April 2018 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

8/11/16, Spong: The Unlikely Honored Guest at the Democratic National Convention
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 31 Jul '18

31 Jul '18

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He was surrounded in that reserved and exclusive seating area by the power-elite of the Democratic Party: A former President, the sitting Vice-President and the “second lady,” the spouses and children of the nominees, as well as those especially invited guests, who were uniquely and politically related to the convention’s eventual nominee. This unlikely guest was in his own way quite unique. He was a Republican, one who had been elected to a state-wide office as a candidate of the opposition party. He served as the governor of Virginia from 1970 – 1974 and was the first Republican governor of Virginia since 1869 in the last days of reconstruction. Later he sought his party’s nomination to the Senate of the United States, losing to another Republican, John Warner, who served with distinction from 1979 until he retired in 2008. The name of this mystery quest is Abner Linwood Holton. He is now, and has been since the day I first met him, an extraordinary man. People, unaware of the history of the Democratic Party in Virginia, find it strange that the man I regarded as the best governor of Virginia during the years I lived in that state would be a Republican. Let me tell you his story.</p> <p>Linwood Holton was born in 1923 in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, a town deep in the heart of Appalachia. He was a Republican from the moment of his birth. He was also bright and ambitious. Being a Republican in Virginia in those days was to be part of a distinct minority, perhaps even an endangered one! The Democrats of Virginia were the only cohesive political force in the state. This majority party was run by Virginia’s senior United States Senator, Harry Flood Byrd, who after serving a term as governor from 1926 to 1930, effectively ran the state until he died in 1966. It was said of Harry Byrd that he and a few of his closest political advisors would sit on the porch at his home in Berryville, Virginia, and pick the candidates for every political vacancy in Virginia from governor on down. The electorate was deliberately kept small by poll taxes, which effectively discouraged both blacks and poor whites from voting. A Byrd loyalist was in every county seat in Virginia to run the party. Racism was deep and “States Rights” was a holy slogan designed to make racism seem socially acceptable. Virginia was a one party state. Frequently the Republicans would not even nominate candidates and, even when they did, no one paid much attention to them because whoever won the Democratic primary seldom even campaigned in the general election, since Republicans simply did not win in this state! Linwood Holton made it his life’s ambition to establish two-party politics in Virginia.</p> <p>He graduated from Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia, and then entered the law school at Harvard University. Along the way he married a Roanoke girl, named Virginia Rogers, who went by the name of Jinks. She was the daughter of Frank Rogers, an upright, but ultra-conservative, successful and well-connected Roanoke citizen, who was the grandson of the first Episcopal Bishop in Southwestern Virginia. In his mind, the two greatest virtues were to be a conservative Episcopalian and a loyal Byrd Democrat. Jinks, the more rebellious of Rogers’ two daughters, chose to marry a Republican and a Presbyterian! Supported by this remarkable woman, Linwood began his life’s task of strengthening Virginia’s Republican Party. This party’s base, such as it was, had always been in the mountains of the western part of Virginia. As a force in opposition to Byrd Democrats, the Virginia Republican party tilted slightly leftward. There was no room to the right of the Byrd machine. The Virginia Republicans were known for their party’s efforts to improve education statewide and to develop better state mental health facilities. Linwood’s organizational efforts were so successful that in 1965 he was the Republican nominee for governor opposing the Southside, Virginia, Byrd Democrat, Mills Godwin, who had emerged as the new leader of the Democratic Party. The sickness, retirement and subsequently the death of Senator Byrd meant that the torch of party leadership had to be passed to the next generation. It is interesting that Harry Byrd, Jr., always known as “Little Harry,” who was appointed to succeed his father in the Senate, did not succeed him in the leadership of the statewide Democratic Party. Holton was defeated in that first run for the governor’s office, but he garnered a respectable total of votes and succeeded in introducing himself to the state. The day after the defeat, he began planning for his second run in 1969. The governorship in Virginia, we need to note, is limited by the Constitution to a single term.</p> <p>National issues soon began to erode the Byrd majorities. Poll taxes were declared unconstitutional in 1964. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 opened the ballot to people of color. The feminist movement began to galvanize women into an effective political force. A national- thinking Virginia Democrat, named Henry Howell, began to build a liberal political base made up of labor unions, blacks, women and young people. His challenge to the Byrd machine resulted ultimately in his election as Lt. Governor in 1971, but he could go no farther. He remained anathema to Byrd Democrats. In the Democratic Primary of 1969, the Byrd candidate, William Battle, the son of former Governor John Battle, defeated Henry Howell in a bitter contest. The party could not heal this division, so in the General Election, Linwood Holton, supported by many of Howell’s still angry voters, rode to victory with a 65,000 vote majority.</p> <p>In his inaugural address, Holton called for an end to Virginia’s pattern of racial discrimination and its racist politics. No Virginia Governor had ever uttered such words before. Words, however, were not enough. People looked for actions. They would follow soon.</p> <p>In the most dramatic step imaginable, the new governor and his wife made the decision not to put their children in the church-related or independent private schools of Richmond, where all governors’ children had previously attended, but to enroll them in Richmond’s public schools which were at that time about 80% black. It was such a startling action for a Virginia politician that the New York Times covered it with a front page story and a picture of Virginia’s Governor Holton escorting one of his daughters into a school surrounded by a host of black faces smiling broadly. In a state where the official response of the ruling Democratic machine to “Brown vs. the Board of Education,” had been to call for “massive resistance to the law of the land,” a state in which some counties chose to close their public schools rather than to integrate them, here was the highest elected official in the state escorting his children into the majority black public schools of Richmond, Virginia. No action could have announced better that a new day was dawning in what had once been the capital of the Confederacy. One of those Holton children entering those public schools on that day was their oldest daughter, Anne.</p> <p>The white population of Virginia was shocked. They believed and stated that their new governor was sacrificing his children on the “altar of integration.” Many suggested that the “inferior education” that his children would receive in those heavily black schools would cripple them for life. It was a strange argument that gave the lie to the previous white claim that all of its racially segregated schools were “separate, <em>but equal</em>.” Anne, in her early teens, would be an exemplary student. She received a fine education and upon graduation from high school would be admitted to Princeton University, from which she graduated <em>magna cum laude</em>. She seemed not to have been penalized at all in her educational achievements. After Princeton she was accepted into the class of 1983 at the Harvard Law School, from which she now holds a doctor of Jurisprudence degree. From there she went into a legal career that in time would include being a domestic relations judge and Virginia’s Education Secretary.</p> <p>While at Harvard she met, fell in love with and married a fellow law student, who was born in Minnesota and educated at the University of Missouri. His name was Tim Kaine. She lured him back to Richmond, where his earlier life experiences, including his Jesuit high school education, his year as a volunteer missionary to Honduras and his mastery of the Spanish language, prepared him to begin his Richmond law practice as a civil rights attorney. Then responding to an expressed community need, he entered politics at the most local of levels, running for a seat on Richmond’s nine-member City Council. In a majority black city, Tim not only won that seat, but was also later elected by that majority-black city council to be Richmond’s Mayor. Two years later, in 2001 he moved to the state level, being elected Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor. In 2005, he won the governor’s office. His wife, Anne Holton, became the first person to be at one time living in the governor’s mansion as the child of a Republican governor and then a second time as the state’s first lady and wife of a Democratic governor. In 2012, Tim Kaine won a seat in the United States Senate. In 2016, with two years remaining in his first term as senator, he was chosen by the presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, to be her vice-presidential running mate. Anne Holton was there with him, waving to the crowd on the final night. As Hillary Clinton raised Tim Kaine’s hand high, former president Bill Clinton was at her side and Anne Holton was at Tim Kaine’s side. The crowd roared with approval.</p> <p>In the VIP section of that vast Philadelphia arena sat the former Republican Governor Linwood Holton, now 92 years old, with his wife Jinks, both still vibrant and attractive, watching their daughter being introduced to the nation. There is sometimes a reward for integrity. Linwood and Jinks Holton, who would not allow their lives to be twisted by the prejudice of racism, challenged the distorting and debilitating social structures of his generation in Richmond, Virginia. Doing what is right sometimes carries with it intimations of transcendence and even immortality. To this day he remains one of my heroes.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Alberto Mejia Aguilera from Mexico writes via the internet:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> Question:</h4> <p>I am from Mexico and I would like to know your opinion about Liberation Theology. Do you think that this theology is still an inspiration for the struggle against the social injustice?</p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Alberto,</p> <p>Liberation theology was, I believe, was born in Latin America, so you should be especially proud of it. I associate the name of Leonardo Boff, primarily, with it, but there were others like the murdered Bishop Oscar Romero. It was born in an attempt to apply the principles of the gospel not just to individuals, but also to the structures of our society, which so often drive the masses into poverty. It identifies God with the poor. For those reasons it tended to be resisted in ecclesiastical circles, especially by the leaders of the Roman Catholic during the years of Popes John Paul II and Benedict, both of whom were so politically conservative that they saw it as another manifestation of Communism. I think they were both wrong in this judgment. Liberation theology, I believe, constituted a call to Christianity to see that its alliance with power, both in Europe and the new world, had corrupted the essential justice that Christianity requires.</p> <p>Christianity was born among the poor and the outcasts. It rose to dominate society and so became the religion of kings. Liberation Theology was a necessary correction.</p> <p>I wish you well.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Read and Share Online Here</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img align="none" height="262" style="width: 350px;height: 262px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="350" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/e67ac6a0-334…"></a></div> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:26px"><span style="color:#000000">Bishop Spong at the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan September 10th & 11th</span></span></h2> <strong>Schedule:</strong> Saturday, September 10, 2016 1:00 pm at the Reynolds Recital Hall, Northern Michigan University 7:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Marquette Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:00 pm at the Memorial Union Building , Michigan Technological University At each location, there will be an opportunity for Q&A and book signing.</div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="top"> </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_1c149769-41d3-4c3b-8300-eaccdde19ae7 td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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4/26/18, Progressing Spirit: Plumer, What is God?; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 26 Apr '18

