[Dialogue] 1/27/22, Progressing Spirituality: The Rev. Michael Dowd: My G🌎 D, What Have We Done?
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
Thu Jan 27 07:57:31 PST 2022
For more info via documents and videos: check out some of the links included in Micheal Dowd's text below and hss website: www.theearthstory.org
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My G🌎 D, What Have We Done?
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| Essay by Rev. Michael Dowd
January 27, 2022 On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima,
Japan — the first time such a catastrophic weapon was used in conflict. As the
city disappeared under a mushroom cloud, Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot
of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the weapon, “Little Boy”,
wrote in his journal “My God, what have we done?”I had originally planned to title this essay “Honest to G🌎D”, in honor of Bishop John A.T. Robinson’s 1963 book that inspired a generation of progressive Christians. But upon my third watching of the Netflix movie "Don’t Look Up”, I realized that the co-pilot's now-famous lament would be my lead.My thesis is simply this: A comet actually is heading our way. We ourselves set it in motion millennia ago. But only recently have scientists, echoing longstanding Indigenous warnings, charted its course and voiced the alarm. Its name is Anthropocentrism and these are the End Times because human-centeredness will prove to be nearly as devastating as the comet in the movie.By Fate or by Failure Fate, in human experience, is a future that happens to us regardless of
our own actions. As defined by sociologist C. Wright Mills, “Fate is
the summary outcome not intended by anyone but resulting from
innumerable small decisions about other matters by innumerable people.”
~ William R. Catton, Jr.The gifts of awareness and understanding brought forth by the scientific endeavor have been trailing a latent and growing shadow. This shadow is now so immense and terrifying that there is much to lament about the course we have taken. Could it have been different?Let us reflect on just one facet of how the discoveries of science have been applied: access to and deployment of Earth's reserves of stored energy.To begin, might the British have said "no" to digging coal in Newcastle? What about using that coal to power steam engines for digging deeper, transporting it across oceans? Could Americans have said "no" in Pennsylvania or Texas to turning a foul-smelling liquid into black gold? What about fracking bedrock to dislodge the remaining natural gas and petroleum liquids in Ohio, Oklahoma, the Dakotas?What about leases for deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico? (Oops, the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in 2010.) Then selling leases again December 2021?And what about utilizing the same energy stores to produce plastic and to draw nitrogen fertilizers out of thin air?How, in sum, could any new technology that offered big and immediate human benefits have been thwarted by the mere possibility of future risks? Indeed, if problems did arise, the thinking went, human ingenuity would once again come to the rescue. We imagined there were no limits to the advance and growth of industrial civilization!I have come to accept that each step of energy extraction and technological deployment was, in a way, inevitable. No council of wise elders could have assessed the true costs and benefits — and certainly not if charged to consider the consequences seven generations ahead. Equally, for those in power, who could remain in power if they accepted a "no" vote of such counsel?What aggregation of peoples could survive long saying no to any new technology if a yes was eventually put in play somewhere else?Recent history offers an example. The Chinese found a way to mix chemical elements to produce the marvels of fireworks. But when other peoples on the Eurasian continent began using the same mixture for propelling cannonballs and bullets, "gunpowder" became a necessity everywhere in the world. Dubbed "the parable of the tribes," this kind of evolutionary arms race is regarded by some historians as a matter of fate. Ditto "ecological overshoot" and now also the anthropogenic causes of today's biodiversity and climate crises.Looking to the future, we come to this: Whether we arrived at our species predicament