[Dialogue] 8/30/20, Progressing Spirit, Toni Anne Reynolds: Apocalypse Strong; Spong revisited
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
Thu Jul 30 05:48:03 PDT 2020
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Apocalypse Strong
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| Essay by Toni Anne Reynolds
July 30, 2020
A dear friend of mine was recently pursuing ordination when she asked me to sit as a member of her discernment committee. Along the way I got to learn many beautiful and profound things about my friend. During one session she explained why she was sure Christianity was the tradition for her. She said, among the other traditions she had practiced in her life “[Christianity] is unique in that it has a clear vision for the future - a world where all have some and none have too much.” Despite my own spiritual preferences for another tradition, I was compelled. It got me thinking about the scope of “vision” that exists in religious and spiritual traditions. What do they say about what’s to come? How do they intend for practitioners to endure the changes and make it to the stages of manifesting that vision?
In my own movement through Christianity I was petrified of the idea of the rapture. The ever-imposing threat of the Apocalypse. It seemed like every year produced mountains of evidence that the plagues had been unleashed, and the prophecies of Revelation were being fulfilled. With some distance from the center of that particular flavor of Christianity, I have noticed that the world is always ending. We just pay attention to life in such a way that we can evade that fact. Our imagination is so colored by Hollywood depictions of calamity (and scripture) that we think an apocalypse can look only a few ways. In reality, you’ve probably endured at least one end to the world. Maybe a divorce, a miscarriage, a forced displacement, unparalleled violence, there are so many options. When the world ends for us alone it can seem hyperbolic to use a word like apocalypse. I think that’s because certain words in our English vocabulary are reserved for collective experiences, even if our grammar doesn’t indicate it the way other languages do. Apocalypse being one of them. It’s a word that means the world has, or will, end for many, if not all of us (non-human creatures included).
This moment feels so tense because the gameboard has been set up to make most people in this country think that they are immune to apocalypse, unless it’s coming by the hand of God. People here have the degrees, the 401k’s, the house, the kids, the logic, the professional mannerisms. The only force that could end the comfort and control is the force of God. Hurricanes and earthquakes are devastating, but we somehow manage to place them in a box title “natural disaster”, finding a way to regain control and establish some type of power during the post event problem solving phases.
The world is ending. For many people on the planet this is not a new feeling or a new reality. So, in case this is your first time enduring an apocalypse, welcome to the club.
What makes apocalypse so interesting to me begins with the Book of Revelation. Not because I’m any kind of expert on the text, I’m very far from that. Instead, it’s because the bible was the first to prompt me to consider not just how the world will end, but that it will end at all; like everyone, everything, except tardigrades and maybe cockroaches. It’s a scene that still lives a bit beyond my imagination. What I didn’t realize during my early days of nightmarish reveries about The End, is that Christianity was playing a similar (emphasis on “similar”) game to so many other spiritual and religious traditions around the world. The idea of a reality ending moment is not unique to Christianity, yet stepping outside of it to explore other traditions is what has helped me appreciate the invaluable impact of knowing the potential for apocalypse as a collective end, and that it can be endured.
#apocalypsestrong
Spiritual narratives are to be understood in the wider context of the culture of the people who live with them. Spiritual stories, creation myths, apocalyptic prophecies, all the things in between, they’re all meant to be known alongside the rest of a people’s cosmology. So, why do we focus on one or two aspects of religious narratives and examine them with microscopic, fine tooth combing type analyses? I personally hold the post-enlightenment flavor that covers so many things in US culture responsible for this myopic tendency. In just about every other tradition the people who belong to the tradition relate to spiritual stories as if they were but one bloom on an entire rose bush. The story of where we’re headed lives just in front of us, under and around a few thorns, mid bloom. The end, the apocalypse, may be a bloom that’s slowly wilting, dropping a petal every day and reminding us of impermanence. The way to endure is a story held in a bloom still low to the ground; a bud still green and hardly ready to reveal its shape and color to the outside world. This entity, this bush of stories is to be understood in its full form. The creation only makes sense next to rest of the blooms and soon-to-be-blooms, attached to the branches, still in the ground, extensions of resilient roots. Plucking and separating and placing them in new environments, without the rest of the plant births confusion. A confusion that manifests in wild ways during moments like these.
