Our medieval ancestors understood theology to be the queen of the sciences. Her twin sister Sophia (the Greek word for "wisdom") was also venerated in the discipline of philosophy. It was hard to tell the two beauties apart, but together they once ruled the...

Easter, you may have noticed, is not a fixed day in the calendar. While Christmas, in contrast, occurs reliably every year on Dec. 25, Easter wanders around on a given Sunday in late March or April. This year Easter will be celebrated on March 31, but in 2014 it will...

Our European ancestors once understood the universe to be a Great Chain of Being. All the entities of the world -- animal, vegetable, mineral -- were hierarchically organized. At the bottom were metals, precious metals, and precious stones. Then came plants and trees, followed by wild animals and domesticated animals....

Every religion, every ideology and every construct of self implies a perspective on what constitutes the good life, as well as some kind of critique of the bad. Religions would be thin gruel in a nihilistic wasteland without some blissful vision of transcendence. Political ideologies would be empty chatter without...

In today's global civilization, we are confronted with a Walmart of worldviews. We find ourselves in an entangled and sometimes toxic web of ideologies, religions, nationalisms and ethnicities. We generally resolve this cognitive dissonance by doubling-down on our own prejudices in opposition to those with whom we disagree. We tend...

Humans today, perhaps more than at any other time in history, are caught up in a web of entangled narratives. Globalization and communication technologies have brought a world of differences into our living rooms, classrooms and communities. People wage culture wars within and between civilizations based on these narratives, religious...

What are we to make of all these sacred texts with their complex origins? How should we read them today? Is there some truth to be found therein, as their followers so fervently proclaim?

One option for scriptural interpretation is to read the Bible and other sacred texts as...

The Senate rejected the Blunt amendment, which would have allowed employers to deny healthcare coverage to their employees for contraception or any other "morally objectionable" service. The failed amendment --to a highway bill in this case -- appeared on the heels of the recent controversies with the United States Conference...

Let's look at an example of how science understands sacred scripture by taking a closer look at historical criticism of the New Testament. What I present is very much the academic consensus after more than a hundred years of research in a variety of cognate fields -- linguistic analysis, archeology,...

The vast majority of religious believers hold on to scriptures as sacred, as profound revelations, as precious guides to the mysteries of life and death. Believers believe that their stories are true -- for instance, that Moses was a real person who led the Hebrews out of slavery and received...

Science is progressive, and it tends toward consensus of necessity. Science discovers, illuminates, and crafts facts, and we rely on these complex facts in practical ways. Unlike religion, science is pretty much the same collection of complex facts in all cultures around the world. These facts are uncovered with considerable...

In jest I call myself "a recovering Unitarian." I was raised believing that all religions are the same, so we valued none of them, equally. While it is unfair to ascribe this view to Unitarian Universalists in general, it was true of my congregation in that time and place. In...

The Christmas story is subversive, so we try to render it safe and saccharine. Contrast the idea of God as some great, all-powerful Being in the sky with the icon of the helpless baby in the manger. The former, many imagine, micro-manages all the details of our lives and the...

Attending a recent Bar Mitzvah ceremony, I was impressed, once again, by the wisdom of this ancient tribal initiation ceremony. The 13-year-old boy (or girl, in what's called a Bat Mitzvah) is surrounded by family and friends as he recites the Torah portion in Hebrew and offers a short sermon...

When Thanksgiving dinner conversation drifts into religious dogma, here is the way I'll respond, with a wink and a smile: "That's nice, Aunty. Thank you for sharing. But I am spiritual, not religious. I love the Brussels sprouts and chestnuts. Did you make that dish?" It is a polite way...