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PODCAST

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray

Sermons from the Community Christian Church of Springfield, MO. We are believers in Jesus Christ who accept all people without judgment and who desire to work and worship as a community striving for social justice.

religion & spirituality philosophy

All Episodes

20:16

Halloween, a Holiday of Acceptance and Possibility

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/10/31

This pandemic has taken a heavy toll, world wide, in lives, to be sure, but also it has closed businesses, terminated jobs, set millions of students back a year or two years in learning, while it has shifted wealth around the world. As we have focused on lost jobs and shuttered businesses, the world's super rich have managed to used the pandemic panic spending to make themselves much more wealthy, some billionaires have even doubled their enormous wealth in just the past year. As horrible as the

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21:44

Crisis as Opportunity for Transformation – How A...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/10/24

This pandemic has taken a heavy toll, world wide, in lives, to be sure, but also it has closed businesses, terminated jobs, set millions of students back a year or two years in learning, while it has shifted wealth around the world. As we have focused on lost jobs and shuttered businesses, the world's super rich have managed to used the pandemic panic spending to make themselves much more wealthy, some billionaires have even doubled their enormous wealth in just the past year. As horrible as the

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23:56

Domestic Violence & Social Change - David Ketchum

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/10/17

October is Domestic Violence Awareness of Month and, unfortunately, it is as necessary as ever. A look at how domestic violence was normalized and accepted until relatively recently helps us understand the vital importance of transforming attitudes and cultures about gender, violence, and love. Together, we can work together to support lasting and healthy change, until everyone has a home that is safe and full of love. Please join us at 4 p.m. central every Sunday to discuss that morning's message

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23:35

"One Thing You Lack": The Moral Necessity of Economic...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/10/10

In one of my favorite stories in the gospels, Jesus disappoints a rich man. The encounter invites us to consider the tension between the rich man, who wants to be moral while also hoarding wealth, and Jesus’ insistence that economic justice is a prerequisite to healthy community (the kingdom of God). In the 21st century, we still wrestle with huge and growing economic and social disparities, despite overwhelming evidence that Jesus’ vision of economic justice is actually better for everyone

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26:00

My Dietitian: Comedian Bill Maher - Dr. Roger Ray

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/10/03

Ironically, though we have talked a lot about learning to be sensitive to matters of race, gender, sexual identity, and class, somehow, in most of society, "fat-shaming" is still allowed. Those of us who have struggled with weight for all kinds of psychological, physiological, medical, or work reasons know that losing weight and being more healthy is complicated, difficult and sometimes, virtually impossible. Still, when comedian Bill Maher has insisted over the past year that losing weight,

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22:51

Everything Is a Gift - David Ketchum

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/09/26

For most of us, our lives are dominated with messages that reduce our worth to productivity, exhaust us with constant comparisons and competitions, and trap us in a ruthless cycle of praise and blame. This simple chant from the Buddhist tradition - ‘My very life is sustained through the gifts of others’ - invites us to reflect on how we relate to life, one another, and the earth with more gratitude, open-heartedness, and joy.

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17:51

Whistleblowers in Prison - because truth is treason...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/09/19

Whistle blowers are modern prophets. You don’t have to be a minister or a famous politician to do the work of a prophet, you just have to be willing to speak truth to power. Just don’t expect to have a statue raised in your honor. Most whistle blowers are shunned in public in their own time, if they are lucky enough to not be put in prison or murdered. Still, progress is made by being the unreasonable person in the mix who refuses to go along in silence in the face of great injustice.

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24:03

Twenty (More) Years of Imperial Tragedies - David...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/09/12

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the USA, and the violent response that has shaped so much of the world during the last twenty years. With outrage over the tragedies accompanying the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, we also take time to reflect on the world we have created during two decades of occupation and war. And we remember the words of Daniel Berrigan, who, along with countless others through the centuries, taught us to insist that another way is possible and to do

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16:59

An Economic Wakeup Call (Labor Day) - Dr. Roger Ray

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/09/05

The owners of Purdue Pharma have been released from any liability in the deaths of a half a million people in the opioid crisis because they were willing to give a fraction of their ill-gotten gain to the victims of the opioid crisis that they helped to create. When did you ever hear of a drug dealer getting a suspended sentence for giving a donation to an addiction treatment program? We see billionaires spending the wealth earned by low waged employees for a joy ride in space while the wealth gap

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21:08

The Threat of Fascism is Real

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/08/29

Though most public school history classes are silent about it, there was a serious insurrection attempt made in 1932 to overthrow the administration of Franklin Roosevelt and install a fascist leader who would reverse the New Deal legislation in favor of a wealthy ruling class. Although the coups was stopped, none of the finances and planners of the coups were charged or tried…. familiar names like DuPont, J. P. Morgan, William Randolph Hurst, and the father of George H. W. Bush, Prescott Bush, were

