Tag: Faith

  • What is the point Christians seem not to grasp? Think Compassion.

    The curse of historians is often how we understand cultural phase change. All cultures and religions are resistant to understanding the phase change. There is a common thread in Christianity. We are starting with the teachings of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, the apostolic movements after Jesus, and especially when we understand why religious…

  • Green Junction: Hydraulic Fracturing by Julie Peller, Ph.D.

    Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, is an advanced technological process for mining natural gas and oil from the depths of the earth, typically 1000 to 4000 feet. The process requires huge amounts of fresh water, 1.5 million to 16 million gallons per well, that are mixed with chemicals to pressurize the wells and…

  • Happy Birthday, St. Bonhoeffer

    Happy Birthday, St. Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on 4 February 1906, fully in the image and likeness of God. Like all of us, our life challenges us to maintain God’s likeness.  Bonhoeffer became for the world a well-known theologian, pastor, and Nazi resister. He was educated in Europe and the US and had his…

  • Green Junction: Thinking about Fashion. By Julie Peller Ph.D.

    When goods and energy are subsidized, the price is not the real cost but a reduced and often harmfully artificial one. For example, synthetic fabrics known as nylon and polyester are made from subsidized fossil fuels. The artificially low price of these clothing and textile items leads to higher sales and shorter use times. The…

  • Green Junction: “It is our collective and individual responsibility: By Julie Peller Ph.D.

    Younger generations tend to express greater concern about the state of the earth. Their futures are challenged by the rising human population that generates greenhouse gases, pollution, and extorts natural resources, among other stressors. Societal messaging continues to promote materialism, which distresses nature. Unprecedented weather events are among the earth’s messages. Young people who recognize…

  • Merton: a ‘mystical experience.’

    In 1966, Merton wrote about a ‘mystical experience’ in a Louisville, Ky., shopping district, commonly known as the 4th & Walnut experience. Merton famously wrote: “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even…

  • There’s no better time for a movement to stand up. By Julie Peller, Ph.D.

    “Morality, at its core, is about putting ourselves in others’ shoes and treating their interests as we do our own.” Oxford University Professor of Philosophy William MacAskill is the author of “What We Owe the Future.” In this writing, he imagines “living the life of every human being who has ever existed — in order…

  • “The root of war is fear”

    “Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for, or ‘fight for.’ It is indeed ‘fighting for peace’ that starts all the wars. What, after all, are the pretexts of all these Cold War crises, but ‘fighting for peace?’ Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace,…

  • Two Quotes from Thomas Merton: Do we understand violence?

    These two quotes from Thomas Merton are key to understanding and discovering the root cause of violence in our society. Violence is a symptom. A symptom generated by the root cause. If we only treat the symptom it will never end, we must as a society treat the root cause. Treating the root cause of…

  • Secret Revelation of John

    There are hundreds of gospels and related texts about the movement of the early followers of Jesus in the first three centuries. We have given them many names, such as gnostic gospels and Apocrypha writings. Given our modern-day political environment, we find similar situations exist in churches & the political world of the early followers of Jesus…