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7/28/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXIX - The Ninth Thesis, Ethics (continued)
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 28 Jul '16

28 Jul '16

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Charting a New Reformation Part XXIX - The Ninth Thesis, Ethics (continued) One of the ways the demise of yesterday’s religious power can be determined is to notice that things, once held to be ultimately sacred, now appear in jokes that cause people not only to laugh, but also to deal with the loss of the security of yesterday’s religious symbols at the same time. When James Watt, the Secretary of the Interior in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan, told a racial joke, he was summarily fired. Yet the racist content of that joke had been commonplace in the social practice of this nation twenty-five years earlier. Consciousness had grown. One does not make fun of something so evil as racism, was the new rule. The reverse of this consciousness-raising illustration is observed when one discovers that one does and can laugh at what were once regarded as “the eternal laws of God.” One politician came to the defense of the “inerrancy” of these laws by saying: “The Bible calls them the Ten Commandments not the Ten Suggestions.” There was also the good news, bad news joke about the Ten Commandments. Moses, returning from Mt. Sinai said to the people of Israel: “I have good news and bad news.” “Give us the good news first,” the people demanded. “Well,” said Moses in obedience to their request, “I negotiated them down to ten!” “What is the bad news?” the people demanded to hear. To which Moses responded, “Adultery is still in!” Finally there was the message on the church’s lawn sign where people received their “word for the day.” This sign boldly advertised: “This week’s special! Observe any seven of the Ten Commandments.” Humor about the Ten Commandments clearly reveals a demise in the power once attributed to this code of ethics. The other clear indicator is that the form the commandments possess becomes more important than the content. Early in my career as a bishop, I went for my annual Episcopal visitation to a congregation in Hudson County, New Jersey. On this Sunday we had about 100 worshipers gathered to greet and welcome their bishop. When the time came for the sermon, I stepped out of the pulpit and walked into the nave, the body of the church. This was going to be an informal sermon. When they were settled in their pews and adjusted to this new sermon position taken by their bishop, I began by asking: “How many of you believe that the Ten Commandments are still important?” Every hand in the church went up. No one actually in a church on Sunday morning wanted to be caught suggesting that this ancient code of conduct was not of great significance, authority and power. I took note of their unanimity. “That is good to see,” I said, in effect congratulating them on their moral judgment. Then I continued: “Since you all agree on their importance, who would now like to stand up and recite the Ten Commandments?” Every hand went down; there was not a volunteer among them. I did enhance the corporate guilt felt in that moment in a rather shameless way by saying: “You mean that you believe that the Ten Commandments are important, but none of you can tell me what they are?” I allowed that discomfort to be felt for just a moment before moving to dissipate it. “Well, let’s see if all of us together can come up with the Ten,” I suggested. There was an almost audible sense of relief. No one was now on the spot. “Who would like to begin by telling us what any one of the Ten Commandments is?” Hands went up quickly “Murder” and “adultery” were immediately mentioned. They are almost always recounted first. That was followed by another embarrassing pause. Then another hand went up, but when I recognized this person, I noticed that the commandment she referred to came out as a question: “Honor your father and mother?” Yes, I responded assuringly, that is commandment number five. I thought her tentative manner meant that it was a guess, but when it turned out to be successful, others were encouraged. Next the commandment to “observe the Sabbath” was offered. “Number four,” I declared it to be and continued to wait for more. That was when plenty of other commandments were mentioned like: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I allowed that those two were very fine rules, but they had never been part of the Ten. Finally, we got” stealing,” number eight; “false witness,” number nine, and “coveting,” number 10. No one could actually define coveting, but that was not required by this exercise. The fact was slowly and somewhat painfully being revealed in an unmistakable way that these hundred or so worshipers could not, all together, name the Ten Commandments, which they had universally proclaimed that they believed to be still very important. I have little reason to think that this congregation would be much different from one in any other church on any other Sunday. This exercise revealed to me that if the average churchgoer does not know what the Ten Commandments are, then they can no longer claim, with any sense of real conviction, that the commandments themselves are still important. For me it was a sure sign of the erosion in the modern world of any real objectivity still present in the field of ethics. It also indicated to me very boldly that eternal rules designed to govern human behavior simply will never again be written in the permanence of stone, and that none of us, who claim to speak for the church, can continue to pretend that these ancient laws still provide the ethical basis on which anyone today lives. The suggestion that moral absolutes could ever be codified for all time actually violates our experience. The rules that must govern any real debate on ethics no longer appear to be obvious. Context always modifies judgment. Life is never static. No rule, no ethical norm is ever eternal. We all make our moral judgments based on the situation in which we find ourselves living, whether we can admit that or not. Who was it who proclaimed in the first place that the Ten Commandments were the voice of God speaking? At this point, we are driven to probe the mythology that has been built up around that code. Mythology is always designed to remove the subject from being discussed, questioned or getting lost in relativity. Once we understand mythology’s purpose, we can ask and access just how accurate this mythology is. “Not very” is our conclusion, after we begin to engage just the slightest bit of biblical study. In many ways I must confess that I was unfair to my New Jersey congregation, because the fact is that no one can name the Ten Commandments! This is normally a shocking statement to which people react when they first hear it. It does not jibe with what most all of us have been taught for so long. The fact is, however, that the Hebrew Scriptures have three versions of the Ten Commandments and they do not agree with each other. They cannot be rolled into a consistent ten! Tradition alone has dictated that the version found in Exodus 20 is the official version. A brief analysis of this Exodus list, however, will reveal that it is quite different from anything that Moses might have received. How do we know? Because the commandment regarding the observance of the Sabbath in the Exodus 20 list has been edited to bring it into conformity with the seven-day story of creation with which the Hebrew Bible opens. That Genesis chapter, we now know, was one of the last parts of the Hebrew Scriptures to be composed. It is the product of the Babylonian captivity that ended near the end of the 6th century BCE. The first version of the Exodus 20 list of the Ten Commandments seems to be primarily a product of perhaps the 9th century BCE. So we have to conclude that a later writer, thought to be a member of the group now known as the “Priestly” or “P” writers, had later incorporated the recently composed seven-day creation story into the Sabbath Day commandment. The reason given, requiring the people to rest on the Sabbath was to emulate God who, on the seventh day of creation, had rested from all of the divine labor and had enjoined that Sabbath day of rest on the people as a sign of their Jewishness. It is interesting that the version of the Ten Commandments found in Deuteronomy 5, which was written during the latter years of the seventh century BCE, also calls for the Sabbath to be observed, but justifies this practice on the fact that the Jews were to remember that they had once been slaves in Egypt and that even slaves, to say nothing of the cattle and other beasts of burden, deserved a day of rest. The third version of the Ten Commandments found in the Hebrew Scriptures is in Exodus 34. It is far more cultic and less ethical in its scope. The background to this narrative is that God has been forced to rewrite the commandments because Moses had smashed the original tablets of stone on the ground in disgust when, on returning from Sinai, he found the people worshiping a golden calf. This Exodus 34 version began by defining God as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” One is not to imagine, however, that these writers have made God soft or easy to manipulate. The text in Exodus 34 goes on to say that this God will not sit idly by when evil needs to be punished. God would, rather, visit “the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation.” God then goes on to promise to drive out all the current occupants of the “Holy Land.” Only then are the rules of the covenant stated: Israel is to have no other God, the Sabbath is to be observed and the sacrifices are to be done properly. The last commandment in this group of ten states: “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” I must confess that I have never even been tempted to violate that commandment! We can safely conclude that the Ten Commandments were never themselves meant to be an eternal code. They changed in history; they were edited. The ethical life has always been an adventure. The subject of ethical relativity is now open. We will pursue it in depth as this series unfolds. John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Keith via the Internet, writes: Question: I’ve just started reading your book Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World and I’m finding it to be fascinating. I’ve always suspected that the Bible was a combination of folklore and revisionist history. Could you tell me how it is that you found that the virgin birth, the miracles and the ascension were all added 70-100 years later? Do you believe Jesus was the son of God or do you believe that this assertion was the product of years of embellishment? If you believe him to be the son of God, then do you think it’s possible that there were other sons and perhaps daughters of God? Answer: Dear Keith, When I read your letter, I want to say slow down, my friend. The questions you raise cannot be dealt with so summarily. Jesus lived between 4 BCE and 30 CE according to the best guess of the scholars. The first gospel, Mark, was written about 72-73 BC. The Virgin Birth story enters the tradition with Matthew in the middle years of the 9th decade (82-85 CE). The Ascension story enters the tradition with Luke about a decade after Matthew. Those dates can be pretty well demonstrated by internal references to such things as the fall of Jerusalem to the armies of Rome, which we know occurred in the year 70 CE. Yes, I believe that God was in Christ, to use St. Paul’s words, but that does not mean that the external theistic God, who lives above the sky, somehow entered him and took over his humanity. Rather I think that his humanity became so full and so complete that the meaning of God could find expression in him. I think all human beings have that capacity. I deal with these and many other questions in my book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, but it took over 300 pages to do so. There is no shortcut to discovering the truth in, behind and through the Bible, but the God is real, I believe, that we always find at the end of our study. My best, John Shelby Spong Read and Share Online Here Announcements Read Bishop Spong Favorites Now!

