[Dialogue] 8/31/17, Greta Vosper/Fox: If it weren’t for you …; Spong revisited

Thu Aug 31 05:56:53 PDT 2017

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If it weren’t for you …
By Rev. Gretta Vosper

Much of the work I have been privileged to do over the past thirteen years has been the result of a conversation I had one day with the late Reverend Jim Adams, founder of The Center for Progressive Christianity (now called ProgressiveChristianity.org). If it weren’t for you, much of this would never have happened at all. Think of it as an “It’s a Wonderful Life” contribution!
At the beginning of September, Ever Wonder, a conference celebrating the work of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity (CCPC), will take place in Edmonton, Alberta. Leaders from the movement will come together with the many who have been involved over the years to reflect on what has been and, of course, ruminate about what the future might include. The CCPC wound up its operations in 2016 after twelve years of operation. We chose to do so because we felt we had fulfilled our purpose. That there remains work to do is obvious but it is not the work the CCPC stepped out to do. It will fall to others.
The Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC) had been a vibrant presence in the United States since its founding by the late Rev. Jim Adams in the mid-1990s. As many Spong readers already know, Adams had transitioned an Episcopal congregation in the heart of Washington, DC, into a progressive, vibrant community. He had done so by focusing less on the ecclesially-approved way of doing things and choosing, rather, to break the hermetic seals that kept stuffy, antiquated theology locked within the confines of the ecclesial edifice. As a result, his community persistently offered progressive explorations that embedded contemporary scholarship in its worship, study, and pastoral leadership.
I first learned of TCPC through an article in the Toronto Star. A regular column of the late author and theologian, the Rev. Tom Harpur, told of the TCPCs work in the States. Of course, I googled it, hoping to find congregations in Canada that were part of the organization. Alas, there were none.
But West Hill United, the congregation I serve in the east end of Toronto, had been on a journey that seemed to be in step with what Adams was doing in the United States. In 2001, in a Sunday morning service, I had declared my lack of belief in a theistic, supernatural, interventionist god and had not been shown the door. Instead, the congregation, with the Board’s direction, chose to explore what Christianity and the liturgy that shares it would look like beyond the doctrinal language upon which it had remained grounded even after literal belief had fallen away. When Harpur’s article appeared, we were in the process of exploring just what that would look like. Though we had already considered TCPC’s Eight Points as potential models for our work, they did not represent our intentions accurately and so we’d declined to use them.
Some time later, as West Hill was beginning the process of creating a comprehensive document that would guide the congregation’s work and choices, we had not yet found a concise way to describe who we were becoming. And we had not found other congregations who might companion us on our journey. So I phoned Jim Adams to discuss the TCPC’s work and determine if there were sufficient synchronicities between us to allow West Hill to join the organization. Jim laughed often about that call, remembering his amusement when, contrary to most of the calls he received, I asked if the TCPC would accept West Hill’s membership even though we believed the Eight Points to be somewhat conservative. Adams, who usually heard people railing against his progressive ideas, was delighted to welcome us to the fold.
A year later, the CCPC grew out of Jim’s dream of a global network of progressive theologians and practitioners. Passionate about creating connections that would open the church to seekers, Adams had reached out to leaders in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere to invite them to form networks in their own countries. Almost everyone he contacted did just that. Including me.
Adams forwarded me an email list of individuals in Ontario who had been sufficiently moved by the work of TCPC to send donations to the organization. He knew that they were the most likely to be interested in starting a sister organization in Canada. And he was right.
In January, 2004, in the midst of an outstanding Ontario snowstorm, twenty four people made their way to the lounge at West Hill. Some of them had spent upwards of three hours fighting the storm to be there, impressing me with their tenacity.
I had no agenda other than to discern with these people whether it would be possible, or even helpful, to create a Canadian network of progressive Christians. And so I simply asked those gathered to share with the group how they had managed to get into that room that day. What forces had conspired in their lives to make it important enough to them to join this discussion that afternoon.
As it turned out, that was the only agenda we really needed. Each individual spoke passionately about the factors that had stimulated their journey. Some had difficulty because of the powerful emotions evoked by the provision of a space in which they could speak openly and honestly. It took several hours to get around the circle but in the end, we knew we would create a Canadian network. We had to.