by fate or failure, the period of industrial exploitation is over. Peak energy, peak consumption, peak globalization, peak soil, peak phosphorus, peak food, peak habitat, peak progress — each is already in the rearview mirror.Progressive Christianity TodayFundamentally, it is time for progressive Christians to reckon with the very notion of progress — that anthropocentric “advancement” is even a good thing in the long run. What may well have presented as a template for human progress a half century ago can no longer be viewed through the same lens.I offer here a possibility. Let's stop trivializing God.As modeled in the title of this essay, I propose that "God" be spelled (and more importantly, taken to heart) as G🌎D. The planet in all its manifestations thus becomes the center of what is holy; not the entirety, but what rivets our attention. G🌎D, our living Creator, Sustainer, and End, is indeed our “ultimate concern" — that which we respect and revere, that which we serve above all else.Following on the teachings of Jewish scholar Martin Buber, the living biosphere transforms into a greater “Thou”, no longer a lesser “it”.Today's movement for the rights of nature (Earth jurisprudence) is another path toward biocentric valuation. Indigenous peoples are, in this case, leading the way. They and their allies have already secured legal personhood for sacred lands and rivers in Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, India, Bangladesh, New Zealand, and most recently in the Canadian province of Quebec. Surely, this is an inviting path forward for progressive Christians. A flag we can carry to demonstrate our alliance, our allegiance, our support might well be this: G🌎D.In a 2017 essay, "The Way Home for the Prodigal Species," and two recent videos, "G🌎D: Owning Our Error, Accepting Our Fate" and "Sustainability 101: Indigenuity Is Not Optional," I reinterpreted our biblical heritage in ecocentric ways. We are in fact the prodigal species. We have squandered not only our own inheritance but that of nearly every other form of life. Human-centeredness has proved to be the most heinous form of idolatry. The ancients may have dissed God; we are defiling G🌎D.Human-centeredness in our language, in our portrayal of the divine, in our notion of rights and responsibilities is inherently anti-future. It cannot be sustained. As Edward Goldsmith details in his magnum opus, The Way: An Ecological Worldview, virtually every sustainable culture that we know of held three things in common: (1) they related to the local, living presence of reality (what we dismissively call “the environment”) in a humble, reverential, I-Thou way; (2) this incarnational presence of the divine (G🌎D) was honored as the source of all benefits and all real wealth for the community; and (3) preservation of the health and wellbeing of the body of life was the sacred responsibility.Human wellbeing is thus a consequence of right relationship to reality — not the focal point for decision-making. Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer encourages us all to regard plants and animals as kin. More, they are "our first teachers." Fruit and flesh are gifts, warranting gratitude and reciprocal action.Meanwhile, and drawing upon early Greek expressions of ecological wisdom, American scholar William Ophuls presents humility, moderation, and connection as a trinity of virtues worth reviving.G🌎D’s Judgment“Sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson“G🌎D’s Judgment” is of course a mythic phrasing of “our banquet of consequences.” Accumulating over generations long before our own, this unwelcome feast can also be understood as “karma.” It is the inevitable fruit of anthropocentric institutions, governance — and religions.Industrial civilization is threatened by a "planet killer" of its own making. Here is where we now stand: • No matter who is voted into or out of office, no matter how many people
take to the streets, become vegan, stop flying or reproducing, no matter
how much ‘evolution of consciousness’ might be cultivated, and no matter
how many solar panels and wind turbines are installed… • The ice of the world will keep melting and weirding out the jet stream.
Methane and nitrous oxide (super-potent greenhouse gasses) will
continue to belch from permafrost and polar seas. Forests everywhere
will continue to incinerate, overwhelming our carbon-mitigation efforts.
