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An invitation in parting from the Dialogue listserv
by Herman Greene 19 Aug '13

19 Aug '13

All, I am not trying to solve the "human predicament" related to the two listservs. I would love to stay in touch with everyone, but I think there is a virtue in focus, so I will only be on the OE listserv going forward. The reason I am writing it to invite those of you on the Dialogue listserv who are not on the OE listserv to join that listserv so I can stay in touch with you that way. Here's the email I sent to the OE listserv this morning. If you are interested in this ongoing "dialogue," don't leave the Dialogue listserv, but if you are not on it, join the OE listserv. A conversation with John and Lynda Cock and the Progress on my proposals Dear all, I had nice dinner with John and Lynda Cock last night. There's no doubt about it, but those of us who were in the Order share a deep common bond that goes on just like family bonds. Our shared history enabled deep sharing. I presented the idea that the period 1965-75 was the deeply creative period of Order/EI life, that the important ideas and concepts came from that period. John divided it into knowing, doing and being, and said the knowing and being were developed in that period and doing was the focus after that continuing through today. It seems clear to me that our "methods" meaning our facilitation methods are in history. It also seems clear that the doing whether as you all did it after I left in 1975 or as others may do it in the future will carry on. There will be people working on human development and some will use our methods. What remains important to me is our being and knowing. This is what I feel may not carry on. It's something we recognize and feel in the presence of each other and don't recognize and feel in the presence of others, or at least we feel it in a very different way. It's a shared interior space. Those of us in the Order in 1965-75 (and perhaps after though I have no first hand experience of it) know that we were part of something fantastic. A mighty flame of spirit and vision burned within us. We had within us a "motivity" that will never go away. And we had all those sayings and concepts we sometime hammered each other with that were critical to our being. And we had the Christian story, heritage and symbols which were very much a part of our interior reality. I don't think that can be captured with archives or numbers. The interior part can only be captured through stories. This is why I have called on people to write stories on "the way we were" or "who we were". They can be anecdotes that capture just one memorable moment, like the excitement felt at preparing for a doing the grand ball or in a moment in Fifth City Pre-School or the night of the MLK riots. The response, to say the least has been underwhelming, but I'm not going to let this die. Our second generation is already reaching retirement in some cases and what about the third generation and others? These are stories that need to be told. I thought I had Betty Pesek's book on *The Circle of Life*. Maybe this covers this, I need to get a copy . . . but intuitively I don't think so. We have a grand story and grand stories to tell. We were a part of something fantastic despite its faults. I don't want to justify it, I just want the story(ies) to be told. On the knowing side, I'm not that interested in the content that may be time bound. What I am interested in is the principles that formed us--the ones that related to out being, our power and our motivity--ideas of corporateness, being under assignment, living missional lives, etc. This is what I want to pass on to my children, grandchildren and others. Again the response has been underwhelming to say the least, but I'm not giving up. And the book called "RS-1" that I proposed? Gene Marshall I gather is working to put a version of RS-1 back in to the stream of things. Here I'm thinking about something else. I'm thinking about how did we come to understand God, Christ. Holy Spirit and Church in both its contentless and contentful (being related to the Christian tradition) aspects. I want to tell the story of RS-1, though this one might involve more concepts than the first two. So folks, you aren't dead yet, but you're close. Let's tell the story of this amazing body of people and reality of which we were a part. -- __________________________________________________ Herman F. Greene 2516 Winningham Road Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-942-4358 (ph & fax) hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com

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8/15/13, Spong: On Building a Christianity without Security or Creeds
by Ellie Stock 15 Aug '13

