God bless.

The issue of using God’s name in Jewish culture is fascinating and it surfaces subtly in the gospels. Whereas Mark, Luke and John use the phrase ‘kingdom of God,’ Matthew uses ‘kingdom of heaven’. Some readers take this to be evidence that the kingdom being referred to is literally a kingdom that is in heaven, the more likely explanation is that Matthew omitted the name of God so as not to offend his primarily Jewish audience.
Thus when he uses the phrase ‘kingdom of heaven’ Matthew refers to a heavenly kingdom, rather than a kingdom ‘in’ heaven (this explanation is made a lot clearer by the original greek script than the English translation)

Stop believing the lies. Provide assistance to desperate women so they won’t feel the need to abort…. that will go much further than the constant lies of the republican party to end abortion.
Oh and another note …abortion used to be illegal .. people were still doing it.

I gave up church in 2003 but within 6 months some events brought me into a community associated with the emerging church movement often associated with Spencer Burke, Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt. Take a look: http://www.emergentvillage.com/cohorts-locations/emergingphoenix

since you and I see very eye to eye politically and, it seems, spiritually, too… you should take a closer look. I’m quite impressed over the past 6 years at my current emergent community: http://www.commontable.org

Unfortunately, the dominant force in the Quaker community these days is Liberal Quakerism which is in many ways like Unitarian Universalism where everything is embraced including strange combinations like Atheist Quakers. The largest Quaker meeting in Atlanta is such a meeting and is not a place where I would feel comfortable given that my faith is Christ-centered. The Gwinnett meeting that we attended was started by a Christ-centered Conservative Quaker, but most of the attenders came from the Atlanta meeting and were more in tune with Liberal Quakerism. For me, the church is about Christian fellowship and a mutual strengthening of each other in the faith. Thus, I felt that I was not having this need met there and eventually we left. In addition, I had a lot of trouble practicing the Quaker form of worship which involves sitting in absolute silence for the duration of the service – with the silence broken only when people feel led by the Spirit to speak.

Have you attended a Quaker meeting?

Currently, we are “churchless” – though I am attracted to the home church movement that seeks to recapture the kind of community described in the book of Acts. I’m not currently aware of any such communities that Melinda and I could easily join although I have a friend who lives in Greenville who is participating in one that sounds cool.

The example of Dennis Kucinich is an interesting case. If you’ve read some of my older posts, you’ll see that I’ve supported Dennis Kucinich in the last two Democratic Primaries. He has always held highly progressive positions and seemed a man of genuine integrity. So in the past, I would have whole-heartedly supported him if I had lived within his district. That said, I would likely no longer offer him my support today because I have come to see him (regardless of his intentions) as functioning as useful (for the Democrats) means of getting more progressive forces to join the Democrat tent – i.e. to give their votes to the unprogressive Democratic Party. Kucinich talks a very good game, but when his voice most counts he caves in and asks his supporters to join him in doing so. For example, he was a bold voice opposing the invasion of Iraq and calling for the immediate removal of troops during the lead up to the 2004 Presidential Democratic Primaries. But when the pro-war Kerry won the Democratic ticket, Kucinich asked his anti-war supporters to rally around the pro-war candidate. Kucinich has long been a strong voice for Single-Payer Universal Health Care. However, when his voice actually mattered as means of possibly forcing Obama and the other Congressial Democrats to make the Healthcare legislation less toothless (and keep alive the possibility of state level Single-Payer), he caved-in under pressure from Obama and changed his tune.

So I would have to think long and before supporting Kucinich in Ohio. As best as I can tell – despite his talking a lot about progressive politics, he doesn’t seem to actually vote that way when he actually has the potential to affect things. Thus, he functionally serves as nothing more than a way to gather some progressive votes and give a little more cover to the lie that the Democrats represent a progressive force.