To a person, isolation was the thread that ran through the stories we held that afternoon. Whether someone lived in a rural area where the only churches available were conservative or evangelical, or was deeply rooted in a congregation that taught progressive scholarship during the week but continued to embrace traditional language, hymns, and liturgy on Sunday mornings, or participated in a large, urban community in which they felt silenced and alone, each person knew the tragedy of isolation on the deeply personal reality of the spiritual journey. We knew that if this was so in a group of twenty-four people in Ontario, it was true for many more across the country. And so, a few meetings, some amazing volunteers, and several months later, we launched the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity in November, 2004.
>From the beginning, we knew we were different from the Center out of which we had been born. Our application for charitable status under Canadian law identified that, though we were applying as a religion, we did not believe in a theistic god and would not be promoting one. The Charities Act, however, requires belief in a theistic god for registration. Rather than receive our charitable registration in a timely manner, we found ourselves the instigators of a complete review of the Charities legislation as it applied to religious organization. Despite our lack of belief in a theistic god and the charitable registration of Buddhist communities that did not promote such belief, the Charities Directorate retained the requirement that religious charities be promoting belief in a theistic god.
The work we had undertaken to do was embedded in our Charitable Objects which were:
1. To provide a national network for the promotion of Progressive Christianity;
2. To provide support for individuals and organizations in the exploration and development of:
….a. spiritual thought relevant to contemporary needs,
….b. spiritual practices and values meaningful to contemporary humanity, and
….c. spiritual resources for worship and nurture inspiring to contemporary ....seekers.
3. To provide mutual encouragement and fellowship to those engaged in this endeavour.
We welcomed almost 500 people to our launch in Mississauga, ON, almost exclusively because we had managed to book Bishop Spong as a speaker at that event. It was a powerful evening. Both Bishop Spong and Jim Adams spoke. Tom Harpur was in attendance. My husband, Scott Kearns, a composer of powerful music for the evangelical church and who hadn’t written a single piece since leaving it, managed to create, in two days’ time, an amazing song which became a sort of theme for our work.
In the light of love our lives have meaning.
In the light of love our purpose shines.
Wherever there is justice to be dared,
compassion to be shared,
this is our calling,
in the light of love.
So lift it up, hold it high
write it clear across the sky.
Burn it deep within your soul,
live it well and live it whole,
for nothing more is needed
but nothing less will do,
for nothing else can take the place of love.(1) 
We quickly recognized the need for national gatherings and organized our first conference with the late Rev. Jack Good, author of The Dishonest Church, as our keynote speaker and offering workshops in everything from organizational change to the meaning of Jesus in a post-Christian world brought by former Moderator of The United Church of Canada, the Very Rev. Bruce McLeod. The following year, we brought Bishop Spong to Ottawa along with Joanna Manning, author of The Magdelene Moment; A Vision for a New Christianity. Conference in Toronto, London, and Halifax followed, always drawing a diverse and enthusiastic crowd.
Our first annual meeting took place at Toronto’s Factory Theatre where we had booked the house for CCPC participants to enjoy Rick Miller’s Bigger Than Jesus, a theatre extravaganza that opens all the questions.
Over the course of the work of the CCPC, we offered a magazine, Progressions, which was published three to four times a year and conferences in London, Toronto, Oshawa, Ottawa, and Halifax. We travelled across the country sharing our work with congregations from Halifax to Victoria. Twice I participated in Progressive Christian Networks in the UK and spoke at conferences and events promoted by networks in Australia and New Zealand. The energy for the work was great and the influence we had was, I believe, significant.
As to questions about why we disbanded, my feelings are that the isolation experienced by those who had joined together on that icy day in 2004 had dissipated. The year after our launch, Mark Zuckerberg provided most of them a platform for finding one another easily on the internet and Facebook now hosts hundreds of communities devoted to living beyond traditional beliefs. We provoked questions across the country that are still under debate. And we reached a place that challenged us to move beyond even the furthest boundaries of progressive Christianity, moving into the arena of non-religious values and beliefs.
The work of freeing individuals and communities from the stifling language and ritual of traditional Christianity is not over. It will continue, fed by the resources and conversations we ignited across the country. This work and these conversations are the legacy of the CCPC and it is a rich, vibrant, and lasting legacy.
~ Rev. Gretta Vosper

