November 2021 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

Passing of Forrest Craver
by Terry Bergdall 26 Nov '21

26 Nov '21

See below the post below at the request of Joshua Craver: Hi Everyone, Forrest Craver, passed away on November 18th due to Covid complications with his sons, Andrew and Joshua, at his side. He was a founding member of the ICA Detroit house, later served in DC, Ivy City, and Brussels nexus. He also Attended Ivy City, Inyan Wakagapi, Tairgwaith and Ijede consults. The below link has a more detailed summary of his life. https://www.gettysburgtimes.com/obituaries/article_5612798e-720d-5137-ae3b-… <https://www.gettysburgtimes.com/obituaries/article_5612798e-720d-5137-ae3b-…> Josh Craver

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11/25/2021, Progressing Spirit, Rev Irene Monroe: Celebrating Thanksgiving’s 400th anniversary of revisionist history; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 25 Nov '21

25 Nov '21

| | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Celebrating Thanksgiving’s 400th anniversary of revisionist history | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Irene Monroe November 25, 2021 “We forget everything. What we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hammering.” ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” Ephesians 4:25, ESV Before this year’s national celebration of Thanksgiving, the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, just 43 miles southwest from Cambridge, where I reside, celebrated its 400th Thanksgiving anniversary. The nationally televised extravaganza venerated the arrival of European Pilgrims to America in 1620. Packaged in the promotion was the story of these early Pilgrims’ heroic voyage on the Mayflower, and the beginning of American democracy that Quincy native President John Quincy Adams depicted as “the earliest example of civil government established by the act of the people to be governed.” Also, the event promoted the one-year celebration after they arrived in 1621, symbolized as a Thanksgiving depicting a cooperative and cordial relationship between the Pilgrims and Native Americans. This Thanksgiving’s 400th anniversary arrives amid a continued COVID pandemic that has ravaged marginalized communities of color as the county reckons with its past by re-examining its roots of persistent inequities. For example, this year, Massachusetts celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day in lieu of Columbus Day. In 2020, the NFL team formerly called the “Washington Redskins” is now the Washington Football Team. And in this supposedly more “woke” moment, television images of whites doing “war whoops” and “tomahawk chops” coming across our screen are now frowned upon. That said, what would celebrating Thanksgiving’s 400th anniversary with the town of Plymouth be a reckoning? Historically, for Native Americans, Thanksgiving is not a cause of celebration but rather a National Day of Mourning. Why would Native Americans celebrate the people who tried to destroy us?” Since 1970, Native Americans have gathered at noon on Coles Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on this revered U.S. holiday. And for the Wampanoag nation of New England, whose name means “people of the dawn,” this national holiday is a reminder of the real significance of the first Thanksgiving in 1621 as a symbol of persecution of Native Americans and their long history of bloodshed with European settlers. Oddly, the first group of settlers was refugees, a group America closes her doors to now. The Pilgrims were seeking a better life. However, the Pilgrims, who sought refuge here in America from religious persecution in their homeland, were correct in their dogged pursuit of religious liberty. Regrettably, the Pilgrims’ fervor for religious freedom was devoid of an ethic of accountability, and their actions did not set up the conditions requisite for moral liability and legal justice. Instead, the actions of the Pilgrims brought about the genocide of a people, a historical amnesia of the event, and an annual national celebration of Thanksgiving of their arrival. In other words, their actual practice of religious liberty came at the expense of the humanity and the civil rights of Native Americans. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush designated November as “National American Indian Heritage Month” to celebrate the history, art, and traditions of Native American people. However, in this nation’s reckoning moment, celebrating the arrival of the Pilgrims hints at its continued revisionist history. And it must cease! As we get into the holiday spirit, let us remember the whole story of the arrival of the Pilgrims. “It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience,” reads the text of the plaque on Coles Hill that overlooks Plymouth Rock, the mythic symbol of where the Pilgrims first landed. The United American Indians of New England (UAINE), a Native-led organization of Native people, supports Indigenous struggles in New England and throughout the Americas. Also, UAE supports the struggles of communities of color, LGBTQ+ communities, and, yes, all refugees because it understands the interconnections of struggles. “Most pilgrims would have died during the harsh winter had it not been for the open arms of the Native Americans,” Taylor Bell wrote in “The Hypocrisy Of Refusing Refugees at Thanksgiving.” The misrepresentations about what was served at the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth in 1621 needs to be corrected, too. For example, there is no evidence that turkey was offered, and pie could not have been served because there was no flour or butter available for the crust in those days. Also, the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth Harbor in 1620, after first stopping in Provincetown, now known as an LGBTQ+ vacation hot spot. As we get into the holiday spirit, let us remember the whole story of the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers to the New World. When Malcolm X said, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us,” in March 1964 in a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in NYC, he identifies Plymouth Rock, not as the stepping stone of America’s preordained manifest destiny. Instead, the symbolism of the rock is a direct consequence of the continued struggle Native Americans confront today, as well as black, brown, and other oppressed people in this country. Memory is a form of resistance. It’s transgressive against glorified lies, like the prevailing narrative of Lost Clause Myth, revering Confederate soldiers as America’s true patriots in the Civil War. Also, memory is subversive in its enduring power to disrupt historical amnesia and a canonical past unwillingness to confront itself, like January 6th depicted, by some, as American patriots defending freedom instead of an insurrection. On a trip home to New York City in May 2004, I went to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to view the UNESCO Slave Route Project, “Lest We Forget: The Triumph Over Slavery. ” The exhibit marked the United Nations General Assembly’s resolution proclaiming 2004 “The International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition.” In highlighting that African Americans should not be shamed by slavery, but instead defiantly proud of our collective memory of it, I read the opening billboard to the exhibit that stated the following: “By institutionalizing memory, resisting the onset of oblivion, recalling the memory of tragedy that for long years remained hidden or unrecognized, and by assigning it its proper place in the human conscience, we respond to our duty to remember.” In the spirit of our connected struggles for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, this Thanksgiving, we should not solely focus on the story of Plymouth Rock. Instead, as Americans, we should focus on creating this nation as a solid rock that rests on a multicultural and democratic foundation. And in so doing, it helps us remember and respect the struggles that not only this nation’s Pilgrim foremothers and forefathers endured, it also enables us to recognize and respect the present-day struggle refugees and other marginalized groups face, especially our Native American brothers' and sisters' ongoing struggle every day, particularly on Thanksgiving Day. ~ Rev. Irene Monroe Read online here About the Author The Reverend Monroe does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on NPR's WGBH (89.7 FM). She is a weekly Friday commentator on New England Channel NEWS. Monroe is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women Abolitionists. A Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist; her columns appear the Boston LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and the Boston Globe. Monroe states that her “columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As a religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.” Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s research library on the history of women in America. Click here to visit her website. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Russ What do we mean by the word “faith?” People, who would dismiss us as anti-intellectual, ridicule faith with the presumption that it means believing in things that are hard to believe in or believing in things that are contrary to known facts. I know this is not what we Christians mean by that word (outside the evangelical fringe), but I don’t have good words to explain it. Can you help? A: By Bishop John Shelby Spong Dear Russ, I can try. Faith in its original biblical meaning had more to do with trust than it does with believing. This trust was not in the conviction that all would be well, but that whatever tomorrow brings, God would be present in it. That is why the author of the epistle to the Hebrews could write that it was “by faith that Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees” to form a new nation in a new place. It was “by faith” that Moses left the known of Egypt for the unknown of the wilderness. Later in Christian history “faith” was connected with believing certain propositional statements. That was when the creeds began to be called expressions of “the Faith.” Actually, this was little more that idolatry. Creeds represent the human and ecclesiastical assertion that the mystery and wonder of God can actually be captured in something that human beings have created. That is in creeds, doctrines or dogmas. This practice is also the source of the development of religious imperialism, which ultimately gave birth to the Inquisition, to religious persecution, to religious wars and many other evils. Creeds are at best pointers to the mystery of God. They are not and should never have been allowed to become strait jackets that we were required to put on in order to pretend that we have captured the truth of God. The first creed of the church was only three words. It was an affirmation that “Jesus is Messiah” rather than a set of beliefs. To call Jesus “messiah” was to claim that in the life of Jesus the transcendent power of the divine has