Issues raise question for United Methodists: ‘Will the unity Hold?’ No mention of climate crisis

Building on my last post here,  I saw an article on UMNS , here,  entitled “United Methodists achieve milestones despite differences” , and began the article with this: Different viewpoints over societal changes have led some to speculate whether the unity of The United Methodist Church will hold when its top legislative body meets in May 2016. (the linked article Continue Reading

“Extricating ourselves” from the fossil fuel economy and its realities?

“Extricating ourselves is going to be much harder than Ms Klein likes to acknowledge.” the above quote appears in the longer text below,  which is a comment submitted by Murray Reiss  under an article by John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark “The liberal attack on Naomi Klein and ‘This Changes Everything’ “ on the Climate & Capitalism website Foster and Continue Reading

Problems with “American holidays” and Churches

When churches “join the celebration” on July 4, I think the problem we face there has a slight similarity w/ the “Confederate Flag problem”, in that we can sometimes communicate an “all or nothing approval”, and rubber stamp a culture which worships at the shrine of America. When churches on Memorial Day weekend, which also “happens to be Pentecost Sunday” Continue Reading

Agree with Robert Reich’s “Moral Crisis” post, and then some

Yes. And to that I would add the enormous, far-reaching, ongoing moral crisis of refusing to see the writingon the wall about what the scientists are telling us we are doing to the earth’s ability to sustain us. It doesn’t matter what our “OPINION” is, it is the ecosystem. It doesn’t care about our politics (except about that part which Continue Reading

Dialogue needed across all Church bodies (Protestant, Catholic, Evangelical, etc.)

Initially posted to my Facebook account: Every church denomination need to issue actual response to Pope’s theological work in LaudatoSi. Need constant, current updates of processing (ie. Not just go back into their past statements and “find a mention of ecology”. We need ongoing, updated, dialogue on what this means NOW, as things get much worse than they were back Continue Reading

My latest “Blasphemy” (another theological radicalization due to the Climate Crisis)

The Pope’s #Encyclical is MORE important than the Bible right now. ( the Bible as typically interpreted, that is). But even rightly interpreted, given our present crisis, we don’t have time to retrain and re-teach an ecological Biblical narrative. That would take some years of doing, since it would have to UNDO centuries of an age-old heresy of humanity considering Continue Reading

.@BrianMcLaren and @LukeNorsworthy talk Slavery, Theology, and Fossil Fuels

Such an important theological parallel drawn by Brian D. McLaren in this podcast with Luke Norsworthy.   “Fossil Fuels are the new slavery” (drawing on the same economic motivations to justify a “status quo” one wishes to maintain (and has interests which keep them “interested” and invested in seeing it that way). play a clip of this segment I’m talking about (this Continue Reading