[Oe List ...] 4/30/20, Progressing Spirit: Deshna Smith:May Our Sins be Washed Away; Spong revisited
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
Thu Apr 30 06:10:07 PDT 2020
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.yiv5833894595mcnTextContent, #yiv5833894595 #yiv5833894595templateHeader .yiv5833894595mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv5833894595 #yiv5833894595templateBody .yiv5833894595mcnTextContent, #yiv5833894595 #yiv5833894595templateBody .yiv5833894595mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv5833894595 #yiv5833894595templateFooter .yiv5833894595mcnTextContent, #yiv5833894595 #yiv5833894595templateFooter .yiv5833894595mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } Why we must continue to remove judgment and dogma from progressive Christian theology.
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| May Our Sins be Washed Away:
Why we must continue to remove judgment and dogma from progressive Christian theology. |
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| Essay by Rev. Deshna C. Shine
April 30, 2020
It was 1980, I was three years old, living in a rural town in Colorado, in a tiny house with no hot water, and my parents owned a restaurant and a nightclub. They were a strange hybrid between hippies and wannabe cowboys. New agers who had left the non-stop hustle of Newport Beach, California, their boat and their fancy car, to grow hydroponic food and live off the land in a town that wasn’t fully ready to embrace them. They worked their behinds off though and somehow became a part of the small town community after 8 years. But something was broken. You could say it was their marriage… but that wasn’t quite it. It was more like their dreams, their hearts, and nearly their will.
I was unaware at three. I ran around the forest naked with my dog, rolled in leaves in the Fall, put my red cowboy hat on with my boots and snuggled close to my mama every night to keep warm. I bathed in the big metal tin in the kitchen with hot water from the kettle and ate watermelon on blankets in a sunny field of grass and wildflowers. I was a blissful, chubby faced child with large green eyes that held one’s attention.
You see, a nightclub and a restaurant in a cowboy town meant another kind of hustle. One that had both my parents working 15 hour days and making some highly questionable decisions on the side. Drugs, random people, all-nighters, and making deals with the big boys in town had gotten my dad in trouble on more than one occasion. My mom was at her wits end, wondering if she would ever be truly loved, and ready to leave it all behind with me. My Dad could leave with us, but that was it, she was done. She knew they had to let go of this one dream in order to survive.
Though my dad was a loving, fun, creative, and passionate person, he just couldn’t see how he had gotten to that point in his life. He was full of frustration and disappointment. He was about to lose the love of his life, his family, and everything he had left in the world. He had problems in his marriage, problems at work, and a ton of pressure. He had worked so hard! He was a good person. Why was this happening to him? At a loss of what to do and brimming with regret, he packed an overnight bag and hiked to the top of a nearby mountain. On the way up he kept ticking off the unfairness and the wrong done to him. “Why go home?” he asked himself. “Why should I keep trying so hard? Why am I even alive?”
By the time he reached the top of the mountain, he was so fed up with his life and all the things people had done and all the ways he had failed, that he decided he was just going to stay there. He would not return to his wrecked life. He sat near a bottomless lake for hours, just thinking, crying, and feeling utterly alone. Night came… and then morning. He fell into a deep trance state. Suddenly, a huge fish leapt out of the water and then swam toward him. He could almost hear the voice of this strange animal. Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? Dying? It hardly mattered anymore.
And then a strange, seeming out of nowhere thought came to him: What would Jesus do?
My dad had been in communication for years with the local UCC church pastor and their conversations just kept coming back to him as he sat there. He had studied Philosophy and Political Theory at UC Riverside and the history of Christianity had always fascinated him. He knew quite a bit about the story of Jesus but had never fully related to it until that moment.
What would Jesus do? Well, for one, he wouldn’t be sitting there blaming the whole world for all of his problems. He would forgive. One by one, my dad saw the people in his life that he held so much anger toward and felt that just fall away. “I myself have caused just as much pain. I myself am to blame for where I am.” He began to forgive people for all the blame that he had placed on them. “How can I judge others when I myself have made so many mistakes? They are just struggling along in this life just as I am.” All of a sudden, the money owed to him, the arguments, the games, the pride…all of it just began to fall away. It didn’t matter anymore. It was certainly not the load he wanted to carry down the mountain.
