[Dialogue] 11/01/18, Progressing Spirit: Eric Alexander: Are You a Spongian?; Spong revisited
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
Thu Nov 1 07:11:44 PDT 2018
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!important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1908871394 #yiv1908871394templateBody .yiv1908871394mcnTextContent, #yiv1908871394 #yiv1908871394templateBody .yiv1908871394mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1908871394 #yiv1908871394templateFooter .yiv1908871394mcnTextContent, #yiv1908871394 #yiv1908871394templateFooter .yiv1908871394mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } I was glad to have found the Spongian tribe, and excited about what the future might hold.
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Are You a Spongian?
Column by Eric Alexander
November 1, 2018
It was a little over a decade ago that Bishop Spong met me exactly where I was. He didn’t know it at that time, as it was only through books and videos that I was able to access his wisdom back then, but he was a very real friend to me even though we’d never met.At that time in my life I was grinding my gears at an impasse in my Christian journey. I was leading a large Christian organization, and I had reached the edges of my ability to toe the line anymore. My theology had progressed far outside of where anyone else around me in the ministry was willing to go, and my socio-political views were not within the majority among the southern ecclesial institution. I was heading one of the most active campus ministries at one of the largest universities in the U.S., but I was secretly drowning in theological loneliness. I was wandering the amorphous outskirts of mainstream Christianity, desperate to find someone who was also excited about all the theological exploration and discovery that was happening.I became frustrated with Christianity becoming so closely linked with the spheres of anti-evolutionary science, anti-LGBT equality, anti-gun sense, anti-climate justice, and anti-prison reform. And the evangelical core being cynical about women’s rights, race relations, and economic equality.When it came to theology, I certainly didn’t believe that the earth was only five thousand years old, or that God needed to sacrifice his only son (i.e., himself) to atone for his own design flaws in his first humans. My view was that if God was going to put two brand new creations down here on earth to initiate the world’s population, and then create a talking snake to trick them into a life of trouble for themselves and all of their ancestors, then that blunder was on God, not us. Now of course, we know that is a figurative story, but even in that context the moral remains untenable in an allegorical sense.I also didn’t believe that God physically resuscitated the corpse of that savior to redeem humanity (if we professed to believing in him). Nor did I believe God was even a “him.” None of it made much sense to me, and I couldn’t keep my concerns to my safe inner circle any longer. Literalism, conformity, tribalism – none of it was tolerable. I came to feel that my life might be better off without Christianity. Either it had to change, or I had to conform to a life of creedal orthodoxy; so I decided that it would have to be the one to change, because squelching exploration was simply not going to be an option.During that time I had come across writings from some of modernity’s theological greats, which kept me hanging on; such as Raymond E. Brown, Marcus Borg, and Dominic Crossan. I liked what they were saying. They were each highly credible and thoughtful in discerning the historicity and intent of the original scriptural authors. However, they were mostly focused on Biblical scholarship, and not necessarily dissecting the elements of the Christian faith – at least to the degree I was yearning for. They were powerful forces in the burgeoning movement of modern biblical criticism, but I was ready for the next phase of how this new knowledge would shake out beyond the walls of academia, such as in the pulpits and pews. At that time I needed to hear someone address the state of the faith in the trenches, and let the chips fall where they may. That’s when I found Bishop Spong.In finding the good Bishop, I was able to embark on a great catharsis. Finally someone understood how I felt. Finally someone was saying exactly the things I was experiencing. Finally I felt validated.
At that time the atheists weren’t scratching my itch, and neither were Buddhists or the new-thought spirituals. I had certainly been studying those paths for some time prior, and had gleaned much wisdom from them, but there was still something about my Christianity that needed to be resolved before I could experience my next metamorphosis.