15 Aug '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR On Building a Christianity without Security or Creeds One of my readers, Henry Gael Michaels, has shared with me an anonymous story on the meaning of God with which I open this column. It also reveals, I believe, what is wrong with all theology. I am grateful for this gift. This is his story. The mystic was back from the desert. “Tell us,” the people said, “What is God like?” The mystic wondered just how he could ever tell them what he had experienced in his heart while in the desert. Can God ever be put into words? He finally decided that in response he would give them a formula that was so convoluted and literally impossible, so inaccurate and so inadequate that their only choice would be to do as he had done and go into the desert to experience God for themselves. Alas, however, that is not what his hearers did. Instead they seized upon his formula, turning it into a sacred text or an infallible doctrine. Then they imposed it onto others as a creed or a set of holy beliefs. They even proclaimed that it was necessary to hold it, if one wants to be saved. They began to persecute and to kill those who would not consent to this formula. They went to enormous efforts and great costs to spread this formula to foreign lands. Some even gave their lives for this cause. The mystic was sad. “It might have been better,” he said, “if I had said nothing!” “Perhaps,” Henry Gael Michaels concluded in his letter to me, “This is why Jesus never wrote anything down.” It seems to me that this story articulates the problem that modern religious men and women have with organized religion and theology. Religion has adopted theological formulas based on two things: First, there is an experience of God, which people come to believe is both real and authentic, which makes them aware of transcendence. This experience is life changing, seemingly unrepeatable and certainly stretching to those having the experience. It leads to new dimensions of life and to new understandings. All religion, along with all theology, is born in such a primary experience. The second thing involved in religion and theology is, however, the compelling need to explain that experience to another. That is the moment when the experience is inevitably put into human words. The experience and the wordy explanation are never the same. If the experience is true, it is timeless, external and transformative! The explanation, however, is always time bound, time warped and finite. Every explanation freezes the experience in the vocabulary of the explainer. The explanation reflects the world view of the explainer, the explainer’s level of knowledge and the explainer’s time in history. There is no such thing as an eternal explanation. As time moves on, the destiny of every explanation is to become increasingly foreign to its audience, increasingly irrelevant to its time and finally to be dismissed or ignored as no longer appropriate to its world. If people begin to identify the experience with its explanation, the experience will die when the explanation dies. That is the law “of the Medes and the Persians,” and that is also the reality of human history. Now look at modern Christianity. Jesus was a first century experience in which people came to believe that they had encountered the transcendent reality that they called God. The New Testament was a first century attempt to explain that experience. There is no doubt that in the Jesus experience, lives were transformed. People, who at the time of Jesus’ arrest, had forsaken him and fled in fear, somehow came back together after his death and were empowered with a new courage. Previously fearful ones were now ready to die for the reality of an experience they could no longer deny. Even though these people had been raised inside a strict Jewish code, their “Jesus” experience forced them to expand that code so dramatically that the singularity of God was compromised and they could no longer see God apart from Jesus, nor could they see Jesus apart from God. Their understanding of God was thus modified and changed for ever. In time, this new understanding forced them to adopt a new holy day on which to celebrate this experience. That was when the first day of the week began to be observed and a new form of worship, based on the Passover meal, but expanded into something new that they called “The Eucharist,” came into being. That sacramental meal was said to mark the fact that Jesus “was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” The New Testament was thus the written attempt by the followers of Jesus to capture the power of their Jesus experience in words. Inevitably, they were the words of the first century. Can we keep our hold on their experiences by literalizing their words today? Of course not! We cannot twist our minds into first century pretzels and think of God in the same way that they did. God cannot be to a post-Galilean, post-Newtonian world a being who lives above the sky, and who once entered the earth by causing a baby to be conceived in the womb of a virgin. Our minds and hearts are not drawn to the picture of a miracle-worker, who possessed such supernatural power that he could expand the food supply, heal the sick, banish the demons of epilepsy and mental illnesses, and even transcend the limits of death before he returned to God’s heavenly home by ascending into the sky of a three-tiered universe to a realm from whence this Jesus supposedly had originally come. That explanation may have fit the world of the first century quite well. Today, however, that understanding of Jesus sounds strange, foreign, dated, and mythological. Space age people cannot imagine such a heavenly being. The explanation of the New Testament may well point to truth, but the first century words they had at their disposal, can never capture the reality of that experience for all time. Explanations no matter how ancient, revered or sacred always die. No explanation is timeless, not even the explanations contained in the gospels. None can, therefore, be eternal. By the time