God Is Not 3 Guys

It has been years since I’ve written about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Criticizing the Church is easy compared with addressing American ignorance about Palestine, where a people subjected to genocide in the past has become the main aggressor.   US power perpetuates the horror. It raises such feelings of anger and rage in me....... what it must feel like to Palestinians! Pointing out wrongs in the Church is easy compared with addressing wrongs in government. When I write about religion I feel the long, slow but inexorable movement of evolution righting the wrongs, and I’m moving with its weight.   The situation in Palestine feels hopeless because the world’s superpower, our country, is on the wrong side. (I add this caveat—Secretary of State John Kerry seems genuinely trying to be fair. Other US politicians in the past have tried—another long story.) I’m biased in favor of the underdog, the Palestinians, whom I see as comparable to native Americans in this coun...

In 2009 I wrote a series of posts I called “Man vs. Myth.”   Here “man” does NOT refer to humanity but to Jesus, a man who was turned into a myth. In this post I clarify my disagreements with conventional Christian belief about Jesus.   It may spur you to examine your own belief. Look for all the Man vs. Myth posts in my index, right, under Historical Jesus. They produced some debate, as you can see.

A PBS documentary, “ FreedomSummer,” which aired on Tuesday, rivals any movie for the gravity of its content, its emotional impact, its stirring music, and the nobility of its characters. Besides, these actors are real, not fictional, and they portray real events. The Blacks of Mississippi, the most bigoted state in the Jim Crow South, were transformed by a thousand courageous young people from the North who entered every corner of the state. They emboldened its disenfranchised citizens, and succeeded.   What a story! I never tire of Civil Rights programs and they usually stir up tears. No movie actor portraying a hero tops the expressive passion of Fannie Lou Hamer speaking her truth at the Democratic National Convention. I relish her retort to Adam Clayton Powell who was cooperating with LBJ to undermine the movement. How many hours have you spent picking cotton?   How many beatings have you taken? The story affects me as one who always sides with the underdog an...