Your beliefs don't matter. WHY WOULD your beliefs matter to God? We hear all the time, or feel, that they surely do matter - but why? How?
Author - Larry
Jesus Named Wicked Ways (9 Examples) – We Can’t Hide
Jesus named wicked ways ... explicitly. That is, Jesus of Nazareth himself, 1000 years after Solomon, 2000 years before us.
2 Chronicles 7:14 – Is This Good News For Us? Great Blessing Offered
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 - a frightening yet hopeful word from the God of these people. We’d do well to get the actual points.
Try Mainstream Churches – You Might Be Healthier, More Comfortable Here With The Rest of Us!
[Mainstream churches - often called mailine - might be good for you. This is from a reader back in 2005. More true today. My 2023 notes are in brackets like this sentence.]
Guns and Mental Illness: 6 Evil Practices by Which We Are Killing Our Kids
Guns and mental illness – we hear repeatedly that the problem is not guns, it is mental illness. “Guns don’t kill people – people kill people”. That’s a cop-out. Of course people kill people, always...
5 Awesome Books for a Desert Island (My Current List. What’s Yours?)
Years ago someone at LibraryThing.com asked which five books I'd like to have with me - 5 books for a desert island.
Christofascism – It’s Real, It’s Deadly, And It Intends to Dominate Us All
The book "Confronting Christofascism," makes this starkly clear: “We are dealing with something far beyond the contents of the Christian Gospels.” (p4)
Tyranny – We’re in Danger but We Can Act, and Should – 20 Short Lessons.
Very short book, and very valuable! “The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats ...
Fear Can Be Agonizing. 30+ Posts That May Help With That
Fear is real. But it's not in the least all that there is.
Micah 6:8 – He Turns Us Toward a Beautiful Life After His Anger
Justice – Mercy – Humility, all "required" by the Prophet Micah. No excuses apply, of theology, creed, Bible interpretation, politics, economics, race, class, whatever.
Mary Pipher: Can We Flourish as We Age? “Women Rowing North”.
This book of Mary Pipher’s has the strong asset of valuable epigraphs at the head of each chapter. I’m just going to list the sections, chapter titles, and epigraphs from each chapter in Women...
Isaiah 58 Gives us Much-Coveted Hopes – After Accusations. It’s Beautiful.
Please read the outline. Isaiah 58 is ancient, and VERY contemporary. And it's brief!
Earth – I Woke Up on The 3rd Rock Today.
Sitting on my little porch (on Earth, as it turns out), overlooking some lawn space and a bike trail, I suddenly realized -
Book Reviews: Another 10 Excellent Ones I’ve RE-Read Recently. (List 2)
Here are brief book reviews of ones I’ve chosen to RE-read in the last two or three years. That means they’re worth a lot to me, because there’s a bunch of others I still need to read for the first...
Was Social Justice Part of Jesus’ Message? Oh Yes. 4 Scriptures.
What does Jesus say about social justice? I’m not going to argue percentages here. Let’s just see some very clear things he said so we can deliberately choose to believe in him – or not.
Book Reviews: I’ve RE-read 10 Excellent Ones Recently (List 1)
Here are brief reviews of books I’ve chosen to RE-read in the last two or three years. That means they’re worth a lot to me, because there’s a bunch I still need to read for the first time.
Love God – Can Even GOD Demand That? Well, Yes and No.
Can someone demand that you love God? No. Not even God can do that – because God (who- or what-ever God is) has obviously given humans freedom to feel what they feel, period.
Do They Hate You Too? To Not Be Persecuted, Avoid These Traits – 3 Lists
Which of their hate lists are you on? Sooner or later everybody can be persecuted by the authoritarians (fascists). That's crazy.
Greed of Capitalist Preachers Strongly Denounced by Jesus
Hyper-capitalism (American style) seems to thrive on, live on, intense greed - love of money, of wealth accumulation - above all.
6 Ways to Believe in Jesus Without Taking Him Seriously
Do we believe in Jesus? The church for centuries has been good at "domesticating" Jesus -- the historical Jesus was more of a problem to religious people than is usually recognized or accepted.
A Rigorously Christian Liberal – Nebraska’s Wm J Bryan
He was openly, deeply Christian, and vigorously liberal. And "He did more than any other man to transform the Democratic Party from a bulwark of laissez-faire into the citadel of liberalism we...
Guns in Nebraska – Freedom for Guns! Less Freedom for the Humans.
Guns in Nebraska: The NE Senate passed and the Governor signed a bill to remove all sensible and necessary supervision of handgun ownership and possession here. I love Nebraska, have lived here over...
Young Climate Prophets, Wise and Blunt Against Earth Abuse
Climate prophets use the burning Notre Dame cathedral as a gut-grabbing illustration of what’s happening - to our climate, Our Cathedral Home, this beautiful, ancient, and precious Earth.
Prayer for All of Us! – 5 Helps to Realism and Comfort in Prayer
Prayer is perhaps a bit strange, but still a common activity. These five principles I think are hopeful and realistic.
Be Joyful? It Doesn’t Mean You’re Nuts, but More Free.
Be joyful! This is a call to delight in spite of it all, to enjoy life EVEN THOUGH you are quite well informed.
What “God Orders” but We Hate Most – Justice
John Ruskin says we are willing to do almost anything for the less privileged “except the one thing which God orders for them, justice.”
Love and Faith are the Same Thing! You think?
1) Jesus insists that the primary obligation of spiritual / ethical life is LOVE (for God and "neighbors"). 2) But, as the Gospels emphasize, Jesus also requires “faith” or “believing” as our primary...
Two Kinds of Religion, Love or Domination. Is Yours Good for People?
We all, religious or not, to some extent mix together these ways of thinking and acting - love, as against domination. They express whatever faith - or nonfaith - we have. But they are probably...
About PublicChristian
I'm very concerned about how the Gospel and Scripture are (mis-)represented in popular culture, religious media, and the churches. It’s also a great concern how truth in general is mis-represented ...
Thomas Jefferson Cut Up His Bible – With Great Respect
Thomas Jefferson spent considerable time and careful attention on Jesus of Nazareth - more, it seems to me, than many preachers I have listened to. And those preachers and other teachers claim that...