the fourth century arrived in Christian history, Christians began to turn their first century New Testament explanations into creeds that were couched in the words that reflected the common assumptions of fourth century Greek-speaking people. That world thought in terms of dualism. By this I mean that they saw a strict division between heaven and earth, between the human and the divine, between the body and the soul and even between the flesh and the spirit. Dualistic concepts therefore permeated the language of the fourth century creeds and began to shape Christian understanding. The word “Incarnation,” for example, which literally means “to enter the flesh of,” became a doctrine designed to explain the way Jesus was to be understood. Next, Jesus was transformed into being the second person of the Holy Trinity. The human Jesus began to fade from view and a religious system that neither Paul nor the gospel writers would have ever recognized came into being. It was this theological system that poured anti-Semitism into the blood stream of the Christian West, producing such things as the expulsion from or the ghettoization of the Jews in every Christian nation of Europe. That killing violence finally exploded in the genocidal horror of the Holocaust in which 6,000,000 people died as the victims of religion gone mad. It was this system that also expressed itself in the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries that sought to kill the infidel Muslims. These fourth century creeds also gave birth to heresy hunts, religious wars and the Inquisition. It takes enormous energy to keep dying explanations viable. By the time the 13th century arrived, we turned these dated theological explanations into liturgies and repeated them in worship. Far more than most people recognize, the worship services in all Christian churches were born in 13th century understandings and practices. In that era, human life was denigrated and devalued. So Christian worship began to proclaim that we were “born in sin,” that we were “miserable offenders” and that we were not worthy to “gather up the crumbs under the divine table.” In our hymns we began to call ourselves “wretches” and “worms.” Life became something to be escaped, not something to be lived. We proclaimed a God who was all-seeing, one “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid” and thus a God before whom we quaked in fear and were compelled constantly to beg for mercy. Perhaps that is why worship seems so strange, so unpleasant, so boring to people in the 21st century. That is not our understanding of life. Can we Christians escape, or at least relativize, our explanations from the past without losing in the process the power of the experiences which caused the explanations in the first place? That is the perennial question that both religion and theology asks. The clear answer is that if one literalizes any explanation of an experience, that experience becomes mortal and it is doomed to die. Truth is thus never served by static religious or theological explanations. This means that the Bible cannot be taken literally unless one wants the Bible to die. That means that orthodoxy can never be defined in creeds or doctrines unless one wants orthodoxy to die. This means that liturgical forms must always be changing, they can never be set in stone unless one wants all liturgies to become irrelevant. So religion as we now know and practice it is doomed. Once it is literalized, its destiny is only to create fundamentalists who will exact enormous energy from us in order to protect the religious formulas of the past and when they fail at this task, as they are destined to, they will produce secular humanists who can no longer live with integrity in those religious definitions of antiquity and so they will abandon all religion. The Church Alumni Association will be the fastest growing organization in the heretofore Christian world. That is where we are. What can we do about it? That will be my topic next week. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Zolika Heath from Ocala, Florida, writes: Question: The Trinity: How did this doctrine evolve? Is it polytheistic? Father, Son and Spirit are in scripture but is "Trinity?" Answer: Dear Zolika, Your question is a very good one. I doubt that Jesus was a Trinitarian; I am quite certain that Paul was not. The Trinity is a human definition of God, and since the human mind could never fully embrace the mystery and wonder of God, to literalize a human definition of God borders on the absurd. For human beings to worship their own creation is the essence of idolatry. The Trinity is a definition not of God, but of the human experience of the divine and is, therefore, an attempt to make rational sense out of that human experience. We experience God as other, beyond anything that our minds can grasp. This is what we mean when we say God is Father – the Ground of all being. We experience God as an inward presence, so deep within us that we cannot name the reality we know is there. That is what we mean when we say God is Spirit, ineffable, life-giving, inward and real. We experience God in the life of others. Sometimes to lesser degrees, sometimes to what seems like a total degree. This is what we mean when we call Jesus “the son,” and why we frame doctrines like “the Incarnation.” Our experience was and is that in Jesus we saw the presence of God flowing through his human life. Is that who God is? No, but that is what our experience of God is and so we claim it. The Trinity is not a definition of God; it is an experience into which we live. Thanks for asking, ~John Shelby Spong Announcements We are pleased to announce the new Bishop Spong Website in Spanish! Click Here for a bulletin with all the links and information. Please share this with your Spanish speaking friends! Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2013 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at johnshelbyspong.com. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 708 Broadway Suite 105 Tacoma, WA 98402 Add us to your address book

