Jesus, Mysticism, and Social Action
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Release Date: 03/31/2025
Imagination & Reorder: Energizing The Prophetic Community
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
While the dismantling of the old order began with Moses, and the prophets guided his people through their deconstruction and disorder, Jesus energized his community by teaching and practicing a new way to follow God. Jesus ushers in a new expression of the Mosaic tradition he inherited. Similarly, we are called to practice prophetic imagination, and by putting into practice what we hope for, we embody the prophetic energy, the Spirit of God, to do the work our souls must have. www.TheLoftLA.org
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Compassion As Prophetic Criticism
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Jesus inherited and practiced his prophetic ministry from Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, among others. Similar to his forerunners, he used prophetic criticism to critique a dominant religious and political culture that had become numb to suffering. However, Jesus' use of compassionate acts as a form of prophetic criticism was a notable shift in approach and one the church ought to mirror. www.TheLoftLA.org
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From Despair to Hope: Isaiah & Prophetic Energizing Description
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Order - Disorder - Reorder. As our community navigates a time of disorder, the task of prophetic imagination and ministry is to cut through despair and to identify the dissatisfied coping mechanisms that seem endless and unresolved. The prophet Isaiah and those who wrote in his style demonstrate how prophetic communities use the language of amazement to energize their people and help them shift from despair to hope. www.TheLoftLA.org
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The Worm & The Whale: Jonah and the Prophetic Imagination
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Jonah is one of the minor prophets, famous for living in the belly of a big fish for three days and being angry at God. But what else does his story have to teach us? Come this Sunday to find out! We’re excited to welcome Everest Harvey, our Director of Youth and Social Justice Ministries to the Loft this Sunday while Rev. Dr. Carter is away. www.TheLoftLA.org
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Jeremiah & Prophetic Criticizing
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Jeremiah is rightly considered one of the major prophets. He is prominent in both the Hebrew Bible and quoted extensively by Jesus and the authors of the New Testament. While he is often misunderstood as a doomsday prophet, Jeremiah should be seen as someone who embodies the alternative consciousness of Moses in the face of a denying king. Jeremiah helps his community move from order to disorder through prophetic criticism, forcing them to see the suffering around them that they are trying to pretend does not exist. www.TheLoftLA.org
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Moses - The Founding Prophet
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The radical break of Moses and Israel from the Egyptian Imperial system is the foundation upon which Christianity was built. The radical actions of Moses and the Israelites can hardly be overstated. In liberating his people, he guides his community through a Spiritual maturation process of order, disorder, and reordering. These three steps are guideposts for the prophetic decolonization that we see in the ministry of Jesus and what ought to be the ministry of the church. www.TheLoftLA.org
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Creating Holy Disorder
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The task of the prophetic community is to nurture, nourish, and evoke an alternative orthodoxy — a consciousness that sees the world differently from the dominant cultures around them. However, the challenge we face is that the structures of the dominant culture are designed to numb you from feeling your own or others' suffering and from developing the ability to recognize that suffering. How do we resist the temptation to avoid feeling such pain? Amos shows us that seeing the world differently requires vulnerability. Only when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable can we share in and with the...
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Queering Hope
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
We invite you to join us as we welcome Rev. Kevin Wright who will be preaching in The Loft this Sunday while Dr. Carter is away. In his sermon Rev. Wright will explore what it looks like for marginalized communities, particularly queer communities, to have hope during a time like this. Rev. Kevin Kim Wright is an ordained elder in the Baltimore Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church. Currently, Rev. Kevin lives in Los Angeles and serves in an extension ministry appointment as Chief of Staff at Point Foundation, the nation's largest nonprofit scholarship provider for LGBTQ...
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Hope In An Apocalyptic Era
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The biblical witness is a book of hope. From Abraham and Sarah through the Apostles, people of faith placed their hope in the promises of God and God’s covenant with them. However, when Jesus’ spiritual path of radical compassion became overshadowed by the Roman Empire, God’s work of redemption was increasingly pushed aside. Too many Christians have embraced a secular version of hope that depends on a mythical idea of human progress. But this is not the hope seen in the Israelite community of Moses or the disciples of Jesus. www.TheLoftLA.org
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How Not to Be a Bystander
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Injustice is making itself visible in the streets of our city. Are we prepared to act with compassion and wisdom? Have we rehearsed our responses in a way that is faithful to the ways of Jesus? Join Rev. Blair for a conversation on “How Not to Be a Bystander”, based on James 1:19-27. Rev. Blair Trygstad Stowe serves as our Public Theologian in Residence, which makes her a regular on our The Progressive Christians Podcast. She is an ordained Elder in the California Pacific Annual Conference; while completing a PhD from the Boston University School of Theology, she serves as the Assistant...
info_outlineThe majority of Christians would probably not use the term “mystic” to describe Jesus. Many Christians, especially those of us in the West, think of mysticism as a spirituality that is disconnected from the everyday experiences of life. However, what we see in the life of Jesus is that his spiritual practices created a sense of Oneness with God and other human beings that deeply informed his beliefs on our responsibilities towards one another.
www.TheLoftLA.org