What’s amazing is that a fail-safe is built into the best of the traditions. A way to be and remain “Apocalypse strong”. The practice of the faith, not just the faith itself, is the way to endure. And, because every religious/spiritually based apocalypse narrative I’ve encountered is but a chapter in the wider story of the people, it becomes clear that looking to the practice is the best way to endure the meantime in order to get to the next chapter. Something else is always coming, for so many traditions the world has ended at least twice before. New humans were formed, new deities forged in the struggle of cosmic reconstruction. Even Christianity’s Genesis includes an apocalypse at the very beginning of the story. Something else is always coming. In the meantime, though, your practice is key.
What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? What’s the first focus that you elect to set your mind on? Is there a prayer, a breath of gratitude? How do you continue to re-orient yourself throughout the day so that you remain in alignment with the values and hopes and VISION of your tradition? Your action is everything. Without it, you’re like that inflatable flailing arm tube thing that sits outside of car dealerships - at the mercy of the strongest bursts of hot air. But your tradition wants better for you. There are psalms and prayers and hymns and verses and books outside the canon and… there are no excuses.
In 536 AD an incredible volcano in Iceland erupted, blanketing the sky in darkness for almost two years. For many, the world ended. In 2010 an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico leaked 3.19 million barrels (that’s 42 gallons in 1 barrel) of oil into the ocean. For so many, including non-human creatures, the world ended. On August 6 and August 9 of 1945, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Most definitely, the apocalypse occurred on those days. We can think of so many other apocalyptic moments, each of them valid and true to the meaning - the world having ended for the Creator’s children. The world seems to always be ending.
Since March, if not prior, we have been wildly navigating a global pandemic. The world is ending. Yet, here you are. With a choice to make for the direction your heart faces. With something to do about what you fix your vision on. Not to pretend like the present moment isn’t happening, but to anchor yourself in something that has endured many more apocalypses than we can count. Something else is coming. When it gets here, hindsight will be your friend as you attempt to make a different sense of today. What will you notice of yourself? Will you have been committed to the practices of loving justice as your tradition asks you? Will you have grieved and mourned the way your tradition teaches you to? Will you have been like that flailing tube guy? You get to make a choice. It’s the most powerful privilege you could never think to ask for. Apocalypse is happening now and you get to choose what you do while it happens to all of us. Somehow, someway, we get to practice being apocalypse strong, one day at a time.
With lots of love, here are some sources that have served as deep wells of refreshing drink as I navigate this End:
- Zulu Shaman by Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa
- Falling Out of Grace by Sobonfu Somé
- Earthseed: The Complete Series by Octavia Butler
- Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community by Malidoma Patrice Somé
- Into the Inferno, documentary by Werner Herzog
- Engaging the Powers by Walter Wink
- The Gospel of Mary, found in A New New Testament edited by Hal Taussig
- The Thunder: Perfect Mind, found in A New New Testament edited by Hal Taussig
~ Toni Anne Reynolds
Read online here
About the Author
Minister Toni Anne Reynolds is committed to singing flesh onto the bones of the Christian tradition by incorporating recently found texts of the ancient world into liturgy, sermons, and poetry. Toni’s Christianity forms a holy trinity with the psychological medicine of Tibetan Buddhism and the eternal Life found in Yoruba traditions. Balanced in an eclectic faith and focused in theology, Toni’s ministry offers a unique perspective on life, theology, and spirituality.