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Resolving OE and Dialogue listservs and two proposals
by Herman Greene 15 Aug '13

15 Aug '13

Thanks for all the good comments on the purposes of the two listserves. I am going to opt for OE only. I like OE because I like to say in touch of my old colleagues, which Shelley Hahn correctly stated are more like family than colleagues. I also like to reflect on our common memory and experiences from OE days. I feel somewhat at a loss on all that went on through ICA since I left the Order in 1975 (after 8 years with the Order), but through these listserves, and various events I have attended since 2000 I have gained familiarity with that great work. In any event, if you want to reach me on the listserves send the message on the OE listserve. I proposed a grand project last time I wrote, and I'd like to pull it off the table. No need to refer back to it, just consider (from my side) these ideas. 1. I am coming to the conclusion that our work as a corporate body, as an Order, is done and cannot be revived. We were what we were and we did a lot and caused some damage. We were who we were. What I believe we can and should do is preserve the mystique and learning of that community for future generations. This has already happened through the archive project and the books that George and John and others have put out. Further there is a collection of stories about our lives and work. And we had the conference in Washington, DC. Jim Wiegel did the videos. Michael May is collecting wisdom stories. What I continue to be interested in is a compilation of essays on the key ideas that guided us. For example, "Comprehensive, intentional and futuric (and archaic)" "the indicative is the imperative" "contextual ethics" and so many more. I can see small essays on a number of concepts put together in collection as a book or books and online. I think some of these essays may have to include a critique of the concepts and some would need to discuss how their meaning might apply today. I suppose the essays would have to begin with what the concepts meant for us "at that time." I can't pass on my order experience to my sons but I would like for them to have the benefit of the understandings that guided us and still guide me in my thinking and work. On reflection though, I would also like for them to have some understanding of who we were as an order. My oldest son who left the order at two simply says, "My parents were in a cult." I can see another collection of essays on "the way we were." Though I think there were many weaknesses in who we were I also think we were a great thing, a great force for good, a creative advance. I would like to have my sons know about that too So I guess ideally I would like two books, one on the operating wisdoms of the Order/EI and the other on our stories of our life in the Order/EI (and if I am not mentioning ICA it is only because I left at that time but would want to include that part of the history as well). Now I can't stop because I had another thought. I would like for my sons to have some understanding of RS1 and how it relates to the Christian symbols. I can see a book titled "RS-1" I would be willing to be part of a team for collecting, editing and publishing these works. If we get these out, the ideas will be available for others to develop in the future. 2. The second proposal is simply an opening to individuals who would be interested in participating in the Ethics and Spirituality Initative for Sustainable Development and possibly developing a curriculum on the changes needed going forward, kind of a CS1 for our day. I'm not longer thinking of those as involving our remnant corporate body, but something that some of you may have an interest in. Here's a 3 minute video that gives you some introduction to this. http://youtu.be/tyh7clso0Kc I can send additional information to those who contact me about this. Now, for completeness, I have another thought. Any of you who have not done so who wish to receive the e-zine of my nonprofit, the Center for Ecozoic Societies, please let me know and I'll put you on the list. Herman -- __________________________________________________ Herman F. Greene 2516 Winningham Road Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-942-4358 (ph & fax) hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com

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8/12/13, Spong: On Parting - Never to Meet Again - An Experience of Timelessness
by Ellie Stock 13 Aug '13

