October 2018 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

3 Songs
by Ellie Stock 30 Oct '18

30 Oct '18

Hi Folks, As we process the events of last week I am forwarding three pieces of music that we heard/came across on our trip last week (PCUSA meeting/worship/FB)--maybe you can use them in your church/community--or just personally. Part of our trip was in Pittsburgh, a city mourning...but resilient... 1-I Believe in the Sun, by Mark Miller (used during worship at PCUSA Hunger Program meeting) 2-Walk in Peace--Sally Ann Morris (used at Forest Hill Church, Presbyterian last Sunday (link below, but a different arrangement was used as explained below) 3-O God, This Day We Grieve, by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette (saw on FB, written after Pittsburgh massacre at Tree of Life Synagogue) Ellie :)elliestock@aol.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .AOLWebSuite .AOLAttachedImage {max-width:275px; max-height:275px;} .AOLWebSuite .AOLPicturesFullSizeLink { height: 1px; width: 1px; overflow: hidden; } .AOLWebSuite a {color:blue; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer} .AOLWebSuite a.hsSig {cursor: default} .AOLWebSuiteM1 {margin: 10px 20px 4px;} .AOLWebSuiteM2 {margin: 5px;} .AOLWebSuiteM3 {margin: 10px;} .dmItemSelected {padding: 2px !important;text-decoration: none !important;color:#fff !important;background-color: #656565 !important;border-radius: 2px;} 1. Song, “I Believe” By Mark Miller - Longwood University blogs.longwood.edu/ashleygaunt/tws-literacy-applications/songSong, “I Believe” By Mark Miller. The song that I have chosen to go along with my TWS is called, “I Believe” arranged by Mark Miller. The words of the song were found etched into the wall of Auschwitz. The words are: I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining. I believe in love even when I don’t feel it. #yiv7990942747 .yiv7990942747AOLWebSuite .yiv7990942747AOLAttachedImage {max-width:275px;max-height:275px;}#yiv7990942747 .yiv7990942747AOLWebSuite .yiv7990942747AOLPicturesFullSizeLink {min-height:1px;width:1px;overflow:hidden;}#yiv7990942747 .yiv7990942747AOLWebSuite a {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;cursor:pointer;}#yiv7990942747 .yiv7990942747AOLWebSuite a.yiv7990942747hsSig {cursor:default;}#yiv7990942747 .yiv7990942747AOLWebSuiteM1 {margin:10px 20px 4px;}#yiv7990942747 .yiv7990942747AOLWebSuiteM2 {margin:5px;}#yiv7990942747 .yiv7990942747AOLWebSuiteM3 {margin:10px;}#yiv7990942747 .yiv7990942747dmItemSelected {padding:2px !important;text-decoration:none;color:#fff;background-color:#656565;border-radius:2px;}2. The piece linked below "Walk in Peace" (Walk in Peace, Walk in Beauty) by Sally Ann Morris was used in last Sunday's service at Forest Hill Church, Presbyterian (Cleveland Heights) as a men's trio introit. I don't know what arrangement was used, but I can find out. At the beginning of the service (after some words by the pastor and a prayer sent by a Jewish colleague, remembering those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue, the first man walked down the aisle, singing alone, a capella, ending at the front of the sanctuary and facing the congregation. He sang the verse through a couple of times, then a second man came from one side of the chancel, singing another part of the song and joined the first man in front. Then the third man came from the other side of the chancel, singing a third part with the other two. It was beautifully moving. In the link below, the pace for the SATB arrangement is faster and uses a drum beat, like a processional march. But for last Sunday's service, the slower pace, a capella and just the three men was perfect. Slower pace, with other voices or the whole choir would work, also. But having them sing and move into place added an element of drama. Walk in Peace (SATB ) by Sally Ann Morris| J.W. Pepper ... www.jwpepper.com/Walk-in-Peace/10486987.ritemWalk in Peace. Sally Ann Morris - GIA Publications Walk in Peace. Sally Ann Morris - GIA Publications. Click to review . Publisher Desc. Good for use throughout the liturgical year, this ostinato piece has a march-like quality that beautifully suits any procession. The repetitive refrain is especially suitable for Communion 3.

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10/25/18, Progressing Spirit, Irene Monroe: Wrestling With the Bible; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 25 Oct '18