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7/21/16, Spong: ELIE WIESEL 1928-2016 R.I.P.
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 21 Jul '16

21 Jul '16

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR ELIE WIESEL 1928-2016 R.I.P. He changed the conscience of the entire world, yet he never held a public office. Even Nelson Mandela, perhaps the only other 20th century figure to move the world as deeply as Elie Wiesel did, finally achieved political power and served as the president of his nation, newly born out of intense racial strife. Wiesel accomplished this task without the accoutrements of power by focusing the illuminating light of his spirit on the darkness of human depravity, while being a victim of the evil he opposed. That is what made him unique, a citizen of the world and one who snatched humanity from the pits of depravity. In the long run, he was by my standards the most influential life produced in the 20th century. His death earlier this month was mourned by people of every religious persuasion and by every ethnic strain in the human family. He was a Jew, admired by Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. He was a white European mourned by Africans, Asians and Latinos. Elie Wiesel was born in a small town in what is now Romania, to parents who were Hassidic Jews. They lived and raised their family in what was a Jewish ghetto. Europe was at that time a deeply unstable place in which to begin life’s journey. World War I had left the country devastated. A worldwide depression had been initiated with the crash of the stock market about a year after Elie’s birth. Wars and economic depressions always have political consequences. Russia had been plummeted into a civil war that finally ended with a Bolshevik victory and the institutionalization of a Soviet style communism. A disgruntled former corporal in the German army during World War I, who was spending his time in jail for his part in an attempted coup in Munich, wrote a book entitled Mein Kampf. In this book, he identified the pain Europe was enduring with the presence of the Jews who, he claimed, had impeded the restoration of the German Empire. By 1933 this man, so very improbably, had become the Chancellor of Germany. He never achieved a political majority, but with a new imperialistic vision of a future Germany, with the Jews identified as a clear enemy and with the fear of Communism sweeping Europe, he took over the political leadership of his nation. He then dissolved the Reichstag and the German people would never vote again until after his regime was toppled. Purging Europe of its Jewish population became the official policy of the most powerful country on the continent. The roots of anti-Semitism ran deep in ostensibly Christian Europe. The Christian churches in Europe observed annually the story of the crucifixion of Jesus. In those liturgies the Jews were always portrayed as the ones responsible for his death. Biblical support for this anti-Semitism actually appeared in the New Testament. Matthew’s gospel had pictured Pilate, the Roman procurator, after condemning Jesus to death, washing his hands publicly and declaring himself “innocent of the blood of this just man.” Then, as if absolved of any guilt, he turned his prisoner over to the Roman soldiers for crucifixion. The Jewish crowd, defined by the hostile word “mob,” was made to say in response: “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” In this manner the Jews were said to have admitted and owned their guilt. In that exchange the die of history was cast. This budding anti-Semitism was then fed by the writing of the Church “Fathers,” who filled the European blood stream with negativity about Jews, describing them as “vile people, unfit for life.” They were publicly identified as the killers of Jesus. This anti-Semitism found expression in every movement in European history. The Crusades were anti-Semitic, the Inquisition was anti-Semitic, and even the Protestant Reformation was anti-Semitic. In almost every nation of Europe, the Jewish population was at one time or another either expelled or ghettoized. So Hitler’s message to his defeated nation fell on soil that had been prepared for centuries to be receptive to a killing frenzy against the children of Abraham. Politicians regularly identify and attack the “enemy” who is responsible for the people’s political and economic pain, and in the process they make this enemy’s persecution and annihilation their pathway to political power. Adolph Hitler cast the Jews in that role and, with this clearly defined purpose, he thrust all of Europe into a war that began in 1939. It was not until early 1944 that Hitler’s army rolled into the Romanian town where the 15-year-old Elie Wiesel lived with his mother, father and three sisters. That invasion would mark the end of the life that Elie Wiesel had lived up to that moment. The Jewish citizens of his town were quickly rounded up, removed from their homes and ultimately taken to waiting trains, being allowed to carry with them, as the sole reminders of their previous lives, only that which could be contained in knapsacks to which each clung tenaciously. They would never see their homes again. The trains were bound for a place of which they had never before heard —Auschwitz. There the Jewish captives were separated into two lines, one for males, the other for females. Elie Wiesel and his father thus went in one direction, his mother and his youngest sister went in the other. That was the last time he would ever see either again. His two older sisters somehow escaped this journey. This entire captive Jewish population was marked for extermination by gas, by crematoriums and by firing squads. Those who were capable of manual labor, however, like Elie and his father, were spared until they were too weak to be useful. Then they too would be exterminated. So began that descent into hell that would last for about eighteen months before release was achieved. Elie’s father did not make it. He died of dysentery and starvation about four months before the war came to an end. Elie did make it. Weak from hunger and gaunt in appearance, he had watched as these horrors cascaded on his life day after day. Death was everywhere. He endured its smell, he saw and was victimized by beatings. During his time of imprisonment he lived in a world where no shred of dignity was allowed these Jewish captives. Prisoners whose time had come to be executed would be stripped naked, marched into crematoriums, gassed until dead, then before their bodies were burned, their last vestiges of value, the gold and silver fillings in their teeth, were removed to enrich the citizens of the Third Reich. When the Russian army neared Auschwitz, the Jewish prisoners, including Elie Wiesel and his father, were marched through the snow to Buchenwald. Finally, with less than ten percent of its previous population still surviving, these concentration camps were freed by the Third Army of the United States in 1945. The nightmare was over, but the scars of the Holocaust would last forever. The world does not linger over horrors long. It prefers to shove them into the depths of the unconscious and there to be repressed or forgotten. There were, however, too many people who had endured the hell of these Nazi prison camps to think that this memory could be stamped out forever. One of those surviving, Elie Wiesel, would process this experience slowly over a decade before his traumatized psyche could finally begin to be able to talk about it. When he did, the result was an 800-page memoir that few people read. This book was later condensed into a treatise of less than 150 pages entitled Night. Still few people read it. It sold 1860 copies in its first year in print. It was the capture and subsequent trial of Adolf Eichmann that served to bring the Holocaust back into public awareness and then Elie Wiesel’s book gave it content and context, subsequently selling ten million copies. I was one of those who devoured it. It was among the most painful books I have ever read. Elie Wiesel soon emerged to become “the voice” of the Holocaust. His life and witness made it impossible for anyone to forget. The Holocaust was a reality with which human beings had to come to grips. People had to embrace the fact that human life was capable of something that grotesque. People had to see that a killing prejudice, justified by religion, based on race, tribe, ethnicity and even sexual orientation was a fact of history. People needed to recognize that human beings are capable of dehumanizing each other so deeply that one human being could not even feel the other’s pain or blink an eye when that other was destroyed. We human beings had to confront the fact that we are capable of genocide, sometimes carried out in the name of God. Since the Holocaust the world has witnessed genocide in other places like Bosnia, Burundi and Darfur. The cry of protest has been soft, sometimes barely audible. We have also now been forced to recognize such other horrors as the rape of Nanking, the kidnapping of little girls by Boco Haram in Nigeria, the calculated murder of innocent people by suicide bombers and hate-filled terrorists, the murder of black men by white policemen and the retaliatory murders of white policemen by deranged killers. All of these activities represent aspects of the same Holocaust mentality. Elie Wiesel, more than any other person I know of, shined the insight of his moral conscience on the dark places in the human soul. We dare not look away or forget the evil of which human life is capable. For that Elie Wiesel has earned our unending gratitude. Several years ago Christine, my wife, and I were invited to a Passover observance in New York at the home of Ruth and Fred Westheimer. She is better known as “Dr. Ruth,” the popular sexologist on radio and television. When Ruth was eight years old, her Jewish parents put her on a train alone and sent her to Geneva. They had no idea what or who would await her in Switzerland. They only knew that for her life to continue they had to get her out of Germany. Kissing her parents goodbye would be the last time Ruth would ever see them. At this Passover observance in her home everyone present, except for Christine and me, was either a Holocaust survivor or the child of a Holocaust survivor. It was a wrenching, moving, unforgettable evening. At that observance the two of us were embraced as Christians by those who had experienced the depravity of the anti-Semitism that Christianity had historically fostered. “Never again” became my motto that night. Elie Wiesel’s life and witness had taken over my consciousness. Rest in peace, my brother Elie, your work lives on. John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer William Gilbert writes via the Internet Question: If developments in how we understand the way the world works means the death of theism and other theological revolutions, what does this mean for the welfare of those millions of Christians in the past who have believed on the basis of false concepts and beliefs? Answer: Dear William, I wonder why this issue bothers you. Do you assume that those who do not agree with today’s insights are to be punished? Do you think that it is somehow unfair for some to have to face the fact that they were wrong? Do you identify with the group you are describing and wonder what it means for you, your security or your future? Jesus is quoted as saying to us, “Judge not,” yet your question rings with a sense of judgment. That is not a human task, judgment belongs to God alone. What changes in perspective others go through is ultimately not the business of any human being. Time moves on. By our standards today both Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman were racists. In their own time, however, Lincoln was the great emancipator of slavery and Truman pioneered the idea of bringing black Americans into equality by integrating the armed forces. He did this in 1948, long before it became “socially acceptable” to the white majority to proclaim any kind of equality between our black citizens and our white citizens in any area of our common life. Heroes are those who move before the majority is willing to move. Harry Truman was a hero. Polygamy was acceptable in parts of the Hebrew Scriptures. Solomon was said to have had a thousand wives. No one would argue for such a pattern today. The author of Colossians and Ephesians, books that we once incorrectly attributed to Paul, ordered slaves to be obedient to their masters and wives to be obedient to their husbands. When someone states these biblical passages today to suggest that those patterns still are appropriate for anyone, they are roundly and properly condemned as immoral. There are no ethical norms that are unchanging except the norm of loving and even the way we love or interpret love is never stationery. So the human task is to journey through an ever-changing world, trying to be faithful to the meaning of God as we, with our limited vision, perceive that meaning. We do not possess God, we do not possess God’s truth no matter what our religious authority claims suggest. So we do not worry about those who believed the things that we today reject. That is ultimately God’s business and God has a way of being non-judgmental that is far greater than that found in those who claim to be “true believers.” John Shelby Spong Read and Share Online Here Announcements Bishop Spong in Cleveland Ohio at The Federation of Christian Ministries National Assembly "With Open Arms" Conference Dates: August 5th - 7th Bishop Spong is the Keynote Speaker Saturday Morning & Afternoon

