[Oe List ...] 2/16/2023, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Gretta Gosper: What happens when we are gone?; Spong revisited
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
Thu Feb 16 05:44:59 PST 2023
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!important;padding-bottom:9px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent, #yiv9713562032 .yiv9713562032mcnBoxedTextContentColumn{padding-right:18px !important;padding-left:18px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 .yiv9713562032mcnImageCardLeftImageContent, #yiv9713562032 .yiv9713562032mcnImageCardRightImageContent{padding-right:18px !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;padding-left:18px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 .yiv9713562032mcpreview-image-uploader{display:none !important;width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 h1{font-size:22px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 h2{font-size:20px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 h3{font-size:18px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 h4{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 .yiv9713562032mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent, #yiv9713562032 .yiv9713562032mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templatePreheader{display:block !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templatePreheader .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent, #yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templatePreheader .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateHeader .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent, #yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateHeader .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent p{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateBody .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent, #yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateBody .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateFooter .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent, #yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateFooter .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} By Rev. Gretta Vosper
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What happens when we are gone?
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| Essay by Rev. Gretta Vosper
February 16, 2023After we’re gone …
What will happen if we disappear? Not “we” as in Earth’s upright and most capable digit-users, though I’m sure we’ll deal with that over the course of time, but “we” as in progressive thinkers in the church. What will happen if we disappear?
Throughout human history, progress has continued mostly unabated until something knocked it off its trajectory. Transportation moved from the hip-swinging bipedal loping of our ancestors to skimming across water on logs, sliding downhill on sticks, and everything else between then and blasting ourselves out of orbit in the quest for Mars (or simple hubris). But we have, for the most part, moved from simplicity to complexity in terms of human organization and the development of the vast amount of stuff we use in our everyday lives and, when very, very refined thinking is put to whatever the problem is, if we’re lucky, through that very complexity to a more beautiful, efficient, and elegant simplicity.
But where are we in the idea of a progressive interpretation of Christianity? Will it continue to develop and thrive? Or will it simply disappear, unwanted, and dissolve into the historical record? If it does, will it be the result of being knocked off its trajectory or because some more beautiful, efficient, and elegant simplicity of thought takes its place?
Since the fourth century – and, indeed, since religious thought first took hold in community – individuals appointed to speak for a belief system have trained their accusing eyes upon those who did not bow to the leaders’ knowledge or perceived power. They focused upon the upstarts, the thinkers-outside-the-box, the non-believers, and the change-makers. Many of them were penalized for their refusal to conform or their insistence that scientific proof was necessary even within the realm of belief. The number of people who have been killed or slaughtered because of their beliefs or lack of them is simply unfathomable. Beyond natural causes, it may very well be the second greatest cause of death in human history. Directly or indirectly (not an anthropologist), perhaps beliefs have been the greatest cause of the annihilation of peoples and cultures, as well as individuals.
Chief Upstart
When Bishop John A. T. Robinson published Honest to God in the early 1960s, the backlash was to be expected. For millennia, we had walked around believing in a god “up there” (somewhere) who was looking out for us. It was a comfortable little game, that one. If things sucked for you, well, they’d be better later when the god called God took you home. If they were good for you here and you were good, too, you’d end up there in a warm embrace. If you were one of the worst of the worst, you could still be scooped up if you repented. And if you didn’t, well, you deserved what you got, damn you.
Robinson scanned contemporary Christian literature and argued that, if the god called God wasn’t “up there,” as scholars had posited, then he (sic) wasn’t “out there,” either.
If Robinson was describing reality, however, where was or what happened to that arbiter of everything good and evil who would keep us in line? Paul Tillich had figured it out, refusing theism and its consequent “invincible tyrant” for “the power of being,” which doesn’t even need the word god to make sense. Even Charles Dickens had figured it out, for heaven’s sake: “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!” falling upon that “ground of being” in a way he could understand, and an idea he could approach, and one with which he continues to inspire. Well done, young man!
