It Was Not A Silent Night - Rewrite by Jeff Wiersma

It was not a silent night
there was pain, and joy, and fright
A first time mother, far from her home
Forced, far to travel, by edicts from Rome
A young woman's cries echoed out
that night in King David's town

It was not a silent night
the barn floor cold, the cattle and flies
Mary is screaming in labor and pain
sweat and fear upon her face
with blood and tears on the ground
that night in King David's town

It was not a silent night
as Joseph watched with worried eyes
Held Mary's hand as he knelt on the floor
joy at the screams of the newborn
Love incarnate came down
that night in King David's town

Love incarnate came down
that night in King David's town

White U.S. Christianity = It's Own Greatest Threat - Charles Mathewes, professor of Religious Studies

Fear moves us away from the core of Christianity — love.

When it comes to keeping us away from the core truths of our faith, I suspect this one error is key: many Evangelical and Fundamentalists Christians today seem governed by fear. (The celebrity fundamentalist Christians who have built their fortunes selling fear have discipled their adherents incredibly poorly).

Theologians as well as psychologists will tell you that there is a spiritual peril in acting out of fear and a sense of danger. Fear drives us into patterns of “reasoning” that are far from reasonable, but more akin to reactionary patterns of cause-and-effect.

And fear moves us away from the core of Christianity — love. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love,” says the first epistle of John.

The tyranny of fear in US Christian life is especially visible among white evangelicals, who stand out in their opposition to pluralism in the United States.

The full article is available here

Christian Zionism's Problematic Interpretation of Scripture - Stephen Sizer

Any suggestion that the Jewish people continue to have a special status before God is biblical anathema. The exalted Christ rules from the heavenly Jerusalem with sovereignty over the entire world. A regression to the limited form of the Old Covenant that Jesus fulfilled is not sound Christian teaching.

The Rise of Biblical Literalism vs Christian Tradition
The rise of biblical literalism in the early 18th century was central to Christian Zionism. In the 1830's, John Nelson Darby substituted the traditional Christian view of the Revelation for his own literalist hermeneutic, claiming that God had revealed it to him by special revelation.

In place of all main Christian tradition, Darby concocted a "dispensationalist" view; the belief that God was about to destroy the world and inaugurate a "whole new dispensation" on earth. This led to speculative interpretations of apocalyptic writings, especially Daniel and Revelation.

Lewis Chafer defines the literal hermeneutic upon which which dispensationalism and Christian Zionism is based in the following way: "The dispensationalist believes every statement of the Bible has only the plain, natural meaning its words imply." Additionally, dispensationalists believe prophecy must be taken literally, despite Christian tradition having interpreted the Bible's future predictions as symbolic.

Unfortunately, this absolutist commitment to literalism does not place any emphasis on the historical context of passages or the way scripture interprets scripture.

Take for example the blessings made to Abraham in Genesis 12. Though these promises were made to the patriarch personally, Christian Zionists applies to the current nation state of Israel.

Biblical Prophecy Removed From Its Covenant Context
Christian Zionists - working from a flawed literalist hermeneutic - believe prophecy is pre-written history. In doing so, they detach the words of the prophets in scripture from the covenental contexts in which they were originally given.

This speculative endeavor is at odds with the prophets themselves, who consistently stressed that it was their intention to call God's people back to the terms of their covenental relationship. Their role was not to reveal arbitrary and otherwise hidden facts about predestined future events thousands of years later.

This is the most basic hermeneutical error which Christian Zionists consistently repeat. Biblical prophecy is invariably conditional rather than fatalistic and is ALWAYS given within the context of the covenant relationship between God and his chosen people.

But Christian Zionists treat scriptures as a "frozen text." Based on highly selective texts, they erroneously focus on a restored Jewish kingdom rather than the Body of Christ, upon the contemporary State of Israel rather than the cross of Christ. Their selective hermeneutic leads to them ignore how Jesus and the Apostles reinterpreted the Old Testament.

The Christian Zionist's misguided reading of both history and contemporary events, determined by the dubious exegesis of highly selective texts, is essentially fatalistic, polarised and dualistic. It sets Israel and the Jewish people apart from and above all other people; despite what Jesus and Paul taught.