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7/14/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXVIII - The Ninth Thesis, Ethics
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 14 Jul '16

14 Jul '16

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Contemporary moral standards must be hammered out in the arena in which life-affirming moral principles are forced to engage the external structures of reality, for this is where the ethical life is formed. No modern person has any choice but to be a situationalist.”</em></p> </blockquote> <p> Finding a basis for making ethical decisions in our contemporary world is far more complicated than most people seem to imagine. This is especially true for those who continue to insist that ultimate authority lies in some ancient code of laws like the Ten Commandments. In this section of our attempt to chart a new reformation, we bring ethical decision making into the full focus of our attention. In the process, whether we like it or not, the mythology that has grown up around all ancient codes of law will be dismantled and the necessity of ethical relativity will have to be embraced. We begin with an illustration that we invite you only to imagine not to copy. It is designed to illustrate the fact that the very same actions might be regarded as good in one context and as insensitive, inappropriate and wrong in another.</p> <p>On a Sunday afternoon in America’s “great cathedrals” of worship, our sometimes billion-dollar football stadiums, thousands of fans gather during the football season, on occasion braving extreme cold, in order to see the game in person. Simultaneously, millions of additional fans view the game around the world on television. In the clear vision of literally millions a 240 pound linebacker will be seen regularly walking back and forth between the tackles and guards, who form the football line of scrimmage. These linemen are now in a three point pose, ready to charge at the next snap of the football. This linebacker will exhort these linemen verbally and not infrequently he will even swat their upturned derrieres to urge them forward. Most of the people who see this interchange will think it so normal that they might not even notice it, much less remember it. No one watching would regard this interaction as inappropriate.</p> <p>Suppose, however, that we change the context from a football stadium to a church building during a Sunday morning service of worship. The worshipers have come forward to receive the bread and wine of the Eucharist. They are kneeling in a row at the altar rail. Now imagine an usher or even an acolyte, following the example of the linebacker, walking up and down behind these kneeling people and swatting each of them on their behinds. Would people notice? You bet they would! Not only would they notice, but this behavior would be viewed as “weird, hostile, offensive, abusive and inappropriate” Yet if we were to isolate the specific act from the two contexts, a football game and a service of worship, one would have to conclude that the deed done was identical, which leads us to our first principle. The judgment as to the goodness or badness of a particular human action depends, not just on the act itself, but on the context in which the act is carried out. Subjectivity in ethical judgments is thus inescapable.</p> <p>Look next at those substances which our human society has defined as “drugs.” One of these drugs, the one we call alcohol, is used in the form of a fine wine to give grace and elegance to a banquet table. It is thus viewed as good. Alcohol, however, can be and often is used in other forms to perpetuate the hopelessness of a lost soul living on the fringes of society. The alcohol is the same; the context in which the alcohol is used renders the moral judgment. The same thing is true when we turn our attention to other drugs. In the hands of a trained physician they are dispensed to ease pain and to facilitate healing. In that context the drug is life-giving. Sometimes, however, that same drug is used as a coping device by a desperate person. In that context it can be and often is life-destroying. Good and evil are not fixed categories; they never have been. No matter what the religious claims of the past have been, it is now quite impossible to build an ethical system on the basis of an unchanging or eternal standard. Unchanging divine rules are little more than lingering religious illusions. Those who seek to chart a new reformation must face this reality, deal with it, dismiss it and look elsewhere for guidance in determining just what it is that makes good “good” and evil “evil.”</p> <p>It is the common practice of religious people not to acknowledge these uncertainties or to face these realities. The word “relativity” in ethics is considered a “dirty” word in conservative religious circles. Relativity, nonetheless, confronts human beings at every turn and in every decision they make. One of the reasons that religious people do not want to admit relativity is that it forces adult decision-making on them. It is so much easier to remain childlike and to pretend that there is a set of eternal rules, which one just has to learn and agree to apply. Human beings want to believe that they can define the terms “moral” and “immoral.” It is, however, the existential context of life that more often than not, will determine what is good and what is evil.</p> <p>From where then, we must ask, does the human sense arise that some things are good and other evil? How do we cope with so slippery a slope, which we experience every time we seek to define ethics? This apparently bottomless pit of uncertainty appears to drive us in search of some essential norm that we hope, and sometimes pretend, will define good and evil objectively for all time. We assume that such a norm must exist. Frequently, once we think we have found it, we elevate it to a status that is beyond questioning. We treat it with great respect. In the Western Judeo-Christian world that has been the fate of the Ten Commandments. Look at the importance our whole society has attached to that traditional standard.</p> <p>In the Christian churches built in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Ten Commandments were almost universally displayed in a prominent place on the inside walls of each church. The popular form for this display was to portray these commandments inscribed on a stone tablet, for stone tablets are not only biblical, but they also give the impression of indestructibility. Not infrequently, these commandments would be on not one, but two stone tablets; the first one including what we in our Christian catechisms have called “our duty toward God.” These are the commandments (1-4) that tell us that God is one, that God cannot be imaged and that God’s name and God’s day must be honored. The second tablet would include those commandments (5-10), which were thought to spell out our “duty toward our neighbor:” Honor your parents, do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness and do not covet.</p> <p>In the early days of my life in my church, I was treated to the opportunity of hearing the Ten Commandments recited in worship on a regular basis. It happened on the first Sunday of each month. The congregation was taught to respond to this recitation with the words: “Lord, have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this law.” When the final commandment was recited, we were taught to say: “Lord have mercy upon us and write all these thy laws on our hearts, we beseech thee.” Great power and authority were attached to these holy words.</p> <p>A decline in that power, however, began to set in in the 20th century. My church changed its liturgical directions to make the reading of the Ten Commandments voluntary not mandatory. The result was that the Ten Commandments quickly fell into liturgical disuse. Why did my church take this action? Perhaps it was the fact that both the new scientific discourse and the period of history we refer to as “the enlightenment” had served to erode our confidence in the supernatural deity, whose will these commandments were thought to express. Perhaps we discovered too many exceptions to the rules, which served to destroy the objectivity of this ancient moral code or at least to weaken its authority permanently. Whatever the cause, a very real demise was felt and was accompanied by a heightened sense of anxiety. To many conservative Christians rampant immorality appeared to be the only real alternative.</p> <p>A judge in Alabama, named Roy S. Moore, decided in 2001 that, in the service of his fundamentalist faith, he would install in his courtroom a two ton statue on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. Since he believed these ten laws were dictated by God, in his mind he was doing nothing other than defending God’s truth. He was, however, charged with violating the constitutional amendment that guarantees the separation of church and state. His supporters rallied to his side. His critics were called “godless,” “immoral” and “modernists.” Moore suggested that his enemies were those who were eager to remove God and God’s words from America’s courts of justice. The law prevailed, however, and Judge Moore’s statue was removed.</p> <p>Most people do not know that there is a wide sectarian disagreement over the order and even the way the commandments are numbered. Judge Moore’s Ten Commandments were not “objective” at all, as he claimed. On his statue he had followed the order of the “Protestant” version of these commandments. I happened to be in Montgomery, Alabama, during the time of this controversy and I went to see Judge Moore’s statue before it was removed. On the back were the words: “copyright 2001 Judge Roy S. Moore.” Surely by this time, the Ten Commandments are in the public domain. Are they eternal? Are they unchallengeable? I don’t think so. We move next week to trace the difference between religious rhetoric and religious practice in regard to the Ten Commandments. They are not the same.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">here.</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Louis Mondor via the Internet, writes:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> Question:</h4> <p>I am intrigued with your series of essays, “Charting a New Reformation” – especially Parts 7 and 8 in which you develop the idea of God as “the Ground of Being,” a concept hearkening back to Paul Tillich.</p> <p>I have a couple of questions:</p> <p>Should I understand this as a form of “pantheism” where the universe and everything included in it is equal to God?</p> <p>Or, is this “panentheism,” the idea that the cosmos exists within God who, in turn, “transcends,” “pervades” or is “in” the cosmos?</p> <p>In other words, while pantheism asserts that “All is God,” panentheism goes further to claim that God is greater than the universe.</p> <p>Or, perhaps, is your notion of God as “the Ground of Being” neither of these? Your concept of God as “the Ground of Being” resonates with my thinking. I just want to be sure I am understanding it in the way in which you wish it to be understood.</p> <p>Please clarify his critically important concept for me!</p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Louis,</p> <p>Thanks for your letter. To think of God outside the limiting framework of theism vs. atheism is not easy. We have no “God vocabulary” and so we continue to shift and combine human words to provide pointers in a new direction. We can, however, no more literalize our new word combinations than we could the words of the earlier theological consensuses.</p> <p>I would not use either the words <em>pantheism</em> or <em>panentheism</em> as synonyms for “the Ground of Being.” Of the two I prefer <em>panentheism</em> because it is more flexible and therefore less capable of being literalized than is <em>pantheism</em>, but neither word has much appeal to me. No, I do not conceive of God as identical with all that is. I do not think I or anyone else has the right or the ability to tell anyone who or what God is. Panentheism states that God can be discovered in and through all that is, but is not limited by all that is. That, as I suggested, offers more flexibility, but it also tends to tell me just how God works or operates and not only are we back into theistic images, but we also come up against the human inability to define how the holy works.</p> <p>Employing language that defies explanation thus becomes an asset in pursuing truth if not an asset in creating the security of certainty which, as I have suggested, is always a delusion.</p> <p>So I go back to my distinction between an experience and the explanation of that experience. God is an experience of transcendent otherness and holiness. Theism, the Bible and the creeds are attempts to explain that experience.</p> <p>Jesus was an early first century experience of the presence of that which we call divine. The gospels are a late first century attempt to explain that experience. If we literalize any human explanation of the divine, we inevitably destroy the experience. Both pantheism and panentheism are attempts to explain the experience which cannot finally be explained.</p> <p>So with what are we left? The best we can do is to walk daily in the experience of God. We walk without road maps; we never find security. Certainty is not a possibility. Does God disappear in our inability to capture the divine in the words of the human? No, but idolatry disappears. Perhaps the best we can do is to pray for “a closer walk with God.” That is the mystical path. I choose to continue my journey into the Source of life, the Source of love and the Ground of Being without any clear or certain answer.</p> <p>I hope this helps.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Read and Share Online Here</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…"><img align="none" height="162" style="width: 507px;height: 162px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="507" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/23bfe15c-ced…"></a> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"> <font size="4"><strong>Creation Spirituality Communities Gathering</strong></font></div> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;">July 28th - 31st, Sacramento, CA </div> <strong><em>Generations: Honoring the Elders; Nurturing the Future</em></strong> Matthew Fox, Linda Allen, John Robinson, Judy Shook and Michelle Gordon, are a few of the presenters. <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Click Here for More Information </a></div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateFooter" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border-top: 0;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_footerContent"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_social" style="background-color: #FAFAFA;border: 0;"> <div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border: 1px dashed #d3d3d3;"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"><div class="aolmail_vcard"><div class="aolmail_adr"><div class="aolmail_street-address"></div></div></div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: left;"></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_0df8b23a-3b22-48e8-b7d4-bc2a3d5591c7 td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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Request for RS-1 and/or CS-1 Manual(s)
by Dawn Collins via Dialogue 10 Jul '16

