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Thoughts While Listening to America's Health Care Debate
by Ellie Stock 21 Mar '14

21 Mar '14

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Thoughts While Listening to America's Health Care Debate We had one of our closest personal friends to dinner recently. He is a stock analyst, a very successful and wealthy man with a passion for understanding the economy. In the course of the evening’s conversation, he listed among the threats to America’s economic prosperity the costs that will be associated with the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” which he called by its popular name “Obamacare.” It was and is a legitimate concern and it is regularly cited by those who oppose the Affordable Care Act. What does not get spoken in this political debate, however, is any estimate of what the cost of health care would have been had this nation’s lawmakers not passed the Affordable Care Act. One of the factors that built political pressure for the adoption of this act was the spiraling health care costs, which were leaping at the rate of about 25% a year, far beyond the normal cost of living increases. No one either in the private or the public sector seemed able to rein them in. Health care is no longer considered a luxury available only to those who can afford it, but a necessity that is the right of every citizen. This nation either had to control these costs or watch it entire economy be wrecked. Since in the United States we have followed the unique and even peculiar method of linking health insurance to one’s job as a perk of employment, these rising costs were falling heavily on American businesses, large and small. In most of the countries with which American businesses compete in the world market, health care is provided to all citizens with tax dollars. In American companies, it is a “labor cost” putting American companies at a severe disadvantage in competitively pricing their products. As these costs escalated, smaller businesses first tried to buy group insurance plans to lower their costs. When that failed to halt the rising price of health care, some began to cut benefits. Next they sought to move a larger share of these costs from the company to the employees, which represented a cut in compensation and thus in the employee’s standard of living. Some companies simply dropped health insurance as a perk. It was said by many small business owners that this was the only alternative to bankruptcy and its resulting unemployment. Larger businesses then followed suit and began to shift some of their health care costs to the employees. They also began to put pressure on the health care companies to lower their costs. These companies then began to pressure hospitals and doctors to make the delivery of health care more cost efficient. It was not unknown for businesses to dismiss employees who had developed chronic diseases that had the effect of raising the premiums their company had to pay or for health care companies to cancel the policies held by those who developed diseases that needed costly and long term treatment. Of course the Affordable Care Act is going to involve costs, but the only way to discuss these costs legitimately in the public arena is in the context of what the costs without “Obamacare” would have been. In the meantime it is quite easy to win political points by mounting emotional attacks on “Obamacare,” or by launching five star alarms about health care being rationed or about death panels to decide how long “Grandma” should be allowed to live, raising people’s anxiety to a fever pitch. Radical dishonesty has thus crept into the public discussion and has become standard, regularly invoking half truths and using anecdotal horror stories to arouse negativity and fear. It is, in my opinion, the most dishonest political discourse I have ever witnessed. Critics of any new initiative are prone to be both nostalgic and excessive in their claims for the health care system under which this nation has operated in the past. It was “the best health care in the world,” they say. That is patently not so. There is not one major health issue, including longevity, where America is statistically ranked number one in the world. What is a fact is that American health care is the world’s most expensive. The single payer plans operating in Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, for example, are far less expensive and, in terms of the ratio between sickness and cure, also produce better results and greater longevity. Far too many people and businesses in America are feeding at the trough of America’s health care and they are prepared to defend their sources of income at any cost. Drug companies charge excessive rates for their drugs. This is defended on the basis of their need to spend millions of dollars on research and development. Fair enough, but why do they sell the same drugs to other nations of the world at a discounted rate? Does this not mean that the United States is being asked by the drug companies to subsidize their bottom line at the expense of US citizens? Do we assume that the drug makers do not make a profit in the price they receive from non-American companies? Trial lawyers also feed off their malpractice work by suing doctors, hospitals and health device makers? Yes, of course, mistakes occur in the practice of medicine, but they also occur in money management, investment advice, legal advice and environmental disasters. There is a difference, however, between calculated malfeasance and the mistakes of judgment when a choice is made between two therapeutic approaches, both of which have been known to work in the world of medicine. Medicine will never be an exact science, but is an unrestricted legal recourse always proper? When I served for 24 years as the chairman of the board and the chair of the executive committee of a 300-bed urban hospital in Jersey City, we worked with about 400 doctors. The vast majority of them were deeply conscientious, but none of them was perfect. There is a huge difference between making an informed judgment, based on the choices that are available to a doctor even when it does not work out and malfeasance or gross negligence. The courts should be able to make that discernment and laws should be passed putting caps on financial penalties doctors have to pay when the results are not positive. That step alone would lower the cost of medical insurance that doctors must carry and that savings could serve to lower the cost of medical care for individuals. Insurance companies are pressing hospitals and doctors to develop new efficiencies. That is why hospital stays have been shortened so dramatically. That is why no one enters a hospital on the day before surgery to be prepared; they enter early on the day of surgery. That is why elderly patients are moved from acute care in hospitals to chronic care in nursing home facilities. That is why same-day surgical centers have been built outside of hospital structures. That is why patient care is not nearly so personal and that in turn is why patient complaints are rising. Doctors today have hired more auxiliary staff and have delegated all specifically non-professional duties to them. We all have seen these things happening. I personally watched a close friend go through an orthopedic surgical procedure performed at a same day surgical center. This friend has thus far returned to her doctor’s office for three post-operative visits. I checked the actual time the doctor spent with this patient on these three visits. It was ten seconds on the first visit, fifteen seconds on the second and a full minute on the third. Non-medical personnel did everything else that once the doctor did. The competence of the care my friend received is not in dispute. The procedure was successful and the cure was complete. Such cuts in the doctor’s time are part of the price the public will pay for cost containment. It does, however, introduce a danger that patient care might become so streamlined as to be compromised in order to serve the doctor’s bottom line. The symbol I look for here is how long did the patient have to wait beyond the scheduled time of the appointment. In this orthopedic practice it was one hour and fifteen minutes on the first visit, forty-five minutes on the second and thirty-five minutes on the third. Others have confirmed to me that this is a regular occurrence in this orthopedic office. A second study revealed that efficiencies can be accomplished while still honoring each patient’s time. I have also watched a retina specialist, a single practitioner, who literally sees hundreds of patients each day. He has 5-6 examination rooms and he has employed five trained technicians who do everything in that office except inject the drug into the eyeball. This doctor spends about a minute, perhaps a minute and a half with each patient on each visit thus maximizing the number of patients he can see each day, but he and all who work for him seem trained to put the patient first. I have never waited more than fifteen minutes past the scheduled appointment time and more frequently go in exactly on time. The doctor, each of the technicians and even the receptionist are incredibly sensitive to each patient’s needs. That is a skill that does not require extra time. This doctor is also available and caring in his minute or so of presence. Medical practice can be more efficient and still be patient-sensitive. Doctors and patients need to understand why these cost cutting activities are necessary and seek to make them work. Medical care is evolving, but the political debate seldom focuses on the right issues. Have we not already decided that health care is a right of citizenship and not a luxury only for those who can afford it? Do we need to re-argue that issue? If that is clear then the debate ought to focus on how to accomplish that goal. There are only two possible alternatives. One is to develop a single payer, tax-supported system like the developed nations of the world with the single exception of the United States have done. The alternative is to develop a market-based nearly universal system which is what the Affordable Care Act was designed to achieve. There are no other options. The attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act, which was developed by the Heritage Foundation as a conservative alternative to a National Health Service, is irrational. The political need is to fix it not kill it. The debate will be dishonest until that fact is grasped. The opponents of the Affordable Care Act offer no “conservative” alternative because the Affordable Care Act is the conservative alternative. There is no other. It is time for honesty in this debate! ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Britton B. Dennis, Sr., via the Internet writes: Question: I am a Lay Eucharistic Minister in the Episcopal Church. When I read one of the lessons from scripture, I am instructed to say at the end of the reading: "This is the Word of the Lord." My preference actually would be to say: "Here ends the Reading" or “Here ends the Lesson." Any thoughts you have on this subject would be most appreciated. Answer: Dear Britton, I share your passion to change the way we end the scripture lessons that are read in church. Only someone who has never read the Bible in its entirety and who thus does not know its content, would want to refer to every reading from that book as “the Word of the Lord.” The book of Deuteronomy, for example, says that children who are willfully disobedient to their parents shall be stoned to death at the gates of the city. Is that the word of the Lord? Leviticus tells us that people who commit adultery, people who are homosexual and people who worship a false God shall be executed. Is that the word of the Lord? II Samuel suggests that God will cause the baby born out of an adulterous relationship to die as punishment for the adultery of the child’s parents! Is that the word of the Lord? The book of Psalms suggests that the people of Israel will not be happy until they have dashed the heads of their enemies’ children against the rocks. The Epistle to the Colossians instructs slaves to be obedient to their masters. Are these attitudes in compliance with “the Word of the Lord?” Paul writes that women should be silent in the churches and the author of I Timothy says: “I forbid a woman to have authority over a man.” Are we reading in these instances “the Word of the Lord?” Surely Not! These words are nothing less than expressions of the cultural sinfulness of patriarchy. To refer to all of the words of the Bible as “the Word of God” encourages a kind of ignorant fundamentalism that sucks the very life out of Christianity today. Other traditional, liturgical customs feed this same heresy. What are we as a church communicating to our congregations when we process into our Sunday services holding the Gospel Book high as if it is to be worshipped or adored? What are we communicating when the one reading the Gospel for that Sunday goes through all kinds of physical acts of crossing oneself or making crosses on the text of the Gospel before it is read? What are we communicating when we use incense on the Gospel Book so as to cover its words with a “mystical” smell? All of these practices suggest that it is the Gospel itself, rather than the God to whom the words of the Gospel point that is the object of worship. Even the long established custom of printing the Bible with two columns on each page is little more than subliminal propaganda. The only books we print in columns other than the Bible are dictionaries, encyclopedias and telephone directories. The thing that each of these columned books has in common is that no one is ever supposed to read them. We go to these books, rather, in search of answers to specific questions. All of these books give literal answers about which, the contention is, there should be no dispute. This custom of printing the Bible in a manner that no other book we read is printed feeds the attitude of the unchallengeable and thus the inerrant nature of the words contained on its pages, reflecting a form of idolatry that is called “bibliolatry.” Biblical literalism has plagued the church for centuries. It needs to be exposed for what it is. These “pious practices,” which we have so universally wrapped around the Bible, are not just, as their defenders claim, acts of devotion; they are rather practices rooted in the claims we have made for a fundamentalistic attitude toward the Bible. That attitude has had no credibility in Christian academic circles for at least the last 200 years. As this critical biblical scholarship finally begins to seep into the awareness of the people who attend our churches, we are at last able to see changes being made. The Anglican Prayer Book of New Zealand, for example, has the reader end the reading of the lesson by saying: “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.” I would be happy to see us return to the descriptive and therefore neutral words: “Here ends the reading” or “Here ends the lesson.” I have been in church when the phrase “This is the Word of the Lord,” has been uttered at the end of a strange passage from the Bible and it has been difficult for me not to scream out: “No, No! That is not the word of a deity that I would ever be drawn to in worship!” Propriety has thus far not been violated for which I am grateful! Before we can feel the weight of that issue, however, a consciousness about what the sacred scriptures are and knowledge about all that the Bible contains needs to be developed. That requires a rigorous program of adult education, which takes both time and hard work. Because institutional Christian churches, both Protestant and Catholic, have never really been interested in having an educated laity, that consciousness has been slow in developing. The “sheep” are supposed to be both dumb and quiet. Perhaps your letter will aid that process of consciousness growth and get others to think about these issues. Thanks for writing. John Shelby Spong Announcements Newly available from ProgressiveChristianity.org: The downloadable PDF Study Guide for the 8 Points By which we define Progressive Christianity. This Study Guide is for the third edition (2011) of the “8 Points” that have both identified and guided ProgressiveChristianity.org since the organization’s founding in 1994. It can be used for small group study, intentional communities, conferences, or any group who would like to delve more deeply into the history and the process of living out the core teachings of Jesus. There are discussion questions and space after each point for groups to come up with their own thoughts and ideas. The background material and the questions of this Study Guide were designed to stimulate conversation and to raise issues that might not otherwise come up. None of these materials are intended to make a final theological, Christological, or canonical argument. The last thing we would want to do is to tell anyone how he or she should believe or approach their faith. We simply offer this as a starting point to the conversation and we look forward to the continual evolution of our faith. The study guide includes The 8 Points Flyer, a Reflection Preface by Jim Burklo, an Introduction on What is Progressive Christianity by Gretta Vosper, and a Personal Note from the Author, by Fred Plumer. Each section has the 8 Point, a discussion about the point, discussion questions, and a space for notes. Click here for more information or to purchase. This study guide is also available in printed form here. .

