For the past 60 years, I held in trust a wooden model of the Mayflower. The Mayflower was the ship the Pilgrims sailed in 1620 as they migrated from England to the coast of America in search of a place where, without fear of punishment, they could practice their Christian faith. As I replaced the rigging on the Mayflower model and reglued the masts so that they could properly hold the varnished canvas sails, I began to contemplate what the Mayflower ship represented. It seems heroic that the Pilgrims were willing to risk their lives to leave England and to sail across a treacherous sea in a ship as small and unstable as the Mayflower, as I was taught, in pursuit of religious freedom.

But then I asked myself if the Pilgrims’ desire to preserve their freedom of religious expression ever masked intolerance of another’s freedom of religious expression? And what does it mean to believe in religious freedom today when many Christian citizens support only political candidates who advocate for their flavor of Christianity while being intolerant of other religions? Is this the freedom of religion that the Pilgrims sought as they sailed on the Mayflower, to promote their own religious vision while repressing all other religious beliefs? Is this the religious expression, shaped by religious intolerance, that we as a nation today profess as sacred governance?

The predominant message of Christian preachers and teachers today is that Jesus died to save us from our moral sins. This message is so prevalent and accepted that most Christians fail to recognize that Jesus never claimed that his ministry, as reflected in his life and teachings, was to save the world from sin. To the contrary, as the Bible makes clear, moral sin was never the primary focus of Jesus’ teachings.

This exegetical divide within Christianity over biblical interpretation raises fundamental questions.

• What did Jesus teach?
• Is salvation just spiritual, or is it earthly and even political?
• What does it mean to believe in the Bible if we disregard what Jesus and the early church taught?

Today’s topic will challenge many popular Christian assumptions and beliefs. My intent with this topic is to reclaim the early teachings of Jesus and his early followers, enabling us to reassess what we value, what we believe, and how we should conduct ourselves in the sacred interactions we call life.

We live in violent times. Nations openly battle each other in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, with the United States providing military aid to the countries we favor. And while most US citizens do not fear a direct military attack by another nation, we do fear surprise attacks from international terrorists as well as homegrown violent extremists.

But just what does Christianity teach about violence and war? And more specifically, when, if ever, is war and violence just?

These are the questions we all ask and the answers we all seek. I hope that this theological and historical analysis of our existential experience will enable us to reassess and reclaim what we value, what we believe, and how we should conduct ourselves in the sacred interactions we call life.

The predominant message of Christianity today is that through Jesus Christ we can be saved from sin and death, and that God’s judgment of every person will precipitate eternal salvation in heaven for the worthy and eternal punishment in hell for the unworthy.

However, Christianity also supports a dissenting and contrary vision of Christian salvation. This vision of Christianity emphasizes God’s call to meet the physical and spiritual needs of others in this earthly life, thereby seeking to provide God’s salvation to this world in this life through acts of justice, grace, and compassion. This call to Christian discipleship dismisses any focus on a future salvation or eternal life that follows death.

This theological divide within Christianity raises fundamental questions.

• Is salvation a present state or just a future reality?
• Is salvation earthly and even political, or is it just spiritual?
• Is it even Christian to focus on securing my personal, spiritual salvation when many people need salvation from lack food and medical care, while enduring crippling injustices?
• Does God save us for this world or from this world?

These are the questions I ask and the answers I seek—maybe you as well. Today’s topic will challenge many popular Christian assumptions and beliefs. My intent with this topic is not to convince anyone that what they believe is wrong but to enable us to reassess and reclaim what we value, what we believe, and how we should conduct ourselves in the sacred interactions we call life.

It does not take more than a glance at the headlines to remind us that we live outside of the Garden of Eden, outside of that biblical, mythical, mystical garden where at one time life knew no strife, all human needs were met, and sorrow and death did not exist. I suspect many want to return to Eden where life was once bliss. However, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or atheist, if we accept the insight of that ancient story, we all live outside of Eden. So how do we address the brokenness of our world?

• Do we strive to reclaim Eden by transforming our broken world into the Eden of old and bringing the promise of the kingdom of God to the here and now?
• Or do we resolve to live where we are, as we are, outside of Eden, finding hope and courage in solidarity with one another amid our despair without necessarily leaving that despair or returning to Eden?
• Or is our hope found in a new Eden in the promise of life after death?
• Or is the mythical, blissful Eden a harmful delusion?

These are the questions I ask and the answers I seek—maybe you as well. Today’s topic will review what it means to live outside of Eden. I hope that this analysis of our existential experience will enable us to reassess and reclaim what we value, what we believe, and how we should conduct ourselves in the sacred interactions we call life.

How can we know what is true?

• We watch one news network that claims President Trump is destroying America, and we watch another news network that claims Trump is the savior of America. How do we know which political claim is true?
• We read of a scientist claiming climate change is a natural cycle with an ebb and flow and humans are not its cause. Then we read of another scientist claiming humans are the primary cause of climate change, with a disruption of nature that threatens our very existence. How do we know which scientific claim is fact and which is false?
• We also hear one pastor preaching that wealth and prosperity are signs of God’s blessing and poverty a lack of faith and another preaching that wealth inequality is the result of human greed and sin. How do we know which religious teaching should guide our faith?

How do we discern truth from untruth when “alternative” facts conflate with “established” facts? How do we know what is true and what is not?

These are the questions I ask and the answers I seek. Maybe you do as well. Today’s topic will review the very nature of knowledge. I hope that with this analysis we can re-assess and reclaim what we value, what we believe, and how we should conduct ourselves in the sacred interactions we call life.

There is a pervasive belief today that Christians are under attack in the United States of America. Christian bakers and florists are prosecuted for declining to provide services celebrating homosexual weddings. Christian hospitals have been forced to provide minors medical services they find immoral and contrary to the Christian faith. Christians witnessing to their faith outside of abortion clinics have been arrested and sentenced to prison. Even prayer has been outlawed. Our government has been weaponized against Christianity. These are today’s headlines. But are these headlines true?

• Are Christians being persecuted today just as they once were under Roman rule in the earliest days of Christianity?
• Are Christians being denied the right to exercise their beliefs in a manner consistent with their beliefs?

Or is Christian oppression and persecution a myth, a fanciful fabrication? Are Christians’ claims to be victims essentially rhetorical political tools to marginalize others and to impose a specific Christian ideology on all others, including other Christians?

These are the questions I ask and the answers I seek - maybe you as well. Today’s topic will challenge many popular assumptions and beliefs. I hope that with this analysis of our history, national culture, and Christian faith, we can reassess what we believe, reclaim what we value, and reconsider how we should conduct ourselves in the sacred interactions we call life.

We live in a polarized society.

Some perceive the current national direction as offering hope and restoration. Others anticipate only pain, despair, and loss. Yet although we openly battle over politics and social issues, the real battle is over our national self-identity. We are polarized and divided by conflicting visions of who we are and who we should be as a nation. Moreover, this struggle over our national self-identity has divided communities, split families, and destroyed friendships. Because of opposing political and social beliefs, we either avoid select topics in our conversations or skip family and social gatherings that include people whose politics offend us.

Should we try to bridge the political, social, and religious gaps that divide us? Should we seek to express what we think and believe, perhaps with the intent to change or convert the other to what we think and believe, Should we seek to listen and learn what another person thinks and believes so that we, accepting them as they are, can find some common ground between us? Or should we instead give up on people whose thoughts and beliefs we fervently and diametrically oppose?

These are the questions I ask and the answers I seek - maybe you as well.