Religion without the Spirit, without authentic spirituality, basically becomes a way to give divine sanction/endorsement/legitimization to our biases and prejudices and it becomes a way to maintain the status quo. It also becomes a means of exerting control over...
A degenerate tradition that can’t adjust but stays rigid and authoritarian—or a reactionary tradition that won’t adjust but becomes defensively fundamentalist—refuses Jesus’ call to continuous repentance. from A Thicker Jesus
Many religious people think that it’s all a merit badge system—all achievement, accomplishment, performance, and perfection. The good people win and the bad people lose. Of course, once we cast anything as a win-lose scenario, the irony is that everybody loses. Why...
In the Christian tradition Pentecost is not a polite occasion. It was full of fire, wind, confusion, and a diversity of linguistic utterance. It was a divine mess. And all of this led to healing and transformation. We need more mess like this.
An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.
Those of us who are warm and dry and safe and well-fed must show up for those who are cold and wet and endangered and hungry. That's a rule of life. Every ethical and religious and spiritual tradition in the world agrees on that rule.