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ICAI Winds and Waves Submission of Articles for April 2014 Issue
by ICA International 17 Mar '14

17 Mar '14

To read in your browser click here Reminder - We invite your submission of articles for the April 2014 edition of Winds and Waves Magazine. Dear colleagues, We do hope you have enjoyed reading past editions of Wind and Waves. We are constantly exploring how we can make this magazine more user friendly and accessible to as wide an audience as possible, and are delighted to have your suggestions. Wind & Waves will publish its next issue in April on the theme of "Networking" in all its old and and new manifestations, with stories from around the world! This is part of so much of our work these days. We cooperate with various groups in our projects. We make new contacts during facilitation programmes who then open doors for us. When we look at our daily calendar of tasks, we see how networking is intrinsic to our work. In the next issue, we would like to highlight the Who, How and the Benefits of networking - who we are networking with, how we are doing it and the benefits of networking. Could you contribute an article on this topic for this issue? What we need are reports and stories about the people and organisations that you are networking with, the breakthroughs that you have had, your learnings and insights, and your thoughts on future directions. As the magazine is still developing, we are open to a wide range of articles in terms of both content and style. Those that focus on this theme would be ideal but others are also welcome. Do you, or someone you know have a story that highlights networking or the synergy of connections? Please forward an invitation as appropriate to your networks. For more information on the various sections in the magazine and ideas on what and how to write, please go through the attached "Revised guidelines for W&W contributors, February 2014". NB We are happy to receive items in English and Spanish. If this assists, please be in touch specifically with Isabel or Catalina or Mané re this. The deadline for submission of articles is 28th March, 2014. We would like a heads up from you by 8th March or earlier on the following points: By 8th March, please let us know these details on the article you / other plan to write: a. Title.......... b. A summary in a couple of sentences (or just the first paragraph of the intended article)............ c. Estimated length............ d. The number of photos, if any, that will accompany the article.... e. Your name and author's name...... We would like input on the following sections of the magazine (please see the attached guidelines for more details) Contributions for: 1. Features Yes/ No 2. How-to tips Yes/ No 3. Book review Yes/ No 4. Interview Yes/ No 5. Photo essay Yes/ No 6. News Briefs Yes/ No 7. Whats On Yes/ No 8. Boardroom Yes/ No 9. Readers write Yes/ No Attachments: Please see copy of the guidelines. Please send all contributions to Isabel and Robyn With many thanks in anticipation, Robyn Hutchinson, Isabel de la Maza Contributions Coordinators, for the W&W team hutchinsonsydney13(a)gmail.com (please note my new email for W&W) isadelamaza(a)vtr.net If you did not receive a copy or notice of the last edition of the magazine, please contact: Peter Ellins: peter(a)icai-members.org; or Robyn Hutchinson: hutchinsonsydney13(a)gmail.com

