September 2016 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXV – Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 17 Sep '16

17 Sep '16

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Before prayer can have meaning, it must be built on an honest sharing of life. Cornelia, the woman about whom I wrote last week, did that for me. Before prayer can be discussed in the age in which we live, it must be drained of its presumed manipulative magic. It must find expression in the reality of who we are, not in the details of what we do. These were the insights that my third story gave to me as I walked through what was probably the darkest period of my life, the years 1981-1989. The learning curve was steep; the depth of despair was real. I invite you now to enter that time period with me and to walk through that experience as I did. This narrative is true, personal and painful. I have spoken verbally of it before. I have not written about it. Doing so even now makes me feel quite vulnerable.</p> <p>Around Christmas of 1981, my first wife, Joan Lydia Ketner Spong, was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. She had never been fond of doctors and so had postponed seeing one until she felt her symptoms had become critical. She had discovered a lump in her breast much earlier and had decided to tell no one for a very long time. It grew very slowly causing her to assume, perhaps to hope, that it must be benign. It remained her secret. That December as the holidays came into focus, however, the tumor erupted externally and became a draining sore. When that occurred, I became alarmed and got her as quickly as I could to a doctor. After an examination and later a biopsy, we heard the verdict. She had a stage four malignancy. Immediate surgery was required and massive chemotherapy would have to follow the surgery. No guarantees were offered even then. In fact we were told that about two years of life might be all that we could reasonably expect. We sank into the shock of that diagnosis.</p> <p>At that time I was an active and fairly high-profile public figure as the bishop of Newark. We had been engaged in great controversies over the full acceptance in both church and society of gay, lesbian, transgender and bi-sexual persons. I was clearly identified in this fight and my name was widely recognized from press and television coverage. People in public life learn quickly that they really do not, perhaps cannot, have a private life. Within minutes, it seemed, the news of both my wife’s diagnosis and her prognosis spread until it seemed to me as if the whole world knew. From that day on, I never visited a congregation in my diocese for confirmation that prayers were not offered publicly for my wife and for me. Prayer groups all over New Jersey informed us that they were praying for us – some were Episcopal, some were Roman Catholic and some were ecumenical. The one thing they all appeared to have in common was that they knew of the two-year maximum boundary that presumably my wife and I were facing. I did not resent this invasion of our privacy. I was rather appreciative of their efforts, as was Joan. Their actions felt supportive and loving. In their own way, the people were telling us that they really cared for us and, in whatever way they could, they wanted to help. They were willing in this way to stand with us, to share in our pain and in our struggle. One never rejects love that is so freely offered, even when the form in which it comes might not be one’s particular style. So Joan and I were carried by this wave of love from those who reached out to us in what was clearly our time of need.</p> <p>The months passed and then the years began to mount. When we passed the two-year prediction date, and things were still going positively, I noticed that these prayer groups began to take credit for my wife’s longevity. In their letters to me, it almost sounded as if they believed that they had engaged the powers of evil in some profound contest that pitted them on God’s side, holding back God’s enemies. Their prayers, they suggested, were pushing back the advance of this demonic sickness. They were winning the battle and they felt good about their success. Once again, my response was not to debate the theological implications of their understanding of prayer, but simply to appreciate the level of caring that they were offering. It was, at least in its intention, sustaining. I could not help, however, in the darkness of each night to wonder about the implications of their understanding of prayer</p> <p>“Suppose,” I thought to myself during a particularly sleepless time, “that a member of the City of Newark’s sanitation department had a wife with cancer.” At that time, Newark, New Jersey, was either at or very near the top of the list of America’s poorest per capita cities. I tried to envision just who it was who might occupy the bottom tier of Newark’s socio-economic status system. My mind settled, whether rightly or wrongly, on the garbage collector working for Newark’s sanitation department. So I focused on him.</p> <p>In this long dark meditation, I wondered how many prayer groups would have added her name to their lists. How much public notice would her illness have achieved? If this couple went to church, perhaps that community might have been aware of their struggle, but would services have been interrupted with passionate petitions for healing? Would the gates of heaven have been stormed by massive number of prayers? Would God, I then wondered, let this man’s wife die more quickly than my wife? My high public profile and social prominence alone caused more prayers to be uttered for my wife than for his. Would those prayers be a factor, I wondered, in either healing or longevity? Does God operate on the basis of human status? If I believed that prayer worked in this way, I would immediately become an atheist! I could not possibly believe in such a deity. This capricious God would be demonic, it seemed to me. The cumulative power of many people praying existed in the case of my wife only because I was a fairly well known public figure. Is status a factor in what is thought of as the healing power of God? When John Paul II lingered on his death bed for so long, the whole world joined in prayer for him. Was that a factor in his long lingering death? When hurricanes barrel down on a population center like New Orleans, the cries of millions are lifted heavenward in prayer. Will the cumulative power of many prayers affect the course of a life, change the direction of a hurricane or alter the path of a disease? Is that what prayer does? If so, then prayer is a tool to be used by the mighty, the powerful and the well-known. If that is true then God clearly cares more for the rich and famous than God does for the poor, the forgotten and the unknown. Such a conclusion becomes theologically violent, absurd and even hate-filled. Whatever prayer means, it cannot be that. My wife lived for six and a half years from her diagnosis in December of 1981 to her death in August of 1988. In retrospect, I treasure that extension of time, but I did not fully understand then the gift that I was given. Life is like that. As St. Paul says, we see only “through a glass darkly.”