The cleaning out of our homes should also be a cleansing of our spirits, a renewal to the meaning of our Exodus experience and the new Creation that is spring.

People concerned about falling birth rates could more constructively spend their energy loving the neighbors they already have.

The fundamental doctrinal tenets of Christianity can be traced back to Paul -- not to Jesus. In contrast, the original Christianity before Paul is somewhat difficult to find in the New Testament.

My question is whether or not there is a way to read 1 Corinthians 9:9-10 that does justice to Paul while minimizing bias against nonhuman species among his readers?

"I don't think Bishop Jackson is offended by my ideology but by scripture itself. If he wants to toss out what the Bible has to say about wealth and poverty he might as well toss out the whole book..."

I've been thinking a lot about change recently because of the course I'm teaching this semester, which looks at the experience of conversion from historical, sociological and anthropological perspectives.

The historical Paul is being pulled -- kicking and screaming -- away from Christianity's radical past and into Christianity's Roman future. As with owner and slave so also with male and female.

There is no indication however, that this imagery may justify the use of violence or coercion in the name of the Gospel. We are called, as Paul writes to Timothy, to fight the good fight of faith.

As attractive a moral strategy as it may be to always put God first, does loyalty to God really mean casting aside every other commitment we have?

How does one find God in the everyday situations of life? How do we find God in the everyday things that we do, or can we? Is God present in everything or only in those things that we would traditionally call holy?

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that "us-and-them" seeing, and the dualistic thinking that results, is the foundation of almost all discontent and violence in the world.

Sharpen your eyes and ears to the noun the corporate media uses to reference you. Every time you are referred to as a consumer (which is virtually every time), say resolutely to yourself, "Citizen."

An entirely different type of conqueror also profoundly affected these Mediterranean lands. I am talking about the first Christians who arrived in the first century.