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ICA Global Archives invitation from Marge Philbrook
by Timothy Wegner 14 Mar '14

14 Mar '14

ICA Global Archives Spring Sojourn Program April 28 - May 9, 2014 Come share in new opportunities to move the Global Archives to new levels of visibility. * Help find the historical ICA resources to back up a new statement on The Organizational Wisdom of the ICA (see the attached chart). * Participate in continued work with selected collections (see the attached collection diagram). * Help in the search for resources to back up select collections. * Assist with processing and scanning resources in preparation for digitalization. * Help with the audio visual resources inventory. Please respond to this e-mail with information or questions regarding your participation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- INVITATION FROM THE GLOBAL ARCHIVES First Name & Last Name: _________________________ Email Address:Telephone Number: _________________________ THE GLOBAL ARCHIVES SPRING SOJOURN APRIL 28 - MAY 9. I would like to be involved in some way during the sojourn. on site__________ or on-line___________ I would like to stay in a room on the 8th floor (single 30.00; double 45.00). Dates ______________ Return to Marge Philbrook <margephilbrook(a)gmail.com>

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3/13/14, Spong: Is the Jesus Story a Myth? Did a Man Named Jesus Ever Live?
by Ellie Stock 14 Mar '14

14 Mar '14

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Is the Jesus Story a Myth? Did a Man Named Jesus Ever Live? Recently in my parish church, St. Peter’s in Morristown, New Jersey, I completed a seven week-lecture series on Matthew’s version of Jesus’ birth. In those lectures I pointed to the elements that demonstrate conclusively to me that Matthew did not intend for this story to be read literally. This was not biology, biography or history. The most cursory reading of this text reveals that he used exaggerated, mythical signs, such as a star to broadcast this event to the entire world and magi who followed that star, which traveled so slowly that they could keep up with it. It included the portrait of Jesus’ earthly father, a man named Joseph, who was patterned after the patriarch Joseph in the book of Genesis. Since this Joseph did not enter the story of Jesus until Matthew wrote in the middle years of the ninth decade it seem probable that Joseph was not a figure of history at all, but a literary character of Matthew’s own creation. When people hear these things for the first time, different as they are from the Sunday school version they learned as children, they begin to question the historical accuracy of the entire gospel record. They wonder if the story of Jesus is itself a literary concoction. Indeed this was the first question asked by a member of the class as soon as the lectures were concluded. Judging by my mail that same question rises frequently in the minds of my readers. Recently, I received a whole packet of material from a man who identified himself as a “religious blogger.” In his letter, he suggested in a rather flattering way, that since I was clearly an “open religious leader,” I would surely be convinced of his thesis that a man named Jesus never lived, if I would just read the five excerpts from books that he had enclosed in his bulky envelope. He was quite sure that Jesus was a hoax. I looked at his excerpts with interest. The fact is I had already read most of the books from which these excerpts had been culled and which, he proclaimed, “proved” his thesis that the Jesus story was made up, presumably by some religious charlatans who were eager to carry out some vast and profitable religious scheme. I found the arguments in these books, however, to be neither feasible nor believable. Since this question seems to be of some interest, however, I thought it wise to devote an entire column to looking at it. So today I want to examine the evidence for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. How do we know that he ever lived? Could the entire Christ story simply be a fabrication, a composite of the mythologies of the ages? Serious questions like these, no matter how threatening, need to be seriously engaged. The idea that Jesus might have been created to serve a less than admiral agenda is not new in Christian history. The “form-critical” approach to the Bible has broken open the claims of the literalists, allowing these possibilities to arise. For some the idea that Jesus was a myth is not far removed from the paranoia that so often surrounds startling public events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 or the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. No matter how much evidence exists to debunk these conspiracy theories, they continue to attract a following of “true believers” in every generation. That in turn always seems to inspire someone either to write a book or to produce a motion picture based on “circumstantial evidence,” which they are convinced lends credibility to their conspiracy theories. These books and movies always purport to have the latest hot news or to be based on “newly-discovered” evidence. Though these books or movies have little intellectual creditability, still they continue to titillate the imaginations of this minority of susceptible people. The most popular of the “Jesus is a myth” theories proposes that Jesus was a literary character, created out of Egyptian mythology. This theory has been abroad for at least a generation. It was given a boost by a book written by two Englishmen, namely, Timothy Frete and Peter Gandy, entitled The Jesus Mysteries. It was widely advertised with such “hot” headlines as: “Jesus Never Lived!” This argument was then taken over and repackaged by an Anglican priest in Canada named Tom Harpur and published under the title: The Pagan Christ. Both books clearly had their runs, but then faded when the hype died down. I have read both books. They are exciting and well written narratives, but the evidence on which they make their cases was and is scanty and fragile. I do not believe that these arguments can be sustained, but both of these books do point to a truth that Christianity has been slow to admit, namely that a great deal of mythology does surround the church’s traditional portrait of Jesus. Angels breaking through the midnight sky to sing to shepherds is clearly a myth, so is his having been born without a human father. Jesus the miracle worker or Jesus being transfigured on a mountaintop while he speaks with the long dead Moses and Elijah are surely non-literal narratives. Earthquakes that occur both at the moment of his death and at his rising from the dead are obviously embellishments added to the story. There is much mythological content in the gospels that has been wrapped around the Jesus of history. By pretending though the centuries that these things are literal, supernatural events occurring within time and space, the Christian Church has opened itself to the challenge that Jesus himself might also have been a mythological creation. Historical evidence, however, argues strongly that there was something about this Jesus that was so powerful that it caused mythology to be developed around his life and then added to his memory. One obvious indicator of the presence of historical truth is found in the counter-intuitive nature of parts of the Jesus story. Look first at the name by which Jesus was known in the gospels – “Jesus of Nazareth.” Mythological heroes would not have had their roots in a dirty, insignificant little village in rural Galilee. “Nothing good can come out of Nazareth,” it was said, but Jesus did. The Bethlehem birth story of Jesus was a later 9th decade attempt to give Jesus a more prominent place of origin! Nazareth thus has about it a historical ring of authenticity. If one is going to create a hero out of whole cloth one would not have him hail from Nazareth. Second, the biblical record says that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. That fact clearly bothered the early Christians because it appeared to compromise Jesus’ priority over John and thus his claim to divinity. That is why there is such a deliberate effort in the gospels to downgrade John, reaching its crescendo in Luke’s gospel when the fetus of John the Baptist is made to salute the fetus of Jesus. Third, the crucifixion story is told in every gospel. An executed Jew for whom messianic claims were being made was not part of Jewish expectations. This violation of the expected norm witnesses to the historicity of the crucifixion. Myths are not built on negative data. Beyond these counter-intuitive pointers to historical reality, we next look at the time dimensions in the Christian story. The crucifixion is generally dated around the year 30 CE. The conversion of Paul is dated no earlier than one year and no later that six years after the crucifixion, which would mean that Paul’s conversion occurred between the years 31 and 36 CE. We have an authentic letter from Paul (Galatians) in which he describes autobiographically exactly what he did following his conversion. He tells us that first he went to Arabia for three years. When we add those years into our chronology, we arrive at somewhere between 34 to 39 CE. Then Paul says he went to Jerusalem where he visited “with Peter and James, the Lord’s brother.” So, four years at the earliest and nine years at the latest after his conversion, Paul is in touch with those who were intimately involved with the Jesus of history. Galatians was probably written in 51 CE or 21 years after the crucifixion. Four times in that epistle, Paul refers to Jesus as one who had been “crucified.” I submit to you that this is a time span far too short for a full blown conspiracy mythology to be developed. There, I believe, is a better way than invented mythology for us to understand the claims that are made for Jesus by his disciples in the