Any suggestion that the Jewish people, let alone the nation state of Israel, continue to have a special status before God is biblical anathema. The exalted Christ rules from the heavenly Jerusalem with sovereignty over the entire world. A regression to the limited form of the Abrahamic Covenant that Jesus fulfilled is not sound Christian teaching and ignores the ways that Jesus and the Apostles reinterpreted the Old Testament.

The Unfortunate Results
These problematic practices and understandings only serve to perpetuate, exacerbate, and the policies of right-wing Israelis who resist negotiating land for peace. It reinforces Israel's apartheid policies and the illegal settlement and absorption of Occupied Palestinian Territories into the State of Israel.

Mary, The Magnificat, and an Unsentimental Advent - Rachel Held Evans

The incarnation isn’t about desperately grasping at the threads of power and privilege. It’s not about making some civic holiday "bigger and better." It’s about surrendering power, setting aside privilege, and finding God in the smallness and vulnerability of a baby in a womb.

We like to paint Mary in the softer hues—her robes clean, hair combed and covered, body poised in prayerful surrender—but this young woman was a fierce one, full of strength and fury. When she accepts the dangerous charge before her, (every birth was risky in those days, this one especially so), rather than reciting a maternal blessing, Mary offers a prophecy, called the Magnificat.

With the Magnificat, Mary not only announces a birth, she announces the inauguration of a new kingdom, one that stands in stark contrast to every other kingdom—past, present, and future—that relies on violence and exploitation to achieve "greatness."

This is the stunning claim of the incarnation: God has made a home among the very people the world casts aside. And in her defiant prayer, Mary— an unwed, un-believed teenage girl in an occupied land—names this reality.

The incarnation isn’t about desperately grasping at the threads of power and privilege. It’s not about making some civic holiday "bigger and better." It’s about surrendering power, setting aside privilege, and finding God in the smallness and vulnerability of a baby in a womb.

The full article is available here

Advent: Labor Pains In The Birth Of A New World - Shane Claiborne

Compassion For The Poor - Father Greg Boyle

Update From CRC Team at COP23 Climate Change Negotiations - Stephan Lutz

“Sustainability” might be a modern term, but it’s an ancient value.

Elders have long taught youth not to take more than is needed, to live in harmony with one’s surroundings, to protect the soil from wind and water erosion, and to protect creatures so they can continue to reproduce. Before the advent of sustainability coordinators, math, and science, citizens of our world were already implementing widely effective methods to use resources without depleting those resources or causing permanent damage.

I am currently representing World Renew and the Climate Witness Project at COP23 in Bonn, Germany. It is exciting to be here. Being with thousands of people from all over the world, coming together from all walks of life to stand in solidarity about an issue that is affecting the entire world, is an awesome thing. You realize that you, as an individual, are one of many with the same passion, and that each of us are one small but crucial piece of the puzzle.

Each of us has our own unique contribution to make to the bigger picture of defending vulnerable people and preserving God’s good world. It’s a very humbling experience!

The full article is available here

What Greed Says vs What Jesus Says - Frederick Buechner

Jesus Is The Hermeneutical Key - Walter Brueggemann

Made In The Image of God - Thomas Merton

The Gospel Is Good News Or It Is Nothing At All - Jacob Wright

Jesus’ gospel affirms the original goodness of humanity created in the image of God. Any “gospel” that emphasizes continually repenting of "wretchedness" and begging God for mercy is no gospel at all. 

Any “gospel” that emphasizes shame and sin-consciousness instead of a new creation and restoration is no gospel at all.

Any “gospel” that emphasizes continually repenting of "wretchedness" and begging God for mercy is no gospel at all.

Any “gospel” that oppresses people with the need to be in fear and anguish over people for the eternal destiny of their souls is no gospel at all.

Any “gospel” that says your true nature is a wretch that must only approach God with groveling and self-deprecation is not the gospel that Jesus preached.

Any “gospel” that causes one to be weighed down with spiritual gloom on top of the already weighty concerns of life that we have to deal with every day is not the gospel Jesus preached.