10 Jul '16

Dear colleague(s),Please check your files for either one or both of these manuals. Should you send me a hard copy (which I prefer), I will copy it at Office Depot and mail your original (plus your postal charges) promptly back to you.I want to peruse the short courses of the manual(s) conversations as a template for a piece I'm writing of 5 conversations to accompany the previous booklet disseminated, "On Becoming A Practical Theologian".Thanks again for past response dear friends, on Hesse novel and song book which was of help in fleshing out my present 'sine qua none' library. Toward a peaceful resolution in our nation to the quest for days of compassion and justice, Dawn Collins1818 N. Marion St.Apt. 811Denver, CO 80218303 388 1454collinsdawn747(a)yahoo.com P.S. Recently purchased R. Brian Stanfield's edited book from ICA Bookstore on "The Art of Focused Conversation" as a general reference. Love supporting the work of our beloved community. "We love the Source because the Source loved us first."-1 John 4:19

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7/7/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXVII – The Eighth Thesis, The Ascension of Jesus (continued)
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 07 Jul '16

07 Jul '16

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} .aolReplacedBody #aolmail_templateContainer,.aolReplacedBody .aolmail_bodyContent{ background-color:#ffffff; } .aolReplacedBody .aolmail_bodyContent div a:link,.aolReplacedBody .aolmail_bodyContent div a:visited{ color:#4487cf; } </style><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: none;margin: 0;padding: 0;background-color: #ffffff;width: 100% !important;" class="aolReplacedBody"> <center> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="100%" width="100%" id="aolmail_backgroundTable" style="margin: 0;padding: 0;background-color: #ffffff;height: 100% !important;width: 100% !important;"> <tbody><tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templatePreheader" style="background-color: #ffffff;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_preheaderContent"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"><div style="color: #505050;font-family: Arial;font-size: 10px;line-height: 100%;text-align: left;"> </div></td> <td valign="top" width="190"> <div style="color: #505050;font-family: Arial;font-size: 10px;line-height: 100%;text-align: left;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: none;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img style="border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;height: auto;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/print.png"></a></div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateContainer" style="border: 1px solid #4487cf;background-color: #ffffff;"> <tbody><tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateHeader" style="background-color: #D8E2EA;border-bottom: 0;"> <tbody><tr> <td class="aolmail_headerContent" style="color: #202020;font-family: Arial;font-size: 34px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;padding: 0;text-align: center;vertical-align: middle;"> <img alt="" border="0" style="margin: 0;padding: 0;max-width: 600px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;height: auto;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/newsletter_he…"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_headerNavigation"> <h5 style="color: #202020;display: block;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 15px;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;text-transform: uppercase;"> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Homepage</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">My Profile</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Essay Archive</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Message Boards</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Calendar</a></h5></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateBody"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_bodyContent" style="background-color: #ffffff;"> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h1 style="color: #003d4a;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 34px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Charting a New Reformation</h1> <h2 class="aolmail_null" style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Part XXVII – The Eighth Thesis, The Ascension of Jesus (continued)</h2> <p>The gospels of Mark and Matthew were composed while the Christian movement was still part of the synagogue. The gospel of Luke may well have been written after the fracture that caused the Christians to be expelled from the synagogue, but because Luke based his gospel largely on the gospel of Mark, his work still reflects the organizing form of the synagogue. All three of these synoptic gospels were originally created, we now recognize, to provide Jesus stories for the seasons and Sabbaths of the synagogue’s liturgical year. That is why the story of the crucifixion was told against the backdrop of the Passover and why Matthew placed the “Sermon on the Mount” against the synagogue’s observance of Shavuot or Weeks, the celebration of Moses receiving the Torah from God at Mt. Sinai. That is also why John the Baptist was turned into “The New Elijah” and associated so deeply with the synagogue’s observance of Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah, also called the Jewish New Year, was the time when people prayed for the messiah to come. John the Baptist was cast in the role of Elijah, who according to Jewish messianic thought had to prepare the way for the messiah’s arrival. So John the Baptist enters the gospel tradition not as a person of history, but as a Rosh Hashanah literary figure. The stories of Jesus engaging in physical healings were then read back into the memory of Jesus’ earthly life and told first as part of the Jewish observance of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in which goodness of health overcomes the evil of physical distress. Being made physically whole was a sign that the Kingdom of God was breaking in and that the messiah was at hand. Next harvest parables were attributed to Jesus, like the parable of the sower, who sows his seed on four different types of soil, and the wheat and tares growing together. Not coincidentally they were placed into the gospel outline against the Harvest Festival of the Jews, known as Tabernacles, Booths or Sukkoth. That is also why the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, a story that only appears in the synoptic tradition, was told against the synagogue’s observance of Dedication or Hanukah, in which it was believed that the light of God was annually restored to the Temple. When the synoptic gospels were written (72-93 CE), however, the Temple had been destroyed by the Romans, and so the followers of Jesus suggested that Jesus had replaced the Temple as the new meeting place between God and human beings. That is what is reflected when the light of God was made to fall upon Jesus in the story of the Transfiguration. In this way Hanukah was reinterpreted. Once a crack opens into the original meaning of the synoptics, we begin to see just how it was that so many of the stories in the Hebrew Scriptures were simply lifted out of the text, magnified and wrapped around Jesus of Nazareth. They are very easy to identify once the pattern is clear.</p> <p>The literary connections between Moses and Jesus was especially strong in Matthew’s gospel, and they become quite obvious once the principle has been established. Both Moses and Jesus were subjected to the attempt by a wicked king to destroy them in infancy. Both were said to have fed the multitudes in the wilderness. Both had Red Sea splitting experiences, wandering in the wilderness experiences and trials or temptations in that wilderness. Both went up on a mountain to get a new understanding of God’s law. I have examined these connections in detail in my recent book, <em>Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy</em>.</p> <p>Luke, a gospel written to a congregation of dispersed or diaspora Jews, which was just beginning to attract Gentile proselytes into its midst, had a rather different agenda from that of Matthew. So Elijah, the father of the prophetic movement, served Luke much better as the figure through whom Jesus was to be interpreted, than did Moses. So a close reading of Luke reveals this broader world into which Jesus, as the new Elijah, fitted so well.</p> <p>In Matthew’s genealogy, the lineage of Jesus went back only to Abraham, who was regarded as the father of the Jewish nation. Luke, writing for his more expansive, more cosmopolitan audience, took his genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam, the father of all humankind. This way Gentiles as well as Jews could be included. We also see in Luke a much deeper dependency on the Elijah narratives than anywhere else in the New Testament. In the Hebrew Scriptures we are told that Elijah raises from the dead the only son of a widow. In Luke Jesus repeats that Elijah story by raising from the dead the only son of a widow in the village of Nain. No other gospel relates that story. Elijah healed a foreigner, a Syrian, named Naaman, of leprosy. Luke has Jesus heal a Samaritan (also a foreigner) of leprosy in a story which no other gospel writer relates. The similarities abound.</p> <p>The most obvious Elijah story that Luke has retold about Jesus, however, was the story of Elijah’s ascension. Here the way Luke has used Elijah to interpret Jesus becomes quite clear. I turn now to the story of Elijah’s ascension so that everyone can see these connections. This story is told in II Kings 2.</p> <p>At the end of Elijah’s life, the text informs us, he took his single disciple, Elisha, and they journeyed together into the wilderness to have a rendezvous with God. On this journey they talk about Elijah’s imminent departure and Elisha’s succession to the role of the “prophet of Israel.” When they reached their destination, they began what would prove to be their final conversation. Elisha opens it by making a request of his master. I paraphrase: “Master, if I am to be your successor, can I make a final request of you?” Elijah responds by saying: “What is it my son? Speak on.” So Elisha continues: “If I am to do the work you have asked me to do, I need to be endowed with a double portion of your spirit!” To this request, Elijah responded: “I do not know that I have the power to grant you that,” he says, “but if you see me ascending into the sky then you will know that your request has been granted by God.”