gospels. Those claims were the products of the interpretation of Jesus in the synagogues using their scriptures, their liturgical practices and their messianic images. This processing work is what appears in the gospels when they are written 40-70 years after his crucifixion. While Paul’s authentic epistles are the work of a first generation Christian, the gospels are the products of the second and third generations of Christians, which is still too short a period of time for a full scale mythological, conspiratorial view of Jesus to have been developed. Memory is not detached from reality that quickly. I outlined in far greater detail than I can convey here the nature and content of the synagogue process that interpreted Jesus of Nazareth in what is still my favorite book: Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes. So my conclusion is clear. Jesus was a figure of history, who lived between the years ca. 4 BCE and 30 CE. He was in fact crucified by the Romans under the rule of Pontius Pilate, who served as Procurator of Judea between 26 CE and 36 CE. Jesus was first interpreted in the synagogue by his followers, who wrapped the Jewish scriptures around him. As the years passed and Christianity began its journey out of its Jewish womb and into the Gentile-thinking world, other mythological images began to be applied to him. By 150 CE there were almost no Jews left in the Christian movement and so the followers of Jesus no longer recognized the Jewish background of the stories of Jesus because they were simply unaware of it. At that time Egyptian, Greek and Roman elements were added to the story. Those who suggest that there is no historical substance to the Jesus story simply do not understand the impact that this life had on the Jewish population. It is simply naïve to suggest that there is no person of history behind the images of the ages that we still tend to literalize. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Cynthia Mora of Middletown, Pa. asks: Question: “How do you stay healthy and do you think your study is related to your health?” Answer: Dear Cynthia, Thank you for your question and your assumption that I am healthy! I am glad that you think it shows! I feel healthy, I am very active and I love life, but I am also aware that life moves unceasingly toward its inexorable end. My desire is to burn out still loving every minute of life that I am granted, rather than to rust out and limp somewhat pathetically toward the finish line. We do not always have that choice, but that is at least my desire. I have a deep appreciation for both life and health. My father died at age 54, his father died at 54 and his brother died at 49. I did not grow up with expectations of longevity. My father, however, got no exercise, weighed 220 pounds on a 5’9” frame, smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and drank alcohol excessively. His father died in the post-World War I influenza epidemic and his brother died as the result of an automobile accident. So the lack of longevity in their cases had extenuating circumstances. I will be 83 years old in a few more months and am grateful for every year granted to me. I have always enjoyed exercise. Earlier in my life it was golf; later, I turned to squash and tennis, because they took less time, and still later to jogging and hiking. I still do about four miles a day, mostly on my treadmill, which is in my study and library on the first floor of our home. That takes me between an hour and an hour and 15 minutes (it seems to take a little longer as I grow older). People tell me they stopped using their treadmill or exercise bike because it was so boring! Not so for me. Not only do I look out on our beautiful wooded backyard with our bird feeder attracting interesting varieties of birds each day, but I also have a DVD set up to engage my mind. On that DVD I take university courses through the good offices of the Teaching Company. I take every course I can get my hands on, but mostly on subjects with which I have no scholarly background like physics, astrophysics, biology and evolution. One of my daughters has a PhD in physics from Stanford and I like to be able to converse with her. I also have CD books on history, politics and biography in my reading program. I don’t usually read fiction, but I will take a university course on Shakespeare, the Victorian novel and even a series of lectures that serves to introduce me to someone’s conception of the fifty greatest novels in the English language. I take every philosophy course I can find and love putting together the forces that produced the great turning points in Western thought from Copernicus through Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein to someone like Stephen Hawking. I have also become a devotee of a professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, whom I have never met. His name is Robert Greenberg. He is a master teacher, perhaps the best I have ever heard. He is also a native of New Jersey! He has educated me in opera (I have just finished a study of Puccini’s Turandot), to say nothing of the life and works of J. S. Bach, the great symphonies of Beethoven, the piano concertos of Mozart and the works of such favorites of mine as Mahler and Dvorak. His introductory course entitled, “How to Listen to and Enjoy Great Music” was fantastic. What really serves to get me up early each morning to go to my treadmill is that I cannot wait to get back to my DVD or CD and my continuing education. Someday I hope to qualify as an educated man. When that early and exciting first hour of the day is complete, I go immediately to my desk in the same room and then I begin my professional study. I focus on one major area at a time. At this moment it is Matthew’s gospel. Since the beginning of 2013, I have read six major commentaries on Matthew. My two favorites thus far are Michael Goulder’s Midrash and Lection in Matthew and Amy-Jill Levine’s book of essays on Matthew’s gospel from a Jewish and feminist perspective. I also spend some of that time each day preparing the lectures that I am privileged to deliver each year (normally between 100 and 125) and the sermons that I am invited to preach. Some of that time also goes to the preparation and writing of this weekly column and the question and answer feature that is associated with it. I do not normally come out of my study until about 11 a.m., when I go up for coffee, juice, a bagel and to read the New York Times, my favorite newspaper. By 1 p.m. I am ready to run the necessary errands to the grocer, the bank, the library, the barber and a variety of doctor and dentist appointments that seem to punctuate our lives. None of these doctor’s appointments are about serious health issues, but more about health maintenance. The fact is that I also enjoy the company of every one of my doctors. The afternoon is spent with correspondence, editing and reading books that I have agreed to review or to endorse. About 5 p.m. I go to our kitchen to prepare dinner for my wife and me. I have become the chief cook in our family and we basically have only one meal a day together and that is in the evening. I find cooking a pleasure and a time of relaxation, but I am not above listening to a book on a CD being read to me as I cook (at this moment I am working though a series of 36 lectures on pre-Christian religion in those parts of the world around the Mediterranean Sea). Our diet is rather simple, we eat very little red meat, lots of vegetables and Christine, my very wonderful English wife, does not think that any meal is complete without a potato in some form. I also bake biscuits and make corn muffins regularly. We love salads and New Jersey corn and tomatoes when they are in season. We hardly ever have formal desserts unless we are entertaining and then I like to bake pies best of all. My favorite pies are combinations: apple-blackberry, strawberry-rhubarb and nectarine- raspberry. My favorite cakes are applesauce and pineapple upside down; both of which are made from recipes that once belonged to my mother. Most evenings we eat together, watch the news on PBS and talk. We go out for dinner to or with friends perhaps twice a month. We specially love to have friends from our church over for dinner or Sunday brunch. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown is a very important community for both of us. We are away from home about 50% of the time speaking in some part of the United States or abroad, so all of these patterns get adapted, but not abandoned on these trips. >From April to October, the New York Yankees draw me inexorably to the television screen each evening. Am I addicted to the Yankees? Well let me say that if I could see every game in the 162 game season I would. I find the time between the end of the World Series and the beginning of spring training to be an eternity! Earlier in my life, I was a radio play-by-play announcer, broadcasting for my listening audience football, basketball and baseball games. I was known as “the Voice of the Tigers” and was sponsored by “Wink, that Sassy Drink” and “Happy Dan, the TV Man.” These three sports are in my DNA, but baseball is by far number one. The fact is I love my life, I love my family, I love my career, I love studying and writing and I love my church. Do those things increase my longevity? I do not know. I do know that these things make the years that I do have wonderful years. I’ve probably told you more than you want to know, but I have enjoyed it and I thank you for asking. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements "It was fascinating for me...to explore the scriptures from these perspectives by journeying through the entire biblical landscape from Genesis to Revelation. That enabled me with both integrity and conviction to challenge the literal assumptions of the past and to open the biblical story to new levels of understanding that I believe are profoundly real." ~ Bishop John Shelby Spong