Jesus’ gospel lifts the weight, not adds to it. Jesus’ gospel affirms the original goodness of humanity created in the image of God. It declares the bright shining hope that Jesus is universal Lord, the One whose empathy and forgiveness and love is for all humanity; not that a devil will drag the vast majority of humans who’ve ever existed down to eternal torment and that it’s up to Christians to make sure people are “saved.”

I reject a “gospel” that adds loads of spiritual heaviness to the weight of sadness and darkness that we all will deal with as humans. Yes, Jesus' gospel does call us (corporately, not individually) out of selfish and unloving behaviors and it does excoriate the systems that dehumanize us and lead us to victimize each other.

However, the gospel is light and hope and peace and joy for all! It is good news or it is nothing at all.

Erroneous Idea of Eternal Hell Obscures Good News Of Gospel - Jacob Wright

The good news is that God has come to restore this shattered world, NOT that if we happen to come across the right beliefs then God might not torture us for eternity. 

The idea that you have to tell people the scariest most horrifying thing ever ("eternal Hell") in order to present the "good news" of a formula to be saved from it is the absurdity of all absurdities.

I've had people tell me "That's what makes the good news so good! You can't have good news without the bad news!" It’s as if these people have forgotten that the world is full of suffering, disease, fear, violence, war, heartbreak, injustice, poverty, and finally death. The state of this world is the bad news, and everyone lives it.

The good news is not that if we happen to get the right beliefs then God might not torture us forever after this short life in which we all experience suffering. The good news is that God has come to this world to make things right!

The idea that the good news actually means “avoiding some eternal afterlife horror” is nothing more than using the fear of death to propagate worse news than we ever imagined, that the world is worse than we thought!

Eternal torment infinitely eclipses any sort of good news. Eternal torment is a dark shadow overcasting the contemporary understanding and articulation of gospel, and it needs to be removed.

The truth is, the good news is that God has come to restore this shattered world and mercifully bring it to justice, eradicate suffering, and vindicate human meaning within the cosmos. It's as simple as that. The kingdom come. It's what the prophets have declared from the beginning of the world.

Pope Francis: Solving The Problem of Hunger

The Fear-Inducing, Damaging World Of The Fundamentalism I Knew - Unfundamentalist

The larger U.S. Fundamentalist Christian culture I grew up in showed nothing of an unconditionally loving God – the God that, since I have left that awful world, I have come to know and love.

Sometimes people ask me why I became an Unfundamentalist. Well, the main reason is that I know what real fundamentalism is like; because I was raised within it's bubble.

It's important to note that my parents and some of the church leaders of my youth were reliably good spiritual guides.

But the larger U.S. Fundamentalist Christian culture my non-denominational church was part of - as well as the denomination it eventually joined - was toxic, injurious, and theologically bankrupt.

This fundamentalist culture of book stores, music, magazines, movies, youth revival conferences, "family-focus" organizations, and televangelists falsely indoctrinated us to believe that we were completely worthless in the eyes of God.  We were taught that we were dirt: undeserving, untrustworthy, deserving only of punishment.

Naturally, this is how we came to view everyone else too. Logically, this leads to the hubris and judgmentalism so common to fundamentalism.

(Sadly, this completely theologically-backward understanding is what is still articulated by much of the Praise and Worship Industry).

We were taught that Satan would take every opportunity to creep in and trick us away from “the narrow path.” Questions, doubt, and sin were of the Devil, evidence of weak faith, or of no faith at all. Looking back now, it's patently obvious that this absolutism was complete bullshit, plainly contradicted by scripture. But back then, it was leveled against us as an absolute truth.

This is the patriarchal, ego-fortifying, psyche-destroying, soul-crushing, domineering, brain-washing, fear-inducing, manipulative, spiritually-abusive world of the fundamentalism I know so well.

It showed nothing of an unconditionally loving God – the God that, since I have left that awful world, I have come to know and love.

The full article is available here

"Holiness" = Be Christlike - Jacob M Wright

Jesus said that when we love our enemies, overcome evil with good, and are kind to all, then we will be perfect as our Father is perfect. That is holiness.

When we're studying scripture and we read that God says "Be holy as I am holy," it means that God wants us to be like Jesus. This is because Jesus is the best revelation of what God is like.

When we say that "God is holy" we cannot mean that God is something other than like Jesus. We cannot mean God is cruel, vindictive, and unChristlike. That is how all other humans are, not Jesus.