</p> <p>So I put these stories with their varied and distinctive insights together. Then I seek to draw conclusions about what prayer means in the 21st century. Prayer is not and cannot be a petition from the weak to the all-powerful one to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Prayer does not bend God’s will to a new conclusion. Prayer does not bring a cure where there is no possibility of a cure. Prayer does not create miracles to which we can testify publicly.</p> <p>These are little more than the delusions of yesterday that we are now called on to abandon. They arose out of the childhood of our humanity. Today a new question emerges, which we must face with honesty. Is prayer only the human act of last resort? Does praying reflect anything more than the fact that all else has failed? Why do we say so frequently to people, “You will be in my prayers,” when we never stop to pray? Is it not our impotence in the face of life’s pain that draws us to pretend that we actually possess the power to make a difference, creating nothing more than a comfortable fantasy land in which we can hide?</p> <p>Is my experience, which tells me that loving, caring and sharing matter, actually real? Can prayer be defined as something other than this pious activity? Does it have any claim on reality? Is prayer a holy activity or is it a preparation for a time of engaging in a holy activity? Increasingly, I am moving to the latter conclusion. It is life that is holy. It is love that is life-giving. Having the courage to be all that I can be is the place where God and life come together for me. If that is so, is not living, loving and being the essence of prayer and the meaning of worship? When Paul enjoined us to “pray without ceasing” did he mean to engage the activity of praying unceasingly? Or did he mean that we are to see all of life as a prayer calling the world to enter that place where life, love and being reveal the meaning of God? Is Christianity not coming to the place where my “I” meets another’s “Thou” and in that moment God is present?</p> <p>I pray daily. In my own way, I bring before the eyes of my mind those I love and thus into my awareness of the holy in which my life seems to be lived. Do I expect miracles to occur, lives to be changed or wholeness suddenly to replace brokenness? No, but I do expect to be made more whole, to be set free to share my life more deeply with others, to be enabled to love beyond my boundaries and to watch the barriers that divide me from those I once avoided lowered. Prayer to me is the practice of the presence of God, the act of embracing transcendence and the conscious practice of sharing with another the gifts of living, loving and being. Can that understanding of prayer, so free of miracle and magic, make any real difference in our world? I believe it can, it does and it will.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p> </p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Clifford Hill of Wheaton, Illinois, writes:</span> </p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question:</h4> <p>I am a member of a United Methodist Church in Wheaton, Illinois. Over the years, I have taught many adult classes and would, in that process, include many of Bart Ehrman’s offerings in the Great Courses series. Currently, my class has six sessions of his course: After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, remaining and I had planned to present these this coming fall. I received a call from our Director of Care Minister, who is the scheduler for adult classes. She asked me to cancel this class because some persons, (unknown to me), but who are not members of the class, had complained about it. Earlier our senior pastor had mentioned to me that I should be “sensitive” to others’ feelings about this class and presumably, about Bart Ehrman,</p> <p>My question: What is your professional opinion about the credibility and qualifications of Professor Bart Ehrman and what is your opinion about his scholarship as evidenced in his books and in his Great Courses classes?</p> <p> </p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Cliff,</p> <p>I know Bart Ehrman and believe him to be a competent scholar of the first order. His expertise is in the period of early Christian history more than it is in scripture studies per se. I have listened to all of his classes in the Great Courses series and have appreciated his insights, controversial as some of them well may be. Dr. Ehrman challenges the popular, but not substantiated, assumption that there ever was such a thing as “Orthodox Christianity. He demonstrates, rather powerfully, that there were originally “many Christianities” long before what came to be called traditional orthodoxy emerged with power as “The One True Faith.”</p> <p>I suspect that what you are now hearing is not an objection to Bart Ehrman’s scholarship, but rather the fact that in one of his recent books, he stated that he was no longer a believer. He now calls himself an atheist. He has had an interesting history, starting in one of the most conservative and fundamentalist parts of the Christian Church. In my opinion, he is still processing his life experience. He has much to teach us all. No one has to agree with either his current faith position or with any of his conclusions; his scholarship is still impressive. In the book in which he said that he was no longer a believer, I have an endorsement on the back cover. In that endorsement I said I had come to a very different conclusion, but that I still had a great respect for his work. I do.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong </p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…"><img style="width: 500px;height: 201px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" align="none" width="500" height="201" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/f332ff1f-215…"></a> </div> <h1 class="aolmail_mc-toc-title" style="color: #003d4a;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 34px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:26px"><span style="color:#000000">Bishop Spong speaks at The American Cathedral in Paris on October 16, 2016</span></span></h1> <span style="font-size:20px"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Click here for more information</a></span></div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table id="aolmail_templateFooter" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border-top: 0;" border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="600"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="aolmail_footerContent" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2" id="aolmail_social" style="background-color: #FAFAFA;border: 0;" valign="middle"> <div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" id="aolmail_utility" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border: 1px dashed #d3d3d3;" valign="middle"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"><div class="aolmail_vcard"><div class="aolmail_adr"><div class="aolmail_street-address"></div></div></div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" id="aolmail_utility" valign="middle"> </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_29f1b92d-b119-4edc-915c-ccff80a9d0bb td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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Lesbian bishop
by Karenbueno via Dialogue 16 Sep '16