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A Book of Interest
by Wilson Priscilla 11 Mar '14

11 Mar '14

Some of you have indicated an interest in the book Kaze and I have been working on for the past five or six years. If you aren't interested you can delete this now. In any case...Everyday Wonder is finally published and available. Amazon.com is carrying it...soon we'll have other venues. One already is Bruce Smith Drugs in Prairie Village, KS Check us out on Facebook ...or www.teamtechpress.com Or this flyer may interest you: Priscilla H Wilson Prairie Village, KS Pris(a)TeamTechPress.com www.teamtechpress.com

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3/06/14, Spong: Part XVI Matthew - Did Jesus Teach Us to Pray the Lord's Prayer?
by Ellie Stock 07 Mar '14

07 Mar '14

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Part XVI Matthew Did Jesus Teach Us to Pray the Lord's Prayer? If it is true, as I have suggested, that Jesus never preached the Sermon on the Mount then we immediately have to face other startling implications. That conclusion would raise questions about the authenticity of “The Lord’s Prayer,” which is first introduced into the developing Christian tradition in Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount. If the Lord’s Prayer turns out to be Matthew’s creation, would it still be proper for us to say: “And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say,” which are the words by which this prayer is liturgically introduced? So we turn now to look at the Lord’s Prayer. I begin with some facts. There is no mention of a prayer taught to the disciples by Jesus in any Christian writing before Matthew introduces it in the 9th decade. If this prayer carried the imprimatur of Jesus himself, would his followers have gone that long ignoring this directive? Paul, who wrote all of his epistles between the years 51 and 64, never alludes to what we call today “the Lord’s Prayer.” If the claim made for this prayer that it came directly from Jesus were historically accurate, would Paul have declined to reference it in any way? These questions become even more provocative when we recognize that Mark, the earliest gospel, usually dated about 72 CE and on which Matthew leaned so heavily, also does not include any reference to this prayer. To make this biblical analysis complete we need to note that when John, the last gospel to be written, appeared near the end if the first century, there was once again no reference to a prayer that Jesus had taught his disciples to pray. Did this final gospel writer do this because he knew it was not authentic? Most people are simply not aware of these biblical facts. In Matthew’s gospel, the Lord’s Prayer is introduced as part of his commentary on the Fourth Beatitude: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied.” For the Jews “righteousness” was a synonym for God’s kingdom. To “hunger for righteousness,” therefore, meant to hunger for the coming of the kingdom of God. That identification would be one with which the Jews were thoroughly familiar. The prophet Isaiah referred to Israel as “God’s Vineyard,” where “righteousness,” that is God’s kingdom, is to be established. Later this same prophet writes: “God shows himself present and holy” in the manifestation of “righteousness.” Matthew first introduces the word “righteousness” in his story of Jesus’ baptism. John, viewing himself as secondary to Jesus, objects to his baptizing Jesus saying: “I have need to be baptized of you.” Jesus responds to this by saying that his baptism is a necessary step in “fulfilling all righteousness,” that is, as a means of establishing the kingdom of God. Later, but still in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew portrays Jesus as exhorting his followers not to be anxious about what they are to eat, to drink or to wear, insisting that they spend their every moment seeking God’s kingdom and its “righteousness.” “Righteousness” is a word that the deeply Jewish Paul uses frequently and every time he uses it, it refers to the kingdom of God. So when Matthew has Jesus say: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,” he is referring to those who live in anticipation of the kingdom of God and who prepare themselves for that kingdoms arrival by fasting, praying and studying the Torah. In Matthew’s mind the kingdom is present and becomes visible when God’s righteousness is lived out or when God’s presence is seen in human life. The earliest Christian prayer recorded in the New Testament is not the Lord’s Prayer, but a prayer for Jesus to come again. Paul closes the first epistle to the Corinthians with the words, “Our Lord, come.” The book of Revelation ends with Jesus promising to come soon and the prayer of the people in response is “Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus.” It is with this understanding that Matthew introduces the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount along with a discussion on prayer itself. The Lord’s Prayer thus serves as an example of the things about which he has been speaking. Matthew has Jesus begin by describing the proper prayer attitude. Jesus is portrayed as exhorting his followers to observe a proper tradition when praying. Prayers for the kingdom are not to be done for show, so they should not be uttered on street corners, but in the privacy of one’s own room. Prayer should not be the stringing together of pious phrases and empty words. God, Jesus reminds his hearers in the Sermon, knows their needs before they ask. Prayer is thus not the activity of reminding God as to what it is that God can do for you. That is when in the Sermon Matthew has Jesus say “Pray then like this” and the words of the Lord’s Prayer follow. It is quite clearly a prayer for the kingdom of God to come in human history. This prayer begins by addressing itself to the One who is beyond all limits, for that is what “heaven” means. Heaven for the Jews was never a “place” located above the sky, but an expression of the limitlessness of God. God’s kingdom is not a physical realm, but an experience of God’s presence, a moment in which the life of God becomes visible in another. This prayer then moves on to express our yearning to be sustained until that day when the kingdom arrives. “Give us this day our daily bread” and “do not bring us to the test” or into temptation that we can not overcome lest we miss the kingdom’s arrival. In this prayer Jesus has been cast in the role of the messiah who inaugurates that kingdom, which is an understanding of Jesus that surely was not fully worked out until well after the defining experience of crucifixion and resurrection, through which the followers of Jesus had to walk Thus it becomes obvious that the Lord’s Prayer was a prayer developed by the church, the followers of Jesus, after they came to the conclusion that in his life they had seen divinity through the lens of the human and they had seen life overcoming death. Jesus was thus a glimpse of what the kingdom of God was like, but it would not be known in all its fullness until Jesus came again at the end of the age. So what we call the Lord’s Prayer was created as a prayer to be prayed by those who lived between the first coming of Jesus, when the kingdom was glimpsed and his second coming, when God’s kingdom would be established in all its fullness. To complete the biblical analysis of the prayer we call the Lord’s Prayer we need to recognize that there is a second version of this prayer in the gospel of Luke. It is recognizably similar, but not identical. It is shorter and a bit truncated. It reads as follows: “Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation.” That is Luke’s version in its entirety. When we confront these two obviously similar, but not identical versions of the same prayer we are driven back once again into the debate about the Q hypothesis. Do these two versions of the Lord’s Prayer reflect a common tradition that would have been present in an earlier, now lost source of Jesus’ sayings to which both Matthew and Luke had access? Or is Luke editing out the deeply Jewish elements of this prayer, which he had acquired from Matthew, in order to appeal to his more cosmopolitan and less Jewish audience? Increasingly I am convinced it is the latter. Luke’s community was made up primarily of dispersed Jews, who were increasingly adapting to a Gentile world, along with Gentile proselytes, who had been drawn to the non-cultic, ethical monotheism of Judaism. They would have had little interest in Matthew’s rendering of the Sermon on the Mount, which was written to give Christian content to the Jewish festival of Shavuot, the 24 hour vigil ceremony designed to recall Moses on Mt. Sinai receiving the Torah as God’s greatest gift to the Jewish people. Luke reflected a later and far more Gentile phase of the life of the Christian Church. He understood God’s greatest gift to God’s people to be, not the Torah which the Jews celebrated fifty days after Passover at their Pentecost, but the coming of the Holy Spirit and the growth of the Christian Church which the Christians celebrated fifty days after Easter at their Pentecost. For Luke it was the growth of Christianity not the second coming of Jesus that would be the means by which the Kingdom of God was to arrive on earth. So Luke has edited out the cultic elements of Matthew’s gospel and he adapted the Lord’s Prayer to fit his understanding and his circumstances. It is worth noting that the Fourth Gospel, written even later than Luke, is quite specific in stating that when the raised Christ breathed the Holy Spirit on his disciples on the evening of Easter Day that this was the “second coming” of Jesus. Perhaps that is why the Lord’s Prayer does not appear in