Christianity

Questioning General Authority (a Musing by Jim Burklo)

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Our friend Rev. Jim Burklo (Center for Progressive Christianity) just visited the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  His visit is chronicled in this latest musing that I found fascinating and wonderful, especially what happened at the very end… (read on). Musings by Jim Burklo
www.tcpc.blogs.com/musings for current and previous articles
11-8-11
Questioning General Authority
For an exotic cultural and religious experience without leaving the borders of the United States, pay a visit to the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! With my boss at USC, Varun Soni, Dean of Religious Life, Jerry Campbell, president of the Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Lincoln University, Tammi Schneider, dean of religion, and Deborah Freund, president, Claremont Graduate University, I went to Salt Lake City this past Thursday and Friday to meet with top leaders, known as “General Authorities”, of the Mormon church. We were guests of the church, invited by the interfaith representatives of the LDS in southern California.

Culture

Photo Essay: Sacred Spaces at Occupy Oakland

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Buddhist monks in orange robes chant in one corner of the Occupy Oakland encampment. Across the plaza, a reverend in a rainbow stole reads Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Six Principles of Nonviolence.” A block away, candles burn on an unorthodox altar to the death of capitalism.

Christianity

Recalling the French Revolution of 1789: Lessons for the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street Movements

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When I was reading into a book about Adolf Hitler, entitled The Psychopathic God, when I ran across a meaningful quote from a French Revolution-era author, diplomat and orator named Honore Mirabeau. In the book he wrote about his experience visiting the kingdom of Prussia (A Secret History of the Court of Berlin), Mirabeau wrote:
“Prussia is not a country that has an Army; it is an Army that has a country”. That quote piqued my interest so I did some research into the realities in which Mirabeau found himself. My initial thought was to write column about Prussian militarism and the alarming similarities to our own but instead decided to write about the French Revolution, particularly with the early phases of the current revolution going on around the world in the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring Uprising movements. There are many lessons to be learned.

Judaism

Response to a Religious Jewish Transsexual Listing Suicide Options Considered as Alternatives to Gender Transition

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God is infinite, and each of us encounters different faces of God, and God needs us – each of us – to make our experience of God visible in the world. Without you, the truth of God that only you can know will be lost. God speaks to us through the language of necessity – what we need to do to live. Think of your body – it tells you when you need to eat, to breathe, to lie down and rise up. Your soul also tells you what you need to do to live; it’s telling you now.

Culture

Halloween

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The wall that we think we build between life and death, between good and evil, dissolves into mist on All Hallows Eve. And the shadow of death looms large over us reminding us of our earthly mortality and our complicated selves. We wear the masks that reveal our internal Otherness. We costume ourselves in our fantasies and look our personal monsters in the face. On All Hallows Eve we see our own all too human un-holy-ness.

Culture

Winter is Coming: On the Occupation of #OWS

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The Occupy Movement has the potential to change the American political landscape to the benefit of the 99 per cent rather than for only the 1 per cent. But, such will require more than a willingness to sleep in the cold and the snow. It will require the vocation, the job, the occupation of solid political work and an occupation of worship space to have the spiritual wherewithal to continue the struggle for the long time that it will take to make the changes the Occupiers want to see.

Politics & Society

“People Power” vs. “Police Power” at Occupy Wall Street

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by Donna Schaper
Washington Square Park filled up like a great bellows Saturday night with intense energy from the Times Square action joining some New York University energy. The bellows filled and then they emptied, right before midnight in a peaceful march exiting the park through the South. Not every one left and some were arrested. At 12:15 a.m the picture of the park wearing a necklace of navy blue was disconcerting, to say the least. “The park is empty,” the police announced.

Christianity

"Just Camp Here and Stay:" Dr. King and the Occupy Wall Street Movement

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It’s clear that King’s concerns resonate with Occupy Wall Streets (OWS) protests against corporate greed, unending wars, dangerous foreign policy and a broken political system. He called for a “radical redistribution of economic, social and political power.” King had courageously spoken out against the U.S. for engaging in a war that “seeks to turn the clock of history back and perpetuate white colonialism,” at a time when 70% of the country still supported the war.

Christianity

“Generational Tensions of a Beautiful Order”: Message from a Minister at the Wall Street Protests

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Younger people know that their tactics have sparked a movement. They figured out how to have public conversations without microphones. They’ve organized Zuccotti Park better than any of my children ever organized their rooms. They have a growing kitchen of good food, well distributed. They have also managed the sanitation problem and the recycling problem with creativity and élan. They meet ridicule with smiles and increasingly creative signs. They created a slogan – “We’re the 99%” – that is inspiring millions of older folks.

Christianity

"Of Mormons, Baptists, and Liberty of Conscience" By Jason A. Kerr

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This is a guest post by Jason A. Kerr, a doctoral candidate in English at Boston College. He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On 7 October, Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, was speaking to reporters outside the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC, where he had just introduced Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry. Taking aim at Perry’s rival for the nomination, Mitt Romney, Jeffress said that Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “is not a Christian.” Jeffress went on to say, “This idea that Mormonism is a theological cult is not news….