He started to relate his experience to the story of Jesus. He thought to himself, “this guy had it figured out and we aren’t even listening.” He realized that he had something to share. Suddenly, there was another way to see the world. He walked off that mountain and everything had changed. This mountain-top experience had relieved him of his anguish. He felt a huge swelling of gratitude and compassion rising up in him. He felt deep sadness for the pain he had caused. When he arrived home, he asked for forgiveness from my mom and then later others. His “sins” were washed away by Jesus. His sins of ego, blame, selfishness, and pride were washed away. That is the beauty in the story of Jesus! That is why he is called a savior. Following the teachings of Jesus can save us from ourselves.
“The invitation of Christ is the invitation to move out of the house of fear and into the house of love: to move out of that place of imprisonment and into that place of freedom: ‘Come to me, come into my house, the house of love.’” Henri Nouwen
Shortly after that strange day, my parents sat on a hillside, the wind was blowing through the trees, and I was playing with the dog. My dad shared his story and my mom looked into his light blue eyes and said, “You need to go to Seminary.” They didn’t even know what Seminary really was, but something deep within him knew she was right.
We left everything we owned behind, including our home in Colorado, my parents sold their businesses for $1, and we moved into a trailer in Montana on the property of a cowboy friend. Winter came, the car broke down and we were broke. My parents cut firewood to sell to get by and wondered how they were going to survive. The cat had wandered off into the depths of snow, not yet to return. My Californian parents were shocked by the bone chilling cold and the height of the snow and then they were told it wasn’t even real winter yet. Just because you know what you need to do does not mean the road will be easy.
Four years later, after Seminary at the Pacific School of Religion, we moved back to Southern California to grow a small church. I was 7. For years I watched my dad get up every Sunday and find something meaningful to share with our growing progressive Christian church community. We were radicals back then — fighting for equality, health care and immigration rights. We got death threats from fundamental Christians and my dad left at night more than once to bring a suit jacket and $40 to someone who needed help. I was in awe of the life my parents led and the teachings my dad would share.
35 years later I am still deeply involved in the progressive Christian movement as the Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, primarily because of what I learned from my dad.
I share this story today for a couple of reasons. One, to remind us all that people come into the progressive Christian movement for a huge variety of reasons, from a vast diversity of backgrounds and with complex stories and needs. Some come from a deeply fundamental family history and have major spiritual trauma they are healing. Others are leaving behind a life of blame and anger. Some are seekers and feel moved by the story of Jesus.
Two, to remind us all that Progressive Christianity does not actually have a linear theology. Due to its very nature the one solid aspect of Progressive Christian theology is an openness and willingness to question others’ and one’s own beliefs. The theology of progressive Christianity is more like a spiral. Always turning, always growing in both directions. And people find themselves entering the journey at many different points in that spiral. I use the spiral metaphor imagery in the hopes of dissolving the patriarchal colonizing linear form of thought theology usually takes.
Progressive Christianity did not actually start at one point and progress in an exact way to an endpoint. There is no end or beginning here. There is no finish line. There is no, “I am way ahead of you,” or “I am past that outdated belief.”
You are just perfectly where you are meant to be on your authentic journey. If someone calls themselves a progressive Christian and you balk because they talk about God in a more personal way or they talk about Jesus as their savior, what does it matter to you? Are they asking themselves, “What would Jesus do?” Are they doing it? That is what matters, not if their story is right or true, but how they are living their lives. And even more important than that is how are you living your life, today and everyday forward?
To be a progressive, one must have the ability to think for oneself, to examine what they have been told and what they read. To be a progressive Christian means we find the courage to both question and to find our own authentic answer. And that takes bravery. Let’s celebrate our bravery together!
Beyond the core approach that progressive Christians have to living in the world, their theology is actually quite varied. Due to its authentic nature and the ability to question and doubt, progressive Christianity is always being shaped by the people who call themselves progressive Christians. And it will always be shifting and growing and expanding.
Frankly, I am tired of progressives arguing about beliefs and getting all high and mighty. “You aren’t a progressive if you still believe in the literal resurrection.” “You aren’t a progressive if you think of having a personal relationship with God.” “We moved past that years ago.” No, my friends, we didn’t. You shifted in your language and your perception. You shifted in the story you are telling and how you are interpreting the story. It’s just a story. It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. Every person’s story is just as valid as yours. Just like the story I told today, I am sure that I didn’t get it perfectly right and I took some liberties because I wanted to find the meaning in the story and I wanted that meaning to affect how I view the world.
You know who isn’t a progressive Christian? One who judges others without looking first at him or herself. One who can’t forgive those who have hurt him. One who holds her pride so high, she can’t see that each person’s relationship to the story is just as valid, if it leads them to actually follow the teachings. One who thinks they have all the answers.
