[Oe List ...] 5/20/2021, Progressing Spirit: Dr. Carl Krieg: Big Change; Spong revisited

[Ellie Stock]

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Big Change
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|  Essay by Dr. Carl Krieg
May 20, 2021
In his Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in 1945 that the Western world was on the precipice of a new era, an era without religion. God, as the “answer” to unsolvable questions, was continually being put out of a job as science continually extended the boundaries of human knowledge. This prognostication on his part was long before the arrival of Hubble, with its photos of a seemingly endless universe, and quantum mechanics with its suggestion of a multiverse. Religion, for Bonhoeffer, was not the oppressive tool of capitalism decried by Marx, nor the white supremacist perversion current in the US today, but was the genuine article, the common and oft-proclaimed syndrome based on sin, guilt, forgiveness, Christ, and a heavenly Father. This religion, Bonhoeffer suggests, is no longer of any concern to modern western humankind. The world has “come of age”, and if the Christian church is to have any relevance at all, it must speak a religionless language. Fundamentalists have latched onto Bonhoeffer’s earlier works in order to claim him for their own, totally ignoring his later and more challenging reflections, but it cannot be denied that his thoughts in prison point in an entirely new direction.

And he was right. Surveys and polls show inescapably what the Christian church bodies know for a fact, and that is that modern people simply do not care about what the church proclaims that they should care about, matters such as sin and redemption and God and the cross and… Bar graphs show a steady decline in the number of people who even care about such ideas. There is one projection that at the current rate of decline, church membership will approach zero in a matter of decades. Some find refuge in asserting that folks today, although not interested in religion, are really quite “spiritual”, and that may be true. But there are also those who coldly follow the facts, concluding that not only are people turning away from religion, but that they are also becoming less spiritual, whatever that might mean. The idea is that pure secularism is on the march, and will not be robbed of its victory.

On another note, it doesn’t take a great deal of insight to realize that humanity is destroying not only the planet, but itself as well. Incredible wealth and resource inequality, created and enhanced by greed, power, and violence, is bringing all of us to a state of near collapse. Instead of the tried and proven old religious maxim to love thy neighbor, at least in the US, a whole political party has succumbed to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, the essence of which is to love thyself, no matter the cost to your neighbor or your society. Some argue that it is the loss of religion and the growth of secularism that has brought us to this selfishness and self-destructive situation, blaming secularism as the cause of our immoral leadership and modern social collapse. Following this line of reasoning, what then is the solution? To bring everyone “back to God” and make them religious again? Would that heal our society? Not likely.

This may sound a bit naive, but except for the truly corrupt minority, all of us know what needs to be done. We all need to be more loving to one another. Or, to translate that into more specific behavior, we need to be kind to one another. Concerned. Caring. Willing to share. Helpful. The list goes on. Pick your word. And we must become more aware of the opposite. We cannot be egocentric and self-centered. Selfish. Isolated. Uncaring. Greedy. Violent. 

The situation, therefore, lies plainly before us. Western culture, and I suspect that the East will follow, is becoming increasingly secular as the established churches become more irrelevant. Secondly, humankind is becoming more destructive, both of the environment and of itself. This is not at all to say that secularism causes destruction. In fact, quite to the contrary, it may be that secularism frees us from religious absolutism, thereby enabling us to become less destructive and violent. And thirdly, we all seem to know what the solution is, namely, love, in the most expansive and inclusive sense. What is to be done? Given the enormity of the crisis, let us focus on one little piece of the puzzle, and ask the prisoner’s question: what should the church be doing in this modern world, which has not only “come of age”, but is not aging well?

It is slowly dawning upon us that big problems require big solutions, and big changes are happening. Believed incredible but a few years ago, the world economy is moving away from fossil fuel to solar and wind energy. Within a decade the increasing majority of automobiles will be electric. The Green New Deal incorporates practical concepts that can stop and perhaps reverse climate change. Agriculture is slowly moving toward a regenerative model, building soil, growing healthful food and capturing carbon. The unequal distribution of wealth in the US is forcing us to realize that this wealth must be shared. Guaranteed basic income is no longer an irrefutable concept rejected out-of-hand. There is hope.

