February 2023 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

Latest addition to the Global Archives
by Karen Snyder 29 Nov '23

29 Nov '23

In the earliest days of the Ecumenical Institute of the 1960s, teams of people taught the first course of the religious studies series, Religious Studies I (RSI), to thousands across the United States and around the world. Gene Marshall was one of those great teachers - then and now! Michael May now shares his Interior Mythos Journeys series as "a re-packaged 21st Century presentation of the curriculum that took so many of us on a journey so many years ago” (https://interiormythos.com/) Michael gave permission to have Gene Marshall’s presentation on “G-O-D” in Life Journey #6: The Ultimate Love to be added to the RSI section of the Global Archives here: https://icaglobalarchives.org/collections/spiritmovement/rs-i-plc/ (click on the God section to see it). It is on YouTube as well here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNSXVbVLcbs&t=548s Life Journey - The Ultimate Love youtube.com Enjoy!

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Rob Work's books
by Karen Snyder 02 Mar '23

02 Mar '23

Did you know that Rob Work has published five books since 2017! He is generously sharing all of his books with colleagues and friends on the Global Archives website under Publications: https://icaglobalarchives.org/resources/. In other words, as you find his books on the list, you will find that each one is now a PDF. So when you click on the title, it will open up for you to read online or print. The books include: Society, Spirit, Self: Essays on the one dance <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/24076.pdf> (2021) The Critical Decade 2020 – 2029: Calls for ecological compassionate leadership <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/24077.pdf> (2020) Earthling Love: Living poems <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/24074.pdf>(2020) Serving People and Planet: In mystery, love and gratitude <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/24075.pdf>(2019) A Compassionate Civilization: The urgency of sustainable development and mindful activism – reflections and recommendations <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/24073.pdf> (2017) Rob, words seem inadequate to express our gratitude for your gift. But we do say “Thank You” many times for your giving on behalf of all. Peace, Karen Snyder For the Global Archives Team

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3/16/2023 Your are invited! Eco film night: Rights of Nature; info; link to registration
by Ellie Stock 28 Feb '23

28 Feb '23

Dear Friends, YOU ARE INVITED! SAVE THE DATE. The Ferguson Eco Team will be hosting its next environmental film THE RIGHTS OF NATURE, A GLOBAL MOVEMENT, via ZOOM, Thursday, March 16, 7:00 PM Central Time. Film length 52 minutes, conversation to follow. TO REGISTER FOR ZOOM LINK: https://bit.ly/FET16Mar2023 Also see attached flyer. Share with your friends. The 2020 documentary THE RIGHTS OF NATURE: A GLOBAL MOVEMENT focuses on a growing environmental initiative where natural areas are given legal rights that can be enforced by people, governments and communities. It’s a beautifully shot deep dive into earth jurisprudence, philosophy, permaculture, spirituality and a neo-indigenous future for humanity. As pressures on ecosystems mount and as conventional laws seem increasingly inadequate to address environmental degradation, communities, cities, regions and countries around the world are turning to a new legal strategy known as The Rights of Nature.“Nature often has legal rights as codified in environmental laws, but granting nature legal personhood is a different story,” co-director Crimmel said in a statement, “The main difference is that a Rights of Nature framework typically grants legal personhood status to nature, meaning that a river, for instance, would have the same rights as a person.” Conversation to follow the film TO REGISTER FOR ZOOM LINK: https://bit.ly/FET16Mar2023 For more information: (314) 521-8418, carletonstock(a)aol.com #yiv8440270602 filtered {}#yiv8440270602 filtered {}#yiv8440270602 filtered {}#yiv8440270602 p.yiv8440270602MsoNormal, #yiv8440270602 li.yiv8440270602MsoNormal, #yiv8440270602 div.yiv8440270602MsoNormal {margin:0in;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv8440270602 a:link, #yiv8440270602 span.yiv8440270602MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv8440270602 span.yiv8440270602EmailStyle20 {font-family:sans-serif;color:windowtext;}#yiv8440270602 .yiv8440270602MsoChpDefault {font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv8440270602 filtered {}#yiv8440270602 div.yiv8440270602WordSection1 {}

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2/23/2023, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Jim Burklo: Flipping the “He Gets Us” Script; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 25 Feb '23