the Fourth Gospel since a prayer for God’s Kingdom to come did not seem appropriate after the Holy Spirit had already come at Christian Pentecost. So if Jesus never composed the prayer we call “The Lord’s Prayer” and did not enjoin these words on his disciples, does this prayer then have no value for us? That is not our conclusion, but it does mean that this prayer must be understood in an entirely different way. “Our Father who art in heaven” means that God cannot be limited by human creeds, doctrines or dogmas. It means that we must seek to define the holy beyond the theistic definitions we have for so long used uncritically. “Hallowed be thy name” means that the ultimate, the holy, the mystical, the ineffable can never be captured in human words. “Thy Kingdom come” means that our eyes must be trained to see the divine inside the human. It means that the kingdom of God comes when we are empowered to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that we are capable of being. It means that the work of the kingdom of God is the work of enhancing human wholeness that occurs when the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap and the mute sing and when all demeaning human prejudices die. That is when the kingdom of God dawns and when God’s righteousness is revealed. So we pray – Come, Lord Jesus, establish the realm of God in each one of us. Show us what it means to be human and what it means to be Christian for they are one and the same. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Brent Owens via the Internet writes: Question: I've recently been reading Why Christianity Must Change or Die and listening to some interviews with you online. I wonder if you would be willing to help me with a rather burning question. Let me first give you a little contextual information if I may. I'm from South Carolina, a small town called Landrum, which is very close to where you came of age, so I know that you are familiar with the religious background that is prevalent in the area. I've even heard you speak on it. I grew up in a Southern Baptist family, attending church three times a week throughout my childhood and youth. I moved to New York about nine years ago and have since been pursuing a career as an artist. I love the tradition that I came from and celebrate it in my work and life, but I have some serious troubles with parts of it and they have recently become amplified, hence my search into your work and the work of others. I became a born-again Christian pretty early, at age nine I think, and at first I have to admit that I just thought it was a good thing to do. As I learned more about what all of this meant, I had trouble with the idea that my religion was the only right one and that a lot of other people who did not agree with my religion were, therefore, going to burn in hell. I decided to trust my parents on this one. After all, they did pretty well by me in most other regards. Hell was a very strong part of the doctrine of my church-you know fire and brimstone as preached about in the Bible belt. I have always struggled with the idea that any one religion could be the only correct one and that we, as Christians, might be lucky enough to be in the right and the all others were simply wrong. In my studies and my thinking over the years, I have come to think that a broader view of the world is necessary and have even logically arrived at some places that have nothing at all to do with good and evil. It seemed to me that God must be bigger than the understanding that was hammered into me as a child. So I was torn between what I thought, what made sense to me and what I was taught. I have largely avoided serious religious thinking for most of the past decade, but because of the death of a friend of mine back in November it has come back to the fore. Whatever got the ball rolling, I found myself obsessing about it. There was actually one event that really set it off though. I was driving with my fiancée, now my wife, down to the Carolinas to visit for Christmas. I was describing to her that I didn’t think that I believed in the Christian tradition that I was once taught. I was thinking of myself as one who leaves the faith, but with no animosity. I explained to her that I thought my anxieties were the result of seeking to leave a culture of hysteria. Still, I was struggling with the idea of hell. She asked me what I thought hell was, how I would describe it (she doesn’t believe in hell by the way). I went into a full-on panic attack for the first time. It was accompanied by a disembodied sensation and difficulty in concentrating. I was just trying to re-center myself when we stopped for dinner and it lasted for hours. For many months after this, I was obsessed with the topic. I’ve done a good bit of reading on it as I try to wrap my head around it. I’ve calmed down now, but the questions still nag. I’ve read some beautiful understanding Christianity and other systems of belief. Somehow I’m still very worried about hell. It’s as if it’s planted there. I’ve heard you say that hell is an invention of the Christian Church, which continues to perpetuate it. I would very much like to believe that hell is not a reality, but a tool designed to control. I can’t really identify at what point in the early development of Christianity that hell was inserted into the dogma. I know that it wasn’t part of the Old Testament thinking (at least in an eternal suffering kind of way). What I’m asking is how can I be confident that hell is an invention of human beings and not of God? I know that concepts of hell abounded before Christianity so I guess I’m not asking who invented it as much as who inserted it into the dogma and when? Answer: Dear Brent, Thank you for your letter and for the honest telling of your story. I apologize for what well-meaning, but profoundly ignorant people have done to you in the name of Jesus. You are not the only one. I have a close friend, who lives in Highlands, North Carolina named Ray McPhail, who is a very successful builder and developer, as well as a university-educated man, but he is still so troubled by the threat and the fear of hell that even in the mature years of a very creative life he still shudders at the concept of hell. He also does not attend church, except for discussion groups because he simply does not want to endure the terror that some of the words the church uses in liturgy elicit for him. If one takes seriously Jesus’ stated purpose, as it appears in the Fourth Gospel, “to give life and give it abundantly,” one realizes just how distorted Christianity has become for so many. To deal with your question, there is no consistent view of hell in either the Old Testament or in the New Testament. The Old Testament is almost devoid of any concept of hell. There is talk of Sheol, but it is a shadowy place of the dead to which all go with no sense of either reward or punishment. Paul, the first writer in the New Testament, and strangely enough his writings are devoid of “hell talk.” He rather contrasts life in Christ with no life at all, not with some form of eternal punishment. Matthew’s gospel and the book of Revelation are the primary sources of the fires of hell in the New Testament. John sees heaven as a mystical union between the believer and Christ and speaks of that relationship after the analogy of a branch relating to a vine. In John’s gospel there is almost no mention of eternal punishment. I’m certain the fires of hell began as an analogy. The Valley of Hinnom was an unpleasant place in Judea into which refuse was regularly dumped and so the fires that consumed this garbage were always being fed and thus were never extinguished. When one was asked to describe what it is like to be apart from God, the answer was that it must be at least as bad as spending eternity in the Valley of Hinnom. Once the analogy was made, the literal minds did the rest. The Valley of Hinnom became Gehenna and finally hell. The Christian Church leaped on this concept as a way to control behavior through fear and stoked the fires of hell regularly. In time, they even developed different sections in the afterlife, which served to moderate the eternal punishment. That was when Limbo for noble pagans, Limbo for unbaptized babies and finally Purgatory, where punishment was real but not eternal, came into being. When one had been sufficiently punished in Purgatory, then he or she was admitted to heaven. The Christian faith has as its purpose the calling and empowering of its adherents to become whole - to be all that each of us was meant to be. Religion on the other hand has been designed to control life, usually through fear, for the good of both church and society as religion understands both. Over the years Christianity has been corrupted into being a religion. Christianity is a faith to be lived. Religion is a method designed to control. Hell has long ago died as a force in our secular society; but it still needs to die in our churches. A God who would condemn anyone for time-bound misdeeds with eternal flames is not worthy of anyone’s worship. You appear on rational levels to understand these things, but you also appear to be emotionally bound to them. You need to open your emotion to healing. That takes time, but you have clearly already begun that process. Being afraid of God is a sign of inadequate healing. I hope you will continue your journey toward wholeness. I also hope that you will discover that Christianity is quite different from the horror and fear with which it was communicated to you in your childhood by sincere, but uninformed people. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements Bishop Spong delivers many public lectures each year throughout the world. Click here for the 2014 Calendar!