13 Aug '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR On Parting - Never to Meet Again - An Experience of Timelessness There are some moments in life when the transcendent is expressed inside the mundane; where the eternal seems to enter the passage of time. They are moments, usually unexpected, perhaps not even recognized until later. I had such a moment earlier this year that will not go away and so I have decided to write about it. We invited to dinner a couple who have been our friends for many years, despite the fact that they live on another continent. The conversation at this meal was easy, as it normally is when it comes out of a long history of relatedness. We recalled shared experiences, some of which brought laughter and some of which had been painful, but we are both survivors. It did not occur to me until near the end of this meal and their subsequent departure that this would probably be the last time we would ever have time with this couple. When they drove out of our driveway, my nostalgia turned to a deep sadness, tinged with the positive realization that relationships are what give life its beauty, its meaning and perhaps even its intimation of immortality. So let me introduce you to these friends. We first met Ann and Peter Carnley in their home in Perth, Australia, in the early 1990’s. At that time, he was the Anglican Archbishop of Perth in the Province of Western Australia. Ann was his lovely, no even beautiful, wife and the mother of their fantastic children, who are now grown and are marvelously creative adults. I was on my first foreign book tour with my book Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. Most authors on a book tour of Australia tend to limit their exposure to that continent to the eastern part of that country visiting Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne. I had, however, also received invitations to speak and to be interviewed by the media in Canberra, Adelaide, Darwin and Perth. So our tour was an extensive one. On our stop in Perth, we were the guests of the Archbishop and his wife. Peter was one of the better-educated Anglican bishops of the world, having studied extensively at Cambridge University in England and having taught theology in Australia prior to being chosen to be a bishop. He was a well-known author and the recipient of a number of honorary doctoral degrees. He was also a brilliant interpreter of the cultural life of Australia. When he was chosen at a relatively young age to be the Archbishop of Perth (the Anglican Church of Australia is divided into the various provinces of the country with Archbishops in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane), he went immediately from being a priest to being an archbishop. As the Archbishop of Perth he was in charge of a territory constituting about a third of Australia’s land mass. Perth is a city of just under four million people. It is near the port city of Fremantle. From where I live when one is in Perth, one is literally half-way round the world. This is symbolized by the fact that 12 midnight in Perth is 12 noon in New York and that summer and winter are exactly reversed. The nearest major city to Perth is Singapore. Perth is famous for the beauty and variety of its wild flowers. To us, however, it was famous primarily because Peter and Ann Carnley lived there. Over the years we made nine trips to Australia and on three of those trips we went to Perth and spent time with the Carnleys. It was always a highlight of the trip. We met some of their friends, including on one occasion the governor general of Western Australia, who eventually would become the governor general of all Australia. That is Australia’s ceremonial head-of-state position; ultimately the representative of the Queen of England. We went to the theatre together in Perth and saw Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, a play about the trial of the witches in Salem, Massachusetts in the 17th century. Miller’s play, published in 1962, was written to counter the hysteria generated by the late Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt carried out during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. Together we watched Australian football, known in that land as “footie,” which is different and rougher than any professional game I have ever seen. We talked about life together, including church life. Both Peter and I sat uneasily on what passed for evangelical religion with its uninformed literal use of the sacred scriptures. My primary audience in Australia was drawn from among those who were alienated from organized religion by this very kind of mindless fundamentalism. Peter, who was later to become the Primate of Australia’s Anglican Church, had to deal with Sydney Anglicans, who reminded me of 18th century Northern Irish, Catholic-hating Protestants, who had migrated to the South Pacific and frozen their faith in time. Sydney’s bishops and clergy were like a group of Ian Paisleys, only now ordained as Anglicans. They made both Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson look bright and liberal. Evangelical Christians so often act as if they possess the full truth of God and they can be quite imperialistic. I had confronted this same fundamentalist reality in my career; first in the struggle for inclusion into the life of the church of people of color in the segregated South; later, in the quest for the full equality of women in both the church and the society, and finally on the issue of justice and welcome for gay and lesbian Christians. Peter confronted them in Sydney, where to this day, women are denied ordination and homosexuals are treated as either sick or sinful people. So we had lots in common and battle scars to show for it. On one trip to Perth, Christine and I traveled up the northern coast of Australia and headed east, seeing some magnificent scenery. On another, we went straight east into the heart of Western Australia to the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie, a town that advertises: “We have more brothels than churches.” It is the only place I have ever known where a brothel offers guided tours in the mornings when business is slow, complete with cookies and lemonade at the end. The bishop of Kalgoorlie, Gerald Beaumont, was one of Peter‘s assistants. We had known Gerald and his wife Lyn, who is a doctor, when he was the Anglican priest in Alice Springs and had driven with him to Uluru (Ayers Rock) on a memorable trip. The two of them had been called by Peter to work in Kalgoorlie and they had blessed it with their presence. When Peter retired, he returned to teaching and accepted a position that brought him for one semester a year to the General Theological Seminary in New York City. So we continued to see the Carnleys. On one occasion, he filled in for me as the confirming bishop at one of our churches in the Diocese of Newark. On another occasion, I taught a class for him on the resurrection of Jesus at General Seminary. So, in those days, it did not seem to be so difficult to say goodbye whenever we parted. We could always anticipate meeting again. Not so this last time, Peter was completing his work in New York City and did not plan to teach there again. There is little possibility that we will ever return to Australia at this stage of our lives. In the middle of dinner, this realization began to overwhelm me. I looked at these two special people: Peter tall and stately with an infectious smile; Ann with a face that always exudes love and the kind of caring that reaches deeply into her being. We had been colleagues in our struggles within the Anglican Communion to move this church of ours into life giving