Even though I haven’t believed in a personal god since 1996 or so, I have hesitated to call myself an atheist. No doubt a good bit of that hesitation arises from my long period as a Pentecostal Christian. I have little problem using the term atheist to describe myself to other atheists. However, with Christians and other theists, I seek to use less polarizing terms, like nontheist or even agnostic. The main reason I don’t want theists to consider me to be an atheist is that as believers, my…

I am a Communist because it is the logical outcome of my childhood Pentecostal faith in Jesus. I am a Communist, because Jesus was a Communist.

I am not a Christian, because Jesus was not a Christian. Jesus was a Jewish rabbi who mobilized a mass movement to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, that is Communism. Communism is the logical fulfillment of the teachings of Jesus.

The story of Pentecost was at the heart of my childhood faith. As the story goes, a group of 120…

“Indeed, as the Concern was weighty, so I was not forward, lest I should be found to Run before I was sent; therefore I waited patiently to be fully satisfied in the Matter, not only a Day, or a Week, but many Months; and then as my Concern grew heavier upon me, I gave up, begging the Lord to be with me, and to give me a full Mission for so weighty a Concern. Alice Hayes, A Legacy or The Widow’s Mite.

I’ve begun to find the Quaker…

So, I am convinced that we Quakers do have a radical message to recover, and it is neither the guilt-ridden Puritan message of personal salvation, nor the liberal message of quiet inclusive reformism. It’s the message of a new world order that must be born to save this planet from self-annihilation. It isn’t a message of enlightened liberals fixing the problems of the third world or zealous missionaries winning souls for a heavenly reward. The message of Jesus, Winstanley, Fox, and…

I am being transformed into a Communist of Universal Love. I first glimpsed this Communism in the story of Jesus and his earliest followers. As I followed this obscure road to Love’s Communism, I was commanded by Jesus to leave the church and God above to find the real meaning of his Gospel.

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Rather than repost in its entirety, here's a short excerpt and a link:

"....  in my opinion, the leading challenge to FGC is that we cannot reach unity on outreach and growth. Do we try to find new attenders deliberately? Do we work at nurturing new attenders so they become permanent members? Those two things have to happen if we want to reverse the decline in numbers."…

“The only thing that truly defines Friends as a distinct group and not just a bunch of Unitarians or Christians or a secular social club is that all True Quakers are committed to the process of gettin’ naked as a step in the longer path of being clothed in righteousness, which means a return to right order, or the Gospel Order, or the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Garden or Eden, or total Liberation, or WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT.” Maggie Harrison…

(Note: this blog posting was originally written for the integrallife.com site, which is focused on what is known as "integral life practice" a synthesis of Eastern and Western mystical traditions. I am something of an outlier there as I am here, being a nontheist in the midst of theists. However, the threads there drew me into reflection on the story of Jesus and what…

A basic assumption of a pacifist radical philosophy is that violence and warfare are not limited to the actions of established militaries and their enemies. Violence…