We cannot mean that God can't look upon sin or won't allow sin or sinners in his presence. That is how the Pharisees were, not Jesus.

When God tells us to "Be holy,” it means that God is calling us to be like Jesus. Jesus said that when we love our enemies, overcome evil with good, and are kind to all, then we will be perfect as our Father is perfect. That is holiness.


"You cannot describe God as cruel, capricious, vindictive, and then justify it by saying, 'God is holy.' No. God's holiness looks like Jesus."
- Brian Zahnd

"The holiness of God is expressed as empathetic self-giving."
- Archbishop Lazar

"Holiness is love of God and of others carried to a sublime extravagance."
- Jean Baptiste H. Lacordaire

The Mistranslation Of "Hell" In The Bible - Jacob Wright

The concept of "hell" or eternal torment in the afterlife is based on mistranslations and not based on Biblical teaching.

The word "Hell" that we have in the Bible is a mistranslation of the word "Gehenna." The word "Gehenna" appears just a few times is in the Old Testament. The concept of "hell", or eternal torment in the afterlife is literally and exactly nowhere in the Old Testament.

Gehenna is a literal place, right outside of Jerusalem, where Israel practiced gross idolatry and later became called "the Valley of Slaughter" because of its reputation of idolatry and loathsomeness. Dead bodies were thrown in Gehenna and they were eaten by worms and turned to ashes by fire.

So What Did Jesus Mean We Spoke About "Gehenna?"
The understanding of historical and geographical details provides the context of Jesus usage of "Gehenna." Jesus quotes Isaiah when talking about Gehenna when he says "where the worm doesn't die and the fire is not quenched".

He's referring back to the valley of Gehenna, directly quoting Isaiah 66:24, which says "...the dead bodies, the worms that eat them up will not die and the fire that consumes them will not be quenched."

This literally happened. Dead bodies were eaten up by unquenchable fire and worms fed on the dead bodies until they were consumed to nothing.

If you were to visit that Valley of Slaughter today,  you wouldn't see the fire still burning nor will you see immortal worms feeding on miraculously preserved dead bodies. The bodies are gone, the worms are gone, the fire is gone. The point Isaiah and Jesus were making is that the fire would not be deterred in burning up the dead bodies to nothing, the worms would not be deterred in eating up the dead bodies to nothing. And keep in mind these are mortal dead bodies in this life, not immortal conscious souls in the afterlife.

To read eternal torment into that is misguided.

"Eternal" Is Also A Mistranslation
Even "eternal fire" or "eternal punishment" is a mistranslation, as "eternal" is a mistranslation of the Greek word "aionios", which does not mean "never-ending" or anything of the sort. It means "of the age to come", or to Plato - who may have invented the word - it means something which has its source in God and the unseen realm. It has nothing to do with ongoing, never-ending time.

There is literally no verse in scripture that can prop up the pagan, non-Jewish concept of eternal torment.

Early Church Fathers Didn't Teach Eternal Torment
This is not some new, "politically correct" idea that people are making up. There is a long list of early fathers who rejected eternal torment because they understood these correct meanings of words, they didn't believe in the immortality of the soul (a pagan Greek belief), and they recognized that the scriptures either taught conditional immortality and/or final universal reconciliation.

Eternal torment was the minority belief in the early church, and among those who were less familiar with the original meanings of the text. It did not become the prominent belief until after 500 AD, with the help of the violent organized institutional church established under Constantine.

Hell is not a good translation of “Gehenna” and it never will be. Gehenna was a real place with a real history in the Jewish mind, and it must be read in that context. Once it is read in that context, the idea of eternal torment falls to pieces, as it should.

Call To Worship: God Invites Us To Connection (based on Matthew 6:33)

Good and gracious God, you invite us to come and find connection; so may our hearts be open.  Lord, as we gather now, may we seek you. As you knock, may we open the door to you. As you make yourself  known to us, may we praise you.

Responsive Call To Worship: We Can Re-center Ourselves With God's Presence (based on Matthew 22:39)

Reader: God, you call us to live in ways that honor you and bless our neighbors.
All: Your goodness is our source for the love, justice, and peace
you've tasked us with pouring out into your world 

Reader: So we come once again seeking to recharge in your life-giving presence.
All: As we re-center ourselves around your perfect love, may you shape and
reshape our hearts to be more like yours.