stances, especially toward those the church has consistently marginalized. We had both taken our lumps from those who did not share our vision. We had both been sustained and upheld by the love of our wives, who shared in our lives more deeply than most can only imagine. On this occasion, however, they were retiring to their newly-built home well outside Perth. So I began to realize that this would probably be our final encounter. Of course, there is e-mail, Facebook and Christmas cards, but those are not the same. The realization that we would probably never see these two again in person felt very much like enduring a death experience. Suddenly, the end of the meal became emotional. We shared with them our gratitude for what they had meant in our lives. When the time came to say goodbye, we embraced each other a little more firmly and a little longer than would normally have been the case. This embrace had to last for a lifetime. They got into their car and began to pull away. We stood at the door waving until they passed out of view. Christine and I turned and embraced each other. I suspect a tear or two trickled down our cheeks. A part of our life was ending. That relationship would live from now on only in our memories or, as the old song says, “Among my Souvenirs.” Ann must have felt something similar for she wrote afterwards that she was feeling “the terror of Australia’s distance.” Life does not stand still. It is an ever-moving stream that bears all its sons and daughters away. It hurts to have a final parting with those you have loved for so long. If I could change the nature of life, however, I would not do it. I have been enriched by many relationships. Peter and Ann Carnley are two of them. I am more alive today because I know them. Their physical departure from my life will never remove what they have given me. Life is not quite so individualistic as we pretend. Life expands and contracts regularly and always in response to being loved and losing those we love. I often wonder if we are ever really alone. Do we not always transcend our limits when we enter deeply into another’s life? If God is the Source of life, do we not worship God when we live fully? If God is the Source of love do we not worship God when we love wastefully? If God is the Ground of Being, do we not worship God when we have the courage to be all that we can be? Is not this God found in those relationships that enrich our lives, expand our love and give us the power to share our being with another? Is this not what an intimation of immortality is? Thanks Peter! Thanks Ann! You have been something of the life of God to us and when we live in the life of God distance become finite and time enters eternity. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Debbie Medves from North Carolina writes: Question: I need some help regarding the Bible, especially the injunction to “Honor thy Mother and Father." I have read almost every book that Alice Miller, a famed Swiss psychotherapist, has written. She died just last year, but she bravely went against the grain of our culture and her colleagues to expose the damage caused by child abuse. She uses a great variety of historical figures such as Hitler and other dictators, writers and artists in her books to demonstrate her theories of how the repressed child maltreatment manifested itself in their lives. She also does a great analysis of Mel Gibson's refusal to question his father (who did not believe the Holocaust occurred). She is one of many who found that most people repressed the feelings that accompanied abusive treatment at the most vulnerable times of their lives at the hands of their caretakers in the name of socially sanctioned “parenting” and “discipline.” She finds that this abuse leads to crime, violence, addiction, illness and the perpetuation of abuse onto one’s own children (or an entire nation if you are a dictator) if not therapeutically worked through. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta also found huge correlations to illness and addictions with child maltreatment in their “Adverse Childhood Experiences” studies. The new findings by Bruce Perry and Alan Schore (among others) in the neuroscience of trauma are in alignment with this theory also. To think this all starts in “the family!” Even as I write this, I can feel my own deeply-embedded resistance to acknowledging these truths and how honoring and not questioning certain systems is as ingrained in me as my next breath. Miller found the Bible’s “spare the rod, spoil the child,” the scripture story of Abraham’s blind obedience to God and the “honor thy parent” command to encourage the perpetuation of these abuses of children throughout the generations of our culture. The idea of forgiving impedes healing for many adults, damaged in their youth as once again, the injured party must care for the adult instead of self. Why not “Honor thy son and daughter,” Miller asks? I have seen lives hideously damaged and so can readily see this in extreme forms I daily witness. Yet most of us have degrees of damage, less extreme on a continuum-than that which makes it so visible-though it is repressed and we are not aware of it. I ask you to help educate where these biblical references come from as most people cling to them (literally) like barnacles to a sea worn ship. Can you do some scraping? This will help me to do the prevention and intervention work I must do as a school counselor in the “Bible Belt” where children are whipped with belts as a norm as if God desired it. Only decades later will the results become visible in more child abuse, depression, physical and mental illness and sometimes even suicide. With great appreciation for your work and your God-given intelligence. Answer: Dear Debbie, Thank you for your long and informative letter. I have printed it in almost all its entirety because you describe the total scene so well. I thank you for bringing reality to our attention in such a provocative way. I tried to address the themes you raise in a book entitled The Sins of the Scriptures and most specifically in the chapter on the relationship between the text “spare the rod” and child abuse. Even the Christian story is often portrayed in our hymns, liturgies and sermons as the Father God punishing the Son for the sins of the people. The abusive activities perpetrated by the church throughout history including the Flagellants, the Inquisition and the abuse scandal of recent history reveal that this kind of insensitivity and downright cruelty has been a constant in church history and points to a sickness in the soul of Christianity that must be brought to light, exposed and cured. The only thing I would add to your letter as a cautionary note is that there are exceptions to the rule. People have been able to transform their abusive childhood situations and to channel their anger in creative not destructive ways. What usually makes the difference is the intervention into the abused child’s life of a healthy and mature counselor, teacher, godparent, friend or family member. There is no one who cannot make a difference in the life of another. We only have to be open to the opportunity. Keep up your good work. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements We are pleased to announce the new Bishop Spong Website in Spanish! Click Here for a bulletin with all the links and information. Please share this with your Spanish speaking friends! Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2013 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at johnshelbyspong.com. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 708 Broadway Suite 105 Tacoma, WA 98402 Add us to your address book

