First of all, don't panic. You probably have a hazy idea that "dogma" is not a very nice word. But all "dogma" means is, a belief or set of beliefs about Ultimate Reality, which the people in 12-step programs call their higher power, and many people call Godde.

And, second, you're not a dummy, or you wouldn't be roaming around this site in the first place. I simply thought that "Dogma for Dummies" was a cute title. There's a terrific new book out now called Remedial Christianity, and the authors' sales may suffer if enough people decide their brand of Christianity suits them just fine, and they don't need to learn anything more, and especially not anything "remedial." It's just a cute title for an excellent book.

Two religions worship the same Godde: Judaism and its offshoot, Christianity. Most Christians believe — wrongly — that there's a big difference between the Godde of the Hebrew Scriptures (known to most as the "Old" Testament) and the Godde of the Christian Testament. There's not. How could there be? In the first century, when Jesus of Nazareth was preaching his radical message about how Godde's Domain is both imminent and immanent, the only Scriptures that this good and pious Jew had to rely on were the Hebrew Scriptures.

Both the Hebrew and the Greek words for "sin" can be translated into English as "missing the mark." People who call themselves Christians and say they worship a Godde of love, and then mistreat Jews because of the anti-Semitism embedded in the Christian testament, are acting in hate, and they are totally missing the point of what Christianity is all about. They are sinning. Anyone who (a) claims to be a Christian, and (b) commits acts of hatred, anger, self-righteousness, and then (c) pats himself or herself on the back because he/she thinks these hateful actions are "God's will," is sinning.

Here's the biggest difference between the two sets of Scripture: The Chosen People are expected to obey 637 laws. Proselytes to Judaism only have to obey ten, the Ten Commandments. True Christians obey two laws, the Great Commandments: to love Godde with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love other human beings as much as you love yourself. The Chosen People recognize that to stand in a special relationship with Godde demands special responsibilities that those of other faiths need not subject themselves to.

All religions deal with the nature of Ultimate Reality, whether they call it Godde, Yahweh, Brahman, the Tao, or "Mumbo Jumbo the God of the Congo" (that's a quote from a poem; I'm not trying to be disrespectful). And all religions help their adherents deal with the problems they face in life — from the nagging sense that something is Just Not Right to the real miseries, like poverty, sickness, oppression, abuse, alienation, marginalization, despair.

In this section, I try to set out my beliefs about the nature of Ultimate Reality in a systematic way. Knowing that, it probably won't surprise you to learn that much of the material in this section is based on a 70-plus page term paper I wrote for my Systematic Theology class in seminary. I'm proud to say that I'm pretty sure my paper got the only solid A the professor had given out in years.

Would you like to begin?