Reader: May what we say, sing, and hear this morning open our
spirits to connect with you, God ...
All: ... and be your hands and feet to the world 
that you created and called "good."

Reflection and Renewal: We Have Value By Virtue of Existing (based on Philippians 3:4-10)

Loving God, you have called us to "take up our crosses and follow." In the agony of crucifixion, we see the lengths you were willing to go to.

Sometimes we pay lip service to "following" and we believe it in theory but we find ourselves hesitant to actually "follow" in practice because we want to be in the lead, because we want to be “winners” in our competitive culture. And sometimes in our sincere, well-intentioned effort to follow, we get  sidetracked into performance-mode, into striving to prove our value and worth.

Remind us that we don't have to seek our worth in status, prestige, achievement, or possessions. Remind us that we don't need to try to prove that we deserve your love or strive to earn it. Help us to remember that you created everything and called it "good," and therefore you see us all as inherently precious and valuable just by virtue of existing!

Thank you for being a God of infinite love; whose mercy never runs out and whose grace is bottomless. Out of our gratitude for that grace, lead us to your work of renewing and redeeming your world, to truly find our lives by losing the prideful ambition of our egos.

Amen

Root Of Violence = The Illusion Of Separation - Father Richard Rohr

Jesus Message Of Loving Enemy, Nonviolence Eludes Western Church - Father Richard Rohr

Interfaith Coalition: No Principled Basis For Trump's Travel Ban - Religion News

A coalition of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Jews say Trump's travel ban is “anathema” to their shared belief in religious tolerance.

They say the order “selectively targeted” six Muslim-majority nations cited in State Department reports on terrorism but excluded at least two Christian-majority nations — Venezuela and the Philippines — that meet the same criteria applied to the Muslim countries.

While not contending that those two countries should be included in the ban, the coalition argues that the order violates the Constitution’s establishment clause, which calls for the government to not favor one religion over another.

The full article is available here

A Prayer For The Anniversary Of 09/11 - Sojourner's

"May we never forget
that on that day
those who jumped in to help others
did not focus on nationality,
wealth, education, sexuality.
They focused on need."

The full article is available here

The Opposite Faith Isn't Doubt - Father Richard Rohr

Who Is Jesus To Me? Mother Teresa

Call to Worship: God Welcomes Everyone (based on Galatians 3:28)

God welcomes everyone with open arms. No one stands outside of God's circle of mercy and love. And so for this endless, limitless grace, we come to give thanks.

Through the power of your spirit, God; open our eyes to see your handiwork all around us, open our minds to be receptive to your wisdom, and open our hearts to give you praise.

Fear and the Nashville Statement - Christian Reformed Church Network

We need to be welcoming and affirm God’s love for those who have been marginalized rather than capitulating to fear.

The recent "Nashville Statement" by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood purports to provide clarity about the inclusion of LGBT Christians in the church.

The authors claim to speak with grace and love, but their words ring hollow as they promote conversion therapy, complimentarianism, and patriarchy.

Going further, they even state that Christians who do not agree with their position are not true Christians.

That kind of statement seems to stem from a position of fear. It is profoundly damaging to our Christian witness, and theologically wrong in it's elevation of human sexuality to an issue of salvation.

We need to be welcoming and affirm God’s love for those who have been marginalized rather than capitulating to fear.

The full article is available here

God Didn't Command Genocide In Old Testament - Brian Zahnd in Religion News

The Bible is not the perfect revelation of God; Jesus is.

Even a casual reader of the Bible notices that between the alleged divine endorsement of genocide in the conquest of Canaan and Jesus’s call for love of enemies in his Sermon on the Mount, something has clearly changed.

What has changed is not God but the degree to which humanity has attained an understanding of the true nature of God.

The Bible is not the perfect revelation of God; Jesus is. What the Bible does is point us to Jesus, just like John the Baptist did.

The Old Testament tells the story of Israel coming to know the living God, but the story doesn’t stop until we arrive at Jesus!