</p> <p>At that moment, according to this magnificent Jewish story, a magical, fiery chariot, drawn by magical, fiery horses, appeared out of the sky and swooped down to the ground, coming to a halt at exactly the spot where Elijah and Elisha were talking. It was as if this was a regular stop on this heavenly chariot’s bus route! Without so much as a fare-thee-well, Elijah then stepped immediately into that chariot to begin his ascension into heaven, undoubtedly waving his hand in farewell.</p> <p>Even the ancients, however, knew that some kind of propulsion was required to transcend the forces of gravity about which they knew nothing, but which they simply accepted as a fact of life. So the text says that God created a whirlwind that came roaring behind the fiery chariot. Pulled by the magical horses, this chariot bearing Elijah, was thus propelled into the sky and to heaven by a whirlwind.</p> <p>Elisha standing on the earth below watched in wonder. He cried out: “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel.” The important detail in the story, however, was that Elisha saw this ascension, and because he saw, he knew that his request had been granted. He would be endowed with a double portion of Elijah’s powerful, unique and yet still human spirit. It was and is a lovely story. The people of the Middle East were second to none as story tellers. Luke saw Jesus as the new Elijah, but one far more filled with the presence of God than had been the first Elijah. So he magnified this story. The new Elijah did not need the help of a magical chariot drawn by fiery horses. He did not need the heaven-sent whirlwind. As one who was God-sent and God-filled, he would return to God on his own.</p> <p>He also did not, as Elijah did, have a double portion of his enormous, but still human spirit to bequeath to his disciples. The new and greater Elijah was said by Luke to be in possession of God’s Holy Spirit, which he could bequeath not just to a single disciple, but to all of his disciples then and throughout all of the ages. Luke’s Jesus was Elijah magnified in the hope that by endowing him with these expanded images, he could capture and communicate to his readers the essence of this Christ, who had made God’s presence so near and so available. So it was that Luke took the story of the ascension of Elijah and his gift to his single disciple of a double portion of his spirit and magnified it beyond all limits. The result was the story of the ascension of Jesus into heaven and the subsequent outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, both of which are uniquely Lucan stories repeated nowhere else in the New Testament.</p> <p>When one sees who it was upon whom the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost, one sees immediately the universal message of Luke’s gospel. “Men from every nation under heaven,” Luke said, were gathered there at Pentecost: “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphilia, Egypt, Libya, visitors from Rome, Jews, proselytes, Cretans and Arabians.” Given the knowledge of geography available in the first century, this was a remarkably inclusive list, even if it did call human beings “men!”</p> <p>Luke knew that this ascension story was not literal history, but he also knew that the inclusive love of God was universal so he told this story. Today we are invited to hear its meaning, and to escape its literal understanding. Gospel truth can never finally be contained in the vocabulary of our humanity.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Harry Bryan from Bristol, England, writes:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> Question:</h4> <p>As I begin to write this message, I realize that it’s not at all clear in my mind what exactly I want to say, just that I need to say something. My name is Harry and I live close to the city of Bristol in the United Kingdom. I really hope that this message reaches you, as I’ve just watched a video that I stumbled upon after much reading and watching of other documentaries and religious talks, a series of lectures, which you delivered under the title: “Why Christianity as We Know it is Dying.” I feel the need to express my appreciation.</p> <p>I must admit that I do not describe myself as a Christian, but I would say that one of the main reasons for this is the yawning gap between what I perceive as the positive, charitable, loving message of the New Testament and the all too common face of Christianity today which is today so often intolerant, woeful and almost unrecognizable as a religion of peace or of love. Too many times I’ve found myself pushed away from the Bible by people who preach messages of hate, of prejudice and of things, which simply don’t make any sense regardless of your standing in life. When I study the biblical text, I find a lot that I admire, a lot, which I feel people could learn from today and that people should consider, but can’t reconcile that with the need for mysterious or gory symbolism, the gold finery that dresses the altar and the clergy, to say nothing of the practice of immersion in water as a cure all for previous trespasses.</p> <p>I was reading Matthew 6, where Jesus is quoted as saying “Do not worry.” I feel it is such a beautiful passage and yet where is this message in the Christian Church today? I’ve never heard it spoken of; it is absent. The Christianity I know simply doesn’t have a place for it, just as it doesn’t have a place for many things which Jesus was said to have taught. The Bible for me cannot be an entirely accurate, entirely literal account of past events nor can one reading of it be the only way to avoid eternal punishments when our lives come to an end. That the Bible exists at all means that there were followers of Christ long before it was written and compiled as we know it today, so are we to believe, for example, that all the early Christians reside in hell, given that they couldn’t have possibly followed a book to the letter, which in their time didn’t exist? There must be room to interpret and discuss the Bible in the context in which it was written and to do away with much of the now obsolete traditions and rituals which still surround it. I need to express my appreciation for your words, for your open-mindedness and also for your humor. I know you aren’t the only person who questions the faith and continues to work with the Bible as opposed to supporting fundamentalism or simply casting it aside altogether, but you are the first person I’ve seen speak (albeit via a computer screen), who has expressed views, which resonate with my own and make me feel more comfortable about reading the Bible again. I can’t deny entirely my belief in God, but I also can’t identify with “the old Christianity,” which seems totally bent on control of those people who simply want some guidance in their lives. I’m not sure where my journey will take me from here, but know that this marks an important step. So I will now watch the second lecture from that same conference, “What a New Christianity for a New World Will Contain.” I wish you well and hope that my message will be received.</p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Harry,</p> <p>Thank you for your letter. I am sorry that through your years of association with the Christian Church, you have received such a distorted and woeful view of the Bible and of Christianity itself, which you reveal in your letter.</p> <p>It is not the Bible’s fault that so many have made an idol out of the scriptures. In the name of that idol, we have over the centuries opposed democracy in the name of the divine right of kings, become oppressively anti-Semitic, justified the Crusades, as the necessary killing of “infidels,” most of whom were Muslims, burned “heretics” at the stake, enslaved people of color, forced women into being second class citizens’ oppressed homosexual people and justified many a war. If the “Word of God” results in that kind of behavior then I for one want no part in it. A literally understood Bible is not benign, it is an absolute evil.</p> <p>The Bible itself can be a great asset to faith. It asserts the holiness of life. It portrays the love of God as infinite and universal. It calls us in the Holy Spirit to be all that we can be. It is not now and never has been the literal word or words of God. One does not want to blame God for some of the things included in the Bible like the execution of disobedient children, those who worship a false God and homosexual people.</p> <p>I am glad you finally heard something different. I hope you will continue to explore the still developing Christian story. Perhaps you will help to develop that story. I will be doing a lecture tour of Scotland, Wales and England in October. I would love to meet you at one of the venues.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Read and Share Online Here </a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><img align="none" height="193" style="width: 349px;height: 193px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="349" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/8d4503e2-0e8…"></div> <h4 class="aolmail_null" style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> </h4> <h4 class="aolmail_null" style="text-align: center;color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;"><strong><span style="color:#000000">Bishop Spong speaks at Unity Church Lynnwood, WA</span></strong></h4> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"> <strong>Lecture and Q&A: Jul 15th, 2016 at 7:30PM</strong> At the Unity Church in Lynnwood 16727 Alderwood Mall Parkway Lynnwood, Washington <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Click Here for More Information</a></div> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateFooter" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border-top: 0;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_footerContent"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_social" style="background-color: #FAFAFA;border: 0;"> <div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border: 1px dashed #d3d3d3;"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"><div class="aolmail_vcard"><div class="aolmail_adr"><div class="aolmail_street-address"></div></div></div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: left;"></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_a0e9d715-4510-44b7-bb39-100c97b26de8 td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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(no subject)
by ICA International via Dialogue 05 Jul '16