Many clergy in The United Church of Canada identified with Robinson’s work immediately. Over the years, several confessed to me that Honest to God allowed them to remain in the pulpit, some of them never sharing knowledge of it with parishioners. The denomination’s church school curriculum, A New Curriculum, embraced Robinson’s work and included the book in its resources. “Live Love” and “God is Love” stickers were distributed by our church-school teachers, and we young teens slapped them on our notebooks and bedroom walls, engaged by the deep conversations the curriculum engendered. Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to most, Donald Mathers, publisher of the resource and Principal of Queen’s Theological College, was vilified by the masses and hung out to dry by the denomination’s administration for sharing Christianity’s most progressive scholarship in the materials purported to teach Christians about their origins and the expansion of their faith but about which Christians, themselves, weren’t interested. They left in droves.
Still, The United Church of Canada was the first denomination to welcome LGBTQ individuals into ordained ministry in 1988, prompting another of those drove-losses. Tragically, it neglected to adequately support or protect the LGBTQ members already in its pulpits who thought it safe enough to come out to their communities. Only when his obituary was made public did I learn about the Rev. David Fearon, a United Church minister who served for 31 years without telling any of his congregations that he was gay or in a loving relationship. It was he who explored – in the original Greek – the New Testament prohibitions against homosexuality and disclosed that the context was about the abuse of young boys by older men, not a generalized prohibition[i]. I had been taught that contextual reading while at theological college without ever knowing I would be a colleague of its source.
The progressive movement has ended in my denomination, so poorly protected was it that it lasted barely fifty years. Knocking it off its pedestal was easy. Perhaps it began in 1988 when its desire to be seen to be radically inclusive undermined its tests for theological integrity in the admissions process. One of the more recent documents used to prepare committees to interview candidates for admission from other denominations and seeming to point to candidates from other cultures – West Africa or Korea, for example – stated that asking questions of theology could be interpreted to be culturally insensitive and recommending such questions be avoided. In 2015, its General Secretary created a test for heresy, contravening the denomination’s own statement of faith, embraced less than a decade earlier. “A Song of Faith” begins with the words, “God is Holy Mystery, beyond complete knowledge, above perfect description…” The controversy continues to roil within the denomination, but Daniel already stands before the wall.
I wonder how Tillich would respond to all this: the embrace of white nationalism in the United States, predominantly by its Christian citizens[ii]; the bumbling development of guidelines for heresy trials in one of the world’s most progressive denominations; the purchasing of billions of dollars of advertising to re-ignite a passion for Christianity by one of the most socially conservative corporations in America[iii]; the manipulation of politics away from social welfare parties in both Canada and the United States by tax-free religious organizations[iv]. Perhaps Tillich’s perspective, no matter how colloquially expressed, would be lost not only on the general citizen on the street but on most who identify as Christian. Perhaps his theology, his understanding of God, seemingly forgotten in The United Church of Canada, at least, is simply too esoteric.
What if we held up Charles Dickens instead? At least he was clear enough that we could all get behind him. In doing so, we could forfeit that privileged position we’ve held, lo, these many centuries and undermine the most divisive and possibly the most consistently heinous thing humanity has ever devised: religion. What if we struck out on a journey that called us to examine our present, reflect upon our past – both the things we can celebrate and the things we got devastatingly wrong – and chart a course to a more responsible future? What would a church that did that look like? How would it call itself to account? How would it congregate, engage the public, and address systems of repression and violence, inequity, and the abuse of political power to privilege the wealthy? It would certainly be easier to get one’s head around. It would be a gift to be able to speak as a member of such a church. And I am fortunate to be able to do so.
When – okay, if – the progressive Christian movement sinks under the weight of its noxious relations, I will mourn its passing and the too-fleeting bloom of its promise. In the meantime and beyond, however, I will continue to delve ever more deeply into my exploration of Dickens’ Spirits of the Past, the Present, and the Future and challenge myself with the truths they each expose.