It isn’t Joshua the son of Nun who gives us the full revelation of God but Yeshua of Nazareth.

It’s not the warrior-poet David who gives us the full revelation of God but the greater Son of David, Jesus Christ. We understand Joshua and David as men of their time, but we understand Jesus Christ as “the exact imprint of God’s very being.”

Once we realize that Jesus is the perfect icon of the living God, we are forever prohibited from using the Old Testament to justify the use of violence. Using Scripture as a divine license for the implementation of violence is a dangerous practice that must be abandoned by we who walk in the light of Christ.

The full article is available here

Larry Norman's "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" & Unbiblical Christian Culture - Jacob Wright

Whole swaths of western Christian world passionately believe and espouse a strange doctrine that can be found nowhere in scripture and was completely foreign to church theology until the 1800's.

Remember the song "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" written by Larry Norman in the 60's and covered by DC Talk in the 90's? It's about Christians worldwide suddenly disappearing in The Rapture.

I remember sleepless, anxious nights as a child sitting alone on the staircase of the house where I grew up.  I wondered if I should go wake my parents to comfort me, terrified that Jesus would return and take my family away leaving me behind because I was not right with him due to some unconfessed sin or something.

I still can't believe that whole swaths of western Christian world passionately believe and espouse a strange doctrine that can be found nowhere in scripture and was completely foreign to church theology until the 1800's.

Thankfully, I think due to the availability of information on the Internet, good Bible exegetes like NT Wright, and a thousand failed false prophecies of when the rapture would happen, and maybe some really bad rapture movies, the rapture is being left behind by a lot of the western church.

But this is also a lesson concerning popular theology. Look how The Rapture became a self-evident "Biblical truth" within a century.

What else might we have wrong?

What else are we projecting onto scripture because of how we have been told to read scripture?

Justice For And Solidarity With The Poor - Shane Claiborne

Frederick Buechner - Jesus Says Turn Toward Compassion

Tim Keller - Christians Need To Condemn White Nationalism

Christianity's Revolutionary Protest - Dietrich Bonhoffer

Responsive Call To Worship: Love God and Love People (based on Mark 12:30-31)

Reader: As followers of Christ, we are called to bring
a hopeful understanding of our world ...

ALL: ... declaring that God called the created universe "good."

Reader: We are called to bring this hope in God
with us wherever we go...

ALL: ... declaring that God makes all things new again.

Reader: Jesus taught that we should love God and love one another.

ALL: So let's join together in our love of God to worship and give thanks.

Call To Worship: We Have Come, Seeking (based on Proverbs 2:1-5)

We have come, seeking, so may God once again speak with wisdom that guides us. We have come to hear God's voice, so may we open our ears and our hearts. May God once again respond with love deepens our compassion. For this boundless love, we have come to give thanks together.

Call To Worship: God Speaking To Our Souls (based on Psalm 119)

God, you continually move within and around us. In one way or another, you are always speaking to our souls. May we tend to these seeds that you plant so that they can grow. We need your grace to water our often dry, dehydrated souls. May we hear your voice in everything within and around us. Make our souls open to your grace and love in every part of the universe.

God, you move us like a gentle breeze on the water. May our minds be open in expectation. May our hearts be stirred by your spirit as we pray, sing, and listen together.

We’ve Watered Down Jesus’ Message For Our Own Comfort - Rev Joe Kay

Many Christians are tempted to confine Jesus’ message to such a small part of our lives that it’s effectively neutered. They then live by opposite values — self-importance, money, power, privilege.

A recent story called “U.S. Christians are more than twice as likely to blame a person’s poverty on lack of effort” caught my eye.

Sadly, I wasn’t surprised.

Many Christians are tempted to confine Jesus’ message to such a small part of our lives that it’s effectively neutered. They then live by opposite values — self-importance, money, power, privilege — in most areas of life and call it "Christian."

In our market-driven, individualistic society, we all like to believe that we “deserve” what we have, and those who are struggling simply are unworthy. We comfort ourselves by thinking that we are better and more deserving. This gives us the permission to be concerned entirely about ourselves.

Jesus challenges that attitude directly and unreservedly.