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Question & Answer
Q: By Jim
I am a Progressive Christian and have been so for 7-8 years (I’m 82). Two questions have weighed heavily on me and I learn as much as possible about my new journey. 1. What is/Where is God since “He’s” no longer an interventionist God who lives out there somewhere? 2. What is the role of prayer for the Progressives? In our church, who is VERY progressive, prayer sounds the same as it always did. It doesn’t seem appropriate, but if I’m correct, what is prayer, and quite frankly, Why?
I just completed the book, "Jesus for the Non-Religious". Incredible read! Question 1 was dealt with extraordinarily well. But prayer was never discussed. Is there any resource I can go to that would enlighten me? Love the journey, but it’s a challenge.
A: By Rev. Roger Wolsey
Dear Jim,
It is an honor to address your question, though with humility since you are my elder by a few years. You’ve had more time on the planet to ponder these matters and I no doubt have much to learn from you! Regarding your first question, many progressive Christians reject supernatural theism and instead have come to embrace a more mystic experience of God, and many understand this Mystery through the lens of something called panentheism. This is different than pantheism which posits that God is essentially certain material things on the planet (mountains, forests, animals, rivers, etc.) or equated with the universe itself. In panentheism, God is understood as being fully immanent within all Creation as well as fully transcendent from it. It’s a both/and approach that is surprisingly in sync with Christian orthodoxy – even though fundamentalists tend to deny this. So, this means that God is within you, me, your loved, ones, your enemies, the air you breathe, the water you drink, as well as within the past and future and any other dimensions known and unknown to us. Basically, everyone we meet is a manifestation of the holy and everywhere we go is sacred.
Your second question pertains to prayer. Some progressive Christians have shed intercessory or petitionary prayer all together for fear of treating God as some sort of "Cosmic Bellhop/Waiter" in the sky. Many progressive Christians have come to adopt centering prayer or other forms of contemplative prayer or meditation as their primary form of prayer. Others pray through making art or music, gardening, walking in nature, etc. Some progressive Christians have reclaimed intercessory prayer, but held loosely, and understood a bit differently. The shift has more focus on how to help us discern and sense how we can make a positive difference in the world. From a process theology perspective, God works with the world as it is, and a world where prayer is taking place is different than one where it isn't. God, "the Field/Force", has more to work with. “God works with the world as it is in order to bring it to where it can be. Prayer changes the way the world is, and therefore changes what the world can be. Prayer opens the world to its own transformation.” Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, from In God's Presence - an excellent book that helps share how this view of prayer “makes sense” in a process theology perspective. Highly recommended. You might also enjoy the chapter on prayer and spiritual practices in my book Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like Christianity.
Blessings to you on your continually evolving journey in and with the Divine.
~ Rev. Roger Wolsey
Read and share online here
About the Author
Rev. Roger Wolsey is a United Methodist pastor who resides in Grand Junction, CO. Roger is author of Kissing Fish: Christianity for people who don’t like Christianity and blogs for Patheos as The Holy Kiss and serves on the Board of Directors of ProgressiveChristianity.Org. Roger became “a Christian on purpose” during his college years and he experienced a call to ordained ministry two years after college. He values the Wesleyan approach to the faith and, as a certified spiritual director, he seeks to help others grow and mature. Roger enjoys yoga; playing trumpet; motorcycling; and camping with his son. He served as the Director of the Wesley Foundation campus ministry at the University of Colorado in Boulder for 14 years, and has served as pastor of churches in Minnesota, Iowa, and currently serves as the pastor of Fruita UMC in Colorado, and also serves as the "CRM" (Congregational Resource Minister/Church Consultant) for the Utah/Western Colorado District of the Mountain Sky Conference.
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Origins of the New Testament, Part III:
Placing the New Testament Onto the Grid of History
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
October 1, 2009
The books of the New Testament did not drop from heaven, fully written, in the King James Version! Yes, that is a caricature, but it still has a tenacious hold on the minds of many Christians. This conviction guarantees that current, competent biblical scholarship will always be a source of much controversy in traditional religious circles.