been met and engaged. I think this is still the best creed the church has ever formulated. In a word (or two), I define faith as “having the courage to be.” ~ Bishop John Shelby Spong (December 8, 2011) Read and share online here | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Lecture Tour of Germany Part II: Gottingen Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong August 4, 2011 My lecture tour of Germany was joined from the very beginning by a unique Frenchman named Raymond Rakower, who accepted Gerhard Klein’s invitation to come to Germany and to accompany us. Gerhard Klein has been the translator into German for four of my books. Ray Rakower was his French counterpart, who has translated two of my books into French. Both were remarkable men and able scholars. Since I introduced Gerhard last week, let me now briefly introduce Ray this week. Ray, fluent in German, French and English, came out of a Jewish family. His grandfather had been the Chief Rabbi at the synagogue in Krakow, Poland. Both his father and his brother were killed in a Nazi death camp, while Ray and his mother managed to escape into Switzerland. In his adult life he had a very successful career in the oil and gas business that took him all over the world. He added a unique dimension to our German experience, especially when we went to places where anti-Semitism had victimized millions. Three venues hosted my visit. I described Grebenstein last week. Because it was Gerhard’s home it was the fitting place to start. He is a highly-respected citizen of that community and his friends came from all walks of German life. The other two venues were university towns, Gottingen and Marburg, both of which have theological schools and theological faculties on their campuses. This week I will focus on the Gottingen visit for it had many rich and provocative moments. Next week, I will examine Marburg. One of the things that made the visit to Gottingen University so unique was that on its theological faculty was a man named Gerd Ludemann, a brilliant New Testament scholar. Gerd is described far and wide as a biblical and theological radical, and today no longer identifies himself as living inside the Christian tradition. I have known and liked Gerd for several years as we have spent time together as members of the Jesus Seminar. In that fraternity of scripture scholars, Gerd found support for his insights, his findings and his journey, but what he enjoyed there was certainly not what he experienced from the hierarchy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany, who saw in him a destroyer of what they held sacred. These hierarchical figures regarded him first as a “disturber of Israel,” a bit later as an unacceptable provocateur and finally, as one whom they judged to be no longer worthy or qualified to teach students preparing for ordination in their Lutheran tradition. In time the conflict between Gerd and the leaders of the German Lutheran Church reached a crescendo and the Lutheran Church in Germany cancelled its recognition of Gerd as an acceptable Lutheran teacher and withdrew his “certification.” They ordered that his university title be changed to indicate that he was no longer recognized by the Lutheran Church. Those preparing for ordination from this time on were to be given no credit for taking his courses. His students immediately dried up, but the university’s commitment to academic freedom meant that he maintained his tenured position on the faculty. It was a strange compromise. He became a professor with no students. What Gerd had done to bring about this judgment was to suggest in his writing that the vast majority of the words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament were not spoken by him at all, a conclusion that is commonplace in the Jesus Seminar. Gerd, however, had gone further to assert that since these words, attributed to Jesus, were not in fact spoken by him, then the superstructure of ecclesiastical creeds, doctrines and dogmas based on these unauthentic words could not be said to present a defensible body of data originating with Jesus. While many in the church recognize this problem, there are few who, like Gerd, draw the conclusions that are apparent and appropriate. If his challenge to ecclesiastical authority had come in the 14th century, Gerd Ludemann would very probably have been burned at the stake. In the 21st century, he was simply marginalized and dispossessed. So Gerd dedicated the remaining years of his Gottingen career to study, to public lectures and to writing. He was, however, the one who was eager to have me invited to this university. When we arrived, Professor Ludemann was waiting outside the university building to greet our party, which he did warmly and generously. We talked as we renewed our friendship. His time at Gottingen was coming to an end as he was preparing to retire at the end of June. In his office, his books had already been removed and packed. He had recently signed a three-year contract to teach at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. There he would join Professor Amy-Jill Levine to form an unusually competent duo of biblical scholars. Vanderbilt must not think that controversy in biblical studies is a liability. The format for the Gottingen visit was that I was introduced to deliver the lecture of the day, Gerhard Klein served as the translator, and afterward Gerd Ludemann and I were to engage in a dialogue/debate over the content of my presentation, moderated by a third person. When that was complete, a general question period was entered in which the audience would have an opportunity to ask either of us a question. My topic was the relationship of the thinking of Charles Darwin to the traditional way Christians have told the Christ story. The contrast was striking. Darwin had rooted human life in the struggle for survival, which is a mark of all living things. Christians have, however, interpreted this survival drive and its inevitable manifestation of self-centeredness as the mark of our “sinfulness.” They understood this mythologically as “The Fall” and this, they have asserted, left human lives victimized by “original sin.” On the basis of this analysis of the source of human evil, traditional Christianity has postulated Jesus as the divine rescue operation mounted by the external deity. Against this backdrop Christians have traditionally told the story of the Cross as the place where the price of the fall was paid and where the power of original sin was broken. This has resulted, I believe, in a theology rooted in victimization with Jesus being seen as the first victim. Catholic Christians refer to their liturgy as the “sacrifice of the mass” and suggest that the mass serves liturgically to make the death of Jesus ever available to overcome the “sin” that is present in us all. Protestant Christians, working in this same theology of victimization, have developed the mantra “Jesus died for our sins” that permeates our prayers, our hymns and our scriptures and which is primarily a guilt message of blame. It is this understanding of human evil that is rendered absurd if Darwin is correct. Since Darwin asserts that there was no original perfection, there could have been no “original sin.” If there was no “fall” then to speak of Jesus as the one who rescued us from that fall becomes nonsensical, as does salvation being understood as a restoration to a status we have never possessed. So in conclusion, I recast the Jesus story as empowering us to become fully human. “Atonement” theology has been, I believe, the prime distorter of the Jesus story. When the lecture was completed, Gerd challenged me from the perspective of his belief that the Jesus story is not history at all, but a later mythological development. I defended the position that the Jesus story in fact is rooted in the history of a particular life in which people believed they had encountered what they understood God to be and that it is not that life, but the way life itself has been interpreted that is the problem. It is quite obvious to me that much mythology has been wrapped around the memory of Jesus, but the substance and outline of this historical life can still be identified. That life was seen by his followers as a doorway into God. The issues between us were clear and the questions from the audience were lively. It was a good and exciting afternoon. When it was over, Gerd bade us farewell and both of us looked forward to continuing the dialogue when he will be in the United States over the next three years. I can respect Gerd Ludemann and be challenged by him without agreeing with him. It would never occur to me to try to silence him, but only to engage him, to listen to him and to learn from him. If his insights force me to change the way I look at Jesus then so be it. My interest is not in the way either I or the Christian Church has traditionally understood the Christ experience, my interest is in what the reality of that experience is. Of course, the mythology of the ages has been wrapped around Jesus, but the question I seek to answer is not whether this mythology is true, but what was there about the life of Jesus that caused people to think it was appropriate to wrap mythological patterns around him. Of course, the virgin birth, the bodily resuscitation and the cosmic ascension are ancient myths, but I want to know what the experience was that elicited those myths and caused them to be attached to Jesus? Can we, apart from that mythological content, retell the Christ story in the accents of our day? The basic issue that divides me from Gerd Ludemann is that I believe we can and therefore that story still has integrity for me. Gerd believes that this is no longer possible and that one should not even try. I too am convinced that the structures of traditional Christianity are dying. I do not want to rescue dying structures. I do believe, however, that Christianity is bigger than the structures in which it has been carried for 2000 years and that we still have the ability to sing the Lord’s song in the real world of the 21st century, if we can but separate the Christ experience from the explanations of the past. I am no more interested than Gerd in trying to defend the concept of God from the erosion of modern thinking, nor am I interested in protecting traditional creeds. My interest is in discovering the authenticity of the Christ experience and then being able to enter it as a citizen of the 21st century. I am interested in learning how to relate that experience to out increasingly non-religious world. That is what my lecture at the university in Gottingen was all about and I believe that goal justified the approach I took. We drove back to Grebenstein that night weary, but happy. The next day we were headed to Marburg and another adventure. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Advent Retreat and Ecourses from Spirituality & Practice One Online Retreat and Nine Ecourses for Advent starting on November 26th through the 12 days of Christmas. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Hope to see you at one of these two events!
by Karen Snyder 21 Nov '21

