Musings

The Church Confesses

 

churchconfession  by Jim Burklo

 

"I am the church, and this is my confession.  My last confession was 500 years ago.  I have oppressed women and kept them out of leadership positions.  I have oppressed gay and lesbian people.  I have judged people pointlessly for having normal sexual urges and relationships, treating sex like a disease instead of lifting it up as a precious gift from God.  I have failed to see the absurd irony of being the church of Jesus, a humble servant, while pridefully claiming that my religion is the only true faith.  I have twisted the Bible to claim that it endorses slavery, wars, greed, and cruelty.  I have resisted social and scientific progress by claiming to interpret the Bible literally, when it was never intended to be read that way.  I am sorry for these sins and for all the sins of my past life.  I commit myself to turning from the errors of my ways.  I will follow Jesus’ way of unconditional love.  I will joyfully and creatively practice my Christian tradition without claiming that it is the only way to God.  I will praise and worship God as Love, instead of as a capricious, supernatural “guy in the sky”.  I affirm the sexuality of LGBTQ people, and will celebrate their marriages.  I will honor women as equals to men in church and society.  I will work with people of other faiths, or of no faith at all, to protect the planet, promote peace and social justice, and create a heaven of kindness on earth.  More about my commitment to change at ProgressiveChristianity.org and ProgressiveChristiansUniting.org.   Amen."

 

Make your own Church Confession!  Get a model of a church.  And get an  EZSound Box with 10 inch extension play button.  Record the words above into it.  Put sound box inside or near the model of the church, with the button out front.  Use at events, coffee hour, or make your own video as a playful way to spread the message of our progressive Christian movement.

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

The Shape of Christmas

"The Pink Moment", Ojai, CA, 12/1/18

 

The Shape of Christmas

By Jim Burklo    12-3-18  

(See my many other Advent/Christmas poems here. Use freely with attribution.)

 

My mind is a maze with the turns of the journey

The wise men wandered while aimed at the star

Their ears had the form of the wings of the angels

Attuned to the music they sang from afar

 

The shape of my spite looks a lot like King Herod’s

The innkeeper’s answer describes my disdain

My fear is the terror first felt by the shepherds

The birth-pangs of Mary give voice to my pain

 

My soul is a hole in the shape of a manger

A silence that begs for a baby’s soft cry

A darkness that yearns for a child’s wide-eyed wonder

On seeing that blaze in the evening sky….

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG   Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California