But if you believe that every human being is made in the image of God — imago dei; if you believe that every individual person represented in economic statistics is a child of God; if you believe that in nearly all religious traditions, loving your neighbor as you love yourself follows directly after loving God; and if you believe, regardless of your conception of God, that human beings are all brothers and sisters tied together, then income inequality is a spiritual issue, a moral issue, and a religious test of our belief. Source: Inequality as a Religious Test | Sojourners … Continue reading Inequality as a Religious Test

This is a continuation of last Sunday’s Post on God and Life.  If you haven’t already read it you might want to do that now as this post won’t make much sense without that background. (God Is All About Life)  In that post I put forth the proposition that God is life. With this post  I will expand just what that means to me. I will repeat here that this concept is primarily for me to come to a personal understanding of God. I don’t expect, or even want, you to agree with me.  You need to do the work … Continue reading God, The River Of Life…

One of the most striking verses in the Christian bible for me was found in Mathew 12. I won’t quote the verse here but it basically says there is one sin that will NEVER be forgiven and that is “blasphemy against the Spirit”. Since I have come to understand that Christianity is all about forgiveness this verse was very loud to my ears. Let’s study the concept of blasphemy. What is blasphemy? Here is a common definition: blas⋅phe⋅my /blæsfəmi:/   — noun expressing disrespect for God or for something sacred That is a pretty plain one but I believe gets to the heart of the matter. The … Continue reading The Greatest Sin…

WENDY THOMAS RUSSELL:  I did a survey of 1,000 nonreligious parents to find out exactly that. And the top reason cited was, people weren’t sure how to talk about religion without indoctrinating their kids into what they believed themselves. That was a hard line. The other one was interacting with religious family members and keeping the peace in families. When you’re raising a child who is in a secular household, how do you bridge the gap between the older generations who may be more rigidly religious? JEFFREY BROWN: This word indoctrinating is an important one, because it comes up time … Continue reading Indoctrination and God…

My wife and I watched a DVR copy of the recent TV movie entitled “Amish Grace” last night. This is the movie about the man who shot ten girls in an Amish school house a few years back and then took his own life. Six of the girls died. The main theme of the movie was about forgiveness and not letting hate overpower you. The Amish community in Pennsylvania where it happened quickly forgave the man who committed the act and even helped the family of the murderer cope with the tragedy. As I have mentioned in the past the … Continue reading If God is Love Where Does Hate Come From?

Continue reading DreamWorld News – Press Release From God

Why did God go to all the trouble to create the universe? By any standards that was a massive undertaking. I am one who believes in the day age interpretation of the Bible.  In the last century or so God has given us the scientific understanding to know that the creation of the universe took millions if not billions of years to complete. Why did he go through all that trouble? But for God a billion years might only be a day. Who know? One explanation for God creating the universe including the infinitely small corner of it called the Earth … Continue reading Earth As a Proving Ground??

“Americans react to the poor with disgust,” said Susan Fiske, professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University and the originator of the neuroimaging tests. She has studied attitudes toward the poor for a dozen years. “It’s the most negative prejudice people report, greater even than racism,“ Fiske stated. No doubt part of that response is aesthetic. Some of those who are very poor – especially those living on the streets – smell bad and are unkempt and shabbily dressed. But a deeper part of the response is moral. The poor are stripped of value in the eyes of … Continue reading Hating The Poor….

  Long before I became familiar with the academic debates concerning calling God “Mother,” debates that I am now currently a part of as a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, I was being raised in a household where I instinctively understood that the divine presence was manifest in the loving hands and arms of mothers, and most especially in the life of my grandmother who raised me. My grandmother’s kitchen was a theological laboratory where she taught me how to love people just as naturally as she taught me to make peach cobbler and buttermilk biscuits. I watched and listened … Continue reading Why God Is a ‘Mother,’ Too….

I am starting a new category here for some Sunday posts. As some of you know I have been blogging about living by the red letters, meaning the words of Jesus found in the Bible, for several years now. Since that blog, even though it has been running longer, does not get the readership of this one I thought I would bring a few of my favorite posts here for your thoughts. ***** Posted September 20, 1012 ********** Many of us Christians never seem to give up our childhood views of just who God is. We think of him as … Continue reading That Bearded Guy Up There…..

Hi God, I know I talk to you often but usually not in so public a sphere. But I think I need to let others know about this.  God, I think you kinda messed up!   I know I am just a little guy that is occupying a very small space on this earth for a very short period of time. I know you are infinitely, and I mean infinitely, smarter than I am but I got to come right out and ask you why you gave us men so much testosterone?  It just seems to be the root of … Continue reading God, I think you kinda messed up….