05 Jul '16

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.....If you wish to SEND a report...send to your ICA contact person OR...go to the members section on the ICA International website Please click the link below for the July 2016 issue of the Global Buzz Global Buzz Report: July 2016 or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-16/2016-07-01.php ICAI Communications

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"Journey Reflection" > JUNE most viewed blog posts
by John C via Dialogue 30 Jun '16

30 Jun '16

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Fwd: How god became god. Dealing with thrownness
by James Wiegel via Dialogue 30 Jun '16

30 Jun '16

Interesting review. Here is a brief excerpt. The book explores metaphorical interpretations of Genesis–and Smoley engages in his own parables, which he returns to in his short, effective exegesis of practical mysticism. One of the unitive themes of How God Became God is Smoley’s metaphor of a “water table underlying everything we call reality,” a transcendent consciousness, a “living, vibrant, moving presence…” The world of the five senses…is simply a crust that floats on this eternal presence. Smoley identifies this presence with the Ground of Being, or Spirit. And, he tells us, We can say that there are points in this crust of reality where the water of the Spirit breaks through…Those “wells,” shall we say, are moments of encounter with the Sacred. Despite its many desert-like stretches of barbarism, its faulty transmission, its biases and flagrant myths, the Bible, Smoley demonstrates, seethes beneath the surface with sacred springs. ♦ > Subject: How god became god > > http://parabola.org/2016/04/28/god-became-god-scholars-really-saying-god-bi… Jim Wiegel 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353 Tel. 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277 jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com "We are no longer living in an era of change. We are living in a change of era." Pope Francis

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7/30/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXVI - The Eighth Thesis, The Ascension of Jesus
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 30 Jun '16