26 Apr '18

View this email in your browser What is God? Essay by Fred C. Plumer on April 26, 2018 A few weeks ago, I recommended to our Progressing Spirit writers that we should all write articles that responded to Bishop Spong’s book, Unbelievable. Then it hit me. I was going to be doing the article this week and as I had suggested to our writers, I would have to start with Spong’s first thesis. “Holy moly,” what was I thinking? For Spong’s first thesis is “God.” Now, I am a student of the Bible. I have been studying it for over forty years. Nearly thirty years ago I came to the dramatic conclusion that the vast majority, if not the entire Bible, was written as metaphor by people who may have been very bright for their time in history but were largely ignorant of the world that inherited this book. We really do not understand the world they lived in, and obviously, they did not understand the world we live in today. Many of their sincere beliefs would be considered, at best, superstitions today. That is one of the reasons it has always amazed me people can argue for an inerrant interpretation of the Bible, using the Bible to “prove” their own interpretation. And then there is the issue of God. I know of no subject that is more challenging to discuss then the subject of God. Does this God answer our prayers? If not, why are we still saying them in most of our churches? I sincerely believe if we could poll the members of a two hundred member church, and ask them if they believed in God, we would get two hundred different answers. Spong suggest that this is largely the result of thinking of God as a “being.” He writes, “What we must do is find the meaning to which the word ‘God’ points.” Now I am not overly concerned about the readers of this column. Most of us have not believed in a “God-being” sitting up in the skies waiting to hear our prayers. Most of us, I suspect, get a strange feeling when we say the Lord’s Prayer, whichever version we use, when we get to the “forgive us our sins” or frankly any part of the famous prayer. Do we really believe that “God” is even listening or is going to forgive us? Do we really believe that “God” will answer our petitions? Do we believe in a God? If so, what is God? Spong continues, “God is not a being, not even a supreme being. A being is something that exists in time and space, but we are trying to describe that which is ultimate, unbound, meaning that such terminology-the category of existence –cannot be used.” This is apparently harder than it sounds. That may be one of the reasons several well-known theologians have suggested that we give up using the term “God” at least for an extended period of time until people of the next generation can “reconceive” its true meaning. Paul Tillich suggested something similar several decades ago. “We must abandon the external height images in which the theistic God has historically been perceived and replace them with internal depth images of a deity who is not apart from us, but who is the very core and ground of all that is.” Spong starts his thesis by stating once you are thinking of God not as a being then you begin to think of God as a “doorway” of a new experience of life. He writes, “My doorway into God is to take my God experience seriously and then to live it as deeply as I can…How do I experience God? First, I experience God as Life.” So what do we do with this? How do I approach the subject while offending the fewest number of people? I suppose I could dazzle you with something like Tillich wrote, but I am not Paul Tillich, or Bishop Spong for that matter. So I suggest we look at a few of the ideas that are out there right now. Certainly one of the best ways to approach this is to give some concrete examples. One is the Oasis Communities. Oasis communities started around 2012 in this country. At last count they have to over 12 communities across the States and two in Canada. They started as an alternative, atheist “church” but they have grown-up since then. Their anti-attitude toward a god has transitioned a bit since they first started. They now say they do not believe in an intercessory god or a being. They gather on Sunday mornings because the leaders ascertained that this was the time that most folks had the least commitments. Their core values that are stated on the website are: 1. People are more important than beliefs. 2. Reality is known through reason. 3. Meaning comes from making a difference. 4. Human hands solve human problems. 5. Be accepting and be accepted. Another organization you might find interesting is called The Clergy Project. It is growing rapidly. The organization works with clergy who want to “come out of the closet,” meaning to proclaim to their congregations that they no longer can in good conscious use the term God. They consider themselves atheist. None of them believe in a theistic god and have given up trying to “fake” it in church. The Clergy Project was started to help these people either by learning how to reconfigure their ministry by becoming more honest in their churches or through helping them find another profession. You may want to look them up on the web. (clergyproject.org) If you do, you might be interested in reading the story by John Harkey Gibbs, currently on the front page of the Clergy Project. One of our regular writers, Gretta Vosper, is part of this organization and is a very effective pastor in her own church. A couple of you have notified us that you have stopped reading her articles because you do not like the term “atheist.” I suggest you take another look at what Ms. Vosper is writing. She does not believe in an intervening God, and does not believe there is anything “up there” or “out there” that she would call “godlike.” Vosper has been challenged by a few of her former church members, but far more by her denominational hierarchy. And yet she has a vital church that works very well for a lot of people. The congregation has no desire to “please” God, and most of the congregants are better for that. Their focus is about caring and pleasing each other as a community. If someone has a problem they may be more comfortable discussing it with a peer rather than with clergy or more importantly, asking “God” to fix it. I suggest you read her first book, With or Without God. She makes a solid argument that we should remove the term god from our vocabulary in the church. Vosper writes, “It is time for the church to give up that truth-testing role. Those in leadership positions in the church are fully aware that whatever god is, it is not described by the church’s doctrines. They are even aware that there may be no such thing as god.” Perhaps John Robinson, Ph.D., D.Min who is a clinical psychologist with a second doctorate in ministry, has the right idea. Robinson believes that God exists and it is “us.” In his most recent book, The Divine Human: The Final Transformation of Sacred Aging, he writes; “The Divine Human is someone who experiences body, self and the world as literally divine. It’s a state of consciousness free of identity, time and story, and the whole problem-ridden labyrinth of left brain thinking that dominates our lives. In mystical awareness, we experience our “own” consciousness and being as the consciousness and being of God.” Robinson says the answer is less religion and more mysticism. He suggests that we have been looking in all the wrong places for God. He explains that Jesus was a mystic first and foremost. When Jesus said we live in a sacred and divine world he meant something more than, “this is a beautiful world.” This beautiful world is actually an opportunity to discover who and what we are. He quotes Jesus, “The father’s kingdom is spread out upon the earth and people do not see it…What you look for has come, but you do not know it.”(Gospel of Thomas, Marvin Meyer and Harold Bloom p65, 113) And in Robinson’s same book he also quotes Joseph Campbell, “This is it. This is Eden. When you see the kingdom spread upon the earth, the old way of living in the world is annihilated. That is the end of the world. The end of the world is not an event to come, it is an event of psychological transformation, of visionary transformation. You see not the world of solid things but a world of radiance.” Once we “wake up” and see this reality, according to Robinson, we will also realize that we are gods or godlike. It is something we can experience any time…but we have to do the work. In part we have to learn how to become mystics through meditation, changing our attitudes and opening our eyes. Robinson may have a point here. If we really began to see the world as sacred and our lives as a divine experience, how would that change our vison of the world and the way we experience it? How would that change the world? Can we even imagine the sense of becoming godly as we work through our lives? It is an intriguing idea. And finally, for years now, I have wondered about the string theory. In short, it is the idea that the entire universe is connected with some kind of invisible string and this “string” moves in large waves. It brings me back to the Buddhist saying, when a butterfly flaps its wings, the world is changed. Is that something we could refer to as god or God? Just the idea of being interconnected to each other, let alone to things we do not even think of or know about, is tantalizing to me. The bottom line with this way of reasoning is that we still are responsible for our lives. Yes, other people, animals, plants, whatever, may be “pulling on our string” or strings, but we still have to decide how we are going to live our lives. So I bring you back to Bishop Spong’s explanation of God. In short he says God is explainable only through experience. And how do we experience God, according to Spong? “I experience God as Life.” Maybe another good start would be to keep the wisdom of naturalist John Burroughs in mind when we are entering that doorway: the more we allow science, reason and wonder to lead us forward down the trail, the more we find ourselves “at home in the universe.” ~ Fred C. Plumer Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author In 1986 Rev. Plumer was called to the Irvine United Congregational Church in Irvine, CA to lead a UCC new start church, where he remained until he retired in 2004. The church became known throughout the denomination as one of the more exciting and progressive mid-size congregations in the nation. He served on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Conference of the United Church of Christ (UCC) for five years, and chaired the Commission for Church Development and Evangelism for three of those years. In 2006 Fred was elected President of ProgressiveChristianity.org (originally called The Center for Progressive Christianity – TCPC) when it’s founder Jim Adams retired. As a member of the Executive Council for TCPC he wrote The Study Guide for The 8 Points by which we define: Progressive Christianity. He has had several articles published on church development, building faith communities and redefining the purpose of the enlightened Christian Church. His book Drink from the Well is an anthology from speeches, articles in eBulletins, and numerous publications that define the progressive Christianity movement as it evolves to meet new challenges in a rapidly changing world. Question & Answer Q: By Ralf from Oklahoma Recently, while in the middle of a difficult and tragic event in my life, a friend told me not to worry because God has a hand in everything that happens and that means that everything that happen is meant for good. He even suggested I read Romans 8:28. Do you think that's what the verse actually means? A: By Rev. Mark Sandlin Dear Ralph, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” —Romans 8:28 This verse is so chock full of issues I barely know where to start. Considering there are so many issues, I think I'll just focus on the overarching problem – certainty. When folks quote this they tend to say it loaded with a bunch of theological perspectives that they hold to strongly simply because they were told to, or want to, or they have blind faith in them. The thing is, even scholars who spend their careers looking at these theological issues find it hard to say, with certainty, that they definitely have one “correct” understanding of Romans 8:28. Let’s just look at one piece of the verse: “in all things God works for the good…”. Most folks who like to quote this scripture hear it as saying “all things are meant for good by God.” But, that way of seeing the world elevates tragedy into blessing and dismisses human grief as an inability to understand God’s “larger plan” or the “mystery of God.” >From the holocaust, to Rwanda, to child abuse, to the 21,000 people who die every day due to hunger related causes, this take on the providence of God paints a picture of a God who creates death and suffering in order to achieve some supposed greater good. That’s no god. It’s not even what the verse says. It says, “in all things God works for the good.” Perhaps what is being said is that in all things (even things humanity creates that are horrible and tragic)God is endeavoring to create something good. And perhaps the reason God struggles to do so, is that the only tools he has available are us – God’s people. So, no. I definitely don't think that's what the verse actually means. PEACE!  ~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Click here to read and share online About the Author Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press' Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on "The Huffington Post," "Sojourners," "Time," "Church World Services," and even the "Richard Dawkins Foundation." He's been featured on PBS's "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly" and NPR's "The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Debating with Evangelicals Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June 22, 2005 Twice recently, I have had the opportunity to engage in public debate two people who identify themselves as evangelicals, the Rev. Dr. Albert Mohler, the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Rev. Dr. William Craig, a non-residential “Research Professor of Philosophy” at the Talbot School of Theology, an evangelical school in La Mirada, California. The venues for these debates were quite different. Dr. Mohler and I were in two studios in different cities so we never actually met, nor could I see him. Dr. Craig and I shared the stage before a live audience in an auditorium at Bethel College in Ohio. The subject matter was also different. With Dr. Mohler, it was the Bible and how one is to approach the sacred text, while with Dr. Craig we limited our subject to the resurrection of Jesus as the gospels describe it. These two gentlemen differed greatly in personality. Dr. Mohler was overtly aggressive, while Dr. Craig was quite civil, despite slipping occasionally into ‘cuteness.’ There was, however, little to distinguish their perspectives. In typical evangelical style both validated their points of view by describing the time when each “gave myself to the Lord,” suggesting in subtle ways that without this saving moment, rational conversation about the Bible had little relevance. Yet both of these guardians of the literal Bible appeared to me to be highly defensive. Their defensiveness was apparent first in their constant citing of the names of those biblical authorities they quoted to justify their evangelical conclusions. They worked hard to build up the credibility of these ‘scholars’, listing their degrees and publications and stating that they represented a new wave of learning. That was, they suggested, why I might never have heard of them. It was an argument not dissimilar from the way evangelicals also quote certain ‘scientists’ who, they claim “challenge Darwin and evolution in the name of science.” An investigation of the credentials of these authorities, however, reveals that the majority of their degrees come from evangelical schools and that their books are published by evangelical publishers. When these facts are raised to consciousness, the response is typically that “liberals do not take evangelical scholarship seriously because of an intellectual bias.” I confess that I plead guilty to that charge to this degree. I can read two or three pages of the work of someone described as an “evangelical scholar” and tell you quickly why I have no desire to read more. What they call scholarship is always in the service of the evangelical agenda. There is in fact no such thing as “conservative” biblical scholarship, any more than there is something called “liberal” biblical scholarship. Scholarship is by definition neither liberal nor conservative, it is, rather, competent or incompetent. The nature of scholarship is to go wherever the search for truth leads; it does not exist to buttress pre-conceived evangelical conclusions. That is to confuse both education and scholarship with propaganda. Most of the evangelical “scholars” that these two gentlemen cited are unknown in the academic circles I inhabit not, as they claim, because of a liberal bias but because their work is not regarded as academic at all. It, therefore, stands at odds with the great tradition of biblical scholarship that broke upon the Western world in the late 18th century, and that continues to challenge, deeply and successfully, the literal assumptions made by most evangelicals. When Dr. Mohler asserted in our debate, “that every word of the Bible is the inerrant word of God,” it was obvious that this critical work of the last 200 years has never engaged his mind. The inerrancy he claimed for “the Word of God” requires one to live in a pre-Copernican, pre-Darwinian world. To pretend that the earth is still the center of the universe is simply no longer credible. Old Testament narratives from the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis, to the story of manna raining down from heaven on the Israelites in the wilderness reflect that now-rejected world view, as do the New Testament accounts of a star being dragged across the heavens slowly enough to allow wise men to keep up with it and Jesus returning to God by ascending into the sky. DNA evidence also makes the idea of a separate creation for human life laughable. The people who wrote the Bible, knew nothing about germs, viruses or tumors, and assumed that sickness was punishment for sinfulness, that epilepsy resulted from demon possession and deaf muteness derived from the devil tying the victim’s tongue. One does not want to attribute such ignorance to God. Furthermore, evangelicals do not face the fact that a book which says quite literally that homosexuals should be put to death, women are inferior to men, slavery is legitimate or Jews deserve God’s wrath, should never be called “the Word of God.” When Dr. Craig proclaimed that the gospels were “biographies of Jesus,” reflecting “eye witness accounts that go back into the first decade following the life of Jesus,” it was apparent that he was either unaware of or had deliberately rejected the conclusions of two centuries of biblical studies. Then he stated that the Book of Acts was written in the early sixties, a date reputable scholars find incredible. To debate such ideas as if they are competent is like debating with members of the flat earth society. It is universally attested today that Acts is volume two of Luke and that Luke has copied into his gospel about fifty percent of the Gospel of Mark. If Dr. Craig were correct that would force us to date Luke and Mark early in the 50’s. Both gospels reflect a much later structure of church life and appear to be cognizant of such external events as the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., each of which makes Dr. Craig’s dating impossible. I have no desire to impugn the integrity of either of these gentlemen, but I can say that their level of learning is at best naive. Like most evangelicals, they know much about the literal content of the Bible and can cite its proof texts with alacrity, but they seem to know nothing about the Bible’s formation, its clear conflicts, or anything else that threatens their primary presuppositions. Neither man understood a basic distinction, which is that while all people are welcome to their own opinions, none are welcome to their own facts. Facts can be tested. Evangelicals also do not seem to recognize that there is a time-honored method by which new thoughts enter the public debate. The one with the challenging insight writes a book or a paper and allows it to be circulated among those judged to be experts in that field so that they might react to it. If the insight opens new doors into truth it will ultimately win its way to acceptance. If it does not, it will receive the treatment it deserves and be roundly dismissed. Insights that are saluted only by evangelicals do not meet that test and all the rhetoric, designed to make credible that which has no academic merit, will avail nothing. The major problem with those who read the Bible literally is that they do not understand how the world has changed since the Bible was written. Propositional statements made in any time frame reflect the worldview of the one speaking. Language is always a dialogue between truth and time. Ultimate truth may be timeless but all articulations of truth are time bound and time warped. That distinction is still foreign to the conservative religious mind. My debating partners became quite contentious when trying to maintain their intellectually indefensible positions. Dr. Mohler revealed this by going into a full-scale attack. He suggested that I had rejected “every tenet of traditional Christianity.” He checked them off: the Virgin Birth, the blood atonement, the physical nature of the Resurrection, the supernatural God, and the reality of miracles. As he fired his fundamentalist artillery, he slipped quickly into character assassination. The oldest trick in debating is to attack the messenger when you can no longer deal with the message. What I do reject is not the basic ‘tenets of Christianity’ but the literal interpretations and dated world view that have been imposed on traditional Christianity by those who think they are ‘defending the faith.’ That is a distinction that those who identify Christianity with their own narrow definitions of it cannot make. Dr. Mohler’s assertions were almost identical with those things outlined by evangelicals in a series of early 20th century tracts called “The Fundamentals,” every one of which has been dismissed by the academic world of Christian scholarship. No scholar of world rank today, treats the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke as literal biology, the resurrection as physical resuscitation or envisions God as a deity who requires a blood offering and a human sacrifice as the means of achieving salvation. Such literalizations have become nothing less than a source of Christian embarrassment. Dr. Craig sought to distance himself from such strict fundamentalism by announcing that he was not an absolute literalist. When the Bible suggested that the hills clapped their hands, he explained, he did not believe that “hills actually had hands that could clap.” If that’s the mentality that tempers his literalism, he has a long way to go before he can enter the contemporary theological dialogue. His wife actually articulated the real problem at the end of the debate. I had related the story of how my evangelical church had taught me as a child that segregation, patriarchy, anti-Semitism and homophobia were the will of God, quoting the literal words of the Bible to ‘prove’ it. She expressed her sorrow “for the way I had been treated as a child by evangelicals.” If I had just had a wise and loving evangelical as my childhood pastor, perhaps someone like Dr. Craig, none of these dreadful things would have happened and, presumably, I would be a good evangelical today. I smiled inwardly, for clearly her comment revealed no insight at all into the things we had been discussing for two hours. Christianity is in desperate need of reformation but dialogue with evangelicals is not the way to pursue that task. As the old love song suggests, ‘we live in two different worlds.’ ~ John Shelby Spong Announcements Events and Updates Pilgrimage as a Journey of the Heart Online eCourse offered by Spiritual & Practice April 30th - May 25th Pilgrimage transcends religious, national, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. This e-course will explore the many dimensions of pilgrimages as a spiritual practice and offer resources to aid those called to the journey today. We will look specifically at the value of pilgrimages in Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and psychology. Click here for more information/registration ..