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26:03

Gilgamesh: The problem with Enkidu - Dr. Roger Ray

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/08/22

The oldest known written story is the Gilgamesh Epic, the four-thousand-year-old tale of an ancient king who becomes obsessed with finding the secret to eternal life. From the dawn of civilization, humans have tried to grapple with the awareness that we are mortal, some turning to entirely unsubstantiated religious promises of life after death but some, like Gilgamesh, discover that eternity is beyond our grasp and that we must finding meaning and purpose in a life that is, by definition, limited

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18:56

Wonders and Horrors

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/08/15

As Dr. Ray turns 65, he and David Ketchum will begin to share the preaching load equally. On this special Sunday, Dr. Ray reflects back on his 43 years in the pulpit (so far) with some important observations on the nature of parish ministry with all of the wonders and horrors that come with trying to break out of merely being a priest and striving to become a prophet, leading the community of faith to speak truth to power.

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23:10

A Shattered Vision: Residential Schools, Forced...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/08/08

The history of forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples, such as residential schools, has often been hidden or excused in popular memory. By looking at the historical context that brought about these institutions, we can understand how a cultural shift is needed to move away from the attitudes and ideas that were prominent in the history of colonization and continue to be embedded in our collective consciousness. Especially for White folx, our work of the present moment is to heal and transform our

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23:44

Shedding Light on Residential Schools, Pt 1 - David...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/08/01

The realities of residential schools and the tragedies of forced assimilation have filled the news this summer, to our grief, rage, and shame. So while we welcome Secretary Haaland's investigation into these schools and their impacts on Native children and their families, we also recognize our own work that needs to be done. All of us who are not Indigenous, especially White Christians, need to honor and participate in the process of accountability: to own up to injustice when we are confronted with

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25:56

The Rise in Violent Crime, Gun Violence, and the...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/07/25

While many of us long for greater social equality, moving past the identity politics that emphasizes race, gender, and sexual orientation, often times at the expense of discussing ideas, budgets, policies, and infrastructure development, we cannot pretend that such divisions do not exist or that they do not matter. Perhaps one of the most lethal expressions of white, male, hetero dominance is to claim that it does not exist. So, how do we intelligently move past either being afraid of our

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24:49

Does Democracy + Capitalism have to = Corruption? -...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/07/18

Capitalism is here to stay but that might not be a bad thing if we could put up the kind of guardrails that can harness the greed that drives it in a way that does not allow for the abuses it also engenders. Progressive communities of faith can be a part of the “fifth estate” providing alternatives to corporate media and the propaganda spewed by corporations and the politicians they own.

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25:45

Is Our Minimum Wage Just Slavery Reimagined? - Dr....

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/07/11

The way that we have settled into minimum wage laws is not simply an exploitation of the labor of the poor and, in fact, in many ways looks like a reconfiguring of slavery. Slave owners provided housing, food, clothing, and basic care of slaves. Does $7.25 an hour provide even that for minimum wage workers anywhere in America, particularly in LA, NYC or Boston? We are not suffering from a lack of resources in our country but we do have an apparent lack of both imagination and compassion. We can fix

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27:05

“A True Civic Education”: 1619, 1776, and the...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/07/04

For many of us, July 4th is a time to forget about history and indulge in nostalgic and sentimental celebrations of freedom. But the holiday can provide us with more than just an opportunity for barbecue cookouts and firework displays, if we are willing to look beyond the romantic notions of popular nationalism. The recent controversies over the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory invite us to re-examine how we relate to history and how to provide a "true civic education." By doing so, we find

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20:15

Belief and Faith, Myth and Sacred Narrative

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/06/27

People often have passionate beliefs about things for which they have no evidence or, even worse, they believe in spite of contradictory evidence. In religion, such baseless convictions often masquerade as a virtue but isn’t blind belief just a narcissistic projection of personal preferences? Karen Armstrong, the late Marcus Borg, and Bishop John Shelby Spong have argued that faith has more to do with courage and commitment than it does with belief in a literal set of creedal statements. This sermon

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24:16

Living Beyond Religious Guilt, Fear, and Manipulation...

Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray ·

2021/06/20

Let’s be honest, most of the truth claims made by traditional forms of almost all religions are not just beyond anyone’s ability to prove, they are, by and large obvious absurd to any critical thinker. It wasn’t just Voltaire and Bertrand Russell who clearly articulated deep skepticism about religion, most of us have in less articulate ways. But the choice is not between either total atheism or assassinating our brains to pretend to believe silly things. There is a way of being intensely spiritual

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