21 Nov '21

The Global Schedule Team is inviting ICA Colleagues & friends – from around the world TO CELEBRATE 2021 AND ANTICIPATE 2022 Who: People interested in Community, Organization and Personal Transformation Love for the Planet Earth And Any Other Areas of Caring What: A sharing of stories and yarns from 2021 In the world – your work – your personal life And — looking forward to 2022!! Where: On Zoom – Join Zoom Meeting <https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82510448495?pwd=UmpHMFlSVlN3T0FhamhpNFM2QVhrdz09> 10 minutes ahead of time, please. When: Choose the time that suits you best and register. DECEMBER 11 (happening twice) 12:00 PM – Noon Togo Time – REGISTER HERE <http://www.eventbrite.com/e/global-ica-community-year-end-celebration-ticke…> and / or (See separate event listing for 3:00 PM Central Standard Time USA) A FREE FUN EVENT! To see Global Schedule events: https://icaglobalarchives.org/social-research-center-events <https://icaglobalarchives.org/social-research-center-events>

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11/18/2021, The Rev. Gretta Vosper: Catching Flight on the Wings of Thought; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 18 Nov '21

18 Nov '21

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screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9066695891 #yiv9066695891templateBody .yiv9066695891mcnTextContent, #yiv9066695891 #yiv9066695891templateBody .yiv9066695891mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9066695891 #yiv9066695891templateFooter .yiv9066695891mcnTextContent, #yiv9066695891 #yiv9066695891templateFooter .yiv9066695891mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} The Legacy of Bishop John Shelby Spong | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Catching Flight on the Wings of Thought The Legacy of Bishop John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Gretta Vosper November 18, 2021The number of people whose death would be felt around the world is limited. Bishop John Shelby Spong was surely one of them. So many met his gracious and brave spirit through his books, lectures, and travels, and so many more - influenced second- and third-hand - as his thoughts were shared beyond those direct experiences. It is impossible to determine how far or wide his influence has and will continue to be. The Measure of Thought My partner reads a lot of philosophy. Mostly, he keeps it to himself, for which I am, mostly, grateful. But every now and then, he’ll share something he finds intriguing or outrageous, and explains it to me well enough that I am able to share in his intrigue or outrage. This past week, he read something about the line of thought that argues that nothing is really real unless it can be measured in some manner by human instrument. That might not be accurate, but it was my takeaway and got me thinking: How on earth do we measure ideas? How can a concept be huge, wide-ranging, life-changing if it really has no substance? I’m sure some of you might be able to answer that but for the purposes of this tribute to my mentor and friend, Bishop John Shelby Spong, I’m running with the idea that thought is one of the most powerful things we have, even if it remains forever immeasurable. The Measure of Legacy Similarly, how do we measure legacy? Often, the word refers solely to material possessions passed on to heirs or organizations after an individual’s death. It can be easily calculated. But for those of us who truck in the business of ideas and the ethereal, legacy is much more difficult to measure. Indeed, when we are influencers, as Bishop Spong certainly was, ideas can travel far and wide, morph and grow as they are met with enthusiasm or opposition, and traverse borders or generations through a single conversation. Once past lip or pen, ideas have a life of their own. Measuring their legacy becomes impossible. Church Anyone sitting in church is the beneficiary of legacies of thought that reach back through generations to their original sources, most of which are obscured regardless of efforts to expose them. Some return to church week after week to feel the familiarity of the liturgy and the comfort of faces known and friends long-loved. Others drop in from time to time, scheduling their appearances around contemporary society’s refusal of the quaint idea of a day of rest. Many “darken the door” rarely, if at all, either because they have been generationally removed from the idea of church or because they are impatient with its seeming refusal to address their needs or concerns. Bishop Spong was comfortable with each of these groups but he may be significantly responsible for the last one: those who find attending church an exercise in frustration and mind-numbing brought about by its use of archaic language, unsupportable doctrine and meaningless ritual, and it failing entirely to fulfill one of its most urgent roles: to edify and convict its members by placing them within a context of wisdom, beauty, and awe. Are We There Yet? Perhaps one of the most generous elements of Bishop Spong’s work was his encouragement and support of those leaders, including me, who found ourselves leading within contexts that were somewhere along the spectrum made possible by his thought. On the one end, we are burning to share Bishop Spong’s progressive interpretations of the faith but are pressured or even bullied by parishioners or church councils to keep it to ourselves or risk dismissal. Our office bookshelves are laden with lectionary guides to worship, contemporary biblical commentaries and concordances, and maybe even a Greek or Hebrew interlinear bible. But our home libraries and bookmarked websites, away from the eyes of our parishioners, explore the very different, pot-holed road of our personal faith stories. We may have found a pulpit where we can preach openly about contemporary issues, framing them with Christian beliefs as they evolved into the mid-20th century. But we don’t dare toy with any of the other elements of the service; hymns, prayers of confession, petition, and intercession. I have yet to meet a clergy person dismissed for ineffectual prayer; parishioners suffer from disease and die regardless of our efforts, but those of us who pray for such miracles on Sunday mornings and at the bedsides of the sick and dying, are legion. We may be fortunate enough to be called to a congregation with a strong studying community that is eager to continue the journey of progressive Christian thought. On weekday evenings, members boldly toss out most of what they’ve been taught about Christian doctrine and revel in their exploration of the “heretical”. Sunday mornings become less important for them than the faith discussions that take place in their study group, so much so that often they stop attending services regularly, distilling the gathered worshippers into a more conservative set than might have otherwise evolved. Or, like me, we find ourselves in a congregation with passionately progressive members who refuse to give up what they know for the comforts of others – a challenging reality. They choose the difficult road that leads them on in their journey, not losing sight of the elements that are crucial and meaningful, but with a creative spirit with which to recast them. These are the congregations with pews full of those who distilled from the traditional tenets of Christian faith and the ways it has been transmitted only those elements considered core, upon which any great religious or ethical belief system might have been or might yet be built. And because the work they allow, because of the intentionality of that work, they create space where believer and non-believer alike can flourish in their pursuit of wisdom, beauty, love, wonder, and right relationship. Vision Forward In 2004, I met Bishop Spong at the launch of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity and my life changed. That same year, West Hill United Church, which I serve, completed its first VisionWorks document, an attempt to distill what it was upon which the congregation could build its ministry. I was involved in that first draft. But VisionWorks is revised every five years and I have not been involved in any subsequent versions. This month, the congregation was introduced to the document’s fourth iteration, created by local, distance, and international members of the church. I can think of no other way to honour Bishop Spong’s legacy than to share this document. This is how far he encouraged me to go. This is how far we can all go. Because he spoke out. Because he embarked on the journey. Because his courage was a gift to us all. Because, with the gift of his thought, he invited us to fly.VisionWorks 2021 Copyright West Hill United Church, 2021 VisionWorks is an evolving document that articulates West Hill’s core values. We use it to inspire, affirm, and guide us as individuals in community. Grounded in life Life: connections With a deep sense of awe and wonder, we acknowledge life, in all its diversity and complexity, as an interconnected web of relationships beyond our full comprehension. Life: experience We recognize our place within this web of life: we are each affected by natural forces and human choices, and, in turn, have an impact on the natural world and the human community, helping or harming by our actions and inactions. Life as source >From these realities we draw our sense of identity and belonging, and form our views on humanity, meaning, and morality. While we are aware of our limited perspectives and fallibility, we are also eager to discover, understand, and experience life. Guided by love Love in action: choice In light of our interconnectedness in life, we choose love as our highest value and guide. We take love to mean actions that embody justice, compassion, honesty, openness, integrity, courage, kindness, forgiveness…for self, others, and the planet. Love in action: advocacy Our choice of love leads us to acknowledge the worth of all beings, and therefore their right to be treated with dignity and respect. We seek to increase our awareness of the places of hurt in the world and our sense of responsibility for the consequences of our actions and inactions. We strive to promote justice, resist injustice, and bring about reconciliation. Love in action: decisions As we encounter ethical complexity, cultural diversity, and conflicting worldviews, we acknowledge inevitable uncertainty, seek a comprehensive understanding, and support one another in making choices in line with our values. Love in action: interpersonal relationships We strive to interact with one another in a caring, honest manner, expressing views respectfully, listening attentively, and responding with empathy. We work toward consensus and creative conflict resolution, and in times of broken trust, seek mutual understanding, forgiveness, and healing. We meet to experience and contribute to community: we celebrate and commemorate life events, share joys, express concerns, develop relationships, study and challenge, engage in self-reflection, and commit to action. Growing in wisdom The pursuit of wisdom In light of our interconnectedness in life and our choice of love as our guide, we strive to grow in wisdom for living. We seek knowledge and insight that will deepen our understanding of our values and strengthen our commitment to them so that we may effectively apply them personally, locally, and globally. Sources of wisdom We seek wisdom in all historical eras, diverse cultures and traditions, and varied forms of expression, including word, music, art, dance, symbols, and silence. No source is assumed to be inherently authoritative or to contain absolute or universal truth, nor is any source accorded a privileged status based on claims for its supernatural or transcendent origin. Love alone is our guide for discerning wisdom in any source. We encourage one another to seek, interpret, and create meaning for ourselves, valuing exploration and questioning over the pursuit of certainty. Sharing wisdom We gain insight for living out our core values as we share diverse views, experiences, interpretations, and resources, and consider them together in light of love for self, others, and the planet. Conclusion As we strive to live in these ways as individuals in community, we often soar and often stumble; yet in joy and sorrow, in certainty and doubt, we travel together in a spirit of love. ~ Rev. Gretta Vosper Read online here About the Author The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best-selling books include With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers. Visit her website here. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Donna My cousin is pressuring me to become “Born Again.” She says that it’s the only way to guarantee not being punished in hell for all eternity. That seems like a pretty harsh consequence for not uttering what seems like “magic words.” A: By Rev. David M. Felten Dear Donna,Thanks for resisting the pressure. Many of us have been brow-beaten by some well-intentioned believer about the need to be "born again” – or else! Most of them, however, are doing it out of love and haven’t thought through the threatening implications. Unfortunately, all they’ve been taught is that to be “born again” is THE definition of being a Christian. You’ve already identified the first problem with this approach: insisting that people be “born again” is not only a litmus test (a form of elitist legalism that clashes with Jesus’ sensibilities of grace and inclusivity), it can also be weaponized with threats of eternal condemnation. Regrettably, there’s a word for this kind of malevolent god and the people who follow this god: sadistic. And what makes it all the more frustrating is these all-important “magic words” aren’t even in the Bible. People THINK these words appear in John 3 because early translators finessed the text and put the words “born again” into Jesus’ mouth. But if you consult the New Revised Standard Version, the Scholars Edition, or any translation that actually takes the text seriously, they simply don’t appear. In a conversation Jesus is having with Nicodemus, Jesus says that no one can be a part of the program without being born “from above.” The Greek word John has Jesus use is anothen, or the “up place.” Nicodemus’ promptly makes the typical fundamentalist mistake of taking Jesus’ words literally instead of metaphorically and says, “Huh? What? Born a second time?!? I don’t get it!” Then Jesus has to explain it to him: “I’m talking about a re-orientation of your priorities and perspective.” So, as familiar and important as the King James version is to many Christians, Jesus simply doesn’t say you have to be “born again.” It’s not what the Greek says – and misses Jesus’ more subtle point. Sadly, today there’s a whole theological industrial complex built up around the phrase “born again” and all its attendant dogmatic expectations and implications. For those still publishing the King James Version and other Bibles used in Evangelical-leaning churches, literary accuracy simply doesn't matter. Their client base has too much invested in the phrase, “born again," so they leave it in. Some publishers have enough integrity to include an asterisk with the footnote, “actually, it’s born ‘from above’,” but not all. I’m not so naïve to think that any conversation with your cousin would change her mind, but for your own sake, let me offer you some assurance that Jesus’ alternative of being born “from above” promotes a totally different (and I’d argue, healthier) spirituality. Being born “from above” suggests that the source of wholeness, that which guides your direction and purpose, is something beyond legalistic rules or “magic words.” It's relational, dynamic, and, if we’re lucky, part of a life-long journey. It’s not a static, one-off event like being “born again.” Later in the same passage, Jesus says to Nicodemus: "The spirit blows every which way, like wind: you hear the sound it makes but you can't tell where it is coming from or where it's headed. That's how it is with everyone reborn of the spirit.” What Jesus had in mind was not an incantation of “magic words” one has to speak in order to be inoculated from some fantasy eternal damnation. It’s a process. It’s a journey. And I wish you well on yours. Hope this helps! ~ Rev. David M. Felten PS: For more on this same topic, you could refer your cousin to a recent message I preached on the dangers of being “being born again”. Read and share online here About the Author Rev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions” and authors of Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity. A co-founder of Catalyst Arizona and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David is the proud father of three reliably remarkable human beings. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. 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Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Lecture Tour of Germany Part I: Background and Content Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong July 14, 2011Earlier this summer as part of a European lecture tour, Christine and I went to Germany for three public lectures in three cities and two press interviews. The invitation to include Germany on this trip came from a retired Lutheran pastor named Gerhard Klein, who has translated four of my books into German, which have now been published there by Patmos Press in cooperation with my publisher HarperCollins. Through these books and these lectures, I am able to enter the theological conversation now taking place in Germany, primarily in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but also touching the issues roiling within German Roman Catholicism, which are fueled in part by the response to the German Pope, Benedict XVI. The story of how Gerhard Klein became aware of me and of my work reveals the power of chance happenings. For a number of years Gerhard Klein served as the founding pastor of an Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Melbourne, Australia. There he perfected his English and pursued his own ever-questing theological journey. This man had grown up in Germany under the Hitler regime. He was eight years old when World War II began with the German invasion of Poland in September of 1939. Gerhard was torn, as many Germans were, by the inner conflict between his love for his homeland and his vigorous opposition to Nazism and, in particular, his revulsion over the treatment of the Jews. He felt deeply compromised by either the unwillingness or the inability of the two primary Christian bodies in Germany to stand up to Hitler’s abuse of power. His own Lutheran Church was essentially co-opted by the Nazis, while the Roman Catholic Church, under the primacy of Pope Pius XII was, depending on which version of history one reads, either an active supporter of Hitler or one who turned a blind eye to the horrors of the Nazi regime. The fact that the Roman Catholic Church is today still pressing forward with the process that leads ultimately to the beatification of Pius XII is deeply disturbing to many Germans who know of the role this man played in the rise of Nazi atrocities. For Gerhard it was the presence of a single ordained Lutheran leader, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who made the crucial difference. Bonhoeffer, as a pastor, became publicly involved in the resistance movement and thus was for Gerhard the sole witness that Christianity still had integrity. Bonhoeffer had written a book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” and he had paid that cost. Following Jesus for Bonhoeffer ultimately meant a willingness to participate in a plot to assassinate Hitler. When the plot failed, he was captured, arrested, convicted and ultimately hanged by the Nazis in 1945 at a prison camp in Flossenburg just two weeks before that camp was overtaken by the Allied army. Before his execution Bonhoeffer engaged in an extensive correspondence with a friend named Eberhard Bethge, who preserved his letters and published them after the war under the title Letters and Papers from Prison. In these letters Bonhoeffer spelled out his vision of a post-war Christian future. It was thus through those letters that Gerhard Klein felt his own call, not only to ordained ministry in general, but to the stance of giving birth to the radically-reformed Christianity that Bonhoeffer had envisioned. In one of Bonhoeffer’s letters from prison, he had speculated on what Christianity might look like once it had separated itself from the confines of organized religion, which in his opinion had been mortally wounded by the rise of scientific knowledge and morally compromised by its failure to stand up for the Jews. It was Bonhoeffer who coined the phrase “Religionless Christianity” and began to talk about the God beyond religion. Those were the things that had inspired Gerhard, just as they had inspired me. Near the end of Gerhard’s service with his church in Australia he happened to be watching the news on television when I was being interviewed. It was in 2003 and I was on a book tour of Australia with my book Why Christianity Must Change or Die. I have always received maximum media attention in Australia because the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Sydney is dominated by the most out of date fundamentalist mentality one can imagine. Not only do they refuse to ordain women, they will not ordain an unmarried man for fear that he might be gay! These prejudices are regularly supported by appeals to the literally understood Bible. Whenever I travel to Australia the Sydney Anglicans denounce my arrival as if the Anti-Christ were about to land. The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jenson, states publicly that I am not welcome in any of the Anglican churches in his diocese as if I actually wanted to go to one of them. Their diocesan newspaper, “The Southern Cross,” runs articles designed to arm its readers to be able to resist the appeal of this American infidel. In the past they have even appointed a “Truth Squad” to follow me around New South Wales in order to straighten out the people who might be “confused” by my words! With that kind of free publicity, Harper-Collins, Australia, has no trouble getting extensive media coverage for my visits. So it was that an Archdiocese of Sydney-inspired television interview was the catalyst for bringing me and my work to the attention of Gerhard Klein. On this television interview, Gerhard heard me articulating thoughts he himself held, but had not yet publicly expressed. He felt an intense need to learn more about this American bishop, who was at that time unknown to him. He began to read my books and that in turn led him to the determination to translate these books into his native German. Returning to his homeland, Gerhard has over the last decade or so done that on four separate volumes. Five years ago, while we were lecturing in the United Kingdom and France, we accepted Gerhard’s invitation to spend a few days with him in private conversation at his home in Grebenstein. It was a wonderful meeting and the beginning of a very deep friendship. He became almost like a brother to me and was certainly a theological partner in our common effort to call the Christianity, to which we were both committed, into a new reformation. As a direct result of that visit, this year’s lecture tour of Germany was organized. Germany’s role in the development of Christianity in the Western World has always intrigued me. This is the country, above all others, that has given us critical biblical scholarship and relevant theological thinking. It was a German biblical scholar named David Friedrich Strauss whose book, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, published in 1835, that first introduced critical biblical scholarship to the Western World. Strauss, a professor at the University of Tubingen, was 27 years old when he wrote this monumental book. For his efforts he was fired from the faculty at Tubingen and banished from the academy across Europe. Later, in that same century, it was two German scripture scholars, Julian Wellhausen and Karl Heinrich Graf, who cracked the code to the source theory of the Torah that is still today the basis for the study of the Old Testament. Germany was clearly the leader in developing modern biblical scholarship. That was also true in the field of Theology. It was a German named Karl Barth, who first called Christianity out of its 19th century liberalism, which had been best articulated by another German, Friedrich Schleiermacher. Barth became the father of what came to be called Neo-Orthodoxy that dominated Protestantism during the first half of the 20th century. That emphasis was then succeeded by a series of German scholars, who wrestled with re-stating the Christian faith in the light of the knowledge of today’s world. One thinks of such names as Emil Bruner, Rudolf Bultman, Paul Tillich and the aforementioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer. My own theological debt to German scholarship is immense. Paul Tillich who escaped Nazi Germany to enjoy a spectacular career at both Union Theological Seminary in New York City and Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shaped my thinking more substantially than any other theologian. Rudolf Bultman, probably the 20th century’s leading New Testament scholar, shaped my biblical understanding more than any other. Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught me, as few others could have done, that standing for truth has consequences and if you are not willing to pay that price or run that risk, nothing you do will ever be worthwhile. Finally there were the Niebuhr brothers, Reinhold and Richard, who, while being American, were the children of German immigrants, who shaped my understanding of the social demands for justice that must be part of the Christian faith. My own mentor and friend, John A. T. Robinson, who sounded the clarion call for post-religious Christianity in a ground breaking book entitled Honest to God was primarily popularizing the thought of Tillich, Bultman and Bonhoeffer, and in that process, he initiated a new debate in the Christian world. So, I felt an enormous indebtedness to German scholarship and was filled with gratitude for this opportunity. The tour began in Grebenstein where Gerhard lives. The first lecture was attended primarily by friends specifically invited by Gerhard. They were generally professional people not clergy or theologians. They gave me a sense of the current state of German Church life. God for most educated Germans, not unlike their counterparts in other Western nations, is still an external being, equipped with supernatural power and able to invade this world to answer prayers or impose the divine will. That deity has become not only irrelevant in modern life but also unbelievable for modern minds. So to analyze why “Christianity must Change or Die” or to spell out what a “New Christianity for a New World” might look like became my agenda on this tour. I laid the groundwork for that task with this gathering of Gerhard’s friends and professional colleagues. It was a good place to begin. In Parts II and III of this series, I will describe the tour in detail and the reaction to it. So stay tuned.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Navigating the Holidays from Our Highest Self The holidays can be challenging. Getting caught up in the busyness, becoming immersed in difficult emotions, spending time with family members whose opinions repel us — it is easy to lose our grounding in our highest and truest Self. Online November 20th: READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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11/11/2021, Progressing Spirituality: Rev. David Felten: “White Too Long” – A Conversation with Robert P Jones, Part 2; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 11 Nov '21