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Bruce Lanphear: Link to Earth Justice article; Bruche's short videos re toxins/environment
by Ellie Stock 25 Apr '18

25 Apr '18

Hi Folks, A follow up from my previous email re the Earth Justice article about Bruce Lanphear and his work regarding the harmful affects of lead contamination. Below is a link to that article. Also below is a link to excellent short (3-4 minutes) videos he and his brother Bob produced on harmful effects of toxins and health and the environment, prevention vs. cure of disease, etc. Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com Judges to EPA: Get the Lead Out (on Protecting Children’s ... earthjustice.org/blog/2018-march/judges-to-epa-get-the... Bruce Lanphear's scientific work showed the dangers of low-level lead exposure. His work with Earthjustice helped ensure safer homes for our children. Videos. You can view them here: www.littlethingsmatter.ca

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Article: "Bruce Lanphear, Scientist and Physician" (Earth Justice Magazine)
by Ellie Stock 23 Apr '18

23 Apr '18

Hi Folks, If receive or see quarterly magazines from Earth Justice, check out the spring issue which has an article on p. 30 "Bruce Lanphear--Scientist and Physician"--about lead standards and Bruce Lanphear--the work he has done to hold EPA accountable to the truth that no lead blood level is safe, forcing EPA to update its standards on allowable lead levels in paint and dust. His work has been instrumental in our work in Missouri and Peru re chronic lead contamination pollution from industry as well as contamination from paint, etc. Thanks to Bruce for his commitment, leadership and work re this and other toxins harmful to our health. Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com

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Stop, Look and Listen!
by Dawn Collins 21 Apr '18