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Janice...another partial list and poem
by Judy Lindblad 13 Aug '13

13 Aug '13

Dear Janice... An insistent missionary of the new, Grounded social pioneer, Eager, insightful volunteer whenever she sensed the new brewing. She embodied the urgent call of possibility at every turn, lending her mighty talents to nurture the first green shoots of possibility for Peace with Justice. Visionary-Inspirational-Organizer-Convenor-Consensus-builder/designer. Consummate Methodist, Consummate Ecumenist, Spirit Movement colleague, social activist, musician, poet, devoted wife, loving sister, aunt, and friend, Founding member of the “Old As Hell Angels” * Janice gave her amazing energy for 78 years in a rainbow array of places: Mission work in the Philippines Religious Studies I and the Rochester Religious House with the Ecumenical Institute (EI) and the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) Town Meeting 76 Earthwise Learning Series development National Public Radio where she hosted her own show “Between the Arrows” accompanist and composer performed at The Millennium Connection Conference Denver 2000 ToP Facilitator Conferences PJD- Profound Journey Dialogue Church organist ICA Living Legacy Event October 5-7, 2007 tri-organizer 50 Events Team* for ICA-USA Fiftieth Anniversary Events 2011-12 (“The events need to be more than just reunions!” Janice) Broome County Event Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium AARP Broome County Council of Churches Peace With Justice Committee Lenten Study Programs ICA Archives Move On. Org and Obama Campaigns + Association of Spiritual Progressives Joseph Matthews Archives event at Drew University Non Violent Communication -NVC Pachamama Alliance Transition Towns Shift Network online discussion of The Next Scientific (R)evolution in July! With Abe she fostered the birth of an electronic community for EI/ICA/ and the Order Ecumenical (OE) There are many more...please add them here or in your hearts. Janice continues to be a tireless expander of our boundaries, Gently but firmly challenging the limits that bind us As she seeks God’s endless love and justice for all. Grace and Peace dear Janice, we celebrate your being and all you have planted. Judy Lindblad 8/9/13 editorial assistance by Ellen Howie and Ester Mae Cox

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Passing of Janice
by Timothy Wegner 11 Aug '13

11 Aug '13

** To friends of Janice... I regret to tell you Janice passed away a few days ago. We will all miss her presence, her gifts and her generosity of spirit. Services will be held Wednesday, August 14th at First UMC Church in Endicott, NY at the corner of McKinley and Monroe Streets. Friends are welcome at 11 am to meet with family and friends, the service is at noon followed by a luncheon for those who can stay. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts are suggested for the church. Thank you for your gift of friendship to her through the years. Peace Amy Fleming

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Remembering Ruth Carter
by Lynda Cock 09 Aug '13

09 Aug '13

The photo in today's posting of Journey Reflection sits on our table as a reminder of a strong Iron Woman and her team of imaginal educators for whom we give great thanks. http://rejourney.blogspot.com/2013/08/we-remember-ruth.html Lynda and John Cock

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8/08/13, Spong: Newsletter Delayed
by Ellie Stock 08 Aug '13

