Compassionate Heart Community

02/23/2024

07/24/2023

Is there anything more frustrating than a bloviating ex-evangelical? I really struggle with people like Brian McLaren. For years I have tried to understand why I struggle with him. He seems like a nice enough guy. Finally, as I was listening to him talk with Diana Butler Bass, I realized what it was. There simply are not enough words in the universe to satisfy an ex-evangelicals need to talk....

Is there anything more frustrating than a bloviating ex-evangelical? I really struggle with people like Brian McLaren. For years I have tried to understand why I struggle with him. He seems like a …

06/06/2023

If you recognize the title of this post as the title of a song, congratulations! You, too, are officially old - or you have a sibling who is. You will also know the significance of a brand new pair of roller skates, but I digress. After all, what good are the roller skates without a key? If you were raised in or around the Church, have you ever listened to the words of the hymns?...

If you recognize the title of this post as the title of a song, congratulations! You, too, are officially old – or you have a sibling who is. You will also know the significance of a brand ne…

04/26/2023

I confess that I am one of those strange people who thinks about God a lot. I am also inclined to believe that when we think about God, we think too small. This is because we start from a place of traditional God definitions. We start with the God of our great grandfathers, determine what it is about that God that we don't believe, and propose a new version of God based largely on the version we have rejected....

I confess that I am one of those strange people who thinks about God a lot. I am also inclined to believe that when we think about God, we think too small. This is because we start from a place of …

02/12/2023

Church historian and author Diana Butler Bass suggests that the questions people ask of religion have historically been "what?" questions. What should I believe? What do I need to know? These are questions religion is uniquely situated to answer. They are the questions of my patents' generation, a generation born before, during, and shortly after the Second World War. They are questions like, "What should I beleve now that my whole world has changed?" …...

Church historian and author Diana Butler Bass suggests that the questions people ask of religion have historically been “what?” questions. What should I believe? What do I need to know?…

11/04/2022

While it is a bit of an oversimplification, there are essentially two perspectives within institutional Christianity. One says that belief is a matter of memorizing facts, scripture, and doctrine. Success in this view is like passing a final exam. Entering through the gates of heaven in this view involves taking a test on an IPad. This view tends to hold that people are easily lead astray, and so encourages true believers to isolate themselves from outside influences that are seen as unclean....

While it is a bit of an oversimplification, there are essentially two perspectives within institutional Christianity. One says that belief is a matter of memorizing facts, scripture, and doctrine. …

10/21/2022

Wait just a minute - some of you are either lying, overestimating yourselves, or both. I suppose it can't be avoided. Read on. If, at the end of this article you decide what I wrote was nonsense then all I can say is, "I told you so." I have been knocking around the spiritual world for quite some time now - long enough that there are very few things I do that don't hurt....

Wait just a minute – some of you are either lying, overestimating yourselves, or both. I suppose it can’t be avoided. Read on. If, at the end of this article you decide what I wrote was…

07/16/2022

Oh yes, everyone is wounded. Me too. I understand. You have all been broken and it's terribly unfair. Of course we all haven't been wounded in the same degree or in the same way, nevertheless we are wounded. Someone or several someones have damaged us unfairly. It never should have happened. Can we stipulate to that? I'd like to point out that having something bad happen is a nearly universal experience....

Oh yes, everyone is wounded. Me too. I understand. You have all been broken and it’s terribly unfair. Of course we all haven’t been wounded in the same degree or in the same way, nevert…

05/07/2022

...unless you are willing to admit our flaws. Americans are a horribly inconsistent bunch. We expect things we have no reason to expect, for which there is no evidence of even te possibility of manifestation, but not only do we expect them we also become enraged when we don't get them. Some of that is what I call an error of direction....

…unless you are willing to admit our flaws. Americans are a horribly inconsistent bunch. We expect things we have no reason to expect, for which there is no evidence of even te possibility of…

02/23/2022

Do Americans even know what they want any longer? Most of the knee jerk answers people offer when asked what they really want seem to offer up something that, realistically, they aren't ever going to have. Some say they want to be wealthy, but that's a profoundly subjective goal. Others want to be happy, but are hard pressed to identify what conditions would have to exist for them to be happy....

Do Americans even know what they want any longer? Most of the knee jerk answers people offer when asked what they really want seem to offer up something that, realistically, they aren’t ever …

02/01/2022

I haven't written in a while because I have been thinking about the current world situation. From a spiritual perspective, we seem to be in a period of moral bankruptcy stemming from all moral questions being profoundly oversimplified. The cause of that reductionism is neither on the left or the right alone. Rather, it's everywhere. At the risk of oversimplifying the issue myself, I will wade in....

I haven’t written in a while because I have been thinking about the current world situation. From a spiritual perspective, we seem to be in a period of moral bankruptcy stemming from all mora…