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What Do We Owe?
2013-01-10 I was talking recently with a friend who is struggling with the question of how extensively to remodel the house that she and her husband just bought. Water damage means that they’re going to have quite a lot of repair work to do on the back wall, which brought up the question whether they…
Read MoreThe Connection of Church and State
2012-10-10 I am a big fan of the separation of church and state. I do not believe that it is appropriate for the government to privilege any religion, or impose any set of religious beliefs on its citizens. I don’t think that anyone’s religious views should be allowed to determine who may or may not…
Read MoreWhat Isn’t Said
2012-10-18 You know what I find most fascinating about this week’s presidential debate? What they didn’t talk about. There was a lengthy back and forth about energy policy and who would drill where and who would get the most oil out of US public lands, but no mention whatsoever about climate change. There was some…
Read MoreSalvation
2012-11-01 I am a Unitarian Universalist who believes deeply that salvation is an inherent aspect of my faith. Not just my own personal salvation, though through this faith that has happened, but the salvation of the world. My faith is not about the salvation of individual souls for a perceived afterlife. I believe that whatever…
Read MoreThat’s What Bearing Witness Is…
2012-10-06 Let go of what you know and honor what exists Son, that’s what bearing witness is Daughter, that’s what bearing witness is ~ David Shannon Bazan, Bearing Witness Less than 15 miles away from the city of New Orleans as the crow flies – or 25 miles if you drive along the every curving…
Read MoreJudge Not…
2012-09-24 Toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to those gathered, “Judge not, that you not be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it, will be measured to you.” He then goes on to illustrate this nugget of wisdom with…
Read MoreBeing Good for Nothing
2012-07-12 I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything. But letting these things slide is, shall we say, not my strong suit. So when a Facebook friend posted a picture of a gun mounted under a car’s steering wheel with a caption about it being an “an anti-carjacking device,” accompanied by her wish that this were…
Read MoreA Response to “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?”
2012-07-16 In yesterday’s New York Times, op-ed columnist, Ross Douthat, published “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?” My first reaction upon reading the article was to launch a strident refutation. Other people of liberal faith already have. But as I thought more deeply about Mr. Douthat’s indictments, I found more truth and realized that my own…
Read MoreHolding to the Wrong Anchor
2012-07-26 Yesterday I was listening to a radio interview with the Catholic bishop who had been charged with responding to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Basically, his stance was that the group, which represents 80% of Catholic nuns, was just flat-out wrong when they suggested that the Catholic Church needs to re-examine its stance…
Read MoreEvery Jot and Tittle
2012-07-31 Yesterday was my birthday, so I thought I’d explain how I came about my name Matthew Tittle. In the Christian Scriptures, in the King James Version of the Book of Matthew (5:17-18), during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is recorded as having said: Think not that I am come to destroy the law,…
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