I couldn’t shed the paradigm I was raised with without a proper evolutionary process. It was a system that I’d seen so much good come from. A system with so many loving and selflessly giving folks. A system where people took risks to their own personal security and treasure to help others who they didn’t even know. A system with a rich tradition of community. A system where a revolutionary like Jesus could be exalted. There was something about that system that I wanted to retain; while releasing all the frustration that had built up around it.That was when Bishop Spong was the light unto my path. He gave me permission, so to speak, to pull every last theological board down to the foundation to see what (if anything) still remained salvageable. It seemed as if every thought and feeling I was having had already been spoken or written about by the good bishop. There was nothing new under the sun it seemed, and that was a great comfort.After some time of hashing through all that deconstruction, I was able to reconstruct my paradigm with the help of Bishop Spong, and others including Brown, Borg, and Crossan. It all felt very good and natural to me at that point. I was able to fairly easily re-articulate my paradigm using affirmative language (see here for one such foray). Bishop Spong helped me fast track my walk through the valley. His having been there before me was an incredible guide and comfort. His approach of putting all cards on the table was what I needed. Finally someone understood how I felt.I realized that my apprenticeship with Bishop Spong wasn’t the end of a journey, but the beginning. The cause he championed opened the flood gates for free and refined theological exploration. This new generation of thinkers would be handed an invitation to discover where we go from here. It would turn out to be up to this hive of Spongians to navigate where this thoughtfully deconstructed Christianity might remain relevant, applicable, and valuable. I was glad to have found the Spongian tribe, and excited about what the future might hold.I realized that I could help people in similar situations that I had been in, and contribute to organizations that were helping guide people through their awakenings. In my view, Bishop Spong would go down in history as a one-of-a-kind evolutionary. In that light, it seemed obvious that the next frontier was to build upon his work and help enlighten Christianity for future generations.Soon after coming to that conclusion I received a note from Deshna Ubeda: Director for ProgressiveChristianity.org. She had come across my early work and suggested that I come speak at their board meeting. I did, and it was an instant connection. Especially upon meeting another theological giant, Fred Plumer, who was, and still is, the President of the organization. Within a day of meeting Fred I realized what a kindred spirit I had connected with. I also quickly realized why Bishop Spong had chosen he and Deshna to administer his newsletter.Since then, over the past five years, I have been glad to play a part in leading Bishop Spong’s newsletter forward from here. My esteem for Bishop Spong is astronomical, and it is a great honor and privilege to be part of this next phase of discovery, along with all of his readers and fans. This is a true sisterhood and brotherhood of awakening souls. In fact, it is a great testament to Bishop Spong that his fans are so highly educated and discerning. It has been a great honor to be part of such a fan base.
I believe that there is much good that can come from these new, higher, awakening paradigms that are being explored. There are millions of humans on this earth with some kind of Christian paradigm that can greatly benefit from the foundation Bishop Spong has been trailblazing, and which many in the movement are taking in exciting and innovative directions.So are you a Spongian? Well I doubt most in this domain would want to sign up to many new labels these days. But if we define being a Spongian as being a people who heartily respect the potential within the Christian tradition, while having full license and courage to question anything and everything, then you may indeed qualify as a Spongian. If we are genuinely open to spiritual, theological, and social evolution toward our best internal and external actualizations, then that would seem to be a Spongian in the purest sense of the label.There are many reasons to take this new thing forward as a bright light in this transitioning world. Next week Bishop Spong joins us again through an interview by another talented modern progressive leader, Rev. David Felten. Keep an eye out over the next few weeks for David’s 3-part interview with Bishop Spong that you won’t want to miss!Until next time, peace and blessings to you –~ Eric Alexander
Click here to read online and to share your thoughts
About the Author
Eric Alexander is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is a board member at ProgressiveChristianity.org, and is the founder of Jesism, Christian Evolution, and the Progressive Christianity and Politics group on Facebook. Eric holds a Master of Theology from Saint Leo University and studied negotiations at Harvard Law School, and and is author of Teaching Kids Life IS Good. |
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Question & Answer
Q: By A Reader
How does the church and God feel about transgender people? Will they go to hell?