25 Oct '18

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.yiv6714918393mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6714918393 #yiv6714918393templatePreheader{ display:block;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6714918393 #yiv6714918393templatePreheader .yiv6714918393mcnTextContent, #yiv6714918393 #yiv6714918393templatePreheader .yiv6714918393mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6714918393 #yiv6714918393templateHeader .yiv6714918393mcnTextContent, #yiv6714918393 #yiv6714918393templateHeader .yiv6714918393mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6714918393 #yiv6714918393templateBody .yiv6714918393mcnTextContent, #yiv6714918393 #yiv6714918393templateBody .yiv6714918393mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6714918393 #yiv6714918393templateFooter .yiv6714918393mcnTextContent, #yiv6714918393 #yiv6714918393templateFooter .yiv6714918393mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } The Bible is central to the lives of many Christians. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Wrestling With the Bible Column by Rev. Irene Monroe October 25, 2018 One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2019 will be to encourage more conservative Christians to read their Bibles with a brand new set of eyes and a compassionate heart. However, to read the Bible with a brand new set of eyes and a compassionate heart Bishop Spong suggests we ‘”find the meaning to which the word ‘God’ points [to].”’ I interpret Spong to mean where we find God in the Biblical text embracing all of humanity with its radical diversity. The Bible is central to the lives of many Christians. Regrettably, it has played a salient role in discrimination against all people at different times in this country. Both religious intolerance and fundamentalist Trump-vangelicaism have fostered a climate of spiritual abuse that might leave many people in spiritual exile for the rest of their lives. At present, LGBTQ people are still one of the demographic groups where the Bible is used to discriminate against us. This past June, the Supreme Court ruled in “Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission” in favor of Jack Phillips, the baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig on the grounds of religious freedom. While the Justices did not grant a license to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans blatantly, I, like so many in our community, was hoping the case would render once and for all a cease-and-desist order; thus, resolving the God versus Gay rights dispute for those who want to codify discrimination against us under the guise of religious freedom. And, while the Justices also did not say the decision will not influence opponents of same-sex marriages, like photographers, florists, wedding planners, wedding venues, honeymoon resorts, to name a few, the narrow ruling, no doubt, will keep this debate going. The Bible, regrettably, is the immediate go-to place where many anti-LGBTQ opponents mount their opposition. In 1998, for example, right-wing Christian groups – the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition, and Americans for Truth About Homosexuality – ordered all its members to cease using the King James Version of the Bible because historians had proven that King James I of England, who was also known as James VI of Scotland, was indisputably gay. Should the King James Version of the Bible, which has been around since 1611 and used worldwide, be discarded solely on the basis of King James’ sexual orientation? Speaking at a press conference about this controversy, Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council said, “I feel uncomfortable that good Christians all over America, and indeed the world, are using a document commissioned by a homosexual. Anything that has been commissioned by a homosexual has obviously been tainted in some way.” Sadly, many have that sentiment in 2018. The justification for queer bashing stems from the belief of doing God’s will as purported in the Bible, and many Christians -both blacks as well as whites – believe only heterosexuals are elected to do so. For example, gospel singers Angie and Debbie Winans released a single in 1998 titled “Not Natural,” in which they self-righteously denounced LGBTQ people as children of God. When queried by then newscaster Travis Smiley on the cable show “ Black Entertainment Tonight (BET)“ about what compelled them to come forth and record this song, Debbie Winans stated, “ They don’t come as Angie and Debbie. We come as messengers of God doing His will.” However, ”doing God’s will” is a prodigious task and unmistakably a human enterprise. As a human enterprise, “doing God’s will” is invariably subject to error because it is fraught with both humble intent and righteous indignation. Its anchor and its impetus are found in the human act of interpreting the Word of God. Interpreting scripture as the “ ord of God” is always subjective and suspect in intent, whether it is being done in the ivy towers of seminaries or within the holy walls of sanctuaries. Interpreting scripture with menacing messages – and with litanies of dos and don’ts – is not about embracing and empowering all people, but about authority and power over certain groups of people. The authority of scripture does not lie in what God said. It lies in the hands of those in power who determine what God ought to say. The Bible is replete with contradictory and damning messages to all people. Determining which of these “ texts of terror” are discarded and which are upheld is not a battle about biblical inerrancy or God’s will. It is an unmitigated battle of human will. For example, there are two creationist myths in the Bible (Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:22). The first myth says that God made woman and man simultaneously. The second creation myth is our “rib story” in which Eve is born from a rib of Adam. Undoubtedly this story has ribbed and poked at Christian women throughout the centuries, since it is the authoritative text for substantiating gender inequity in society. The Curse of Ham (Genesis 9:18-27) and Apostle Paul’s edict to slaves (Ephesians 6:5-8) served as the scientific and Christian legitimization for the enslavement of people of African ancestry. The Sodom and Gomorrah narrative (Genesis 19:1-29) is one of the most quoted scriptures to argue for compulsory heterosexuality and queer bashing. The invention of sodomy is rooted in Christian theology. The anti-sodomitic theological tradition derives from a homophobic and misogynist reading of the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative in Genesis 19. As one of the most quoted scriptures to argue for compulsory heterosexuality, the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative has become authoritatively damaging not only to LGBTQ people, but to women as well, because women are the real victims we read about in the text, and LGBTQ people are the scapegoats who are read into the text. Functioning in this culture as one of the paradigmatic biblical texts of terror, the narrative is used to police the sexual behaviors of LGBTQ people and women, but the text is not used to police the sexual behaviors and sexual violence of men. The preferential treatment given to men in this text ironically carries over into our real lives today; thus, setting up unequal gender and sexual dynamics that set the stage for unequal power dynamics in our bedrooms that is not only unsettling for women and LGBTQ people, but also unsafe for them. How often have we heard of women being raped not by strangers on the street, but instead by male members of their own families? And how often have we heard of “The Gay Panic Defense,” an anti-gay strategy employed by attorneys to win an acquittal for a homophobic client who claims that an LGBT person came on to him – providing his “justification” for killing the person. Present-day feminist and queer biblical scholars who are in opposition to anti-sodomitic theological tradition contest that the narrative has nothing to do with homosexual sex, but instead the text is about inhospitality to male strangers and sexual violence toward women. In reference to the two uninvited male strangers/angels who come to the city of Sodom to inform Lot of the city’s impending destruction, for example, Lot says to the crowd of riotous men outside of his door (verses 7-8), “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” Therefore, one would argue that the sin of Sodom is not about the sexual acts between consenting LGBT people, but instead that the sin of Sodom is about the cultural acceptance of sexual violence toward women, and in Lot’s days women were the property of their fathers and husbands. Also, all later biblical references to the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative do not associate the story to homosexuality, but instead to wickedness, idolatry, desolation, and destruction. Religion has become a peculiar institution in the theater of human life. Although its Latin root “religio” means “to bind,” it has served as a legitimate power in binding people’s shared hatred. Regrettably, the Bible has been one tool used to do it. Unfortunately, many Christians do not make the connection between the struggle LGBTQ people face today and their own. If we Christians all knew our history, we would know that LGBTQ people stand firmly on the shoulders of the early Christians. Until 4th Century A.D. when the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, Christians were despised as much in those days as LGBTQ people are today. As a matter of fact, to be called a Christian was considered a religious epithet, and it subjected Christians to ridicule, hate crimes and Christian-bashing in much of the same way as we LGBTQ people are today. Just as Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old first year student at the University of Wyoming in October 1998 (twenty years ago this month) was bludgeoned and then nailed to wooden fence, like a hunting trophy, because he was gay, Stephen, a follower of Jesus was stoned to death in 35 A.D. because he was a Christian, becoming the first Christian martyr. And, Apostle Paul, before he saw the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, and stopped his Christian bashing, was one of the many approving bystanders at Stephen’s stoning. As LGBTQ people, many of us allow the power of God’s will to be interpreted and executed by heterosexuals by not knowing the Bible ourselves. Our ignorance about the Bible, whether we are practicing atheists or recovering Christians, perpetuates our oppression and makes us participants in this religious climate of homophobia. As more and more LGBTQ people unabashedly take back the Bible, new theological and ethical questions must be raised. As our society crawls toward diversity and inclusiveness, the moral imperative calls for the prophetic voices of LGBTQ people and our allies in the same manner that the civil rights movement in this country called for the prophetic voices of African Americans. Is it the will of God to devalue and to dehumanize the lives of women, people of color, people of different religions and belief systems and LGBTQ people, to name a few? On the question of race, religion, and gender, most Americans-both Christians and non-Christians-clearly see the answer as no. But on the subject of sexual orientation, many of our heterosexual brothers and sisters are biblically challenged. However, reading the Bible with a brand new set of eyes and a compassionate heart always points to where God is -embracing all of humanity with its radical diversity. ~ Rev. Irene Monroe Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author The Reverend Monroe is an ordained minister. She does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), a Boston member station of National Public Radio (NPR), that is now a podcast, and a weekly Friday commentator on New England Channel NEWS (NECN). Monroe is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women Abolitionists (Boston) – Detour Monroe’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in cities across the country and in the U.K, Ireland, Canada. Monroe writes a column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and Opinion pieces for the Boston Globe. Monroe stated that her “columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As an religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other ” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism.” Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s research library on the history of women in America. Click here to visit her website. | | | | | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader Is there some hidden reason why you treat the issue of homosexuality so frequently? Are you gay? A: By Bishop John Shelby Spong Dear Reader, I am amazed that prejudice against homosexual persons is so deep that people like you think there must be some hidden agenda that would motivate a person to take up the battle for justice and full acceptance in both Church and society for gay and lesbian people. "He must have an angle," they say. "Perhaps he is a closeted homosexual." Actually, the surprising thing that we discover over and over is that some of the most vigorous religious opponents of homosexuality, including some who are bishops are in fact covering their own closeted homosexuality in their frequent attacks on homosexual persons. No David, my sexual orientation is heterosexual and is not my agenda. My agenda comes out of my understanding of the Gospel. If we take seriously the words attributed to Jesus in the 4th Gospel, "I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly," then the enhancement of life is at the center of Christian ministry. The reverse of that is true also. Anything that diminishes the life of any child of God is a violation of both the Gospel and its mission. When the Church discriminated against people of color, defining them as less than fully human and deserving of something less than equal opportunity, the Gospel was violated. So I joined in the civil rights movement and worked in my church to put an end to every vestige of racism in my church. I rejoice that today the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, where I grew up in a segregated church, has as its elected Diocesan Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, an African American. When the Church discriminated against women, defining them as lesser creatures, unworthy to serve the Church except in secondary roles, which specifically excluded being bishops, priests and deacons, I joined the crusade to rid the Church of its sexist and patriarchal sin. I rejoice today that my church now has 12 female bishops and, in the diocese I served for 24 years, women constitute more than 40% of its clergy. Some other parts of the Christian Church, including Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox traditions and various branches of conservative Protestantism like the Southern Baptist Convention still wallow in this prejudice of the ages, but increasingly these bodies look like apparitions from another century. When the Church, out of its own lack of understanding of sexual orientation, expresses a profound ignorance about homosexuality, it is, in my opinion, not worthy of serious attention. When church leaders violate what we now know about the Bible to employ proof texts to bolster their prejudices, they violate what it means to be "the Body of Christ." Discrimination on the part of the Christian Church against any child of God on the basis of any external difference is not a matter of a simple disagreement about which we ought to be tolerant, it is rather a dagger aimed at the very heart of the Gospel. The Church tolerates that prejudice at the peril of its own soul. The battle that goes on today in the churches of the world over this enormous moral issue regarding justice and the full acceptance for homosexual persons in both the Church and the society is a battle for the future of Christianity. I would be derelict in response to my baptismal vows "to seek Christ in every person" if I did not engage this battle until the last vestiges of homophobia have been rooted out of the Christian faith. I intend to do just that. I commend this same course of action to you. ~ Bishop John Shelby Spong July 2, 2003 Click here to read and share online | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Free to Believe: A Voice from the United Reformed Church of England Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July 19, 2006 Recently, while on a lecture tour of England, I was the keynote speaker at a national conference of the United Reformed Church of England. This body, the result of a merger within Protestantism during the last century between English Presbyterians and English Congregationalists, serves as leaven in the lump of English religious life. It has always been a small church, as the Free Churches are in the land of the established Church of England, claiming at its highest point, no more than 200,000 members. Today it is probably half that size. Yet it has produced great leaders like Donald Hylton, Roberta Rominger and David Grosch-Miller, to say nothing of Fred Kaan, who is probably the premier Christian hymn writer in the 20th century. This church has also spawned a vigorous movement within its liberal wing that is a sign of renewed vitality. Four years ago about twenty members of this church gathered together to form a group of seekers who were willing to explore the edges of the Christian faith. Today, this group numbers just under 500. They, like their counterparts in every branch of Christianity, are identified as the frontier walkers inside their part of the Christian faith. They are eager to engage their congregations in a study of contemporary biblical scholarship and its impact on traditional faith symbols. They are willing to debate the creeds, the core doctrines of their church and the various movements within the contemporary theological landscape. Yet they are still quite self-consciously Christian, demonstrating that the things they seek to do can be done with integrity inside a living religious system. These people are demanding of their Church the freedom to confront these ideas without fear. They are not concerned when traditional church voices accuse them of being faithless. Their commitment to Christ is so secure, they are willing to roam outside traditional boxes, take on the issues of public debate with the secular society and even to learn about the other faith traditions of the world. Generally speaking, these are the very things that most churches that are more interested in security than in truth have not been willing to do. This group, who adopted “Free to Believe” as their title, has now sponsored four national conferences. I have been privileged to be the keynote speaker at both the first and the fourth of these gatherings. Meeting this year at the large Hayes Conference Centre in Swanick, Derbyshire, near the literal center of England, the “Free to Believe” conference attracted the largest audience in its history. Because progressive Christians always tend to transcend denominational structures, this conference also had registrations from the Methodists, the Anglicans, the Baptists and the Roman Catholics in addition to the majority from the sponsoring United Reform Church. Many of these delegates were ordained clergy, the balance were active laypersons. All of them also tended to be involved in England’s Progressive Christian Network, chaired by the gifted Anglican priest, Hugh Dawes, and his equally able wife, Jill Sandham. The “Free to Believe” movement is part of a worldwide grass roots revolt against the narrow theological and political interests that so deeply shape the current religious scene, from the religious right in America through the fundamentalists of Africa to the Vatican itself. At this conference there was enormous energy as well as the sense of hope and encouragement for those who sometimes feel isolated, alone and occasionally even battered by “defenders of the faith” who come in both a Protestant and a Catholic form. The content of my lectures was drawn from my forthcoming book, Jesus for the Non-Religious scheduled for publication in March of 2007. Among the issues we discussed were: How can one separate the eternal and real God experience from the traditional and warped explanations of that experience that were shaped by a world view vastly different from our own? What is the place of the Bible in the contemporary church once one has been freed from thinking that this book is in any sense the literal, dictated words of God? What has happened to Christianity in our day that it is consumed with issues of human sexuality about which the Christian Church has no track record of either competence or expertise? When Christianity surrenders its claims to be the only doorway into God or heaven, what keeps it from sinking into a sea of total relativity? How can one be deeply committed to his or her own faith path and still be open to the insights of the other great religions of the world? I cannot imagine any of those topics taking up much time among church people just a generation ago. It was a packed three days with the people so deeply engaged that every meal around the tables of eight in the great dining hall turned into a seminar, and every tea break (an inevitable part of an English conference) into a time for animated conversation. Even the daily evening gathering in the Conference Center’s pub for the traditional English “pint” proved to be a time for continued discussion. The fact that this very evangelical conference center had its own fully stocked bar made me know that there are differences between English evangelicals and America’s neo-fundamentalists. There is a sense of urgency about the future of the Christian Church across the world, particularly among those who are not evangelicals, fundamentalists or traditionalists. It is created by the fact that these people see the conservative tide of religion rising and they know that they can never be part of that. If that is what Christianity is turning into being then they wonder if there will be a place for them in the Christianity of tomorrow. They shudder at the pronouncements by well-known evangelical spokespersons as well as by Benedict XVI, none of whom appear to inhabit the same world in which they live. They see the rise of what might be called ‘secular’ biblical scholars and theologians who, like so many in the Jesus Seminar, are academicians with little concern for what happens to institutional religion by which they feel both marginalized and/or rejected. They watch as churches become mere enclaves of a previous world that no longer exists in our increasingly secular society. Above all a conference like this one gives those attending a chance to embrace the fact that they are part of a new movement within the church that says no to yesterday’s understanding of Christianity but not to Christianity itself. Only time will tell whether we are witnessing in this movement the birth of a new reformation or just the bounce of the dead cat of organized religion. At the closing worship service of this conference, The Reverend Martin Camroux, current president of “Free to Believe” and a pastor in the United Reformed Church of England was the preacher. His words were so insightful and penetrating and summed up so well the experience of the conference that I conclude this column by quoting him: “The simple fact is that the churches today are falling apart. Harry Emerson Fosdick predicted in the 1920’s that we would lose generation after generation of the brightest and best young people if we could not preach a Christianity that was intellectually credible. Yet religion is not dying out. In the opinion polls 65% of English people still say they believe in God; 40% say they have had moments in which this God has been real. The large bookstores have spirituality sections that are filled with books on prayer, self-help and healing. Institutional religion might well be in trouble, but the spiritual search is real. Second, scholars know a great deal about the debates that raged in the early years of Christian history and the time at which they were solved. They also know how and when complex ecclesiastical structures were formed. So when a book of the Bible reveals a calmness where once there was a raging debate or when scholars see structures that were not present in early church history, these things become factors in the dating process. It is almost as if there is something about us that yearns for God, as if we are “wired” for religion and as if the empty space inside each of us can only be filled by God. St. Augustine was right, it seems, when he wrote 1,600 years ago, “You have made us for yourself alone and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” Paul’s death is also a factor in defining which of the letters attributed to Paul, were actually written by him. The genuine letters have to have been composed between the years 50-64. I Thessalonians and Galatians are thought to be first and second in the Pauline corpus, along with I and II Corinthians which seem to be a compilation of at least four letters to the Corinthian church. Romans, dated in the late 50’s, is Paul’s most systematic letter, but even here there is a debate about the authenticity of Chapter 16. II Thessalonians, Philemon and Philippians also appear to be Pauline. However, none of this translates into healthy church life. A great many people are very suspicious of the Church. They find a significant number of our beliefs incredible or immoral. Twenty years ago, it was widely assumed that Christianity held the moral high ground. Today this is no longer the case and a significant number of spiritual people find the Christianity they have encountered to be wanting. They say: “religion keeps people immature,” or “God is a male despot,” or “Religion is divisive.” “Douglas John Hall, Canada’s foremost theologian, writes, “What happens to the churches when they are abandoned is hardly news.” They become collectors of a nebulous fellowship, random activism, undifferentiated spirituality, or simply become a group of “nice people” who don’t quite know why they are there but think they ought to be.” Christendom is over. Churches are going to be much more marginal to society. My own guess is that there will always be some who yearn for the safeties of fundamentalism, some for whom Tarot cards will seem irresistible, but many more will respond to an open liberal faith. If theologically open churches are going to grow, they need to produce a new kind of ‘liberal Christian.’ It’s not enough for liberalism to be a kind of fallback position for evangelicals who have lost their faith. We need a liberalism that offers spirituality, worship, a way into the numinous and the holy. Too often liberalism is lukewarm, lackluster, laid back, without the capacity to stand up and make its voice heard. They live in a liberal comfort zone often failing to say what they really believe. For liberal churches to thrive, revitalization and resurrection of genuine progressive religion must occur. There must be prophetic voices, prophetic witness and, yes, progressive politics. It’s time to raise up our voices again.” Well said, Martin! Well said! ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | | | Announcements The Afterlife Conference Exploring the Science and Spirit of Death and Beyond Our 8th Year! November 1-4, 2018 – Orlando, FL. Since 2011, The Afterlife Conference has served as an educational, social and spiritual gathering place for those seeking evidence of life after death. Each year we unite the disciplines in exploring the survival of consciousness after death, working with hospice professionals, physicians, mediums, clergy, counselors and alternative healers to offer a deeper understanding of death and beyond. Click here for more information/registration. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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10/18/18, Progressing Spirit: Fred C Plumer: These times, They Are A’Changing; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 18 Oct '18