~ Rev. Gretta Vosper
Read online here
About the Author
The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best-selling books include With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers. Visit her website here and her Blog here. [i] Allison Brooks-Starks, Jan 26, 2023, “David Fearon, who challenged a homophobic translation of a Bible passage, has died at 84”. https://broadview.org/david-fearon-death/ Accessed Feb 9, 2023[ii] Public Religion Research Institute, Feb 8, 2023, “A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian Nationalism to American Democracy and Culture.” https://www.prri.org/research/a-christian-nation-understanding-the-threat-of-christian-nationalism-to-american-democracy-and-culture/ Accessed, Feb 9, 2023[iii] Matthew Chapman, “Revealed: Hobby Lobby founder behind $3 billion effort to 'rebrand Jesus'’. Raw Story, Feb 3, 2023, https://www.rawstory.com/he-gets-us/ Accessed Feb 9, 2023[iv] Tom Blackwell, “Doug Ford anointed - literally - by controversial evangelical pastor as part of effort to win social conservatives”, The National Post. https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/doug-ford-anointed-literally-by-controversial-evangelical-pastor-as-part-of-effort-to-win-social-conservatives
Jeremy Schwartz, Jessica Priest, “Churches Are Breaking the Law by Endorsing in Elections, Experts Say. The IRS Looks the Other Way.” Pro-Publica, October 30, 2022. https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-church-nonprofit-endorsements-johnson-amendment. Accessed Feb 9, 2023 |
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Question & Answer
Q: By Yvette
I've been a Christian all of my adult life. However, I continue to be troubled by the problem of human suffering. I believe in God. My question is why does God allow all the human suffering?
A: By Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz
Dear Yvette,Your question is, of course, one of the timeless questions of Christian faith--or of any faith, for that matter. Over my many years as a local church minister, now and then I would hear of a minister, theologian, or biblical scholar who had decided they were an atheist. When asked why, invariably it had something to do with the timeless problem of human suffering. Why all the suffering?
Most traditional Christians believe in the God of supernatural theism or the "God in the sky." This is the God who is external to the universe and independent of human beings. This God is thought to orchestrate life here on planet earth, intervening only at times of God's own choosing. The larger problem, however, is that this conception of "God in the heavens" (wherever that is) is inadequate to our modern experience. More and more, people do not believe in this God. We need new conceptions of God.
In thinking about God, it is not God's nature to work independently of life, both human and other forms of life. God is about Life (with a capital "L"). As Christians who believe in God, it is important we understand this. Life is what God calls us to in the dawning of creation (metaphorically speaking). Life is what God affirms in the covenants (with the Ten Commandments, for example). And life is what Jesus lifts up in his lofty teachings in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). It is God's nature to work in and through life.
God does not cause human suffering. If we think about it, what sense does this make? For example, God doesn't cause wars, human beings do. God doesn't shoot guns, human beings do. God doesn't cause natural disasters, random occurrences in nature do. God doesn't cause disease, random events in our bodies do (consistent with some measure of inherited predispositions and sometimes poor human decision-making).
In all candor, God did not cause the Holocaust. Indeed, the Holocaust could have been prevented had human beings acted with courage and conviction enabling God to work in them and through them to prevent the horror that followed. We humans have to take responsibility for our life-situations and when we do, God, as spirit and love, works in us to bring healing and wholeness. God's omniscience (all knowing) and omnipotence (all powerful) need to be understood in new ways--in terms of God's capacity to work in and through us (and other forms of life).
In summation, where is God in human suffering? There are no easy answers to this enduring question. The only answer I know is that God is there in the midst of all the suffering--grieving, loving, showing compassion, doing whatever God can do to bring new life and new hope to our human situation and circumstances. Imagine the deep feeling and pathos of this loving God.
~ Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz
Read and share online here
About the Author
The Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz is a retired United Church of Christ minister. He had long-term pastorates in San Diego County and in Miami Lakes, Florida. His service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama in the late sixties spurred his commitment to social justice ministries and to a spirit of ecumenism as a local church pastor. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Pacific School of Religion. He is the author of The Bible You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In, The God You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In, and his just-published book: The Jesus You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In. Dr. Frantz and his wife, Yvette, are now retired and living in Florida. |
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I imagine that you, like me, are constantly frustrated by how marginalized communities are, yet again, being targeted by folks who see themselves as Christians. It is a bit baffling trying to understand how they take biblical texts to support what they are doing.
I also suspect that you, like me, are thankful that we have a resource like ProgressiveChristianity.org to help us understand what the biblical texts are really calling us toward – love. Love certainly doesn't look like marginalizing groups, it looks like including and celebrating them.
You actually play a big role in keeping that kind of resource alive. ProgressiveChristianity.org only exists through the generous support of people like you.
I'm writing to ask for your support to keep this resource not only viable, but thriving. Please take a moment and make a donation. Even $5 can make a big difference, and if you can afford more, even better! You could even choose to make it a recurring gift to help sustain us into the future.