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Global Buzz March 2014
by ICA International 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

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 March issue of the Global Buzz Global Buzz Report: March 2014 or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://ica-international.org/buzz/7dayreport-14/2014-03-01.php ICAI Communications

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"Journey Reflection" February 2014 Top-viewed Blog Posts
by Lynda Cock 28 Feb '14

28 Feb '14

Friends, colleagues, and relatives, At this link now are the 16 top-viewed of 85 blog posts of <http://rejourney.blogspot.com/2014/02/journey-reflection-blog-review-februa ry.html> February 2014. As always, thank you for quote suggestions, comments, and for forwarding blog posts (even this e-mail) to others. Journey on, Lynda and John P.S. On March 7, we will celebrate the anniversary of the awe-filled day of losing c. 2,300 images/pics. We are not finished restoring/updating those images and posts, but trust we can be caught up by John's December birthday. >Blog: "Journey Reflection" main link ... Google or Google Plus: <http://www.rejourney.blogspot.com/> www.reJourney.blogspot.com >Web Page: <http://www.transcribebooks.com/> www.transcribebooks.com >Books: <https://www.amazon.com/author/johnpcock> https://www.amazon.com/author/johnpcock

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2/27/14, Spong: Part XV- Matthew: Understanding the Sermon on the Mount: Conclusion
by Ellie Stock 27 Feb '14