The full article is available here

Desmond Tutu - "God's Dream"

Call To Worship: Come, All Who Are Weary (based on Matthew 11:28-30)

Come, all that are weary; all that are carrying heavy burdens. In God, there is rest. Come, take what God has to offer: love, forgiveness, and grace. In God, we can find peace.

Come, let us give thanks to the God of all good things. Let us praise God, who is our source of hope

Evolving Mental Models of Spirituality - Progressive Christianity

If we are on a spiritual journey, we should be constantly evolving our “mental models” about how the world works, how we fit into it, who or what God is (or isn’t) and how God works in the world.

Scientists use mental models all the time. They imagine a structure that explains the known data, whether of a gene or a galaxy, and then proceed to ask questions and collect more data to refine that model.  When too many results don’t fit the current model, they will conclude that the model must be wrong and they will find a new one that does explain the data.

It can seem challenging for many folks to do this when it comes to their spiritual models, but it’s really just the same process. We look for a new model that better explains God based on what we have observed and experienced, when the old ones don’t seem to fit any more.

This has been done through out history. For example, when humans discovered the causes of natural disasters through increased/new scientific understanding, they were no longer described as being "acts of God." Plate tectonics, atmospheric pressure, and the like were correctly identifying as being the causal agents.

The full article is available here

Responsive Call To Worship: Doing Work of Jesus In The World Today (based on Luke 4:18)

Reader: Our job is to bring the spirit of Christ’s message
and to do the work of Jesus in the world today.
All: And what is that work?

Reader: From Luke 4:18: “... [t]o proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoner,
recovery of sight for the blind, and to set the oppressed free.”
All: It is up to us to be the good news of love and liberation.

Reader: We can do this once we see the world through the eyes of God,
who sees those who are suffering and oppressed as “blessed.”
All: Then we can hear the call of “Your Kingdom come, on earth as in heaven ..."

Reader: ... which cries out all around us for God’s restoration, mercy, and healing
here and now.
All: God, may your kingdom come as we give thanks and praise.

Responsive Call to Worship: Hear God's Still, Small Voice (based on 1 Kings 19:11-13)

Reader: So often, we expect life to wow and dazzle us.
All: But God, you often come in the still, the small, and the meek.

Reader: So when we're overloaded by constant stimulus and marketing ...
All: ... we pray God, that you'd settle us with the unforced rhythms of grace.

Reader: When our hearts are dried up by apathy and cynicism ...
All: ... we pray God, that you would open up the wellspring of your mercy.

Reader: God, we are seeking you in hopeful expectation.
All: You are trustworthy and good. For this, we give you thanks.

Benediction: God Has Blessed The World With Good Things (based on Genesis 1:31)

May we always be paying attention, seeking out the whisper of God’s spirit within and around us. May we listen for and hear God speaking to us, using those words of grace as a secure footing for our souls.

May we continually find new life in God and all of the good things which God has blessed the world with.

Eugene Peterson on Trump and State of U.S. Christianity - Religion News Service

"There’s a whole part of the U.S. Christian church which operates out of fear, which I think is quite contrary to the Gospel that Jesus brought to us. As with Trump, I think we can survive that too. Overall, I’m optimistic. That’s the short answer."

RNS: You mentioned earlier that these are difficult times. What do you think of what we’re experiencing right now, politically? What are your views of Donald Trump and the political mood animating our world?

EP: I think we’re in a bad situation. I really do. Donald Trump has no integrity. But I have good friends who think he’s wonderful. But I think they put up with it less and less. People are getting pretty tired of him, I think. Some of us were tired of him before he was elected.

RNS: In “As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” you say that we are facing some of the same cultural situations in our world that you identified years ago. For example, you talk about an “undercurrent of fear fueled by neurotic or manipulative religion.” Can you explain what that means?

EP: I think there’s a whole part of the Christian church which operates out of fear. It’s a negative kind of gospel, which I think is quite contrary to the Gospel that Jesus brought to us. I’m not happy with that. As with Trump, I think we can survive that too. Overall, I’m optimistic. That’s the short answer.

RNS: You’ve seen the church change a lot. You’ve seen Christianity, if I can generalize here, change a lot. Are you more encouraged or more discouraged by what you’re seeing in the American church?
EP: I’m not sure it’s either/or. I do feel like pastors are not doing their job. Look at what’s going on in the church. It has a consumer mentality. It’s about what we can sell and how we can attract people to come to church.