Acidifying oceans will continue to dissolve the calcium casings of coral,
plankton, and shellfish. Hurricanes, tornados, heat domes, floods,
droughts: all will grow ever more damaging, deadly.Our human-centeredness is causing the 6th mass extinction. Homo colossus is surely on the list. Homo sapiens may be, too.RedemptionDenial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance: where are you in the vaunted "stages of grief"? And is doom automatically the end point?Mid 2019, and building upon Paul Chefurka's notion of finding the gift on the other side of acceptance, I began to explore (with others) the possibility of compassionate “post-doom" forms of awareness. (I see “post-doom” as akin to compost theology, or regenerative grace — a secular name for resurrection.) Sure enough, multiple paths were already recognizable and inviting. Quite a few of my interlocutors (Paul Chefurka, Joanna Macy, among them) call upon Buddhist teachings for their ways forward. Several (notably, Shaun Chamberlain) speak of the emotional and spiritual equanimity he gains from Taoist writings.Post-doom conversations from a Christian platform were numerous: Richard Rohr, Damaris Zehner, Sid Smith, Robert Jensen, Gail Tverberg, and the Seminary of the Wild Guides (Victoria Loorz, Matt Syrdal, Brian Stafford, and Bryan Smith). I encourage readers of this publication to explore them all, as well as the mind-expanding post-doom resources and soul-nourishing “post doom, no gloom” zoom calls.But here, I will close with the final prayer of Jesus at his own end time, on the cross. For me, these words are comforting, even redemptive…”Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”~ Rev. Michael Dowd
Read online HERE
To listen to an audio narration of this essay, click HERE
To see a video presentation of this essay, click HERE
About the Author
The Reverend Michael Dowd is a bestselling eco-theologian, TEDx speaker, and pro-future advocate whose work has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, Discover, and on television throughout the United States and Canada. His book, Thank God for Evolution, was endorsed by 6 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, noted skeptics, and religious leaders across the spectrum. Michael and his science writer, evolutionary educator, and fellow climate activist wife, Connie Barlow, have spoken to some 3,000 groups throughout North America since April 2002. Michael has delivered two TEDx talks (“Why We Struggle and Suffer” in 2012, and “Reality Reconciles Science and Religion” in 2014) and a program at the United Nations. He has also conducted three acclaimed online conversation series: “The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity” (2011), “The Future Is Calling Us to Greatness” (2015) and “Post-doom: Regenerative conversations exploring overshoot grief, grounding, and gratitude” (2020-21). Dowd's work provides audiences with applications of evolutionary and ecological wisdom that break through the confusions of these rapidly shifting times.As of September 2020, Michael and Connie live permanently in Ypsilanti, Michigan, from where Michael delivers Zoom homilies and longer programs. Sample sermons can be found here and here and here. This video: “Serenity Prayer for the 21st Century: Pro-Future Love-in-Action” is especially recommended as a introduction to his current body of work regarding climate change, ecological overshoot, true vs. faux sustainability, and how to discern what to accept and what to passionately engage in.Rev. Dowd’s websites: MichaelDowd.org / TheGreatStory.org / PostDoom.com |
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Question & Answer
Q: By A Reader
With the continuing political polarity across our nation for those of different races, cultures, sexualities, and genders, where do LGBTQIA+ people find the resources and advocacy to thrive in today’s less progressive churches?
A: By Rev. Brandan Robertson
Dear Reader,This is an interesting question- the truth is that all around the world, thousands of progressive, inclusive churches are emerging that are drawing LGBTQ+ people and our allies out of the pews of non-inclusive churches into spaces of true inclusion and embrace. (To see many of these churches, check out GayChurch.net)
For those who may not have a progressive, inclusive church geographically near them, many turn to the internet to find inclusive community. Through social media groups to progressive clergy on TikTok, millions of people are being connected to resources that help them reinivision their faith in ways that allow them to bring their full self to the table. In the past two years, for instance, I have gained a following of nearly 200k people on the app TikTok where I proclaim progressive Christian messages every week. I actually left ministry in a brick-and-mortar church, in part, to start a virtual faith community for these thousands of people and now every week through Metanoia Church, (metanoiacenter.org) hundreds gather via Zoom to be a part of a fully virtual inclusive community. So, our virtual world has made it easier than ever for people in every part of the world to be connected to resources and real community that embraces them just as they are.
The last thing I’ll mention is that there are dozens of international non-profits dedicated for reformation within the Church around LGBTQ+ inclusion. Groups like Q Christian Fellowship, The European Symposium of LGBTQ+ Christians, One Body, One Faith, We Are Church, Changing Attitudes, and the Global Interfaith Commission on LGBTQ+ Lives all offer resources for LGBTQ+ Christians and our allies to cultivate a progressive, inclusive faith and I’d highly encourage you to check them out!~ Rev. Brandan Robertson
Read and share online here
About the Author
Rev. Brandan Robertson is a noted spiritual thought-leader, contemplative activist, and commentator, working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal and the author of Nomad: A Spirituality For Travelling Light and writes regularly for Patheos, Beliefnet, and The Huffington Post. He has published countless articles in respected outlets such as TIME, NBC, The Washington Post, Religion News Service, and Dallas Morning News. As sought out commentator of faith, culture, and public life, he is a regular contributor to national media outlets and has been interviewed by outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, SiriusXM, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Associated Press. He leads Metanoia, a digital spiritual community at MetanoiaCenter.org |
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
What Do Christian Symbols Mean in a Land Where Christianity is No Longer Practiced?