The facts, however, are these. We have no original words of Jesus in the language in which he spoke. We have no firsthand accounts of the things he is supposed to have done. Even the earliest narrative describing the crucifixion is a creation of at least the second generation of Jesus’ disciples and it is constructed not on eyewitness testimony, but on the interpretive use of the Hebrew Scriptures to portray Jesus as the fulfillment of all of their expectations. In the column last week we located the life of Jesus in terms of history, suggesting that the most informed guess for the date of his birth is 4 BCE and for the date of his death is 30 CE. With those dates in mind, let me line up today the books of the New Testament on a time grid of the first century and allow you to see how the New Testament developed. By doing that we can trace such things as when new claims, heightened accounts of the miraculous and the developing layers and traditions of the Jesus story were added to the narrative.
Assume that the life of Jesus was lived between 4 BCE and 30 CE. We face the fact that from the years 30 CE to about 50 CE, there is not a single word preserved of anything Jesus said or did. A tunnel of total silence exists, into which only speculation is possible.
In the years between 50 and 64 CE we come to the writings of Paul. Not all the epistles that bear his name are actually Pauline, but we are generally convinced that I Thessalonians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Philemon and Philippians are authentic. Almost all scholars dismiss the Pauline authorship of Hebrews, I and II Timothy, Titus and Ephesians, while the Pauline authorship of Colossians and II Thessalonians is still debated.
The four gospels were written between 70 and 100. The Book of Acts, the pseudo-Pauline epistles, the General Epistles (I, II, III John; I and II Peter; James and Jude) and the book of Revelation would all be dated between the 7th and 10th decades. With that dating system in mind let me go back and chronicle how the story developed between Paul, our earliest New Testament writer, and John, the last gospel writer.
Paul is the first person to give us any writing details about the life of Jesus, but these details are scanty indeed. Letter writer that Paul was, it was not his agenda to relate the words of Jesus, stories about Jesus or even the major events of his life, except inadvertently. Paul has no sense of Jesus having had a miraculous birth. He says of Jesus only that he was “born of a woman” like all human beings and that he was “born under the law” like all Jews. He does suggest that he is linked by heredity to King David, but since that was a popular messianic claim, it is hard to judge its historicity. Paul also indicates that he knows James, the brother of Jesus, but he never mentions the names of Jesus’ parents nor shares any knowledge about them.
Paul records no account of Jesus as a miracle worker. He reveals no knowledge of the tradition that Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples. All he says is that “On the night in which Jesus was handed over, he took bread” and instituted the Christian Eucharist. The words handed over became the fragile basis upon which the betrayal story was constructed. Paul does not suggest that this “handing over” was done by one of his disciples, nor does he identify this “last supper” in any way with the Passover. Paul makes no mention of the content of Jesus’ teaching, nor does he reveal any familiarity with any of the parables.
When Paul comes to the final events in Jesus’ life, his knowledge is equally scanty. The fact that Jesus was crucified is central to Paul, but none of the familiar details of that event are noted. All that Paul says is: “He died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.” Paul never mentions Pilate, Herod, the soldiers, the two thieves crucified with him, any words that Jesus was supposed to have spoken from the cross or what his death might have looked like. To say that Jesus “died for our sins,” appears to be an allusion drawn from the synagogue liturgy of Yom Kippur, while his words “in accordance with the scriptures” may relate to the way that early Christians interpreted the Hebrew prophets as having their words find literal fulfillment in the life and death of Jesus. We do know that the image of the “servant” drawn by II Isaiah (40-55) and of the “shepherd king” drawn by II Zechariah (9-14) were popular images for interpreting Jesus by the time the gospels were written. When he comes to the burial of Jesus Paul writes only “that he was buried.” There is no tomb, no Joseph of Arimathea, no angels, no guards, no women visitors. Dead people are buried is all he claims.