If industry and government are beginning to think new thoughts in a big way, cannot the church  do the same? To begin with, the idea that the Christian church has a monopoly on God and the secret for a meaningful life is but a relic of a barbarous colonialism that commanded the world: you must be like us. Even today, evangelicals shout “Our way is the only way! Repent and be saved!” Mainline Protestant denominations fail to clearly differentiate themselves from that propaganda, and the Catholic church still demands obeisance to itself as the incarnation of God. Jesus would be horrified. He was somebody special, to be sure. But he did not die on the cross to appease an angry god and save believers- only believers- from their sin. He did not demand that people believe in him, whatever that might mean. I have described elsewhere the encounter between Jesus and his disciples, and need not repeat that here. The focal point at hand is that the church must stop preaching this religious language to a world that increasingly could not care less, and at the same time be true to what Jesus was about, which is exactly what the world needs and wants- economic justice, social harmony, and personal fulfillment. 

In addition to changing the basic story line about Jesus, if the church were to take up the challenge and make some really big changes, what could they possibly be? I have pondered that question myself, and here are some changes I would propose for consideration. In the first place, the weekly gathering, perhaps still on Sunday, would no longer be called a worship service. I find it difficult to believe that God needs adulation and adoration. What God desires, if we can believe the prophets and Jesus, is peace and love, justice and righteousness, and not the trappings of religion. So let’s just call Sunday morning a gathering of folks concerned about the deep issues of life. And let’s not limit it to adherents of any one religion, or religion at all, but let the doors be open to any and all who choose to sound the depths of their own humanity with others who do the same. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to invite one’s atheistic family and friends to such a gathering without having to apologize for the archaic and absolutistic Christian God-talk?

At different gatherings, the speaker of the day might be a Christian, a Jew, an atheist, a Muslim, or whatever, who would offer a perspective on the meaning of life, including reference to God, or not. If that person were a Christian, the narrative could be about the life and teaching of Jesus and could include the concept of an incarnate God, or not. What so many of us forget is that the early church was filled with a variety of interpretations of who Jesus was. There was no orthodoxy, not one set of beliefs, but many. Because of the variety of persons present, there will be no prayer either petitioning or thanking God. Everyone is free, of course, to speak their mind of self and God, but without imposition on any other. There will be silence. There will be music. There will be food and drink. There will be whatever that congregational gathering, with its particular mixture of persons, decides to do. 

Who knows what might emerge? But it is time for the church to engage in big change. The alternative to change is a slow drift into oblivion. Big change is essential to the survival of the church- and the world. The world is searching for a model to emulate, a model of how to live together in peace and harmony. The church has the potential to be that model. It is time.


~ Dr. Carl Krieg


Read online here

About the Author
Dr. Carl Krieg received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC and PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith which is in the process of being reprinted, and The Void and the Vision. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife Margaret in Norwich, VT.
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Question & Answer

 

Q: By A Reader

How does one begin the journey of personal transformation?


A: By Rev. Deshna Shine
 
Dear Reader,

Big question, and one that I won’t really be able to answer in a few paragraphs… but as you ask about the beginning, we will start there, even at the risk of gross oversimplification.

Personal transformation begins with going within and getting to know yourself — your thoughts, beliefs, and core patterns that all dictate your reactions and emotions. Until we go within, we are not able to transform or affect our internal world which guides our outer experience.

With mindfulness and observation of our inner dialogue we are able to engage in a new way of being. We have the power to create an extraordinary existence by learning how to navigate ourselves and become the architects of our own minds, emotions, and bodies rather than the victims of a ceaseless pre-programmed script. 

When we become the observers of our human emotional minds, we can detach from identifying as our thoughts and emotions and begin to see them as clues to our patterns, limiting core beliefs, traumas, wounds, and fears. Then we can have compassion for ourselves and begin to make choices about how we want to think and behave.

Although radical transformation takes time and practice, stepping out of suffering and pain and opening ourselves to all that is possible in this human experience does not have to be a lifetime challenge.

Transformation can actually happen in the space of one moment. It can happen in the moment when we go deep within and dig out the roots of the weed to change our core beliefs and patterns.  As we begin to align our minds with the high vibration of divine love and expansion, rather than fear and contracting thoughts, we can establish new patterns of thinking that will benefit us and all those around us.  

~ Rev. Deshna Shine

Read and share online here

About the Author
Rev. Deshna Shine is Project Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org’s Children’s Curriculum.  She is an ordained Interfaith Minister, author, international speaker, and 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 was Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, Executive Producer of Embrace Festival and has co-authored the novel, Missing Mothers. Deshna is passionate about sacred community, nourishing children spiritually and transforming Christianity through a radically inclusive lens.
 
