Take right-wing religion’s teaching that people are basically so evil and lost that they deserve eternal, abusive punishment. Add its effectiveness at convincing people of their innate evil because they’re prepared for it through childrearing methods that punish inherently bad children. Enforce such messages with
We must learn to worship God and not our bibles. We must learn to worship God and not our pastor/bishop. We must learn to worship God and not our glistening, massive church buildings. We must learn to worship God and not our stellar church choirs.
A wise man once said, “there are two ways to getting enough; the one way is to accumulate more things and the other is to desire less.” But desire is often difficult to curb, especially when love or lust is involved. And the problem is
God touched my life many years ago. I learned to have a relationship with God and morphed into an evangelical fundamentalist. I was an elder in a church where we all knew gays were horrible evil creatures with an agenda. In a loveless marriage, I
Without music I would be dead. I wondered if that statement was too strong – an overstatement of facts, but it isn’t. I truly believe that I would not be here today without the saving power of music. I have always surrounded myself with music.
Our musical enjoyment is often communal, but for each of us, the experience is also intensely individual. No two people’s musical “biographies” are ever alike. But despite the differences between my melodious memories and yours, music can link us together as almost nothing else can.
Believe it or not, I was once a “rock star” (or at least, attempting to make it as one). I had four years of professional classical voice training (and even more “learning by experience,” which can often be a superior teacher in many ways) as
Music is an interesting enigma in many aspects and regardless of your personal interest or lack of interest in music, you have to admit that in this day and age with the ease at which music can be produced, bought and sold, downloaded and even
Rarely are the words erection and God used in the same sentence. Why is this? If God invented sex, sexuality, sexual desire, sexual orientation, erections, and orgasms then why is there such timidity in discussing such topics openly during a Sunday school discussion or even
When I was professor of religion at the Baptist College of Charleston, I suggested to my religion students that when they could not think of what to say to talk about Jesus. Two of my students went to visit one of their classmates to invite