11 Nov '21

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Jones, Part 2 | | | | | | | | | | Interview by Rev. David Felten November 11, 2021The following is Part 2 of a series drawn from an interview with Robert P. Jones, author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity on September 9th, 2021. It has been edited for length and focus. Read Part 1 here. ___________________________ David Felten: You've already talked about having been brought up in the gauzy kind of unreality of the Southern Baptist Church. What burst your bubble? Robert Jones: It's been a long journey. Things began to seep through cracks in the façade and eventually, the whole thing shattered. When a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary said that the beginning of our denomination was all about the theological defense of slavery, that moment shook me. And then I had a professor who had us read black theologians like James Cone and Howard Thurman. Their Christianity indicted the kind of white Christianity I'd grown up with, giving me a very different way of thinking. It was not just about personal piety, but justice, which had been pretty absent in the Christianity I'd grown up with. David Felten: But your religious upbringing was not just about the absence of justice. It was about the preservation of long-standing racial prejudices. Your statistics show a direct correlation of being a white Christian in America and white supremacist leanings. That’s scary. Robert Jones: Yeah, the data is disturbing. I culled public opinion data from the Public Religion Research Institute (which is the organization I founded and currently run) and used fifteen public opinion questions that were essentially about denials of systemic racism in the country. One example would be, “Do you believe that the killing of African Americans by police are isolated incidents or are they part of a pattern of how police treat African Americans?” Other questions referred to the removal of Confederate monuments and flags — all kinds of other things. Then I built the responses into an index where zero is holding the least racist attitudes and 10 is holding the most racist attitudes. What I found was that white Christians of all stripes score fairly high on this index. David Felten: And you were surprised? Robert Jones: Given our history, it may not be that surprising that white evangelicals and the more Southern conservative group of white Protestants scored eight out of 10 on this composite index. But what was surprising was the other two groups of white Christians, white mainline Protestants (like United Methodists) and white Catholics (who have their own history of being persecuted in this country) scored seven out of 10 on this index. David Felten: Did you take into account the responses of non-Christians? Robert Jones: I think that’s the lynchpin to understanding the role of Christianity here. Whites who are not Christian — who claim no religious affiliation — only score four out of 10. In other words, if you take your average white person in America and add “Christian,” it moves them up the racism index, not down. David Felten: When I heard you speak recently, an audience member said that it sounded like what you were saying was the most effective way to eliminate racism in America is to encourage white Christians to stop going to church. Robert Jones: Even when I controlled for all kinds of other variables and tried to isolate just the role of attending church, the frequency of church attendance for white mainline and white Catholics made no difference. But for white evangelicals, it was actually the opposite. The relationship between white evangelical identity and holding more racist attitudes was stronger among those who attended more frequently than it was among those who attended less. David Felten: So what practical suggestions can you offer to curb this phenomenon for those of us who are still in predominantly white Christian churches? Robert Jones: Well, out of my own personal experience, one suggestion is to know your own history and story better. We are living with a mythology of who we are and where we've been and what role we've played. If you pick up the glossy histories that churches publish about themselves (where the founders are all great people and did no wrong and were saints and all of that), those are not accurate histories. They’re at best partially true. Then every white church in America needs to ask itself, why is our building where it is? Why are we located where we are? Were we in a part of the city that was zoned all white at one point? Were we part of a racially-restricted neighborhood covenant? If we're out in the suburbs, where did we move from? If we were founded out in the suburbs, why did we plant ourselves in the suburbs rather than in the middle of the city? Were we following white flight out to the suburbs? David Felten: In other words, if we’re honest, many of these decisions are driven by elements of systemic racism and a grounding in white supremacy. Robert Jones: Yes, and because it’s not just what is taught, but what is seen, I think another thing to do would be a visual inventory. Is there a white Jesus in your stained glass or in the church narthex? David Felten: Ahhh, the infamous Warner Sallman.[i] Robert Jones: Yeah, is that there? And if it is, what is that teaching the next generation? What do the children's Sunday school materials look like? The illustrations in those? Is it a white Jesus with children on his knee? And that children's Bible that so many of us have seen? What can we do about that? David Felten: And one of my favorite parts of your book is the story of the healing and emotional experiences people had when the white and black congregations partnered together. Robert Jones: Yes, real partnerships with churches of color are a must. David Felten: One last question. Your previous book, The End of White Christian America, details the declining membership and influence of evangelical mainline churches across the U.S. So, six years later, what would you want to update? Robert Jones: I think the trends I outlined have continued. Six years ago, white Christians in the country crossed into non-majority territory, declining from 54% to 47% of the population. Since then it's continued to slide, from 47% to 44% — not quite a percentage point a year. I’ll tell you one thing I’m less optimistic about. I ended that book saying that, as these trends continue, white Christians would have no choice but to accept the changing demographics in the country and become more welcoming and hospitable fellow citizens with the rest of the country. But that book was published in 2016, prior to the entire Trump era, and I think we've actually seen more of a digging in. David Felten: A hardening. Robert Jones: Yeah. Instead of smaller numbers motivating people to reintegrate into a more diverse country, among white evangelical Protestants particularly there’s been a hardening and a kind of doubling down—even to the point of openly advocating violence--that I didn't quite anticipate. David Felten: The image of a wounded, cornered animal comes to mind. Robert Jones: That's not far off the mark. David Felten: So you would not shy away from saying that at least part of the reason for the division in the country and the growing hatred, animosity, and suspicion of one another is at least in some part, if not in large part, due to the fear of a predominantly white supremacist Christian culture becoming a minority. Robert Jones: I've written that thesis on a number of occasions almost word for word. I think that's exactly right. It's one of the dangerous things we're living through right now. And we needn't look any further than January 6th where we saw this toxic stew of Christian symbols, Trump flags, Confederate flags, white supremacy, and antisemitism. Christian symbols were very prominent. The Confederate flag got a lot of press as it got marched through the chamber, but right in tandem was the Christian flag that many of us have hanging in our sanctuaries — that white flag with a blue canton and a red Latin cross in the corner. That flag was carried alongside the Confederate flag and all these other symbols of white supremacy by the violent insurrectionists on January 6th. David Felten: And the response from churches was the sound of crickets. Robert Jones: Yeah. The fact that there wasn't a massive outcry from white Christians across the country about that — a renouncement — particularly from white evangelical circles, tells you what a dangerous time we're in. And again, remember that white mainline Protestants voted nearly 6 out of 10 for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020. All the press covers is that white evangelicals voted 8 out of 10 for Trump. But white mainline Protestants voted 6 out of 10 for Trump AND scored 7 out of 10 on the racism index we used in White Too Long. So, there is plenty of work to do in the mainline churches. ____________________________ Read online here. About the AuthorsRev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions” and authors of Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity. A co-founder of Catalyst Arizona and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David is the proud father of three reliably remarkable human beings.Robert P. Jones is the CEO and founder of Public Religion Research Institute[ii] (PRRI), and the author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, winner of a 2021 American Book Award. He writes a weekly #WhiteTooLong newsletter dedicated to the work of truth-telling, repair, and healing from the legacy of white supremacy in American Christianity: robertpjones.substack.com*** Get your FREE copy of White Too Long!*** Three signed copies of Robert P Jones’ White Too Long will be given away to three lucky readers of ProgressingSpirit.com. Just add a comment with the hashtag #whitetoolong to the comments below or on the Progressive Christianity Facebook page and you’ll be entered in the drawing to win![i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_Christ | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Michael What are your thoughts on the existence, activity and power of the individual soul/spirit after death? Do these individual souls still exist and do they have any power or inclination to relate to us? If God is indeed Being, Life and Love, do not all human souls melt back into this Absolute after death? In a larger sense, if the individual spirits of the saints remain intact, does not the soul of every human endure eternally as a unique spirit? A: By Rev. Lauren Van Ham Dear Michael,This is a wonderful series of questions in this season of All Hallow’s Eve, Dia de los Muertos, All Soul’s, and All Saint’s Day. It is of concern, perhaps, for our egos to know whether or not we remain “ourselves” after death. Cultural expressions from around the world, and Earth-centered origin stories provide some imagery that I find inviting and helpful. In his great work, The Labyrinth of Solitude (1961), Octavio Paz spends an entire chapter explaining what Dia de los Muertos means to his people, and also why the holy-day is so important: “The opposition between life and death was not so absolute to the ancient Mexicans as it is to us. Life extended into death, and vice versa. Life, death and resurrection were stages of a cosmic process which repeated itself continuously. Life had no higher function than to flow into death, its opposite and complement; and death, in turn, was not an end in itself: man fed the insatiable hunger of life with his death… To the ancient Aztecs the essential thing was to assure the continuity of creation; sacrifice did not bring about salvation in another world, but cosmic health; the universe, and not the individual, was given life by the blood and death of human beings.” In this description, each of us might feel less focused on whether or not we endure as an individual soul and find comfort, instead, in the service our death gives to the collective cosmic process, or "Absolute Love", as you’ve beautifully described it. But you have also asked about a soul’s “inclination to relate to us.” We know about ancestral encounters. They’re real. The lives you and I are living right now are the foundations for the kind of ancestors we will be one day. Will we be called upon? I call upon ancestors (biological and chosen) when I am needing the sort of wisdom they wielded during their embodied experience on Earth. In this way, God as "Being, Life and Love" appears to me in a way I readily recognize and put to use: as the whimsy that was Jim Henson, as the courage that was Harriet Tubman, as the solidarity that was Cesar Chavez, as the loving, resourcefulness that was my paternal grandmother and so on. Perhaps then, we return to the One Love, and "high-beam" our specific gifts of motivation or comfort when called upon. As a massive family of ancestors – the souls we remember and the souls we one day will be – we are unique and we are inseparable, serving the continuity of creation. May it be so.