21 Apr '18

Dear Colleagues, I've had the occasion to tarry in my journey of late over three passages of Scripture discussed in our recent House Church worship service this Sunday after Easter here in Denver. Would appreciate any ruminations you care to add to this reflective stew. I admit and give fair warning I have not been taken up into the wisdom of Proverbs over the years as I have with the Psalms. Yet I think there are nuggets of wisdom to be mined for reflection in our meditative study of the Bible. ........................................................................ The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot.- Proverbs 10:7 A faithful one will abound with blessings, but s/he who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished. - Proverbs 28:20 ...and the base (insignificant or lowly) things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are...- I Corinthians1:28 And two tangential messages on the pages reviewed that captured my attention: Happy are those who are always reverent, but those who harden their hearts will fall into calamity.- Proverbs 28:19 ...as it is written, "Let all who glory, glory in the LORD.I Corinthians 1:31 Your thoughts? G&P, Dawn Collins We love the Creator/Source because the Source/Creator loved us first.- 1 John 4:`19

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Weekend Read: "The Civil War is over, the Confederacy lost and we are better for it."
by Karen Snyder 20 Apr '18

20 Apr '18

In case you had not heard this speech by the Mayor of New Orleans last year, it is an example of the arc of history bending toward justice. > From: The SPLC Editors <contactinfo(a)splcentermail.com <mailto:contactinfo@splcentermail.com>> > Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2018 by the > Subject: Weekend Read: "The Civil War is over, the Confederacy lost and we are better for it." > > <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fIW…> > <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fMs…> > > Follow SPLC > <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fRO…> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fj5…> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fmW…> > FIGHTING HATE // TEACHING TOLERANCE // SEEKING JUSTICE <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2f2L…> > APRIL 14, 2018 > Weekend Read // Issue 75 > In five Southern states, April is Confederate History Month, a dubious designation that’s at odds with the reckoning the region has engaged in since the Charleston church massacre by white supremacist Dylann Roof in 2015. > Roof’s act of terror began to shake the South out of its 150-year reverence for the Confederacy, a glorification cemented, in part, by the widespread installation of monuments that peaked during the period after Jim Crow was established, and again during the civil rights movement. As the nation mourned the victims in Charleston,grassroots organizers like Take ‘Em Down NOLA <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.splcenter.…> modeled the kind of work necessary to persuade local governments to remove these monuments to slavery, white supremacy and oppression from public places. > In many cases, it took courage by local politicians to act. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu exemplified that courage when he spoke last May at the culmination of Take ‘Em Down NOLA’s successful campaign to dismantle the remaining Confederate monuments in his historic city. > David Menschel called <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2ftwitter.com%2f…> Landrieu’s remarks "one of the most honest speeches given by a Southern politician." > Indeed, it was a remarkable speech and an important moment. We can think of no better way of marking Confederate History Month than to reprise Landrieu’s words. > > Thank you for coming. > The soul of our beloved city is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way—for both good and for ill. It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans—the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Colorix, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of France and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese, and so many more. > You see, New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures. There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum: out of many we are one. But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market, a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were bought, sold, and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor, of misery, of rape, of torture. America was the place where nearly 4000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined “separate but equal”; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp. So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well, what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth. > And it immediately begs the questions, why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. > For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth. As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.” So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other. So, let's start with the facts. > The historic record is clear: The Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This “cult” had one goal—through monuments and through other means—to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy, ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for. > After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone's lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy. He said in his now famous “corner-stone speech” that the Confederacy's “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.” > Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us, and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago. We can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and a more perfect union. > Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it. President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history. … On a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque, were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.” > A piece of stone—one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored. As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family's long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought. So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race. > I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes. Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth-grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it? Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too? We all know the answer to these very simple questions. When you look into this child's eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can't walk away from this truth. > And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics. This is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naive quest to solve all our problems at once. > This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong. Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division and, yes, with violence. > To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past. It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong. > And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans—or anyone else—to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd. Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth: We are better together than we are apart. > Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world? We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz, the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures. Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think. > All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity. We are proof that out of many we are one—and better for it! Out of many we are one—and we really do love it! And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words. “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.” > We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say, “Wait, not so fast.” But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Wait has almost always meant never.” We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now. > No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain. While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts; not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver. > Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side. Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity. > He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don't respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.” Yes, Terence, it is. And it is long overdue. Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps. > A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond: Let us not miss this opportunity, New Orleans, and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place. > We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves: At this point in our history—after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado—if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces, would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story? > We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations. And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people. In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals. We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. > That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America. Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in … all of the way. It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes. Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy, we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans, and set the tone for the next 300 years. > After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6–1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments, in accordance with the law, have been removed. So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become. > Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned, and now universally loved Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.” So before we part let us again state the truth clearly. > The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered. As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history. > Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause. Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds … to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” > Thank you. > The Editors > P.S. Here are a few other pieces we think are valuable this week: > Why America’s black mothers and babies are in a life-or-death crisis <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.nytimes.co…> by Linda Villarosa for The New York Times > As gentrification closes in, immigrants in Los Angeles find their American dream slipping away <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2fwww.latimes.com…> by Brittney Mejia, Joe Mozingo, Andrea Castillo for Los Angeles Times > Escapes, riots, and beatings. But states can’t seem to ditch private prisons <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.nytimes.co…> by Timothy Williams and Richard A. Oppel Jr. for The New York Times > The real museums of Memphis <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.scalawagma…> by Zandria Felice Robinson for Scalawag > View this email in your browser. <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fdonate.splcent…> > This email was sent to wow_asia21(a)hotmail.com <mailto:wow_asia21@hotmail.com>. To update your email address or other account information, please reply to this email and let us know. > <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2foa…> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2f3L…> > <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2f7R…> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fQ6…> > Take advantage of corporate matching gift opportunities. Find out if your employer will match your donation <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fVG…> to the SPLC today. > Was this message forwarded to you? Sign up to receive SPLC updates. <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2f8A…> > Update Preferences <https://donate.splcenter.org/communication-preferences-form?srctid=1&erid=2…> | Unsubscribe <https://donate.splcenter.org/communication-preferences-form?srctid=1&erid=2…> | Privacy Policy <https://donate.splcenter.org/privacy-policy?srctid=1&erid=229841249&efndnum…> | Contact Us <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fIv…> | Copyright 2018 > > <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fj1…> > > Follow SPLC > <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2f9L…> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fBT…> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2f77…> > Southern Poverty Law Center > 400 Washington Avenue > Montgomery, AL 36104 > 334.956.8200 // splcenter.org <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2feoaclk.com%2fdL…>

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4/19/18, Progressing Spirit; Sandlin: More Q's, Fewer A's; Spong Revisited
by Ellie Stock 19 Apr '18

