Posted by Rev. David on October 26, 2012
When I was at the U.S. Army Chaplain’s School at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina, there was a day in class that we were responding to hypothetical counseling situations. One of the scenarios presented to us was that of a young woman who came to us for counseling after having been raped. She did not know [...]
Categories: God, liberal faith, Military Chaplaincy, politics, theology
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Tags: abortion, chaplain, conservative christian, conservative christianity, faith, fundamentalist, fundamentalist christianity, God, Jesus, justice, liberal faith, military chaplain, mourdock, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, politics, Prophetic Voice, rape, theology
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4 comments
Posted by Rev. David on June 27, 2012
Oh Lord, Is this really where we are? A man once said, “I believe, but help my unbelief”. I’m not sure I ever understood, until I myself had to cry out to you, Is this really where we are, oh Lord. Are we really as far from the Kingdom of God as it sometimes seems? [...]
Categories: Equality, liberal faith, Prophetic Voice
| Tags: activism, Birmingham Jail, Christian, Equality, faith, hope, Jesus, justice, lament, liberal faith, Maricopa Jail, military chaplain, prayer, Prophetic Voice, psalm, psalmist, Spiritual Practice, standing on the side of love, theology
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Posted by Rev. David on May 10, 2012
One of the genre’s of Science Fiction that I love is what is called “near future Sci-Fi”. These are stories set to occur in the next 200 years or so. What I love about them is that they “forecast” out not into some far off fantastic future, but into the coming decades and centuries. In [...]
Categories: Patriotism, politics, Prophetic Voice
| Tags: academic achievement, America, American, American Exceptionalism, American irrelevance, american military power, city on a hill, diplomacy, History, justice, liberal, liberal faith, liberalism, politics, Prophetic Voice, sermon on the mount, technology, theology, United States military power
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Posted by Rev. David on May 4, 2012
In the last few months, I have been wrestling with one particular set of theological and epistemological questions… and I’m not done with them yet. That has been part of the reason for the fall-off of writing here at Celestial Lands. Unsure of where I was flowing around the issue, I was unsure of what [...]
Categories: liberal faith, theology
| Tags: adaptive challenge, adaptive change, adaptive problem, belief, belief vs. truth, how to believe, knowing, liberal faith, objective truth, religion, science, science and religion, science vs religion, scientific method, technical problem, theology, truth, truth with a capital t
| 2 comments
Posted by Rev. David on April 4, 2012
We human beings have many times many different prejudices. I’m not trying to make a value statement in saying that, just naming something that I believe is an inherent aspect of human nature. We are deeply prejudiced beings. It is impossible that this not be the case. I have never met anyone who did not [...]
Categories: theology
| Tags: can humans know truth, God, knowing, liberal, liberal faith, objective reality, paterns of knowing, percpetion, preconception, prejudice, racism, reality, relationship, religion, theology, theory of knowing, truth, ultimate truth
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Posted by Rev. David on March 30, 2012
One of the aspects of a Clinical Pastoral Education Residency that was most valuable to me was spending a year with ministers from other religious traditions, being required to have deep discussions about theology, about pastoral care, and about our life experiences. It not only helped me to broaden my own horizon, but it also [...]
Categories: liberal faith, theology
| Tags: book, Christian, David Pyle, faith, God, good and evil, hope, justice, liberal, liberal christian systemic theology, liberal faith, nature of god, religion, Rev. Pyle, Spiritual Practice, systemic theology, theology, Unitarian, Unitarian Universalism, Unitarian Universalist, Universalism, Universalist, UU, UU systemic theology, write a book
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Posted by Rev. David on November 24, 2011
On this day, Thanksgiving Day, I think we are remembering the wrong message. I think our society has taken the wrong meaning from the mythologized story of starving pilgrims, a coming hard winter, and Native Americans who shared. We give thanks to God, or to some sense of the Universe taking care of us for [...]
Categories: God, History, Turnings
| Tags: American, Christian, compassion, faith, indians, justice, meaning, meaning of thanksgiving, native americans, native peoples, pilgrims, relationship, responsibility, thanksgiving, thanksgiving indian, thanksgiving tribe, theology, tribes, wampanoag
| 2 comments
Posted by Rev. David on November 7, 2011
My dear friend, Chaplain the Rev. Seanan Holland visited us this weekend, and as usual he and I got into one of our hours-long rolling discussions about Life, the Universe, and Everything. This time in particular, we were rolling around the origin and nature of religion, the fundamental flaw in Friedman Economics, a mathematical definition [...]
Categories: Faith, God, History, liberal faith
| Tags: Christian, faith, fear, fear of death, fear of humans, fear of nature, fear of people, fear of uncertainity, four great fears, fundamentalism, great fear, History, Jesus, liberal, liberal faith, liberalism, meaning of religion, politics, relationship, religion, religious fear, responsibility, theology, types of religion, war
| 3 comments
Posted by Rev. David on October 24, 2011
There are times where the internal shifts necessary to be in a life of ministry in our liberal faith tradition are more obvious than others. As Unitarian Universalist ministers, we often emphasize a radical leveling in our ministries, and many UU ministers react against the classical understanding that ministers should live “a life apart”, or [...]
Categories: ecclesiology, Ministry, Spiritual Practice
| Tags: being a minister, David Pyle, faith, introspection, liberal faith, life of ministry, ministerial formation, Ministry, reflection, relationship, seminary, set apart, Spiritual Practice, theology, unitairan, Unitarian, Unitarian Universalism, Unitarian Universalist, Universalism, Universalist, UU, UU Principles
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Posted by Rev. David on August 31, 2011
There are many amazing aspects about the process of meeting a new church. Of course there are the challenges of moving into a system that is already well established, of becoming subject to traditions and power-lines that are long established, and to engage congregational dynamics as they flow and shift. It is to see the [...]
Categories: Ministry, Pastoral Care, Spiritual Practice, UUCV
| Tags: Buddhism, depth, dogen, emotion, identity, Ministry, relationship, self, soul, spirit, Spiritual Practice, theology, Zen, zenji
| No comments
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