Can we please come back to the teachings? Can we please search within our hearts for the mountain top experience of Jesus? To forgive, to be like a child and find awe in our hearts, to stop judging because someone is at a different point in their journey. To love our enemies. To do good to our enemies and expect nothing back. To give and then give some more. To continue to be students and seek for our eyes to be opened to what they are blind to.
Can we focus on entering the house of love? Come with us friends, leave that house of fear! Progressives just entering the journey are a blessing. Welcome them to this house of love! Welcome the doubters! Welcome the believers! Welcome their stories that are true and meaningful to them. Ask them: “How are you living this life? How has Jesus informed your decisions and your actions?” And then listen and learn. Remember, we are all just as blind and we do not know what we do not know. As progressives, we are here to ask questions, to learn, and to follow the teachings.
Maybe it is time for us all to go sit on top of a mountain and stay there until we too can release our judgements, our hatred, our fears, our anger, our lack of ownership, and our pride. Let the fish tell you their stories. Let the trees listen to your cries. Let the ground hold you. Let the sky sing God’s praises. Let the sun bathe you in love. Let the rain wash away your pride. Forgive yourself. And then forgive some more. And when you are ready…come down that mountain and tell your story of how your sins were washed away when you found Jesus. (Or found again.)
Walk with Jesus. Let Jesus guide your feet, sisters and brothers. And always ask: “What would Jesus do?”
“Oh happy day, oh happy day, oh happy day when Jesus washed my sins away!”
~ Rev. Deshna C. Shine
Read online here
About the Author
Rev. Deshna Charron Shine is Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org and Progressing Spirit and is an ordained Interfaith Minister. She is an author, international speaker, and a visionary. She grew up in a thriving progressive Christian church and has worked in the field for over 13 years. She graduated from UCSB with a major in Religious Studies and a minor in Global Peace and Security. She is a lead author and editor on the children’s curriculum: A Joyful Path, Spiritual Curriculum. She co-authored the novel, Missing Mothers. She is the Executive Producer of Embrace Festival. She is passionate about sacred community, nourishing children spiritually, and transforming Christianity through a radically inclusive lens.
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Question & Answer
Q: By a Reader
I understand you come from an Evangelical background. Can you help me understand why Evangelicals are so resistant to science? First it was teaching evolution. Then it was homosexuality. Then it was climate change. More recently, a lot of them seemed to think they couldn’t catch COVID-19 so they kept their churches open and resisted social distancing. I just don’t get it.
A: By Brian D. Mclaren
Dear Reader,
I do indeed come from a conservative Evangelical background. It would take many books to even begin to explain the shared ethos that leads to this anti-science bias. But let me sketch out three dimensions of it.
First, you can look at the larger history of western Christianity. Back in the 17th Century, European Christians had to deal with first Copernicus and then Galileo challenging the prevailing model of the universe. Then came the Enlightenment in the 18th Century, launching a battle between faith and reason. European Christians responded in two ways, one liberal and one conservative. Liberal Christians were willing to negotiate the scientific and historical claims of the Bible and focus on its deeper meaning. Conservative Christians doubled down on the incorrigible (uncorrectable) trustworthiness of their authority structures (papal infallibility for Catholics, biblical inerrancy for Protestants).
After the Enlightenment, new rounds of challenge just kept coming: Darwin and evolution, Marx and socialism, Einstein and relativity, Hubble and the expanding universe, the Big Bang, etc. Faced with these challenges, conservative Christians enmeshed their identity with the idea of biblical inerrancy, epitomized in maxims I heard as a child: “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it,” and “If the Bible says the whale swallowed Jonah, I believe it. If it said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I’d believe that too.”
For centuries now, standing for literalistic readings of the Bible and standing against science have been baked into the recipe of what it means to be a conservative Protestant, and since the 1980’s, it’s gotten worse, as hard-core Fundamentalists have staged a near-complete takeover of the Evangelical movement. (The few remaining non-fundamentalist Evangelicals by and large have to lay low and speak in whispers.)
Second, it helps to understand the psychology and sociology of authoritarian and patriarchal communities. In a hostile, scary, or uncertain world, many people find safety in the shadow of a powerful authoritarian leader. The leader protects them (or at least gives them the feeling of being protected), and in exchange for protection, the group submits to the leader. The flip side of this arrangement is also important: if anyone dares to challenge the rightness of the leader, the group unites to exclude the dissenter. So, as long as the leaders of Evangelicalism fall in line behind their acknowledged leaders (these days, Trump and his allies, Fox News and its pundits, and all those who are silently compliant with this arrangement), the followers will comply
Third, I would just say, “Follow the money.” Some Evangelical leaders know that if they contradict Fox News or President Trump (who through most of March were minimizing the threat of COVID-19, calling it a liberal hoax, etc., etc.), they will alienate their top givers. Others run such tight margins that staying open a few extra Sundays, even risking the spread of COVID-19, is seen as a business decision. The money follows the conservative message, not the scientific facts (or the actual message of Jesus!), and many Evangelical leaders got where they are by following the money.