Read the essay online here.
P.S. Gretta’s next article will address the difference between the American and Canadian Centres and the specific challenges that arose in the Canadian Context.
About the Author
The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best selling books include With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers.
(1) “The Light of Love” © 2004, R. Scott Kearns. Printed in The Wonder of Life; Songs for the Spirit. R. Scott Kearns (File 14: Toronto, 2014) p. 61 ff.

Question & Answer
Mike from San Francisco Asks:
Question:
I am interested in spirituality but not in religion but isn’t spirituality the same as religion?
Answer: By Rev. Matthew Fox

Recently I had a thoughtful discussion with a thirty-something who wanted to talk about spiritualty but seemed to see it exclusively in the context of religion. And, like many of his generation, he was no longer connected to religion as such. He had a hard time seeing spirituality in his everyday world and yet he was working hard in preparing himself for a new profession, namely one in alternative (Chinese) medicine. I tried to get him to think of that as a spiritual calling; as a vocation of service. At first he was very hesitant.

Then I asked him, “What is your favorite painting?” Immediately he responded that it was Van Gogh’s painting of his shoes. “Why?” I asked. “Because it was so ordinary a subject,” he remarked; “Shoes take us places every day; I identified with those shoes. I just love that painting.”
He was getting it. Spirituality is our everyday experiences of depth and deeper meaning and the connection that they carry. Spirituality is present wherever we undergo or observe deeply. In this instance it came alive for this individual who is moved to observe or consider the shoes, the maker of the shoes, the wearer of the shoes and the fact that shoes take us places including to work, and to our loved ones and to home. Thus the artist painting the shoes and the young adult seeing this painting 140 year later—all of it comes alive and is triggered in Van Gogh’s painting of his shoes and the young man’s memory and appreciation of that painting.
Rabbi Heschel says that the role of ritual is “to preserve single moments of radiance and keep them alive in our lives."  An artist does that. Even our shoes carry radiance worth keeping alive in our lives. Often the first question about spirituality comes to this: “What makes you most come alive?” In this story, it was Van Gogh’s painting of his shoes. And you?
~ Rev. Matthew Fox

Read and share online here
About the Author
Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 32 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 60 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the FleshTransforming Evil in Soul and Society, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved and Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest
______________________________________
Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Bible and Homosexuality
The Church's Dance in the 21st Century - Part 3