25 Feb '23

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screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1432919679 #yiv1432919679templateBody .yiv1432919679mcnTextContent, #yiv1432919679 #yiv1432919679templateBody .yiv1432919679mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1432919679 #yiv1432919679templateFooter .yiv1432919679mcnTextContent, #yiv1432919679 #yiv1432919679templateFooter .yiv1432919679mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} By Rev. Jim Burklo | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Flipping the “He Gets Us” Script | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Jim Burklo February 23, 2023“We did four to five months’ worth of research. And what we found was that skeptics, and even cultural Christians, weren’t so much interested in Christians, Christianity and the Church, but they very much still resonated with Jesus.” So said Jason Vanderground, the media architect of the HeGetsUs campaign. On TV for the Super Bowl, a major ad showed, which is also manifesting on billboards and other media outlets all over the country. It is an effort to make Jesus look good - funded by the same fundamentalists who have trashed his reputation. Through a dark-money outfit called Signatry and its front, the Servant Foundation, it got a huge donation from the hard-right-wing Green family, the owners of Hobby Lobby. The campaign website funnels readers into the right-wing media universe, including “Focus on the Family”. “He Gets Us” is fundamentalism in streetwear, co-opting social justice themes to attract people, especially young folks, into a bait-and-switch. It aims to be a long-term, billion-dollar ad campaign. (See a piece about this ad campaign on NPR here.) “There were four specific things that people want for themselves today that they see reflected in Jesus, and the top one is seeking peace,” said Vanderground. “To be able to make peace with yourself and peace with others around you, because the top pain point that people are experiencing now is toxic relationships…. But then there are three other values: approachable, compassionate, and loving all… So, even though they are not fully engaged in religious activity or institutional Christianity, that value set that Jesus represents is very relevant to people who are on the fence about what they believe when it comes to faith.” So the campaign poses Jesus as a loving, caring, relatable peace- and justice-maker. Its front-facing messaging is progressive-adjacent, even if its backmatter is not. So we should make the most of it, flipping its hidden script! I’ve been urging churches and organizations to put out messaging that moves from “He Gets Us” to “He Gets Us To”: HE GETS US to welcome immigrants HE GETS US to embrace other religions HE GETS US to celebrate same-sex marriages HE GETS US to save the earth from human-caused climate change HE GETS US to take the Bible seriously, not literally HE GETS US to end systemic racism HE GETS US to stand up for women's right to choose HE GETS US to resist the right-wing agenda of the funders of HeGetsUs.com. What are your creative ideas to contribute to this effort? Send me your memes and pictures of your signs and I'll spread them far and wide in the progressive Christian movement. And I’ll send you my portfolio of memes you can use in your social media and front-of-church messaging. But another response is in order, as well. And that is for progressive Christians to have a larger conversation in the public sphere about who Jesus was – and was not. This conversation has already started – in, of all places, the very evangelical milieu in which HeGetsUs.com was formed. Because a fair number of fundamentalists are upset with the campaign for focusing attention on Jesus the human being, instead of on Jesus as almighty, supernatural God. The marketing wonks who put the HeGetsUs campaign together rightly determined that the best way to sell Jesus to a skeptical public was as a compassionate mortal. “The Jesus of this campaign is nothing more than an inspiring human who relates to our problems and cares a whole lot about a culturally palatable version of social justice,” complains well-known fundamentalist blogger Natasha Crain. Philip Ryan, a pastor in the evangelical Presbyterian Church in America, writes: “The He Gets Us campaign does not practice biblical evangelism, and it does not present the biblical Jesus. We in the PCA should be seriously concerned that our leadership is even considering cooperating with such a campaign, much less promoting and defending it to our churches.” These objections explain exactly why progressive Christians should seize this opportunity to shift the narrative about Jesus in the public sphere. Jesus was a stunningly compassionate human being who found divine love at the center of his being, and showed others how to be at one with that love, as well. He was a humble human who emptied himself to serve others. To this day, he gets us to take action –personal charity, but also political and social engagement - to make peace and justice real in this world. So let’s make the best use of that billion dollars! By not focusing on the supernatural divinity of Jesus, “He Gets Us” puts viewers on the very slippery slope that fundamentalists warn against – one that can deliver them into the realm of progressive Christianity. I suggest that we work on two fronts in response to He Gets Us. First, we take a positive approach, and piggy-back on its messaging, spinning it cleverly to invite people to visit our progressive churches and check out our media and content universe. Next, we “out” the people behind HeGetsUs.com – and get word into the public arena about the money and the forces behind the campaign, in order to short-circuit their attempt to use the campaign to direct people into their far-right cosmos. The fact that they actively work to hide the money and the donors behind the campaign is particularly outrageous. I find this language on the site pretty insulting: "Now, bear with us as we use some official language for those who care about this stuff. He Gets Us is an initiative of Servant Foundation, a designated 501(c)(3) organization with a 100/100 Charity Navigator rating." "Those who care about such stuff"? That ought to be everybody. When you google Servant Foundation, the first thing you get is a Methodist foundation in Oklahoma that has nothing to do with HeGetsUs.com. A different Servant Foundation is behind the campaign, and it is no more than a storefront for Signatry, which has funded right-wing, fundamentalist groups: Alliance Defending Freedom (an anti-gay activist group), Answers in Genesis (the six-day “Creation Museum” people), and Campus Crusade for Christ (fundamentalist campus ministries), as revealed in a video by Rebecca Watson. The people behind HeGetsUs don’t get him. But that doesn’t prevent us from using their campaign to help folks get who Jesus really was – and making his compassionate personality the welcoming face of our progressive faith communities. ~ Rev. Jim Burklo Read online here About the Author Rev. Jim Burklo is the Executive Director of Progressive Christians Uniting, which is now organizing ZOE, a national network of progressive Christian ministries at colleges and universities. He is the founder of Souljourning.org, providing resources for families to nurture the natural spirituality of young people. He retired as the Senior Associate Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at the University of Southern California in 2022 and now serves as pastor of the United Church of Christ of Simi Valley, CA. An ordained pastor in the United Church of Christ, he is the author of seven published books on progressive Christianity. His latest is Tenderly Calling: An Invitation to the Way of Jesus. His weekly blog, “Musings,” has a global readership. He is an honorary advisor and frequent content contributor for ProgressiveChristianity.org. Jim and his wife Roberta live in Ojai, CA. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader Why do so many churches continue judging people? Their sermons so often speak of how progressive they are and profess that certain people are of the wrong - or heaven-forbid - or non-existent belief, the wrong sexual orientation, or political alliance. Jesus didn't judge; why do many modern churches still preach this way? A: By Rev. Gretta Vosper Dear Reader,Thank you for this question, one often on the minds of liberal and progressive Christians baffled by the harsh judgments meted out by those more conservative. The rules or laws meted out by parents, courts, religions, workplaces, and institutions, and superior court justices are all human creations. And most of them, I would be wont to argue, are created either for the protection of those affected by them or for the control of those same people. Stoplights keep me from being killed several times a day as I walk or drive in my community and beyond. Local alcohol laws keep me from drinking alcohol in public places – not that I drink. The former is for my safety; the latter is to control me. One feels good the other maybe a little arbitrary. The interesting thing about the law preventing me from drinking in a public place is that it can be framed in a way that suggests it is about my safety. The streets, free of those who have consumed to the point of drunkenness – those who might become a problem – are safe because of the law. The law puts “a fence around” that possibility – makes it harder to consume to the point of drunkenness – by not allowing drinking at all. And that is what many of our laws do: they put a fence around the real law to keep people from accidently, or intentionally, becoming the real problem. Biblical prohibitions are often fences around other breaches that, at the time, would have been considered catastrophic. Churches are often organized around what is good and what is bad. It’s in our genes to do so, of course. Religion was about differentiating people from one another when the other was considered dangerous. Now that there are only the rare occasions – related to cults or fundamentalist iterations of religions (think Iran, just now) – that religious adherence would mean the other was a danger to us, differentiation becomes difficult because there is no need for it. But religious institutions don’t want to melt into the melting pot; they only thrive on being different and that often means having an “evil other” to point at. Ergo, long lists of prohibitions, some based in interpretations of holy scriptures, other based only in prejudice, all maintaining privilege in a complex society. Jesus judged plenty, by the way. We don’t hear much about that judgment in contemporary liberal churches because it is distasteful to us. But a good study would reveal that we play our own games with what we choose to say Jesus did and was and for our own purposes, as well. In the religious world, do’s and don’ts will always be a part of the ongoing story as they have always been part of religious history. ~ Rev. Gretta Vosper Read and share 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 and her Blog 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. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podbean | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Part IV Matthew - The Sermon on the Mount Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong October 24, 2013Jesus never preached the Sermon on the Mount! Some of the content recorded in that well-known part of Matthew’s gospel may well stretch back to the literal words of the Jesus of history, but there was never a time in the life of Jesus of Nazareth when he went up on a mountain and delivered the material we now find in chapters 5-7 of Matthew’s gospel. How do we know? We have learned to read the gospels in general and Matthew in particular with Jewish eyes. We have learned how to look into the Jewish background of the gospels and to discern the content taken out of the Hebrew Scriptures and then wrapped around Jesus of Nazareth. We have learned to recognize the Hebrew liturgical traditions, which helped to create the form and much of the content that the gospels contain. We have escaped what I have called the “Gentile Captivity” of Christianity, which through the centuries has suggested that we either had to read the Bible literally as a historically accurate document or we were being unfaithful to the sources of our faith. The Bible, this Gentile mentality argued, was either literally true or it was not true at all and thus of no lasting value. This attitude was destined to create a biblical fundamentalism, which now comes in both a Protestant and Catholic form and which has been, I believe, the ultimate cause of the demise of Christianity. This charge, I am convinced, is true even as the fundamentalists claim they are the ones who are resisting the acids of modernity, which they believe will inevitably erode and destroy the ultimate truth of the “Word of God.” The Bible, however, is not literal history; it is not eyewitness reporting. It is a Jewish book, written by Jewish authors, telling a profoundly Jewish story about an indefinable God working in a special human life. If we recover the Jewishness of the Bible, we will be freed from both the killing fundamentalism of our time and from the rebellion against that fundamentalism that masquerades as an unbelieving “secular humanism.” Nowhere in the Bible is this truth better on display than in what we call the “Sermon on the Mount.” First some facts. The “Sermon on the Mount” in the gospel of Matthew fills chapters five, six and seven, but it occurs nowhere else in the Bible. Does that mean that the other gospel writers, Mark, Luke and John simply ignored this moment in Jesus’ life, which Matthew proclaims was both dramatic and powerful? Or does it mean that Matthew himself is the author and creator of the “Sermon on the Mount,” and that he alone placed these words and in this form onto the lips of Jesus as a part of his carefully drawn “New Moses” portrait? It is very clear, as I have tried to demonstrate thus far in this series, that Moses was the image against which Matthew developed his portrait of Jesus. Contemporary biblical scholarship now makes it very obvious that Matthew created the “Sermon on the Mount.” The data for this conclusion is readily available. We look first at the Jewish liturgical practice of the synagogue to give content to this point of view and to this conclusion. On the fiftieth day after the Passover, the Jews celebrated a solemn holy liturgy that went under a variety of names. It was called “Pentecost,” which simply meant 50 days. It was called the Festival of Weeks because the 50th day was the first day after seven complete weeks. It was called Shavuot because it marked the sacred moment in Jewish history when God was believed to have given the law, the Torah, to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Shavuot was observed with a twenty-four hour vigil. We know today that God did not dictate the Torah to Moses at any point in human history. That is not how the Torah was either created or received. In fact we know that Moses did not write a single word of the Torah. Indeed, the Moses of history died some three hundred years before the first word of the Jewish law was placed on parchment by a human hand holding a quill. We know that the Torah came into being over a period of close to five hundred years from a series of sources that have been isolated and studied over the past two centuries in the academies of higher biblical learning. We also know that the entire Torah was treated with great reverence in Jewish worship centers and that well before the time of Jesus the Torah was read in its entirety in synagogue settings on the Sabbaths of a single year. We know that when the Jewish people returned from exile in Babylon during the 5th century BCE, under the leadership of Ezra, the priest, and Nehemiah, the governor, they covenanted to keep the Torah, to honor the Torah and to acknowledge Moses as the mythological father of the Torah. This devotion found its way into their annual worship life in the festival called Shavuot, observed in the Jewish calendar in the month of Sivan, which would make it fall in late May or early June in our calendar. Shavuot was a time for the Jews to give thanks for the law, thought by the Jews to be God’s greatest gift to the world. In that celebration, the worship leaders of Judaism called for the people to observe a twenty-four hour vigil in which they would recall the Sinai moment when they believed the law was given to Moses. That twenty-four hour service was divided into eight three-hour segments. For that 24-hour vigil, they created the 119th psalm. Psalm 119 was the longest psalm in the Psalter because it had to provide readings for each of the eight segments in the 24 hours. Psalm 119 was thus made up of 176 verses in 22 segments, with each segment being named after the 22 letters of the Jewish alphabet from Aleph to Taw. The content of this psalm was and is a constant hymn of praise to the beauty and wonder of the law. It includes such phrases as “My lips pour forth your praise, when you teach me your statues (i.e. law);” “Great peace have they who love your law; for then there is no stumbling block;” and “Happy are they who observe God’s decrees…those who walk in the law of the Lord.” So, once a year, the people would gather at Shavuot in solemn assembly to give thanks to God for the law and to pledge their renewed allegiance to it. Psalm 119, the psalm of Shavuot, begins with an introductory stanza of eight verses. In the first two of those eight verses, the opening word is “Blessed,” which is sometimes translated “Happy.” The author of Matthew’s gospel quite obviously took that 119th psalm and used it as a model to create the “Sermon on the Mount.” In Matthew’s introductory stanza to his “sermon,” he made each of its eight verses begin with the word “Blessed.” Today, we call those eight verses “The Beatitudes,” but they are clearly based on Psalm 119:1-8. Then Matthew fashioned the entire sermon to be divided into eight segments in order to provide words of Jesus to be read during each of the eight three-hour segments of the 24-hour vigil of Shavuot. That is how the “Sermon on the Mount” came into being. The rest of this “Sermon” involved a commentary on the eight Beatitudes, but in reverse order, with the first commentary being on Beatitude number eight and the last commentary being on Beatitude number one. The second thing to notice is that this “Sermon” constitutes a dialogue between Moses and Jesus, although once again the name of Moses is never spoken. This was not an attempt to be supersessionistic, that is, to portray Jesus’ superiority to Moses, but it was designed to portray Jesus as the ultimate and true interpreter of Moses. While Jesus will assert in this gospel that not one “jot or tittle” of the law was to be changed, the whole law was, Matthew suggested, meant to be internalized. By this Matthew was saying that the Torah was designed to cover not just the deeds of one’s life, but the thoughts and motives that always precede the deeds. In Matthew’s hands, the law became more than just external rules it was also aimed at governing internal motivations. This purpose was articulated by a regular refrain in this sermon: “You have heard it said of old (Moses) you shall not kill;” that was commandment number six, but I (Jesus) say unto you “that murder starts in the hatred of the human heart.” It is not enough to refrain from the act of murder, the law also requires that one deal with the anger and hostility that expresses itself in violence. This refrain was then repeated with the seventh commandment prohibiting adultery. Jesus interprets Moses to say that adultery begins in human lust, in human insecurity and in threats to the human ego. It is not enough to refrain from the act of adultery, one must, in order to fulfill the law, also deal with the lust, the sense of inadequacy that expresses itself in adultery. The author of Matthew’s gospel was in these three chapters reaching a crescendo in his process of interpreting Jesus as the “New Moses.” He began this process by a story about Moses in his birth of Jesus narrative. He then likened Jesus’ baptism to the account of Moses at the Red Sea. He next portrayed Jesus as like Moses spending time in the wilderness, forty days for Jesus, forty years for Moses. He has wrapped Moses’ critical moments in the wilderness around Jesus as the content of the temptations. Now in this climax we call the “Sermon on the Mount,” he has portrayed Jesus as a “New Moses,” on a new mountain, giving us a new interpretation of the law of God. The “Sermon on the Mount” was thus designed to replace the 119th psalm in the Christian observance of the Jewish Festival of Shavuot. Matthew is writing neither a biography nor a history. When Matthew wrote his gospel, the Christian movement was still a movement within the synagogue, not yet a separate movement. He was taking the life-changing experience found in Jesus of Nazareth and interpreting it inside the symbols and observances of his Jewish faith system. His Jewish audience understood that and reveled in it. Gentile Christians, blindly unaware of these Jewish traditions and of the content of Jewish Scripture with which Matthew was so familiar, did not. The Gentiles in their misunderstanding interpreted these narratives literally; that was when biblical fundamentalism was born. It is time to reverse this process. This series on Matthew’s gospel is designed to do just this.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements OUR PRIDE Video & Arts Fest is a virtual film festival with its own unique festival village, complete with original programming, panels, director Q&A’s, workshops, and live networking, sponsored and hosted by FILMOCRACY. * Open for Submissions until March 1, 2023 * Video Genres: Short Documentary, Narrative, Music Video, Animation, PSA & News Story * Video submissions must be 15 minutes or shorter * Accepting submissions from people ages 13-35 * English subtitles are required for non-English submissions * There are no costs involved with submitting your video. Use FilmFreeway Promo Code: PRIDE2023 * 2023 THEME is “LOVE WINS! Compassion, Resilience & Solidarity,” READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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NYTimes: Jimmy Carter’s Presidency Was Not What You Think
by Jo Nelson 21 Feb '23

21 Feb '23

I had no idea that Jimmy Carter was a follower of Neibuhr. When he was president, he came to Nigeria, and several of us went to see him. He was revered outside the US. This is a gifted article so you can get through the paywall. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/opinion/kai-bird-jimmy-carter-life.html?… Jimmy Carter’s Presidency Was Not What You Think From the mobile desk of Jo Nelson

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Detective work in the Global Archives
by Karen Snyder 20 Feb '23

20 Feb '23

As reported in January, there were ten people who participated in the Archives Sojourn for two weeks after Christmas. They uncovered files for scanning: revisiting Uptown Chicago community work, six projects in Latin America, India - and other subjects here and there. The Archives is indebted to Ed Feldmanis for his commitment to scan the files into PDFs (scanning approximately 12 hours a week). After files are scanned, Wendell Refior turns the PDFs into links for adding to the Archives website. Alan Gammel and myself then add the links to the website - although we are ‘a bit’ behind at the moment. A recently scanned treasure are the 15 spirit talks that were done at the 1981 Global Council. Were you there? The DETECTIVE WORK at this point is: 1. to identify the messengers giving these talks. At that time names were not added to the talks to identify the speakers. It would be great to reveal who they were. 2. Even to make a list of the people who were giving talks that summer would be special without knowing which ones they gave. 3. It would also be a gift if you commented about how you experience the address of any of these talks today as you read them. 4. What else comes to your mind? Enjoy the talks: The Five Great Talks: https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/23996.pdf. (#675-679) The Spirit Talks: https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/23987.pdf. (#669-684, minus the five great talks above) The Vocational Journey …. The Memory of the Spirit …. Disorientation of Expenditure Compulsion of Authenticity …. Non-Rationality of Community …. Etc ... Peace, Karen On behalf of the Global Archives Team https://icaglobalarchives.org/collections/

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Fwd: It is happening!!
by James Wiegel 16 Feb '23

16 Feb '23

My son in law sent the link below to a documentary on food systems— “The Need to Grow”. Judy and I watched it last night. Very good Jim Wiegel “…the long work of turning their lives into a celebration is not easy. Come and let us talk“. The Sunflowers. Mary Oliver Begin forwarded message: > From: Winston Berrios <winsberrios(a)gmail.com> > Date: February 14, 2023 at 8:22:32 AM MST > To: Judith Wiegel <judithwiegel(a)yahoo.com>, James Wiegel <jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com> > Subject: It is happening!! > > > https://fb.watch/iHo6V0jQW-/?mibextid=6aamW6 > > Good documentary about food system.

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2/16/2023, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Gretta Gosper: What happens when we are gone?; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 16 Feb '23

16 Feb '23

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screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateBody .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent, #yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateBody .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateFooter .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent, #yiv9713562032 #yiv9713562032templateFooter .yiv9713562032mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} By Rev. Gretta Vosper | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | What happens when we are gone? | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Gretta Vosper February 16, 2023After we’re gone … What will happen if we disappear? Not “we” as in Earth’s upright and most capable digit-users, though I’m sure we’ll deal with that over the course of time, but “we” as in progressive thinkers in the church. What will happen if we disappear? Throughout human history, progress has continued mostly unabated until something knocked it off its trajectory. Transportation moved from the hip-swinging bipedal loping of our ancestors to skimming across water on logs, sliding downhill on sticks, and everything else between then and blasting ourselves out of orbit in the quest for Mars (or simple hubris). But we have, for the most part, moved from simplicity to complexity in terms of human organization and the development of the vast amount of stuff we use in our everyday lives and, when very, very refined thinking is put to whatever the problem is, if we’re lucky, through that very complexity to a more beautiful, efficient, and elegant simplicity. But where are we in the idea of a progressive interpretation of Christianity? Will it continue to develop and thrive? Or will it simply disappear, unwanted, and dissolve into the historical record? If it does, will it be the result of being knocked off its trajectory or because some more beautiful, efficient, and elegant simplicity of thought takes its place? Since the fourth century – and, indeed, since religious thought first took hold in community – individuals appointed to speak for a belief system have trained their accusing eyes upon those who did not bow to the leaders’ knowledge or perceived power. They focused upon the upstarts, the thinkers-outside-the-box, the non-believers, and the change-makers. Many of them were penalized for their refusal to conform or their insistence that scientific proof was necessary even within the realm of belief. The number of people who have been killed or slaughtered because of their beliefs or lack of them is simply unfathomable. Beyond natural causes, it may very well be the second greatest cause of death in human history. Directly or indirectly (not an anthropologist), perhaps beliefs have been the greatest cause of the annihilation of peoples and cultures, as well as individuals. Chief Upstart When Bishop John A. T. Robinson published Honest to God in the early 1960s, the backlash was to be expected. For millennia, we had walked around believing in a god “up there” (somewhere) who was looking out for us. It was a comfortable little game, that one. If things sucked for you, well, they’d be better later when the god called God took you home. If they were good for you here and you were good, too, you’d end up there in a warm embrace. If you were one of the worst of the worst, you could still be scooped up if you repented. And if you didn’t, well, you deserved what you got, damn you. Robinson scanned contemporary Christian literature and argued that, if the god called God wasn’t “up there,” as scholars had posited, then he (sic) wasn’t “out there,” either. If Robinson was describing reality, however, where was or what happened to that arbiter of everything good and evil who would keep us in line? Paul Tillich had figured it out, refusing theism and its consequent “invincible tyrant” for “the power of being,” which doesn’t even need the word god to make sense. Even Charles Dickens had figured it out, for heaven’s sake: “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!” falling upon that “ground of being” in a way he could understand, and an idea he could approach, and one with which he continues to inspire. Well done, young man! Many clergy in The United Church of Canada identified with Robinson’s work immediately. Over the years, several confessed to me that Honest to God allowed them to remain in the pulpit, some of them never sharing knowledge of it with parishioners. The denomination’s church school curriculum, A New Curriculum, embraced Robinson’s work and included the book in its resources. “Live Love” and “God is Love” stickers were distributed by our church-school teachers, and we young teens slapped them on our notebooks and bedroom walls, engaged by the deep conversations the curriculum engendered. Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to most, Donald Mathers, publisher of the resource and Principal of Queen’s Theological College, was vilified by the masses and hung out to dry by the denomination’s administration for sharing Christianity’s most progressive scholarship in the materials purported to teach Christians about their origins and the expansion of their faith but about which Christians, themselves, weren’t interested. They left in droves. Still, The United Church of Canada was the first denomination to welcome LGBTQ individuals into ordained ministry in 1988, prompting another of those drove-losses. Tragically, it neglected to adequately support or protect the LGBTQ members already in its pulpits who thought it safe enough to come out to their communities. Only when his obituary was made public did I learn about the Rev. David Fearon, a United Church minister who served for 31 years without telling any of his congregations that he was gay or in a loving relationship. It was he who explored – in the original Greek – the New Testament prohibitions against homosexuality and disclosed that the context was about the abuse of young boys by older men, not a generalized prohibition[i]. I had been taught that contextual reading while at theological college without ever knowing I would be a colleague of its source. The progressive movement has ended in my denomination, so poorly protected was it that it lasted barely fifty years. Knocking it off its pedestal was easy. Perhaps it began in 1988 when its desire to be seen to be radically inclusive undermined its tests for theological integrity in the admissions process. One of the more recent documents used to prepare committees to interview candidates for admission from other denominations and seeming to point to candidates from other cultures – West Africa or Korea, for example – stated that asking questions of theology could be interpreted to be culturally insensitive and recommending such questions be avoided. In 2015, its General Secretary created a test for heresy, contravening the denomination’s own statement of faith, embraced less than a decade earlier. “A Song of Faith” begins with the words, “God is Holy Mystery, beyond complete knowledge, above perfect description…” The controversy continues to roil within the denomination, but Daniel already stands before the wall. I wonder how Tillich would respond to all this: the embrace of white nationalism in the United States, predominantly by its Christian citizens[ii]; the bumbling development of guidelines for heresy trials in one of the world’s most progressive denominations; the purchasing of billions of dollars of advertising to re-ignite a passion for Christianity by one of the most socially conservative corporations in America[iii]; the manipulation of politics away from social welfare parties in both Canada and the United States by tax-free religious organizations[iv]. Perhaps Tillich’s perspective, no matter how colloquially expressed, would be lost not only on the general citizen on the street but on most who identify as Christian. Perhaps his theology, his understanding of God, seemingly forgotten in The United Church of Canada, at least, is simply too esoteric. What if we held up Charles Dickens instead? At least he was clear enough that we could all get behind him. In doing so, we could forfeit that privileged position we’ve held, lo, these many centuries and undermine the most divisive and possibly the most consistently heinous thing humanity has ever devised: religion. What if we struck out on a journey that called us to examine our present, reflect upon our past – both the things we can celebrate and the things we got devastatingly wrong – and chart a course to a more responsible future? What would a church that did that look like? How would it call itself to account? How would it congregate, engage the public, and address systems of repression and violence, inequity, and the abuse of political power to privilege the wealthy? It would certainly be easier to get one’s head around. It would be a gift to be able to speak as a member of such a church. And I am fortunate to be able to do so. When – okay, if – the progressive Christian movement sinks under the weight of its noxious relations, I will mourn its passing and the too-fleeting bloom of its promise. In the meantime and beyond, however, I will continue to delve ever more deeply into my exploration of Dickens’ Spirits of the Past, the Present, and the Future and challenge myself with the truths they each expose. ~ 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 and her Blog here. [i] Allison Brooks-Starks, Jan 26, 2023, “David Fearon, who challenged a homophobic translation of a Bible passage, has died at 84”. https://broadview.org/david-fearon-death/ Accessed Feb 9, 2023[ii] Public Religion Research Institute, Feb 8, 2023, “A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian Nationalism to American Democracy and Culture.” https://www.prri.org/research/a-christian-nation-understanding-the-threat-o… Accessed, Feb 9, 2023[iii] Matthew Chapman, “Revealed: Hobby Lobby founder behind $3 billion effort to 'rebrand Jesus'’. Raw Story, Feb 3, 2023, https://www.rawstory.com/he-gets-us/ Accessed Feb 9, 2023[iv] Tom Blackwell, “Doug Ford anointed - literally - by controversial evangelical pastor as part of effort to win social conservatives”, The National Post. https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/doug-ford-anointed-literally-by-cont… Jeremy Schwartz, Jessica Priest, “Churches Are Breaking the Law by Endorsing in Elections, Experts Say. The IRS Looks the Other Way.” Pro-Publica, October 30, 2022. https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-church-nonprofit-endorsements-johnso…. Accessed Feb 9, 2023 | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Yvette I've been a Christian all of my adult life. However, I continue to be troubled by the problem of human suffering. I believe in God. My question is why does God allow all the human suffering? A: By Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz Dear Yvette,Your question is, of course, one of the timeless questions of Christian faith--or of any faith, for that matter. Over my many years as a local church minister, now and then I would hear of a minister, theologian, or biblical scholar who had decided they were an atheist. When asked why, invariably it had something to do with the timeless problem of human suffering. Why all the suffering? Most traditional Christians believe in the God of supernatural theism or the "God in the sky." This is the God who is external to the universe and independent of human beings. This God is thought to orchestrate life here on planet earth, intervening only at times of God's own choosing. The larger problem, however, is that this conception of "God in the heavens" (wherever that is) is inadequate to our modern experience. More and more, people do not believe in this God. We need new conceptions of God. In thinking about God, it is not God's nature to work independently of life, both human and other forms of life. God is about Life (with a capital "L"). As Christians who believe in God, it is important we understand this. Life is what God calls us to in the dawning of creation (metaphorically speaking). Life is what God affirms in the covenants (with the Ten Commandments, for example). And life is what Jesus lifts up in his lofty teachings in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). It is God's nature to work in and through life. God does not cause human suffering. If we think about it, what sense does this make? For example, God doesn't cause wars, human beings do. God doesn't shoot guns, human beings do. God doesn't cause natural disasters, random occurrences in nature do. God doesn't cause disease, random events in our bodies do (consistent with some measure of inherited predispositions and sometimes poor human decision-making). In all candor, God did not cause the Holocaust. Indeed, the Holocaust could have been prevented had human beings acted with courage and conviction enabling God to work in them and through them to prevent the horror that followed. We humans have to take responsibility for our life-situations and when we do, God, as spirit and love, works in us to bring healing and wholeness. God's omniscience (all knowing) and omnipotence (all powerful) need to be understood in new ways--in terms of God's capacity to work in and through us (and other forms of life). In summation, where is God in human suffering? There are no easy answers to this enduring question. The only answer I know is that God is there in the midst of all the suffering--grieving, loving, showing compassion, doing whatever God can do to bring new life and new hope to our human situation and circumstances. Imagine the deep feeling and pathos of this loving God. ~ Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz Read and share online here About the Author The Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz is a retired United Church of Christ minister. He had long-term pastorates in San Diego County and in Miami Lakes, Florida. His service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama in the late sixties spurred his commitment to social justice ministries and to a spirit of ecumenism as a local church pastor. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Pacific School of Religion. He is the author of The Bible You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In, The God You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In, and his just-published book: The Jesus You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In. Dr. Frantz and his wife, Yvette, are now retired and living in Florida. | | | | | | | | 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! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | I imagine that you, like me, are constantly frustrated by how marginalized communities are, yet again, being targeted by folks who see themselves as Christians. It is a bit baffling trying to understand how they take biblical texts to support what they are doing. I also suspect that you, like me, are thankful that we have a resource like ProgressiveChristianity.org to help us understand what the biblical texts are really calling us toward – love. Love certainly doesn't look like marginalizing groups, it looks like including and celebrating them. You actually play a big role in keeping that kind of resource alive. ProgressiveChristianity.org only exists through the generous support of people like you. I'm writing to ask for your support to keep this resource not only viable, but thriving. Please take a moment and make a donation. Even $5 can make a big difference, and if you can afford more, even better! You could even choose to make it a recurring gift to help sustain us into the future. Whatever you choose, thank you. You are an essential part of this community and we are thankful for you. PEACE! Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin President, Co-Executive Director | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podbean | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Part III Matthew: The Shadow of Moses Continues Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong September 26, 2013Using the gospel of Matthew as our guide we have begun the task of opening the background necessary to grasp, as members of the current generation of Christians, the meaning of all the gospels. This is necessary because all of the gospels are Jewish books written by Jewish authors for Jewish congregations. They employ Jewish symbols and Jewish images; they draw on the Jewish Scriptures of antiquity to interpret the life and meaning of the Jewish Jesus of Nazareth. If we do not understand this Jewish reality, the tendency on the part of modern readers of these gospels will be to treat them as literal accounts of things that actually happened. They were never written to be that! I began this study of Matthew’s gospel by lifting the figure of Moses out of the shadows in Matthew’s first seven chapters. Although the image of Moses dominates these chapters his name is never mentioned. Yet for those who understand, Moses is the template against which Matthew tells his story of Jesus.Earlier in this series, we looked at the first Moses story in Matthew’s gospel, the account of King Herod going down to Bethlehem and killing all the Jewish boy babies up to the age of two in a vain attempt to destroy God’s promised messiah. When