16 Sep '16

Does anybody want to talk about our new bishop in the United Methodist Church, Bishop Karen Oliveto? She was at Glide Memorial in central San Francisco, and elected by the Western Jurisdiction. She is assigned to what was the Rocky Mountain Conference, which has been combined with the Yellowstone Conference, and has the new name "Big Sky". She will preside over Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and parts of Idaho. Big controversy over her sexual orientation--married lesbian. Her wife is a deaconess in the United Methodist Church. The "rules" of the United Methodists do not allow gay/lesbian persons to be ordained. Karen Bueno

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Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Where did our on-line community go?
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 15 Sep '16

15 Sep '16

Was thinking the same thing...it seems to me the decline started after the change in email procedure, where, to "respond" no longer goes to the whole community but just to the person who has sent the email. Same is true of the dialogue listserve. Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com -----Original Message----- From: via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: Oe <Oe(a)wedgeblade.net> Sent: Thu, Sep 15, 2016 4:13 pm Subject: [Oe List ...] Where did our on-line community go? I miss our news and discussions. What happened? Election too depressing? We're too old? Sick? Where did everyone go? _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Remembering Frank Bremner
by J and J Barker via Dialogue 15 Sep '16

15 Sep '16

DEAR COLLEAGUES: Further to the notice sent below, expressed so aptly, passing on the news of the death of Frank Bremner, we would like to inform all who remember Frank that there will be a Memorial Service to celebrate his life on Friday 30th September at the Westbourne Park Uniting Church, 27 Sussex Terrace, Hawthorne, South Australia at 1.30pm. If anyone would like to share any further remembrances, we would be very pleased to receive them. Grace and Peace Jonathan Barker ON BEHALF OF ADELAIDE BASED FAMILY AND FRIENDS On 5 Sep 2016, at 2:13 pm, Richard and Maria Maguire via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > Dear Colleagues and friends It is with considerable sorrow that we pass on that Frank Bremner has completed his life on this earth. > > He passed away in Adelaide, believed to be connected with his diabetes. > > Sue Cole has advised that a memorial service for friends and colleagues is to be planned for late September in Adelaide. > We will keep you posted as more information comes to hand. > > He is being remembered with great fondness among his ToP GIFL colleagues as a perceptive, observant, true maverick, full of life and energy, an intellectual whirl, a loveable man, a gentle giant, with a unique view on life & a huge thirst for knowledge, a most enquiring mind and a legend. Thank you Frank! You will be missed. > > Frank has been a constant in ICA Australia’s journey. Most of us will have fond and poignant memories of him. He is and will be missed. > > Warm regards > > Karen Newkirk, John Telford & Richard Maguire > _______________________________________________ > OE mailing list > OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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9/08/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXIV – Thesis #10, Prayer (continued), Prayer is Being not Doing
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 08 Sep '16