Whatever you choose, thank you. You are an essential part of this community and we are thankful for you.
PEACE!
Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin
President, Co-Executive Director |
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| Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on:
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
Part III Matthew: The Shadow of Moses Continues
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
September 26, 2013Using the gospel of Matthew as our guide we have begun the task of opening the background necessary to grasp, as members of the current generation of Christians, the meaning of all the gospels. This is necessary because all of the gospels are Jewish books written by Jewish authors for Jewish congregations. They employ Jewish symbols and Jewish images; they draw on the Jewish Scriptures of antiquity to interpret the life and meaning of the Jewish Jesus of Nazareth. If we do not understand this Jewish reality, the tendency on the part of modern readers of these gospels will be to treat them as literal accounts of things that actually happened. They were never written to be that! I began this study of Matthew’s gospel by lifting the figure of Moses out of the shadows in Matthew’s first seven chapters. Although the image of Moses dominates these chapters his name is never mentioned. Yet for those who understand, Moses is the template against which Matthew tells his story of Jesus.Earlier in this series, we looked at the first Moses story in Matthew’s gospel, the account of King Herod going down to Bethlehem and killing all the Jewish boy babies up to the age of two in a vain attempt to destroy God’s promised messiah. When Moses was born, we read in the book of Exodus that a king named Pharaoh sent an order throughout Egypt to kill all Jewish boy babies in his mythological attempt to destroy the one whom God had promised to deliver the Jewish people from Egyptian bondage. Matthew was thus wrapping a well-known Moses story around the infant Jesus. His original readers would have understood that. It is the first instance of the interpretive clue to the role the unseen Moses will play in Matthew’s story of Jesus. It will not be the last. The shadow of Moses will emerge time after time as this gospel pursues its story.Next we looked at Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River, which Matthew likened to Moses’ Red Sea experience. Moses split the waters of the Red Sea while Jesus, the new Moses, split the heavenly waters. These heavenly waters then proceeded to rain on him as the Holy Spirit. The baptism of Jesus was thus being paralleled to the Red Sea experience of Moses. The interpretive power of Moses was still at work. It would not stop even there.What did Moses do after his baptismal experience in the Red Sea? Read the book of Exodus and you will discover that he wandered in the wilderness for forty years trying to figure out what it meant to be God’s “Chosen People.” To purpose-driven modern men and women, this meandering in a wilderness type limbo is very strange. Look, however, at how the gospel writers treat this Jewish story from the Torah. After Jesus had his Red Sea experience in the Jordan River, we are told that he too wandered in the wilderness, not for “forty years,” but for “forty days,” trying to figure out what it meant to be God’s designated messiah, the one whom God had called “My beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”Mark, the earliest of the gospels, says simply that Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days being tempted by the devil, but he gives no content as to the temptations. Matthew, however, provides that content, which also serves to open the mind of Matthew a little more deeply. We study that mind by searching for the source of Matthew’s temptation content. A careful reading of the Moses story in the Torah provides this new understanding.During Moses’ forty year sojourn in the wilderness, we learn that Moses faced three critical experiences. The first one had to do with the shortage of food and Moses took his concern to God. God answered Moses’ prayer by raining down upon the starving children of Israel heavenly bread that came to be called “Manna.” By the time the editing of the Torah was finished. the “Manna in the Wilderness” story, had become stylized in order to accommodate Jewish piety. The manna eventually fell on only six days a week in order to save both God, who had to send it, and the people, who had to gather it, from violating the prohibition against working on the Sabbath. It also placed into biblical mythology the image of a God capable of expanding the food supply, a theme that will be visible in the stories of Elijah and Elisha and will making its appearance in the Jesus tradition as the miraculous feeding of the multitude with a limited number of loaves and fish. In any event, the crisis of hunger among the people that Moses was leading in the wilderness is answered by the God who sent heavenly bread.The second critical moment for Moses came in response to another crisis, this time involving a shortage of water. In response Moses dared to put God to the test at a place named Meribah. Moses, in frustration over this threatened water shortage, struck a rock with his staff and demanded that God cause water to flow out of that rock. God, according to this story, obeyed Moses’ command so