Moses was born, we read in the book of Exodus that a king named Pharaoh sent an order throughout Egypt to kill all Jewish boy babies in his mythological attempt to destroy the one whom God had promised to deliver the Jewish people from Egyptian bondage. Matthew was thus wrapping a well-known Moses story around the infant Jesus. His original readers would have understood that. It is the first instance of the interpretive clue to the role the unseen Moses will play in Matthew’s story of Jesus. It will not be the last. The shadow of Moses will emerge time after time as this gospel pursues its story.Next we looked at Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River, which Matthew likened to Moses’ Red Sea experience. Moses split the waters of the Red Sea while Jesus, the new Moses, split the heavenly waters. These heavenly waters then proceeded to rain on him as the Holy Spirit. The baptism of Jesus was thus being paralleled to the Red Sea experience of Moses. The interpretive power of Moses was still at work. It would not stop even there.What did Moses do after his baptismal experience in the Red Sea? Read the book of Exodus and you will discover that he wandered in the wilderness for forty years trying to figure out what it meant to be God’s “Chosen People.” To purpose-driven modern men and women, this meandering in a wilderness type limbo is very strange. Look, however, at how the gospel writers treat this Jewish story from the Torah. After Jesus had his Red Sea experience in the Jordan River, we are told that he too wandered in the wilderness, not for “forty years,” but for “forty days,” trying to figure out what it meant to be God’s designated messiah, the one whom God had called “My beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”Mark, the earliest of the gospels, says simply that Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days being tempted by the devil, but he gives no content as to the temptations. Matthew, however, provides that content, which also serves to open the mind of Matthew a little more deeply. We study that mind by searching for the source of Matthew’s temptation content. A careful reading of the Moses story in the Torah provides this new understanding.During Moses’ forty year sojourn in the wilderness, we learn that Moses faced three critical experiences. The first one had to do with the shortage of food and Moses took his concern to God. God answered Moses’ prayer by raining down upon the starving children of Israel heavenly bread that came to be called “Manna.” By the time the editing of the Torah was finished. the “Manna in the Wilderness” story, had become stylized in order to accommodate Jewish piety. The manna eventually fell on only six days a week in order to save both God, who had to send it, and the people, who had to gather it, from violating the prohibition against working on the Sabbath. It also placed into biblical mythology the image of a God capable of expanding the food supply, a theme that will be visible in the stories of Elijah and Elisha and will making its appearance in the Jesus tradition as the miraculous feeding of the multitude with a limited number of loaves and fish. In any event, the crisis of hunger among the people that Moses was leading in the wilderness is answered by the God who sent heavenly bread.The second critical moment for Moses came in response to another crisis, this time involving a shortage of water. In response Moses dared to put God to the test at a place named Meribah. Moses, in frustration over this threatened water shortage, struck a rock with his staff and demanded that God cause water to flow out of that rock. God, according to this story, obeyed Moses’ command so as not to humiliate God’s chosen leader. God, however, was not pleased. No one commands God to do a human being’s bidding. Moses had sinned and the Torah made that clear. Moses was punished for this act by not being allowed to enter the Promised Land. He would see that destination, but he would not enter it for no one puts God to the test! Moses died in the wilderness with his life’s work in some sense unfulfilled.The third critical moment for Moses in these forty years in the wilderness came in the episode we know as the story of the golden calf. Moses had been away from his people for a long period of time, conferring presumably with God on top of Mt. Sinai. The people felt abandoned and became restive. So, under the direction of Aaron, who was both the high priest and Moses’ brother, the people brought all of their gold jewelry, their bracelets, rings, necklaces and chains, and Aaron proceeded to melt them down and to fashion the gold into the image of a calf, which was then proclaimed to be “God” for the people. Before this golden calf they then bowed in worship, while saying: “This is the God who brought us out of the land of Egypt.” The people had turned from the worship of God to the worship of something less than God. When Moses returned, he smashed this golden calf and instituted a purge of the chosen people. Each of these three critical moments has its consequences, but in them Moses was tried by hunger, by putting God to the test and by seeing the people worship something other than God. Matthew knew these stories in the Hebrew tradition and, not surprisingly, he wrapped them around the memory of Jesus in a way designed to demonstrate that the God presence in Jesus exceeded the God presence in Moses, the holiest hero of the Jewish faith story. That was his stunning claim.So, if it took Moses forty years to get through the wilderness, Matthew suggested that Jesus did it in just forty days, while struggling successfully with the same crises that confronted Moses. The first of what Matthew called the temptations of Jesus arose out of the shortage of food. “Turn these stones into bread,” the tempter urged. Jesus, however, resisted. People do not live by bread alone, he responded. Full stomachs do not make full human beings.The second temptation was to put God to the test: “Cast yourself off the pinnacle of the Temple, Jesus,” make God serve you. The tempter even quoted scripture to make the temptation more appealing, “It is written,” he said, “that God will give his angels charge over you and in their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.” Jesus responded: “You do not tempt the Lord your God.” You do not put God to the test.The third temptation once again followed the Moses script. The tempter invited Jesus to bow down before him with the promise that the devil would give him all the kingdoms of the world. Jesus, however, understood the script that Matthew was following and so he was made to respond with the ringing words that God alone, not any creature, was worthy of worship.Moses, struggling to understand what it meant to be the “chosen people,” underwent three critical moments in his forty years in the wilderness. Jesus, struggling to understand what it meant to be “messiah,” God’s chosen deliverer, underwent three temptations in his forty day sojourn in the wilderness. The content of their crises was identical. This is not a coincidence, nor is this literal history. This is Jewish interpretive storytelling. Matthew was announcing the arrival of a new Moses and, to make his meaning clear, he proceeded to wrap around the memory of Jesus the well-known stories of Moses from his birth, to the Red Sea adventure, to his critical moments in the wilderness. This is not biography. This is not Matthew writing a literal account of Jesus’ life. Matthew knew what he was doing and so did the audience who first read his words. He wanted to fill them with a sense of wonder, awe and even worship. “I am writing,” if I might paraphrase him, “to tell you about the one who fulfilled our Jewish scriptures; one in whom God was present as God has never been present in a human life before, not even in the holiest life of Moses, who stands at the apex of our own Jewish traditions. Listen to my story. It is of infinite importance.” As long as his readers were aware of Matthew’s Jewish story telling method, they heard and they understood. Literalism and fundamentalism arose in Christianity after the Christian Church ceased to be made up primarily of Jews. Fundamentalism was born when Gentile ignorance made it impossible for them to understand the Jewishness of Matthew’s stories about Jesus. Fundamentalism is thus a “Gentile Heresy.”When this series resumes we will turn our attention to the “Sermon on the Mount.” and Moses will emerge once more in the background.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements | | | We Flesh - In this here place, Black women be Each episode explores topics relevant to Black women thriving in these here troubling times. Hosted by Lisa Anderson and Amikaeyla Gaston: an offering of the Sojourner Truth Leadership Circle. This limited, six-part series embraces the fullness of Black women’s humanity. Here we BE in conversation and contemplation. Here we just BE together. READ ON .. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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2/15/23 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 15 Feb '23