About the resurrection Paul says only that “on the third day” Jesus was raised “in accordance with the scriptures,” but he does not say into what he was raised. Was it into the life of this world or into the life of God? Was the resurrection a resuscitation of a dead body or an ascension into heaven? There were three stories in Jewish tradition in which a holy man (Enoch, Moses and Elijah) is victoriously translated into heaven. Paul would have been familiar with each of them. Most of Paul’s later writing points to the understanding that he believed that Jesus was raised into the eternity of God, rather than being physically resuscitated back into this life.
Paul goes on to give a list of those people to whom the raised Christ was “made manifest.” He includes “the twelve,” which seems to say that Judas was still among them. He also includes himself, claiming his experience of the risen Christ was like all the others except that his was last. When Paul’s epistles, written between 50 and 64, were all that the Christian Church had in writing, the fact is that the remembered details on Jesus’ life were few indeed.
The first gospel was Mark, written in the early 70’s, followed by Matthew in the early 80’s and Luke in the late 80’s and finally by John in the late 90’s. Both Matthew and Luke copied large portions of Mark into their works, with Matthew utilizing about 90% of Mark’s content and Luke utilizing about 50%. John appears to be aware of the first three gospels, but he was not dependent on them, except very slightly. So when we line up the books of the New Testament, in the historic order of their writing we can see the developing story line quite clearly.
Mark in the 8th decade is the first to introduce John the Baptist, to say that Jesus performed miracles or to suggest that his mother’s name was Mary. None of those things had ever been mentioned before. He never refers to a father figure at all, much less one named Joseph. Mark is the first writer to introduce Judas as the traitor and the first to write a narrative of the cross. In that narrative, now-familiar details such as Peter’s denial, the crown of thorns, the crucified thieves and the cry of dereliction, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” enter the tradition. Mark also is the first to introduce Joseph of Arimathea and to relate the story of Jesus’ burial. When Mark gets to Easter, he portrays only an empty tomb and a messenger who makes a resurrection announcement, but never in the first gospel is the raised Christ seen by anyone. That is all we have until the 9th decade.
Matthew, writing about a decade after Mark, adds other touches. He is the first to provide a genealogy, the first to introduce the virgin birth story of Jesus and the first to weave the story of Jesus around the narrative of Moses. Only in Matthew is there a Moses story about a wicked king trying to destroy Jewish male babies, but now told about Jesus, and only in Matthew does Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount, re-interpreting the Law of Moses in a new way from on top of a new mountain. Matthew adds the parable of the sheep and the goats found nowhere else. He also copies all of Mark’s miracles, adding none of his own. Finally, Matthew is the first gospel to portray Jesus as physically raised from the dead, though he is quite ambivalent. The raised Christ is physical with the women in the garden, but not with the disciples in Galilee.
Luke, writing a little less than a decade after Matthew, builds on the miraculous birth story, adding details that do not harmonize with Matthew. In Luke angels replace the star and shepherds replace the magi. He adds two new miracle stories to the tradition, the healing of the ten lepers and the raising from the dead of a widow’s only son in Nain. Luke is also the source of the best known of Jesus’ parables: the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son and Lazarus and the Rich Man, which appear in no other gospel. Luke adds words to the cross unheard of before and he makes the resurrection quite physical. The stories of Ascension and Pentecost are also Lucan.
John adds two new miracles: turning of water into wine and raising Lazarus from the dead. He expands the teaching of Jesus, frequently turning it into long, highly developed theological monologues. He prefers the word “sign” to the word “miracle” and makes the ascension something that occurs before Jesus appears to the disciples, not afterwards.
This very brief analysis gives us a sense of how the Jesus story grew as the New Testament developed. We will return to look at this in more detail later. For now, however, I simply want my readers to be aware of how dramatically the story grows between 70 and100 as the gospels are written. Then I ask you to wonder with me about how the story might have grown from 30 to 70, where we have little or no data for comparison. That will prepare us to enter that dark oral only tunnel where no written data exists when this series continues.
~ John Shelby Spong
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