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited


Elijah and Elisha (The Origins of the Bible, Part Xa)

Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
November 4, 2010


While going through past columns in my series on the origins of the Bible this fall in preparation for their publication next year by Harper Collins under the title Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World, I came to a startling realization. I had, in my unit on the rise of the prophets in Israel, moved from Nathan, whom I regard as the founder of the role of the prophets, directly to the writing prophets who run from Isaiah to Malachi. This means that I skipped with little or no notice over two of the most colorful figures in Jewish history, Elijah and Elisha. So huge was this omission that I felt an immediate need to complete my story by focusing on these two figures who exercised in the ninth century BCE such wide authority on the Jewish and, therefore, the biblical story. Hence this is a somewhat out-of-sequence but, I hope valuable, column.

The stories of Elijah and Elisha are found in the Bible between I Kings 17, where Elijah suddenly arises in the text, and II Kings 13, where Elisha makes his final appearance and his death is recorded. Contained in these chapters are some of the most dramatic narratives in the entire Bible. While these two figures were on the center stage of Jewish history, they dominated the biblical story in very dramatic ways. I and II Kings record their adventures in a manner that is both fanciful and sometimes even farcical, but always entertaining. Both of these figures also play important roles in the development of the Christian story, causing much of the New Testament to be non-sensical if we do not understand that Elijah and Elisha are lurking in the background. First, Elijah was identified as the one who would herald the coming of the messiah, so he figures prominently in the early gospel portrait of John the Baptist. Mark, for example, the writer who first introduces John the Baptist in the Christian tradition, presents John in Elijah’s clothing, has him fed with Elijah’s diet and locates him in Elijah’s wilderness. Second, in some other parts of the tradition, the messiah was himself said to be a new and greater Elijah and so the story of Elijah, and to a lesser degree Elisha, shapes the content of the Jesus story, particularly in the gospel of Luke. Let me now lift both of these personalities out of the biblical story so that we might examine them closely.

Elijah was called a Tishbite because he hailed from Tishbe in Gilead, an area east of the Jordan River in the land called Israel. His emergence into the Jewish story is very dramatic. There was a drought throughout all the land. Elijah seems to have predicted this drought to King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom, the husband of Queen Jezebel, and thus it appears that he was assumed to have been responsible for it. Thus with a price on his head he flees in fear into a hiding place, first to a hiding place by the Brook Cherith in the desert. He is clearly portrayed as being a very special person for it was said of him that God provided for his needs by having the ravens bring him bread to eat during the drought’s resultant famine. When the waters of the Brook Cherith later dried up, he went further east to Zarephath where he had his first dramatic encounter with a widow, who was the mother of an only son. Elijah asked this widow for water and a meal cake but she replied that she was down to her last bit of flour and oil and her plan was to use her meager supplies to make a final meal for herself and her son before they both died in the famine. Elijah assured her that if she did as he requested her supply of flour and oil would never run out. Here we find a regularly recurring biblical theme involving a miraculous feeding in which the food supply seems to expand endlessly. This theme, found first in the Moses story of manna from heaven, will also appear in the Elisha story and will make a dramatic reappearance in the New Testament, where Jesus is said to have taken five loaves and two fishes and they keep expanding until the multitude of thousands is fed. Later in the story, the son of this same widow dies and Elijah is said to have raised him back to life. This is the first biblical story in which one person raises another from the dead. Later, however, Elisha will also raise someone, this time a child, from the dead. Both of these stories will later, in slightly heightened forms will be retold about Jesus of Nazareth in the Synoptic Gospels. This is another example in which the idea of miracles being recycled in the Bible becomes apparent.