08 Sep '16

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Charting a New Reformation Part XXXIV – Thesis #10, Prayer (continued), Prayer is Being not Doing Prayer does not bring a theistic God to our aid. It does not protect us from danger, sickness or death. Life confronts us with the truth of that reality time after time. What then is prayer? Is it anything more than pious smoke and mirrors? I think it is, but before I could see that the paradigm by which we understand prayer had to be turned upside down. That is what happened to me in an experience I shall now describe. This story does not define the nature of prayer, but for me it served to illustrate its meaning. Prayer is not about the attempt to change reality, it is about approaching reality in a dramatically different way. The time of this story was around 1970. Its meaning, however, became for me not just memorable, but timeless. I had been the rector of St. Paul’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, for less than a year when I had a phone call in my office in the mid-morning. “Jack,” the voice said, “this is Cornelia. I am in the University Hospital in Charlottesville and I wonder if you could come to see me. It is fairly urgent. I would like to talk with you as soon as possible.” I recognized this person immediately. She was an active member in the diocese where I had previously served, working with me closely on a couple of vital projects. She lived in a small Appalachian town in southwestern Virginia. She was in her early forties, the wife of a country doctor and the mother of three children, who ranged in age between 9 and 14. About five years older than I, she was a lovely person in every way. Her home in the Appalachian region of Southwestern Virginia did not offer this well-educated woman many activities for intellectual engagement, so she met this need by becoming deeply involved in the life of the diocese that centered itself in Roanoke, Virginia’s largest western city. It was in the pursuit of these goals that Cornelia and I met and developed a friendship. I responded to her opening words on the telephone by saying: “What’s wrong, Cornelia?” “I would rather not talk about it on the phone,” she said, “but if you could come and soon, I would greatly appreciate it.” Of course I could come and I did. Clearing my calendar for the next day, I left about noon for the hour and a quarter drive to Charlottesville. By the time I parked, made my way into the hospital, navigating the usual entry and directional procedures and arrived at her room, it was about 2:00 pm. She greeted me with a smile. Her dark hair contrasted with the white sheets and pillow cases on her hospital bed. There was an ominous mood in the air that did not lend itself to small talk. So I immediately pulled up a chair to the side of her bed and prepared to listen to her story. “Tell me what’s going on,” I said. It was not easy. It started with a lingering cough, she said, followed by a lack of energy. Finally, following her husband’s advice she made an appointment to see her doctor, who lived and practiced in Roanoke. He examined her in a routine manner and then ordered some diagnostic tests to be done. When the results of these tests came back, alarm bells were set off. Additional, more sophisticated, tests and x-rays were ordered. These confirmed a metastatic carcinoma. The primary lesion was located, however, in her pancreas. The diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is almost always one that offers little hope. It is a kind of hidden malignancy that reveals no overt symptoms until it is already too late to treat them. Doctors then, as now, do not like to put time limits on life expectancy for every disease and every patient is different. There was, however, an inexorable sense about this diagnosis and she was already embracing the fact that in all probability she had a short time to live, possibly six months or less. I reeled emotionally under the impact of what she was saying and tried to imagine how this young woman, her husband and her children were coping with this news. Choking down my own emotions, I spoke softly to her and asked only one question, “Tell me what this does to you.” That question opened the door to what was probably the most remarkable and meaningful conversation I have ever had with anyone in my entire life. There is a radical honesty that engulfs both the person and all of his or her relationships when the conversation moves to the far side of a fatal diagnosis. All pretending ceases. It is as if every barrier is lowered and the people meet in a way that is rare indeed. I listened while she roamed over the terrain of her life. Her husband was the kind of doctor whose style of practice took him all over that part of Appalachia. He was a solo practitioner, who was deeply involved in the lives of his patients. He thought nothing of going out at all hours of the night to deliver a baby, to set a broken bone, to attend to one having a heart attack or to treat a sick baby with a raging fever. This type of medical practice depended on his wife. She kept the children safe and got them off to school in the morning. Her death would necessitate radical changes in his life. She was at that moment embracing this reality. Then she turned to her children and told me about the pain of wondering how they would cope without a mother. They not only needed her, but they depended on her for their stability. She was also dealing with the sense of loss that she would experience. She would never see any of her children graduate from high school or a university. She would never know who they would marry or how their lives and careers would develop. She would never know or see any of her grandchildren. The emotional landscape on which she was walking in this conversation was incredibly painful. She neither ignored nor repressed any of her feelings. Next she turned to other relationships of both family and friends and described to me what she thought her death would mean to each of them. What happens when a relationship of love and friendship is suddenly removed? Life shrinks for the remaining ones. The pain of loss creates a vacuum in the lives of both her family and friends, who once encircled her with love. Who, she wondered, would fill the places she had once occupied? How would each adjust? It is always harder for some to adjust to loss than others. Would there be some of those whom she loved the most, who would not be able to adjust at all? Would there be some who might never quite