Zen Baptist

This imagery, a painting (Christ Our Pilot) by Warner Sallman, had powerful effect on me as a boy and young man. I looked at it from time...

(Excerpt from " The World's First Ever Baptist Crime Novel ") In his deep inner being, Gregor knew that he had doomed h...

We exist on the cross of time and space, nailed to the spot. And yet we are eternally resurrecting, forever transforming. The I we are toda...

After the Minister of Music had done his job of assisting the individual consciousnesses of the folk showing up for Sunday morning service ...

From where do we come? Some are not bothered by such a question. Nor ever want to be. Living in the here-now and/or in the buzzing arena ...

Saying for those with calcified spiritual kidneys: Let those who are a paragon of virtue cast the first stone.

How does the Pope's resignation affect the Baptists? Hunh? What pope?

Read Psalm 2 this morning. Interesting difference between the Tanakh (Hebrew-English) and the King James (Christian) versions of verse 7. Ta...

"And David danced  before the Lord with all his might"  ( 2 Samuel 6:14) Each of us sets up our own little structure of what is...

First Gear: Hinayana Christianity (Small Path). I live in a split world, a subject-object world. Here is "me" and there is ...

...the ongoing battle since my childhood...the unwillingness to knuckle down (knuckles dragging on the ground) to the dogma of the social n...

We Christians have made an icon of Jesus. But an icon is to be seen THROUGH, not gazed AT. An icon is a window, opening to the boundless su...

In the 2012 elections, the blue counties seemed more likely to contain cities or university towns. The red counties tended to be more rural...

I did not make myself. The Great God did. I am not making myself. The Great God is. If I try to make myself, a self-made man, I become a ...

Each of the world's religions is a bead on a bracelet rosary worn around God's wrist.

There is only one Creative Impulse (rather, an impulsing, moving as It does in rhythmic pulse) producing abundant Life on earth, our solar ...

"It is he who has made us and not we ourselves" (Psalm 100:3) Whether you decide to call "he" she, thou, it, father, mot...

"I am made all things to all men" (I Corinthians 9:22) does not mean that one is a gutless chameleon, shifting with whatever aris...

What we do not seem to get is that we are the Unborn borning. An interflow. A mutual co-arising. We differentiate ourselves, proclaim our s...

A difference in understanding of "the rapture" and of "the afterlife" I seem to have with some of my good Christian fri...

I do not know why people have so much trouble with the idea of Jesus being married. Is he not often spoken of as the bridegroom and we are ...

We are nozzles on the hose of flow of Spirit into this world, the flow of the Life Force. We adjust the nozzle to various settings with whi...

If you are thinking about clinging to Jesus to effect your own sorry salvation, clinging like a barnacle to a boat that will take you to the...

To be a Christ-ian does not mean to be a follower of Christ. It means to BE a Christ. All bread you eat is your own flesh. All wine you dri...

Everything you hold on to is an idol -- a juju doll created by the necessities of your fear. No clinging! And especially no clinging to not ...

All consciousness structures requiring belief in a past or future are hereby revoked. Only now exists. Political and religious consciousnes...

I cannot and will not wear those too-tight Jesus shoes that orthodox Christianity seeks to force upon me -- especially the evangelical our-...

In the well-written and informative announcement by Anamchara Books of their publication of my forthcoming book, Zen Baptist , it is said t...

A religion is a world view which has swallowed the heads of its members. A political party is a world view which has swallowed the heads of...

The only way Christianity as a religion can redeem itself from the swamp into which it has fallen is for Christians to turn away from the d...

Marcus Borg writes eloquently and well of the pre-Easter Jesus (the human historical Jesus) and the post-Easter Jesus (the experiential Jesu...

Idolatry is created where the eye stops, becomes idle, eye dull. One's consciousness state becomes framed and bound. An eye doll is crea...

The definition of sin as missing the mark is erroneous, or rather, of shortened vision. One cannot miss the mark. The Mark is everywhere. Si...

As a prime symbol of human transformation, especially for Western consciousness, the Cross immediately shows the human situation. Anchored i...

Yes, we are "children of God." One can and does experience this. In stepping back, we can see that it is also a metaphor, a vehicl...

Warning to the Overly Sensitive! Christian symbology is in use here! Hey, you Christians! When we give our assent, as Mary did, the Father ...

The Bible read with a scoffing eye is not the same Bible as that read by the natural eye. The Bible read by the natural eye is not the sam...

Jesus, through his own personal resolve, will, and steadfastness, became the Christ. A Light shone in the world. A similar path of personal ...

How odd! I love the story of God becoming Man and walking among us, but I do not ever wish to be a Christian.

Just as water assumes the form of its container, so does the comprehension of Jesus assume the form of the comprehender. Thus you have the p...

Regardless of one's religion or philosophy of life, the universe is one dynamic interflow. Inwardly, we are in relationship with and as ...

Rapture. The very word immediately prompts images. Rapture. Along with the images come feelings. Tears of joy, scoffing, indifference. Those...

I removed the post "drinking Jesus's blood" from Zen Baptist a few days ago because I evidently did not give it enough context...

Here is the Preface I originally wrote for "The World's First Ever Baptist Crime Novel." I focused instead on how the novel ca...

By the time communion got to us Baptists, drinking the actual blood of Christ had downshifted to drinking wine and then to the low gear of d...

            13 And the henchmen came to the Lord God and said “Verily, those trees in front of Peterson are in our way.” And the Lord God ...

In Zen practice and in the martial arts, much is made by the old masters of cultivating Immovable Mind. Immovable Mind means that one's ...

God's Blog

Christianity's seeking of salvation of the soul and secular society's pursuit of goodness for the self are similar arrows shot from ...