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
December 1, 2022Italy is a Roman Catholic country! That was stated time after time as we journeyed through Florence, Tuscany and the Cinque Terre. The signs of this faith tradition were everywhere. The major tourist attractions in Italy, ranging from the Vatican to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, to the storied museums of the land in which the artistic creations of the Christian past are on display, all serve to make this Catholic history visible. Every Italian city is home to many churches, to stories of miracles emanating from a bygone era, to multiple shrines and to statues of religious heroes of the past. The influence of Catholicism obviously finds constant expression in Italian culture. The powerful mother of the Italian family, the “Mama Mia,” is undergirded by the image of the Virgin who is universally present. The suffering of the people, especially of those mothers who lost sons in the almost endless warfare throughout history between Italian cities or regions, is reflected in portraits of the Virgin at the cross cradling the limp body of her deceased son, Jesus. The “hot blood” of the Italian psyche is reflected in the images of the wrathful father God and in the sensuous appeal of Mary Magdalene.
The great festivals and holidays of Italy all have Christian content, not only the universal ones like Christmas and Easter, but also the more favored local ones like the Flower Festival of St. Zita on April 27 in the city of Lucca, which commemorates one whose body, so the legend says, has been miraculously preserved from decay, so she is displayed in her final resting place, visible behind glass and serving as a tourist attraction not unlike Scotland’s Loch Ness monster.
Underneath these overwhelming, religious facades, however, is a vast and pervasive emptiness. The external forms of religion reflecting the Catholic faith no longer seem filled with religious content. The city of Lucca in Tuscany illustrates this reality. Lucca, a small city of less than 100,000 people, has eighty-seven churches dotting its landscape with their steeples punctuating the skyline. Sixty-seven of these churches, however, have been officially deconsecrated and turned over to secular purposes. Of the twenty that remain, attendance is very low with only a few of the pews occupied on any given Sunday. The myths of miracles continue to be passed on, but with the glimmer of make believe, a vain attempt to capture the magic of their religious past. No one, save for some of the elderly and uneducated, still ascribes any reality to the details. They remain as cultural artifacts of a time that is no more.
In the Middle Ages almost the entire purpose of life was to prepare the faithful for the life to come. It was focused on penance; pilgrimages and the spiritual discipline of mortification, combined with prescribed acts of kindness and generosity were thought to assure one of the bliss of heaven. Guilt was the omnipresent reality in that system that motivated all behavior. Today, life is centered in the present. The search for pleasure now has long since replaced the yearning for bliss later. Wine is the beverage of choice and it is drunk in great quantities at dinner and is anticipated as fully as is the food. Clearly it gladdens the hearts of the Italian citizenry. Lots of homes have small vineyards from which their own wine is made. They cannot imagine alcohol control as a function of government. Few ever associated wine with the sacrament of the Eucharist. They would understand those words culturally, but they would never employ them.
Biblical ignorance is also rampant throughout the land. The Catholic Church never put a premium on Bible Study and the last two hundred years of critical biblical study has not made a significant impact on either the Catholic hierarchy or the priesthood. It has certainly not permeated the minds of the average person. If one were to tell an Italian audience that none of Jesus’ disciples wrote the gospels or that the miracles were far more symbolic than historical, they simply would not listen. Jesus was born in Bethlehem one Italian told me, totally unaware that the stories of the miraculous birth of Jesus, which includes moving his birth from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the city of David, did not enter the Christian tradition until the 9th decade of the Christian era. The artifacts of their Christian past are simply like pieces of antique furniture, honored by, but not used in a typical household.
The people are proud of their artistic treasures. Michelangelo’s masterpiece, the statue of King David as a youth, was adopted as symbolic of an insight into modernity by the people of Florence, but none of them could tell me why a Jewish king, who reigned about 3,000 years ago, was chosen to be a symbol of a new age. Yet this gigantic, nude statue carved and chiseled with incredible skill and talent, draws millions of viewers a year. The non-biblical aspects of what they assume to be biblical portraits are astonishing. As I noted last week there were numbers of paintings of Jesus and John the Baptist, playing together as children under the careful watch of Mary and Elizabeth, found in every museum. Yet there is not a shred of evidence in the Bible of any association between Jesus and John the Baptist in childhood. Most of the tradition that has grown up around this theme reflects only an earlier story of the relationship between Esau and Jacob in Genesis. In both narratives, the elder must decrease and the younger increase.
