Believe it or not, there are people running around in this country who love to question the validity of ministries, most often in the independent Catholic and Anglican world, not on the basis of the ministry they do but rather by trying to pick apart the so-called “validity” of their ordination, the ritual used, or…
What keeps you up at night? What kinds of things bother you so much that you have trouble concentrating? What are your deepest fears? Unless you are a theologian, a member of the clergy, or schizophrenic, I’m willing to bet that having a solid understanding of the doctrine of a religion isn’t on your list.…
Let’s be clear. If you belong to a church or other religious or spiritual organization that doesn’t want to address the tough issues, that doesn’t want to take a tough stand, that doesn’t want to confront the problems that are present in society but prefers instead to make nice, to keep the peace, to avoid…
One of the teachings of every major religion is that you have what you need for the spiritual journey inside of you already. If you have gone to church all your life and never heard that one, it’s not a surprise – it’s bad for business. People hear it and head for the hills. That being said,…
About a year ago I happened to be working in urban neighborhoods on a Sunday morning. As I moved around town, I heard parts of sermons from three different churches through overdriven PA systems. The message from each? You shouldn’t be spending money “in the world” on clothes and hairstyles, you should be giving your…
I drove past a church last week with one of those electronic signs in front. When I read the first sentence, “You’re never too bad to come in here,” I was moderately encouraged even though the idea of someone being “bad” is not something I endorse. Then I read the second sentence, “You’re never good…
I was part of a discussion on Facebook today around Institutional Religion’s discomfort with people like myself who identify as SBNR, or spiritual but not religious. It started out with an observation by someone who had heard uber-snarky Lillian Daniel prattle on about how, in her mind, SBNR folk are little more than intellectually marginal folks who are…
