For the past few decades we’ve been struggling to develop a new theology that will allow us to be scientifically honest and politically responsible. We are looking for an understanding of religion that won’t set us against other people who believe differently, or who do not believe at all. We are looking for a religion that won’t set us against new discoveries that science makes.

When we seek a worldview that will work for today, we sometimes have to leave behind the images we had as a child.  It can create a kind of crisis, a time in the desert where we lose not only  some of the bad things of childhood, but we also lose some of the good things, as well.  If we are not careful in our pursuit of honesty and responsibility, we may lose the excitement of being alive, or lose a sense of reverence, a sense of the mystery of things.
My hope in doing this work is to put those elements back together – to have a religion that is scientifically honest, politically responsible, and that also puts us in touch with a reverence for being alive. We need an honest view of life, but one that does not look out at the world as a bunch of rocks and at people as so many biological mechanisms. There’s a mystery here for us to share. We live in honesty and in reverence, excitement, and joy.  I believe that can happen.

 

(From the introduction to a recent sermon)