A: By Rev. Irene Monroe
Dear Reader,Trans issues in our churches are not addressed enough. However, trans activism has taken place in both Catholic and Protestant churches across the country. DignityUSA is one such organization that focuses on LGBTQ rights and the Catholic Church. And, their voices want to be heard in Catholic dioceses across the country that will eventually inform and impact the Vatican.Of the many breakout sessions at the DignityUSA conference in 2017, I wished Pope Francis could have sat in on “Trans Catholic Voices,” because his transphobic pronouncements have and continue to be hurtful. Francis compared transgender people to nuclear weapons. His reason is that transgender people destroy and desecrate God’s holy and ordained order of creation.“Let’s think of the nuclear arms, of the possibility to annihilate in a few instants a very high number of human beings,” Francis stated in 2015 in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter “Let’s think also of genetic manipulation, of the manipulation of life, or of the gender theory, that does not recognize the order of creation.”With pronouncements like that, especially from a pope, it's easy to think transgender people are damned to Hell.Across the country, there are epic battles in many states to either pass or not pass transgender bathroom bills. In my state of Massachusetts, the bluest of blue states, we’re asking voters to vote “YES” on Question 3, Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Veto Referendum, to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity in public places—such as hotels, restaurants, and stores.As a black lesbian in this Trump administration, I now feel like I am moving into a new Jim Crow era reestablishing discriminatory laws targeting LGBTQ Americans. I grew up knowing about racist placards that said “Colored Water Fountain,” “Waiting Room For Colored Only,” ”We Serve Whites Only, and “No N-word Allowed, to name a few.Since Trump has taken office, there has been an erosion of LGBTQ civil rights under the guise of religious liberty. For example, transgender Americans being denied access to public lavatories is eerily reminiscent of the country’s last century Jim Crow era denying African Americans access to lunch counters, water fountains, and, libraries, gas stations, theaters, and restrooms, to name a few. Signs that read “whites only” prohibited entry.In Jim Crow America restrooms were a hot-button issue, as today, and a battleground for equal treatment. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on national origin, race, hue, gender, and religion. The law mandated desegregation of all public accommodations, including bathrooms. The Obama administration expanded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect LGBTQ Americans. However, in February Trump ’s administration revoked federal guidelines permitting transgender students from using “gender-appropriate facilities ” which aligned with their gender identity.However, the good news is that there are several trans-affirming stories in the Bible. My favorite one is about Philip the Evangelist and the Ethiopian eunuch conversion to Christianity in Acts 8:26- 39.We can deduce from this pericope that the teachings of Christ circulated widely across the world and how Christ’s teachings spread, at least one way, throughout the continent of Africa through the Ethiopian Eunuch. Traveling south from Jerusalem to Gaza, Phillip meets the Ethiopian Eunuch, a court official of the Queen of Ethiopia, in his chariot reading from the scroll of Isaiah that theologians commonly refer to as “the Third Suffering Servant Song.” The Ethiopian eunuch had traveled to Jerusalem to worship and was headed home. God tells Philip to follow the Ethiopian to baptize him so that he, too, can spread the good news of Jesus.While traveling down the road together, Phillip explained the Isaiah text and the Ethiopian asked to be baptized. When they came upon a body of water, Philip baptized him.Deceased John J. McNeill, a Jesuit priest and theologian, affirmed that the story of the Ethiopian eunuch is evident of “the first baptized gay Christian. This scripture reveals to many progressive Biblical scholars that God welcomes and affirms gender-variant individuals. Eunuchs, for example, were castrated, homosexual, and intersex men. Today the terms could easily translate to mean sexual minorities, referring to LGBTQIA individuals. The term means “the keepers of the bed.” These gender-variant men served and guarded the women in royal palaces and wealthy households.Also, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch highlights that the early beginnings of Chrsitniaty welcomed not only sexual minorities but also different races, and ethnicities. The Ethiopian eunuch is an example of a queer foreign black man as the first non-Jewish convert to Christianity.During the “Trans Catholic Voices” breakout season at the DignityUSA conference, an African American transwoman pointed out that Francis statements about transpeople deny them of basic human dignity and perpetuates violence against them. The life expectancy for black trans is 32 years old.In her closing remarks, the African American transwoman in “Trans Catholic Voices” asked for help from advocates and allies in the room that nearly brought me to tears.“Trans lives are real lives. Trans deaths are real deaths. God works through other people. Maybe you can be those other people.”How churches feel about transgender people will vary. However, how God feels about transgender people has always been welcoming and affirming since the beginning of time.~ Rev. Irene MonroeClick here to read and share online
About the Author
The Reverend Monroe is an ordained minister. She does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), a Boston member station of National Public Radio (NPR), that is now a podcast, and a weekly Friday commentator on New England Channel NEWS (NECN). Monroe is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women Abolitionists (Boston) - DetourMonroe’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in cities across the country and in the U.K, Ireland, Canada. Monroe writes a column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and Opinion pieces for the Boston Globe.Monroe stated that her "columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As an religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other ” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism.” Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College's research library on the history of women in America. Click here to visit her website. |
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
Emily Jane Failla: A Special Life
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July 26, 2006
The community of St. Peter’s Church in Morristown, New Jersey, where my wife and I worship, gathered this week to celebrate the life of Emily Jane Failla and to bid her farewell. Most of my readers will not know Emily but she illustrates so many of the realities that plague both our humanity and our religious faith that her story has the potential to be a universal story.I first met Emily on an August Sunday morning 21 years ago. She was an absolutely charming little girl of 3. She and her family were newcomers to our church on that particular Sunday, so as a member of the congregation and therefore quite anonymous to this new family, I simply greeted and welcomed them.