19 Apr '18

View this email in your browser IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! This is the last time we will be mailing your weekly newsletter from the old Bishop Spong email address: support(a)johnshelbyspong.com. You MUST add contact(a)progressingspirit.com to your address book in order to assure you will continue receiving your newsletter from Progressing Spirit. More Q's, Fewer A's Essay by Rev. Mark Sandlin, April 19, 2018 Most conservative and mainline churches don’t like to talk about it a lot, but the reality is that churches have done lots of damage to lots of lives for a long time. The list of damages is long. Frankly, that’s probably true for most institutions in general. It’s hard to gain a large footprint and not manage to step on people as you attempt to move forward. It’s hard, but it’s not really excusable and there is always room for improvement. I think one of the more quietly damaging things the institutionalized Church has done over the years is to teach us that asking questions is bad, or at least asking investigative questions is bad. Feel free to ask the minister what a particular story means, but it’s practically blasphemy to ask why it couldn’t mean something else. As a matter of fact, the institutionalized Church has a long history of telling us not to ask too many questions. Us? We are told to trust in the traditional translations. We are told to learn and repeat the confessions even if we don’t agree with what they are saying. Doing otherwise is dangerous – doing otherwise shows a lack of faith. Or, so we are told. As a matter of fact, I now try to minimize my use of the word “faith.” Colloquially, it has become the near equivalent of “blind belief.” And, “blind belief?” That’s just churchy language for “I wanna believe what I wanna believe.” Me? I’ve got no use for that. That kind of thinking (or should I say lack of thinking?) leads to gullibility and a spiritually shallow life. It has nothing substantial to stand on and falls down time and time again when it is put up to the challenges of life and what spirituality looks like in tough times. It cannot sustain you and it certainly cannot grow you spiritually. It just leaves you stuck in the quagmire that someone else created in order to control you and your perspective. Or as Saint Thomas Aquinas said, “Clearly the person who accepts the church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the church teaches.” Personally, I prefer the old Chinese proverb that says, “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.” We should want to ask questions, to grow in our faith. We should be innovative in our thinking rather than traditional. That is not to say we should ignore the traditional thinking. Frequently, it is an excellent place to start, but we should not get stuck in a space and a place that used antiquated thinking, antiquated information, and antiquated tools to arrive at its conclusions. To grow, we must be innovative. To be innovative we must ask questions. That’s what helps us develop in, and advance, our spirituality. It’s interesting to consider that the one group who probably shares with the world’s leading innovators a willingness to question everything is children. They learn through asking questions. Frankly, it’s the simplest and most effective way of learning. Author Warren Berger in his book “A More Beautiful Question,” says that children from ages 2 to 5 ask roughly 40,000 questions. Unfortunately, for most of us, as we progress through school and grow into adulthood, the number of questions we ask drops off dramatically. It would seem that as we get older we somehow forget this oh-so-important lesson of asking questions. Sometimes, sadly, it is even taught out of us. From, standard school curriculum to the blind faith of institutionalized churches, we are typically encouraged to memorize and regurgitate someone else’s “knowledge” rather than develop our own. We learn answers rather than how to ask good questions. Interestingly, nowadays, it is very easy to find answers – nowadays, answers are practically a dime a dozen. With the aid of laptops, smartphones, and smart home products like Amazon Echo and Google Home, we can quickly get the answer to almost any question even when we personally have very little to no knowledge on the subject whatsoever. It seems to me that this instant access to “answers” makes critical thinking skills and the ability to ask good questions possibly more important than they have ever been. The bottom line is that knowing how to ask good questions is much more important than knowing the answers. Asking good questions helps us form our own beliefs and our own opinions instead of mindlessly adopting them from other people. Here’s the thing, not asking good or even enough questions has a direct impact on the quality of choices we make. And, not making good choices in our spiritual lives is not just unfortunate, it can impact the health with which we move through life. Learning and practicing the art of asking questions helps us gain deep insight, develop more innovative solutions, and arrive at better decision-making. Spirituality attempts to help us understand who we are and what we are to be within this grand experiment we call life. It attempts to lead us into being our best selves. To guide us in making the most positive impact we can in every moment of our lives. To play the best role we can in making lives better and Creation better. To recognize our universal connectedness. To capture glimpses of the thing we call God. I don’t know about you, but while that may sound kind of beautiful, if I stop to think about it for a moment, it can be pretty overwhelming. I mean, that is a MASSIVE undertaking. There is simple NO WAY I can do that with what I know now. Which is where asking questions comes in. The brilliant thinkers of the world will tell you that, much more frequently than starting with the known “answers,” it is asking the right questions (and frequently they are simple questions) that almost always starts the process which leads to great breakthroughs. If we want real breakthroughs in our lives, professionally or spiritually, we need to learn to embrace some uncertainty if we hope for creative answers to emerge. I mean, isn’t life itself one of the most amazing creative processes you have ever participated in? So, what if discovering and living out your purpose has much less to do with defining it and much more to do with letting it emerge slowly? It seems to me that most natural creative processes work that way. Part of our job is to create a nurturing environment for it and allow divine mystery to express itself. One of my favorite modern scientists is a theoretical physicist and a co-founder of string theory. His name is Michio Kaku. He says, “I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence. To me, it is clear that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance.” He also says that in his own point of view, “you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God.” It’s why I consider myself an agnostic Christian. It’s also why I assert that when it comes to spirituality, expecting to have all the answers rather than learning to constantly ask and live in the questions is far worse than just folly, it the height of egoism and self-importance. One of the challenges of the modern Church is the reality that the roots of most religions are in providing answers. For example, we have creation stories because people in that pre-scientific age wanted to know where we came from, so religion provided the “answers.” In our scientific age, we have to begin looking at the other “truths” that these sacred texts provide and be willing to ask questions of, and about, them. Not only that, we must begin considering the importance of experience as a paradigm shift away from answers rooted in the past and toward questions rooted not only in the present but in the future. Being rooted in questions acknowledges our ultimate inability to “prove” God. It opens us up to blooms of creative, spiritual insight, and innovation. It frees us from the oppressive need to be “right” and opens us to the experience of just “being.” Not only that, but in knowing that we do not have all the answers, it should also open us to the possibility that others may have perspectives that could help us – whether they come from a different belief tradition or no belief tradition at all. It should open us up to dialogues we may have otherwise avoided – dialogue that may grow us in ways we never dreamt of. It might even open us up to the reality that no one way of growing is the right way to grow. That we all are growing in the same garden, in the same soil, nourished by the same earth. I’ll conclude with something Austrian poet and novelist Rainier Maria Rilke once said, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on “The Huffington Post,” “Sojourners,” “Time,” “Church World Services,” and even the “Richard Dawkins Foundation.” He’s been featured on PBS’s “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and NPR’s “The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin Question & Answer Q: By Rev. Laurel Gray While traditional Christian congregations continue their gradual decline, I'm often asked, "Well, how is Progressive Christianity doing?" Other than your comment, "It is growing" I have no credible answer to that. If indeed, PC is growing, I am happy to hear that, but to what extent is it growing? I've been attending the Jesus Seminars on the road for many years, and have noticed a definite decline in attendance, particularly among the youth. The millennials do not seem interested. What does that say about the possible future of the PC movement? A: By Fred Plumer Dear Laurel, I realize events like the Jesus Seminars, and the Jesus Seminars on the Road seem to attract mostly seniors and they are fading away. You are right, the younger crowd is not interested in much of these events. It is true for Bishop Spong’s crowd and to some degree they are not necessarily attracted to progressive Christianity. Even more obvious is that younger generations are not attracted to churches, especially churches that have not changed. Thus the losses and closing of churches is obvious to anyone who wants to look seriously at any of these things. However, the millennials are the most spiritual group of people ever to be classified as a generation. They have started forming small groups for “Sunday discussion,” support groups and lots of other forms of planned communities. The have started dozens, if not hundreds of on-line connections.One of the first ones that kept popping up is “Juniper Path.” Like Headspace, Global Spiritual life, Search Inside Yourself, Juniper Path brings the tradition of meditation to modern day life. “It focuses on the rigor of ancient practices in new cultural packaging. It is committed to providing the wisdom and experience of a long-standing meditation tradition in secular form, tailored to contemporary culture, knowledge, sensibility, and psychology.” It is designed for people to meet in small groups but also to follow the teachings and suggestions from their website. Its primary goals are for transformation and accountability. One of their participants, Lawrence Levy, states: “We need a path - spiritual teachings, a spiritual way of life that is not an affront to what we’re learning in science and to our norms like gender equality. It has to blend with who we are because this is a path to make us the very best that we can be in our world-right here where we are sitting.” One of the more interesting ones for me is something called The Dinner Party. The Dinner Party is a young community gathering of 20-30 young people who have experienced a significant loss. There are others like it, Good People Dinners, Deliberate life, Civil Conversations Project but this one seems to be better organized. It is following the Alcoholics Anonymous model in many ways and it is having positive impact on lives. These gatherings bring people together for conversation that tend to be more intimate and personal than every day chit chat. They take on subjects like death, racism, and loneliness that ensures that connections are made more quickly and participant have the experience of being seen, truly seen. Some of their groups are identify as Christian. These folks make the dinner explicitly sacred utilizing communion bread and wine. Other groups are encouraged to bring a level of spirituality into the gatherings. CTZNWELL, like The Feast, Kunto and Off the Matt, is attempting change the world from the inside out by mobilizing the well-being industry. Their main function is to increase the interest in the practice of personal transformation through meditation, the participant connects the dots between these practices and the politics of social and environment well-being. >From their website: We engage in deep transformational work around our values; and are led through relationship to issues like access to healthcare, food justice, living wage, climate change and education. From there, we partner with campaigns led by the people most directly affected and respond in conscious and creative disruption and re-imagination of our world. We aspire to move and unify our community at a scale that will have an impact at a systemic and global level. And finally, one of the closet things to church is something called The Sanctuaries. Like Sunday Assembly, and Bodi Spiritual Center, the Sanctuaries is a diverse arts community with a soul in Washington, D.C. It goal is to bring together a multi-racial and multi-spiritual community of “citizen artists.” Events like Soul Slams and Community Huddles allow people of diverse spiritual and artistic backgrounds to share their perspectives, do creative projects and engage in honest conversations. They develop creative skills to do social justice in the city and foster partnerships with other organizations. Like other new communities they are building on the assumption of diverse spiritual and non-spiritual expressions. Besides the Huddles and other activities, they meet in large groups on Sunday morning. They assume a spectrum of spiritual and religious inclination and build from there, with a loyalty to fostering spiritual growth but not necessarily to a church like community format. They are primarily run by volunteers but they do have at least one ordained pastor leading services. There stated goals are personal transformation, community and social transformation. “I definitely appreciate the love that I get from everybody-from all walks of life. To just be able to come and be themselves and genuine. The Sanctuaries allows people to open up and there’s no other place where people could do it, just given how life has become. Everything is hustle and grind, no time, no money, and stress. The Sanctuaries is a safe place that I can go to and share what I do, creatively.” So my conclusion is that most of the old denominations are going to die or certainly become even less influential-the same thing for churches and organizations like the Jesus Seminar. However I still believe that something powerful will replace these things that will be more relevant to our changing world. Unfortunately I doubt it either of us will be around to see it happen. ~ Fred Plumer Click here to read and share online About the Author In 1986 Rev. Plumer was called to the Irvine United Congregational Church in Irvine, CA to lead a UCC new start church, where he remained until he retired in 2004. The church became known throughout the denomination as one of the more exciting and progressive mid-size congregations in the nation. He served on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Conference of the United Church of Christ (UCC) for five years, and chaired the Commission for Church Development and Evangelism for three of those years. In 2006 Fred was elected President of ProgressiveChristianity.org (originally called The Center for Progressive Christianity - TCPC) when it’s founder Jim Adams retired. As a member of the Executive Council for TCPC he wrote The Study Guide for The 8 Points by which we define: Progressive Christianity. He has had several articles published on church development, building faith communities and redefining the purpose of the enlightened Christian Church. His book Drink from the Well is an anthology from speeches, articles in eBulletins, and numerous publications that define the progressive Christianity movement as it evolves to meet new challenges in a rapidly changing world. Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Can One Be Christian Without Being a Theist? Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on June 15, 2005 As one who lectures extensively across this nation and the world, I have been asked questions by my audiences that have ranged from the naive to the profound, from the obvious to the obtuse. Some have been hostile, designed to embarrass, attack, and minimize. Some have been seeking in the wasteland some hint that the living water of faith might yet be available. No one, however, has ever confronted me with a question at once so penetrating and yet so devastating as the one with which I began this column. It was articulated several years ago not by a critic of the Christian Faith but by a deeply committed layperson who had even thought for a time about seeking ordination. It went to the very core of the contemporary theological debate and forced me to think in a brand new direction. Theism is the historic way men and women have been taught to think about God and most people think it is the only conceivable way to think about God. The primary image of God in the Bible is surely the theistic image; that is a God conceived of as a Being, supernatural in power, external to this world but periodically invading it to answer prayers or rescue a person or nation in distress. This theistic Being is inevitably portrayed in human terms as a person who has a will, who loves, rewards, and punishes. Although one can find other images of God in the scriptures, this is the predominant and familiar one. Theism is also the understanding of God revealed in the liturgies of the Christian churches where we meet God as one who desires praise, elicits confession, reveals the divine will, and calls us into the spiritual life of communion with this divine Being. So dominant is this definition of God that to reject theism is to be an a-theist. An atheist is one who denies the theistic concept of God and, since theism exhausts most peoples’ definition of God, that is heard to be saying there is no God. So when one is confronted with the question, “Can one be a Christian without being a theist?” the door is opened to much theological speculation. This question can only be asked when one lives in a world where the traditional theistic view of God has become inoperative because of the explosion in human knowledge over the last five hundred years. We once attributed to the will of this deity everything we did not understand, from sickness to tragedy to sudden death to extreme weather patterns. But today sickness is diagnosed and treated with no reference to God whatsoever. Tragedies like the attack on the World Trade Center, tornadoes, floods and tsunamis are investigated by this secular society without much reference to the will of God. That was certainly not the case when things like the Black Death or the bubonic plague, swept across the world. When death strikes suddenly today, we do autopsies that reveal a massive coronary occlusion or a cerebral hemorrhage as the cause. We do not speculate on why this external Deity might have wanted to punish this particular person with sudden death. Even what the insurance companies still call “acts of God” are today thought to be completely explainable in nontheistic language. We chart the formation of hurricanes from the time when they develop as low pressure systems in the southern oceans and we mark their paths until these weather systems are broken up. No meteorologist I know of refers to these phenomena of nature as divinely caused to inflict godly punishment upon a wayward region, people, or nation. One English priest and theologian, Michael Goulder, became an atheist when he decided the way he had traditionally conceived of God was nonsensical since, in his words, God “no longer has any work to do.” This God no longer cures sicknesses, directs the weather, fights wars, punishes sinners or rewards faithfulness. The idea of an external supernatural deity who invades human affairs periodically to impose the divine will, though still given lip service in worship settings, has died culturally. If God is identified exclusively with the theistic understanding of God, then it is fair to say that culturally God has ceased to live in our world. If the theistic understanding of God exhausts the human experience of God, then the answer to the question of the layperson is clear. No, it is not possible to be a Christian without being a theist. But if God can be envisioned in some way other than inside the theistic categories of our religious past, then perhaps a doorway into a new religious future can be opened. To make that transition is what I regard as the most pressing theological issue of this generation. Christianity has been shaped by traditional theistic concepts. Jesus was identified in some sense as the incarnation of the theistic God. It was said that he came to do “the Father’s (read: the external supernatural supreme Being’s) will.” Indeed, Jesus was portrayed as a sacrifice offered to this God to bring an end to human estrangement from the Creator. Theologians talked of original sin and “the fall,” to which, it was asserted, the cross spoke with healing power and in which drama of salvation the shed blood of Jesus played a central role. But in a world that has abandoned any theological sense of offering sacrifices to an angry deity, what could this interpretation of the cross of Christ possibly mean? In a post-Darwinian world, where creation is not finished but is even now ongoing and ever expanding, the idea of a fall from a perfect world into sin and estrangement is nonsensical. The idea that somehow the very nature of the heavenly God required the death of Jesus as a ransom to be paid for our sins is ludicrous. A human parent who required the death of his or her child as a satisfaction for a relationship that had been broken would be either arrested or confined to a mental institution. Yet behavior we have come to abhor in human beings is still a major part of the language of worship in our churches. It is the language of our ancient theistic understanding of God. It is also language doomed to irrelevance and revulsion. At this point the real question thus becomes, “Can Christianity be separated from ancient theistic concepts and still be a living faith?” That is why this inquiry from this layperson was such a threatening, scary question. Once it is raised to consciousness, it will never go away and will destabilize forever the only understanding of God most of us have ever had. The “religious right” does not understand the issues involved here. On the other hand, the secular society where God has been dismissed from life has also answered this question by living as if there is no God. Only those who can first raise this question into consciousness, and who then refuse to sacrifice their sense of the reality of God when all theistic concepts fail, will ever entertain or address these issues. This debate already rages in the theological academy where God has not been spoken of as an external, supernatural Being, periodically invading the world, in decades. Yet the experience of God as divine presence found in the midst of life is all but universally attested. Jesus as a revelation of this divine presence is at the heart of the Christian claim, but the way it has traditionally been processed and transmitted is now all but universally rejected by the academy. So perhaps the major theological task of our times is to seek a new language in which to translate the premodern theistic categories into the postmodern, nontheistic language of tomorrow. The religious leader who does not address these issues offers little more than an unbelievable ‘opiate for the people.’ I cannot begin to say how much the posing of this frontier question about the relationship between the Christian faith and the theistic language of the past encouraged me from that day to this. It is the crucial concept in developing a revolution in theological inquiry. Most Christology seeks to explain how the external theistic deity could be met in the person of Jesus. Most moral theology is based on the assumption that a theistic deity will dispense reward or punishment. Most prayer is addressed to an external theistic deity who has the power to answer those prayers with an act of miraculous intervention. Most liturgy is directed toward this external theistic deity. Theism is therefore the lynchpin that once pulled brings the traditional formulations of the Christian faith crashing down. Reformation and the future life of the Christian church depends on the ability of the contemporary Christian to dismiss theism as an adequate explanation of God, without dismissing the God experience and even the God experience in Jesus as unreal. It is no wonder this debate scares so many. The present split in the developed Christian world between fundamentalism and a growing secularity rises out of this very issue. The fundamentalists (who come in both a Protestant and a catholic version) refuse to engage the issue because they see no way out. The secular humanists embrace the debate but see no value left in traditional Christianity. My vocation has become to dismiss the theistic explanations without dismissing the God experience. Check with me in fifty years and I will tell you whether or not I have succeeded. ~ John Shelby Spong Announcements John Shelby Spong’s final book “Unbelievable” is now available! Why Christianity Is No Longer Believable – And How We Can Change That Five hundred years after Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses ushered in the Reformation, bestselling author and controversial bishop and teacher John Shelby Spong delivers twelve forward-thinking theses to spark a new reformation to reinvigorate Christianity and ensure its future. Copyright © 2018 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You have subscribed to our Weekly Essay and/or Q & A emails. Our mailing address is: 4810 Pt. Fosdick Dr. NW #80 Gig Harbor, WA 98335 253-507-8678 - contact(a)progressivechristianity.org Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

