![]() A list that is circulating among my fellow mainline clergy comes from Jim Palmer. I won't address the whole list but a few claims struck me. 1. That his vision for a transformed society, got twisted into an afterlife fantasy about heaven. 8. That people are waiting on Jesus to return to save the world and end suffering, rather than taking responsibility for saving the world and solving suffering ourselves. 9. That people think there is magical potency in uttering the name of Jesus, rather than accessing our own natural powers and capabilities to effect change. I want to propose that what Palmer critiques is bad news. What Palmer proposes instead is also bad news. And that is because there is a division made between this life and eternal life, between our work and the work of God. And that division can't hold in human experience.
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The scripture passages this morning come up with one theme: forgiveness. So, we get the moment where Joseph forgives his brothers paired up with the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus says we should forgive the sins of others. A command that finds its way in the Lord’s Prayer we’ll recite later in the service.
March 14, 2014
The picture is from Christmas 1977. I'm in the back row, second from the left under the candles, looking left.. It's a program of a Lutheran congregation in Billings MT, a predecessor to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, or ELCA. While I lived in a range of families since I was in foster care, my primary church experience growing up was mainline; first Lutheran and then Presbyterian Church USA. ![]() March 13, 2015 There is a discussion happening between Ryan Bell and Jeremy Neil on whether it is necessary for God to be personal. Necessary for worship and necessary to be connected with the Christian tradition. And is it coherent given the concept or given the kind of world we live in? While Jeremy affirms God is personal and Ryan not, both see it part and parcel of "orthodox" Christianity. Though James McGrath at Exploring Our Matrix questions the latter assertion. ![]() February 8, 2014 The term accomodationism is usually applied to the view that there is no necessary conflict between evolution and religion. Now the term is usually employed by those who are in opposition to this view, primarily secular authors who believe that evolution undermines religion, theism in particular, and that's a good thing. ![]() March 17, 2014 I don't wish for a world where everyone converted to Christianity. This isn't because I don't want everyone to be saved, it's just that I don't think being a Christian saves anyone. If we are to meaningfully talk about salvation, that must involve the work of God in the world and the cooperation of human beings in that effort. ![]() May 29, 2014 John Dewey asks the question; “Is the universe friendly to man?” There any number of ways of approaching the question. We could begin by asking whether our moral strivings, ideals, hopes and aspirations have any grounding in anything beyond our desires. Is there something about the world that can validate what we most value even if we never see the culmination of our efforts? Or are they lost to an indifferent world? ![]() April 12, 2014 One of the common claims in many progressive Christian circles is that original sin is an idea that can be readily dismissed. For many, in fact we are morally obligated to set this doctrine aside as positively harmful to humanity's self image. I remember a UCC pastor who told me that he didn't like original sin for that reason. My response was that I didn't like it either but I think it's one of the best descriptive tools we've got. ![]() May 13, 2014 So I was in the foster care system from age 5 to 11. In that period I was adopted twice and had 3 last names. My second and last adoption was by a single father and beforehand he was my social worker. Not a traditional family but very much a family. He unfortunately died at the end of sophomore year in high school. Now I have no legal family that I have a relation with today. ![]() August 8, 2014 I've come across a number of essays that bear on the value of religious descriptions. I'm thinking of two in particular, one from an atheist and one from a progressive theist. The first is Greta Christina's piece "Why You Can't Reconcile God and Evolution". I want to hone in on a quote and unpack it because I think it gets to the gist of the problem in her essay. |
Dwight WelchOrdained in the United Church of Christ, philosophy adjunct and campus minister at United Campus Ministry-MSU Billings. #ActuallyAutistic #FaithfullyLGBT Married to Jim! him/his. ArchivesCategories |