The Stations of the Cross, painted and hanging as portraits on the walls of churches, tell the story of Jesus’ passion with little regard for the facts related in the biblical narratives. So the people enjoy the art, ask no questions about it and generally ignore its meaning.
What do empty religious symbols mean? What power sustains them? Why do these symbols remain so prevalent when the faith that gave them meaning has so little residual power? That was the issue that intrigued me. While I was in Italy, I saw only one person wearing a cross. So rare was this experience that I inquired if she would be willing to tell me what that simple act meant to her. It was an intrusive question, but she responded without taking offence. “I’ve always liked the symbol, she said, but I don’t like the things it traditionally stands for – suffering, pain and death. It says to me that one human life lived out his destiny by giving his life away – so for me it is a sign of radical freedom,” an interesting non-religious response.
That response, however, helped me to answer my own questions about the continued impact of Catholic forms in a nation and a culture that has largely abandoned Christianity’s content. Certainly the Italian people are not obedient to the rules of their church. The birth rate in Italy, 1.2 children per family, is the lowest in all of Europe. Does anyone really believe that this startling rate is achieved without birth control or legal abortion?
Churches are closing, worshippers at those that remain open are few and the number of priests is in free fall. The tourist guides wink knowingly when they relate the miracle stories connected with the various shrines. The Pope is treated like a piece of furniture or a maiden aunt. No one is unkind, but no one pays attention to anything he says. “He is not popular,” one Italian told me. “Why is that?” I inquired. “Because he’s German,” came the answer. “The Germans are blunt, they say what they think and don’t care who likes it. Previous Popes knew how to make everyone think the Pope agreed with them.”
When the substance of Christianity is largely absent from Italy’s life, but the ancient forms of Christianity are everywhere there is bound to be confusion. One can, however, move beyond the forms of the past without moving beyond the substance to which those forms were originally but pointers. If we identify the forms with the substance then when the forms die the substance also dies. That is where institutional Christianity is in Italy, indeed in Europe and increasingly in the United States. Yet most people still seek in some way meaning, ultimacy and God, but so often it is the dead forms of the past that force our search to remain inside the increasingly empty symbols of yesterday.
Traditional Christianity is clearly dying in Italy – perhaps it has already died. The human experience, however, which traditional Christianity once interpreted, is as real today as ever. Our task is to find new forms through which our eternal yearnings can find expression. That is never achieved by reviving the past. It comes by embracing the future, walking courageously into it and in the process redefining the meaning of being human. To accomplish this Christians must begin by freeing ourselves of binding creeds and dated liturgies. We need to cast aside pious ignorance, the fear of science and of new insights. We probe the dimensions of our humanity, identifying those things that lift us beyond our limits and those that force us to live behind defensive barriers. We look at the freedom and the wholeness of Christ and seek those same qualities in ourselves without worrying about what will become of our traditional and familiar symbols. People living today might not recognize what the Christianity of the 22nd century evolves into being, but we must nonetheless be about this journey.
Perhaps the secularity of Italy gives the Italians a head start, while we in America still have to push aside the thin, lingering religious veneer. We still see at political rallies in America a hard and harsh presence called “the religious vote,” which suggests that those without health care insurance be allowed to die; boos a gay soldier, who has served courageously, when he seeks equality under the law, and tries to define the religion of a presidential candidate as a “cult.” The Bible is still quoted to defend popular prejudices. Christian liturgies remain pre-Copernican and Christian theology pre-Darwinian, while we search for meaningful answers to such perennial questions as: Who am I? What is my purpose, my destiny? Who is my neighbor? When we begin to ask those questions in honesty with no preconceived religious answers, the time will have arrived for the Christian faith to be born to new dimensions of truth. I yearn and work for that day with confidence that it will arrive.~ John Shelby Spong |
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