These, of course, are generalizations about the system as a whole. Many rank-and-file Evangelicals wouldn’t have any awareness of any of these dynamics. They are captives or victims of the system, “sheep without a shepherd” in the words of Jesus.
~ Brian D. McLaren
Read and share online here
About the Author
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. He is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. A leader in the Convergence Network he also works closely with the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival and the Fair Food Program‘s Faith Working Group. His most recent joint project is an illustrated children’s book (for all ages) called Cory and the Seventh Story. Other recent books include: The Great Spiritual Migration, We Make the Road by Walking, and Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? (Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World).
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
Wales: Where Visions of a Christian Future Are Being Born
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
June 24, 2009
The land of Wales is a beautiful, intriguing and mysterious part of the world. Most Americans would be hard put to answer the question as to which four nations form the United Kingdom. Yet Wales, a land of some four million people, is one of them. The Welsh people are proud and fiercely independent, most of them dedicated to preserving their ancient Celtic language and heritage. Parts of Wales were never subdued by the Romans or any other invader and remain today quite isolated and very traditional. Wales’ best known poet, R. S. Thomas, has described his homeland this way, “You cannot live in the present, at least not in Wales…there is no present in Wales and no future, there is only the past, brittle with relics, wind bitten towers and castles with ghosts.” In a recent surge of Welsh nationalism, this nation now requires that all children be educated in two languages, Welsh and English. This means that a number of people are employed to teach Welsh to immigrant children. When I asked on my recent visit to this country which nation provided most of the immigrants for these classes, I was told, “England.” Most people would have never guessed that answer.
I have been privileged to visit Wales on many occasions in the past. I have done lectures in Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth, Hawarden and Barrie. One of my four grandparents was a Welshman, so I have always been drawn to this land and its people. This past spring I had two assignments to fulfill in that wondrous land. One of them took me deep into northwest Wales to the town of Porthmadog, and the other to the eastern edge of Wales about ten miles from the ancient English fortress city of Chester. What I experienced in both places, however, was not the shadows of the past, but the profound energy of Welsh people pressing the edges of knowledge and engaging the future. Both of my stops caused me to wonder if Wales has changed since their poet R. S. Thomas wrote his words about Wales having only a past.
Porthmadog, my first assignment, is a small town in a sparsely populated rural part of Wales. Set in the midst of exquisite mountains and on a tidal river, this community reflected the beauty for which Wales is famous. The power and the energy that I met there, however, was quite unlike what one would expect from the stereotype of contemporary Welsh people. They were totally engaged with the future. The energy that produced this invitation came from a group of people who were expressing discontent with the current state of Christianity in Wales. So instead of simply complaining, they decided to put on a weeklong conference to be held in the center of that town to which people from the entire region were to be invited. Although the sessions were held in a Welsh church, the agenda was clearly to point institutional Christianity in another direction. They called the conference “Prifio,” which is a Welsh word meaning “growth.” The vicar of St. John’s Church, where the conference was held, was the original source of the vision. His name was Aled Jones Williams. In addition to being an Anglican priest, he is also a poet and a playwright. Indeed, he had a play entitled “Christa,” about Jesus as a woman, which is even now playing to packed houses in Cardiff. It is not his recognized genius, however, that was so remarkable to me; it was rather his ability to bring other people who shared his interest in his vision. Two of these were incredible lay people. Nick Golding, the co-owner with his partner, Michael Bewick, of a highly regarded bed and breakfast known as Plas Tan-yr-allt, was one, and Carys Lake, who teaches “Immersion Welsh” for newcomers to Wales, was the other. Two of them were clergy: The Rev. Nia Morris from Bala, and the Rev. John Butler, who once served as Chaplain at the University of Wales at Bangor. Demonstrating that this conference was not one person’s dream, these four people took over the details of the conference and drove it successfully to a conclusion without Aled even being present, since an illness removed him from any participation at all in the scheduled week.