Her father Frank had moved to New Jersey as part of the management of a pharmaceutical company. Her mother Kay was a lovely young woman with a southern accent that probably warmed my transplanted southern soul. Emily had a little sister named Lauren, who was only a few months old at the time and seemed not terribly interested in church or strangers. Emily was, however, adorable, vibrant, friendly, responsive and ever smiling. As the father of daughters, she elicited the warm feeling of my early years as a parent and stole my heart at once. Forever afterward, in some strange way, she occupied a special place in my affections. In time my anonymity was blown and she came to know that this man, to whom she was always warmly responsive, was also her bishop.I watched this child grow up over the years. She engaged life with great gusto. Her whole family became part of the core of St. Peter’s Church, serving in every conceivable capacity. Emily was herself deeply involved in Sunday school, the youth group and starred in the girl’s choir. That church was this family’s second home.When Emily reached confirmation age, my assistant was scheduled to be the confirming bishop at St. Peter’s. However, a shift was made so that I could lay my Episcopal hands on the head of this special young lady who, by then, had become a budding adolescent. It was her choice, her family’s choice and mine. Bishops can manipulate their schedules to do things like this, you know. They just don’t admit it publicly!Life goes on after confirmation and Emily became an outstanding student and a superior athlete in high school. Tennis was her sport of choice and her proficiency and popularity were such that she was chosen to be the captain of the Morristown High Girls’ Tennis Team in her senior year. Emily was an outdoors type and a wide variety of athletic activities attracted her. She graced all of them with competence, great zest and enthusiasm.When she graduated from high school and headed for Vanderbilt University, just six short years ago, a great sense of vitality disappeared from her church, except at Christmas and during the summer when Emily returned for holiday visits. A junior year abroad in New Zealand only served to round out this spectacular person who grew into a stunning young adult. She was as pretty as she was kind, gentle and loving. She had the ability to wring from each day every ounce of sweetness that it possessed. She scaled life’s heights and plumbed life’s depths, missing very little of what life had to offer. I remember kidding her about moving to Nashville, Tennessee, for her education. Nashville is a city that I know well and enjoy greatly, having lectured there on several occasions. “Nashville is a schizophrenic small city,” I told her one Sunday when we met in church. “It cannot decide whether it is best known for Vanderbilt University or for Minnie Pearl and the Grand Ole Opry.” However, Nashville was right for Emily and she graduated with full honors, to accept a fourth grade teaching position in the State of Washington. She was drawn to the northwest by its outdoor beauty and by mountains that she enjoyed climbing, becoming quite expert in this activity.On Sunday, July 2, Emily and friends were rappelling down a popular climbing spot in Central Washington known as Condor’s Pitch on Icicle River when something went terribly wrong two thirds of the way down. She fell 400 feet to a quick and certain death. The news broke over Morristown like a clap of thunder. The grief that engulfed the congregation of St. Peter’s was palpable. Emily had not only been special to me, I discovered, but to a very large segment of church members. Her high school principal described exactly what I had experienced. “She had incredible social skills,” he said, “the sense of how to talk to almost anyone.”As people tried to make sense out of this tragedy, they ran the gamut of emotions and reasoning. There was anger at God and at the unfairness of life. There was resentment that such a thing could happen. Hundreds of people, I heard one person say, live out their lives in nursing homes with various levels of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and each day seems like an eternity with all meaning in life lost. Yet here was one whose vibrancy and vitality was snuffed out before she had really entered fully into adulthood. Others lapsed into pious language depicting Emily as dancing on the clouds in some external heavenly setting. Perhaps that helped momentarily but ultimately that kind of religious imagery means very little to most people today.The eternal question of ‘why’ was asked in a thousand different