August 30, 2014 So the blogger Friendly Atheist has posted 78 tough questions for Christians. While they assume some evangelical if not fundamentalist beliefs, I thought it might be a helpful exercise to respond as a progressive Christian. Maybe they can open up some conversations about different approaches to faith.
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 September 5, 2014
As a liberal protestant who pastors a small mainline church, it may seem odd for me to write a post defending a theological claim, made by Victoria Osteen, the wife of the famous and wealthy televangelist Joel Osteen. How much do we really have in common? 
December 9, 2014 This may seem like an odd title to work with. For folks outside of the church, it may be a given that to be a Christian is to be a theist, one who believes in God. For progressives in the church, we know and welcome many people who are agnostic about such questions, including in the pulpit. For the right, it will seem to be the inevitable results of welcoming doubt into the church, that to question one thing means to question everything. I hope they are right of course. I think any attempts to limit questions is a threat against the life of the mind.  January 4, 2015
An atheist blogger asks a simple question "what difference does God make?". The answer hinges on what you mean by God. If God is the name we give to what makes for life, for individuality, for growth, for love and our connection to one another, then God makes all the difference in the world. But I think the blogger is asking a different question. What differences does belief in God make in a person's life?  January 19, 2015
While the name of Martin Luther King is revered, for his work in the civil rights movement and his ability to articulate the faith and hopes of so many Americans, there is always a danger that what he sought to achieve and his actual beliefs will be ignored, replaced with an image that does not disturb our sensibilities. And MLK was someone who did that and more.  February 6, 2015
Apparently many on the religious right are upset, even offended by remarks made by President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast. I admit, I'm at a loss why. Somehow his talk was taken as an attack on Christian faith even though Obama is a Christian, baptized, and spent two decades of his adult life as a member of the United Church of Christ.  February 23, 2015
This blog post is developed from a paper that I presented this month for the Josiah Royce Society at the Central American Philosophical Association conference.  April 5, 2015
Acts 10:34-42 Easter presents us with several problems. It is a story of a cosmic event which changes everything about life and the world as a result. And yet it is hard to imagine how any kind of event could qualify as such. It would mean putting human beings on this small globe as somehow the center of the universe, the center of the divine drama. Can we say that? I’ll venture into that later on.  April 8, 2015
I have a confession to make. I am not embarrassed by miracles. If miracles are those occasions which reveal God and God's works in the word, if they are signs, we live in a miraculous world. If they are the suspension of natural laws for our benefit by a supernatural agent who intervenes in our world from time to time, I don't believe in them. Either way they are not a cause of embarrassment. The question is whether the term is useful getting a handle on the world or not.  April 17, 2015
At least I'm guessing that is the case that Jesus would have accepted GLBT people. But as Chris Sosa writes "Queer identity, as it's commonly understood, wasn't a concept until very recent history. The entire Bible had been finished for over a millennium by the time the word "gay" came to exist." So we're doing a bit of gymnastics to try to link our current issue with practices several millennia ago. |
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 |
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