~ Rev. Lauren Van Ham Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Lauren Van Ham, MA was born and raised beneath the big sky of the Midwest, Lauren holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Naropa University and The Chaplaincy Institute. Following her ordination in 1999, Lauren served as an interfaith chaplain in both healthcare (adolescent psychiatry and palliative care), and corporate settings (organizational development and employee wellness). Lauren’s passion for spirituality, art and Earth's teachings have supported her specialization in eco-ministry, grief & loss, and sacred activism. Her essay, "Way of the Eco-Chaplain," appears in the collection, Ways of the Spirit: Voices of Women; and her work with Green Sangha is featured in Renewal, a documentary celebrating the efforts of religious environmental activists from diverse faith traditions across America. Her ideas can be heard on Vennly, an app that shares perspectives from spiritual and community leaders across different backgrounds and traditions. Currently, Lauren tends her private spiritual direction and eco-chaplaincy consulting practice; and serves as Climate Action Coordinator for the United Religions Initiative (URI), and as guest faculty for several schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Examining the Meaning of Resurrection, Part VI: Seeing Through a Glass Darkly Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong July 7, 2011Something happened at the first Easter. Some insist that it was an event that occurred on a single day. Others suggest that an experience was identified with that day making it a symbol of a breakthrough to a new consciousness. Theologians and biblical scholars alike still debate whether it was an internal or external happening, the result of sight or insight, but something clearly happened. We can measure the results even if we cannot identify the cause. Enormous shifts in attitudes are discernible, even measurable. We learn from Mark, the earliest gospel, that when Jesus was arrested, “all the disciples forsook him and fled” (Mark 14:50). In view of the fact that the disciples were heroes by the time this gospel was written, the inclusion of this negative report on their behavior in a time of crisis rings as an authentic memory that simply could not be expunged from the public record. The disciples clearly deserted Jesus. The gospels even developed a biblical rationale for this desertion, something that does not happen unless the charge was real. At some point, however, something brought them back and, more than that, they were brought back with convictions that were so unshakable that the Christian movement was born. If the tradition is correct, its leaders were willing to die for the reality of their new vision. What can account for so dramatic a change? The disciples were Jews, taught from the crib to recite the Shema: There is one God, nothing other than God can be called holy or worshiped without idolatry becoming their reality. Something in their experience with Jesus of Nazareth, however, convinced them that this Jesus was somehow related in a powerful way to what they called God. What does it take to create so vast a shift in the deepest religious convictions of these Jewish people? Whatever the Easter moment was, it came within one generation to be identified with the first day of the week. Jewish people for whom the observance of the Sabbath was a defining characteristic, found themselves gathering on a new day for worship identified with this Jesus. The Sabbath was not abandoned so much as a new holy day was added alongside it. What does it take to create a new holy day or to relativize in that creation the most unique, defining practice of one’s ancestral faith tradition? Something must account for that, but what was it? None of this demonstrates that a literal resurrection occurred, but it does suggest that an experience, which could not be denied, called Jesus’ followers into a new place, a new understanding of God, a new consciousness and a new sense of the presence of the divine. When they tried of necessity to place that experience into human words, they called it “resurrection.” The Greek word, which they chose to stand for “resurrection,” however, was an inadequate word, for it literally means only “to stand up” (anastasis). That was as close as human language could take them to what they were trying to describe. They looked for other words. They called it overcoming death. They symbolized what they were trying to describe by suggesting that the veil in the Temple, which separated the faithful from the Holy One, had been split from the top down. One gospel writer, Matthew, likened it to the experience of an earthquake. Paul saw it as the breaking of those barriers that inhibit our full humanity from developing. Mark said that the impact of the life was so great that even a Gentile soldier at the foot of the cross pronounced him “Son of God.” Matthew tells us that all he heard the risen Christ say was: “Go into all the world.” Go, beyond your fears, your insecurities and your xenophobia. Go to those you have defined as different, as subhuman, and tell them that the love of God embraces all people regardless of how diverse. Out of Jew and Gentile, male and female, bond and free, there has been created a new humanity. Luke hears this death-conquering Christ tell them they must be witnesses to his life-changing power in their homes, i.e. Jerusalem; in their immediate countryside, i.e. Judea; in the land of their deepest prejudices, i.e. Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth where a universal humanity will be known. People filled with the spirit, says Luke, will discover that there is no barrier of language or ethnicity that will divide them. John tells us that the death of this Jesus was his moment of glorification and that in the powerlessness of death in which the human drive for survival is at last escaped, God will be revealed and eternal life will be entered. The biblical writers tried in a wide variety of ways to find adequate words to make sense of their life-changing experience. As the years went by words that the original users knew were inadequate came to be regarded as literal and objective descriptions of reality and in time these descriptions became more and more miraculous and less and less transformative or real. When Paul wrote between the years 51-64, it is of interest to note that he left not a single narrative detail of what resurrection meant or how it dawned. He gave us only a list of “witnesses” who were, he said, the ones who “saw,” however, he never tells us what it was that they “saw.” The earliest Gospel, Mark, written in the early seventies, relates no story of Jesus appearing to anyone. There was for them just a promise that it would be in their homes in Galilee, among the familiar things of their lives that they would “see’ him. When Matthew wrote in the mid eighties he became the first to describe Jesus appearing to the disciples after Easter, but he did so in terms of a Jesus who was transformed and newly clothed in the image of the heavenly Son of Man, borrowed from the book of Daniel, one of the most highly developed images of the Jewish messiah found in the Hebrew scriptures. Next Luke, who wrote in the late ninth decade or maybe in the early tenth decade and John, who wrote near the end of the tenth decade, both made the risen Jesus quite physical, making it hard not to think of what happened to him as a bodily resuscitation. Here was, they said, a physically deceased body reversing the death process, restoring destroyed cells to life and destroyed brains to thinking. These last two gospels make the resurrected Jesus eat to make obvious a functioning gastrointestinal system, to speak to make obvious a functioning larynx and vocal chords, to walk, to make obvious a functioning skeletal system, and to interpret scripture, to make obvious a functioning brain. Yet as crude as theses literalizations are, both writers also attached to these descriptions of the raised Jesus the power to materialize out of thin air and to dematerialize into thin air, to walk into a room where the doors are barred, to breathe on the disciples in an act that imparted the Holy Spirit and even to ascend into the sky of a three-tiered universe in order to return to where God was thought to be. Such language is literal nonsense, but it pointed to a real experience that words could never embrace. In this series of columns exploring the resurrection, I have tried to isolate the evidence that points to the reality of the experience. The meaning of Easter dawned in Peter, who then opened the eyes of others so that they too might see what he had seen. It happened in Galilee in places that were part of the memory of Jesus. The dawning of this reality did not occur all at once, but rather it grew slowly over a period of time, perhaps as long as a year. It was more like the birth of a new consciousness than it was a sighting or a vision. It is noteworthy that in the gospel narratives no one sees the risen Christ except believers. Surely there was an internal, subjective quality to Easter that must have been more real than any possible external, objective quality. Does this mean that Easter was not real, but merely a figment of someone’s imagination? I do not think so for reality is so much more to me than objective data. The impact of Jesus’ life on his followers was so intense it simply did not fade after his death. They kept awaking to new dimensions of what he meant. No act of human cruelty could destroy his life, no barriers could withstand his love. Jesus embraced the outcasts, whether lepers, Samaritans, Gentiles or the woman caught in adultery. His life could not be contained within the boundaries of religion. He allowed the touch of the woman with the chronic menstrual flow; he proclaimed that all religious rules had no value unless they enhanced human life. His followers found in him a life that reflected the Source of Life, a love that reflected the Source of Love and the being that reflected the Ground of Being and so they said “all that we mean by the word “God” we have experienced in him. His call was to enter a new consciousness, to become free of the boundaries inside which we feel we must live if we want to be secure; to recognize that beyond self-consciousness, there is a universal consciousness that we can enter and experience what Paul called “The glorious liberty of the children of God.” There we escape the uniquely human struggle to become and simply begin to be. That was resurrection. That was Easter and it was Jesus who opened this new dimension of life to them. In the power of his example, undiminished by his death, they entered that vision and experienced resurrection. In that moment, they began to see that God lived in them and that they lived in God and nothing was ever the same thereafter. None of this happened on the third day. That time measure is not to be literalized. The dawning of a new insight never occurs quickly. Jesus was the door, the way into life, they said, and they followed him into an unending new consciousness. Of course it was real. Of course it cannot be reduced to words. Of course in time the inadequate words they employed were literalized in an attempt to preserve them forever. Literalizing truth, however, always destroys truth, compromises truth and even falsifies truth. “Behold I show you a mystery,” Paul exclaimed. I wonder why we cannot allow the mystery to remain a mystery. “We see through a glass darkly,” Paul also said, but we do see and what we see is that when we have the courage to walk beyond the limits of life, we walk simultaneously into the mystery of God. That is where Easter begins.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | | | Announcements The Charter for Compassion’s Global Gala November 20th 8 am PST and 5 pm PST The Gala will be presented at two different times—purchase of a ticket will allow you to join either of the events. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Re: [Dialogue] A question about the distant past This has turned
by Vera M Barber 10 Nov '21