as not to humiliate God’s chosen leader. God, however, was not pleased. No one commands God to do a human being’s bidding. Moses had sinned and the Torah made that clear. Moses was punished for this act by not being allowed to enter the Promised Land. He would see that destination, but he would not enter it for no one puts God to the test! Moses died in the wilderness with his life’s work in some sense unfulfilled.The third critical moment for Moses in these forty years in the wilderness came in the episode we know as the story of the golden calf. Moses had been away from his people for a long period of time, conferring presumably with God on top of Mt. Sinai. The people felt abandoned and became restive. So, under the direction of Aaron, who was both the high priest and Moses’ brother, the people brought all of their gold jewelry, their bracelets, rings, necklaces and chains, and Aaron proceeded to melt them down and to fashion the gold into the image of a calf, which was then proclaimed to be “God” for the people. Before this golden calf they then bowed in worship, while saying: “This is the God who brought us out of the land of Egypt.” The people had turned from the worship of God to the worship of something less than God. When Moses returned, he smashed this golden calf and instituted a purge of the chosen people. Each of these three critical moments has its consequences, but in them Moses was tried by hunger, by putting God to the test and by seeing the people worship something other than God. Matthew knew these stories in the Hebrew tradition and, not surprisingly, he wrapped them around the memory of Jesus in a way designed to demonstrate that the God presence in Jesus exceeded the God presence in Moses, the holiest hero of the Jewish faith story. That was his stunning claim.So, if it took Moses forty years to get through the wilderness, Matthew suggested that Jesus did it in just forty days, while struggling successfully with the same crises that confronted Moses. The first of what Matthew called the temptations of Jesus arose out of the shortage of food. “Turn these stones into bread,” the tempter urged. Jesus, however, resisted. People do not live by bread alone, he responded. Full stomachs do not make full human beings.The second temptation was to put God to the test: “Cast yourself off the pinnacle of the Temple, Jesus,” make God serve you. The tempter even quoted scripture to make the temptation more appealing, “It is written,” he said, “that God will give his angels charge over you and in their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.” Jesus responded: “You do not tempt the Lord your God.” You do not put God to the test.The third temptation once again followed the Moses script. The tempter invited Jesus to bow down before him with the promise that the devil would give him all the kingdoms of the world. Jesus, however, understood the script that Matthew was following and so he was made to respond with the ringing words that God alone, not any creature, was worthy of worship.Moses, struggling to understand what it meant to be the “chosen people,” underwent three critical moments in his forty years in the wilderness. Jesus, struggling to understand what it meant to be “messiah,” God’s chosen deliverer, underwent three temptations in his forty day sojourn in the wilderness. The content of their crises was identical. This is not a coincidence, nor is this literal history. This is Jewish interpretive storytelling. Matthew was announcing the arrival of a new Moses and, to make his meaning clear, he proceeded to wrap around the memory of Jesus the well-known stories of Moses from his birth, to the Red Sea adventure, to his critical moments in the wilderness. This is not biography. This is not Matthew writing a literal account of Jesus’ life. Matthew knew what he was doing and so did the audience who first read his words. He wanted to fill them with a sense of wonder, awe and even worship. “I am writing,” if I might paraphrase him, “to tell you about the one who fulfilled our Jewish scriptures; one in whom God was present as God has never been present in a human life before, not even in the holiest life of Moses, who stands at the apex of our own Jewish traditions. Listen to my story. It is of infinite importance.” As long as his readers were aware of Matthew’s Jewish story telling method, they heard and they understood. Literalism and fundamentalism arose in Christianity after the Christian Church ceased to be made up primarily of Jews. Fundamentalism was born when Gentile ignorance made it impossible for them to understand the Jewishness of Matthew’s stories about Jesus. Fundamentalism is thus a “Gentile Heresy.”When this series resumes we will turn our attention to the “Sermon on the Mount.” and Moses will emerge once more in the background.~ John Shelby Spong |
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Announcements
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We Flesh - In this here place, Black women be
Each episode explores topics relevant to Black women thriving in these here troubling times. Hosted by Lisa Anderson and Amikaeyla Gaston: an offering of the Sojourner Truth Leadership Circle. This limited, six-part series embraces the fullness of Black women’s humanity. Here we BE in conversation and contemplation. Here we just BE together. READ ON .. |
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