Archive for the ‘compassion’ Tag

God Does Not Explain   Leave a comment

Kushner_God Comforts

“The time has come and is long-since past” to abandon “the idea that God is ‘in control’.” It is an idea “so troublesome as to be utterly useless. But to think of the Divine as that power called love, the one who “suffers with” and comforts the afflicted regardless of the outcome, has spiritual integrity born of real life experience.”

In Rabbi Harold S Kushner’s “book, The Lord is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm, the rabbi notes that ‘in times of trouble, God does not explain, God comforts.’ Through grace, suffering makes compassion possible, and what is more central to the life of faith than striving to be more compassionate?”

Book Cover high res— from “Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity” by David M Felten and Jeff Procter-Murphy

“Most people in church grew up listening to those who claimed to have all the answers. Who knew that the questions were more interesting, that ‘living’ them is true faithfulness. Felten and Procter-Murphy have given the class such superb resources that no one is in a hurry to graduate.”

— Dr. Robin R. Meyers, Senior Minister, Mayflower Congregational UCC Church; Professor of Rhetoric, Oklahoma City University

Violence is our God. Hallowed be its name.   2 comments

Violence is our God

We spank children to teach them not to hit one another.  We sanction the killing of killers as a deterrent against killing. We advocate the arming of citizens to promote personal safety. Is it any wonder that people are being deluded into complying with a system that allies them with violence, not compassion; with death, not life?

Even our language is overwhelmed with a continual drumbeat of violence. From seemingly innocuous phrases like, “Shoot me an email” to the “war on poverty” to “He’s da bomb” and even the “Fight for Peace” are simply “to die for” in our culture.

We are a wholly compromised culture that can’t even imagine the existence of any alternatives. Why? Because violence is entertaining, exhilarating, and as Chris Hedges has argued so poignantly, it gives many of us meaning.

Book Cover high resFrom “The Myth of Redemptive Violence” in

Living the Questions:
The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity

by David M. Felten and Jeff Procter-Murphy

Available wherever books are sold or downloaded

www.livingthequestions.com

%d bloggers like this: