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November 2018

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11/29/18, Progressing Spirit: Gretta VosperOur Deepest Roots; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 29 Nov '18

29 Nov '18

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!important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv2538069147 #yiv2538069147templateBody .yiv2538069147mcnTextContent, #yiv2538069147 #yiv2538069147templateBody .yiv2538069147mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv2538069147 #yiv2538069147templateFooter .yiv2538069147mcnTextContent, #yiv2538069147 #yiv2538069147templateFooter .yiv2538069147mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } At this time of year, we turn toward traditions that go deep into the backstories of our lives. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Our Deepest Roots Column by Rev. Gretta Vosper Novembery 29, 2018 At this time of year, we turn toward traditions that go deep into the backstories of our lives. The Christmas narrative serves as a foundation for our own narratives, those of our families of origin and those of the families we have created for ourselves. They are good. They are bad. They are beautiful. They are ugly. And we feel compelled to participate whether the stories are healthy or horrible. It’s what we do, right?ABOUT THAT STORY WE ALL KNOW AND LOVE …The real Christmas story, itself, is all but washed up in many progressive Christian congregations. For decades we’ve been uncomfortable with the clash between the birth narratives and “what we now know”, the latter whispered discreetly to those we think can bear to hear the truth. “The Version Birth” by Dot Saunders-Perez and Janet Allyn, a true-to-the-text clash of the birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke, has offered a humorous way to introduce congregants to the truths that have been in front of them their whole lives. Without, of course, requiring they believe even that tidbit of historical quandary. It is a clash of stories so unremembered that I even mixed them up in my first book, With or Without God, attributing the magi to Luke and the shepherds to Matthew. (In my defense, eight theologically literate people proofread that manuscript! Which proves my point, I think…)Liberal and progressive Christians have long wrestled with the birth narratives, their fantastic tales, the unlikely heroes. In a statement of faith accepted by The United Church of Canada in 1940, reference to the virgin birth was removed entirely. Yet it is the most sacred Christian story of all despite the fact that it is undoubtedly fantasy. It remains indisputable by the so so so so so so so many Christians who still believe there were angels singing, three wise men (sic) on camels bringing precious and fragrant gifts, and shepherds quaking on the hillsides. Oh, and the star. There had to have been a star. Over the baby.“Myth” is an easier word to get heads around than “fantasy”, of course. There is a dignity in ”myth” that provides a sense of intellectual earnestness or enlightenment. We use it to relate to scholars exploring the great religious traditions of the world, Mircea Eliade and his work on religion and myth, or Frazer and his Golden Bough. It helps us rise above those who take the stories literally. And definitely above those who haven’t yet learned that the one seamless story they listen to every year doesn’t exist; they remain quite happy to see angels tossing hay at the wisemen in the Christmas pageant. Who are we to undermine their Christmas joy?Of course, “fabrication” is too harsh a word for most churchgoers. They find it confrontational and confrontation is not terribly welcome in church, particularly around feature articles like this one about the birth of Jesus. Yes, the stories were fabricated, woven together of the threads of oral tradition that wound themselves into truths in the decades after Jesus’ death. But they are also beautiful, earnest, easily cast, and delightful in their innocent presentation by new children year after year after year.WELL, WHAT DOES THE MINISTER BELIEVE?One of the essential problems that arises from the annual Christmas play, the uplifting Lessons and Carols service, or the peaceful, reflective beauty of the Midnight Mass is their reinforcement to all who attend of the belief that clergy think the virgin birth and all its accoutrements are factual. Fantastic, yes, but fantastic because of the super powers of the god called God. Those who dare to ask the question may receive from their minister an answer that more closely resembles her or his actual beliefs: it is a story we tell over and over to remind us of the impregnation of our hearts by God’s love and our need to live that out in the contemporary world, according to the needs of that world. That sounds good, doesn’t it? Of course it does! And we all watched the Christmas play happily ever after.But the problem remains. Why do we want clergy to act and speak and lead in ways that allow those not asking questions to assume an ongoing belief in fantastic tales? What is the merit in that? Especially when we are seeing younger generations eschew the mythology of “the virgin” for the seemingly more accessible mythology of “the good life” and its myriad representations over the Christmas season? Is maintaining a semblance of belief worth losing whole generations who find fantastic tales just that: too fantastic to believe, too irrelevant to today?I think not. But I must admit that mine is not a popular perspective in the wider church. Clergy know that if they tamper with the traditions of Christmas, they will lose people. Big time. I know from experience. The fact that those families they lose are very likely those who only show up for Christmas and (maybe) Easter, makes no difference. It is loss. And when year end financial targets are built to include the once-a-year donations of those Christmas patrons, it is calculable.GETTING DOWN UNDER THE STORYLet me share with you a tradition that has grown up at West Hill over the past several years. We frame it as a “celebration of the deepest roots of our tradition”. The scholarship undergirding that statement tells us that the Christmas narratives grew out of the desire of the early church to wrap its stories around traditions that already existed, that were known and celebrated by the people the church hoped would embrace its story. But I imagine that the truth goes even deeper: religious traditions, including our earliest, unrecorded affirmations and acknowledgements, were, themselves, wrapped around our deepest needs. In the midst of winter[i], that need was for a return of the light, of the warmth of the sun, of the promise that they would, once again, revel in warmth and bounty.The first time we celebrated The Longest Night, we also celebrated Christmas Eve. But the former was so popular and beautiful, that it became our sole seasonal celebration the following and every year since. The service draws participants into the fears that lie within our darkest nights. We tell those stories, as true today as they have been throughout history, stories of fear, of accountabilities unpaid. The earth spins outside our control, swirling through a cosmos upon which we have no hold. We gaze at constellations, wonder at the beauty of the heavens, leave footprints in sand and watch them wash away. But we have made our mark upon its face in ways not so easily erased where our power, our lust for life, leaves too deep a stain. We have burned and scraped Earth clear, making room for the planting of our own desires, overpowering whatever future it may have unfolded for itself. Pressing back against what might emerge, we draw lines, prepare plans, plant modifications nature would never have dreamed. And we threaten the future, the seventh generation, one that may not even see the light of day because we serve our own ravenous hungers like addictions we recognize but lack the fortitude to overcome. We consume not only what we have – the here and now – but what might serve tomorrow. We plunder Earth’s future hope. And tonight, we sit within the darkness of the truths we whisper here.[ii] And then we work the magic, calling ourselves and one another to the possibilities that lie within our reach, within our own hearts. We create a sculpture of candlelight as we do so, each member of the gathered community lighting candles as symbols of their commitment to creating peace, hope, joy, and love in the world, to the work of bringing about the beauty in the hope-filled stories we cast before us. Whether we believe we are compelled to love by some outside force or some inner strength, we are responsible for creating that love – the culmination of our highest ideals – through our acts, our voices, our lives. We challenge ourselves to hold those ideals boldly because it is too easy to weave ourselves into a web of our own desires and the cultural expectations that surround us. May that which we once projected onto gods and divine beings – pure, unsullied by our baser needs and wants – may it stir once again in our own hearts – beyond all gods – that we might remember who we are and who we seek to be. Finally, when the sculpture is complete, the candlelight shimmering like lit water in the centre of our space, we take up our responsibilities. The community comes forward, each person accepting both a lit candle and a candlewick bracelet and hearing the words, “You are the light of the world” as the bracelet is slipped over their hand and onto their wrist. Some wear these bracelets throughout the year, replacing the greyed cord with a fresh, bright one only when the next Longest Night circles round.A SHARED FOUNDATIONThe best part of the service is that it lives underneath all the stories we have ever told of this dark night and the events we conspired to merge it with. It supports every telling of that tale. Those who are traditional believers hear the story of a cold and frightened family and the birth of a child who will shine with his own extraordinary light. They slip their bracelet on as a symbol of that light and their commitment to it. Those who have no belief in the Christian story, slip their bracelets on as a symbol of the infinite possibility into which they were born and the reminder that their choices alone weave together the story of their life. The bracelet is a reminder to recommit morning after morning after morning.“Make light!” we say to one another when the final song is sung. “Make light!”After all, isn’t that the best we could ever hope to do with our “one wild and precious life”?[iii] ~ Rev. Gretta Vosper Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best-selling books include With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers. ************************[i] Apologies to our Southern Hemisphere colleagues who spend their Christmases on the beach![ii] Longest Night elements © 2017 gretta vosper, used with permission.[iii] Mary Oliver, A Summer Day | | | | | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: Recently, Arizona’s state school board narrowly defeated the effort of creationist Christians to alter science standards and open the door for a literal interpretation of the Bible being taught alongside evolution. Some of the advisers advocating for creationism were referred to as “Young Earthers” in the news. What exactly does that mean? A: By Rev. David M. Felten Dear Readers,Believe it or not, “Young Earthers” are folks who are convinced that the earth (and all of creation) is only 6,022 years old (as of 2018). How did they arrive at this remarkably specific date?It seems that back in the 17th century, a Renaissance Bishop (James Ussher, 1581-1656) figured that he could use the Bible to calculate the date of creation. Taking note of genealogies, events, and the number of candles on Methuselah’s birthday cake (all of which he took as literally as possible), he counted backwards to arrive at the exact day of creation: October 23rd 4004 BCE. He wasn’t clear on the exact time (or the time zone), but suggested that it was in the morning. Today, a big chunk of American Christians attend churches that claim the Bible is inerrant (without error) and infallible (a safe and reliable source in all matters). I want to believe that most of them don’t actually believe this – considering that they live in the 21st century – but enough of them do believe it to make it a problem for the rest of us.And you’ve got to feel a little sorry for them. Literalists are taught to expect that the Bible does not waiver from objective truth in the matter of history and science – and despite advances in biology, cosmology, archaeology, geology – and evidence in the Bible itself – they continue to double-down on inerrancy. As an outside observer of this phenomenon, it appears that they believe that “real” Christians are somehow spiritually superior for their ability to, despite evidence to the contrary, deny reality. Obviously, this has clear parallels in our current political reality.Here’s the problem: despite the very real and urgent societal issues challenging humanity, many literalists continue to fixate not on solving the world’s problems, but on “proving” the Bible is literally true. They are enabled by theological carnival barkers like Ken Ham, who wastes people’s time and resources on building a full-size ark in Kentucky (complete with dinosaurs to account for and then misrepresent the fossil record) – all to shore up their doubts and insecurities.From Darwin to the Scopes Monkey Trial to today’s efforts to influence school curriculum, literalists have seen themselves as pious warriors engaged in a pitched winner-take-all, us-vs-them battle with science. Many perceive science as an enemy to be defeated at all costs (unless they get sick and want 21st century medical science at their disposal).To overthrow the enemy, they try to impose their narrow-minded worldview on their neighbors – through challenges to science-based curriculum, sowing doubt about the reality of climate change, and generally promoting an anti-science agenda. If their cockamamie ideas only affected them, then no problem. But trying to sneak fundamentalist ideas into my children’s science curriculum? Them’s fightin’ words! To top it off, their efforts stand to do lasting damage to the United States’ intellectual reputation, our standing in a global economy, and a decreased likelihood that the world will take us seriously as participants in a future grounded in science.So, put Young Earthers in the same category with Flat Earthers, Vaxers, and those who believe the moon landing was faked: all of them people who, for their own reasons, have decided to live in a world disconnected from evidence-based reality. It would be funny if it weren’t for their attempts to try and impose their antiquated worldview on everyone else.~ Rev. David M. FeltenPS: I encourage you to visit the website of the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter to see just how far these people will go to try and prove their point and get out of the hard work of following Jesus. My advice? Don’t give in! But be kind. Evidently, they don’t seem to know any better and don’t have anyone who loves them enough (or whom they trust enough) to get them caught up on the last two hundred years of science and theology. Click here to read and share onlineAbout the Author Rev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”.A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David and his wife Laura have three children. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Understanding Religious Anger Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on August 22, 2006 One of the things that always surprises me is the level of anger, often expressed in acts of overt rudeness, which seems to mark religious people. It appears so often that I have almost come to expect it, or at the very least not to be surprised by it. A recent episode simply made the connection between religion and anger newly indelible in my consciousness.It occurred last spring when I attended, at their invitation, the graduation ceremonies of a well-known university. Indeed, I was to receive an honorary degree. There was much conviviality connected with this event. We were entertained royally by the president of the university and his wife. We saw former classmates. Families gathered to share this transitional moment with a graduating son or daughter. It seemed to be a very pleasant occasion.When the procession formed to begin the ceremonial walk into the arena, there was a panoply of color marking the assembly. The black caps and gowns of academia were bedecked with bright and varied hoods, representing the doctorates earned by the members of the faculty and reflecting the school colors of the awarding universities. Harvard’s crimson was immediately identifiable, as well as the unique form of the doctoral hoods from the storied universities of Cambridge and Oxford. My place in this lineup was in the company of some of the university’s deans. While we waited for the signal to begin the procession, I introduced myself to my nearest companions. They were all cordial until I introduced myself to the Dean of the Medical School. It was not a time for small talk for this man. He could not have possibly known that he and I would be together in the procession, so what followed was clearly spontaneous and unplanned. He obviously had strong feelings about me and could not miss this exquisite opportunity to give expression to them. I had never met this man before this moment, but my expectation was that one whose career in medicine had been so successful that he had become the dean of a major medical school would have a broad perspective on life. I was wrong. He was bitter and small-minded, caught more in his narrow religious agenda than in his academic excellence. We had barely unlocked hands in our introductory handshake when he said,“I wish I did not feel this way but I think what you have done to the Church is both reprehensible and destructive. I regret that this university has decided to honor you today.” I was taken aback not by the content of his remarks, since I have dealt with threatened religious people many times before, but by the inappropriateness of his comments. This was neither the time nor the place for this tirade. I was after all an invited guest in his world. Yet, he simply could not contain his feelings. I tried to parry his comments by saying something like: “I’m sorry we don’t have time to discuss this here, but you must realize that the world has undergone a vast intellectual revolution in the last 500-600 years and if the Church is to stay in dialogue with that world then the Church must also change. However, this Dean was in no mood to let go; he had the bit between his teeth. “You totally ignore the truth of those first 1,300 years of Christian history,” he retorted, his anger still rising. “Would you want to practice medicine in today’s world equipped only with the medical knowledge available in the first 1300 years of Christian history?” I enquired. At that moment the conversation ended because the music started, the stately procession began its journey into the stadium where literally thousands were gathered.As we walked in silence I could not help but wonder at the rudeness of this Dean, who had so great a need to express his anger that he violated the good manners of his university. I learned later that this doctor was part of a conservative Christian congregation. Somehow, religious convictions seem to give people permission to be rude.A similar incident occurred in the summer of 2005, when I was the guest lecturer at the Highlands Institute for American and Philosophical Thought in Western North Carolina. I had been there for the past three summers, and had always met with a warm and positive reception. However, on this particular night, a local fundamentalist decided to achieve his fifteen minutes of fame. About midway in the lecture, this man stood up and drew sufficient attention to himself that I stopped speaking and enquired if there was something wrong. “I’m feeling sick,” this gentleman replied. So I responded, “There is nothing I’m saying tonight that is more important than your health, so let me pause until you get whatever help you need.” “You don’t understand,” he retorted, “I’m sick of you.” Somehow this man felt that his religious convictions justified his interruption of a lecture attended by more than 250 people. It never occurred to him that this behavior was rude to me, rude to the audience and that it reflected little more than his own anger. I learned later that he was a member of the Community Bible Church and that he had been encouraged to take this action by fellow members of his fundamentalist church. Once again if one is acting ‘in the name of God,’ both anger and rudeness are apparently justified.Those two experiences set me to thinking about the relationship between religion and anger. It is far closer than most people seem to realize. Sometimes the sweet piety of religion serves to hide anger even from the awareness of the angry one, though it is obvious to everyone else. Is it anything but anger when religious people describe what is in store for those who do not believe their way? Is the threat of hell, which is spoken so freely in religious circles, not a projection onto God of the anger inside the one consigning another to a place of eternal torment? Is there much difference between a person saying in hostility: “Go to hell!” and a preacher threatening a congregation with that same destiny? When one looks at the history of religious persecution, which has included such things as excommunication, torture, and the burning of heretics at the stake, there is ample evidence of hostility associated with Christianity. When one adds to that the Crusades designed ‘to kill the infidels,’ a history of anti-Semitism, and the wars between Catholics and Protestants, the picture of religion as a source of anger in human society, victimizing people in every generation, becomes clear.In moments of social upheaval, religious anger becomes very apparent. Most of the anger that was displayed during the movement to emancipate women came from the Christian Church. Most of the anger displayed in the current struggle over justice for gay and lesbian people emanates from the Christian Church.It is very hard to deny that underneath the sounds of religious conviction, there is a boiling cauldron of anger that seems to be an unrecognized part of the religious experience. Step one, therefore, is to recognize it. Step two is to understand it. Religious anger seems to manifest itself first and most stridently in those religious traditions that claim to possess absolute certainty. It is only when one believes that one possesses the whole truth of God that one finds the need to persecute those who do not accept your version of truth. What that behavior reveals is that the frightened human psyche needs the certainty of religion, no matter how narrowly defined, in order to feel secure. Christianity has developed many security-giving idols inside its traditional formulations, infallible popes and inerrant scriptures being two of them. How rational, for example, is it for anyone to say: “Since my God is the true God and your God is, therefore, a false God, I have the right to hate you, to persecute you or even to kill you?” Yet all of these expressions of anger are found inside the Christian Church.The second thing that religious anger reveals to me is that organized religion feeds the expression of self-hatred in its people. There is certainly much self-negativity in traditional Christianity with its doctrines of ‘the Fall,’ its emphasis on the depravity of human life, the need to be rescued, and the guilt-producing idea that “Jesus died for my sins.” The liturgies of Christian churches are constantly calling their worshipers such things as ‘a wretch,’ ‘a worm,’ ‘one unworthy to gather up the crumbs under the divine table,’ all interspersed with the plea to God to ‘have mercy, have mercy, have mercy.’ Are these not expressions of self-directed religious anger?If one absorbs negativity from any source long enough, one cannot help but become negative. When one is denigrated in worship over a sustained period of time, one inevitably projects this denigration onto others as anger. It is necessary for survival.Does this not help us to understand why prejudice is greater among religious people than among non-religious people; why slavery, segregation and other overt forms of racism have been the pattern of that region of our country that we call ‘the Bible Belt;’ and why the ‘Religious Right’ even today is more supportive of war as an instrument of national policy than any other segment of our national population? Each of these attitudes reflects religiously justified violence.Has religion in general and Christianity in particular degenerated to the level that it has become little more than a veil under which anger can be legitimatized? What happened to that biblical proclamation that the disciples of Jesus are to be known by their love? How does religious anger fit in with the Fourth Gospel’s interpretation of Jesus’ purpose to be that of bringing life more abundantly?Perhaps the time has come to recognize that Christianity was never meant to be about religion; it is to be about life. The achievement of personal security is the goal of religion. The ability to live with integrity in the midst of the insecurity of life is the goal of Christianity. Religion seeks to control life with guilt. Christianity seeks to free people to be all that they can be. There is a vast difference. Perhaps it will take the death of religion to open us once again to the meaning of Christianity, even ‘Religionless Christianity.’ For the purpose of Jesus was not to make us religious but to make us fully human.~ 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 | | | A Universal Christmas Join us this December to take delight in the deeper meanings and wonders of Christmas. In eleven emails, sent to you on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you will receive: * Thomas Moore’s reflections on Christmas from an inclusive and soulful point of view. * Ideas for discussion and practice. * Access to a Practice Circle, a forum open 24/7 for you to share with and learn from our worldwide e-course community. This online e-course will be guided by Thomas Moore from December 3rd through January 7th. Click here for more information ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Website Archive Collection Framework
by Karen Snyder (via Google Docs) 28 Nov '18

28 Nov '18

I've shared an item with you: Website Archive Collection Framework https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w3oQkQQEY_cSwsG-61h1unccKcRk8nVejb9azda… It's not an attachment -- it's stored online. To open this item, just click the link above. Greetings from the ICA Global Archives Team, We are focused on re-creating the Global Archives Website to be launched March 2019. Archival material is now organized in nine collections under three pillars called the Archives Website Collection Framework. We now invite your feedback and input: Please comment on this framework. Click on the blue button below to see the brainstorm of items within each collection. Email us stories that were life-changing for you or, that you saw transformed the lives of others. You may have effective models, documents that still communicate ‘how tos’ that could be learned from. Rather than sending boxes of materials, we know that many of you now have the capacity to scan documents into PDF files. This is the best way to send info you wish to share. Snail mail still works, but is not as efficient relative to ensuring the information is transferred to the website. Email stories and PDF documents to Jean Long (jean.long512(a)gmail.com) who will forward to the appropriate collection. We hope to hear from you soon so that you can be a part of the Website launch this coming March. Peace, The Archives Team

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11/22/18, Progressing Spirit: Felton/Spong: A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong: Part 3 “On Conservatives, Liberals, and the Way Forward”
by Ellie Stock 22 Nov '18

22 Nov '18

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.yiv1765969432mcnImageGroupBlockOuter{ padding-top:9px !important;padding-bottom:9px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent, #yiv1765969432 .yiv1765969432mcnBoxedTextContentColumn{ padding-right:18px !important;padding-left:18px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 .yiv1765969432mcnImageCardLeftImageContent, #yiv1765969432 .yiv1765969432mcnImageCardRightImageContent{ padding-right:18px !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;padding-left:18px !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 .yiv1765969432mcpreview-image-uploader{ display:none !important;width:100% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 h1{ font-size:22px !important;line-height:125% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 h2{ font-size:20px !important;line-height:125% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 h3{ font-size:18px !important;line-height:125% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 h4{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 .yiv1765969432mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent, #yiv1765969432 .yiv1765969432mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 #yiv1765969432templatePreheader{ display:block !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 #yiv1765969432templatePreheader .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent, #yiv1765969432 #yiv1765969432templatePreheader .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 #yiv1765969432templateHeader .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent, #yiv1765969432 #yiv1765969432templateHeader .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 #yiv1765969432templateBody .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent, #yiv1765969432 #yiv1765969432templateBody .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1765969432 #yiv1765969432templateFooter .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent, #yiv1765969432 #yiv1765969432templateFooter .yiv1765969432mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } The following is taken from an interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong on September 18th, 2018. Recorded at his home in Richmond, Virginia. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong: Part 3 “On Conservatives, Liberals, and the Way Forward” Column by Rev. David M. Felten November 22, 2018 The following is taken from an interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong on September 18th, 2018. Recorded at his home in Richmond, Virginia, it has been edited for length and thematic focus. David Felten: You’ve talked about how hard it is for people to grasp what is meant when we’re talking about atheism or non-theism. There’s another word that a lot of people aren’t completely happy with but it’s the one we’ve kind of been shackled with. Is there a word other than “progressive” we can use – another approach? Jack Spong: Yeah. Progressive. That’s like talking about liberal and conservative. There is no such things as a liberal scholar or a conservative scholar. There is a scholar. You take the scholarship and it goes wherever scholarship leads. Then you can relate to those conclusions in a liberal way or a conservative way, but you don’t have liberal or conservative scholarship. I did a radio interview with Jerry Falwell one time and he was introduced as a conservative biblical scholar. He wasn’t a conservative biblical scholar, he was an illiterate biblical scholar, but for me to say that about Jerry would not have been appreciated because it would not have been considered nice. Jerry’s long dead and he’s probably a lot wiser today than he used to be. I always thought he was a “good ol’ boy.” He wasn’t an evil man, he was just an illiterate man and a good showman. At Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg he put on a show every week and it was really wonderful to watch. He’d have the chaplain of Bourbon Street come and talk and he’d have somebody wrestle with a bear. It was a big show every week and he packed that place. The Lynchburg paper built him up because he was a conservative pastor. When I was in Lynchburg with him, he was really a racist. He started Liberty Baptist College as a segregation academy. It’s not a segregation academy anymore. He tried to grow on the gay issue, but he could not quite make it. A ghost writer wrote his autobiography… David Felten: Mel White. Jack Spong: Yes. Jerry hired Mel to write his autobiography because Jerry’s not a writer. While he was getting the data to write the book, Mel shadowed Jerry very closely for a year or two years, maybe three years. Then the book came out and Mel came out the same week! Jerry suddenly realized that he’d been in pretty close association with a gay person for years. Mel tried to get him to agree to talk with a born again Christian gay person, but Jerry didn’t believe there was such a thing. You know, “You can’t be a born again Christian and a gay person at the same time.” But Mel got a bunch of these gay Christians to come down to Lynchburg and Jerry agreed to have dinner with them and to talk with them. I think it was about the year 2000 and there was a religious right presidential candidate running in the primary, along with George Bush… David Felten: Gary Bauer? Jack Spong: Yeah. Gary Bauer. He began to put pressure on Jerry not to have dinner with those born again gay people. So, Jerry had a conversion experience, went to Mel White and said, “Well, I’ve given my word that I’d meet with them and I will. But I can’t eat with them because the Bible says you don’t eat with sinners.” And we said, “Well, who do you eat with then, Jerry? Do you ever eat alone? Are you able to do that?” — just to show the irrationality of that sort of thing. Well, I think Jerry was trying to grow in all of those areas. I liked him. I didn’t care for Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson was devious. He was a law school graduate; he was not dumb. He was the son of a Virginia senator. The senator was retired to private life by my first cousin in 1966, an interesting period of time in history. Jerry was just a good ol’ boy, and that’s all he was. Interestingly, his son is a University of Virginia Law School graduate and is now president of Liberty University. He’s conservative and applauding Trump all the time. But, he’s a jump ahead of where Jerry was and he is going to have children who are a jump ahead of where he now is. David Felten: And by “jump ahead” you mean? Jack Spong: More liberal. Jerry Falwell, Jr. couldn’t go to the University of Virginia’s law school without having some brains. That’s a good law school. But he’s caught in the world he’s living in. David Felten: Growing up, you were caught in a very particular world yourself. You’ve overcome so much of your conventional religious “programming.” Jack Spong: My earliest religious experiences were where I would bargain with God. I was age 12 and didn’t have a father. I had a “Heavenly Father” – and I bargained with God because if I did so-and-so, God would let the Charlotte Hornets win their baseball game that night. So, I really played this game all the way through then. David Felten: How did that work out? Jack Spong: Not so well. Yeah, not so well! I also remember when my father died – he died when I was 12 and I didn’t really know him, although I remember he didn’t have much use for church. But when he died the people from church came to me and said, “Your father is so lucky because now he’s gone to be with God.” But before he died those same people were saying my father’s never going to be with God because he did everything the church said you shouldn’t do: he drank too much, he played cards, he did all sorts of “evil” things. That’s part of my upbringing and where I began to move away from institutional Christianity. You can’t live by the way the church taught at that time. You just can’t do that. David Felten: In your Twelve Theses and your latest book, Unbelievable you’ve outlined a number of ways the church needs to “jump ahead.” If you had to make one thing a priority moving forward, what would it be? Jack Spong: I don’t know. I don’t know that you can chart it that way. I think you have to speak to the priority that is emerging because you are in the world and you can’t predict what issue will come up. I could be blatantly political and say, “If the Christian church doesn’t engage Donald Trump and his amoral behavior, there’s not going to be much left for us to do after he gets through.” But how do you engage Donald Trump? You’ve got do it with a strong person and that person’s going to get clobbered. He or she has not yet appeared. It’s not that Trump is conservative. We’ve had some great conservative leaders in our nation. Ronald Reagan didn’t hurt this nation. He was a strong leader, but he was a strong leader from a conservative point of view. Donald Trump is a strong leader from an amoral point of view – and he doesn’t know anything that isn’t in his own self-interest. That worries me a great deal. I don’t know how we’ll get through four years of this man. It’s strange listening to the news and it’s easy for me to understand why Trump thinks the media is all corrupt: the media is constantly bringing to the attention of the people of this nation what an inadequate person this man is in this office. I don’t know how he gets away with what he gets away with. He’s got five or six members of his administration already indicted and he keeps saying it’s a witch hunt. He is also an unindicted co-conspirator according to his former lawyer.. David Felten: It’s a hoax. Jack Spong: Yeah, it can’t be a witch hunt if you’ve indicted five or six people. We’ve got to live through some tough times and I don’t see anybody speaking truth to power today. I look to Republicans in congress to speak truth to power and they don’t. They leave – the senator from Tennessee, the senator from Arizona – they leave rather than take him on. And that’s sad. The Democrats are not much better. David Felten: What are some of the big questions you’re living with these days? Jack Spong: Well, I like the title “Living the Questions” (which you’ve made famous) because I think that’s what the church ought to be doing. We’ve portrayed ourselves as the institution that has all the answers, and that’s just not so. We have the questions and have to articulate those questions with honesty. David Felten: How about life in general? Jack Spong: In my present life, I have a sense of real contentment. I’ve done everything in my life that I wanted to do. I’ve loved being a priest and being a bishop – and I’ve loved being the kind of priest and bishop I was. I love the fact that I had 16 years since I retired and before I had the stroke, to be a very active person doing my thing, carrying my message, writing books, doing my weekly column. I don’t know why I would have any regrets. I don’t know if I’ll be alive a year from now. In a great sense it doesn’t really matter. What difference is a year or a year-and-a-half or two years going to make to the world? Not much. But I don’t have any regrets and don’t want to change anything. I will have some regrets: I’ll regret losing Chris. She is a fascinating woman. She’s been so deeply a part of my life that I don’t know who I am without her. She’ll get along fine: she’s the most competent woman I know. It is now easy living for us. We’re in a condominium and buying prepared meals – sort of one step closer to a retirement home. I told my doctors that if they couldn’t keep me alive for one year, it was not worth the move because moving is really a difficult thing to go through. But if I keep alive for a year I’ll be happy. And if I get two years, I’ll be happier. But I don’t feel anxious about it. It’s fun to be in my old church, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. I hadn’t been to that church for 42 years. Can you imagine what it’s like to leave a church and come back to it 42 years later? The only people I know are elderly. Most of the people I don’t know at all. There’s a vigorous spirit there and I’m enjoying just simply being a member in the pew. I don’t force my opinions on anybody else. I’ve been here enough so they have a real sense of who I am and they’ve read my books. It is a joyful experience to be there on Sunday morning. I’m not trying to create anything there. I’m not concerned with creating a church in my own image. David Felten: …enjoying the privilege of just being there. Jack Spong: Yeah, just being. I hope I won’t be a problem to the next rector. If I am, I’ll have to leave. But I also loved being a member of St. Peter’s in Morristown, and I loved my rector there very much – and that’s all been a retirement experience. It’s been fun. David Felten: Well, you’ve been extremely accommodating and I appreciate you sharing so much. Jack Spong: I appreciate you, David, more than you know. You and Jeff Procter-Murphy have done for the Methodist church what I think I’ve been doing for the Episcopal church. David Felten: They haven’t made the mistake of making one of us a bishop though! Jack Spong: Well, one of my predecessors at St. Paul’s was Walter Russell Bowie, who taught at Union in New York for years and was rector of Grace Church in New York. He was elected bishop of Pennsylvania and turned it down. He had great sense to do that. He said being a bishop is a staff job and you have to leave the ministry to do it. If I hadn’t turned being bishop into a teaching role, I think I would have gone crazy. But it’s not a very happy job. I’d much rather be a rector of a parish and be with people in trouble, sorrow, need or sickness and any other adversity and watch the cycles go. I had a wonderful time at St. Paul’s. David Felten: Any closing advice as we finish up? Jack Spong: I would say that you have got to spend your time relating to the issues of your world – and I don’t know what they’re going to be. But if you can’t make the Christian church speak to the issues of the world, then it will quickly become irrelevant. David Felten: That kind of advice makes a lot of clergy nervous. Jack Spong: Well, that’s not a comfortable role to be in. I think most clergy seek comfort and it’s a rare group – maybe a minority, maybe 1% of the clergy – who see the way things are and are not content to just ask, “Why?” They dream of things that never were and ask, “Why not?” That puts you in a different mode. You have to be willing to be a change agent. But if you’re nothing but a change agent, after a while you wear out your congregation. They get tired of changing. But that’s the key, you’ve got to have that element in there. I would hope that the clergy would stay informed professionally and I think that means knowing the Bible. That sounds so strange but I go to church and I hear people say, “Our second lesson this morning comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.” Well. I immediately say, “But Paul didn’t write it! He had been dead ten years before Ephesians was written!” That is such a simple thing and there is no reason why we can’t be on top of that little detail. David Felten: Yeah, but those little details are intimidating to some folks. Added together, they may leave people with no other choice than having to change their understanding of the Bible. Jack Spong: Bible study is able to do that. I don’t see why people ever thought that the Christian stories were anything but myths. They didn’t develop for decades. You don’t have a star in the sky that sends off a message of a child being born, a star that moves, that has a GPS system that allows camels to follow it to the promised land. Or wise men hanging out in the wilderness because they know the Messiah is going to be born so they keep a good supply of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and a couple of camels around the place. It’s amazing to me that anybody ever thought that was anything other than a myth – it’s a glorious myth – but it’s a myth. And I think we ought to say that. Most people don’t believe in the virgin birth, either, but they don’t know what to do with it because it’s been crammed down their throats. It is the same thing with resurrection. We’ve confused resurrection with resuscitation and we’ve got people convinced that if they don’t believe in the resuscitation of Jesus they can’t be Christians. That’s absurd. Resurrection does not mean resuscitation. It’s a whole new word. That should be just elementary stuff for the Christian pastor. David Felten: It sounds like you’re touching on one of my soapbox issues: the expectation that pastors be honest. Jack Spong: Well, yeah, that’s right. An honest person would never present the virgin birth story as anything but a myth. It just doesn’t make sense any other way. The resurrection – the body of Jesus – doesn’t appear until Matthew’s gospel, that’s in the year 90. It’s resuscitation by that time and that’s what we’ve got people believing. Well, they misread Paul. Paul says, “If Christ be not raised, we are of all people most to be pitied.” I think that’s true, but it’s not resuscitation that he’s talking about. What is the role of miracles? There are no miracles in Paul and miracles don’t appear until Mark. Paul never knew Jesus as a miracle worker. You’ve got to go back to the Jewish root to see them. Did Judas exist? No, I don’t think he did. Every detail of the Judas story is a detail of an Old Testament “traitor story” applied to Judas. To name the traitor Judas (which is simply the Greek spelling of Judah) is just too clever. Then people say, “Well, why did Jesus die?” I think he was a radical that they executed to get rid of him. I think that’s what happens to most radicals. I feel very lucky to have survived. David Felten: I think you’re hitting on your favorite themes here with Judas having been a fictional character and Paul perhaps having– Jack Spong: …been a homosexual. David Felten: Yes! There’s a play-list of sensational Jack Spong ideas that, when people know your name even beyond the church, they say, “Oh yeah, he’s the one.” Jack Spong: That’s right. That’s right. It was a wonderful career… David Felten: Thank you so much. Jack Spong: …and thanks for coming by to spend some time with an old man. I hope you can make something out of that. ~ Rev. David M. Felten Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author Rev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”. A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David and his wife Laura have three children. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Dear Friends, Your letters come in such numbers that if I responded to each one I would need a full time staff. I can assure you that every one of them is read and I try to pick the most interesting ones for publication. Using only one each week, however, means that inevitably most of your questions do not get the response that they deserve. For that reason, periodically, I devote a whole column to a series of your letters and their questions. I am doing that this week. The range of these questions is amazing. They go from trying to unload the hostility that has been associated with a particular biblical text, to a question about Mary Magdalene, to a quotation from the late Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, to a question on sexuality. I thank all of you for your letters and hope that this column will continue to elicit them from you. Enjoy the “dog days of summer.” ~ John Shelby Spong (Originally Published August 16, 2006) Questions Garnet and Douglas, Unity Ministers from Little Rock, Arkansas, write: “We know that it is generally known that Mark 16:9 to the end of that final chapter was a much later addition to Mark’s Gospel. Since the statement, ‘Go in to all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation’ is in that added segment and is USED as the excuse to ‘go into all the world and push certain religions on people.’ I am interested to know if there are any clues as to ‘who’ created this idea, when, and what was their real purpose?” Dear Garnet and Douglas, The quotation you cite is from one of two proposed endings that were attached to Mark in the early years of the second century. In the King James Version of the Bible they are still included in the text. In both the Revised Standard Version and in the New Revised Standard Version, these additions are either separate from the text or footnoted to inform the reader that they are not part of the earliest Marcan documents that we possess. The verse you cite (Mark 16:15) is thus not regarded as authentic Marcan material. A close reading of these added verses makes it clear that a later editor was attempting to harmonize Mark with several of the later gospel accounts. The original “Go into all the world” text is found originally in the second resurrection story told by Matthew (Matthew 28: 16-20) so the person who wrote this new ending to Mark took it from there. Matthew’s version has come to be called “The Great Commission” or “The Divine Commission.” Since Matthew is the originator of this phrase, to answer your question we need to understand what it meant to Matthew. There is no doubt that these texts have been used throughout history to justify missionary and conversion activities that are less than edifying, to say nothing about being out of touch with the spirit of Jesus. Matthew was the most Jewish of all the gospel writers. It is terribly important to him to show the Jewishness of Jesus. That is why he opens his narrative with a genealogy of Jesus that grounds Jesus’ very DNA in the line from Abraham to King David, to the Exile and finally through Joseph to Jesus. That is also why Matthew wraps Jesus in the Scriptures of the Hebrew people. “This was done that it might be fulfilled that was spoken by the prophet,” is a regular refrain in Matthew’s gospel. This is also why even the Wise Men in Matthew’s gospel are forced to consult the Jewish Scriptures before they know that the new King of the Jews is to be born in Bethlehem. However, this intensely Jewish Jesus is wrapped in an interpretive envelope that Matthew uses to show that although Jesus arose from the Jews and fulfilled the expectations of the Jews, his ultimate purpose was to bind the human community into one community in which there were no barriers of tribe, race, or national identity. The first part of that envelope is the story of the Star of Bethlehem. Matthew, following a long time Jewish practice, says that a star announced the birth of Jesus. The unique thing about the star is that it shines not just on the land of the Jews but is seen across the world. That star draws the world, in the persons of the Magi, into the worship of this Jewish Jesus. Jesus called all people to step beyond their boundaries into a universal humanity. This vision also fulfilled the original call of the Jews. They were not the Chosen people as a sign of privilege, they were chosen to be the people through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Matthew proceeds to tell the story of Jesus from his baptism to his crucifixion and resurrection. In this narrative, the barriers that divide human beings fall before Jesus. A new humanity bound together only by love is portrayed. The Jesus invitation is, “Come unto me all ye,” not, “some of ye.” A barrier separating anyone from the God met in Jesus would destroy all that Jesus stood for. So Matthew comes to the very end, the last five verses of his gospel in which the first and only time he has the risen Christ speak. His message is simple, “Go into all the world!” Go to those who are different, who you previously have called gentiles, unclean, uncircumcised and proclaim to them the message of the universal love of God. Tell them about God’s love that transcends all human barriers and all human limitations. That is still the purpose of the Christian Church – to proclaim the love of God for all that God has made. Only when Christianity identified its message with particular beliefs about God and Jesus that needed to be imposed on others in order to be saved do we get the kind of missionary imperative about which you speak in your question. That attitude is about as far away from Jesus’ original meaning as one can get. You cannot love a person when you say to them, “My religion is better than yours so I intend to impose my religion on you.” You cannot proclaim the love of God if you approach someone under the stance, “I’m OK, you’re not OK. And you will not be OK until you are just like me!” Unfortunately, that is what so much of the missionary activity of the Church has tended to do. Henrietta writes: “I am currently reading a book about Mary Magdalene written by Bruce Chilton that has a map in the beginning of the book that clearly shows a town of Magdala that is in Galilee. He states that Mary Magdala is from that village of about 3000 people. It is an extremely interesting book. Can you please explain your reason for not believing in a village of Magdala? (you might find a lot of food for thought in this book as well.) Thank you.” Dear Henrietta, Bruce Chilton is a good friend and admired colleague. He has accepted common wisdom and common maps on the subject of Magdala. There is no evidence that there was ever such a place but because Magdalene was interpreted to be Magdala, efforts have been made to find a town that might have been called by a different name. Dalmanutha is the favorite candidate. Truth was not served in that enterprise but the tourist industry was. I wonder why people would not have said Mary of Magdala in the New Testament if ‘Magdalene’ meant her place of origin. They knew how to say Jesus of Nazareth, Paul of Tarsus, and Peter of Bethsaida. Why not say, Mary of Magdala? They did not, I am convinced, because that was not what Magdalene meant. Only two names have words attached to them in the New Testament that are written as if those words are part of their names. They are Judas Iscariot and Mary Magdalene. Once people argued that “Iscariot” meant that Judas came from the village of Kerioth and that Magdalene meant Mary came from the village of Magdala. I do not believe that either claim can be substantiated. So I think Bruce is wrong – so are most of the sources I looked at on the Internet that struggle to identify the location of the mythical Magdala. To pretend that Magdalene means she hails from Magdala hides something of the true meaning of Mary Magdalene that I think comes from the Hebrew word, Migdal, which originally meant a large tower which shepherds climbed to keep watch over their sheep. In time the word came to mean large in the sense of being great. I think the attaching of Magdalene to Mary was an affectionate way the early disciples referred to her and it meant ‘Mary the great’ or the great Mary. Her place in the early Christian movement was far higher than that assigned to her by the later church that invented the idea that she was a prostitute. Thankfully we are just now beginning to recover something of her original stature. Bill from Norfolk, VA, asks: “Would you please comment on the late Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen’s comment that, ‘Since God is just, I believe there is a hell; since God is merciful, I believe there is no one in it’.” Dear Bill, Fulton Sheen was expressing his hope in such a way so as not to contradict the teaching authority of his Church. It was a good compromise. Yet the idea that either hell or heaven is a place to which people go is a part of the human experience of limited language. We are beings, God is Being itself but in human language we conceptualize God as a Being, for that is all we understand. We are creatures bound by time and place and so we describe life beyond this life in terms of linear, spatial concepts. We have no other language. The problem arises when we assume our language is literally true. It isn’t. If God is life then heaven is life in God, Hell is life apart from God. It is about relationships not about space. Is anyone apart from God? That is not for me to say. Do we have the capacity to say a final and ultimate “No” to God? I suppose that is theoretically possible. The Church has always used both heaven and hell as promise and threat in the task of behavior control. Bishop Sheen’s answer comes out of that mindset. I find those categories meaningless. If we would stop worrying about other people and concentrate on our own relationship with God and others, we would have a better world. S. M. Cornwall of Exeter, England, writes: “In your recent talk in Exeter, the implication seemed to be that homosexuality is either a chosen path (and thus undesirable/reprehensible) or unchosen (and thus not reprehensible). Is it not possible that, for some individuals, homosexuality is chosen but not thereby inherently reprehensible? To say otherwise risks the implication that homosexuals are only homosexual because they have no choice and that if they had a choice, they would probably choose heterosexuality. ‘Nature’ as a category is highly problematic but there do appear other ‘unchosen’ human impulses (e.g. exploitative sexual activity), which are still not viewed as ‘desirable.’ Dear S. M. Cornwall, It seems to me that your letter misunderstands two things. First, if sexual orientation is a given then it cannot be something judged as evil simply because it is a minority expression of our humanity. Homosexuality/heterosexuality is like skin color, racial characteristics and lefthandedness/righthandedness. It is a given in life, something to be accepted as that which is. It is true that the boundary between the genders in all of nature is not near as severe as we once thought it was but none of that is now seen as unnatural or abnormal. When you then move on to exploitative sexual behavior or, as some have argued to an innate propensity for alcoholism that they suggest is also “unchosen,” you have introduced a whole new element and confused the discussion. Exploitative sexual behavior and alcoholism both have a victim. Someone’s humanity is diminished by this behavior including certainly the humanity of the sexual exploiter or the alcoholic. Homosexuality surely can be acted out in such a way as to produce a victim but it may also be acted out in such a way as to enhance life for both partners. What we forget in our prejudice is that the same thing can be said for heterosexuality. Both sexual orientations are morally neutral. Both can be expressed in moral and in immoral ways. It is harder to do that when society condemns one that is the minority orientation and says that no expression of that orientation is ever good. No exploitative behavior is ever desirable. No self-destructive behavior is ever desirable. Sexual orientation is not, per se, exploitative. That is a difference not to be confused. ~ John Shelby Spong Click here to read and share online | | | | | | | | Announcements 4 Ways to Compassion in the City this Holiday Season Spirituality & Practice's Online Course is from November 26th to December 23rd. Wen we are able to find our inner peace, and then reach out to others with kindness and appreciation, this holiday season in the city can become something truly nourishing. Click here for more information/registration... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Islander Club, Enid
by Terry Bergdall 15 Nov '18

