The ancient mythic account of Jacob's night wrestling in the wilderness with a man/demon/God made him a new person… with a limp. Coming to terms with ourselves, taking a fearless and searching moral inventory of our own life, is the path out of the wilderness of isolation, constant victimization, and life destroying anger.

Many are surprised to find that their favorite source for progressive sermons is a tiny church in Springfield, MO, the reddest of red states. I can tell you that our survival is now dependent upon the donations we received from our world wide audience. Please take a moment to become a regular donor by clicking on the "Donate" button on our website: www.spfccc.org and make your gift a recurring monthly gift.

Progressive religious people have made a choice, not one necessarily based on evidence or critical thinking, but a vital choice between self service and service of others. For us, the spiritual life is rooted in an evidence based faith in which we use critical thinking but we have chosen an ethic of interconnectedness with other people rather than simple self service.

Progressive communities of faith, if they are to survive the coming generation, must be willing to make some fundamental and fairly quick changes. Churches must be willing to embrace critical thinking and set aside creedal beliefs in otherworldly myths and superstitions. We must embrace a radical mission of service and prophetic witness to social justice. But, and this is crucial, we have to learn how to make this journey joyfully. Without joy, cynicism will paralyze our congregations.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” The prophet Amos was angry about how the poor were abused by merchants in his day and we have every reason to be even more angry today but we cannot wait for the marketplace to grow a conscience. The victims of economic exploitation but organize, unite, and demand fair treatment and people of faith need to get out of the pews and join them in the streets!

On this 15th anniversary of 9-11, we look back and ask ourselves if 15 years of war with more than 600,000 civilian casualties, have we defeated terrorism or have we just created new generations of terrorists. As Malala has told us, with a gun you can kill a terrorist but with education you can kill terrorism. We must immediately cease the drone killings, invasions, and military tactics and begin teaching peace on both sides of this violent divide.

Though our world has completely transformed in the span of a century, our attitude towards labor is still locked in the more primitive era of scarcity. The real modern world is still waiting to be born when we will afford all human beings a decent way to live without fear of homelessness or hunger.

Rev. John Churcher's 2nd lecture in the "Evolution of God" conference. This recording was made in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Columbia, SC

The 600% increase in the price of a life saving Epi Pen was a purely capitalist decision because the corporation holding patent felt that the market would bear the higher price. That is the whole problem with the health care system being in the hands of unbridled capitalism. Capitalism, as an economic system has neither a morality or a conscience unless the society chooses to place ethical boundaries around it… which we should.