Now there’s a lot of innovation in the church, and overall, I can’t say I’m disheartened. I’m just upset by the fad-ism of the megachurch, but I just don’t think they’re churches. They’re entertainment places.

The full article is available here

Responsive Call to Worship: God Welcomes Everyone (based on Galatians 3:28)

Reader: God welcomes everyone with open arms.
All: No one stands outside of God's circle of mercy and love.

Reader: And so for this endless, limitless grace ...
All: ... we come to give thanks.

Reader: Through the power of your spirit, God ...
All: ... open our eyes to see your handiwork all around us.

Reader: Open our minds to be receptive to your wisdom.
All:  Open our mouths to give you praise. 

Where Did The Pagan Doctrine Of Original Sin Come From?

Before Augustine, no one taught that humans were born sinners and therefore that their freewill is in bondage to their flesh.  

Original sin is not a Biblical teaching.

The creation of the pagan doctrine of original sin can be traced back to 4th Century Rome, where the pagan philosophies of Gnostics and Manicheans blended into Christian teaching.  Unfortunately, this erroneous doctrine has had an inordinate influence on evangelical dogma and how the Gospel is preached.

Augustine of Hippo was the first to formulate the flawed doctrine.  As a student, he studied under the Manicheans, who had a dualistic worldview which saw the material world as inherently evil; therefore seeing all humans as evil by nature from the day of their conception.

Augustine's background in pagan philosophy set the stage for what would be his idea of grace, faith, and salvation.  This flawed idea is of severe negative consequence because it is through his efforts that the doctrine of original sin pollutes much of Christian teaching to this day.

Before Augustine, no one taught that humans were born sinners and therefore that there freewill is in bondage to their flesh.

In fact, the Old Testament contradicts Original Sin.  One example is Ezekiel 28:15 which says, "You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created ..."

Another example is Ecclesiates 7:29 which says, "Truly, this only I have found; that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes."

The false doctrine of Original Sin plainly contradicts the Bible and erroneously makes God the author of sin.

The teachings of the early Church Fathers, who were direct descendants of Jesus' apostles, also contradicts Original Sin. The early church talked about sin as an action or an illness, Augustine and others shifted language to an inborn sin nature.

Justin Martyr (c. 160) said, "Unless the human race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions, of whatever kind they be."

Tatian (c. 160) stated that, " ... nothing evil has been created by God; we ourselves have manifested wickedness; but we, who have manifested it, are able to reject it."

The doctrine of original sin renders the Gospel ineffective.  It destroys man's free will and turns God into a tyrant by God demand something man is incapable of doing.

Read more here about how Original Sin Is Biblically Refuted 

Call To Worship: "We" by God (based on Matthew 18:20)

Drawn by God’s presence,
we gather together

Opened by God’s love,
we share together

Inspired by God’s spirit,
we raise our voices together

Empowered by God’s grace,
we give thanks together

Christian Reformed Church Reaffirms Response To Refugees

The Christian Reformed Church is remembering, reaffirming, and reinvigorating our response to refugees as a denomination. The denomination has welcomed refugees for decades. To remember this rich history, here are some stories of Christian Reformed churches and individuals across the United States and Canada who have opened their hearts and homes to those fleeing from war and persecution.

Check out these beginning stories of welcome!

How Trump Makes A Spectacle Of Religion - Evangelical American Chris Curia

Trump's religion world tour displayed prominently his tendencies to jump to conclusions about long-lasting issues he does not and cannot fully understand in order to appease his fan base - right wing American evangelicals.

As an evangelical Christian American, I am left confused by my president’s behavior, rhetoric, and religious convictions. I get the feeling that my religion is being used to further an agenda rather than as a foundation for the formation of impactful and sustainable policy.

The full article is available here

Benediction: Let's Serve All That God Created and Called "Good" (based on Genesis 1:31)

As we go out now into our parts of God’s world ... let's listen for God’s voice within and around us, let's serve all that God created, called “good,” and loves, and let’s remember that God's Kingdom is always at work, making all things new again in everything that surrounds us.