15 Nov '18

Many on this list have first-hand experience in the Marshall Islands while others have heard countless stories. Therefore, I thought some might be interested in this story from my hometown, Enid, Oklahoma. It has become a major immigrant destination for Marshallese in the US. Who'd a guessed? Certainly not me! Terry Bergdall

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11/15/18, Progressing Spirit: Felton and Spong: A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong: Part 2 “On Revolutions and Relationships”
by Ellie Stock 15 Nov '18

15 Nov '18

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!important;line-height:125% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9354090223 h4{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9354090223 .yiv9354090223mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent, #yiv9354090223 .yiv9354090223mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9354090223 #yiv9354090223templatePreheader{ display:block !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9354090223 #yiv9354090223templatePreheader .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent, #yiv9354090223 #yiv9354090223templatePreheader .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9354090223 #yiv9354090223templateHeader .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent, #yiv9354090223 #yiv9354090223templateHeader .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9354090223 #yiv9354090223templateBody .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent, #yiv9354090223 #yiv9354090223templateBody .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9354090223 #yiv9354090223templateFooter .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent, #yiv9354090223 #yiv9354090223templateFooter .yiv9354090223mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } The following is taken from an interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong on September 18th, 2018. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong: Part 2 “On Revolutions and Relationships” Column by Rev. David M. Felten February 21, 2018The following is taken from an interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong on September 18th, 2018. Recorded at his home in Richmond, Virginia, it has been edited for length and thematic focus.David Felten: Despite conflict and resistance, you’ve managed to help “move the needle” on a number of issues over the course of your career. Where do you think you’ve had the biggest impact?Jack Spong: Well, I think they’re all the same issue, but with different manifestations. The first one was race. We are ethnic people and the first thing we had to do was to get beyond racial identity.I grew up in the South in a very segregated world. I didn’t know how racist I was, but I was always uncomfortable with it. I remember when I was about three years old, my father hired two men to help him build a brick wall in the side yard. He told me I could help them and I looked forward to that. When the day came, the two men arrived, and they were both Negroes. Black men. One was an older black man, and one was a younger black man, his helper. During the course of that morning, as I was helping, this older black man said something to me. I don’t remember what it was. And I responded the way I’d been taught to respond to my elders: I said, “Yes, sir.” Or, “No, sir.” I don’t remember which.My father stopped what he was doing, hauled me physically into the house, sat me down and told me, “You do not say ‘sir’ to a Negro.” That was in the 1930s. I didn’t know what that meant. My father taught me to say “sir” to my elders. This man was my elder. I didn’t understand. There was truly something in that mix that I didn’t understand. And I did what people usually do: I filed it. And I thought to myself, “My father’s wrong.”That’s not a radical thing. Every child, by the time he’s 13, thinks his father is hopeless and wrong in everything.David Felten: But at age three, that’s pretty perceptive.Jack Spong: Something about that was just negative to me.Then I went to school. I didn’t know I went to segregated schools. It didn’t occur to me there were no black children there. But I had an experience when I was in about the fifth grade where I went over to another school in Charlotte. It was a black school with black teachers and a black principal. I just sat there with my eyes wide open: “Blacks do go to school. They just don’t go to my school.”I remember that we were in an assembly. We were honored guests of this black school. I think the principal who took us over there was pretty courageous. It was 1942 and the race question wasn’t raised in the South. They sat all of us honored guests on the stage and in the course of that morning, they went through their ritual: they sang the National Anthem, they said the Pledge to the flag, and they said The Lord’s Prayer together.Well, I knew all those things. But, so did all those black children. They prayed the same prayer I prayed to the same Lord. But we didn’t pray it together. I wondered why that was. It just didn’t make sense to me. And again, I didn’t know what to do with that, because I was about 10 years old.Later – when I was 15, 17, 18 – I was active in the Young People of the Diocese of North Carolina. I got to be elected President of the Young People and went to a church convention. There I met another person who told me he was the President of the Young People of North Carolina, the Episcopalians of North Carolina. I said, “How could that be? I was elected President.” But he was black – and that’s the first time I knew we had two systems, a black Young People and a white Young People. His name is Perry Leazer. He’s still a friend of mine.I went to my Bishop and said, “I think we ought to have a meeting, an annual convention (which they had every year of all the white Young People). But why don’t we invite Perry Leazer and the black Young People? (we called them ‘colored’ Young People at that point). And the Bishop looked at me and said, “You know I just don’t believe the people of North Carolina are ready for that.”Well, I was a person in North Carolina. And I was ready for that. I wondered who he was talking about – I remember wondering about that. The Bishop was a godly man. I had great respect for him. But I suddenly said to myself, “He’s like my father. He’s wrong. He hadn’t thought about that idea.”Well, those are just experiences of my youth. But that became a huge issue. I was in seminary when Brown v. Board of Education was passed and I knew that was going to dominate my life as I stayed in the South. And it did. I couldn’t do a thing in Lynchburg or in Richmond or in Tarboro (the three churches I served) that didn’t have to take race into consideration.Today we’ve got an African American presiding Bishop of the Episcopal church. It just makes my heart warm. He was also the Bishop of North Carolina, my diocese, before he was elected. That’s one revolution. And the heroes in that movement are Martin Luther King, and Jesse Jackson, and Desmond Tutu, and just impressive people that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.So that’s one revolution – and it’s not considered very revolutionary today. It’s been a long time. But that was an enormous revolution in consciousness. Now we’ve had a black President. I was so proud to have a black President.The second revolution is women. I didn’t know I was a sexist, a patriarchal sexist, but I was. But that’s the way I was raised. My mother used to never let me do anything in the kitchen except take out the garbage. That was man’s work. Everything else was women’s work. And I learned to cook, and I learned I was a good cook. And my mother never could understand that: “That’s not something men do.”In the church, women were the “auxiliary.” That’s the strangest thing in the world. We called them the “auxiliary” to the church. They weren’t “the church.” The church was male and women were auxiliary to the church.So, we had a great battle. I was in Richmond when it began. I remember appointing a woman to be a lay reader. That doesn’t seem like a very revolutionary thing today, but then it was just radical. She was an English woman who spoke beautiful English. She stood up and read the lessons and the congregation about fell over. When she administered the chalice at communion, nobody came to her side of the altar!Girls couldn’t be acolytes. Well, as a father of three daughters, I didn’t know why girls couldn’t be acolytes, so I appointed the first girl to be an acolyte and put her on at the 8:00 service (a service where only the holy few are there). I knew I was in trouble when she fainted dead away in the middle of the service – but I just knew we had to tap the leadership of women.We had never had a woman on the vestry of our church in Richmond. We tried several times. I’d get them to be nominated but they’d never be elected. So, I went to the richest woman in our church (whose pledge to the church was bigger than most people could think about) and I asked her if she’d be a candidate for the vestry. She agreed. I had her nominated and dared that church to turn down the biggest giver they had. And they didn’t. They elected her. She was, without a doubt, the worst vestry woman I’ve had. She was to the right of Attila the Hun. But she broke the barrier – and I gave thanks for her every day for breaking that barrier. And after that, we had a stream of good women who were of the generations they represented.And then to nominate women to be priests: I think I was responsible for women being priests – I know I was for England – I ordained the first English woman priest. When we brought African Bishops to my diocese while I was the Bishop, they would see women priests working. They’d go back home and they’d ordain women priests in Uganda and Kenya and in Liberia. I think I was responsible for having women enter the priesthood in those churches, too.And today, that’s not an issue. We’ve had a presiding Bishop who’s a woman. And even England, as slow as they are, now has significant women Bishops. They haven’t yet become the Archbishop of Canterbury, but they will. And that was the second revolution.We uncapped black Americans, and we uncapped white women, and black women, too. The new Bishop of our diocese is a black woman. And that’s a very important thing.David Felten: And the third revolution was the affirmation and inclusion of LGBTQ folks.Jack Spong: I was in the center of that, too. I don’t know how I happened to be in the center of so many! I don’t think it’s because I started out liberal. I was raised as homophobic as anybody. And I didn’t know what a homosexual was until I was 15, 16 years old. And then when I heard the word, and somebody told me what it meant, I assumed the definition of my church: If you were liberal, these are people we pitied – they were sick. If you were conservative, these are people that should be condemned because they’ve chosen an evil lifestyle.Well, I became convinced that to be a homosexual meant you simply were responding to a difference in your own internal being. Nobody chooses to be homosexual. You don’t choose to be heterosexual. As soon as that was clear, it was clear to me that we’d done something terrible to the homosexual population. I don’t remember knowing but one homosexual person before I was a bishop, and that was a sickly woman who fulfilled all the stereotypes that I’d grown up with. She was sort of sickly and that’s what I thought homosexuals were.Then I went to Newark and I experienced homosexuals in the priesthood and homosexuals in the lay leadership of my church. And they weren’t even ashamed! I couldn’t believe that that was true. So, I had to do some learning.I went to Cornell School of Medicine and talked to a doctor friend of mine named Robert Lahita. He invited me to come over and see what research they were doing on sexuality and I did. I worked with him for about six months. I met all the doctors over there and not-a-one-of-them thought homosexuality was evil. They just saw it was different. But red hair is different. Left-handedness is different. You can be different without being evil. They were all convinced it had nothing to do with choice – that people didn’t choose their sexuality.And when I got that through my head, then I had to act on it – ‘cause you can’t believe something and not act on it. And so I became open to the possibility of ordaining gay people. I ordained the first man – I was told that I had ordained the first homosexual man, but that was laughable – I ordained the first man who was living in a publicly acknowledged homosexual relationship. In the end, he didn’t turn out to be a very good choice, but he still accomplished the purpose.There was a revolution in the church: they fought – unbelievable. I had death threats and all sorts of things. And that was probably, emotionally, the most difficult of the three. But now that’s so over. Gene Robinson was elected bishop of New Hampshire and he was confirmed after a mighty revolution in the House of Bishops. This was three years after I retired. He became a great bishop and since then, we’ve had other gay and lesbian bishops. In New York, a lesbian ran second in the biggest diocese in our country, a lesbian ran second to the man who won, who just barely beat her out.I look at the church and the enormous revolution we’ve gone through: we’ve got gay people serving openly all over the church today – 35 in my diocese when I retired. I don’t know how many there are now. Probably a good many more than that. But they’re everywhere and it’s not even controversial.I remember when George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury came to the United States and addressed the House of Bishops. He said, “It’s time for the church to turn away from their concerns about sexuality and get around to preaching the Gospel.” And I stood up and said, “That is preaching the Gospel. You can’t separate people out like that.” George Carey eventually retired as probably the most unsuccessful Archbishop of Canterbury we ever had.But the church has moved passed that. And that gives me great courage. I look back and see heroes in the church who were hiding in their closets and doing great work and serving in places where heterosexual couples wouldn’t like to go. They’d be in the inner cities transforming those cities.So, we’ve come a long way in those three revolutions and I think the church is more whole, it’s more holy, it’s truer to its nature, in those things. And I really was glad to be a part of all three of those revolutions.David Felten: And every one of them involved doing the hard work of educating yourself.Jack Spong: That’s right. And educating the people, too. You couldn’t do that if you weren’t committed to the institution. It was in the institution that I had the people and I educated the people. When I was the Bishop of Newark, we had a lecture series called “New Dimensions”, and three or four times each year I’d bring to that diocese one of the great leaders of our church, it was just a wonderful series. And they would do a day of lectures. There was this constant stream of new ideas coming in and changing the way people think. We raised up a whole new generation of people.And that’s what has to be. You can’t run the church for the benefit of those who are in it, you run the church for the benefit of those who aren’t in it. And you keep opening the doors and cracking the structures and bringing people in. And sure, they get upset. You can’t be a Christian without being controversial, I’m convinced. But you go ahead and be controversial. It’s important that you love people while you’re doing this. That’s the key. I loved even the people who disagreed with me the most – and I made sure that they knew that they were loved.But that was a hard thing to do. Other people were thrown out for doing the same thing that I did, but I don’t think I ever came close to being thrown out of the church.David Felten: And what do you attribute that to?Jack Spong: Well, because I took my other role seriously. When I went to Richmond, I got a list of all the sick and shut-ins. Our parish was a great big church: about 1,800 members. I got a list of our sick and shut-in people and I made a strong effort to go see every one of them and to drink tea. I have drunk more tea than you can shake a stick at. And I’d listen to these people tell me the history of that church. It was the history of the Confederacy, by-and-large, and I cared about those people and I learned from those people.And when I’d do something that some considered crazy, people would go up to them and ask, “What do you think, you reckon?” And they’d say “Well, he’s a little ahead of himself, but he comes by and he drinks tea with me.” And that was all that mattered.They wanted a relationship and I gave them that. And I loved doing it because they gave me a great deal. I’ve got wonderful stories of people 80 and 90 years old. I was all of 38 when I went to Richmond.There was this one little maiden lady who died when she was about 90. She left instructions in her will that she was not to be embalmed. Well, that was an interesting thing. She said the reason was that no man had ever seen her naked and she didn’t want any man looking at her when she was dead. I just loved that, it was hilarious. I don’t how the undertaker managed that, but he did (at least I hope he did!)Remember, the Richmond church was very much a Confederate church. And during World War II, some sailors from Norfolk got into a battle in downtown Richmond with some local characters from Richmond. They started throwing rocks and some sailor threw a rock through the Robert E. Lee window. The federal government came to our church and said they were sorry, that this was a conscript of the United States Navy, and they’d be glad to pay the repair bill. This woman rose up in our church and said “No federal money ever went into the Lee window and no federal money will go into the Lee window now.” And she paid it herself. Those are great stories.Today I’m looking at that church from the vantage point of a person sitting in the pew. It has a significant black population, has a black senior warden, and the President of the University of Richmond, who’s a black man, is a member of St. Paul’s. I’m so proud of it.In Tarboro, I served two Episcopal churches, one block apart. One was white, one was black. Bringing them together was hard, but today they are very much together. In the summertime, they close one church and all the people worship at the other for four weeks in July and then they go to the other church for four weeks in August. And friendships are formed and this just gives me so much pleasure, to see the changes that are taking place.David Felten: What would you say is the next revolution? What’s the fourth revolution?Jack Spong: For years I thought it was climate, but I’m afraid we’re not going to ever address climate. We have to. Climate is one of those things where you can’t do it alone. You’ve got to do it together. And it means some people are going to have to sacrifice for the thing to become real. Individualism is not going to solve climate change.But at one and the same time, I think the Christian church has got to see itself in a different way. I think Jesus was a boundary breaker and I think every time there’s a boundary that sets one person off against another, I think the Christian faith has to break that boundary down. That’s the salvation of the church. If we can do that, we can keep relevant.David Felten: So the next boundary to be broken may be a theological boundary – a breaking of the theistic focus?Jack Spong: Yeah, I think we ought to break every boundary. You’ve got to break the boundary around the creed, the literalism of the creed. You’ve got to break the boundary around theology. You’ve got to break the boundary around practice: who’s in, who’s out class warfare. Christianity can’t live in a world that’s got boundaries that sets one person off against another person. So we’re always going to be controversial, we’ve got to be controversial. By our very nature we’re controversial. And if we ever cease to be controversial, we’ll cease to be Christian – and that’s not easy for people to embrace. But that’s where we are.David Felten: But that’s not the message that most people hear growing up in American churches – in fact, it’s just the opposite.Jack Spong: You’re exactly right, it is the opposite. Now to counter that, you’ve got to be examining the story and look at what Jesus did: he was always bringing the outsiders inside. Whether they’re Pharisees on one side or prostitutes on the other. He was always bringing them inside. And that’s what the Christian church has got to do.In the last installment of “A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong,” Felten & Spong will discuss Liberals, Conservatives, and the Way Forward.~ Rev. David M. Felten Click here to read online and to share your thoughtsAbout the Author Rev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”.A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David and his wife Laura, have three children. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Judy I just finished "Unbelievable" and found many things in the book that I was unaware that I believed. I am curious to know how you feel about/reconcile people who are truly evil or unrepentantly evil like child abusers/pornographers. I can deal with people whose belief systems are different than mine but not with people who purposefully hurt other people, especially children. Some even believe it is their right to do so. How can we love these people wastefully?  A: By Fred Plumer Hi Judy. Thank you for writing. Your question is one I have had to deal with many times over the years. It is one of the hardest things to practice in the entire Christian tradition, but I still find it mystifying that so many Christians in our world today do not take this issue seriously. In fact, it seems sometimes they believe being a Christian gives them the right to hate or at least dislike anyone who disagrees with them. Certainly that is not the way Jesus expected his followers to behave, nor is it the way Bishop Spong expects us to behave if we actually want to learn and experience what it means to walk the Christian path. We know that and most of us do pretty well with “most people.” However, if we take “loving everyone wastefully” there are some things we must address to make it work with others, or as you put it, people who are truly evil, or unrepentant child abusers/pornographers. First, you must not think of this “love” in the same way that you love your children, a spouse, or a best friend. Marcus Borg probably explained this as well as anyone I know or have ever read. In his book, Meeting Jesus for the First Time, Again, 1995, Borg, addresses this difficult issue. He explains the word “compassion” in Hebrew (as well as in Aramaic), is usually translated in the plural form of the noun. In its singular form, however, the word means “womb.” In the Hebrew Bible, compassion is both a feeling and a way of being that flows out of one’s sense of compassion. It is frequently linked to its association with womb: a woman feels compassion for the child of her own womb; a man feels compassion for his brother, who comes from the same womb. For Borg, compassion is a spiritual shift and is a result of some pretty hard work for most of us. According to Borg, there are four different types of compassion. Reflective (thinking), emotional (feeling), active (doing), and contemplative (experiencing). While our goal, according to Borg, is to integrate all four of these at some point, he admits that this is a challenge. He explains we are called as followers of Jesus to show compassion (love-as a mother loves her unborn child). I think this means you may not know your child, who she is or he is going to be, but you still “love” or feel compassion for her/him. My suggestion is that you at least can love or have compassion for the kinds of people you describe but it might be limited to a thinking type if that is the best you can do. This does not mean you must run up to one of those of these incorrigible people and tell them how much you “love” them. But you could take the time to wonder what kind of childhood they had and what kind of an early life they had to endure. You might wonder what kind of early influences made them so sick. Most serious studies indicate that the significant number of these very sick people were abused, sexually and in other ways, as children. I know this is, in Borg’s words, reflective or thinking compassion but it can bring you to another place that might feel better for you. It might even help you feel some compassion for this person.  Let me close with a personal story. My wife recently retired from her job as a nurse and director in the county health department. For the first five years of her job, she was required once a month to go a prison on an island in our area that held unrepentant child molesters that have been deemed by Washington State judges as incorrigible. They will never be healed nor will they ever be let out of prison. When she first went there she was disgusted and nervous working around them. But she was in awe of how kind and “loving” most of the nurses who worked there regularly were toward these men. My wife never felt comfortable asking these nurses how they did it but she watched closely. My guess is that most of them saw something in these men through the eyes of “god” rather than the judge who put them there. This would be, I believe, something of Borg’s idea of reflective or thinking compassion. My wife learned many lessons from these nurses, as have I.   I hope this helps. ~ Fred Plumer Click here to read and share onlineAbout 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. | | | | | | | | This Rabbi On That Rabbi A modern Portland, Oregon rabbi explains Jesus’s messages in a 6-Part Video Series. View this exclusive video content below ReLOVEution - Jesus the Revolutionary: How to fight power without fighting or resorting to violence Jesus and anger. Following is the summary of Part 2. Resisting oppression with neither violence nor anger When we’re feeling oppressed, we feel the urge to turn towards violence. That is human nature. When we feel like we’ve been violated, we want to right that wrong. Like many other species, when we feel threatened, we are inclined to retaliate by being hurtful, angry, and violent in our behavior. I am in favor of overcoming the oppression of tyrants. But the question is how should I do that? Jesus gave three strategies for resisting the Roman empire and the Jewish leadership around him. In our contemporary world, we might think of ‘our empire’ as the economic and social forces all around us, the overpowering American corporations that confront our daily life, or in a mythical sense the Star Wars cosmic struggle we have moment by moment with our spiritual “dark side.” How do we, as a human being, resist the lure and power of the empire? Jesus gave us three different strategies to resist oppression with neither violence nor anger. - Turn the other cheek - If somebody asks you for your coat, give him your second one, too - If you are asked to walk a mile, take the time and walk the second one as well ....Matthew 5:38-41 ....You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ....But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on ....the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone ....wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ....If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. One, two, and three Jesus was suggesting revolutionary, clever, non-violent approaches to being violated. Clever? Yes. Very clever. When Jesus urged his followers to be non-violent, he wasn’t suggesting that they were to be passive. No. Jesus’s three suggestions are also about demanding the full respect of one’s oppressor – in a sense saying, “If you are going to insult me, I demand that you really insult me.” Turn the other cheek If somebody slaps you, Jesus said to turn the other cheek. Escalating violence with violence brings violence. As we heard from Martin Luther King Jr., ....“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. ....Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Turn the other cheek. This is good advice. But there is more to the words than turn the other cheek. Jesus taught, “If they slap your right cheek, present them your left.” This detail of which cheek is being slapped is important. Ancient Near East, like every culture, had its mores and norms. Slapping someone on the right cheek was insulting because it meant that you were slapping them with the back of your hand. (Left-handed people would have to wait millennia for respect. All insult-slapping in the ancient world was done with the right hand.) So, Jesus was saying, “If they slap you as though you weren’t worthy of a full slap with an open hand, force them to strike you on the left cheek like they would do to anyone else of more prominent status.” In doing so you will be removing the shame from their aggression. If somebody asks you for your outer coat, give him your inside one as well. Jesus said that if somebody asks you for your first coat, you should give him your second one, too. In the time in which Jesus lived, people had two garments. There was an inner garment and an outer garment. The former was what you wore during the day. The latter was similar to our underwear. If someone asked for your outer garment, they were attempting to take your warmth, your protection. Jesus was saying that you should give them that garment, and then offer your inner garment, as well. This is a very snide response, and it’s also somewhat humorous. Because if you tell me you need my overgarments, I am going to tell you, by my actions, that I assume you are so desperate that you’ll need my undergarments, as well. And by doing this – giving you my underwear – I will be standing there naked before you. And I will be then breaking my Jewish societal mores because of you. The fault is on you. You, my oppressor, will be the source of your own embarrassment at the sight of my nakedness. It is clear that Jesus is addressing this strategy to the Jewish leaders who were also oppressing the peasants of Jesus’ day. In a sense, by giving you my second coat, I am saying to you, “I am going to take your oppression to its obvious next level and make you the one responsible for my culturally-taboo state – standing there naked, without any clothing.” Jesus was telling his followers that by their actions they could engage in non-violent revolution and say, “If you are going to oppress me, oppress me all the way – and even then, you will not crush my feeling of love – my innate connection to the ways of the Kingdom of Heaven protects me from your wicked ways My nonviolence protects me from incurring guilt and places it where it rightly belongs.. If you are asked to walk a mile, take the time and walk the second one as well. In the days of the Roman hegemony of Israel, centurions were allowed to order people to carry their belongings. The oppressor could order the oppressed to make oppression easier for them! Roman centurions produced so much bad blood by forcing people to carry their things that Rome made a law forbidding the centurions from asking people to carry something for more than one mile. Once again Jesus was saying to do more for the oppressor and thereby place the guilt and shame on them as their burden to carry instead of yours to carry, and all without resorting to violence in doing so. ....“If we continue to carry the centurion's belonging after the first mile, ....the centurion will have to ask us to stop. If we still don’t stop, the ....centurion will have to beg us to stop! How funny is that! Make ....them beg us to not help them oppress us!” Jesus was not just saying be passive. He was saying be passive and smart. Put the guilt on them for their oppression. Turn the other cheek, give the second coat, forgive someone, walk another mile after the first. Oscar Wilde and John Lennon added their words millennia later: ....Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. - Oscar Wilde ....When it comes down to having to use violence then you are ....playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you, ....pull your beard, flick your face to make you fight. Because ....they’ve gotten you to be violent, they know how to handle you. ....The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor. ....-John Lennon Rabbi Brian’s gloss on non-violence and non-anger. The only way to win a fight against whomever or whatever is oppressing us is to turn the other cheek. As long as we know we are connected to the Ein Sof (the one without end), as long as we know that we live in the Kingdom of Heaven, then we can take the abuse without being crushed by it. Fight back, certainly – but don’t lose your inscrutable, internal choice to live a blessed life. A bit about Jesus and Anger. Jesus preached turning the other cheek – certainly. And, in our society, we think of Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr. as our icons of what it means to fight violence with nonviolence. But Jesus is not a two-dimensional character who never got angry. In fact, Jesus got angry, furiously angry, when he was in the temple. This is recorded in multiple gospels Mark 11:15-17 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’ But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.” Luke 19:46 Then Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were selling there. He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be a house of prayer.’ But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” Matthew 21:12-13 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” ....Luke 19:46 ....Then Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those ....who were selling there. He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My ....house will be a house of prayer.’ But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” ....Matthew 21:12-13 ....Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying ....and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers ....and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said .... to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are ....making it ‘a den of robbers.’” Let’s look at why he got so mad. What was the context? What was so upsetting to Jesus? (Note: Bruce Chilton’s book Rabbi Jesus goes into far more detail than I will.) He was furious because the temple was being used for something other than its purpose. The purpose of the temple was to help connect God and people. However, the temple authorities, in a political move of power consolidation brokered by Rome {need fact check on this}, moved the selling of the animals for sacrifice from outside of the temple to inside, to increase their control over this commerce. Think of it as a big box store coming into town and ruining local merchants, only worse...like the big box store has a slogan “Making great communities greater.” (This analogy isn’t quite right, but it gives you a sense of the outrage.) This decision by the temple authorities was unimaginable to Jesus. How could a place, an institution that’s supposed to be standing up for the common good, align itself with the oppressors? Jesus quotes the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. Isaiah 56:7 These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. Jeremiah 7:11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD. He said that God’s house had become a den of robbers. Rabbi Brian’s gloss on anger Everything from the above about non-violence and non-anger is true. But there is only so much that any son or daughter of man can bear. We are all going to get angry. Yes, resist oppression with non-violence and non-anger as long as we can. But there are times when we feel so much moral outrage that we should allow ourselves to be angry – at the right time, in the right place, at the right people, and for the right reasons. Finally, let me end here with a modern adaptation of the beautiful words of Jesus from the end of this fifth chapter of Matthew ....Anyone can love people who love them. Even the most heinous ....people love their own. You must love better than that! You must ....love even those who persecute you; you must love even your ....enemies. Love with perfect love, as you know God loves you. With Love, Rabbi Brian 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. | | | | | | | | | |

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Winds & Waves Reminder for November
by ICA International 15 Nov '18

15 Nov '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 November 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; the title is: Rebuilding young people’s trust in politicians and democratic life: Sharing ethical practices that work! The video was submitted by Catalina Quiroz of ICA Spain/ICA Espana, and Abel Ferrero, ICA Spain Ethics Works! youth coordinator. https://medium.com/winds-and-waves/rebuilding-young-peoples-trust-in-politi… 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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From Genesis Farm: Honoring Thomas Berry
by Ellie Stock 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

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width:100% !important;} #yiv9450689226 table.yiv9450689226MainSide { display:none !important;} #yiv9450689226 img.yiv9450689226MainSide { display:none !important;} #yiv9450689226 td.yiv9450689226MainSide { display:none !important;} #yiv9450689226 .yiv9450689226rsvp-button-inner { padding:0px 0px 10px 0px !important;} #yiv9450689226 .yiv9450689226rsvp-button-outer { width:100% !important;max-width:100% !important;} #yiv9450689226 .yiv9450689226footer-main-width { width:100% !important;} #yiv9450689226 .yiv9450689226footer-mobile-hidden { display:none !important;} #yiv9450689226 .yiv9450689226footer-mobile-hidden { display:none !important;} #yiv9450689226 .yiv9450689226footer-column { display:block !important;} #yiv9450689226 .yiv9450689226footer-mobile-stack { display:block !important;} #yiv9450689226 .yiv9450689226footer-mobile-stack-padding { padding-top:3px;} } @media screen and (max-width:320px){ #yiv9450689226 .yiv9450689226layout { padding:0px 0px 0px 0px !important;} } | Honoring Thomas Berry | | | | | | | | Genesis Farm | | | November 9, 2018 | | | | | | | | | | WHAT MUST DIE WHEN THE SEED FALLS INTO THE GROUND? | | | | | | | | Today is the closing of a metaphorical portal that covers the lands of Genesis Farm. This day concludes a period that marks a seasonal shift in the northern hemisphere. It is the mid-point, or cross quarter, between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. In some Gaelic cultures, this period was known as Samhain. Hundreds of generations of humans who lived before us, gathered at this time to express their intentions to face into the mystery of death as a prelude to ongoing life. The impulse to do this, to pay attention to the greater natural and cosmic forces, is a universal human impulse. Far beyond our notice, every creature on the hillside of this land--microbes, roots, insects, birds and plants--are intimately attuned to these cycles of life, death and rebirth. They know what they are doing. Instinctively. In seeds, in seasons, in all living beings, and in the thousands of rituals that people create to revere and remember their beloved dead, we too close this portal and face into the mystery of winter: the dark, the unknown. Like the seeds and the countless companions who live here with us we surrender into the dark of winter. And we wait for the return of Sun. ******** Today is also a day special to us, and to all who revere the life and spirit of Thomas Berry. Author, philosopher, cultural historianand voice for Earth’s voiceless,Thomas was born 104 years ago on this day, November 9.Genesis Farm, as it has emerged over these last 38 years, was born into the legacy of his wisdom. | | | | | | | | In 1993, Berry wrote a paper that would later be revised, edited and included as a chapter in one of his major books, The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future. In light of this week’s United States elections and with the unpredictable future shaped by climate crisis, the escalating loss of living species,the disturbing rise of facism, militarism and endless war making,we wish to share Thomas Berry’s wisdom with you.It is a way of celebrating his life and the seeds of vision he planted, even while he grieved the terminal phase of Earth’s Cenozoic Era. | | | | | | | | | | | | The Great Work; Our Way Into the FutureThomas Berry Chapter 10 TheNEW POLITICALALIGNMENT THE OLDER TENSION IN HUMAN AFFAIRS BETWEEN CONSERVATIVE and liberal based on social orientation is being replaced with the tension between developers and ecologists based on orientation toward the natural world. This new tension is becoming the primary tension in human affairs. So too the political tension between the empires and the colonies is being replaced by an economic tension between village peoples of the world with their organic modes of agriculture and the transnational corporations with their industrial agriculture. This new alignment should not be taken as if the ecology movement were a New Left movement or a new liberalism. For the ecology movement has moved the entire basis of the division into a new context. It is no longer a division based on political party or social class or ethnic group. It is a division based on the human as one of the components within the larger community of the planet Earth. In this new alignment those committed to industrial-commercial development of natural areas see this development as inherently progressive. Those committed to the integrity of the natural world and their indigenous peoples see this development as degradation, since the intrusion of the human into the life systems of the planet has already gone beyond any acceptable limits. To the one group the human is considered primary in terms of reality and value while the larger, more integral Earth community is a secondary consideration. In the other group the integral Earth community (including the human) is seen as primary while human well-being in itself is seen as derivative. The one insists that the natural life systems must adapt primarily to human purposes. The other insists that the human must adapt to the priority of natural life systems. Ultimately there must be a mutual adaptation of the human and the natural life systems. Reconciliation of these tensions is especially difficult because the commercial-industrial powers have so overwhelmed the natural world in these past two centuries that there is, to the ecologist, serious difficulty in further adaptation of natural systems to the human. Oppression of the natural world by the industrial powers has so interfered with the functioning of natural forces that we are already into an extensive disruption of the biosystems of the planet at the expense of the health and well-being of both humans and the natural world. We cannot mediate the present situation as though there were some minimal balance already existing that could be slightly modified on both sides to bring into being a general balance. The violence already done to the Earth is on a scale beyond acceptability. It can only be considered as the consequence of a severe cultural disorientation. The change required by the ecologist is a drastic reduction in the plundering processes of the commercial-industrial economy. Until this is recognized there can be no way in which an acceptable reconciliation can be attained. Yet we are so deeply committed to the exploitative mode of relating to the natural world that those in control of the great corporations can hardly think about modifying the exploitation in any significant manner. Even official movements toward “sustainable development” must be recognized as efforts to avoid the basic issue. Our sense of reality and of value has been so fully committed to the norms governed by the industrial process that such an abrupt shift is too difficult for serious consideration. These industrial norms of procedure are now functioning on a global basis through the transnational corporations. These corporations, in alliance with the governments of the world, are now related to or organized into such establishments as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the International Chamber of Commerce, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the International Organization for Standardization. Bonding of common interests has become so coordinated that it is increasingly difficult to escape not only their influence but their control over the various nations and cultures of the world. So influential is the present commercial-industrial order that our dominant professions and institutions are functioning in this context; not merely our economic system, but government, jurisprudence, the medical profession, religion, and education. Every aspect of life has been absorbed into the commercial-industrial context. We seem not to know how to live in any other way. In the industrialized nations the automobile, the highways, parking lots, shopping malls, all seem to be necessary for survival at any acceptable level of human well-being. Through the Internet a more extensive range of human transactions will be carried on without travel or physical presence, yet this will not remedy or remove the waste heaps, polluted waters, sterile and eroded soils, forests devastated by clear-cutting, toxic chemicals, radioactive waste, the thinning ozone layer. We see all this, yet we continue creating these chemicals, clear-cutting the forests, polluting the waters, piling up enormous waste heaps, destroying wetlands. We do this even though the industrial bubble is already dissolving. The end of the petroleum-based economy is in sight. Yet even now the commercial-industrial world insists that this is the only way to survive. The tendency is to insist that ecologically oriented persons will accept the existing situation with some slight modifications. The system itself must continue in the existing pattern of its functioning. The alternative, the radical transformations suggested by the ecologists—organic farming, community-supported agriculture, solar-hydrogen energy system, redesign of our cities, elimination of the automobile in its present form, restoration of local village economies, education for a post-petroleum way of life, and a jurisprudence that recognizes the rights of natural modes of being—all these are too unsettling. Even though such books as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring are proving to be valid statements of the future that awaits us, they are still considered as too extreme to be accepted. Never before has the human community been confronted with a situation that required such sudden and radical change in lifestyle under the threat of a comprehensive degradation of the planet and its major life systems. The difficulty can only increase. Tensions between capitalism and socialism, between liberalism and conservatism, are disputes over minor differences in comparison with the issues now before us. Both capitalist and socialist regimes are committed to ever-increasing commercial-industrial exploitation of the resources of the planet. Neither is acceptable to the ecologist. Fixation on the primacy of industry in the well-being of the human is producing a recession of the basic resources of Earth, which is now a permanent condition. This recession is not a temporary economic recession of any one nation, nor the recession of some financial or commercial arrangement, it is an irreversible recession of the planet itself in many of the most basic aspects of its functioning. The Earth simply cannot sustain the burden imposed upon it. The air in many places has become polluted. The water of the planet has become toxic for an indefinite period of time. The soils of the Earth are saturated with chemicals. We have only the slightest idea of the consequences for the physical and psychic life of the human community, especially for the children who have lived in this chemically saturated environment since the day of their conception. Physical degradation of the natural world is also the degradation of the interior world of the human. To cut the old-growth forests is not simply to destroy the last 5 percent of the primordial forests left in this country. It is to lose the wonder and majesty, the poetry, music, and spiritual exaltation evoked by such awesome experience of the deep mysteries of existence. It is a loss of soul even more than a loss of lumber or a loss of money. Loss of spiritual, imaginative, intellectual, or aesthetic experience is considered irrelevant by the developers as soon as a territory is identified as a place where money is to be made. In North America, even after taking 95 percent of these forests, developers insist on the right to cut the few timberlands that survive, while speaking of the extreme demands of the ecologists. The severity of the tension between the developers and the ecologists can only be fully realized if, in addition to what has already been indicated, we understand that the exploiters have been in control of the North American continent since the beginning of its settlement by Europeans in the seventeenth century. Americans have never known any other way of life. The original settlers came here for religious freedoms but also for a “better” life than was available in the European world. The spaciousness of the continent, the luxuriance of its coastlands, its woodlands, its fertile soils, the beaver and deer and buffalo—all these seemed, in their abundance, to be beyond the capacity of any human force to diminish in any significant manner. The attrition of most life forms has been severe in these past few centuries. Then came the capacity to exploit the coal deposits, the gold fields, the copper and iron ores; the skills to build the canals, the railroads, the highways; the ability to dam the rivers for irrigation and for power at a thousand different places. All this was done with a certain arrogance of the settlers, from the beginning. The rights of the indigenous peoples, the rights of living species, the rights of natural modes of being to exist, none of this evoked from the settlers any adequate sense of responsibility for their actions. When the chemical and electronics industries were established, when the power systems were put into place, when automobiles began to spread their exhaust over the countryside, even these events caused no adequate reflection or even interest in what was happening. Waste was simply poured into the air or dumped into the rivers or used as fill for wetlands. Only the bright side of all this development was seen. The dark side, the toxic waste, was denied, ignored, hidden from sight, buried. Now, when the immense amount of such waste can no longer be hidden, when the poisons begin to affect the health of the populations, when the lead in the air and in the paints begin to affect the brain functions of children, when the “Love Canals” are identified, when the people of Louisiana begin to realize how extensively the countryside along the Mississippi has become saturated with chemicals, then the new alignment of forces begins to take shape. The assault of developers on the ecologists has already increased in its pervasiveness and intensity. A person need only read The War Against the Greens by David Helvarg to understand the extent of this opposition. Insensitivity toward the devastation of the natural world led to disregard of the environmental issue throughout both the 1992 and the 1996 campaigns for the United States presidency. The most acute antagonisms of the past have seldom evoked such deep feelings of being threatened. Yet a polarity has evolved that now finds expression in every aspect of contemporary life, in our social and political and economic institutions, in our professions of medicine and law, in our educational programs, in our religious traditions. This polarity in life attitude pervades the public and private order of our society. There will, naturally, be an infinite number of variations in the emphasis that will be given to various plans of action. But the main outlines of the tension are clearly evident. The tensions created will ultimately be even more severe than the capitalist-Communist tension that dominated political-social activities of the human community from the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848 until 1991, when the Soviet collapse occurred and left the capitalist world and its market economy in control. In understanding these new tensions a person need only read a few surveys, such as the attack on the ecologists in The True State of the Planet, a book edited in 1996 by Ronald Bailey, or Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order, which identifies the controlling power of the corporations, by Richard Barnett and John Cavanaugh. In addition to these a person might read The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon, someone who argues that there is no real resource problem, population problem, or soil problem. Yet there is still a tendency to think of ecologists as radical, romantic, or trivial New Age types. If by clear-cutting the last 5 percent of the surviving old-growth forests we provide jobs for the present, then clear-cutting is justified. This is the realist position. Forests are seen as so many board feet of lumber whose primary value is to be cut down for human use. The sense of meaning, of entry into the mysteries of existence, the grandeur experienced in their presence, all these are marginal to the essential thing of life, which is to exploit the forests for their passing human use and their monetary value. Such issues require a reorientation of all the professions, especially the legal profession, which is still preoccupied with individual “human” rights, especially with the limitless freedom to acquire property and exploit the land. The number of lawyers hired by single corporations to defend themselves against any limitation of their perceived rights to exploit the natural world is evidence of the strange principles of jurisprudence that allow the devastation of the planet to proceed. Universities are still preparing students for professional careers in the industrial-commercial world even as this world continues its planetary destruction. The medical profession is only beginning to recognize that no amount of medical technology will enable us to have healthy humans on a sick planet. A new awareness is emerging, however, throughout every realm of human activity. The term sustainable development is now the single most significant phrase in any discussion of these issues. This phrase obtained currency in the 1987 report (Our Common Future) of the World Commission on Environment and Development. It was later used to indicate the central concern of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. So central is this phrase at the present time that it could be said that whoever owns it controls much of the discussion concerning the future. Indeed, at the present time few persons would directly confront the proposal that development can no longer be as unlimited as it has been in the past. So prevalent is this phrase, sustainable development, and so widespread the claim to be acting with regard to the environment, that the deeper question has now become the question of authenticity in fulfilling its demands. Are contemporary commitments to safeguarding the environment merely up-front appearances with little substantial regard for the natural world, or is there a true commitment to limit industrial activity so that no real harm is done to the ecosystems of the planet? The more realistic response to this phrase is that development is simply not sustainable. What is needed is a sustainable way of life. Paul Hawken goes further than sustainability with his proposal that a “restorative economy” is already in process. This view is presented in his book on The Ecology of Commerce (1993) and carried out in its basic principles through the movement known as “The Natural Step.” Another more rigorous critique of the corporations is presented by David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World (1995). Both are working toward a depth understanding of the present situation with suggestions as to a viable way into the future. David Korten makes proposals for the sequence of intermediate steps needed if we are to move into a sustainable mode of human presence on the planet in a later book, The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism. A further observation might be made that a sustainable mode of survival at our present level of economic well-being in the industrialized countries is hardly possible as a universal attainment. It is estimated that to support our present Earth population at the level enjoyed in North America would require two or three planets. The more ultimate question has to do with the “soul” of the future as this finds expression in the single life principle of the planet Earth. There is much consideration of the physical and biological modes of survival with relatively little comment on the soul of the future. Here we are mainly concerned with the “soul” as the shaping spirit within any vital process. These, the inner spirit and the outer form, are two distinctive aspects of a single mode of being. In considering the soul of the future, I am concerned with the inner vision that we need if we are to make the intellectual, social, economic, and religious adjustments required for a viable future. That the human and other components of Earth form a single community of life is the central issue of the Great Work. We can hardly repeat too often that every mode of being has inherent rights to their place in this community, rights that come by existence itself. The intimacy of humans with the other components of the planet is the fulfillment of each in the other and all within the single Earth community. It is a spiritual fulfillment as well as a mutual support. It is a commitment, not simply a way of survival. Anything less, to my mind, will not work. The difficulty we confront is too great. The future is too foreboding. We need to think of twice the present human population facing the future with half the resources. The next generations need a truly inspiring vision of the wonder and grandeur of life, along with the beginnings of the new technologies they will need. The profoundly degraded ecological situation of the present reveals a deadening or paralysis of some parts of human intelligence and also a suppression of human sensitivities. That exploitation of the Earth is an economic loss should at least be evident, especially when we observe such extinctions as have occurred in the seas. There we can observe that some species of fish have become commercially extinct because humans would not limit their take to the reproduction rate of the fish, even though this reproduction rate was almost astronomical in the abundance of its production, as was the case with salmon in the Pacific and cod in the Atlantic. When the proposal is made that we must continue what we are doing “in order to provide jobs” it must be considered as an unacceptable solution when a much greater abundance of jobs is available for repairing the already damaged environment. In all of these instances we can see a disposition toward biocide, the destruction of the life-systems of the planet, and geocide, the devastation of the planet itself, not only in its living creatures but in the integrity of the nonliving processes on which the living world depends. Read the publications of the business world —Fortune, The Economist, or the Wall Street Journal —to observe the abandonment of any discipline that would limit the moneymaking concern of our industrial society, for it is precisely by this grasping after greater wealth to sustain a “better life” that we perceive “progress.” The pathology of this attitude is the limitless straining after what cannot be attained by any level of consumerism. As with any addiction, the addiction itself is seen as the way to life. The authentic remedy, the only valid way to life, is perceived as too painful for acceptance. What we propose here is not a solution of the issue but a clarification of the fact that the real issue before us is no longer finding expression in terms of liberal and conservative but rather in terms of the ecologist or environmentalist on the one hand and the commercial-industrial establishment on the other. A new alignment of forces is taking place throughout every institution and every profession in our society. It is important to understand this new situation, the inherent difficulties of reconciliation, and the new language that has come into being. Only in this manner can we appreciate the true nature of the issues under discussion and the magnitude of change required in shaping a viable mode of human presence on the planet Earth for the future. All our professions and institutions need to be reinvented in this new context. We must in a manner reinvent the human itself as a mode of being. Eventually this implies rethinking the planet and our role within the planetary process. | | | | | | | | Sent By: office(a)genesisfarm.org and threeriversmm(a)gmail.com | | | | | | | | | | | | Genesis Farm | 41 A Silver Lake Rd, Blairstown, NJ 07825 | | | Unsubscribe elliestock(a)aol.com | | Update Profile | About our service provider | | Sent by office(a)genesisfarm.org in collaboration with | | | | | | Try it free today | | | |

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11/08/18, Progressing Spirit : A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong (2018): Part 1 “On Small Minds and Big Ideas”
by Ellie Stock 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

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!important;line-height:125% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9904737274 h4{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9904737274 .yiv9904737274mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent, #yiv9904737274 .yiv9904737274mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9904737274 #yiv9904737274templatePreheader{ display:block !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9904737274 #yiv9904737274templatePreheader .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent, #yiv9904737274 #yiv9904737274templatePreheader .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9904737274 #yiv9904737274templateHeader .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent, #yiv9904737274 #yiv9904737274templateHeader .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9904737274 #yiv9904737274templateBody .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent, #yiv9904737274 #yiv9904737274templateBody .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv9904737274 #yiv9904737274templateFooter .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent, #yiv9904737274 #yiv9904737274templateFooter .yiv9904737274mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } An interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong on September 18th, 2018. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong: Part 1 - “On Small Minds and Big Ideas” Column by Rev. David M. Felten November 8, 2018 The following is taken from an interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong on September 18th, 2018. Recorded at his home in Richmond, Virginia, it has been edited for length and thematic focus.David Felten: For years you’ve been sounding the alarm that the church is in trouble. What would you say the state of the church is today – and where do you see us needing to go?Jack Spong: Well, we’re almost in a Dark Age.In the Roman Catholic Church, the sexual abuse crisis has gotten to be so big, and they finally are facing the fact that it’s real. It’s been in every country of the world. It has to be a systemic problem. So, what is there about the Roman Catholic Church that includes this thing?In the Evangelical Protestant Churches, they’re anti-intellectual – they’re always behind the curve. They’re insecure more than anything else – and that’s demonstrated by their abandoning all of their principles and supporting Donald Trump (who is not an Evangelical at all). He practically spits on their values, but they support him, which indicates to me it’s not a religious movement at all. It’s a security movement.So when somebody looks for a church, they have a hard time. I’ve been able to find one. But, there aren’t very many. I know a lot of churches, and to have a church that engages you, inspires you, and you want to be a part of, is a really difficult thing to do today.David Felten: So, on the whole, the Roman Catholics are morally compromised over their failure to respond to the sexual abuse crisis. The Evangelicals are morally compromised out of their fear and obsession with security. And in the face of all this, the Mainline church is just impotent.Jack Spong: That’s right. The Mainline knows too much to be Evangelical, but they don’t know who they are. And they’re not gonna buy into the Roman Catholic thing – and the thing I’ve spent my life doing still has a very difficult time finding expression in the institution today. But I still think it’s worthwhile.David Felten: Give me an example of that life’s work that still needs to find expression today.Jack Spong: Well, let’s just start with the basic concept of God. I don’t think God’s a being, and yet that is a sort of assumed thing in all the churches. I think God is the “Ground of Being.” That’s a Tillichian phrase. It doesn’t mean a lot to people, but it just gives me a different way to say it. I think God permeates the world. It just may be that God is the ground of all that is. And you try to say that in church and it’s not – not “comfortable.” It doesn’t give you security.One of the things that I think about the church today is that if it’s being true to itself, it doesn’t give you security. It gives you the ability to live with insecurity. And that’s not as popular. People like to be deluded. And they’re not going to be deluded by a church that has integrity.David Felten: Ouch!Jack Spong: That’s right. I don’t know what to say. I’ve spent my life in the church. I’ve been executive in charge of lots of churches, and I can’t think of many of them that I would want to go to as a lay person sitting in a pew. There are enough – there are a few of them – enough that gives me some hope that there’s such a thing as integrity in the church, but it’s not a lot.I look around at people that have responded to my ministry over the years, and they keep trying to go to church and it doesn’t work for them. Some of my closest friends are “believers in exile.” They want to believe, but they don’t find anything in the church that gives them enough to hang their hat on — so they’re sort of in exile somewhere.David Felten: Say something about that inexpressible kind of belief that is not being met in the church, but people still have a hunch about.Jack Spong: I don’t know how to talk about that. I’m convinced that there is a God. I’m convinced that there’s a spiritual dimension to life that I want to be in touch with. I’m convinced that it can be experienced in all of life, but I have a hard time saying what it is.David Felten: But you’re not giving up.Jack Spong: That’s right. I’m one of those people who refuses to let go. I’m like Jacob wrestling with the angel. I’m not gonna let it go until it blesses me. And it’s just terribly important to me. And I can’t always communicate that to other people.If I’ve got the full panoply of church activities, I can find a way to make those activities speak loudly about something. But I think churches have either turned themselves into religious institutions (which is surefire away to die) or they change themselves into social activity churches (which is also a surefire way to die). And we don’t ever bring the two together. We don’t ever show Christianity as the expression of my being into the world.David Felten: You’ve made a career out of trying to express some of these thoughts and clearly, people are hungry for what you’ve offered.Jack Spong: I think that’s true – and what that is, I don’t know. But in all my life, everywhere I went, I had people coming who were hungry, who came with an expectation that they could be fed, and an expectation that I was in touch with something that they weren’t in touch with.And that’s been a powerful thing for me. But I have a hard time articulating what that is. But I think you can see it. It’s like the pornography definition in the Supreme Court. You don’t know what it is, but you’d recognize it when you see it.And I think that’s the way it goes right now. I’m not despairing. I’m not thinking about leaving the church. I will die in the church. It’s been my home, it’s been a place I’ve loved. But it also is my exasperation. It just, it takes all I’ve got to stay in the church.David Felten: What do you find most exasperating?Jack Spong: Well, the small minds. And I don’t know how else to say that, but people come to church hoping to be made to feel secure and they don’t. If they are made to feel secure, they’ve missed the point of the Christian church. The job of the Christian church is to help us live in the insecurity of our life. We’re not going to “get over” the insecurity of life. We’re all going to die. We better get prepared for that. We’re all in aspects of life that don’t last forever. And if you let that get hold of you, you just sort of sink into despair because you don’t have an answer.But there’s something beyond what I can see and know and touch and feel that I’m in touch with. And I don’t know how to talk about it. But I will never let it go. And it’s a sustaining thing for me.David Felten: It seems that one of the ways you’ve processed that “something beyond” has been through your writing. Out of all your books, is there one you can say you’re most proud of, that kind of speaks for you and your outlook?Jack Spong: Yeah. I’d say the book I enjoyed most was called Liberating the Gospel, Reading The Bible With Jewish Eyes.David Felten: You discovered a lot of fresh material there.Jack Spong: Yeah, I did. But I didn’t discover it out of nowhere. I was led into it by a great teacher named Michael Goulder. Michael was not a great communicator, but he was a great scholar and I was able to articulate his point of view. I’ve really appreciated him. He’s no longer alive.What I came to see in that book is that Christianity is Jewish at its core. It was born in the Jewish world. Jesus was a Jewish man. His mother and his father were Jewish people. His disciples were Jewish people. They lived and moved in their environment as Jewish people.The first Gospel didn’t get written until Jesus had been dead for 40 years. It had changed a lot since then. The Second Gospel didn’t get written until Jesus was dead about 50 years, the third Gospel, about 60 years. And the fourth Gospel, about 70 years. By the time those Gospels were written, they changed the Christian faith because it was moving in a different world. And people began to try to relate Jesus to another form of life that wasn’t his own. Now you don’t deny that, because it’s important to see that. But you need to look and see how those things go together.I don’t believe that Jesus ever thought of himself as the second person of the Holy Trinity. I don’t believe he ever thought of himself as a divine God-man. But I think he taught and so lived his life that you could see in him and through him how all of us – the God-men and God-women that we are – can’t be human alone. I think that’s the answer to the deepest yearnings in people’s minds. But it’s a long way from what Christianity is in the world today.David Felten: What would you say is one of your books that you’d just as well have back – and why?Jack Spong: I think the worst book that I wrote was called, Living The Commandments. It’s basically about The Ten Commandments. The reason that I’d want it back as it was poorly edited. I wrote it in the interim between being Rector of St Paul’s in Richmond and Bishop of Newark. In Richmond, I had some outstanding people who worked with me and who edited. In Newark, I hadn’t found those people yet, and so I edited it myself. And it’s poorly done.David Felten: So, note to aspiring authors: don’t edit your own books.Jack Spong: I later married my favorite editor. And Chris could take my books and make them shine just beautifully. A good editor is to a Bishop like a Chief of Staff is to a President of the United States. I say if you have a good Chief of Staff, you’re going to be a good President. If you have a good editor, you’re going to be a good writer – and writing became a passion for me. It’s hard work, but it was a creative passion, and I produced a book about every two years, every two and a half years (which is a pretty good rate). But I had a good editor working with me all the time.David Felten: So, content-wise, you’re satisfied with it, it just wasn’t as readable as your other books.Jack Spong: Yeah. I’m still satisfied. But I wouldn’t buy it if I were the average person looking at a bookstore!David Felten: Well let’s say you are wandering through a bookstore today. What authors excite you and get you thinking? Who’d you like to have a conversation with?Jack Spong: Well, somebody asked me who I’d like to have dinner with and that’s the same kind of question. And I said I’d like to have dinner with the late physicist, Stephen Hawking. I’d like to have dinner with him ’cause I think he was a fascinating man.I’d also like to have dinner with Richard Dawkins, the anti-God philosopher and biologist. And I’d like to have dinner with Albert Einstein. Now, I don’t think any one of the three of them would be Christians by the normal definition, but I think they’d be expansive people.I actually did have dinner with Richard Dawkins in Oxford when I was studying over there. I’d been in the Bodleian Library that day and I’d read The Selfish Gene, which is one of his earlier books. As I was speaking at New College that night, I had dinner at the high table. We lined up and walked into the high table and I sat down beside this man and I stuck out my hand and said, “I’m Jack Spong, who are you?” And he said, “I’m Richard Dawkins.” And I said “Well, I just finished reading your book today.” We had a delightful conversation. He was a very attractive and funny guy. He said in one of his books there weren’t but two bishops in the English church that knew what he was talking about and I was one of them! Richard Holloway, of Scotland, was the other. And I always appreciated that. I think I could make Richard a Christian if I had enough time. I thought of all those people who wrote anti-God books, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and the others…David Felten: Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.Jack Spong: Yeah. I thought Richard Dawkins was the best of them. I disagree with only some of his conclusions. He was raising the same questions that I raise – I don’t believe that God’s a supernatural manipulative person, either. He doesn’t see the church saying anything else and I say the church must say something else.David Felten: What does he say to a comeback like that, where you agree that God isn’t a supernatural manipulative person? Does he see you as an anomaly or does he deal with you as one who represents a legitimate point of view within the church?Jack Spong: He thinks