08 Aug '13

The Bishop Spong Newsletter for Thursday August 8th has been delayed due to a technical glitch. While we fix this situation, you may enjoy viewing videos of Bishop Spong at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Bishop+Spong%2Clong Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2013 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at johnshelbyspong.com. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 708 Broadway Suite 105 Tacoma, WA 98402 Add us to your address book

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Living Legacy 2007 Report - Janice Ulangca's smiling presence
by Lynda Cock 07 Aug '13

07 Aug '13

Several people have requested a photo of Janice. I requested Tim's approval and help to forward this photo on the cover of the Living Legacy Event Report with Janice's smiling presence in the front row. I thought that this list of attendants would help people identify the persons in the photo. Thank you, Tim. Several other great souls are in that photo who are now woven into the golden brocade that Sherwood speaks of in his poetry. What a fellowship we have! Lynda Cock Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 12:10 PM To: 'Alan Gammel'; 'Anne Neal'; 'Brady Melton'; 'Carolyn Antenen'; 'Carolyn Schrader'; 'Charls DeFuria'; 'Cheryl Kartes'; 'Cheryl Zaleski'; 'Deb Burnight'; 'Don Elliott'; 'Doug and Pat Druckenmiller'; 'Duncan Holmes'; 'Elaine Stover'; 'Emma Melton'; 'Fred and Marion Emerson'; 'Janice Ulangca'; 'Ken Gilbert'; 'Kenneth and Dorcas Rose'; 'Lambert Okrah'; 'Laura Dellaca'; 'Lynda Cock'; 'Marjorie Philbrook'; 'May Domingo'; 'Mirja Hanson'; 'Nelson Stover'; 'Nino Tillman'; 'Norman and Judy Lindblad'; 'Richard Alton'; 'Richard and Ellen Howie'; 'Ruth Gilbert'; 'Sandra True'; 'Shirley Heckman Snellinig'; 'Suganya Sockalingam'; 'Susan Henderson' Subject: Living Legacy 2007 Report Dear Colleagues and Friends, On behalf of all of the Board and staff of ICA USA, we want to thank you for your attendance and wholehearted participation at the Living Legacy event held in Chicago on October 5-7, 2007. .......

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Fwd: Thanks & update
by RICHARD HOWIE 07 Aug '13

07 Aug '13

Dear Beloved Community around the world. Here is a message that Janice Ulangca sent to Dick and me on July 25, which I hope all of you will be comforted by. Throughout this challenge in her life she remained a SPIRIT WOMAN! Love to you all, God's Grace & Peace, Ellen Howie in Altamont, NY Begin forwarded message: > From: "Janice Ulangca" <aulangca(a)stny.rr.com> > Date: July 25, 2013 6:12:19 PM EDT > To: "Dick & Ellen Howie" <rhowie3(a)verizon.net> > Subject: Thanks & update > > Ellen, thanks for your birthday call and your original art birthday > card. I had lunch with friends that day and another lunch on the > following Sat. so felt well celebrated. > > My treatments are going well, the oncologist said when I saw him > before Chemo Four last Tuesday (July 23). The previous Tuesday I > had a mid-course CT Scan. They inject dye, then have you lay down > and go through the scanner. When the oncologist discussed the > results, he said the breast mass which was very big can no longer > be seen, and lymph nodes growths under arm almost gone. These were > the only places that a full body scan in May found cancer. Each > chemo starts a new cycle of needing to do nothing but respect the > "war" inside, and kind of creep around taking care of myself > between naps, then gradually a little more energy until next cycle > starts in 21 days. I have 2 more chemo cycles - total of 6 - then 2 > injections of antibodies, whatever they are - each of these 3 weeks > apart. This will take me up into Oct. Does seem long. And since I > don't find the energy to do much in the way of exercise, I can feel > myself getting a bit weaker with each cycle. It will take some time > to rebuild strength - there's a special group for cancer survivors > at the Y where I had been going. > > This is a good time of year to go through this intensity - lots of > fresh food at farm stand just a mile down the road - & farmer's > mkt. when I can get there on Sat. Much better than snow on the > ground! I much appreciate friends giving me rides to the hospital > for the chemo - could drive there fine but driving back would be > another story. > > Hope your summer goes well, and family's doing fine. > > Best to you and Dick, > > Janice

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