recover? For almost three hours, we walked over the peaks and valleys of her life. I felt her hurt and tried as best I could to enter into and to share in those feelings. A sharing of life that reaches this depth creates a bond that one cannot describe. Those hours would forever remain indelible in my life. The time had flown by, it seemed, and looking at my watch I noted that it was 5:00 PM. I had already violated one of the primary rules of pastoral ministry. One does not spend three hours in a patient’s room! I was emotionally drained and I suspected that Cornelia was also. So I began to draw the conversation to a close and prepared to take my leave. At this time, I also found myself shifting gears away from my role as her friend and into my professional role as a priest. “Cornelia,” I said as I stood to leave, “may I offer a prayer for you and with you?” She did not object. If I had some need to pray, she could deal with that. Perhaps she felt that she owed me this religious favor, since I had spent an inordinate amount of time with her. So, she acquiesced. Taking her hand in mine, I strung together a series of religious clichés that I had used many times before. I knew how to do that. These words clearly met some of my needs, but they added little, if anything, to the meaning or to the depth of this visit. Then promising to see her again, I departed and made my way back to Richmond feeling strangely ill at ease. It was a slightly longer trip returning because of the traffic, so I had more time to think. On that journey home I compared the significance of our conversation, during which I had entered so deeply into her fear and anxiety, which made it at one and the same time both profoundly painful and profoundly real, with the shallowness of my “prayer,” which was so mundane and so perfunctory. Which part of that visit was the “prayer,” I asked myself. Was it the conversation that opened both of us to the shared experience of our common humanity, or was the “prayer” those pious words that I addressed to a theistic deity, whose help I desperately needed? I felt that the conversation had expanded and enhanced both of our lives. I sensed that the activity that I had once called “prayer” had contracted us both and had forced us back into the stance of wearing our defensive shields and our security blankets. Clearly the conversation in which we had engaged each other and a painful reality on that day was holy time. The conclusion seemed so obvious. The conversation was in fact the real “prayer,” while the thing I had called “a prayer” was little more than a pious triviality. It had been the conversation, which was the time in which the meaning of God was shared between two people. It was in the conversation that the boundaries we erect to keep ourselves safe from the threat of another were transgressed. I vowed that day never again to engage in the activity that I had previously called “prayer” until I could pray with the same depth of honesty that I had been able to share with that special person on that day. It was a turning point in my life and in my pilgrimage into learning to pray in a non-theistic world. To be able to live the meaning of prayer, rather than just “to pray” became the goal of my lifetime and indeed the goal of my priesthood. Prayer is the sharing of being, the sharing of life and the sharing of love. That experience became a starting place for me in regard to the meaning of prayer. “Prayer” understood this way became profoundly real, while the form that “prayer” took began to shift dramatically. From that day to this “prayer” has been far more about “being” than it has been about “doing.” This was for me a radical, but necessary shift, which gave me a new starting place to enter a great and even transformative adventure into the depths of my faith. Experience always trumps explanation. John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Ennio Palozzo from Australia, writes: Question: How do you deal with the question that the universe is so old compared to our recent appearance on the scene? We seem to be very late in God’s creation. Secondly, if God loves all of us indiscriminately, why was there no great desire to communicate “His” words to all from the very beginning? Perhaps God has spoken to us all – to all cultures and we just need to look and come together to best “work out our own salvation.” I would appreciate your views. Answer: Dear Ennio, First of all, you have applied the categories of time and space to God. It was Albert Einstein who taught us that time and space are properties of the universe. Neither existed before the big bang. We cannot bind God with the categories of existence. Whatever else we might say, God is God and God does not live within the boundaries of time and space, so there is no such thing as before and after, young and old in the being of God. Second, how does anyone of us know what God communicated to the original human species, I suspect that every tribe of human beings believed that they were “God’s Chosen People.” We today attribute this title primarily to the Jews, but that is because we have adopted their story as our own. So, when we talk about God revealing the divine will in the law, or God being experienced as present in the person of Christ, all we are doing is seeking to validate our own God understanding. We cannot bind God inside our limited convictions. Most of the claims that various religious groups or churches make, of possessing the ultimate truth in some human form, is little more than idolatry. There is not, never has been and never will be something called “The One True Church.” There is not, never has been and never will be anything that could be called “an infallible Pope” or “an inerrant Bible.” Our belief system is always a journey in process. We do not know our destiny and we certainly do not know the origins of our faith story. So, Ennio, learn to walk into the infinite mystery of God - there are no guide posts. We walk in a community of faith and the job of the community is to challenge our excesses, which the religious life always seems to produce. My best, John Shelby Spong Read and Share Online Here Announcements A Journey into a New Christianity Through the Doorway of Matthew's Gospel In Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy, Spong annotates the Gospel of Matthew and so provides a blueprint for the Church’s future—one that allows the faithful to live inside the Christian story while still embracing the modern world. Click here to read more or purchase book

