #2
January 17, 2021 There is so much of the Old Testament that still drives many versions of Christianity, especially among White Evangelicals. They seem to be fixated on the wrath of God rather than his love. The vast majority of the source of that wrath comes from the Old Testament. It’s time for a new version of Christianity that focuses totally on the words of … Continue reading It’s Time For DIVORCE… Or at least another separation
I realize that the vast majority of viewers here at RedLetterLiving read the daily post but seldom go into the archives. In order to see where I am going with the blog you need to see where I have come from. On Wednesdays going forward I will be pulling up some of my most significant posts to show you how and why my spirituality has … Continue reading If Grace Is True – Revisit #1
One of the things I have probably struggled with the most is the difference between the Old Testament God and the God as described by Jesus. It just seems to me that The OT God is pretty much an egotist, vengeful, and merciless god and the God of Jesus is totally a god of love. How to reconcile that difference is a very difficult thing … Continue reading Doing God’s Will
Given what I post here the title above probably sounds like sacrilege to you. But in many ways being an Evangelical was just easier than taking my spiritual life seriously. I was an Evangelical for twenty-five years so there had to be something that kept me going back. Here are the things that I miss about being an Evangelical: The Conservative Evangelical Church is primarily … Continue reading I Kinda Miss Being An Evangelical
RJ's Corner 