The Search for Living Prophets

How does …

Tolerance is the cornerstone of a pluralistic society. So it should surprise us that many religious leaders from the conservative to the liberal end of the spectrum preach against tolerance. Both si…

Elections don’t unite, they divide. Here are seven reasons why we must prepare ourselves to be transformers – and role models of understanding – in the face of conflict. When elections end, the hard …

How much does our identity, and not our values, define our politics?

In episode 50, I share my own journey to understand my father – a kind and generous person who vents anger on twitter – through th…

What did it mean to be a woman in the time of Jesus? A child? a tax collector? A foreigner? Deniece Mason shares three stories about Jesus bringing dignity to outcasts. Their meanings change when rea…

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), shares three life lessons from his time as a lawyer just starting to work with death row inmates – many of whom were later found innoce…

This time: Stories about the false promise of empowerment, and how the attitudes of colonialism, imperialism, and empire continue to affect our efforts at creating a more perfect world.

The final min…

Meg Barnhouse tells stories about gender and its ambiguities, about raising children that are not pidgeonholed, and helps us become better listeners when others are expressing their true identity.

(E…

Christ Church (Anglican) Cathedral in Indianapolis, IN decided to cage the holy family in chainlink on their front lawn to prove a point about immigrants and refugees, and remind us about the Gosp…

In the sermon from the 2018 Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, American Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry gave an impassioned plea to live by the power of love. Inspired by MLK’s sermon about …

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice” is an often spoken idea from abolitionists to civil rights leaders. Martin Luther King used it often. This episode explains and …

Two sermonlets about the power found in a name. Rev Justin Osterman (UU Raleigh) tells his story of when we served as a translator in Guantanamo. When he entered the prison cell, he did the most nat…

A core part of effective activism is individual witness – standing up to those who one sees and works with every day.

This sermon captures the story of one minister’s behind-the-scenes efforts to cl…

Martin Luther King, Jr was an amazing preacher. Listen to excerpts from one of his sermons on how to love your enemies. He says, “Jesus has become the practical realist… his commandment [to love your…

There are three parts of being an effective activist:
(1) To protect and serve the vulnerable.
(2) To wake people up to the plight of the marginalized.
And (3) to practice individual witness to those…

“Do you need to be an activist to be a Unitarian?”

That was the question posed to Rev Dr Justin Osterman of the Raleigh UU fellowship (http://www.uufr.org/). His answer is the best 20 minute explanat…

Two sermons from two Unitarian Universalist churches (Washington DC and Tulsa OK) from MLK Sunday (2018) about courage and the journey towards justice that continues, 50 years later. Both tell the s…

This combines two sermons from All Souls UU Church in Washington, DC 2010. Rev. Rob Hardies and Louise Green speak about grief, and finding a way to express both the pain of loss and the praise for l…