30 Jun '16

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} .aolReplacedBody #aolmail_templateContainer,.aolReplacedBody .aolmail_bodyContent{ background-color:#ffffff; } .aolReplacedBody .aolmail_bodyContent div a:link,.aolReplacedBody .aolmail_bodyContent div a:visited{ color:#4487cf; } </style><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: none;margin: 0;padding: 0;background-color: #ffffff;width: 100% !important;" class="aolReplacedBody"> <center> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="100%" width="100%" id="aolmail_backgroundTable" style="margin: 0;padding: 0;background-color: #ffffff;height: 100% !important;width: 100% !important;"> <tbody><tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templatePreheader" style="background-color: #ffffff;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_preheaderContent"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"><div style="color: #505050;font-family: Arial;font-size: 10px;line-height: 100%;text-align: left;"> </div></td> <td valign="top" width="190"> <div style="color: #505050;font-family: Arial;font-size: 10px;line-height: 100%;text-align: left;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: none;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img style="border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;height: auto;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/print.png"></a></div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateContainer" style="border: 1px solid #4487cf;background-color: #ffffff;"> <tbody><tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateHeader" style="background-color: #D8E2EA;border-bottom: 0;"> <tbody><tr> <td class="aolmail_headerContent" style="color: #202020;font-family: Arial;font-size: 34px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;padding: 0;text-align: center;vertical-align: middle;"> <img alt="" border="0" style="margin: 0;padding: 0;max-width: 600px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;height: auto;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/newsletter_he…"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_headerNavigation"> <h5 style="color: #202020;display: block;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 15px;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;text-transform: uppercase;"> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Homepage</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">My Profile</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Essay Archive</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Message Boards</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Calendar</a></h5></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateBody"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_bodyContent" style="background-color: #ffffff;"> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h1 style="color: #003d4a;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 34px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Charting a New Reformation</h1> <h2 class="aolmail_null" style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Part XXVI, The Eighth Thesis, The Ascension of Jesus</h2> <blockquote> <p><em>“The Biblical story of Jesus’ ascension assumes a three-tiered universe, which was dismissed in intellectual circles some 500 years ago. If Jesus’ ascension must be regarded as a literal event that occurred in history, it is now beyond the capacity of our 21st century minds to accept it or believe it.”</em></p> </blockquote> <p> The late Carl Sagan, one of the world’s most esteemed and well known astrophysicists, said to me at a conference in Washington, DC, just two years before his death: “Jack, do you know that if Jesus literally ascended into the sky at the time of the ascension, and even if he traveled at the speed of light (approximately 186,000 miles per second), he has not yet escaped our galaxy?” It was a typical Sagan tour de force delivered against what he experienced as the small mindedness of traditional religious believers. Carl, who was Jewish by ethnic background and atheist by theological persuasion, was well known for having little patience with what he thought of as absurdities offered by religious people as something designed to be literally true. Yet the fact remains that for most of Christian history this story, has been uncritically presented in both church and society at large, even though it makes no sense in our post-Copernican world. Many magnificent portraits of Jesus ascending into the sky have been painted by the master artists of the ages and they hang today in the great museums of the world. A number of them have also been reproduced in stained glass and they continue to occupy prominent places in the churches of the world. If an artist was commissioned to paint scenes from the life of Jesus on the walls of an Italian Church in the Middle Ages, the first scene would normally be some aspect of the virgin birth and the final scene would almost surely be some aspect of the ascension of Jesus. These two scenes were thought to have framed the limits of his earthly life — his arrival in this world and his departure.</p> <p>We noted earlier in this series that the miraculous birth of Jesus is referred to in only two of the four gospels and that neither of these stories became part of the Christian tradition until the ninth decade. This fact hardly confers objective truth on either of the two virgin birth stories. Since that is so, then it is even more problematic to ascribe history or objectivity to the story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven, for this story appears in only one gospel and it may well be as late as the tenth decade. The first mention of the ascension of Jesus is found in the 24th chapter of the gospel of Luke (vs. 44-53). That particular narrative is, however, not the well-known or well publicized ascension passage. According to Luke the resurrected Jesus made appearances over a period of forty days. Following his final appearance, and serving the purpose of announcing that resurrection appearances were now ceasing, Luke concludes his gospel with these words: “Thus he (Jesus) led them out as far as Bethany and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” It is worth noting that the words “was carried up into heaven” are missing from many of the most ancient manuscripts and may well be a later editorial gloss to bring the story more into line with the version described in the first chapter of Acts, which is far better known. When we come to this ascension narrative in the book of Acts, we need to be made aware that we are dealing with the same author who wrote the gospel of Luke. The book of Acts is simply volume two of Luke’s two-part corpus. It is in this second volume that we find the familiar and much more elaborately detailed narrative of the ascension of Jesus. When most people think of the ascension they are drawing their details from the book of Acts. Listen to the actual words found in this source: “As they were looking on, he (Jesus) was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold two men stood before them in white robes and said, ‘Men of Galilee why do you stand looking into heaven. This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’” (Acts 1:10-11).</p> <p>There is only one other reference to the ascension in the New Testament and that comes in the final chapter (chapter 20) of the authentic Fourth Gospel. (By this I mean to imply that chapter 21 of John’s gospel is widely regarded as a later addition to this book and from the pen of a different author.) This reference comes in the account of the risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene (20:11-18), to which we referred when we were dealing with John’s resurrection material. Here in this narrative Jesus speaks her name: “Mary.” In the speaking of her name, we are led to believe that she finally saw his identity, which until that moment had been hidden from her. She turns, says the writer of the Fourth Gospel, calls him “Rabboni,” which is a rather intimate form of the word Rabbi, and rushes toward him. Jesus appears to hold her off saying: “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.’” The Fourth Gospel is normally dated between the years 95-100, well after Luke-Acts, so I think it fair to say that he was drawing on Luke’s material. That is the sum of the places in the New Testament where an explicit mention was made of what came to be called the ascension. It is thus a late-developing part of the Jesus story.</p> <p>We note first a couple of obvious contradictions. Ascension in Luke brings the appearances of the risen Christ to an end. In John, the ascension of Jesus precedes all other resurrection appearances except the one to Magdalene. Luke in Acts tells the ascension story with narrative details; John provides no details whatsoever, referring to the ascension as if people would know what the word meant. There is no doubt that it is Luke’s narrative in Acts that placed the story of Jesus’ ascension into the Christian understanding, so I will focus on that narrative in the development of this eighth thesis.</p> <p>First, the framework. The Bible, like most things written during the time of its compilation (circa 1000 BCE and 140 CE), assumed that the earth was the center of a three-tiered universe. Heaven, the abode of God, was clearly above the sky, while something, usually fearful, was thought to be located beneath the earth, in time it became known as hell or the abode of the devil, though that note is not dominant in the New Testament until the Book of Revelation, written in the tenth decade. Ancient people had no concept of the vastness of space. The sky seemed near enough to place them in the direct gaze of God, but the closest they could come to God physically was to climb to the top of a mountain. So Moses had to go up a mountain to receive the law. A story in Genesis reveals that human beings thought they could build a tower high enough to reach heaven (Genesis 11). Matthew’s birth narrative assumed that the sky was the floor of heaven, which meant that a star could be dragged across the floor of heaven so slowly that wise men could actually keep up with it. Given these assumptions, for them to have Jesus return to God at the end of his earthly life, meant that they had to portray him as rising into the sky. It made perfect sense in the small universe they believed they occupied.</p> <p>Luke had one other agenda. As we noted earlier, Luke had turned the resurrection of Jesus into a literalized, resuscitation of a deceased body. For Luke, resurrection seemed to imply that Jesus has resumed his pre-crucifixion physical life. When a truth, incapable of being expressed in words, is literalized there are some unanticipated consequences, which become obvious immediately. If resurrection meant being restored to one’s previous life, bound as it was by time and space, then what does one do with that life then? How does one get that physical life out of this world? Usually the way we depart this world is to die. Jesus, however, tried that and it did not work. So the question was: “Was he bound to walk the paths of this planet earth through all eternity?” If one literalizes the resurrection then one must develop an exit story appropriate to a resuscitated body. That is exactly what Luke did in his gospel. In the narrative of Jesus’ ascension, Luke created a plausible exit story, but it was never meant to be more than a story.</p> <p>Carl Sagan reminded us that if we literalize the story of the ascension of Jesus, but do not understand the size and shape of the universe in which that story presumably took place, the result is absolute nonsense. Can we get to heaven by rising up into the sky? Of course not! If we rise into the sky far enough, there are only two options. One is to achieve orbit. The idea of Jesus in perpetual orbit around this earth with his white tunic waving in the breeze does nothing for my spiritual life! The other is to have Jesus sink into the infinity of space. Heaven is not above the sky, I don’t care how many athletes point to the sky when hitting a home run, making a goal, kicking a football through the upright from sixty yards away or sinking the winning basket. When we in the western world point to the sky, we are pointing in exactly the opposite direction from someone who lives in the Far East. Words like “up” and “down” become meaningless in the infinity of space.</p> <p>Since we know it would take light still traveling at the approximate speed of 186,000 miles per second, more than 100,000 years, to go from one end of our galaxy to the other, a literalized ascension story does nothing except to make Carl Sagan literally accurate.</p> <p>There must be a meaning to this story that has simply eluded us in our literal attempt to understand the Bible. There is, and we will turn to it next week.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Katherine May via the Internet, writes:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question:</h4> <p>Thank you for your weekly emails. They are always informative and interesting. I’ve also read your books over the years and enjoyed your thought-provoking ideas and perspective. I am a nurse-psychotherapist in private practice and an adjunct professor for a psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioner program at a university. I will be teaching a course next year, which I have developed, entitled: “Depth Psychotherapy: Caring for the Soul.” I have studied James Hillman, Thomas Moore and have participated in many workshops and studies in Jungian Psychology for over two decades.</p> <p>James Hillman spoke and wrote a lot about his disappointments around psychotherapy. Modern day treatment of mental health issues is caught in the “spirit of the times” medical model, including over diagnosing and overuse of medication to “relieve symptoms” and “improve functioning” as its primary goals.</p> <p>Since “psyche” is a Greek word translated in English as “soul” and “therapy” means to “minister, care, serve,” I’m interested in studying how we can better connect psychotherapy practice back to its original meaning. I’m wondering if you would be willing to share your view of “soul,” how soul expresses/manifests in life and any ideas about a psychotherapy that could “minister” or “care” for the soul? Also, your ideas about the differences between souls and spirit and mind.</p> <p>Thank you so much for your efforts and care in answering these questions.</p> <p> </p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Katherine,</p> <p>Thank you for your letter and for your professional work dedicated, as it is, to the wholeness of life.</p> <p>I find human words “squishy” when trying to define topics which words cannot fully embrace. The Greeks used the word <em>soma</em> to refer to bodies, but they also used the word <em>sarx</em>, which got translated as “flesh.” The word “<em>psyche</em>” could mean mind, but the Greeks also used the word “<em>nous</em>” to refer to the mind. <em>Psyche</em> could also mean “<em>soul</em>.” The words are anything but precise.</p> <p>The Hebrew word “<em>nephesh</em>” is translated as “soul” or “spirit,” but it literally means breath. <em>Ruach</em> was the Hebrew word for “wind,” but it also meant “spirit”. So I don’t find it helpful just to assume that words convey a consistent message. Words are, however, all that human beings have to use, but in the non-scientific, inexact areas of human experience, they leave much to be desired.</p> <p>In my opinion both psychotherapy and all the healing arts have one primary goal, which is to make people whole. The sign of wholeness is not found in any particular religious formulation, but is an expression of a deeper level of self-acceptance, one that expresses itself in the ability to give yourself away in love to another. The word “grace,” so freely used in religious circles, means the recognition that we are ultimately not self-made people, but are dependent on another for both life and love, which for me are synonyms for God. Obviously the gift of life is given to us by our parents. Not as obvious, but equally true, is that we have to be loved into the ability to love. We cannot give away what we have not received. We are driven by our own biology to be survival-oriented and thus self-centered. The grace of love is the only thing that can lift us beyond our survival needs and enable us to live for others.</p> <p>The healing disciplines deal with both the physical and mental distortions that have been passed on to us in the course of life. This fact should free us from moralizing, one of the favorite pastimes of religious people. Judgment is difficult, however, when we know that unloved people hurt others, that abused children are likely to turn into being abusive adults and that, in biblical language, “the sins of the fathers (and mothers) are passed on to the third and fourth generation.”</p> <p>Your task and mine is to bring wholeness to life. If using words like “soul” are helpful, that is fine; if not, feel free to abandon those words. Wholeness comes to our bodies, minds, spirits and souls in a variety of ways. The task of the would-be healer is to enable every person, no matter how badly he or she has been wounded by life, to find the courage to be all that he or she can be.</p> <p>Enjoy your life of service to others.</p> <p>John Shelby <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Read and Share Online Here</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…"><img align="none" height="165" style="width: 371px;height: 165px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="371" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/e126c963-4a1…"></a></div> <h3 class="aolmail_null" style="text-align: center;color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 26px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;"><span style="color:#000000">Bishop Spong at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA - July 11th - 15th, 2016</span></h3> The purpose of the course will be to establish the fact of history that the three Synoptic Gospels are the products of the First Century Synagogue, in which Jesus was wrapped inside the Hebrew Scriptures, organized by the liturgical cycle of the Synagogue, invested with Jewish messianic interpretations and are reflective of the story telling traditions of the Jewish people. Biblical literalism was imposed on the gospels by Gentile Christians after 150 CE, unaware of </div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="top"><table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateFooter" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border-top: 0;"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" class="aolmail_footerContent"><table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border: 1px dashed #d3d3d3;"> <div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"><div class="aolmail_vcard"><div class="aolmail_adr"><div class="aolmail_street-address"></div></div></div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility"> </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_abb87f68-3abe-45d6-b5ce-2cc352cd83c8 td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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ICA Global Archives Fall Sojourn Invitation and Spring Report
by Beret Griffith via Dialogue 29 Jun '16