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ICA Global Archives - Help with Critical Document Digitization
by Beret Griffith via Dialogue 06 Sep '16

06 Sep '16

Digitization of Critical Documents 2016 Archive Fall Sojourn September 12-16 There are 20,000 documents in the ICA Global Archives. 2000 documents have been digitized. The Archives Document Digitization Team has developed a plan to scan and digitize the most important documents within the FileMaker Pro database of 20,000 entries. A major portion of the digitizing will go on at the ICA GreenRise during the fall sojourn. Here is where you come in. [image: ]We are asking colleagues to determine categories in the Category List with which they are most familiar. Attached is the ICA Global Archives Category List (the main categories of everything in the archives that has been accessioned - meaning we know what it is and where it is located in the archives). Note which portions of the Archives Category List where you have the most knowledge and experience. Next step....you WILL BE SENT AN ELECTRONIC COPY of FileMaker Pro database listing all items that have been put in archival folders. Items in the database are in the same order as the Category List making it easy to quickly scan the database. There is a column for your name and to indicate high, medium, or low priority for scanning. 1. Go to the section of the database where you will select documents. 2. In the space provided, indicate high, medium, or low priority for scanning. 3. Send your completed list to beretgriffith(a)gmail.com Colleagues on site at the GreenRise will: pull documents from the files; scan the documents; return the documents to the drawer. And there you have it! A corporate contribution to a huge, seemingly impossible task. Please reply to this message indicating your willingness to participate in this major project and Wendell Refior will send you a copy of the FileMaker Pro Database for your input. You put your lives into the work of The Ecumenical Institute and Institute of Cultural Affairs and it will be made available to the world via a website that draws people to the information. Thank you from the ICA Global Archives Advisory Council

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Global Buzz September 2016
by ICA International via Dialogue 06 Sep '16

06 Sep '16

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.....If you wish to SEND a report...send to your ICA contact person OR...go to the members section on the ICA International website Please click the link below for the September 2016 issue of the Global Buzz Our 10th annaversary issue Global Buzz Report: September 2016 or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-16/2016-09-01.php ICAI Communications

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Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Available: LCX Manuel; copies of ICA's The Journal
by Nancy Trask via Dialogue 03 Sep '16

03 Sep '16

Hi Ellie, I would like a copy of each. Want payment in advance? Nancy Trask924 S 7th AveWinterset IA 50273515 505 0456 Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message --------From: Ellie Stock via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: 9/2/16 11:55 AM (GMT-06:00) To: dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net, oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net Subject: [Oe List ...] Available: LCX Manuel; copies of ICA's The Journal Available for anyone who wants them: 1) LCX Manual 2) Copies of ICA's "The Journal" [Small red books based on qualities of profound humanness; quotes from exemplar categories: The Poet, The General, The Wise One, The Anointed, The Saint]: - November 1978-April 1979 -May 1979-October 1979 -November 1980-April 1981 -May 1980-October 1980 -May 1981-December 1981 January-December 1982 Ellie Stock elliestock(a)aol.com

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Available: LCX Manuel; copies of ICA's The Journal
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

Available for anyone who wants them: 1) LCX Manual 2) Copies of ICA's "The Journal" [Small red books based on qualities of profound humanness; quotes from exemplar categories: The Poet, The General, The Wise One, The Anointed, The Saint]: - November 1978-April 1979 -May 1979-October 1979 -November 1980-April 1981 -May 1980-October 1980 -May 1981-December 1981 January-December 1982 Ellie Stock elliestock(a)aol.com

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9/01/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXIII - Thesis #10, Prayer
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 01 Sep '16