ways, all of which assumed that a heavenly parent figure is in charge of the world, so there must be an explanation. The only proper response is to listen in the face of the tragedy. Whatever provides the cushion to allow grieving people to walk through what surely is life’s deepest pain is simply accepted. There will be time later to pick up the pieces, process the pain and embrace the hardness of reality. The great temptation of the professional clergy in times of tragedy is to seek to explain it, to provide answers where there are none, and to state in some authoritative way that God still reigns. No one, however, in the trauma of grief hears these words and they are better left unsaid. The only ministry anyone really has to offer in such times is the ministry of presence and availability. If the bereaved ones want to scream in anger at God, listen, accept and absorb it. If they want to retreat into silence, let them and be silent with them. It is the power of loving relationships that will get them from today into tomorrow, not words, not explanations, not piety indeed not even prayer. Prayer ofttimes meets the needs of the one praying more than the needs of the bereaved.I have never lost a child. I cannot even imagine what that is like. I have lost a father, a mother, a wife, a brother, a rector and countless friends. Each grieving experience was different. My father died at 54 when I was but 12. My wife died after a long and debilitating illness at age 59. My mother died at age 92 when her body simply wore out. My brother died peacefully in his sleep without any visible sickness at all. My rector died on an operating table undergoing what was called “a routine and minor procedure.”What I learned in those quite diverse circumstances was that the deeper and more interdependent the relationship, the larger was the aching void in the heart of the survivors. Those who love little, grieve little. Those who love much, grieve exceedingly. Would any of us then choose to avoid grief by avoiding loving? I would not. The very depth of life’s meaning is experienced in giving yourself in love to another person even though that opens each to pain at the time of separation.I have never felt that assurances of life after death brought comfort to grieving people. It comes across as a kind of panacea that seeks to deny the depth and reality of the loss. It is not that I do not believe in life after death, for I do in a very deep way. However, it does not affect how I live. I make no decisions based on that conviction. I also do not know how to conceptualize this hope or even to talk about it without sounding sticky and pious. I believe that God is real, though I do not envision God in traditional theistic terms as a supernatural being, dwelling somewhere outside this world and intervening periodically in miraculous ways. That God feels more like Santa Claus than God to me. I experience God rather as the Source of life, calling me to live, as the Source of love, calling me to love and as the Ground of Being calling me to have the courage to be all that I am capable of being.I serve this God by seeking to build a world where everyone in it can have a better chance to live, to love and to be who he or she is in the infinite variety of our humanity. I am a disciple of Jesus because I see in him the fullness of life, the completeness of love and the uncanny ability to possess himself so completely, that he can give himself away totally.That is why I see God in Jesus. Since I experience this God as a breaker of those barriers that diminish our humanity, including that ultimate barrier of mortality, I live each day in the confidence that I am part of that which is eternal. I cannot talk about it. I can only live it out. In the living of this kind of life, I experience God as my ultimate truth.Is life fair? No! Is God in charge? If you mean a God who like Santa is making a list and checking it twice in order to make sure that reward and punishment are fairly distributed, then my answer is also, ‘No!’ But is God real? Is life holy? Can I find the courage to be? Can I discover the ability to allow others to be who they are? My answer to those queries is yes, a thousand times yes. In that God I believe I touch eternity.Emily Failla knew the reality of this God experience and she lived it out. Those who loved her grieve with aching hearts but, because of her, all of us will live again and love again. In that conviction, we can walk today through the valley of the shadow of a wrenching death, but we find the strength to keep on walking.
~ John Shelby Spong |
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