29 Jun '16

Announcement of 2016 fall sojourn dates Monday - Friday, September 12-16, 2016 And ICA Global Archives 2016 Spring Report In memory of Gordon Harper and Steve Harrington Introduction Work on organizing the rich legacy of work of the Ecumenical Institute, the Order:Ecumenical and Institute of Cultural Affairs, residing in the ICA Global Archives, has been in process for many years. This work has come to feel like an endless marathon and we have felt the need to recast the work. Those of us working on the task are in the process of looking toward the future; coming to terms with the limits of our capacity to continue the work; and creating ongoing processes to respond to requests for access to archival materials. As we engaged in deep conversations about the future of the global archives we decided to engage Bruce Williams to guide us in creating an action plan for the next 18 months. We will be mining the common memory of people familiar with historical documents to determine which of the 20,000 documents currently on file in the archives need to be added to the 2000 existing digital documents. The creation of an intern program will increase the core of people working on the archives and make it possible for archive work to continue. The creation of a dynamic archive website will create access to archive collections.We will build a research support system for documenting and distributing outcomes of current ICA initiatives. Robust operations will provide the underpinning for these efforts. There is a growing awareness among people of the need for radical, significant and structural change on planet Earth. Making available the historical residue of EI, O:E and ICA experiences around the world, the ICA Global Archives is a research treasure which has the capacity to empower and enable dialogue within current awakening movements. Digitization of Critical Documents Team Members: Beret Griffith*, Steve Ediger, Jean Long, Marge Philbrook, Wendell Refior There are 20,000 documents in the ICA Global Archives. Only 2,015 documents have been digitized. The Document Digitization Team will develop a plan to scan and digitize the most important documents within the FileMaker Pro database of 20,000 entries. We will begin by asking select colleagues to determine categories in the Category List with which they are familiar. They will be given a section from the FileMaker Pro database. They will select individual documents for scanning. To enable this process FileMaker Pro has been printed and put into notebooks to track the work. The system of pulling, scanning and re-filing materials will be refined. Criteria will be developed for determining document selection based on societal need. People will need to be trained in the scanning process. Jack Gilles and Frank Knutson tested the selection process and selected documents which are in line for scanning. Individual and ICA archive collections around the world will be catalogued. It will be necessary to gather collection information for each of the collections. The ICA Global Archives location in Chicago will maintain a list of all global digital resources. Finally, digitized documents will be analyzed and collection decisions made. Victory is the digitization of critical documents by the end of 2017 and a listing of EI/ICA archival material around the globe. Creating A Dynamic Website Team Members: Paul Noah*, Frank Knutson, Steve Ediger, Wendell Refior, Doug Druckenmiller The task is to design and implement over the next year and a half a website which appeals to multiple user groups i.e. religious groups, students, casual observers or the curious. The steps to doing this are: - Research existing websites that meet the needs of identified generic user groups. - Write user stories about how the sites are used. - Build a site map for our content. - Find a designer to build the website from the user criteria we have developed and is compatible with ICA objectives. - Figure the cost impact of maintaining the site into the future. - Develop and refine the content. - Hand the completed site over to ICA. Victory is a completed website. Research and Funding Strategies Team Members: Doug Druckenmiller*, Jack GiIles, Oliveann Slotta, Steve Ediger, Jim Wiegel The Funding strategy for the archives depends on reorienting our strategy from digitizing the archives to building a research support system for documenting and distributing the outcomes of current ICA initiatives. This allows us to build infrastructure for fundable projects that will as a matter of course provide the necessary mechanisms to collect, archive and disseminate project results. Major project grants are always required to provide a plan for this activity. As a first prototype and example of this an archival component for the Town Meeting Climate Change Action being undertaken by the ICA will be developed as the model for other types of research initiatives. Thus, the archives is a critical research component of ongoing programs. Once an archive component has been envisioned, it will be captured in a concept paper to be presented to an international conference as a first step in identifying funding targets for a research effort. Academic research networks will have a stake in the research effort and provide contacts and collaborative support. They will also identify, collaboratively frame, and network the funding targets. Once a prototype grant is developed and submitted, other specific grant applications can be written for at least 5 major programs. Victory is a funded and established research partnership. Archives Operations, Interns and Volunteers Team Members: Steve Ediger*, Wendell Refior, Tim Wegner, Douglas Druckenmiller, Sally Fenton Operationalize the intern program We identified two ways to increase human resources as the core of people working on the Global Archive by developing internships and creating alliances with interested project-based groups. Both of these can be accomplished with minimal expenditures on our part. We already have begun to develop connections to intern programs. In addition to providing pre-professional work on the archives, our collection will become known around the academic community and potentially attract graduate level students that want to use the collections as research material. Last semester, Dominican University provided two interns that have been working on the Town Meeting collection to provide material for the planned Town Meeting Climate Change Action project. An additional two interns signed up for this semester. Additional universities to contact include DePaul, UI-Chicago, UI-Urbana-Champaign and possibly others. One key concern is the cost of intern supervision. A strategy to minimize undergraduate intern supervision is to have graduate student interns take on an active management role as part of their internship.Then we can begin identifying projects, recruit interns and work the program each semester. After a few rounds, we will evaluate the program. Another method for increasing our work capacity will be to engage groups already working to further ICA projects. A number of groups are coalescing, including some folks working on the New Religious Mode and others working on Training Inc. In particular the Training Inc group has been meeting virtually for over a year, participated in the Fall 2015 Sojourn and plans on participating in the Fall 2016 Sojourn. We believe that by identifying and connecting with these groups and offering them the infrastructure of our archive tools they can develop their own work. In order to do this, we’ll start with Training, Inc., identify group members, develop a liaison function between them and the Archives Advisory Council, have them participate in the archive process for their materials, and evaluate the pilot. Victory is an operational intern program and working relationship with one project-oriented group. Archives Operations All objectives hinge on a well-thought out and defined set of standard operating procedures and a robust technology foundation. We need to update documentation for operational procedures and plan for sufficient technology capacity. Archival documents both physical and digital are distributed across the world and Internet requiring standardized operations in technology and process. We will document our technology infrastructure and create a capacity building plan to sustain future operations. We will inventory our operations and add missing elements and update them. This set of tasks would make a great project for a grad student. Currently, certain aspects of the technology are well-managed and coming into focus. For instance our work on the FileMaker Pro archives database has been enhanced with the ability for users to access the database from any Internet connection in the world through a hosting service that Archives Advisory Council members are currently funding. Beyond that we have bits and pieces stored all over the place, some in a website managed and paid for by Tim Wegner and other pieces on the ICA Server. Unfortunately, the ICA server is just about out of room and we are unable to replicate the digital documents stored elsewhere. We will create a plan outlining tasks necessary to address all aspects of the technology infrastructure. Victory is a completed Operations Manual and Technology Plan. Conclusion: A New Paradigm The Archives Team has documented its plan and commitments for bringing the ICA’s historical assets into an accessible, interactive research dynamic. We foresee new relationships with groups and individuals that will bring both opportunities and support for the ICA. New people have stepped forward to replace two giants of our team’s journey, namely Steve Harrington and Gordon Harper. We have given ourselves an 18 month window to bring the archives operations into a working virtual reality. We look forward to having continuing support of the ICA-USA as a vital resource for ICA programs, relationships, support and reputation. During the summer of 2016 the Archives Advisory Council will plan for the fall 2016 sojourn. You Are Invited to the ICA Global Archives Fall Sojourn - On Site & Virtual Monday - Friday, September 12-16, 2016 Contact Jean Long: Cell 720-633-5008 Email: jean.long512(a)gmail.com

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