In the tradition of Nathan, the prophet whom we met when he confronted David, Elijah will now confront King Ahab time after time, winning for himself from Ahab the title of “the troubler of Israel.” The issue between the prophet and the king was whether or not the worship of Baal and Asherah, gods of the fertility cult of the Canaanites, which still exercised great influence in the land and was clearly supported by Queen Jezebel, could live side by side with the God Yahweh, worshiped by the faithful prophet Elijah. Elijah challenged the priests of Baal and Asherah to a duel on Mt. Carmel. Four hundred priests of Baal and four hundred and fifty priests of Asherah were lined up against the solitary and quite heroic figure of Elijah. The contest was to determine which God would respond to the prayers requesting fire from heaven to burn up the sacrificed bull. The priests of Baal and Asherah went first, dancing, chanting and even cutting themselves in pleas to their deities, but to no avail. The fire from heaven never came. Elijah, who must have had a hair shirt of a personality, taunted them from the sidelines with suggestions that perhaps their God were asleep until finally it became his turn to call on his God. Then he poured barrels of water over his altar and the sacrificed animal until the water filled the ditch around his altar, which surely heightened the power of the miracle. One wag, trying to account for the supernatural elements of this story, suggested that while it looked like water that he was pouring, it was really natural gas! Then Elijah called down the fire of God and it came devouring the sacrifice with flames and licking up all the water around the altar. Elijah, clearly the winner in this contest, was not gracious in his victory. He proceeded to cut off the heads of all the “false” priests with his sword and thus he moved quickly to purify the worship of Israel. Calling down fire from heaven appears to be something Elijah could do easily, for he repeated this miracle on two other occasions in the biblical narrative.

The story of Elijah’s ascension into heaven at the end of his life is also a very dramatic story, involving a fiery chariot drawn by fiery horses and a God-sent whirlwind for propulsion into the sky, all of which we will see later when Luke incorporates these details into his narrative of the ascension of Jesus.

Elijah’s hand-picked successor, Elisha, comes next to the Bible’s center stage and we watch as many of the stories in the Jewish tradition, including the stories of Elijah, are now replicated in the Elisha cycle. Miracles are in fact deemed to be recyclable in the Bible. Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha all seem to be able to split a body of water so that each can walk through on dry land. Elisha, like Elijah, has other less admirable qualities. In a fit of anger about being called “bald headed” by some little children, he causes two she bears to come out of the woods to devour them. He appears able to cause an axe head to float on the top of a river so that it could be found. He, like Elijah, can raise the dead and, in addition, can cure foreigners of leprosy by having them wash in the Jordan River. Like Moses and Elijah before him, he had power over the weather and used it to punish the Jews for their sinfulness, especially the unfaithfulness of the king. Elisha was said to be able to cause a barren woman to conceive and this power, reminiscent of the earlier narratives of the births of both Samson and Samuel, will reappear in the gospel stories as background to the virgin birth of Jesus.

Yes, these Elijah-Elisha stories are filled with miracles, magic, fantasy and folk lore, all built on what was probably a mere germ of history. They clearly establish the prophet’s role in Israel to be that of speaking with authority in the citadels of political power. These stories demonstrate again and again that no one, not even the king, can escape the moral law of God!

Elijah and Elisha flow together in the Bible so that it is hard to keep them separate. Even things commanded for Elijah to do are sometimes completed in the life of Elisha and sometimes even later in Jewish history. It seems obvious that Queen Jezebel’s vow to remove Elijah’s head, as he had done to her priests of Baal at Mount Carmel, finally gets its fulfillment when another queen named Herodias, the wife of King Herod, has John the Baptist’s head removed. As the later gospel of Luke makes clear, many of the themes that he developed in his portrait of Jesus were merely the retelling of Elijah stories magnified and reused to apply to Jesus.

These two figures, Elijah and Elisha, are deeply emblazoned in Jewish history and they form a bridge to the writing prophets of the eighth century and beyond, who help to turn the religion of the Jews from the worship of a tribal deity, who is somewhat vindictive and blood thirsty, into a universal presence incorporating into the divine identity a new sense of oneness, the meaning of a transfiguring love, a searing sense of divine justice and ultimately evolving into the creation of` a deity who turns away from the external requirements and begins to assert that worship means how one lives one’s life, not how one practices liturgy.

As I roamed once again over the passages of the Bible that contain the stories of Elijah and Elisha, I saw anew just how deeply interdependent the Jewish-Christian story is, how none of it can be viewed literally and how the Hebrew people believed that the divine qualities they attributed to God showed up generation after generation in the lives of the prophets. God’s eternity was thus viewed and experienced in that this divine power to control nature, to command fire, to expand the food supply and even to raise one to new life are constant themes.

Elijah shows up once more in the Synoptic Gospels when he appears with Moses and the two of them talk with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. That was the gospel writer’s way of saying that to understand Jesus you must read the Hebrew Scriptures. That is true!

~  John Shelby Spong
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