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FW: [Oe List ...] Spring Sojourn April 2018
by Lynda C 15 Apr '18

15 Apr '18

There is still time for signing up to work virtually. Also mark your calendars for the Fall Sojourn! Technology Expands Archive Work to Different Locations You are invited to be a part of the ICA Global Archives Spring Sojourn, April 23-27, 2018, and/or the Fall Sojourn, September 17-21, 2018, at the ICA GreenRise in Chicago or working from your home. The focus of the Spring and Fall Sojourns will be selecting content for the archives website from the lists of previously archived 20,000 files. This work can be done on-site or remotely, working alone sometimes and sometimes conferring with a team. The intent is to transform the extensive archive of programs, projects, methods and training by staff and volunteers, from a private treasure trove into a public civic asset. The on-site team has a great time together and we’d love to have you join around the tables. We are also excited at giving both colleagues on site and at home, near and far, a way to dive into and choose documentation that represents the historical work of the O:E and ICA. Proposed Sojourn Work Contextual Re-Education Spirit Re-Motivation Structural Re-formulation Imaginal Education The Other World Social Process Facilitation Methods and Training Constructs Spirit Methods Journey Constructs Current Social Process Work Audio Visual: Tape transcriptions (JWM), Stories, Pictures, Video Website Design If you cannot attend the group gathering in Chicago and would be willing to help from home in one of the proposed arenas, you can help in the following ways: 1. Select documents from one of the collections in chart above most relevant to your experience or passion. Determine relevance and condition of digitized documents for the website 2. Edit and clarify the selected documents 3. Review and index JWM digitized talks 4. Review and index HDP videos Let Beret Griffith or Wendell Refior know of your interest and one of them will contact you with further instructions. Contact each at beretgriffith(a)gmail.com and wendellrefior(a)gmail.com<mailto:wendellrefior@gmail.com>. PARTICIPANT PRACTICS Location: ICA Greenrise Learning Laboratory Building (aka Kemper Building) 4750 North Sheridan Road Chicago, IL 60640 Sleeping rooms on the 8th floor – Couples - $45.00; Singles – ($30.00 per bed) Food - $25 per day for 3 meals (Monday through Friday) Parking fee - $7.50/day: $45.00/Sunday - Saturday Registration fee - $30.00 to cover conference materials and expenses To register: e-mail reception(a)ica-usa.org<mailto:reception@ica-usa.org> and jean.long512(a)gmail.com<mailto:jean.long512@gmail.com> For additional information, contact Jean Long (720-633-5008) jean.long512(a)gmail.com

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Clarence Snelling died Thursday, April 12, 2018
by David Dunn 15 Apr '18

15 Apr '18

Hello colleagues. Both Shirley Heckman Snelling’s son, John, and grandson, Alan, sent word today of Clarence’s death two days ago. Clarence had been living with his daughter, Rev. Claire Snelling Nord, in Englewood, CO for the last several months. He and I had celebrated the Eucharist together every week or two since shortly after Shirley’s death in early 2016. When I visited Clarence last Tuesday, he appeared to me to be in extremis. I asked if he was approaching the end of his life. When he replied, “Not really,” I queried further, “So is your path more like a dark forest or a bright dessert”? His immediate reply was, “Both.” John Heckman shared the following invitation: > Clarence Snelling died Thursday, and the family would like to let the ICA world know. His memorial service will be May 11, 2018 at the Park Hill United Methodist Church [in Denver] at 4pm. > —John Heckman A way to send appreciations of Clarence to Claire Nord and her family If you’d like to send a note to Claire, you’re welcome to send an email through me. I’ll compile them and share them and your email with Claire. Best wishes to everyone. David — David Dunn 740 S Alton Way 9B Denver, CO 80247 720-314-5991 dmdunn1(a)gmail.com

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4/12/18, Progressing Spirit: Ubeda: A Brief Exploration into the Gospel of Luke; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 12 Apr '18

