We tend to think of solidarity as unity or agreement on goals within a certain class or group, but in its most astonishing form solidarity reaches across divides to find a common purpose. from Moral Leadership for a Divided Age
02650 – The Chief Purpose of Life
So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks.
02165 – Separation of Church & State
The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.
01959 – Myth of “the Chosen Nation”
It is clear that the myth of the Chosen Nation has been a powerful theme in American life. It is also clear that this myth can serve good and constructive purposes, especially when yoked to the notion of national covenant, for "covenant" implies responsibilities to...
01779 – Becoming the Church
God puts us in churches so that we will learn to love others; so that our rough edges will be worn off. When you feel like fleeing to another or different church, know you are moving close to spiritual growth. One purpose of church is to place us in covenant...
01763 – What Does Our Framing Story Tell Us?
If it [our framing story] tells us that the purpose of life is for individuals or nations to accumulate an abundance of possessions and to experience the maximum amount of pleasure during the maximum number of minutes of our short lives, then we will have little...
01762 – The Purpose of Spiritual Disciplines
The true purpose of all spiritual disciplines is to clear away whatever may block our awareness of that which is God in us... It will be in order to suggest certain simple aids to this end. One of these is the practice of silence, or quiet. As a child I was accustomed...
01669 – Responding to the Divine Presence
This is another trait common to God-bearers or Jesus-types--it isn't that God has preordained them to serve a special function. They have simply developed their ability and willingness to respond to the Divine Presence to a degree that enables them to be particularly...
01501 – Claiming Jesus is God
Many otherwise honest and intellectual people will construct a neat bypass around the claim of Jesus to be God. Being people of insight and imagination, they know perfectly well that once to accept such a claim as fact would mean a readjustment of their own purposes...
01489 – The Purpose of Our Deliverance
Christians, we have maintained, are those who through confrontation with death are given new freedom from the sting of death and so a new freedom for voluntary service to others. Surely if this claim has any truth in it, then it is not our own suffering but the...