27 Feb '14

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Part XV- Matthew Understanding the Sermon on the Mount: Conclusion Jesus never preached the Sermon on the Mount! That needs to be said again and again until it is embraced as a fact. The Sermon on the Mount was composed by the author of Matthew’s gospel in order to fill out his interpretive portrait of Jesus, not only as the messiah, but also as the expected prophet of whom Moses spoke and even one who was thought to have relived the life of Moses. This suggestion will be startling to some, which is why I have been so deliberate in developing the background material. Biblical ignorance is not a virtue, especially when the background material that I have cited has been known in the world of biblical scholarship for at least the last 200 years. The facts supporting these ideas are plentiful. Nowhere else in the New Testament was Jesus ever said to have preached the Sermon on the Mount. If, as Matthew suggests, it was such a climactic moment in Jesus’ life, does it not seem strange that this event did not make an indelible impression on anyone else in the developing Christian tradition? Paul, Mark, Luke and John never mention it. In fairness, let me say that some of the material included in Matthew’s version of the Sermon on the Mount is also included in Luke as part of Jesus’ preaching on the plains, but it is not nearly so beautifully set forth or dramatic. Luke’s Beatitudes, for example, are shortened to four and are accompanied by a series of four woes, portraying neither the grandeur nor the depth of Matthew’s sermon. Indeed, it appears to be derivative. Some scholars adhere to what is known as “the Q hypothesis.” They believe that both Luke and Matthew had an additional, now lost, common source other than Mark, which they have called “Quella,” the German word for “source,” which was quickly abbreviated to Q. Q, they argue, contained a number of the sayings of Jesus and is used to explain the similarities between Matthew and Luke that are not derived from Mark. Other scholars who deny the Q hypothesis, and I am increasingly one of them, argue that what has been called “the Q material” is really Matthew’s midrashic adaptations written on the text of Mark, and that Luke had both Mark and Matthew before him when he wrote his gospel. Thus Luke incorporated into his gospel some of Matthew’s adaptations and additions to Mark. This, rather than a speculative, now lost document, would account for the sometimes almost identical non-Marcan passages found in both Matthew and Luke. This would mean that Q is nothing but Matthew’s adaptations to Mark, which were then incorporated into Luke. The Q hypothesis has been a standard assumption of New Testament scholars for at least the last 150 years, but I find a theory based on a lost document to be a rather weak argument and I am delighted to see confidence in the Q hypothesis begin to wane, although that waning is more obvious among scholars in the United Kingdom than it is among scholars in the United States. In the Jesus Seminar, a scholarly think tank made up primarily of American scripture scholars, the Q hypothesis has achieved the status of an almost unchallenged dogma. In that body I was a lonely voice of one, who was never convinced of the accuracy of the Q hypothesis despite the complete confidence of the Seminar’s other fellows in it. My reasons for this skepticism are located in the Jewishness of the gospels in general and the Jewishness of Matthew’s gospel in particular. The Sermon on the Mount is the cornerstone of my dismissal of the Q hypothesis The more one understands that the organizing principle behind each of the three synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) is not the remembered life of Jesus, but the pattern of synagogue worship in which the Jesus story was told and retold during the first two to three generations of Christianity’s life, the less need one has for the existence of a lost source called Q. As we look at the Sermon on the Mount from a Jewish perspective, the more this Jewish liturgical background becomes both apparent and appealing. Indeed the relationship between the Sermon on the Mount and the festival observance of Shavuot is only the first of these connections, which I will set opposite one another as we walk through the rest of Matthew’s gospel. It is on these connections that in my mind the necessity for the Q hypothesis disappears. What the Sermon on the Mount is to Shavuot the crucifixion will be to Passover, and between those two great celebrations Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, and Dedication will all be related to significant and appropriate Jesus stories. In this analysis, literalism as a viable way of reading the gospels will quite simply die and we will begin to see new dimensions in the Christ portrayal, which will enable us to lay a new claim on our faith story. To begin this process we must make sure that the connection between the Sermon on the Mount and the celebration of Shavuot is clear. If you notice that I am repeating some ideas from the column last week, be assured that it is on purpose. New ideas have to be repeated until they find permanent lodging in our minds. Shavuot, as noted previously, is a festival coming 50 days after Passover and observed in the synagogue with a 24 hour vigil. For this vigil Psalm 119, the longest Psalm in the Psalter was specifically written. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is modeled on that psalm. Psalm 119 provides a psalm reading for the eight segments of the 24 hour vigil. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount reflects this psalm in many ways. It too is divided into eight segments. In Matthew’s introduction to the Sermon on the Mount he frames eight verses in such a way that each begins with the word “Blessed,” causing these verses to be named “the Beatitudes.” In the introduction to Psalm 119 two of the eight verses begin with the word “Blessed.” Matthew’s sermon is then made up of eight commentaries on each of the eight Beatitudes, but he will do these commentaries in reverse order; that is, his first commentary is on the eighth Beatitude and his last commentary is on the first Beatitude. Psalm 119 in its entirety is a hymn to the beauty and wonder of the Law, the Torah. Among its words are these: “Blessed are those who walk in the law (the Torah) of the Lord.” “Let me not wander from your commandments (your Torah).” “Blessed are thou, O Lord; teach me your statutes (your Torah).” “I am a sojourner on earth; hide not your commandments (your Torah) from me.” “I will run in the way of your commandments (Torah) when you enlarge my understanding.” We could continue this kind of quotation with many, many references out of that Psalm’s text. Psalm 119 was clearly created to serve the liturgical needs of the synagogue during Shavuot’s 24 hour vigil. Both Matthew and his readers would know this and would recognize that the Sermon on the Mount was patterned after Psalm 119, the psalm of Shavuot. It was not a foreign practice for the Jews at the great celebrations of their liturgical life to read the biblical passages that tell the story behind the celebration each year. Liturgy is, after all, the act of recalling the historical moments in a nation’s sacred history. The book of Esther had been written to be read at the Feast of Purim, to celebrate the deliverance of the Jews from genocide in the days of the Persians. The book of Lamentations had been written for the Ninth of Ab, the day when the Jews recalled the destruction of the Temple at the hands of the Babylonians. The basis of the celebration of Shavuot would be the Sinai story from the book of Exodus in which the Torah was given to Moses, so this was the Torah lesson that was always read at this celebration. Before we can understand the Sermon on the Mount we must understand its Jewish antecedents. The Torah began with the Ten Commandments and Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount touches on each of the Ten, some quite overtly, but not missing any of them. Matthew’s readers would also recognize how the Sermon on the Mount was modeled on Psalm 119, the Psalm of Shavuot. That was how they understood Matthew’s gospel. From about 150 CE on, however, the Christian Church became a Gentile movement, so the Jewish background to the gospel’s Jesus stories was unknown. More than that there was an active and virulent anti-Jewish prejudice that was operating in this Gentile Church. So it was that the Jewish meaning behind the gospel stories was lost. That meant that for the next 2000 or so years of Christian history the only people who read, studied, taught or wrote commentaries on the gospels were Gentiles who were ignorant of and prejudiced against their original Jewish frame of reference. In that process symbolic Jewish stories were read as if they were literal history. Biblical literalism is at its heart a Gentile heresy, born in the ignorance of the Jewish background to the gospels. To recover the essential meaning of our own gospels we must learn to read them through a Jewish lens or with Jewish eyes. We must understand the Jewish context in which and for which the various segments of the synoptic gospels were written. We must be able to identify what I call the “Gentile Captivity of the Christian Story.” It was in the service of Gentile ignorance that Christians were taught first that the Bible must be understood literally; later it was the 4th century Christians were taught that the creeds had to be believed literally, and finally in the 13th century Christians were taught that worship forms were handed down from on high and were, therefore, not subject to change. The future of Christianity depends on breaking this stranglehold of imposed literalism, based on Gentile ignorance of Christianity’s Jewish roots and origins. I seek to counter the ignorance of literalism week by week in this study of Matthew’s Gospel. It is the celebration of Shavuot that makes the Sermon on the Mount what it is– deeply true, but not literal history. Stay tuned! The narrative becomes more and more exciting as its organizing secret is revealed. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Carla Wehler from Spicer, Arizona, writes: Question: I consider myself to be a supportive follower of Progressive Christianity (PC), whose own spiritual beliefs closely parallel what is being espoused by leaders such as you in the movement to interpret the Bible in a way that is rational, scientific, contemporary, and not given to so much blind-sighted literalism. My exposure to PC includes having read all of your Question and Answer weeklies since you started them some years ago, frequently reading the contents of the Progressive Christianity.org web site and having started to read some of your welcomed books. You have made reference to many church congregations today not being exposed by their seminary-educated pastors to current and recent (the past 100 years or more) biblical knowledge that is based on scholarly agreement or consensus. I have heard and read of you mentioning a child-like, Sunday school level of understanding of the Bible on the part of many adult churchgoers who often do not see underneath or beyond the literal word. To borrow a now somewhat dated set of words, I assert that you are “right on.” I had a brother-in-law who was an ELCA seminary graduate and pastor and I know that seminaries could be placed on a continuum or range scale from conservative to liberal or some other defining set of words. It troubles me that certain conservative/fundamental/evangelical seminaries continue to promote belief and thinking going back to the third or fourth century CE. Does the problem of withholding more revealing scholarship to congregants lie primarily with the seminaries, the graduates of the seminaries, or both? Answer: Dear Carla, The issue is, I believe, more complex than you suggest. It has to do with our human security needs, with economic realities, with the audience to which the seminaries are responsible and with the quality of the candidates for ordination themselves. First, let me suggest that rethinking ancient religious symbols, scriptures and creeds in the light of contemporary knowledge raises human anxiety levels significantly. Most people wrap their security needs inside their religious convictions. When the truth that is claimed in our religious convictions is questioned, the anxiety that was born in the moment of our achieving human self-consciousness takes over. It is also the fact of self-consciousness that forces us human beings to raise questions of meaning and mortality that no other living creature has ever had to face. No dog or cat lives with the knowledge of its own death, but human beings do. No dog or cat raises questions about whether life has meaning, but human beings do. To face the possibility of mortality and meaninglessness throws us into the trauma that always accompanies self-consciousness. One of the driving forces behind the creation of human religion was the need to speak to this anxiety. That is why there is a desire in all religious systems to claim certainty for its religious convictions. Religious uncertainty does not alleviate anxiety so religious systems always have to postulate that what its followers believe is “changeless truth.” That is why the Catholic Church has declared its pope to be infallible. That is why for fundamentalistic Protestant Christians the Bible has to be “inerrant.” That is why every church seems bound to claim that it is the “one true church,” or that no one could possibly achieve salvation in a faith system other than “my own.” Part of religion’s power is found in the claim that it can and must provide the “answer.” In the history of Christianity, when new thought challenges religious convictions, one sees the religious organizations respond to destroy or deny that thought. Galileo was put on trial for heresy and barely escaped being burned at the stake. “Inquisitions” were formed by religious hierarchies to counter doubt. To this day in the Bible Belt of the South in the United States politicians still run against Darwin when they seek public office. In times of change, religion always moves to the right, becoming both loud and negative. No one escapes these unconscious religious motivators. So we discover that church executives do not want seminaries raising questions that might later disturb the security of the faithful. Congregations use the threat of withholding their financial support to keep “questioning clergy” in line. Reformations are always destructive to the religious status quo. The fact that the world always changes and that knowledge is always growing exponentially inevitably means that what religious people like to refer to as “eternal truth” is in fact always under challenge from new insights. That is the reality with which churches must always be dealing. The way to deal with this deep-seated human fear is to help people to grow up to a new level of maturity, but normally religious institutions and religious hierarchical people tend to respond by trying to suppress truth that is religiously “uncomfortable” or “inconvenient.” The quest for security is ultimately not an emotional way of life that allows growth to take place. Religion in general and Christianity in many of its forms seems designed to keep people child-like, docile and trusting. My conviction, however, is that real Christianity was born not to make us secure, but to enable us to live with insecurity; its goal was to enable us to achieve not childlike faith, but human maturity. I believe this is what Paul meant when he wrote that we are to grow into the full stature of Christ Jesus that is within us. Christianity points to God, to truth, to meaning, but it does not capture these entities. We learn as Christians to walk by faith, not by certainty. That kind of Christianity, however, will always be a minority movement for, far from giving people either the security they need or the “promised land” for which they yearn, it offers them only a journey into the ultimate mystery and wonder of God, which is beyond all forms and all known truths. Perhaps that is why Jesus is portrayed biblically as using only minority images to describe his movement. The gospels record Jesus as saying to his followers that they are to be the “leaven in the dough,” the “salt in the soup” and the “light in the darkness.” This sense of being a minority presence in the midst of life is not enough for most religious institutions or leaders who crave certainty. It is, however, enough for me, and perhaps it can be enough for you and even for that minority that wants to combine the search for God and meaning with the search for truth. No one can possess ultimate truth; all any of us can do is to walk toward it. Christianity is thus a journey that never ends. For Christianity it is the walk that is the reality. Do it then with integrity. John Shelby Spong Announcements Join the discussion and community on our Facebook pages! Where life, religion, theology, progressive Christianity, the teachings of Jesus and more topics are discussed. We hope to see you there! John Shelby Spong page: https://www.facebook.com/JohnShelbySpong ProgressiveChristianity.org page: https://www.facebook.com/ProgressiveChristianity.org Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 253-507-8678.

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UPDATE
by David Zahrt 26 Feb '14

26 Feb '14

I thought you all might be interested in NCARE's Nevada climate change and clean energy news briefs for the week - leading off with a photo and short piece about David's march. Feel free to share it. Peace, David http://nevadanscleanenergy.org/nevada-climate-clean-energy-news-briefs/ -- Peace, David

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