12 Apr '18

View this email in your browser A Brief Exploration into the Gospel of Luk Essay by Deshna Ubeda on April 12, 2018 I would like to take a moment to explore the Gospel of Luke. When I read Biblical passages these days, I am looking for the deeper meaning behind the words. Meaning, I am not just looking for the dates, context, and scribes, though these are important pieces to the puzzle. I am looking for what the crisis might have been that caused the author to write it and how does the scripture speak to that crisis. I am seeking the wisdom that the passages hold for me in the moment as I read them. The wisdom found in sacred texts can shift as the reader shifts…that is one of the reasons why they are still valuable to modern seekers. My journey with the Bible has taken many turns through the course of my life. Growing up in a progressive Christian church, I was initiated into the Bible from a historical, informed, and liberal viewpoint. I never had to unlearn certain mis-translations or rescue the baby from the bath water. And yet, the Bible seemed outdated and irrelevant and I yearned for a break from it during spiritual community time. It felt forced. I stepped away from Christianity when I went to college… and then found myself back in its arms with the work I do today. Through my work with ProgressiveChristianity.org and studies in Interfaith Chaplaincy, I was called to look deeper into these sacred texts… to explore them like a treasure found in a time vault… to seek the magic in the words… to envision the ancient voices orally sharing the tales, the lessons, the songs, and the poetry around a bright fire, with an unblemished star-filled sky above them. Ancient wisdom holds much for us today, when we can see below the temporary concerns being addressed. According to biblical scholars, the Gospel of Luke was written between 89-93AD, though there are, of course, debates about the exact time. During this time period, the Christian movement was largely concerned with legitimizing itself in the Roman Empire. This gospel also reflects the transition of Christianity out of Judaism toward the Gentile world. Bishop John Shelby Spong argues that the community Luke was writing for “appears to have been made up primarily of dispersed Jews, who no longer followed their traditions in a rigid pattern and, as a consequence, are beginning to attract a rising tide of converts from the Gentile world. These Gentile proselytes, as they came to be called, had little dedication to or interest in the cultic practices of circumcision, kosher dietary rules and unfamiliar liturgical practices such as a 24-hour vigil around Shavuot or Pentecost and the eight-day celebrations of the Harvest Festival known as Sukkoth. They were not intent on discarding or losing the meaning of these holy days, but they clearly were eager to reduce their place of importance and the hold they had once had on their lives.”[1] This is backed by many writings on Luke, including the “Parting of Ways,” by Anne Amos, who suggests that for early Christians, the 1st century was a time period focused on who was a Christian and who was not. This was also a time period when Jewish Rabbis were excommunicating those who used to be Jewish but then identified as Christians. Jewish Christians were heretics in the eyes of the Rabbi’s. Clearly this was a time period of great division as to Christians, Jews became “the others.” The author of Luke is unknown, like many of the Bible’s authors, but tradition has always identified the book of Luke with the physician who accompanied Paul and is mentioned in both Colossians and II Timothy. Scholars also propose that the same author wrote Acts as Volume II of his gospel and “in all probability he was born a Gentile and had been drawn first into the ethical monotheism that marked Judaism. He appears to have actually converted to Judaism and to have joined the synagogue through which he moved into Christianity. He may well have been a convert of Paul’s, at least he has clearly identified himself with Paul’s point of view and he champions it in both the gospel and the book of Acts.” [2] Much of Luke (at least half) was quoted from Mark and he makes no claim to have been an eye witness but honestly acknowledges the research he has done. He says in his first chapters that “many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of the things which are surely believed among us, even as they delivered them to us, which from the beginning were eye witnesses and servants of the word (Luke 1:1-5).” However, one thing that is quite obvious is that Luke’s purpose was to interpret Jesus in light of the Hebrew scriptures, not to recreate him as separate from it. As it was written during a time period of great division and accusations on both sides of the Judeo-Christian religious map- this would have been a crucial argument. As always, these Biblical stories need to be seen as narratives, not historical fact. When viewed through the lens of Jewish mythology and prophecy, one can see how important it was to align Jesus with stories from the Old Testament as well as those from age old oral traditions so that words and deeds were inserted or deleted to fit the agenda of the time period. Luke, along with the other Synoptic Gospel writers, would have needed to somewhat fabricate a narrative about Jesus that could be threaded into the collection of sayings, miracles, and passion narratives that arose out of the Jewish history, theology, and storytelling and it needs to be understood that much of these writings are “the creative invention of the authors and assorted intrusive scribes” [3] This was likely done to not only continue to legitimize Jesus as the son of God and Messiah but also to legitimize Christianity in a time of great internal and external chaos. By all accounts the early years of the Christian movement were rife with conflict and rivalries. [4] As the Gospel accounts were based on data “transmitted…by those who were eyewitnesses,” (Luke 1: 1-3) we are dealing with thirdhand information at best. In order to situate Jesus and his deeds in alignment with the Old Testament and the Jewish religion, while at the same time set him apart, Luke and other early Christian writers would have been organized to align with the annual Jewish liturgical cycle of the synagogue where Christianity lived in its first generations as a movement within Judaism. Just as the Jewish holidays of that time period were focused on cleansing of sins (Yom Kippur), Jesus is shown to not only not be corrupted by other’s sins and uncleanliness, but he also transforms and purifies the evil. He banishes demons, heals the unclean, and forgives the sins. Set against the Jewish liturgical cycle, Luke’s Jesus fits quite nicely. Luke, along with his fellow Gospel writers, were aiming to align Jesus with ancient prophesy and legitimize his birthright. And at the same time, Luke works toward creating a religion that can spread and exist outside of the ethnic group of the Jews. Brilliant, in my opinion. These early Christian gospels must be read through the lens of Judaism. “The later Greek thinking period, which shaped the creeds in the 4th century and informs Christian doctrine to this day, has actually distorted the gospel message in a radical way.” [5] However, early on, the Christian community was made up of dispersed Jews living far from home and increasingly interacting with their Gentile neighbors. As Deborah Broome writes in Who’s at the Table? – Inclusiveness in the Gospel of Luke, Luke was clearly universally-minded. He wrote of a Jesus that welcomed everyone at his table. This Jesus taught that faith was the most important characteristic, not wealth or status. During Jesus’ time, the synagogue rejected this message, but Luke’s Jesus persisted in this teaching, widening the door to allow all flesh, beyond Israel. The Gospel of Luke is unique in its theology of inclusiveness. Only Luke tells us the parable of the Good Samaritan. This is another indication that the community he lived and existed in had moved beyond the Jewish mythology of a chosen people. Luke emphasizes a universal point of view, likely influenced by Paul, and this theology has a lot to do with why Christianity spread in the exponential way it did. In Luke’s gospel, it is emphasized that Jesus heals, teaches, and even often shares a meal with the sinners, the tax collectors, the unclean, the sick, the marginalized, the excluded, and the women, etc. Luke’s Jesus is a radically inclusive teacher who impresses people with his ability to heal and his lack of social boundaries. Luke emphasizes that the Spirit fell not only on the Jews but on the peoples of the world, who then proclaimed the Gospel in whatever language those hearing spoke. (Acts 2) Clearly Luke was aiming to move Christianity away from the exclusive ethnic Jewish group to a universal faith, which also meant all people were held accountable to their choice to be Christian or not and could be persecuted if considered a non-believer or heretic. For the next thousand or so years, this inclusiveness would shift from a compassionate stance to a justification of immense destruction and violence against non-believers. Whether or not Luke was considering that when he wrote about Jesus will remain unknown. ~ Deshna Ubeda Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author Deshna Ubeda is a Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, where she has worked since 2006. She is an author, speaker, and seeker. She has presented at conferences in Canada, Australia, Hawaii, Seattle, and Portland. She is currently studying at The Chaplaincy Institute to become an Interfaith Chaplain. She was a lead writer and editor on the children’s curriculum: A Joyful Path, Spiritual Curriculum for ages 6-10. Deshna grew up in an amazing Progressive Christian church, IUCC, in Irvine California as a PK (pastor's kid) and so was blessed to be involved in a community that was open, educated, innovative, and inclusive. She was involved in the church at many different levels, as a representative for youth at National UCC Conferences, as a youth group leader, and a camp counselor for many years. She went to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she graduated with honors as a Religious Studies major and a Global Peace and Security minor. This led her to be a part of the Global Reconciliation Service in New York doing some work with the United Nations. She has worked in Administration for the UC Education Abroad Program, as an Infant Specialist for a non-profit organization, as a Spanish Teacher for elementary children, and as a Yoga Instructor. She is also a certificated post-partum doula and a yoga instructor. Deshna co-wrote a book, Missing Mothers with her mom. During her free time, she continues to write, do yoga, hike, and enjoy her life in Portland with her wonderful community and family. ------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Bishop John Shelby Spong, The Origins of the New Testament XXIV – Introducting Luke http://progressingspirit.com/2010/05/27/the-origins-of-the-new-testamentpar… [2] Bishop John Shelby Spong, The Origins of the New Testament XXIV – Introducting Luke http://progressingspirit.com/2010/05/27/the-origins-of-the-new-testamentpar… [3] The Joy of Sects, A Spirited Guide to The World’s Religious Traditions, Peter Occhiogrosso, page 285 [4] The Joy of Sects, A Spirited Guide to The World’s Religious Traditions, Peter Occhiogrosso, page 296 [5] Bishop John Shelby Spong, The Origins of the New Testament XXV – Concluding Luke and the Synoptic Gospels http://progressingspirit.com/2010/06/03/the-origins-of-the-new-testament-pa… Question & Answer Q: By Michael As someone who considers “God” to be primordial Being, through whom and in whom I have my own being, I find it impossible to understand prayer. Do you have any suggestion as to how prayer should be embraced? I come from a Roman Catholic background, but am no longer an adherent. I have pursued the theology of Bultmann, Tillich and the wonderful Scottish Theologian, John MacQuarrie, whose existentialist/ontological approach to the mystery of Being has led me to, what I believe to be, a more wholesome and logical interpretation of God.  My difficulty now, however, is understanding where/how prayer fits. Any advice you can give would be deeply appreciated.  