18 Oct '18

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!important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv7008341372 #yiv7008341372templateFooter .yiv7008341372mcnTextContent, #yiv7008341372 #yiv7008341372templateFooter .yiv7008341372mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } These are truly changing times and we are doing our best to respond to Bishop Spong’s challenge. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | These times, They Are A’Changing Column by Fred C. Plumer October 18, 2018 I recently received a couple of emails from Progressing Spirit subscribers who reminded me of a song Bob Dylan wrote in the early sixties. It was the title track song of the album, “These Times, They Are A’Changing”. Most people who have commented on this particular recording believe the title track was designed to support and maybe even influence the social change movement that clearly was happening in the 1960’s. Bob Dylan took a lot of criticism in those days, but fifty years later he was honored with the Noble Prize in literature. And I would argue, these times are truly “a’changing.”I want to be clear. Both of the writers are sincerely interested readers who have made well- received comments in the past. The first person who wrote suggested maybe our authors were getting “too far” away from the “Spong theology.” I know that several of our writers have quoted Spong and have tried to specifically meet the challenges Spong left us with his final book. This may have been too confining for them, but it really has not been our intent to necessarily follow the “Spong theology” for at least three reasons.First, none of us claim to be Bishop Spong. He is a unique man, at a unique time in history and creative and thoughtful. Secondly, our goal is to try and respond to his challenges not to rehash them. Most of our writers are attempting to do that but they are coming at that goal differently. And finally, Bishop Spong, especially in his last book, took us metaphorically speaking to the edge of some unknown. Our writers are trying to find the sweet spot in that unknown.I have read most of Bishop Spong’s books that go back almost thirty years. One of the things I have always appreciated about Bishop Spong is his willingness to change. He was, and still is, a voracious reader. As the times changed, some of Spong’s views have changed. Now I am not suggesting that he was all over the board in his beliefs, but as he saw things in the church or the theology he no longer believed, he studied, he read and if he saw things differently he would speak out calling for a change. He was never unnecessarily a radical but rather someone who was not afraid to evolve.What we are attempting to do with this publication is twofold. One, to introduce you to a wide range of modern thinkers who have studied, have written and have published about a new way of approaching Christianity. And two, we have tried to find writers who may have found another related path and have given them an opportunity to share their findings. We are not trying to institute a new theology. We are trying to give you, the reader, samples of other thoughts, other viewpoints so you can decide. Yes, we are trying to use some of the Spong challenges as a guiding perspective but we are not trying to create a “Spong theology.”Bishop Spong writes: “The Christianity of the future must also be willing and able to dialogue with the other great religious systems of the world without defining any of them as lacking or deficient. Our task is not to judge, but to accept them as they are, to call them to live fully, love wastefully, and to be all they can be in the infinite variety of our humanity….The reformation we chart is scary, but it is noble, compelling and freeing. Even more, however, it gives the Christian story a chance to live in a new time in history. I pray it will. I pray it can. I believe it must.” (Unbelievable, pg. 279)These are truly changing times and we are doing our best to respond to Bishop Spong’s challenge.The other writer has made helpful suggestions for several years. In his last email to me, he had one critique that struck me, however. He made the suggestion that we might want to follow the Deist movement.He writes in part; “It seems to me that the challenge of any new religious movement is the development of a source reference (e.g. Bible) deemed the belief system for spiritual guidance for mankind. The target audience for Progressive Spiritual stewardship is what Bishop Spong refers to as Christian alumna…I really believe a team of Deist oriented scholars found in Universities could develop a source document for spiritual guidance which blends science into the belief in a creator God.”I immediately went to my computer and looked up Deism. I learned again, that Deism was first developed in the early Eighteenth Century. It was heavily influenced by the writings of John Locke and Isaac Newton, although neither claimed to be Deist believers. The followers of Deism did not believe in an intervening God. In other words, they rejected the Trinity and claimed clergy were not needed. Deists believe human beings have free will and have a responsibility for choosing how they live in relation to natural laws that govern the world. However, deists believe that “free will” is a paradox. One that cannot be reconciled with a God’s omniscience. They did not believe true religious and ethical teachings came from Scriptures or from the church but instead are acquired through “God-given human reason.”As I plowed through the beliefs of Deism, I must admit it seemed to me the writer had an excellent point. I was impressed. I was also surprised. I was surprised in part because I realized sixty years ago, I was a political philosophy student at the University of California, Riverside and actually studied Deism along with several other disciplines during that very exciting time of history. I was really glad to reacquaint myself with some of these teachings.I was also taken by the fact that although I claim to be a so-called progressive Christian, there were so many things I agreed with as I read through the Deists’ comments. I do not believe in an intervening God nor do I believe in the Trinity. I was a little uncomfortable with the idea that ministers were not needed, as a retired UCC clergy person, but I do believe that ministers frequently cause more problems than they solve. I also believe if we take scriptures at face value, they teach us little about religion or ethical teachings. I wondered if I was a Deist.My first thought was why I didn’t I think about this back then. But of course, who was having those thoughts in the early sixties about religion?I am wondering, however, if we could actually find and use Deist oriented scholars found in Universities who could or would develop a “source document for spiritual guidance which blends science into the belief in a creator God.” It is an interesting thought, although I have no idea how we would go about it.Then it hit me, do I believe in an intervening God? How do they “know” this with such authority? How did they come to that conclusion? I seriously doubt if any of them have a book that definitely “proves” there is such a thing, no matter what other things they have to say. I noted their official website, deism.com, has several hundred articles on their site dismissing the whole idea of an intervening god (or God), and almost as many articles stating that Jesus was either never born or he was not special. I realized I was uncomfortable not so much what they were positing but with the way they writers did it.While I was struggling with some of these issues: am I a deist? Am I a Christian? Do I believe in an intervening God? Another subscriber and also a friend, sent me an email with a website attachment. He wrote, “You have to see this.” I opened it and sat there for the next six and a half minutes, basically in awe.The speaker was a young man, Jason Silva. He is recorded speaking in a huge auditorium filled with what appears to be mostly young people. I believe he was a philosopher with a scientific background. Frankly it does not matter. He knew what he was talking about. The title of his talk was, “We Are the Gods Now.” He was on a website called, “The Co-Evolution of Humans and Technology.” I will not try and explain his talk but the title tells the part of the story I was most concerned about. He posits for centuries human learning was linear, but today we are learning exponentially. He argues, quit effectively I believe, that science has brought us to the edge of a whole new world. When we can move atoms around at will, change our DNA, when we can create how we want to live without scarcity, we have become our own gods. And apparently it has happened. (If you are interested in hearing Jason Silva, click here.I suppose I should not be too surprised. I have recently read several books by new theologians who claim we all have God in us. This of course is not quite the same thing that young Silva is positing but it is very close.Bishop Spong himself wrote: “another turn in consciousness was about to be discovered and entertained. That is the door on which we are knocking today. Maybe human and divine are the same.” (Unbelievable pg. 74)So I ask myself. Why am I worried about whether I am a Deist or a Progressive Christian or something else? Why am I debating, with myself, whether there is an intervening god or not? Why would I fall in love with a tradition that has been around since the seventeenth century? And finally, why do I feel a little like I live in a world I no longer am part of?That is when it really hit me. These times are truly a’changing, and I am not certain I am comfortable with the changes.So today I will pet my beloved 17 year old, failing cat, as long as he wants me to. And then I will go play with my horses until I am too tired to ride. And maybe tonight I will get a good night sleep. And for now I will let my precious animals teach me about God.~ Fred C. Plumer Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author In 1986 Rev. Plumer was called to the Irvine United Congregational Church in Irvine, CA to lead a UCC new start church, where he remained until he retired in 2004. The church became known throughout the denomination as one of the more exciting and progressive mid-size congregations in the nation. He served on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Conference of the United Church of Christ (UCC) for five years, and chaired the Commission for Church Development and Evangelism for three of those years.In 2006 Fred was elected President of ProgressiveChristianity.org (originally called The Center for Progressive Christianity – TCPC) when it’s founder Jim Adams retired. As a member of the Executive Council for TCPC he wrote The Study Guide for The 8 Points by which we define: Progressive Christianity. He has had several articles published on church development, building faith communities and redefining the purpose of the enlightened Christian Church. His book Drink from the Well is an anthology from speeches, articles in eBulletins, and numerous publications that define the progressive Christianity movement as it evolves to meet new challenges in a rapidly changing world. | | | | | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By John I’m puzzled about prayer in the context of Progressive Christianity which has replaced the interventionist God “up-there” or “out-there” with the God-within. The typical (conventional) church service liturgy invariably includes an “Intercessions” segment. What meaning does this (segment) have in the context of “progressive” thinking? Should it be abandoned? A: By Rev. Mark Sandlin Dear John,I can't even begin to imagine how many books have been written about prayer. Undoubtedly, it's a tremendous amount. I suspect that even if someone could read them all, they'd still be left a bit mystified about prayer. That is to say, I do not know the answer to your question. As far as I'm concerned, no one really does. But I do have my own thoughts and opinions about the subject.I definitely don't see prayer as coins for the “great vending machine in the sky.” Theologically, that kind of belief leaves us with either a God whose will and actions can be influenced or even controlled, or it leaves us with a God who is unconcerned and flippant about responding to prayer. Pragmatically, it's demonstrably untrue and believing that it's true can lead to a lifetime of wounds and anger with God.Ultimately, it's a question of the providence of God. How does God interact with Creation? Personally, I see God interacting through us – reflections of God. So, even if prayer somehow influenced the will of God, I don't see God reaching down from the sky and mucking about with the world all haphazardly. Instead, I see God impacting the world through relationship with each of us and the actions we take in the world. That's both an internal and external God.For me, prayer is one of the ways we connect with that internal/external God. It is a chance to grow in that relationship – including speaking about the difficult places in life and in the world. It's an opportunity to commune with God and to be oriented toward God. Intersessions are still important in that perspective, but we must understand that it is not us asking God for a result from the great vending machine, but rather us being reminded that we are how God intercedes.~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Click here to read and share online About the Author Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press' Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on "The Huffington Post," "Sojourners," "Time," "Church World Services," and even the "Richard Dawkins Foundation." He's been featured on PBS's "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly" and NPR's "The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited On Dating the New Testament Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on July 12, 2006 A letter from one of my Internet readers, Max Rippeto, asked how New Testament scholars went about the task of dating the books of the New Testament. It was such a good question and touched so many issues that others among my readers raise, that I decided to base my entire column this week on Max’s letter. The Bible did not drop from heaven fully written. It was created over a period of about a thousand years. It was not originally divided into chapters and verses. Those were imposed on it relatively late in Christian history. It was not written in King James English. The Hebrew Scriptures were written in Hebrew; the Christian Scriptures in Greek. Yet in public discourse today, one hears a literal, dropped from heaven view of the Bible from a number of people, including television evangelists and other fundamentalists, all of whom seem blissfully unaware of the critical biblical scholarship that is now almost 200 years old We need to recognize that the repetition of ignorance does not turn it into truth.I recall, years ago while on a book tour, I made a guest appearance on a late night talk show hosted by Tom Snyder in Burbank, California. In this interview the dating of the books of the New Testament came up. In response to Tom’s question I stated that all of Paul’s works were written between 50 and 64 C.E. and that the gospels were written between 70 and 100 C. E. Tom had no problem with the dating of Paul, but about the dating of the gospels he was incredulous and said: “Wait a minute, Bishop. I just got out my short pencil and began to figure. The disciples of Jesus would have been too old to write these gospels at those dates.” I responded, “That’s right Tom, not a single one of the gospels was written by eyewitnesses.” Astonished, he went on to explain that in parochial school, the nuns had taught him that the disciples followed Jesus around, writing down everything he said. That was how, they said, we got the gospels.It had never occurred to him before to question this “authoritative” conclusion. “Tom,” I said, “did the nuns also tell you that the disciples used ball point pens and spiral notebooks!” He had never thought of that either. It is hard for modern people to realize that in the first century very few could either read or write. Parchment was very expensive and ink was a dye into which a quill pen had to be dipped. Individual people studied long to become scribes, available for hire, whenever a writing need came up. We meet these ‘scribes’ in the gospels.For Tom Snyder and many others, the first step in breaking out of a literal biblical mindset is to understand the dating of the New Testament. Here is substantially what Max Rippeto wrote. “I was in the conservative, evangelical “Bible Church” movement for 25 years. When I came out of it about seven years ago, needless to say, my spiritual security and my black and white answers to life’s questions left with me. I’ve been piecing my spirituality back together since. Your writing has been a major positive force on this journey.“It makes so much sense that the Gospel of Mark was written first, then Matthew and Luke copied and edited it for their versions of the gospels, and that all of Paul’s Epistles were written before the gospels. Many of your assertions, however, hinge on the order in which the letters were written. A Scofield Reference Bible states dates different from the dates I’ve seen in your writings. Can you comment on why your dates and their dates are not the same?”To his letter Max appended the list of dates that the Scofield Bible had assigned to the books of the New Testament. They were way off target especially on the gospels and the book of Acts. Beside the Scofield list I have placed the consensus advocated by most creditable New Testament scholars for your immediate comparison. The range represents the continuing debate. | Scofield List and dates | Contemporary Scholar’s List and dates | | Matthew 50 | Matthew 82-85 | | Mark 68 | Mark 70-75 | | Luke 60 | Luke 88-93 | | John 85-90 | John 95-100 | | Acts 60 | Acts 95-100 | | Romans 57-58 | Romans 56-58 | | I Corinthians 56 | I Corinthians 54-57 | | II Corinthians 57 | II Corinthians 54-57 | | Galatians 49 or 52 | Galatians 50-52 | | Ephesians 60 | Ephesians 65-70 | | Philippians 60 | Philippians 62 | | Colossians 60 | Colossians 64-68 | | I Thessalonians 51 | I Thessalonians 51-52 | | II Thessalonians 51 | II Thessalonians 53-54 | | 1 Timothy 64 | I Timothy 90-100 | | II Timothy 67 | II Timothy 90-100 | | Titus 65 | Titus 90-110 | | Philemon 60 | Philemon 60-62 | | Hebrews 68 | Hebrews 75-85 | | James 45-50 | James 80-90 | | 1 Peter 65 | I Peter 60-70 | | II Peter 66 | II Peter 100-135 | | I John 90-95 | I John 95-110 | | II John 90-95 | II John 95-110 | | III John 90-95 | III John 100-110 | | Jude 68 | Jude 90-100 | | Revelations 95 | Revelation 94-98 | Scholarship is a never-ending process. Medical knowledge today is quite different from what it was in 1910 when the Scofield Bible was first published. So is the knowledge of such things as the Internet, computers, telecommunications and a host of other things. Similarly biblical knowledge is mushrooming. I read the Scofield Bible when I was a child. It was popular in my evangelical church. Its commentaries are oriented toward a fundamentalist and literal interpretation of the scriptures. In the service of that agenda there is always a predisposition to prove that those scriptures you think are literal, had to be written by eyewitnesses. So the tendency was to date them as early as possible. The Scofield dates for the gospels assume the primacy of Matthew. In the days before critical biblical scholarship came of age, that theory was assumed solely on the fact that it was first in the New Testament. Mark was thought of as a kind of “Readers Digest” version of Matthew. No reputable scholar today thinks that Matthew was written prior to Mark. Matthew used Mark extensively in the composition of his gospel, sometimes copying it verbatim. Luke also copied Mark, but much more loosely. Some scholars also believe that Luke knew of Matthew’s work, but that is a still debated minority opinion. The dating of Luke well after Matthew, however, is generally agreed. Occasionally, you will get a person who tries to assert an early date for John. My great mentor, John A. T. Robinson, did that in a book entitled: The Primacy of John, published just prior to his death in 1983. No one in the academic world of New Testament scholars, however, saluted Robinson’s thesis and it won few disciples. I am amused when evangelicals and fundamentalists, who disagreed with everything John Robinson ever wrote other than this, cite him as their authority for the early dating of John.There are some datable events that scholars can and do use to locate the books of the New Testament in history.First, the city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. For the Jews, this was a searing moment that changed Jewish consciousness in a way that 9/11 changed the consciousness of Americans. Wherever, therefore, we find a reference that seems to assume that event, we have to date that book after 70. There are references in all four gospels that appear to give evidence of that catastrophe, and most scholars today put Mark after 70. Since Matthew and Luke are both dependent on Mark, the dates for the second and third gospels must be even later, Matthew in the mid-eighties and Luke in the late eighties or early nineties.Second, scholars know a great deal about the debates that raged in the early years of Christian history and the time at which they were solved. They also know how and when complex ecclesiastical structures were formed. So when a book of the Bible reveals a calmness where once there was a raging debate or when scholars see structures that were not present in early church history, these things become factors in the dating process.The death of Paul is another datable event that we can set with confidence around the year 64 C.E, since he appears to have been executed by Nero in that year. The fact that Paul’s death is not mentioned in Acts, is the primary reason that fundamentalists cling to an early date for this book, an idea dismissed today in scholarly circles as profoundly wrong.Everything about the book of Acts, including its assumption that the early debates are settled and its highly organized church life, points to a date near the end of the first century. It also parallels the careers of Stephen, Peter and Paul with the gospel portrait of Jesus, again revealing that Acts was written well after at least the synoptic gospels. Professor Burton Mack of the Claremont Theological Seminary faculty actually proposed a date for Acts in the mid-second century.Paul’s death is also a factor in defining which of the letters attributed to Paul, were actually written by him. The genuine letters have to have been composed between the years 50-64. I Thessalonians and Galatians are thought to be first and second in the Pauline corpus, along with I and II Corinthians which seem to be a compilation of at least four letters to the Corinthian church. Romans, dated in the late 50’s, is Paul’s most systematic letter, but even here there is a debate about the authenticity of Chapter 16. II Thessalonians, Philemon and Philippians also appear to be Pauline.Scholars debate whether Paul wrote Colossians, but the majority now says no. Almost all scholars dismiss Ephesians as well as I and II Timothy and Titus as Pauline. It would probably be easier to prove that you or I wrote Hebrews than to prove that Paul wrote it. The Epistles attributed to Peter, John, James and Jude were not written by disciples. II Peter is dated as late as 135 C.E. The same person, or at least the same community, that wrote John’s gospel wrote the three Epistles of John and Revelation, which was written during a persecution in the mid 90’s.Dating the New Testament is an exciting process. The Christian story grew dramatically from Paul in the fifties to the end of the century when the New Testament was substantially complete. I hope this sweeping survey helps Max and others to read the Bible more intelligently.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | | | Announcements What do we mean by “God” in today’s world? Do we even need “God” anymore? How many names for Divinity are there? Do the names for God change as we mature as individuals, evolve as a species, and face a critical “turning time” in human and planetary history?” Too often, notions of God have been used as a means to control and to promote a narrow worldview. In Naming the Unnameable, renowned theologian and author Matthew Fox ignites our imaginations by offering a colorful range of Divine Names gathered from scientists and poets and mystics past and present, inviting us to always begin where true spirituality begins: From experience. Ultimately, no name for God suffices. We are challenged to continue to probe the rich ecology of human spirituality to ask questions, embrace paradox, and listen silently to the deepest of life’s mysteries. “Matthew Fox elegantly offers a contemplative practice that transforms the names of God to the experience of God.” –Deepak Chopra MD Click here for more information/purchase. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Austin ICA Brainstorm
by George Holcombe 16 Oct '18

16 Oct '18

The Austin ICA monthly gathering has persisted since Charles and Doris Hahn began it in the 90’s. During our Sept. meeting we did a brainstorm on topics we thought we should look at in coming months, and we thought we would share with you, and possibly get your input. The document is in a PDF, if anyone would like to have it in Mac (Pages) or Word format let me know. Also a couple of pictures of the group feasting. George Holcombe geowanda1(a)me.com "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley

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Winds&Waves reminder October
by ICA International 15 Oct '18

15 Oct '18

Any problem reading this message please click or paste this URL in your browser's address bar http://windswaves.icai-archives.org/new-ww/ en français en español October 2018 This is a reminder for entries to our new Winds and Waves Magazine We are delighted to invite you to share your stories here via this link medium.com/winds-and-waves We also welcome videos that show the work you are doing. And we would be delighted if you would share stories from Winds and Waves on your own social media networks. Here is this month's featured story, about Guatemalan parents learning about nutrition and child development: Sociodramas, enchiladas, toys and gardens: Learning Basket program supports rural Guatemalan parents For information about how to work with Winds and Waves on Medium: Please see attachment here Please be sure to send this invitation on to your ICA members and friends, colleagues, partners, family, so they too can participate. You can get further information by contacting us at icawindandwaves(a)gmail.com Best wishes, Robyn, Dharma, Roma, Rosemary, Isabel, Peter, for W&W team Published by The Institute of Cultural Affairs International, 401 Richmond Street, West, Toronto, ON. M5V 3A8, Canada All rights reserved. For more information or to unsubscribe, email: inform(a)ica-international.org

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10/11/18, Progressing Spirit: Sandlin: On a New Gendering of God; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 11 Oct '18

11 Oct '18

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!important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9965082011 #yiv9965082011templateFooter .yiv9965082011mcnTextContent, #yiv9965082011 #yiv9965082011templateFooter .yiv9965082011mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } Naming God is difficult at best, divisive even in its mildest form, and can be thought of as sacrilegious at its worst. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | On a New Gendering of God Column by Rev. Mark Sandlin October 11, 2018 Naming God is difficult at best, divisive even in its mildest form, and can be thought of as sacrilegious at its worst. I was confronted squarely with this reality as I entered divinity school. I can only begin to tell you how excited I was to be accepted into divinity school at Wake Forest. I had only applied to Princeton, Duke, and Wake Forest, and quite frankly had low hopes of being accepted into any of them.I still remember the day my acceptance letter arrived at the house. As I opened it standing midway up the driveway, I was overwhelmed with joy and relieved to finally be able to pursue the thing which I believed I was supposed to be doing.  Well, my first day of orientation at Wake made me forget about all of that, as this divine calling I had answered, as this desire deep in the core of my soul to talk about the God that I love and what that God wants for this world, was given parameters. More specifically, we spent a great deal of time discussing the topic of “gender neutral language.” “Discussing” is a bit of a misnomer here. What we had was not so much a discussion as it was being told what we were going to do – which was: don’t use words like ‘father,’ ‘he,’ or ‘him’ in referring to God. Then we were allowed to vent our frustrations and articulate cogent theological perspectives of the problems with being told how we can talk about God, and then we were told, once again, what we were going to do, which was, don’t use words like ‘father,’ ‘he,’ or ‘him’ in referring to God.  Jump forward a year. My daughter Kayli was about 7 years old and had received a praying doll as a gift. Each night as I tucked her in bed, she would say her prayers – she would say them with her doll. “Our Father who art in heaven.” Night after night I heard that. At the same time, day after day, I was in school listening to my theology professor, Dr. Frank Tupper, remind those who chose to refer to God as ‘he,’ that “God does not have a penis.” At night, in the innocence of a young girl’s voice I would hear God called “Father” as her own father tucked her in and during the day a man who dedicated his life to thinking about God would remind me that God does not have male genitalia.That’s where I want to enter this conversation about the gendering of God. That slice of my life. That moment in time when a young girl embraced the image of God as male and an older man refuted the image of God as male.  The Bible frequently presents God with a feminine image. In Genesis men and women are created in God’s image. In Hosea (11:3-4,13:8) God is described as a mother and a mother bear. In Proverbs as Lady Wisdom. In Deuteronomy (32:18) God gives birth. In Isaiah God is a pregnant woman crying out in pain (49:15). In Jeremiah (44:25), Queen of Heaven. In Matthew (23:37) a Mother Hen. In Luke (15:8-10) a woman looking for her lost coin. And possibly one of the most endearing images of God captured in the song “On Eagles Wings.” Deuteronomy (32:11-12) says, God will care for us just as a mother eagle “stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions.” And all of those are just to name a few of the Bible’s instances of feminine imaging of God.  One night, after tucking the kids in to bed and hearing my daughter pray to “Our Father in heaven,” I sat up thinking about what she was saying. About how the language of the church, of her prayers, and language in sermons, worship, and music, seem to be teaching her that God is male, or at least more like a man than a woman; that God is more fittingly addressed as male than female – effectively subordinating women and devaluing the understanding of women as being created equally in the image of God, a God who clearly can be understood just as well (and in some cases better) through feminine imagery.  I checked back in on Kayli before going to bed. As I looked at my daughter resting, I was struck with a deep need for the church to begin reprogramming itself to have a fuller understanding of God, one that subordinates no one because everyone is created equally in God’s image.  Also, I checked on my son, Hunter, before I went to bed. He was about three and a half at the time. I thought about him growing up in a church that allowed him to believe that on some level he is made more in the image of God than his sister, than any woman for that matter. I decided to teach him and Kayli both, to paraphrase Dr. Tupper, God has no male parts. The next morning Kayli and I had a talk about who God is. We talked about God in the Bible, what God did, who God was, and who God is. We talked about what moms and dads do for us and mean to us. We talked about how she felt about calling God “Father.” That night when Kayli prayed, she prayed new words, words of her own choosing, “Our Creator who art in heaven…” Amen.It is time for a paradigm shift in the Christian church in how we present God in terms of gender and in the beliefs that come along with masculine dominated language. Frankly, those kinds of beliefs are a big part of the reprehensible behavior we saw last week from the Senate Judiciary Committee.But, the change I think it is time for may not be the change you are thinking of, I believe it is time for a genderqueer God. Here’s the first line from Wikipedia’s entry on genderqueer: “Genderqueer is a catch-all category for gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine, which are outside the gender binary and cisnormativity. Genderqueer people may express a combination of masculinity and femininity, or neither, in their gender expression.”I believe that as humanity has expanded its understanding of gender identity, we’ve hit upon an understanding that more fully encompasses the gender-fluid presentation of God that we find in the Bible. Genderqueer certainly is representative of not only how the Bible depicts God, but of what theologians (like Dr. Tupper) have been saying for quite some time.Frankly, many of us who are aware of developing understandings of gender identity are still getting use to how to use the correct language. For instance, when it comes to using non-gendered language for God, it actually takes a great deal of practice and creativity to not fall back on the traditional pronouns of he/she. But, it can be done. When you are talking about a person, it’s much more difficult. The emerging solution is to use the pronouns, they/them/their.Admittedly, those of us who grew up hearing those as plural pronouns, might find that using them to identify a particular person may sit somewhat awkwardly on the ear, but in time it does become quite normal.Also, it is a wonderful solution to the problem of the gendering of God that I was introduced to on that first day in divinity school. I wonder how comfortable we will be with that? Can we see God as genderqueer?~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on “The Huffington Post,” “Sojourners,” “Time,” “Church World Services,” and even the “Richard Dawkins Foundation.” He’s been featured on PBS’s “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and NPR’s “The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin | | | | | | | | This Rabbi On That Rabbi A modern Portland, Oregon rabbi explains Jesus’s messages. A 6-Part Video Series View this exclusive video content below Born Again - Following is the summary of Part 1 A story I want to tell you a story that’s told by people of the northern hills of Thailand. The story goes like this: .....The gods noticed that human beings made mistakes. .....Human beings made mistakes, and, no matter how hard they tried, .....they could never undo the mistakes they made. .....Humanity seemed doomed as the inflow of the mistakes and their .....consequences was greater than the outflow of forgiveness. .....One day, one of the gods had an idea to solve this. .....This loving and clever deity hatched a plan to annul this seemingly- .....infinite number of transgressions. This god compressed its infinite .....self into the finite package of a human being and then sacrificed .....itself as reparations. .....The story continues that, because of this infinite sacrifice, all people .....from that day forward were liberated. That’s a beautiful story. I have told this tale to many people, and many people have enjoyed it. What I don’t tell them, at least initially, is that this story is told by the Christians in Northern Thailand. And that it’s the story of Jesus told by Christians throughout the world. And I intentionally obfuscate the locale, referring instead to remote Thailand, because when it’s heard as the Jesus story, there tends to be some resistance to it. When we can hear this story with new ears and look at it with new eyes, we can see it as the beautiful story it’s meant to be. I, as an ordained Rabbi, want you – no matter your religious affiliation – to hear this beautiful story for what it is: a story of love between God and humanity. We get so confused; we get so filled with the baggage behind the story that we miss the love story it is meant to convey. I welcome you to put the bags down and be born again into a sense of religious rebirth. Born without baggage Let’s look anew at the meaning of the phrase “born again.” When Jesus was talking about being born again, he used the word “anothen” – ἄνωθεν’ It’s true that anothen means “again,” but there’s another meaning, and it fits better here. That other meaning is: “from above.” In this context, he expressed that everyone comes into this world through water – vaginal birth. He went on to say that one must be born “from above” as well as “again.” .....John 3:1-8 .....Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member .....of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, .....we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could .....perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” .....Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God .....unless they are born again.” .....“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. .....“Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to .....be born!” .....Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of .....God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to .....flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at .....my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it .....pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or .....where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” While Jesus was a mystic and was immersed in the river by John, Jesus was not talking about being born again through water. He was talking about being born again from above, from having a relationship with the Kingdom of Heaven. The message is that it is not until you are born again into a new relationship with (the) God (of your understanding) and realize your true worth, that you are truly loved and truly forgiven. That is what we refer to as one’s salvation. It is the soothing life-giving salve for the soul. Giving oneself over to God is what the phrase the “good news” is all about in the Bible. The Jewish Part I understand the idea of redemption. I’m an ordained rabbi. The core of Judaism is understanding this same notion that God so loves us in but, in my tradition, our focus in clarifying this truth is the story of the Exodus. When we realize our connection to the infinite, we are born again. But, in my tradition, we don’t use that phrase. I think of it as the Buddhist story of five monks standing on a hilltop all pointing their fingers at the moon. The important thing is the moon, not the fingers. (Or, much more crassly, as my Buddhist teacher Nagy would say regarding different religions, “Same shit, different shovels...and don’t forget that shit is an excellent fertilizer.”) Jesus as the way Most Christians are familiar with the phrase stated by Jesus, “I am the way the truth and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me.” A Jewish understanding helps unpack this phrase. Jesus was not pointing to himself and saying he, personally, was the way to get to God. The easiest way for me to explain this is with a lyric from the Led Zeppelin song “Houses of the Holy.” “Let the music be your master. Heed the master’s call.” Whose call are you to heed? The music’s. Jesus was making the same type of analogy. What Jesus was saying is “A=B,” and if you need to get to B, you can use A. No one gets to God except through me. But what is me? Me is those three things he spoke about. Jesus meant that the path to God means following Jesus’s example of living a life full of the law of God, full of the truth of God, and full of zeal for the life of God. Jesus was saying that all God-seeking people must follow that path and that he was following it as well himself. Note: the word “way” is a bit lost in translation if you don’t know the culture of the ancient Near East In Hebrew, the word for the commandments of God is halacha – a word which is best translated as “the way one does things.” Jesus here, again, is underscoring the importance of following God’s law. Conclusion Thank you so much for joining me as I attempt to reinterpret and re-explain some of these beautiful teachings. With lots of love, Rabbi Brian Note I want to be clear – and I will get to this again in a later edition – I’m not a Messianic Jew. I’m a Jew who loves his traditions and the teachings found throughout the New Testament. I’m a Jew who understands what modern scholars like John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and others have been teaching that the New Testament was written by Jews, and that it is meant to be understood as Jewish text. To truly understand the gospels, one must look at them with Jewish eyes. And I’m honored to be your guide. -rb -- Rabbi Brian is the C.E.O. of Religion-Outside-The-Box, an internet-based, non-denominational congregation nourishing spiritual hunger. Find out more about newsletter, podcasts, videos, and other good ROTB.org is doing for thousands every week. This Rabbi on That Rabbi is a co-production of Religion-Outside-The-Box and Progressing Spirit. This is a 6-part video series also available for purchase here, it is made available to our subscribers to purchase as a gift or for a study group - the course contains six videos and audios along with their written companion PDFs. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader Can Christian Theology once again be enabled to interact with contemporary knowledge? A: By Rev. Brandan Robertson Dear Reader,My answer to this question is a complex one. On one hand, I believe there are tremendous riches in the Christian tradition. It’s a 4,000+ year theological lineage which contains endless metaphors, parables, and doctrines which have helped foster human evolution and have sparked some of the greatest social reform movements in history. That must be acknowledged and celebrated.On the other hand, there are spiritual and theological traditions that predate Christianity and that happened geographically around Christianity that have been buried beneath Christianity’s dominance that I believe might speak even more profoundly to our world today, simply because most of them have not be usurped by empires like Christianity and thus require a lot less deconstructing and decoding to get to the heart of.So, to be brief, I will say that of course, Christian theology can evolve and interact with contemporary knowledge. It will certainly require us to step outside of traditional “orthodoxy”, but that has happened in every new era of human thought for the past 2,000 years. The Christian tradition is rich and enduring, and because of its nearly universal reach, it will remain a helpful way for talking and explaining new knowledge.However, we should also be looking to indigenous theologies and traditions- Celtic, African, American, and Asian spiritual ties- that have a lot more to say (and a lot more credibility to speak) about humanities current crises with tribalism, environmentalism, and colonialism than Christianity. The images, traditions, and deep perennial wisdom that they can teach us will be much more potent in the coming era and we would be wise to harken to the voices of our pre-Christian ancestors. In fact, I would suggest that this is precisely what Rabbi Yeshua would have wanted us to do.~ Rev. Brandan Robertson Click here to read and share online About the Author Rev. Brandan Robertson is a noted spiritual thought-leader, contemplative activist, and commentator, working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal and the author of Nomad: A Spirituality For Travelling Light and writes regularly for Patheos, Beliefnet, and The Huffington Post. He has published countless articles in respected outlets such as TIME, NBC, The Washington Post, Religion News Service, and Dallas Morning News. As sought out commentator of faith, culture, and public life, he is a regular contributor to national media outlets and has been interviewed by outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, SiriusXM, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Associated Press. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited A Life Well Lived Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June 14, 2006 Reading obituaries is a remarkably insightful pastime. Each of us does it more and more as we grow older. The obituary writer obviously cannot recall all the twists and turns of a single life. Indeed, for the world to take note of a particular death in the obituary pages of a major newspaper at all, there has to be something special, something significant that lifts that particular life into a dimension of human meaning. So one searches the obituaries to discover that source of his or her qualification. Longevity without meaning is not necessarily noteworthy.I recall that story in the Book of Genesis about a man named Methuselah, who is said to be the oldest man described in the Bible. The biblical text says of him: “Methuselah lived 969 years and he died.” I have always thought that was a remarkably negative commentary on his life. Even though Methuselah lived 969 years, all that anyone deemed noteworthy about him was that he died! I thought about Methuselah a few weeks ago, while I was in Montreal, Canada doing a series of lectures. Each morning I read Montreal’s English speaking daily known as “The Gazette.” One day the obituary page featured five persons whose deaths were treated as being of national or international note. The one that intrigued me was the story of an 83-year-old Mississippi woman named Florence Mars. Her name called up no images from my memory bank and rang no bells of recognition. Why, I wondered, was the death of an 83-year-old Mississippi native receiving attention in the Montreal Gazette? Reading the story, I discovered much about what gives value to human life.Florence Mars was born in 1923 and grew up in Philadelphia, not the well-known port in Pennsylvania, but a small Mississippi town by the same name, located in Neshoba County. This town was not unlike many towns in the rural south in those early years of the 20th century in that its citizens seemed to believe unquestionably in white supremacy and its corollary of segregation. Indeed this racist conviction was called “the invisible hand” that directed the public and private life of people in this region. The story of the South in the 20th century was the story of conflict that arose and intensified, as this prejudice was first challenged and then began to die. By the late fifties and middle sixties that conflict had actually begun to recede, yet in parts of the South it still fed deep emotions of hatred. In 1964, ten years after the Supreme Court ruling on desegregation but a year before Congress was to pass the National Voter Rights Act, three civil rights workers whose stated task was to register black voters came to Philadelphia, Mississippi. Their names were Michael Schwerner, 24, James Chaney, 21, and Andrew Goodman, 20. That summer was destined to be a hot and unforgettable time. The idealism of these three young men, two of whom were white and one black, collided with that unrelenting racism that had long informed the South’s way of life. After a short time these three civil rights workers disappeared. The official story passed around among local people was that their disappearance was part of a hoax invented by outside agitators to gain national attention. Some of Philadelphia’s citizens even questioned whether the presence of these young men had actually been itself just a rumor to agitate the local people. If their presence was deemed to be nothing more than a rumor, then their disappearance was reduced to the status of sheer fantasy. In that same time frame a black church in Philadelphia had been burned. The Ku Klux Klan claimed credit for that but the local folks dismissed even that burning as one more publicity stunt orchestrated by outsiders, designed to split and embarrass the white community. This “common wisdom” was generally regarded as “the gospel truth” by the white community, with one solitary exception. A forty-one year old local businesswoman, a daughter of the town, named Florence Mars was publicly skeptical.She had actually seen these three young men in Philadelphia. She knew their presence was not fabricated. She also suspected that their disappearance was not just real but the result of foul play, so she began her own quiet investigation, listening, watching and questioning. On one occasion, she confronted the editor of the local paper about his prejudiced coverage of the racial violence that was gripping her town. She quickly emerged as the unwanted and disturbing “conscience” of Philadelphia, but her continued efforts kept the issue alive until searchers finally discovered a deserted place where the surface of the earth had been disturbed. Digging in this place, federal authorities uncovered the bullet-riddled bodies of the three victims. However, even after these murders were revealed, there was no prosecution and no arrests. This crime thus entered the records of Philadelphia’s “unsolved” murders. Florence Mars, however, continued to speak out, making it impossible for this episode to fade into the forgotten past. It, therefore, became one of the wrenching and memorable incidents of the civil rights movement.The white community, eager for this crime to be forgotten struck back with a vengeance at Florence Mars. She was vilified and harassed, as so often happens when guilt is not allowed to be eased. She was ostracized and threatened with death and violence. The KKK launched a successful boycott that ruined a cattle auction business she ran, forcing her to sell out at a depressed price. She was even arrested and jailed on a bogus charge of drunk driving as part of a planned campaign of public harassment. Pressure from members of her church forced her to resign from her position as a Sunday school teacher. Ten years later, she wrote a book entitled, Witness in Philadelphia that kept the pressure on even after charges for these murders against suspected Klan killers had been either dropped or dismissed by hung juries. Her work finally met with success in 2005, 41 years after these murders, when 86-year-old Ray Killen, a local preacher and Klan member, was convicted of these murders and sentenced to jail for the balance of his life. In a wheel chair, Florence Mars attended every minute of that trial, overjoyed that justice had finally come to her town.At her recent death she was memorialized throughout the nation. Her role in this episode had made her life one of great significance. A local attorney, a member of an interracial organization known as the “Philadelphia Coalition,” that had lobbied for the reopening of this case and the subsequent trial and conviction of Killen, said of her, “I shudder to think how little progress we would have made if not for Florence. She was our guide along the path to resolution and redemption for our community.” Florence Mars' single gift was that she was not willing to be silenced or to be passive in the face of evil. She had little obvious power. No one thought of her as a community leader. Armed only with the conviction that if citizens can murder one another because they do not like their victim’s opinions, then no life is finally safe. In obedience to that conviction Florence Mars found the courage that enabled her to absorb the slings and arrows of a dying racism. She lived to see her faith in that conviction vindicated and to gain the appreciation of her world.It is because of people like Florence Mars that a new consciousness about what it means to be human was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where this woman lived her entire life. Because she lived her life so well serving a universal human principle, her death was noticed around the world. The obituary in the Montreal Gazette was a signal tribute to the power of her life.Heroic activity is not always reserved for heroes.In almost every sense of the world, Florence Mars was an ordinary person. She lived on a very small stage, in a place not likely to be noticed by the world’s power brokers. Yet in the commonplace action of raising her voice against hatred and of lifting her conscience against intolerance, she changed her world. She left this earth a better place for having been in it.Is that not the ultimate criterion on which all life must be assessed? Wealthy people who dominate great industries retire and die every day and are quickly forgotten. Political figures who achieve great power in one century are lost in the pages of history in another. How many Americans today can relate any fact about such persons as Franklin Pierce, James K. Polk or Millard Fillmore? Yet each was elected in the 19th century to the highest office of this land. Millions of best selling authors suffer the fate of being unknown twenty years after their deaths. Who in 2050 will know the name of Dan Brown? These things cause me to wonder about the value system under which we live. The discovery of meaning is something that touches the dimensions of timelessness and eternity and access to meaning is within every person’s ability to achieve. It demands only that we escape our self-centered zone of comfort and place an ideal at the center of our lives from which we never waver. To enhance life is a virtue. To diminish life is a vice. To seek truth is a virtue. To kill truth in the service of prejudice is a vice. That is all it takes to enter into the realm of meaning. Florence Mars did just that. That was why she was remembered at the time of her death the world over. To serve truth without compromise, to be willing to pay the personal cost of abuse, harassment and rejection in the service of that truth is the pathway into meaning and thus I believe the pathway into God. Truth does not compromise to achieve a lesser goal like unity, popularity or personal well-being. Unity is never a substitute for truth or justice. That was the simple lesson that Florence Mars knew well. It is a pity that so many of our political and religious leaders have not yet embraced this elementary understanding of reality.Florence Mars was not born to lead but lead she did and history will remember her. How many of us will it occur to the editors of the Montreal Gazette to memorialize when we come to the end of our days?~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedbackâ€¦ we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | | | Announcements | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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ICA song books available
by Ellie Stock 11 Oct '18

11 Oct '18

ICA song books available (fair condition, but still very usable): -The Singing of Hope (11)-The Singing of Those Who Care (vinyl cover with rings)-The Global Song Book 1984-1985 (10: 5 stapled, 5 spiral bound) Ellieelliestock(a)aol.com

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Global Buzz for October
by ICA International 07 Oct '18

07 Oct '18

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.... Global Buzz Report: October 2018 Click above or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-18/2018-10-01.php And: read the latest ICAI Winds & Waves Magazine brought to you now on Medium.com See here: https://medium.com/winds-and-waves ICAI Communications

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Thank you
by Doris Hahn 06 Oct '18

06 Oct '18

I surely appreciate your birthday note; also your continuing work on the archives. I always enjoyed the archive work and also the opportunity to know you better. Peace, Doris

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9/13/18, Progressing Spirit: Forrester:Terrifying & Terrible Texts: Knowing the Difference between Study and Liturgy; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 04 Oct '18

04 Oct '18

View this email in your browser Terrifying & Terrible Texts: Knowing the Difference between Study and Liturgy Column by Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. September 13, 2018 “I’m in Pain” Quite recently, a dear friend and colleague within a spiritual group in which we both participate raised a question, a heartfelt concern, about a book we were asked to read. This particular text, written in the middle of the last century, is a psychotherapy book that explores an energetic understanding of how the mind and body are interconnected. The book has much to commend it. However, my friend was in pain over the blatant homophobia in this piece and was wondering how I and others were experiencing the text and whether it was even appropriate for our study. I responded that I appreciated the soulful pain of which she was speaking. (In truth, my heart ached as her words landed upon me.) I found the author’s homophobia sharp as well as blatant. Why then continue reading this text? I offered that as a teacher I feel a particular need (even a responsibility) to know what have been the veins of theory upon which our teaching has drawn to take the shape it has. I would also like to understand as fully as possible how these theorists have been appropriated – what has been incorporated and shaped our teaching and what has been left, and why. I know that these are questions of mine, and I believe they will be questions asked of us and others who are spiritual teachers. Study & Liturgy It is also true, that while we are expected to study and understand these texts because of the impact they have had upon the unfoldment of psychotherapy and spirituality in the west, we would never offer these texts within the context of meditation. There are texts for study and there are texts for liturgy. Although there is much to commend it, the New Revised Common Lectionary does not fully appreciate this important distinction. As a result, too often liturgy continues to assault the hearts, minds, and bodies of those who have gathered to be guided and soulfully nurtured. (I’m focusing here on biblical texts used in liturgy. But this assault pertains equally to the inherent violence of atonement-based collects and eucharistic prayers recited each Sunday.) I raise this matter because I have lost count of the times members of my congregations and spiritual seekers with whom I work have implored why they must read aloud for liturgy the texts offered by the institution’s authorities. Although such homophobic and misogynistic verses as Rom. 1.26-27 and 1 Tim. 2.11-14, respectively, are now omitted, they continue to hear passages, which to their ears disturbingly proclaim tribal slaughter (Zeph. 1.17-18) and violence (Jer. 20.7-13), all in the supposed name of the divine. These are oppressive texts (and there are more) – painful to read and wounding to hear – and all, as a matter of course, are read as declarations of “the word of God,” for which they are told to offer “thanks.” These terrifying and terrible texts continue to compromise the capacity of Christianity to offer a meaningful message in the 21st century. A chasm is created between spiritual seekers and the truly boundless love of Being, because the dominant tradition is beholden to liturgical custom that cultically enshrines a tribal deity whose prejudices, penchants for reactive retaliation, and wholehearted embrace of violence are celebrated in the many pages of the stories regularly proclaimed as purportedly revealing the true nature of Being. Liturgy is neither the time nor the place for preachers to consistently be pressed into the act of deconstructing biblical texts so as to minimize the harm done to those desiring to hear words of life. Evolutionary Context We have yet to fully appreciate the evolutionary historical context of the cultures that produced the biblical texts which are read within our liturgies. Texts are products of human beings within specific cultural periods. Sacred texts are those for which the authors and communities make the claim that they reveal qualities or aspects or dimensions of the true nature of Being. But we must always remember it is we human beings who are making the claim for the revelatory capacity of the texts. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether any particular text is a Wisdom text – does it have the capacity to foster the soul’s growth or unfolding, helping her to realize that she is an utterly unique expression of Being that is boundless love? If not, the text isn’t suitable liturgical material. For liturgy – no longer appropriately understood as the worship of a distant tribal deity – is essentially itself a spiritual practice, wherein we gather together to experience becoming embodiments of Being in the present moment. Who makes the decision about the suitability of a text? We do. We draw from the best psychological, sociological, philosophical, theological and spiritual wisdom we have. We acknowledge the clear truth that not all biblical texts, not all scriptural stories, embody and speak to the boundless love, boundless freedom, boundless wisdom, that is Being. We acknowledge that as a species we are evolving and maturing. We realize that our ancestral tribal peoples produced these overwhelmingly tribal texts with their tribal deity. But simply the fact that they have been the community’s “canonical” texts in the past, does not warrant their use as liturgical texts for spiritual seekers today. Humans of Being There is nothing sacrosanct about the “canon” from which Sunday liturgical texts are drawn. Canon simply means texts which past authorities have given their imprimatur. Times change. Contexts change. To paraphrase the wise spiritual teacher, Richard Rohr, we do not see Being as Being is but as we are. And who are we? We aspire to no longer be a tribal people guided by a vengeful tribal deity. We aspire to no longer be a homophobic people. We aspire to no longer be a misogynistic people. We aspire to no longer be a racist people. We aspire to no longer be a vengeful people. We aspire to be simply and fully humans of Being. Terrifying and terrible texts can do terrific damage to human beings. Now is the time to distinguish between texts for study and texts for liturgy; between stories that sustain the soul, and stories (and prayers) that sunder her heart. Within liturgy, we need to hear texts that remind us of our better angels. We need stories that land upon our souls as nourishment for transformation from beings utterly captive to our survival drive, to humans of Being. There are times when authentic nourishment can be hard to swallow. Our egos are inherently defensive and resistant to dissolution – no matter how seemingly minor. There is a substantive difference, however, between a challenging text with which our souls must inevitably wrestle (like that of Jacob in Genesis) and a terrifying and terrible text. There is a proper season, a suitable place, for study of terrifying and terrible texts. But that is not within our liturgies. Within our liturgies we come to sit and receive nourishment for our hungry souls. As a nondual spiritual path at its authentic core, Christianity is an invitation to taste and know belovedness as the very fabric of existence. ~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of St. Paul’s Church in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including “I Have Called You Friends“, “Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms“, and “My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You” and “Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland“. Question & Answer Q: By Eleanor Kerfoot Some while ago Dr. Spong replied to a message from me in which I stated that possibly there could be some thought devoted to the idea that, “God” is both within a person and everywhere. This makes sense to me and I have been living this understanding successfully. The concept of a “Deity” or of “Deities" is well-known, documented and practiced as well as awareness of knowing truth within us. There is room for tolerance. Why are we pursuing Christianity when Jesus himself did not? Does Dr. Spong’s book “Unbelievable” take us this far? A: By Lauren Van Ham Dear Eleanor, Yes, I believe Bishop Spong’s, Unbelievable, does explore some of what you are asking. Perhaps you have already seen some of this featured here recently, in the reflections offered by Progressing Spirit’s team of authors. Some of this response may feel like a game of semantics, but it is very important to create some distinctions around how Christianity is being defined. Jesus did not pursue Christianity, but Christianity happened as a response by those who wanted to practice what Jesus modeled. And most particularly, they wanted to practice with others! Christianity was, first and foremost, a way for practitioners to study together, to pray together, to struggle, and grow and serve together. Jesus insisted upon it! He included everyone and stressed the importance of eating together, working together and being in the great grappling of Life, together. What happened after this – and we recognize it well having seen it happen many times, in many ways throughout history - is what every worthy spiritual teacher has resisted. We tried to codify it. Teachings were interpreted in different ways and used as attempts to contain and control. In the book, Spong directly questions, “Is behavior control really the purpose of the Christian faith?” And a few sentences later he writes gravely, “Christian history surely reveals that Christians of the world can be and have been prodigiously evil.” So, why pursue Christianity? It all depends on the Christianity we mean when we act, and breathe and move in the world as embodied practitioners. Spong instructs that Christianity in the time of Jesus and today (if it has any chance of surviving), is a call to universalism. A call for every one of us to go beyond our biological or self-ascribed boundaries, NOT to convert “others” to a battery of lessons and formulaic answers, but rather, in Spong’s words, “to accept them as they are, to call them to live fully, love wastefully and be all that they can be in the infinite variety of our humanity.” This can be hard work, and it will almost always be challenged. This is why spiritual community is so important. The teachings aren’t easy, but the instructions are very simple. In our togetherness, we return to the simplicity of Life and Love, Awe and Forgiveness. We provide consolation and encouragement in the face of disappointment or defeat. And we hold one another accountable, reminding everyone that we are part of one inter-related family, one interdependent planet, one Love that tries and fails to teach us this again and again and again. ~ Lauren Van Ham Click here to read and share online About the Author Lauren Van Ham was born and raised beneath the big sky of the Midwest; Lauren holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Naropa University and The Chaplaincy Institute. Following her ordination in 1999, Lauren served as an interfaith chaplain in both healthcare (adolescent psychiatry and palliative care), and corporate settings (organizational development and employee wellness). Her passion and training in the fine arts, spirituality and Earth’s teachings has supported her specialization in eco-ministry, grief and loss, and sacred activism. Lauren’s work with Green Sangha (a Bay Area-based non-profit) is featured in Renewal, a documentary celebrating the efforts of environmental activism taking place in religious America. Her essay, “Way of the Eco-Chaplain” appears in the collection, Ways of the Spirit: Voices of Women. Lauren tends a private spiritual direction practice and serves as Dean for The Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley, CA. Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Jesus for the Non-Religious, Part I Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong February 15, 2006 Most Christians seem to assume that the details of their faith system dropped out of heaven in a fully developed form. Nothing could be further from the truth. The creeds began as baptismal formulas in the 3rd century and did not receive the shape we now recognize until the 4th century. Doctrines like the Trinity and Incarnation were still being formed in the 5th century. Moving closer to the life of Jesus, scholars now suggest that miracles were added to the Jesus story only in the 7th and 8th decades of the Christian era. The Virgin birth and the suggestion that resurrection meant physical resuscitation are products of the 9th decade, and the account of Jesus” ascension enters the tradition only in the 10th decade. Perhaps the biggest gap in our knowledge of Jesus, however, occurs in those years between 30 C.E. when Jesus” earthly life came to an end and 70 C.E. when gospels began to achieve written form. Today, by lining up the gospels in chronological order with Mark first (ca. 70 C.E.), then Matthew (ca. 80 C.E.), Luke (ca 90 C.E.) and finally John (ca 100 C.E.), we can see how the miraculous was heightened; the details become more graphic and supernatural activity more pronounced. If the story could grow as dramatically as it did from 70-100 C.E., is it not reasonable to assume that it also grew from 30-70 C.E.? Yet with no written sources, entering that time of oral transmission is a problem. For the past year that forty-year oral phase of Christian history has been the primary focus of my study. In a series of columns not necessarily on successive weeks, but as a theme to which I will return often during the next six months, I want to begin to share this study with my audience under the general topic of “Jesus for the Non-Religious.” How can we gain access to an oral period of history when by definition no written records exist? Is that not a dead end for research? These are valid questions, yet studies of the gospels yield numerous clues that lead us into these primitive moments in our faith story. The obvious fact is that the story of Jesus was passed on or we would not have it today. So the questions are by whom, how and in what context. Was it simply personal? Did parents convey the Jesus story to their children? Did it pass from person to person in the marketplace? The context of the gospel narratives appears far too complex and patterned to have been handed on in that personal and individual way. We need to search for a better explanation. The gospels make it clear that before the story of Jesus was written a heavy dependency on the Hebrew Scriptures was already evident. That could not have happened accidentally. Mark, for example, opens his gospel with two quotations from the Hebrew prophets, one from Malachi and the other from II Isaiah. He then builds into his narrative of Jesus image after image from the Jewish scriptures. Matthew seems to imply in his gospel that everything Jesus does is in fulfillment of the words of the prophets. He retells a story of the birth of Moses as if it actually happened to Jesus (see Exodus 1:15-22, Matthew 2:16-18). He patterns the Sermon on the Mount (Matt.5-7) on Psalm 119 portraying Jesus as the new Moses. Matthew and Luke both provide us with genealogies of Jesus that relate him to both Abraham and King David. They both quote Jesus as using texts from the Hebrew Scriptures to ward off the attacks by Satan in the story of the temptation. Luke models the life of Jesus frequently on the life of the prophet Elijah. On two occasions Luke says the role of the resurrected Jesus was to open their minds to understand the scriptures as the way to make sense out of his death. The Fourth Gospel opens with a hymn of praise to the “Logos” or the “Word” that John believes he has discovered in Jesus. This hymn was patterned on a hymn to wisdom from the book of Proverbs. John constantly has Jesus invoke the name of God, “I am,” given to Moses at the burning bush as part of his own divine claim. One cannot read the gospels without confronting the Hebrew Scriptures on every page. These facts point powerfully to the source of the oral tradition. The only setting in which this interweaving of the Jesus story with the Hebrew scriptures could have occurred was in the synagogue, since that was the only place where people heard the scriptures read and interpreted. In the first century no one owned books since few people could either read or write. There was no Gideon Society to place the sacred scriptures in hotel rooms. The books of the Jewish Bible had to be copied by hand on great scrolls. They were enormously expensive. They were the treasured possessions of the whole community, kept in the Tabernacle of the Synagogue and brought forth with great solemnity to be read aloud in public worship on the Sabbath. They were always read in order. One does not skip around with scrolls. The handles of the scrolls were laboriously turned as they were read and the male reader began the next Sabbath where he had stopped the previous Sabbath. The next problem in this interpretive process is that most people today have no idea what the liturgy of the Synagogue was like in the first century, so they have no way of imagining this setting. Fortunately, a brief description of synagogue worship included in the Book of Acts (13:13-16), gives us our next clue in this probe of the oral period of Christian history. Synagogue worship consisted of long readings from the three major sections of the Hebrew Bible. The first was a reading “from Moses,” that is from the Torah, that included the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It was a requirement of first century Judaism that the entire Torah, as the most sacred part of the Hebrew Scriptures, be read in public worship in the synagogue over the Sabbaths of a single year. This would mean that just the first lesson “from Moses” would last at least thirty minutes each Sabbath. The second reading came from what the Jews called “The Early Prophets,” which included the books from Joshua to II Kings. There was no compulsion to complete the reading of this material in any specific time frame; hence this lesson was much shorter. The early prophets were simply read in order until completed and then the process would begin again. The third reading came from what they called “the Latter Prophets,” which were four in number: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and what was called the Book of the Twelve. Today Christians refer to this Book of the Twelve as “the minor prophets,” and list them separately as the books from Hosea to Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament. In the Jewish world, however, these twelve books were all on a single scroll and treated as a single work. Thus the four scrolls of the “Latter Prophets” tended to be read over a four-year cycle at the rate of approximately a chapter a Sabbath. One year would therefore be the Isaiah year, one the Jeremiah year, one the Ezekiel year and one the year of the twelve. In the liturgy of the Synagogue these three major readings, interspersed with prayers and Psalms would constitute the core of the worship experience. After the final reading, the leader of the Synagogue would normally inquire, as happens in Acts 13, whether anyone had a message to bring that would illumine the morning’s readings. This became the setting in which his followers told stories about Jesus, recalled the sayings and parables of Jesus and remembered and shared the developing Jesus tradition. In this fashion, over the years, the Hebrew Scriptures were wrapped around Jesus and through them Jesus was interpreted. The content of the memory of Jesus was thus organized by the liturgy of the Synagogue. To recognize this connection becomes a major breakthrough into the oral period of Christian history. By the time the gospels were written the memory of Jesus had been so deeply shaped by the Synagogue context that it is impossible now to separate history from scriptural interpretation. That is what makes the perpetual quest to find the Jesus of history so difficult. The conclusion of the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, for example, was that only 16% of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels are actually authentic, accurate portrayals of what Jesus really said. The other 84% are words read into the Jesus of history by an interpreting community during the oral period. Much of what the gospels call the acts of Jesus fall into a similar statistical spread. For example, was Jesus really born in Bethlehem or was the Bethlehem birth story an attempt on the part of people during the oral period to claim for him the messianic status of being heir to the throne of David? Did Jesus really feed 5000 people in the wilderness or was that an attempt to portray him as a new Moses who also fed a multitude in the wilderness with bread called manna? Did Jesus really march triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey or was that an attempt to identify him with the figure of the Shepherd King in the Book of Zechariah, who also came to Jerusalem, humbly riding on a donkey (9:9-11)? Did Jesus really drive out the moneychangers from the Temple and reclaim that place as “a house of prayer for all people” or was this an early Christian attempt to show that what the prophet Zechariah said about the Messiah had been acted out by Jesus? That prophet had written that when the Day of the Lord comes, there would no longer be a trader in the House of the Lord (14:21). Did Jesus really pray for the soldiers who crucified him, as only Luke records, or was this story developed to identify Jesus with the Servant of II Isaiah (53:12), who made “intercessions for the transgressors?” On and on we could go, posing this same question in literally hundreds of different ways about hundreds of familiar stories. At the very least, this study begins to give us a glimpse of who Jesus was before gospels were written, creeds formed or doctrines developed. If we are willing to journey to this place with openness, I think we can be assured that Jesus will look very different. As this series develops I hope to show you this Jesus. Perhaps in the words of my friend Marcus Borg, we might “see Jesus again for the first time.” ~ John Shelby Spong Announcements Jacob’s Ladder Workshop LIVE or online 9-27 thru 9-20 in Redwood City, CA What if you were given a Road Map to Enlightenment? ................................* Would you take it? ................................* Follow it? ................................* Be curious about it? Our Western Wisdom tradition of Kabbalah offers a complete Road Map to Personal Enlightenment and guidance for navigating and mastering the 4 Worlds: Physical, Emotional, Spiritual and Divine. This roadmap is called JACOB’S LADDER. Click here fore more information/registration...

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