Richard Holloway and I don’t believe in God, either, so we’re “on his side.” I can only say, “We don’t believe in the God he doesn’t believe in.” I don’t know how you say it any differently: “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in. I don’t believe in that God, either.” He doesn’t understand that. People have been trained for so long to think in terms of supernaturalism and theism. And atheism doesn’t mean you don’t believe in God. If you want to be literal about it, it means you don’t believe in the theistic concept of God.David Felten: It’s a hard concept for people to get.Jack Spong: It’s really impossible. I say that all the time and they say, “What?” Someone asked me one time if you had to be a theist to be a Christian. I wrote a column on that. It’s one of fourteen years of columns in the archives. And I said, “No, you don’t have to be a theist to be a Christian.” Theism is one way of thinking about God. It’s not the ultimate, only way to think about God. Most of the people I know who are in the church are going to regard that as beyond the pale. But I think that they are simply beyond the pale on the other side!David Felten: I think it’s just those kinds of clear statements that stand as a tribute to what you’ve expressed for so many years in your columns and your books – and lays out a clear direction in which we still need to move.Jack Spong: Yeah. Well, it’s as clear as I can make it in my last book – and Unbelievable is my last book. I wrote the last part of it after I had a stroke and I can’t write anymore – I can’t write another book. And that’s okay.I knew one professor who wrote 105 books in his life. You can’t have an unpublished thought if you write 100 books. And we used to say to an old Quaker scholar that I knew well who wrote a book a year, I said, “Well, what did you call your book this year?” And he would give me the title. But it’s the same book.David Felten: New title every year, but same book. It’s like my sermons every week.Jack Spong: That’s right. People don’t have that many fresh ideas. My books are clearly repetitive, but they are repetitive in the “sparrow sense.” I go back and touch the ground and then go on to new things and then go back and touch the ground and go on to new things.David Felten: …so people can get a broad sense of where you’re coming from.Jack Spong: I think it’s important for your audience that you do that. You carry them with you so you can come to where you are and then make another leap.David Felten: Bring them along.Jack Spong: Yeah. I loved writing.David Felten: Well, besides your books and columns, my favorite Jack Spong moments have usually come when I’m listening to you field Q&A sessions after a talk. What are a couple of the best questions you’ve ever been asked?Jack Spong: There were two questions that always came up. If they understood what I was saying, they thought Christianity was shaking. And the two things they would ask were, “Do you pray?” and “Do you believe in life after death?” Those two were a constant, usually within the first two or three questions I’d get asked in every gathering. So I wrestled with those questions in particular.I was talking with Gretta Vosper one day about those two questions and she asked, “Why don’t we work on those? I’ll take prayer and you take life after death and write a book on it.” Well, I did and she did. Her book is called Amen, and my book is called Eternal Life: A New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell. I happen to believe in life after death and that surprises my friends in the Jesus Seminar. But I don’t believe in heaven and hell. People say, “If you don’t believe in heaven and hell, you can’t believe in life after death.” But I believe there’s something deeply spiritual about human life, there’s something about our consciousness that gets beyond my limits and leads me into relationship with God. I trust it. That’s all I can say. I think that was one of the great books of my life but I don’t know that it’s gonna be an answer for people. It was an answer for me.People apply the same criteria to life after death that they apply to religion, so it doesn’t make sense. It either makes you feel secure and keeps you not-afraid-when-you-die, or it’s nothing but idolatry. So where many are today is, “There is no life after death.”What I’m trying to say is there’s a different way to look at this – to force us to think differently. But it’s hard to talk about. I remember several letters I got after that book came out that said, “I was right with you until you got to the end. And then you don’t believe anything!” I think that was a common perception, but it’s not accurate to say I don’t believe anything. I don’t believe I can say anything about what I believe. I have absolute trust that I am part of something that is bigger than I am and I can’t tell you why or how. It doesn’t necessarily make me feel more secure when I die but death is an interesting thing.What I worry about with death is leaving Christine and leaving my daughters. It’s not whether I live or die. Those things are far more important to me. I know Christine could get along fine, she could run the UN! She doesn’t need me to run her life. We’ve had such a marvelous relationship. She’s shared in my life and I’ve shared in hers and we’re lucky people to have the kind of relationship we have. That’s where the anxiety is for me, it’s not anywhere else.I’ll be 88 my next birthday. I think that’s right remarkable! I don’t know that I’ve got any regrets, David. I think I’d probably live my life pretty much the same way I’ve lived it, if I had a chance to do it all over again. I don’t think there’re many people that can say that. But I’ve really had a wonderful time and I’ve loved my work. I’ve loved being a symbol. I’ve loved opening this church. I look back on our history and we don’t have many people like me. We can’t stand many like me.David Felten: I’ve heard that said.Jack Spong: You know, I think one to two bishops like me is about all a church can tolerate at one moment. I think that’s enough. But without those one to two, I think the next generation is … I don’t know who the new person is, but they will emerge. Somebody has gotta be doing it and I think we’ve got them somewhere.In the next installment of “A Conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong,” Felten will ask Bishop Spong about his legacy and what he sees as the next revolution.~ Rev. David M. Felten Click here to read online and to share your thoughtsAbout the Author Rev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”.A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David and his wife Laura, an administrator for a large Arizona public school district, live in Phoenix with their three often adorable children. | | | | | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Gary We always hear that Christianity is shrinking, but is progressive Christianity growing or shrinking? A: By Eric Alexander That is a great question Gary.While I don’t have any firm statistics to back up anything I am about to say, I would offer a suggestion that the tangential and experiential evidence would say it depends on what we mean by progressive Christianity.For example. Over the past 5 years I have moderated some large progressive Christian groups on Facebook. What I have found is that progressive Christianity is definitely growing, but at the same time the original charter has seemed to become more amorphous. But that is not necessarily a bad thing, depending on what one is looking for.When I first started gravitating toward the label, progressive Christianity stood for serious academic theological exploration, which naturally led most to have very unorthodox views of scriptural and spiritual norms. It was mostly led by older white men, and it was mostly intellectual. Naturally I fit right in (chuckle). But as it has evolved, its gate has become much wider, and the tent much larger. Which in many ways has made it more prolific.These days, a progressive Christian may still come across quite evangelical in nature, but trend toward the progressive spectrum because they have become less literal about the Bible and hell – while also becoming affirming of folks in the LGBT community. That is a great thing by all accounts, however when some of the newer folks hear some of the veterans in the camp talk about theology, it can start some hearty debates.So the tradeoff is a growing diversity, especially with more women, people of color, and folks in the LGBT community; as well as a growing focus on the social good that can come as society evolves. The evolution has also sparked a growing renaissance of community Church-like expressions. Therefore the answer to whether progressive Christianity is growing probably just comes down to how strictly one defines what it means to be a progressive Christian, and how open one is to change.Thanks for the great question.Peace and Blessings - Eric Click here to read and share onlineAbout the Author Eric Alexander is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is a board member at ProgressiveChristianity.org, and is the founder of Jesism, Christian Evolution, and the Progressive Christianity and Politics group on Facebook. Eric holds a Master of Theology from Saint Leo University and studied negotiations at Harvard Law School, and and is author of Teaching Kids Life IS Good. | | | | | | | | 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 ..Patience Builders – 2018 Online November 12th - December 2nd As a nod to the patience we all need in order to hold steady during turbulent times (as well as during the holiday season!), Spirituality & Practice decided to create this special 2018 edition with an online Practice Circle. You will find many kindred spirits there with whom to share your experiences and reflections. Click here for more information/registration ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Global Buzz November
by ICA International 07 Nov '18

07 Nov '18

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.... Global Buzz Report: November 2018 Click above or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-18/2018-11 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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A Reflection: Havdalah of Hope
by Ellie Stock 05 Nov '18

05 Nov '18

Hi Folks, Below and attached (whichever works) is a reflection: Havdalah of Hope, written after participating in the Havdalah of Hope Service at the B'nai Amoona Congregation Saturday evening to remember those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Ellieelliestock(a)aol.com HAVDALAH OF HOPE Oneflaming candle,multiplewicks burning as one,lightfrom many candles woven togethershinesboldly beyond a single capacity… Thisnight, biddingfarewell to Shabbatandwelcoming the new week,Havdalahcandle’s brillianceisnow surrounded by a circle of eleven candles,lightresurrected from life snuffed out atthe Tree of Life Synagogue,(asign in front reading, Love yourneighbor, no exceptions)brothersand sisters, kindred souls, part of Creation’s family surgingbefore, behind, above, below, around, withinandconnecting us all in thegreat animal, vegetable, and mineral TREE OF LIFE. Thisnight the yarmulked, prayer-shawed, clergy-collared,kufi-hatted, seculared,(witnessedby the uniformed and plain-clothed guardians)men,women, and children, wearinggold(not sewn Star of David) No Place for Hate paper lapelstickers,circlethe encircled candle,abeautiful solemn assembly,armsweaving through each other,swaying,gently, rhythmically as one, tearsswelling, flowing,butnot quenching the light,listeningas thelilting angelic voice of the cantorswirlslike creation, through and around them,Eliyahu Hanavi…Elijah the prophet…Bimhera B’yameinu yavo eleinu…Come speedily and in our day…Andsoon the voices of all become onewith the one, one with the One,praying,praising, imploring, blessing,trustingthatdovka—“in spite of” they’ll neverstopdancing, trying to make theworld the way it needs to be. And,in Spirit, this circle is surroundedand also lighted by candlesof Charleston, Parkland,SandyHook, Columbine,Laramie,Orlando, Ferguson,Charlottesville, TallahasseeSelma,Birmingham, WoundedKnee, Sarajevo,Kristallnacht,Auschwitzand Buchenwald…aneternal circle, too many to name,butthis day must not forget,theirblood spilled, victims oftheviolence of hatred, prejudice,systemicracism,culturaland religious bigotry. Butthis day these diverse souls,neighborsin humanity and creation, willnot forgetL’Simcha, Tree of Lifebutdovka, will move on in hope—Hopebeyond hopes,andweaving arms once more forthefinal song and prayer,ofhealing and peace, bideach otherShavuah Tov, A Good Week!—knowingtheir combined brightnessisstronger than the darkness of hate—and,as, in all Jewish communities,theyenjoy food and drink togetherandthen departintoa cloudy night, starsand firey fall leaves hidden,buthealing hearts rekindled by loveand shalom. ejhs11/05/18 When EvilDarkens Our WorldBy Chaim Stern Whenevil darkens our world, let us be the bearers of light.Whenfists are clenched in self-righteous rage, let our hands be open for the sakeof peace.Wheninjustice slam the door on the ill, the poor, the old, and the stranger, let uspry the doors open. Whereshelter is lacking, let us be builders.Wherefood and clothing are needed, let us be providers.Whereknowledge is denied, let us be champions of learning. Whendissent is stifled, let our voices speak truth to power.WhenEarth and its creatures are threatened, let us be their guardians.Whenbias, greed, and bigotry erode our country’s values, let us proclaim libertythroughout the Land. Inthe places where no one acts like a human being,letus bring courage;letus bring compassion;letus bring humanity. Olam ChesedYibanehBy Rabbi Menachem Creditor I will build this world from love…You must build this world from love…If we build this world from love…Then God will build this world from love…

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