10 Nov '21

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Global Buzz for November
by ICA International 05 Nov '21

05 Nov '21

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.... And please click the link below for the latest issue of the Global Buzz Global Buzz Report: November 2021 or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-21/2021-11-01.php Read the latest ICAI Winds & Waves Magazine brought to you now on Medium.com See here: https://medium.com/winds-and-waves ICAI Communications

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11/04/2021' Progressings Spirit: Rev Lauren Van Ham: Walking In The Good Way; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 04 Nov '21

04 Nov '21

| | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Walking in the Good Way | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Lauren Van Ham November 4, 2021 Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, “We will not walk in it.” Jeremiah 6:16 If this passage from Jeremiah stopped after the word, “souls,” it would be instructive enough. But it keeps going, and I’m going to come back to that. First, though, let’s reflect on our current moment and the crossroads where we find ourselves. Our planet is on fire and our species is simultaneously causing and navigating incredible chaos. Some historians suggest that things are better today than they were a few hundred years ago. And, depending on the example, they’re right. Others will say that things are worse today than they were a few hundred years ago. And, depending on the example, they’re also right. Which ancient paths are the good way? Which ancient paths will offer rest for our souls? The most ancient path I know is the ecological one. Creation is an intricate living system that honors life, death and rebirth within Earth’s natural cycles; where reciprocity is honorable, and all life is sacred. We humans, who happen to be mammals (but also a bit of a virus), have trouble remembering the path of Creation. We’re so wildly creative that sometimes we expand for the sake of expansion, which hurdles some of us into having a lot and others into having very little. And here, a different path emerges: the way of Empire, or supremacy. In this book, “Come Out, My People!: God’s Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond”, Wes Howard-Brook suggests some ways to perceive the differences between the path of Empire and the path of Creation. Here are a few examples (and more can be found in the book on p. 6): | Feature | Religion of Creation | Religion of Empire | | God’s “home” | Beyond & within creation and among people | In a temple near the palace in the royal city | | Places of sacred encounter | Earth; mountains, rivers, wilderness; direct encounter; meals together; human intimacy | Urban temple, mediated by priestly elite; urban royal rituals | | Purpose of human life | Praise God with joy in gratitude for the abundant gift of Life | Serve the gods through loyalty to “empire” | | Basic economic structure | Gift, barter, collaboration amid abundance | Money, debt, competition amid scarcity | | Religions “obligations” | Love & praise of God and neighbor in “right relationship” (justice) | Rituals expressing loyalty to “patrons,” both “divine” and human | | Relationship with Earth/Land | Belongs to God; people are “tenants” | Belongs to kin and those who can afford to buy it | | Relationship with “enemies” | Love them | Destroy them | Where do you recognize yourself in these columns? For all of us on Earth today, we feel and see how we are born to both paths. And this is why the last sentence of verse 16 is so sobering! Many, many times, Empire has won out. Our fixation on Empire is killing us, everything we love, and everything that keeps us alive. There is an assumption that the path of Creation will mean “lack,” but how can this be? When we are living in right relationship with all people and all species, then will we not be held in Earth’s balance and divine abundance? Later in Jeremiah (29:11-13) we read, For surely I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call on me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord. In the first verse, I’m struck by the word, “ask.” Ask for the ancient paths. I am quite sure that the path of Creation invites conversation. On the path of Creation, we get to ask for directions, we get to slow down when we’re tired or disoriented, we get to commune with one another and all life, so as to hear the messages and read the signs. In the second verse, I pause on the words, “search,” and “seek.” The path of Creation invites engagement and exploration. There is no hurry but there is no GPS either. We search the map of heart and Spirit, we receive clarity and guidance that comes from observation, contemplation, becoming intimate with the life and death around us. On the path of Creation, we look, we ask. Like rocks shaped by water, we make ourselves vulnerable to God’s plans for us. This is it. For the first eleven days of November, leaders from around the world will meet in Glasgow, Scotland for the COP26 climate talks. Will they, at the crossroads, ask for the ancient path? Let’s love them and pray that they will! And let’s remember that Empire, terrified by this thought, will say, “We will not walk in it.” Faith-based organizations and houses of worship control 8% of the habitable land surface of Earth, 5% of all commercial forests, 50% of schools worldwide, and 10% of the world’s total financial institutions[i]. The potential aggregate impact of our spiritual communities on present and future development is powerful. The good way – the path of Creation – is here and has always been here. It is complete and balanced and generous and joyful. Do not be fooled by the falsity of Empire. Together, as individuals and in our communities, we must untangle ourselves from its insatiable, soul-sucking greed. Choose creation. Choose life. ~ Rev. Lauren Van Ham Read online here [i] https://www.faithinvest.org/zugguidelines About the Author Rev. Lauren Van Ham, MA was born and raised beneath the big sky of the Midwest, Lauren holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Naropa University and The Chaplaincy Institute. Following her ordination in 1999, Lauren served as an interfaith chaplain in both healthcare (adolescent psychiatry and palliative care), and corporate settings (organizational development and employee wellness). Lauren’s passion for spirituality, art and Earth's teachings have supported her specialization in eco-ministry, grief & loss, and sacred activism. Her essay, "Way of the Eco-Chaplain," appears in the collection, Ways of the Spirit: Voices of Women; and her work with Green Sangha is featured in Renewal, a documentary celebrating the efforts of religious environmental activists from diverse faith traditions across America. Her ideas can be heard on Vennly, an app that shares perspectives from spiritual and community leaders across different backgrounds and traditions. Currently, Lauren tends her private spiritual direction and eco-chaplaincy consulting practice; and serves as Climate Action Coordinator for the United Religions Initiative (URI), and as guest faculty for several schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader With the influx of so much contradictory information coming at us today, why are churches and religious leaders not doing more to help their members navigate the rapidly changing world we live in? A: By Rev. Roger Wolsey Dear Reader, A most timely and relevant question. Agreed, I haven’t noticed many churches addressing this matter either. I have heard a few pastors speak to this carefully in certain sermons in regard to the big lie that “Trump won the last election,” and regarding conflicting things on the internet said about the Covid-19 virus, wearing masks, and the vaccines. I optimistically hope some churches may have written about how to identify fake news in their church newsletters or as social media posts – though I haven’t verified this. I think the reason for the lack of attention to this is likely largely due to pastors and church staff not feeling trained or equipped to address these matters – and/or, they fear that some of their parishioners will interpret such efforts as being “political”, “partisan,” or coming across as being opposed to their political leanings and loyalties. (Feel free to largely read that as, “they don’t want to upset the Trumpers.”) I can offer the following advice: * Make a point to listen/read/watch news sources that are rated as being more objective and factual (PBS, NPR, ProPublica, AP, Reuters, WSJ, CBS, ABC, Forbes, The Hill, The Economist, BBC, Newsweek, New York Times, The Guardian, etc.) – and to avoid sources that are rated as being less so. See adfontesmeia. * If you come across a story about, or “quote” from, religious or political leaders who you are opposed to that seems to really get your heart rate up, and causes you to feel outrage, before you share it on social media, take some time to verify whether it’s true or not, or taken out of context. The last thing we need to be doing is to mindlessly feed the “outrage machine” – simply because of “confirmation bias.” * Similarly, if you come across a quote that you really love and it’s attributed to Plato, the Buddha, etc. before you pass it on, take some time to search online if it’s a vetted and verified quote. If you really like the words, it’s better to find the original source and provide proper attribution - or, if you can’t find the original source, simply type out the text and put – source unknown. * If you come across seemingly “remarkable” studies about Covid-19, masks, vaccines, Ivermectin, etc. online (esp. on YouTube), before you share that information, search (“Google”) to see if those claims have been verified or debunked. These links can also help: https://www.reuters.com/fact-check ; https://apnews.com/hub/ap-fact-check ; https://www.usatoday.com/news/factcheck/ ; https://www.snopes.com/ ; https://www.politifact.com/ ; & https://quoteinvestigator.com/ * Finally, here is an article, and two podcasts that address these matters: 1. “Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense” 2. Developing Media Literacy 3. Disinformation Society Update: just as I was finishing this response, I came across this blog from a mainline Protestant denomination that speaks to this: “Sifting Through Misinformation” ~ Rev. Roger Wolsey Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Roger Wolsey is a United Methodist pastor who resides in Grand Junction, CO. Roger is author of Kissing Fish: Christianity for people who don’t like Christianity and blogs for Patheos as The Holy Kiss and serves on the Board of Directors of ProgressiveChristianity.Org. Roger became “a Christian on purpose” during his college years and he experienced a call to ordained ministry two years after college. He values the Wesleyan approach to the faith and, as a certified spiritual director, he seeks to help others grow and mature. Roger enjoys yoga; playing trumpet; motorcycling; and camping with his son. He served as the Director of the Wesley Foundation campus ministry at the University of Colorado in Boulder for 14 years, and has served as pastor of churches in Minnesota, Iowa, and currently serves as the pastor of Fruita UMC in Colorado, and also serves as the "CRM" (Congregational Resource Minister/Church Consultant) for the Utah/Western Colorado District of the Mountain Sky Conference. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Great Digital Commission Embracing Social Media for Church Growth and Transformation By Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines Attendance in US churches continues to sharply decline. As church leaders struggle to identify both root causes and possible responses, they often feel a sense of despair… but there is hope! When social media is used intentionally, it is the greatest tool that the church has ever had to fulfill the Great Commission. In our time, we should hear a Great Digital Commission. The Great Digital Commission offers a theological reflection on the importance of social media – while acknowledging its shortfalls – and suggests practical steps that can help congregations think about strategies for church growth and transformation. Read On... | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Examining the Meaning of the Resurrection, Part V: The "How" Question — What Was the Context in Which Easter Dawned? Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong June 30, 2011 We come now to our fourth and final question in search of the meaning of Easter. Then with clues, hopefully well established, I will seek to draw some conclusions in the final column in this series. We have thus far identified Simon Peter as the person who stood in the center of the resurrection experience and, if hints present in the gospel accounts themselves direct us properly, he was the one who opened the eyes of others to see what he had seen. Perhaps that is what lies behind words attributed to Jesus and recorded only by Luke where Peter is admonished: “When you are converted, strengthen the brethren” (22:32). We then suggested that if Peter was believed to be the “first witness” then every Peter story in the New Testament might be read as a resurrection story and thus mined for additional clues that are there. Then, to answer the “where” question, we looked at the biblical records to try to determine the place or the location in which “resurrection” dawned first in Peter and then in the disciples. All of the evidence points to a Galilean setting as primary with Jerusalem being quite secondary. Then we noted that all of the exaggerated resurrection symbols, the stone, the tomb, the guard, the earthquake, the apparitions and the physical body of the resurrected Jesus are connected with that secondary Jerusalem tradition. So authenticity pointed us to Galilee. Once that was clear, we began to read other Galilean stories like Jesus walking on the water and the account of the Transfiguration in search of additional resurrection clues that are there. Next, in response to the “when” question, we examined the time references in the Easter stories. Was the time between crucifixion and resurrection three days? Or was the phrase “three days” meant to be understood as a symbol for whatever time passed between Good Friday and Easter. To gain insight into that, if indeed it was a symbol, we looked at all the places in the gospels themselves that seem to indicate a greater separation of time between Good Friday and Easter than most of us have ever imagined to be possible. My conclusion was and is that the followers of Jesus collapsed what was originally somewhere between six months and one year into “three days” and they did it primarily for liturgical purposes. If Friday is observed liturgically as the day of the crucifixion, then Sunday had to be observed as the day of resurrection. That is what the gospels suggested happened even while hinting at vastly longer periods of time between the two. Now today, we come to look at the context in which the Easter experience was first encountered. This is the “how” question. Are there echoes of how “resurrection” dawned in the gospel story? I think there are. So into the resurrection narratives of the gospels we now plunge anew in search of answers or at least hints. St. Paul gives us no help other than to note that within a single generation, the followers of Jesus clearly began to gather on the first day of the week for the breaking of bread and they called that day “The Lord’s Day.” When this custom actually began is hard to pinpoint, but it had to be quite early. The first two gospels to be written, Mark and Matthew, give us no direct help either, at least not in the narratives that deal specifically with the Easter story. In the earlier parts of these gospels, however, we may find some hints, but we are not able to discern them until we have a better idea of what the original context of the resurrection experience was. It is a late clue, coming first in Luke, but since it is all we have, we will pursue it. Luke is the only gospel to record the narrative that has come to be called the Emmaus Road story. That story seems to reflect the experience of the followers of Jesus in the days, weeks and even months that followed the crucifixion. Cleopas and his traveling companion were portrayed as living in inner turmoil. They had hoped that Jesus was messiah but now he was dead. In their minds there was no concept of messiah as victim. Jesus, therefore, as an executed one, could no longer make a messianic claim in their minds. Unable, however, to deny their transformative experiences with him, they began to search the scriptures trying to find clues that might give them a new understanding of his death. This is represented in this Emmaus Road story as Cleopas and his companion having the scriptures opened to them by this as yet unrecognized stranger. Finally, with the light of day fading, the Emmaus travelers invited their still unrecognized interpreter of the scriptures to turn aside with them and to share their evening meal. He did so, but in a twist in proper protocol, Jesus, the guest, became the one who presided over that evening meal and when he gave the ceremonial blessing he took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. That was the moment, according to Luke, when “their eyes were opened and he vanished out of their sight.” Returning to Jerusalem, these travelers related their experience to the disciples using this revealing phrase, “He was known to us in the breaking of the bread.” That is the first biblical reference that suggests that it was within the context of reenacting the “supper of the Lord,” in which the bread was identified with the broken body of Jesus and the wine was identified with his shed blood, that their minds were opened and they saw that he revealed himself in his death as triumphant over death. Holding that reference for a moment, we begin to look for other clues that might connect the experience of the resurrection with obeying the commandment that was supposedly given by Jesus at the last supper. “Whenever you gather together in my name, do this (break bread and share wine) in remembrance of me.” When the resurrected Jesus first appears to the disciples in Luke, we are told that he asked for food and they gave him a piece of fish to eat. When Jesus appears to the disciples for the first time in John’s gospel, the narrative is set, “when it was evening” that is 6:00 pm, which is the time of the evening meal. When the second appearance to the disciples occurs in this last gospel, this time with Thomas present, John tells us that it was a week later (literally after eight days), but once again meant to coincide with the time of the evening meal. When we turn to the epilogue of John (chapter 21), not believed by most scholars to be part of the original gospel, we find nonetheless a primitive Galilean story of the disciples recognizing Jesus as they ate together beside the Sea of Galilee. The familiar dialogue that Jesus has with Peter in this episode turns on the verb “to feed.” “Peter, you must feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” In the book of Revelation, the verb used by this author to describe the continuing presence of the risen Christ is the verb to eat or to dine. Jesus is represented as saying, “I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you and you with me.” (Rev. 3:20). In the memory of Jesus’ followers there appears to be a connection between seeing the risen Christ and sharing the common meal with its symbols of broken bread and poured out wine. That is the way they brought together their growing conviction that he was the promised messiah with the reality that he had been crucified. Ultimately they appear to have found in the image of the servant from II Isaiah (40-55) and of the shepherd king of Israel who was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver by those who bought and sold animals in the Temple (II Zechariah (9-14), scriptural references to salvation coming through pain and death. So it was, I believe, that it was the Eucharist that opened the eyes of Jesus’ followers to see beyond the limits of their humanity to an image of messiah revealed through death but alive as part of who God is. With that insight, we now return to the gospel narratives and look at every text that refers to a feeding story. They are then suddenly revealed as interpretive Eucharists. In Mark there are two feedings of the multitude stories, one on the Jewish side of the lake in which 5,000 are fed with five loaves and afterwards twelve baskets of fragments are gathered up, enough to feed the twelve tribes of Israel. Then Mark moves Jesus to the Gentile side of the lake where the act is repeated but this time 4,000 are fed with seven loaves and afterwards seven baskets of fragments are gathered up, enough to feed the seven great Gentile empires under which the Jews had lived, the Romans, the Syrians, the Macedonians, the Persians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians and the Egyptians. Clearly these feeding of the multitude stories are Eucharistic accounts masquerading as miracle stories. In all of them, the gospel writers each employ the four Eucharistic verbs. “He took, he blessed (or gave thanks), he broke, he gave.” In the fourth gospel, the author locates all of his Eucharistic thinking in the story of the feeding of the 5,000 (see John 6) and then omits any further account of the last supper, a clear sign that he saw it as symbol. Next, we look at all the parables that focus on “banquets.” Why did a banquet become the symbol of the kingdom of God breaking into human history? Why was it said that when that kingdom arrives people will come from the North, South, East and West to sit at Abraham’s table? Why was Jesus called by the Fourth Gospel the “bread of life?” So, our search for the context in which resurrection was first experienced, takes us to the Eucharistic meal. So, when resurrection dawns in human history, we conclude that Peter was in the center of that experience. He was in Galilee. It was some time after the crucifixion, perhaps many months. Finally, the interpretive context was the reenactment of the common meal at which Peter opened the eyes of the others to understand. Now, given these clues, my task is to try to put them all together in a meaningful narrative that may come close to enabling us to enter the experience of the first Easter. I will attempt to do that next week when this series concludes. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements * Have you considered Santa Claus is God-with-training-wheels?* Want to learn the 5-faith-stages and the 6-components of a spiritualigious life? * Do you get uncomfortable when someone asks if you believe in God (and you do), but you are pretty certain their conception of the divine isn’t the same as yours? Questions, learning, laughter, and fun as Rabbi Brian helps you learn to take the G-O-D-word from something breakable to approachable. Interactive. (To your level of comfortable.) And, fun. 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