I was recently invited to write an essay on whether the resurrection of Jesus was “physical and bodily” or “spiritual and mystical.” The distinction is helpful: it makes clear that Christians have understood the meanings of Easter in different ways. But for more than one reason, including the common meanings of these words in modern [...]
Browsing the archives for the understanding God category
16 May 11
7 May 11
Holy Week with its climax in Easter is for Christians what Passover is for Jews: the most important week of the year – a sacred time during which its primordial and primal narrative is remembered and ultimately celebrated. What is this week about? Within Christianity today, two very different frameworks shape how this week is [...]
5 Comments
Posted in understanding God
1 Sep 10
The United States has more Christians than any country in the world, both in numbers and as a per cent of our population. Roughly 80% of Americans identify themselves as Christian. Only about half are actively involved in the life of a church, but this is still a large number. But are we a Christian [...]
11 Comments
Posted in America, definitions, politics, understanding God, word meanings
Tagged America, definitions, politics
Tagged America, definitions, politics
1 Jul 10
My most formative religious experiences were a series of mystical experiences. They began to occur in my early thirties. They changed my understanding of the meaning of the word “God”-of what that word points to-and gave me an unshakable conviction that God (or “the sacred”) is real and can be experienced. These experiences also convinced [...]
20 Apr 10
My new novel, Putting Away Childish Things, was released April 20, 2010. Here my teachings on Christianity are present in a new form—fiction. I hope my book will be an engaging way for readers to learn about the important issues dividing Christians today. Along the way, we join with the characters to ask the hard [...]
14 Comments
Posted in faith, Jesus, My Books, understanding God
Tagged book, faith, Jesus, men, women
Tagged book, faith, Jesus, men, women
2 Apr 10
The biblical meaning of “repentance” is quite different from an apology. In the Jewish Bible, the Christian Old Testament, “repentance” means “to return” – that is, to return from exile, to return to life in the presence of God, to a life centered in God. In the Christian New Testament, the word “repentance” carries this [...]
2 Comments
Posted in faith, understanding God, word meanings
Tagged definitions, forgiveness, meaning, repentance
Tagged definitions, forgiveness, meaning, repentance
17 Mar 10
I am a committed Christian and a complete agnostic about the afterlife. I use “agnostic” in its precise sense: one who does not know. Moreover, I know that I cannot resolve “not knowing” by “believing” – whatever we believe about an afterlife has nothing to do with whether there is one or what it is [...]
16 Mar 10
Without questioning, faith is idolatrous. Just as patriotism without questioning risks becoming idolatrous nationalism, so faith without questioning risks becoming idolatrous religion. To explain: when faith is defined as unquestioning acceptance of “tenets or traditions,” whether drawn from the Bible or doctrine or both, then the object of faith is no longer God, but the [...]
14 Mar 10
Don’t Tell Them Anything They’ll Need to Unlearn Our children deserve to know the stories that matter to us. So tell them the stories of your tradition –and of other traditions, when appropriate. If and when they ask, “Is that a true story?”, they may be asking, “Did that really happen?” But you don’t have [...]
9 Mar 10
I pray all the time. I do not mean “every minute,” but many times a day. My understanding and practice of prayer are grounded in my understanding of God, the Sacred. I see God as a presence, as the one “in whom we live and move and have our being,” to quote words attributed to [...]
-
subscribe
New Novel
-
Recent Comments
Austin Bell on Narrow is the Way
Lilias Darcy-Fox on Reflections on Easter
Don Sellos on Reflections on Easter
Gary and Gayle Aronson on God’s Non-Violent Revolutionary
Jim Coleman on Reflections on Easter
Marcus Borg weaves his insightful teachings on Christianity into a new form — fiction.