01 Sep '16

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Charting a New Reformation Part XXXIII - Thesis #10, Prayer “Prayer, understood as a request made to an external, theistic deity, to act in human history, is little more than an hysterical attempt to turn the holy into the service of the human. Most of our prayer definitions arise out of the past and are thus dependent on an understanding of God that no longer exists. The God who answers our prayers has ceased to be a believable God in our day. A new way to understand prayer cries out to be developed.” When I have lectured across the United States and indeed around the world on the task of developing what I call “A New Christianity for a New World,” almost inevitably the first question I receive afterward is about prayer. It usually takes this form: “If what you say is true, then how do I pray?” It appears that whenever God is defined in any other way than as the supernatural being, who stands ready to come to our aid, then prayer, as most people have traditionally understood it, loses most of its meaning. Perhaps it is a fact that the way one understands God is not really tested until we begin to pray. My first book, written in 1971, was entitled Honest Prayer. Long out of print, it was recently revised and republished by St. Johann’s Press in Haworth, New Jersey. This book revealed quite clearly my early wrestling with the inadequacy of theistic religion and thus with the activity called “prayer.” A Christianity without prayer is to most people almost inconceivable. In an attempt to “Chart a New Reformation,” however, prayer must be addressed in a forthright manner. Does prayer still have a place in the Christian future? If so, what is it and how are we to understand it? That task will not be easy. I have decided that I can only address this issue by telling stories from which new conclusions can be drawn. I will, therefore, relate these stories and then leave it to my readers to extrapolate from them a new definition of prayer that can live in whatever our Christian future will be. All of these stories are true and each begins to illuminate the experience, which we have had now for at least 2000 years and that we call prayer. Before beginning this task, let me first make a surprising statement about prayer in the Bible. The New Testament uses the word “pray” as a verb only fifty-nine times. It uses the word prayer as a noun only thirty-four times and not once in the Fourth Gospel. Perhaps that distinction should be the first one we keep in mind. My first story involves the former Primus of the Episcopal Church in Scotland and my close friend and colleague, Richard Holloway. A theological gadfly, a man of enormous courage and deep convictions, Richard brought a level of honesty into the theological discourse of the Anglican Communion that was both bold and refreshing. On one occasion he was giving a public lecture somewhere in the United Kingdom and when he completed his presentation, he began to take questions from his audience. The first one came from a lady who was probably in the 8th decade of her life. She was pious and very traditional, one who in all probability did not fit into Richard’s typical audience. “Bishop,” she said, “Do you pray?” She asked this with some obvious anxiety, because some of the things that Bishop Holloway had said served to render this question appropriate. The bishop responded, without a moment’s hesitation, with a single word, “No!” He made no further comment, leaving that “no” to echo around the room for far longer than people were comfortable to have it linger. There was a shock quality to his answer that many of those present could not easily process. Here was a high-ranking bishop, clad in the symbols of his office, a clerical collar, a purple shirt, a pectoral cross around his neck, who had just stated publicly, “No, I do not pray.” A bishop who did not pray seemed to many in that audience to be an oxymoron. Bishop Holloway had a flair for the dramatic, so he let the uncomfortable silence linger until the level of anxiety had come quite close to engulfing everyone in that room. Finally, breaking the silence he said: “Madam, if I had answered your question with a ‘yes,’ you would have assumed that I accepted your definition of what it means to pray and your definition of God. That would have been false and misleading, so I had to answer with a ‘no.’ Now, if we can discuss what we mean by the words “God” and “prayer” and get beyond the confusion between God and Santa Claus, which grow out of our childhood, then my answer might be very different.” It was a teaching moment I have never forgotten. Is prayer something like a letter to Santa Claus? “Dear God, I have been a good boy or girl so I want you to do A, B, C and D for me.” That is certainly the way it seems that many people understand prayer. Most prayers assume that God is an external being, possessing supernatural powers. Prayer is thus often seen as the activity of last resort. “There are no atheists in foxholes,” we are told. We assume that this deity has the power to manipulate the forces of nature to bring about a desired result. Our prayers seem to assume that God might not “do good” or “be merciful” unless we ask God to do so. Our prayers also seem to assume that the mind of God can be changed, and with it the course of history. Do we really want to think that our prayers have that power? If those are our prayer assumptions then we can understand that the death of the theistic God becomes nothing less than the death of that activity known as prayer, at least as prayer has been practiced through the ages. The Primus of Scotland could therefore in all honesty say to this lady’s question, “No, madam, I do not pray.” That does not mean, however, that this bishop has given up praying, so much as it signals that he has come to a dramatically new and different understanding of what prayer is. I cannot speak for or answer this question for Bishop Holloway, but I can answer it for myself. For me prayer remains a profound, life-giving experience, but I no longer understand prayer as the petition of one in need to one who has the power to meet that need. Indeed I regard this concept of prayer to be like a delusional game of magic, a childhood concept out of which all of us need to grow. Perhaps the word prayer itself is where the problem lies. The Bible does tell us to “ask and you shall receive,” but is that what prayer is all about? A letter recently received through my website carried this request. “Please tell me how to pray. I have just been diagnosed with cancer and I need to know quickly.” Did this person believe that prayer was the activity needed to cure cancer? Does prayer change the world of cause and effect? Yes, of course there are such things in the world of medicine as “spontaneous remissions,” but if they are understood to be something brought on by divine