15 Feb '23

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A REMINDER: February 16 Eco Film: EXTINCTION, flyer; link to registration
by Ellie Stock 15 Feb '23

15 Feb '23

JUST A REMINDER . . . Dear Friends, SAVE THE DATE. YOU ARE INVITED! The Ferguson Eco Team will be hosting its next environmental film EXTINCTION, The Facts, via ZOOM, Thursday, February 16, 7:00 PM Central Time. Film length 58 minutes, conversation to follow. TO REGISTER FOR ZOOM LINK: https://bit.ly/FET16Feb2023 Also see attached flyer. Share with your friends. With a million species at risk of extinction, Sir David Attenborough explores how this crisis of biodiversity has consequences for us all. EXTINCTION: The Facts is a 2020 documentary film by the natural historian David Attenborough which aired on the BBC. Attenborough and academic experts comment on the sixth mass extinction, caused by humans, and the consequences of biodiversity loss and climate change. Humans are causing an animal and plant extinction rate roughly 100 times faster than has previously occurred. One million out of eight million species on the planet are at risk of extinction. It also suggests positive action which can be taken to halt or reverse these effects. Conversation to follow the filmTO REGISTER FOR ZOOM LINK: https://bit.ly/FET16Feb2023For more information: (314) 521-8418, carletonstock(a)aol.com #yiv5551841062 filtered {}#yiv5551841062 filtered {}#yiv5551841062 filtered {}#yiv5551841062 p.yiv5551841062MsoNormal, #yiv5551841062 li.yiv5551841062MsoNormal, #yiv5551841062 div.yiv5551841062MsoNormal {margin:0in;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv5551841062 a:link, #yiv5551841062 span.yiv5551841062MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv5551841062 span.yiv5551841062EmailStyle19 {font-family:sans-serif;color:windowtext;}#yiv5551841062 .yiv5551841062MsoChpDefault {font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv5551841062 filtered {}#yiv5551841062 div.yiv5551841062WordSection1 {}

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