God Does Not Explain

“The time has come and is long-since past” to abandon “the idea that God is ‘in control’.” It is an idea “so troublesome as to be utterly useless. But to think of the Divine as that power called love, the one who “suffers with” and comforts the afflicted regardless of the outcome, has spiritual integrity born of real life experience.”

In Rabbi Harold S Kushner’s “book, The Lord is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm, the rabbi notes that ‘in times of trouble, God does not explain, God comforts.’ Through grace, suffering makes compassion possible, and what is more central to the life of faith than striving to be more compassionate?”

— from “Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity” by David M Felten and Jeff Procter-Murphy

“Most people in church grew up listening to those who claimed to have all the answers. Who knew that the questions were more interesting, that ‘living’ them is true faithfulness. Felten and Procter-Murphy have given the class such superb resources that no one is in a hurry to graduate.”

— Dr. Robin R. Meyers, Senior Minister, Mayflower Congregational UCC Church; Professor of Rhetoric, Oklahoma City University