intervention, then a host of other questions have to be faced. Why did this spontaneous remission occur in one person and not in another? If God has the power to intervene in history, why does God not do it with frequency? If God has the power to cure sickness, to relieve pain, to help people escape danger or to bring a war and its consequent suffering to an end, then why does God not do this? If God has the power to intervene in response to our prayers and does not do so, is God not malevolent? If God does not have the power to intervene in response to our prayers, then is God not impotent? How long is the shelf life of a God defined either as malevolent or impotent? I have another true story that illustrates this same theme. Our youngest daughter is adventuresome as all our daughters tend to be. After serving as a paramedic in both the South Bronx and Sarajevo, she decided to serve her country, so she joined the United States Marine Corps. Given her ability and her athletic prowess, she quickly rose in the ranks of the Marine Corps, completing officer training school, pilot training and finally helicopter training to become the second American woman to pilot the “Cobra,” the Marine Corp’s attack helicopter. She served three tours of duty in the II Iraq War, which included participation in the Battle of Fallujah, the bloodiest battle of that war. Those were days of high anxiety for both her mother and for me. People asked, “Did you pray for your daughter while she was in Iraq?” The answer was, “Of course, we did!” How could we not pray for one we love, whom we know to be in danger? The real question was, however, how did we understand what we were doing when we prayed? Did I, for example, believe that our prayers would keep our daughter safe? If her helicopter was hit by a ground-to-air-missile, destroying its ability to continue to be airborne, did we believe that our prayers would cause God to provide her with a safe landing? In biblical words, drawn from Matthew’s story of Jesus’ temptations, when he was told to cast himself off the pinnacle of the Temple, did we believe that God had promised: “He will give his angels charge of you — lest you strike your foot against a stone” (Matt. 4:6)? If we had believed that then would we not also have been forced to conclude that all of those young men and women, who died or who were injured in Iraq must have had no one praying for them? Did we assume that in the divine plan it was time for these people to die? Perhaps their lives were not worthy of continued life because of their sinfulness. All of these alternatives have been offered in Christian history, designed as they are, to soothe the human anxiety over the “shortness and uncertainties of human life.” What they reveal, however, is a monstrous God who would be unworthy of human worship. We prayed for our daughter because that is what love does. We held her in our hearts before God as we do for all those we love when they are in “trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity,” but that does not solve or illumine the question of prayer. It only poses the problem. We start our discussion of prayer here, but there is a long way we have yet to travel, so stay tuned. John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Dave Mesh via the Internet, writes: Question: I thoroughly connect with your developing New Reformation series which nicely builds on your book A New Christianity for a New World. It also parallels my own faith development. I am a lay Christian worship and discussion leader as well as an amateur poet. My recent book, Psalms for our Days, available on Amazon.com, is softly informed by my progressive, expanded sense of God, which you characterize as that “ambiguous, God-shaped hole.” Recently a friend gave me John D. Caputo’s new book, The Folly of God, which details in dense a-theological verbiage your Reformation arguments. You speak of experiencing God with an evolving sense of awe, but without being able to describe God with “human language that…itself becomes symbolic, pointing to the illusion of truth, while no longer able to contain it” and to religious leaders, who search for the security of certainty, which always turns out to be just another bit of idolatry.” Caputo calls this (Ch. 9) the inspiration for “theopoetics,” a figurative (poetic) means to express with finite language what happens to us within the ineffable “Kingdom of God.” It is strange that you two contemporaries never reference each other’s discussions. I have been struck that many of my “contemporary psalms” serendipitously address many theopoetic Christian concepts. I am hoping that your Reformation series will continue to help inform me as I prepare to lead a class on the first few steps of “Living in the Kingdom of God.” I’ll be addressing folks in my Lutheran congregation, who have not yet embraced the “laborious work of probing the ambiguous symbols of our faith story for new meanings.” Defining that bridge from the existing creeds and familiar doctrines toward more contemporary, meaningful concepts of life lived with an unconditional God, is a challenging undertaking. Most of my good Christian friends are neither poets nor theologians, but many have implicitly dismissed the orthodox God from their everyday reality as I have. Thanks for the way you strive for clarity along the path over this bridge. Answer: Dear Dave, Thank you for your letter. You are attempting to do with a group from your Lutheran church the difficult task of theology. One great Rabbi once spoke of doing theology on one foot. By this he meant that theology was always in process and ever changing. When one lifts one’s foot to take another step, one always winds up in another place, achieving a new angle of vision and calling for a new adaptation of all that one believes. It is not easy to do this either intellectually or psychologically, but it does move one forward to a deeper understanding of God. Not everyone will appreciate your efforts. Security is so much more attractive to many people than truth. I hope you will love and not judge those who cannot go where you are leading. Seeds planted today may not germinate in your history for years, but no potential seed is ever wasted. So be patient, kind and loving. Give my regards to the members of your Lutheran class and tell them that the journey into the truth of God is never easy, but it is always worthwhile. John Shelby Spong Read and Share Online Here Announcements The Global Unity Games: Tomorrow Together September 11th a National Day of Service and Remembrance to September 21st, the International Day of Peace. The Global Unity Games launch a 5-year campaign with the purpose of bringing people together from around the world to learn about and know each other, committing compassionate acts in a global expression of hope for a better tomorrow together.

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