A: By Kevin Thew Forrester, Ph.D. Dear Michael, I appreciate how your evolving understanding of God as Being inevitably calls into question fundamental and practical understandings of your spirituality, such as prayer. In my most recent column I began an exploration of Christianity as a non-dual spiritual practice. The implications of a non-dual Christianity for the conventional practice of prayer are transformational. For starters, within a non-dual Christianity there is no separate entity we call “God,” for the mystery often called “God” is most accurately perceived as being the Being of all. This means each of us is a unique manifestation of Being – distinct but never separate, and that there is not a separate entity to entreat or petition or implore. Being is not some thing out there or in here. Being simply is (and as the East recognizes, Being also implies the emptiness of non-Being – which is a topic for another time). Within a non-dual Christianity, integral to our spiritual practice is the dedication or entrusting of our lives to the truth of who we are and the life of our unfoldment, as well as to Being that lives and moves and expresses as us. We live lives of gratefulness, because Being is essentially gracious – Being is always already Boundless Love and is our own true nature. The spiritual path thus becomes one of realizing our true nature to such a degree that it transfuses and radiates our entire being without hindrance or veil. When we sit in meditation. When we serve others. When we are sick. When we are at play. Whatever we do, our spiritual practice invites us to realize that we do it as Being expressing itself graciously and freely. The surprisingly spontaneous creative arising of Being, moment-to-moment, captivates our hearts with awe and gratefulness. Our response is song, dance, silence, painting, parenting, sculpting, gardening, etc. All creative expression is sacramental, as it embodies and manifests in sensual ways the undeniable ebullience of Being. As a teacher, and as a priest in the Episcopal tradition, I lead communities in worship. I endeavor, through education, meditation, conversation, to invite these individuals and groups to inquire into and come to understand the deeper truth of their experiences. I continually reform the language of liturgy – to the degree I judge possible relative to the community’s capacity and within the latitude granted by my polity – so that it more fully embodies the non-dual Christianity of which I speak; wherein “God” is appreciated as symbolic speech – poetry – for gracious Being. ~ Kevin Thew Forrester, Ph.D. Click here to read and share online About the Author Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of St. Paul’s Church in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including “I Have Called You Friends“, “Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms“, and “My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You” and “Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland“. Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited NBC's Dateline, Miracles and the Virgin Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May 25, 2005 The setting was surreal. We were in St. John’s Lutheran Church in Helsinki, Finland. It was 2 p.m. Finnish time, (7 a.m. EST) on a Friday afternoon in May. St. John’s, a huge, neo-Gothic structure seating some 2400 people, was built in 1891. Its focal point was not the altar where the catholic sacraments were observed, but the massive pulpit standing high above the congregation from where “the Word” in all of its protestant reformation glory could be proclaimed. On this occasion, however, there were only seven people present. One, an NBC producer, his eyes heavy with jet lag, had flown over that day from New York. His two-person camera crew had flown in the day before, one from Germany and the other from England. Others present, in addition to myself, were my wife Christine, my Finnish translator, organizer and close friend, the Rev. Dr. Jarmo Tarkki and the St. John’s pastor, the Rev. Auvo Naukkarinen. Television lights, set up for the interview, turned that dark interior space into the brightness of high noon in the desert. All of this created the setting for a Dateline program, featuring miracles and the various appearances of the Virgin Mary, especially those that were supposed to have occurred in the town of Medjugorje in what we once called Yugoslavia. It was a subject in which I had little interest and healthy suspicion; indeed more than that, I regard such phenomena as both superstitious and almost hysterical. That appeared to be the reason that NBC was so eager to have me on this program that they flew this production crew to Helsinki where I was engaged in a ten-day lecture tour across Finland. 1st there was the account of the person who believed that the head of the Virgin Mary had appeared on a piece of toast. The story developed ‘legs’ when that toast was sold on an E-Bay auction for thousands of dollars. Next, there was the ‘sighting’ of the head of the Virgin under a bridge in Chicago, attracting crowds and media attention. Finally, there was the move on the part of Pope Benedict XVI, to speed the process of declaring the late John Paul II a saint, for which the certification by “competent” authorities of at least two “miracles” was required. Already a man was saying that his brain tumor disappeared after he met John Paul II, and John Paul himself had claimed that his survival of an attempt on his life had been a miracle. Bill O’Reilly had suggested on national television that perhaps the prayers of this Pope brought down communism in Eastern Europe. Miracle stories, always popular with the masses, were in the air. So ‘Dateline,’ NBC’s top magazine news program, decided to dedicate a full hour to this subject. Their producers had contacted me on three occasions about appearing while I was on my book tour across America and Canada. I declined, having no interest whatsoever in the subject and not being eager to play the role of the resident religious critic who would appear alongside the “wide-eyed believers” who talk of their ‘supernatural’ experiences with both ease and wonder. I thought three refusals would be the end of it. On the third day of our tour in Finland, however, NBC decided that I was what this program needed for balance and were willing to dispatch the crew overnight to Helsinki. No television program had ever been this persistent, so the time and place were arranged by Dr. Tarkki. That was how we happened to come together in that holy space in the center of Helsinki. This 45-minute interview was fed immediately via a telephone line to New York where editors and producers would do their magic on great amounts of taped footage to create an hour-long program, which had to include time for commercials. My 45-minutes would, at best, take up no more than one to five minutes of that time. How was it that “a man of the cloth,” as they referred to me, “a bishop no less, denied the reality of miracles?” That was the first question. Does not the New Testament speak of nature miracles and healing miracles, to say nothing of the great miracles on each end of the Jesus Story: the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection? Is it not incompatible with historic and traditional Christianity, they suggested, for anyone to interpret these events in any other way than as supernatural signs of a miracle-producing deity? I responded that post-Newtonian people understand the laws of the universe quite differently from the way that first century gospel writers did. We cannot impose a first century world of miracle and magic on people living in the 21st century as the basis for Christian belief. There are many ways to understand the miracle stories of the New Testament other than as supernatural invasive moments. For example, is the story of Jesus feeding the multitude simply an attempt to portray him as a new and greater Moses? Moses had to pray to God asking for heavenly bread. Jesus provided it on his own. Was the story of Jesus ascending into the sky a literal story describing an event in history or was it a magnificent retelling of the story of Elijah’s ascension designed to show Jesus as filled with and exceeding Elijah’s power? Were the accounts of Jesus performing acts of healing really miraculous events or were they interpretive stories intended to show that the signs that Isaiah said would accompany the end of the age now marked the life of Jesus? Were some of the miracles simply repeating supernatural stories from Hebrew Scriptures? Was the story of Jesus raising Lazarus, told only in John, nothing more than a historicizing of Luke’s parable of Lazarus and Dives? In this parable Lazarus at death goes to Abraham’s bosom and Dives to the flames of hell. There Dives calls to Abraham to have Lazarus return to the earth to warn his brothers lest they come to this place of torment Abraham responds “they have Moses and the prophets. If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not believe even if one rises from the dead.” John suggests that the raising of Lazarus did not cause people to listen; it actually caused them to kill Jesus. When one comes to the Virgin Birth scholars today know that this miraculous birth account did not enter the Christian written tradition until the 9th decade. One finds no trace of it in the writings of Paul or Mark. It appears in Matthew in the mid 80’s and is retold by Luke in a dramatically and factually different way a decade or so later. Then it was dropped by the author of the Fourth Gospel who twice refers to Jesus as “the son of Joseph.” Similarly, if a miraculous physical resuscitation of the deceased body of Jesus is the first meaning of Resurrection, then why is it that Paul seems not to know of it and why is there no undisputed story of a resuscitated Jesus until the later gospels of Luke and John written 60-70 years after the first Easter? Biblical scholarship has rendered the miraculous reading of the gospels by Evangelicals and conservative Catholics to be dreadfully inadequate. Moving on to those appearances of Mary that people claim to have seen in Western history the obvious questions are: How do they know it is Mary when there is no description of Mary in the New Testament? The vision they claim to see is always the church’s later portrait drawn from developed cultural imagination. Have these people ever looked at the mother of Jesus in the New Testament separated from the church’s future doctrines regarding her? Would they be surprised to know that Paul, writing between 50-64, never mentions the Virgin? Jesus’ birth was quite normal, he says, adding he “was born of a woman, born under the law;” that he had a brother named James; and was descended from King David “according to the flesh.” In Mark, the first gospel, the mother of Jesus is referred to only once and that by a stranger who shouts: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” Mark also portrays the mother of Jesus as believing him to be “beside himself,” or out of his mind, so she goes to take him away. Mary does not become a virgin until Matthew writes, and she appears to cease being one when John writes. Yet in history she becomes not just a virgin mother, but a perpetual virgin, a postpartum virgin, one who is immaculately conceived and bodily assumed into heaven. No vision is ever seen of the Mary of the New Testament, it is always the Mary of Christian tradition. When this is augmented by the fact that no non-believer as well as no Buddhist or Muslim ever sees the Virgin, subjectivity is obvious. The major problem, however, with pious accounts of miracles of any sort is that it locks one into a concept of God that is ultimately neither believable nor even moral. If God is understood as a supernatural miracle worker then why are miracles so few, so spasmodic? If God has the power to stop the bubonic plague, the Holocaust, the spread of AIDS or the Tsunami and does not, is God moral? Does the concept of miracle represent the limits on our knowledge or our unresolved superstition? Does it not seem to keep us in a state of dependent immaturity questing after the power the church claims to possess but rations so sparingly? I do not choose to live in a disordered world ruled by a capricious deity who blesses one person with healing and not another, saves one life from peril and not another. The only miracle I recognize is the miracle of expanded knowledge, heightened awareness and transformed humanity that does, I believe, help us to see into the very realm of God where life is eternal, love is unbounded and all lives are called into the fullness of being. That is the God I now see in Jesus and the God we also see now so inadequately in the miracle stories of the first century and in the apparitions of the superstitious in every age. I hope that this is the God to whom I pointed the viewers of Dateline when it played across America on May 18. For this is the God who captures my imagination, challenges my intellect and elicits my devotion. ~ John Shelby Spong Announcements Awakenings Conference 2018 Pathfinding in an age of Polarization April 26-29, 2018 in Holyoke, MA This is the fourth biennial Awakenings Conference. Each one brings together thinkers, musicians, consultants, artists, and visionaries. We gather around tables for conversations and meals. We offer presentations, workshops, a bookstore, a marketplace — and plenty of time to meet up with people from communities across the continent. Each year we listen, laugh, learn, sing, wonder, and feast. Click here for more information/registration.

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