by Mona Eltahawy
I recently visited India to speak at a conference called “Future to the Responsibility”.
When I landed in Mumbai, a driver called Arun was fortunately waiting for me at the airport, armed with an umbrella for the rains which really taught me what a Monsoon is!
We had quite a long drive to the hotel […]
by Jim Burklo
If Barack Obama asked me to endorse him, I’d have to excommunicate him for his own good.
That’s my conclusion after the messy consequences of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s association with Obama, and of Pastor John Hagee’s proclaimed support for John McCain. The gonzological utterances of these pastors have given all of us Christian clergy […]
by Robert K. Martin
This is the third blog in a series I’ve called “Being church”. In this series I’ve tried to describe how church is actually a verb. When Christians gather together, we are not ‘church’ because we call ourselves a church or because we belong to a congregation or because we built a nice […]
by David Bartlett
I frequently mutter about writing outraged letters to the media but seldom do anything about it. However after the Democratic debate in Pennsylvania on ABC I not only sent off an immediate e-mail I signed an angry petition the next day, and if anybody had sent me more petitions, I would have signed them, […]
by Jarrett McLaughlin
What makes the Bible such an interesting collection of writings is also what makes them so maddeningly frustrating at times. The fact that the Bible holds together so many different documents and different theological perspectives is precisely what makes it so timeless. At times, however, the more peculiar theological trajectories contained in these […]
by David Bartlett
A few weeks ago I spent a few minutes reading yet another review of the recent works of the evangelical atheists—Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens. Now I have not read any of the books being reviewed, though I’ve read essays by each of those authors.
My general sense was that their image of the way in […]
by Jessica Tate
It is a complicated week in the life of the church. A Holy Week, but a week that involves many things, with many mixed emotions.
There’s the excitement of Palm Sunday. Jesus enters Jerusalem and crowds gather to welcome him, to put down their cloaks, to shout hosanna, blessed is he! But even that excitement […]
by Robert Martin
Just last week, I returned from a 3 week trip to Nepal. Yes, that Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, sandwiched between India and China, split from its spiritual cousin, Tibet, by the towering majesty of Mount Everest and the rest of the Himalayan range. If you have perused the […]
by Tom Are
Jim Burklo got me thinking. In his most recent post (Progressive Christian Elevator Speeches) he identifies the difficulty congregations have these days in knowing how to talk about ourselves. Even more difficult is talking about ourselves in a way that makes sense to the community at large. We used to be the “Mainline […]
by David Bartlett
For a few days earlier this month I divided my time between my official job in Decatur, Georgia and the New Baptist Covenant celebration in Atlanta. The celebration had been planned by President Jimmy Carter and several other distinguished Baptists as an attempt to bring many Baptists together across the usual lines of […]
by Susan Andrews
Nine years ago – when I was 49 – I experienced the gift of a three month sabbatical. After 25 years of ministry and 25 years of marriage and 22 years of parenting, I was ready for a break. And so I put together 10 weeks of exploration – some into areas of […]
by Fred Weidmann
The continuing relevance of the great blues song, Stormy Monday, popularized by T. Bone Walker and re-popularized by the Allman Brothers and—on any given weekend—by various bar bands across the country, is self-evident. But what might it mean? One listens to the narrator’s voice work through the (fatalistic?) week, declaring Tuesday “just as […]
by Jim Burklo
Since The Center for Progressive Christianity came into being in 1994, it has succeeded in widely spreading the term “progressive Christian” around the world. It embraces a pluralistic spirituality, inclusion of people who have been traditionally excluded from the church, openness to metaphorical interpretations of Christian tradition, and commitment to practicing the faith […]
by Roy Howard
It used to be conventional wisdom to avoid religion and politics at gatherings of friends and family. Nowadays, it’s nearly impossible not to talk about them. I think that’s a good thing; after all, for people of faith their religious convictions, if they mean anything at all, certainly inform their political opinions. It’s […]
by Gordon McClellan
Editor’s Note: This is the transcript of a sermon preached on June 17, 2007. We have decided to publish it now, on the QTL blog, because of the on-going need for religion in America to allow itself to be defined by grace more than by hostility; by including rather than excluding; by humility […]
by Roy Howard
Merciful God of all people, we remember before you the people of Pakistan in the hour of their grief and the crisis of their nation. In this time, work with those who seek the peace of all people, that the leaders of Pakistan, along with other world leaders, would be instruments of wisdom […]
by Steve Rankin
I hate to admit it, but I just turned 53 years old. I was born smack-dab in the middle of the Baby Boom. On my birthday a few days ago, my wife and I were headed to a worship service out of town and stopped at McDonalds for a cup of coffee. Two […]
bu Jim Burklo
I learned something that impressed me when I visited Wichita a few weeks ago. As a passenger in a car driving over the river that bisects the city, I said, “Oh, there’s the Arkansas (ARkansaw)!” It brought back memories of a cross-country road trip I took many years ago, following the river down […]
by Fred Weidmann
In a (quite good and interesting) recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled “The Targets of Aggression” (Chronicle Review, October 5, 2007), David Barash considers the matter of misplaced aggression and like countless others before him—preachers and Christian educators foremost among them—cites Jesus’ teachings “to love our enemies and if slapped, […]
by Jarrett McLaughlin
Is the Church becoming nothing more than a beautiful place to get married? This question comes as one among many questions being asked about the future of the Church and its place in the social fabric of America. As a Pastor of Young Adult ministry, I hear many such questions from that faithful generation […]