"They glorified God not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened (Romans 1:21 KJV)."
"For this cause God gave them up into vile affections; for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet (Romans 1: 26,27 KJV)."
These Pauline verses represent the strangest and most overt condemnation of homosexual acts that can be found in the New Testament. Included here is the single biblical allusion to female homosexuality. These texts are frequently quoted to justify the overt prejudice of homophobia while their obvious meaning is either ignored or dodged. Paul is here asserting that homosexuality is neither a sickness nor does it result from a moral choice, it is rather God's punishment given to those who fail to worship God properly. Read it carefully, Paul is saying that God will afflict people with homosexual desires if they fall into improper habits of worship. It is both a startling and an ignorant claim. Imagine what it would be like to live in fear that if one does not worship in 'the right way,' one's sexual desire would be turned toward those of one's own gender! Would the God who either could or would do that, be worthy of anyone's worship? Would that not turn God into a demon? Would it ever be appropriate to use such a text to condemn homosexuality? Why would anyone articulate such an idea or suggest that this convoluted and bizarre idea should be called "The Word of God." Why do people still look in the Bible not for truth but for the confirmation of their cultural prejudices?
Paul was in many ways a tortured man. The passages from Leviticus and Genesis, condemning homosexuality convinced him that to be homosexual was to stand under the condemnation of the Torah for which the penalty of death was proscribed. Paul also knew the books called Maccabees that were incredibly popular in the first century so he would certainly be aware of the injunction in IV Maccabees 2:1-6, which suggested that if one were faithful and disciplined enough in worship, all desires could be overcome.
Fortunately, for our interpretive purposes we have other works of Paul like Galatians and Philippians in which he relates some of his autobiographical history, his passion for the law, his zealousness in his studies, his advancement in holiness beyond all of his fellows. What becomes clear in these epistles is that Paul's religious zeal approaches fanaticism. Fanatics are always defending a threatened security. That is why they erupt in rage when their religious ideas are challenged. Recall Paul's days as a persecutor of the Christians, his desire to exterminate that movement, throwing its adherents into prison and even participating in their execution. These are the typical responses of religious fanatics. Fanatics are deeply controlling people, seeking to silence their critics. They bind themselves inside the authority of religious rules, which become unbendable and self-defining. The typical pattern is to suggest that to 'oppose my views is to oppose God.'
The most rigid priest I have ever known lived this pattern out totally and in his way, beautifully. He never appeared in public without the proper uniform of jet-black suit and clerical collar. He followed a rigid discipline of daily prayers, including the obligatory rites of Matins and Evening Prayer. He celebrated or attended Mass each day of his life. The idea that the liturgy might be modernized was anathema to him. The possibility that women might ever become priests was inconceivable. Those things could happen only if the church sacrificed everything that was holy to him.
When this man's bishop would visit his church for confirmation, it would create in this priest almost unmanageable anxiety. For weeks in advance, he would choreograph that liturgy to make sure that the bishop would do it his way, so as not to allow his people to know there were options. This anxiety spilled over into the congregation, many of whom were attracted to that church out of deep security needs. The rigidity of worship and their ability to master the intricate details of their complicated liturgy, gave them a strange kind of comfort.
Ultimately, all of these control needs proved too much to be sustained and this priest literally fell apart psychologically and, for a period of time, was unable to function. The dark specter of depression began to consume him as parts of his identity that he believed were unacceptable began to rise in his consciousness. Suicide and a total psychotic break were both distinct possibilities. Instead, like Paul, in the book of Acts, this man had a kind of Damascus Road experience in which he accepted, as Paul seems to have done, a love that surrounded him just as he was. A sense of acceptance swept over him allowing him to face his reality as a homosexual person. In that moment he found the courage to let go of those things he believed were loathsome and evil and to be himself. At that moment the healing process began. That priest began to live anew. To use the language of Evangelical Christianity, he was" born again." He accepted his homosexual reality, began to allow himself to be honest and ultimately he was able to lay down both his rigidity and his fear. As he was restored to health, a person came in to his life that he allowed himself to love. In time they became partners and lived with each other in life giving faithfulness until age itself finally separated them in death. This priest helped me to see Paul's reality in a whole new way.
"Paul was just like me before I became honest with myself," he said, "Both of us were rigid about all the rules, violent when challenged, persecutors of those who suggested that the law, with which we bound ourselves, was not itself ultimate. After his conversion Paul began to acknowledge, just as I have been able to do, that even those parts of his identity, which he had not been able to accept, could be accepted by the God he had met in Jesus." That was an amazing insight to me and under the tutelage of this priest, I began to look at Paul in a brand new way.
Listen to Paul's language: "There is a war going on in my body," --- "With my mind I follow one law but with my body, I follow another" --- "Sin dwells in my members, causing me to do those things that I do not want to do and not to do the things I want to do" --- "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" These are the plaintive cries of a man who endured the torture of being what he believed it was evil to be. They are articulations of ancient, painful memories. When those cries fade into the affirmation of acceptance Paul utters words like: "Thanks be to God who has given us the victory in Christ Jesus!" Then he goes on to say, "now I know that nothing can separate me from the love of God ---- not even my own nakedness." It is a remarkable portrait of a remarkable man, who strangely enough, is still quoted today by homophobic people to condemn what Paul surely knew that he was.
Yes, I am convinced that Paul of Tarsus was a gay man, deeply repressed, self-loathing, rigid in denial, bound by the law that he hoped would keep this unacceptable reality so totally under control that even he would not ever have to face it. Repression, however, kills. It kills the repressed one and sometimes, in the form of defensive anger, it also kills those who challenge, threaten or live out the thing that is so feared.
Much of the persecution of gay and lesbian people in the Church today has been carried out by self-rejecting, deeply closeted homosexual people. Frequently they wrap their externalized, rejecting and sometimes killing fury, inside the security of an authoritative verse from a sacred source called "The Word of God." This is how a terrible text is born and that is how Paul's tirade in the first chapter of Romans has come to be viewed as a legitimate basis for condemning homosexual people. It is a sinister, inaccurate and incompetent way to use the scriptures. We now expose it for what it has always been with the hope that, weakened and revealed, it will no longer claim new victims in every age.
There are other places in the Pauline and pseudo-Pauline corpus, which have also been used to hurt homosexual people, such as 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, and 1 Timothy 1:10. There are also single references in 1 Peter and Jude that are favorites of the Bible quoters searching for a scriptural basis to support their prejudice. Scholars now conclude, however, that these texts may just as well be referring to temple prostitutes or the sexual practices of exploitation that no one, homosexual or heterosexual, would regard as appropriate and life-giving behavior.
The Christian ethic is ultimately a life ethic. When behavior increases life, expands love and calls all parties involved into a new being, then it must be called good. But when behavior denigrates, violates or diminishes anyone, it must be called evil. Sexuality per se is morally neutral. Both heterosexuality and homosexuality can be lived out in either life affirming or life destroying ways. If the Christian Church could only, instead of worrying about its internal unity, begin to lead the world to recognize the right of homosexual people to be accepted just as they are and to have their legitimate desires and sacred commitments blessed by the church and legalized by the state, then the Church would be a moral leader once again. For the fact is that all relationships that give life are holy and those that do not are unholy.
~ John Shelby Spong
Originally posted April 14, 2004

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