Tag Archives: Francis Davíd

Reforming the Reformation

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Rev. Clay Nelson

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Rev. clay Nelson © 19 March 2017

Until 500 years ago this year, one church had controlled all of Christianity for more than a millennium. It had become grievously corrupt, in part because it had become interwoven with the state. One particular abuse was the last straw that enraged a young monk, Martin Luther, so much that he sent a message to his bishop condemning the practice of selling indulgences to political leaders to raise money to build St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. An indulgence was like a “Get out of jail free” card. No matter how serious the sin, the rich and powerful could buy an indulgence and have the church’s guarantee that they could get into heaven, without having to confess and do penance. Continue reading Reforming the Reformation

Who knew? Unitarians Evolve!

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Rev. Clay Nelson

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To read Clay’s sermon from July 2006 referred to in his opening words, follow this link to the St Matthew-in-the-City website.

Rev. Clay Nelson © 25 September 2016

Two weeks ago I shared the story of my evolution from an orthodox theistic liberal Christian to a heterodox non-theistic progressive Christian to simply a follower of Jesus. That is a lot of evolving in a short time. It is like evolving from being a Neanderthal to a Homo sapiens in one 67-year lifetime. Social Philosopher William Irwin Thompson has said, “For the first time in human evolution, the individual life is long enough, and the cultural transformation swift enough, that the individual mind is now a constituent player in the global transformation of human culture.” I’m not sure how much my mind has transformed Christianity, but lots of folk thinking like I do have. Continue reading Who knew? Unitarians Evolve!