Tex Sample asks, “I often wonder where the people who are marginalized in the world, where the people who are poor, where the people who are outcast, can find those that they can trust. Is it you? Is it me? Can it be the church?”
Allan Knight Chalmers
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Allan Knight Chalmers was a Professor of Preaching at Boston University School of Theology and a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. While at Boston University, Chalmers was the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and was involved in Civil Rights struggles and Civil Rights action all over the United States. It was professors like Chalmers and Dean Walter Muelder who intentionally sought out African American students from the South to train them for the Civil Rights challenges that were to come. During his tenure at Boston University, Dean Muelder was responsible for the training of more African American PhD students than any single university in the country. One of those was Dr. King.
Not only is Original Sin NOT in the Bible, Elie Wiesel says that Original Sin is alien to Jewish thinking (and therefore alien to Jesus’ way of thinking). Let’s ditch the whole thing, shall we?
Matthew Fox says, “Jesus never heard of ‘Original Sin’.” The term wasn’t even used until the 4th century, so it’s “strange to run a church, a gathering, an ekklesia — supposedly on behalf of Jesus — when one of its main dogmatic tenets, Original Sin, never occurred to Jesus.” Sadly, Western Christianity is dependent on and chronically “attached to Original Sin — but what they’re really attached to is St. Augustine. The fact is that most Westerners believe more in Augustine (and his preoccupation with sex) than they do in Jesus.”
Matthew Fox is an author, educator, activist, and Episcopal priest. His books include Original Blessing, Creation Spirituality and The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. He appears in a number of Living the Questions DVD series including Living the Questions 2.0 and Saving Jesus Redux
Liberation is about “being on a journey, being in a movement.” It’s “the process of coming into an awareness that there is definitely a better life for people to be had. Not just for myself but for all of us. The Church should be part of that. And where it is not, it is not the Church.”
And whether it’s the Church or each of us as individuals, it’s about “doing the right thing day after day after day and moment after moment. It really is doing it every day. I cannot say it often enough: treating people fairly, decently – respecting them for who they are – knowing that none of us is perfect.”
Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes is an an ordained American Baptist clergywoman and scholar whose areas of expertise include Christian ethics and womanist theology. She appears in a number of Living the Questions DVD programs. In 2013, Townes is moving from Yale University to become dean of Vanderbilt University Divinity School.
Pastors David Felten and Jeff Procter-Murphy, along with the voices of top Bible scholars and church leaders—including Marcus Borg, Diana Butler Bass, John Dominic Crossan, Helen Prejean, and John Shelby Spong—provide a primer to a church movement that encourages every Christian to “live the questions” instead of “forcing the answers.”
Based on the bestselling DVD course, "Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity" tackles issues of faith, dogma, and controversial subjects that many churches are afraid to address. "Living the Questions" is the most comprehensive survey of progressive Christianity in existence today.
Available at www.livingthequestions.com, through online booksellers, and as a Kindle download!
“A welcome book that is bold (without being contentious) and courageous (without needing to be triumphant), Felten and Procter-Murphy give voice to a faith that provides a profound alternative to the dominant ideology of ‘American Christianity.’ Attention should be paid!”
— WALTER BRUEGGEMANN, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
Living the Questions 
You must be logged in to post a comment.