Among the invited guests who served as the faculty for this weeklong gathering were Richard Holloway, a Scottish writer and broadcaster, who retired as the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church in 2000 and who calls himself today a “Post Christian” or even “Post Religious.” There is no doubt from his most recent writings that this gifted man walks the religious frontier. Others were Mark Vernon, formerly an Anglican priest, who left the priesthood to become an atheist and who now describes himself as an agnostic, and Menna Elfyn, a poet and playwright, who has been appointed “Poet Laureate” for the children of Wales and who describes herself as a “Christian anarchist.” No one would mistake the speakers at this conference to be those who would turn this event into one more humdrum act of religious propaganda. This faculty was specifically called together to define quite openly the reasons why Christianity was in the death throes and what it might take to enable it to return in a new form. It is hard for me to imagine many church groups that would assemble such a faculty, especially for a conference to be assembled in a parish church in a small town in rural Wales. Yet that is what happened at Porthmadog and I found it not just dynamic and exciting but beyond any of my expectations.
I served as the closing lecturer at the “Prifio” conference in the final session held on Saturday night. More than 200 persons crowded into that small church to participate. My topic was “Why Christianity Must Change or Die.” In the discussion that followed the lecture, there were no questions that revealed threat, fear or the kind of anger that so often marks religious behavior. I know of few religious groups able or willing to talk with their critics or to listen to those who have moved beyond religion or out of religion in order to learn why traditional religion no longer satisfies them. Yet this is exactly what these people in Wales did.
Other tangential but interesting things were noted. A number of women, both lay and ordained, were in significant leadership roles. Openly gay and lesbian couples were visible and involved and the number of clergy who had ventured far out of their security systems were present sharing in leadership. This conference empowered people to dream. Seldom have I personally received so sustained and long lasting applause following a presentation. It was as if the presence of a Scottish bishop to open this conference and an American bishop to close it conveyed permission for the people to venture beyond traditional boundaries. A community of people that bold and that visionary is clearly living in the present and preparing for the future.
When this conference ended we traveled through Wales about two hours north and east from Porthmadog to Hawarden, where St. Deiniol’s Library and Conference Center is located. This library is named for a Welsh saint and was originally part of the estate of William Gladstone, Prime Minister of England in the 19th century. It was built to house the prime minister’s extensive library, but it grew into a center to which scholars come to do research, and an Anglican Church center housing small but intense conferences of about 50 people. St. Deiniol’s is, I believe, unique among the church-related conference centers of the world. I have led conferences there on six occasions over the past 12 years. Its trustees have elected me to the honorary position of being a “Fellow of St. Deiniol’s Library.” If one were to look at the prefaces of my last few books, a number of references to St. Deiniol’s would be apparent. Here I developed the material that would later form my books. The title of this conference was the finally adopted title of my yet to be published book, Eternal Life: A New Vision…Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell. This was to be the last testing place.
Under the brilliant guardianship of its current warden, Peter Francis, this center has become a place of challenging and progressive thought. In a church that so often has been visibly afraid of contending with new thought, in a faith that condemned Galileo, resisted Darwin, and encourages a ghetto religious mentality, St. Deiniol’s has become a place that celebrates and welcomes the future with all of its challenging new knowledge. In the Anglican Communion that seems to place ecclesiastical unity ahead of either truth or justice, St. Deiniol’s has become a place where the search for truth and justice is held to be the highest virtue. In a religious tradition that hides and resists with passion and anger the world’s emerging new consciousness that relegates the prejudices of yesterday, like racism, sexism and homophobia, to the dustbin of history, St. Deiniol’s Library welcomes in both word and deed those who help to open up to the light of day yesterday’s darkness. In a world in which the traditional forms of the Christian Church are in steep decline, St. Deiniol’s Library is dedicated to being a place where the world can glimpse what the church of tomorrow might be like.
The New Testament warns Christians time after time against the distortions that come when churches forget that their purpose is not to conquer, to dominate or even to shape the world. The New Testament assumes that Christians will never be more than a determining minority. Christians are to be the saving remnant, light in the darkness, salt in the soup and leaven in the loaf. The age of Christian domination of the western world has long passed, yet institutional Christianity still pretends to have vast power and it still assumes that people listen to its medieval pronouncements, holding steadfastly to these illusions even when death surrounds it. No Christian future is to be found there. That future will rather be discovered in tiny cells of people like those I found in Wales. R. S. Thomas might think that Wales is a strange place to look for the future, but the gift of Wales to me this spring was to remind me once again of what seems to be a fact of history, namely that renewal always comes from the edges of institutional life and that it is in those that the institutions tend to marginalize that future hope is always born.
~ John Shelby Spong
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