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CLIMATE MARCH
by David Zahrt 14 Jul '13

14 Jul '13

Y'all (*learned that when I was assigned to Pace, MS!)* * * Hope you're aware of the CLIMATE MARCH that starts on March 1, 2014. It starts in Santa Monica and heads through San Bernardino. You can take a look at the Route URL and see where/when it may come by you. It gives the mileage and not the time of arrival in a specific place. I've heard that the estimated progress is 15 miles/day. Initial info I have tells me there will be approximately 1000 people. The estimated time of arrival in WDC is November 2014. Take a look at their website and tell me what you think. I'm hoping to start the MARCH. Not sure how long I can keep it up. But I'll find out. I'll certainly make it to San Bernardino and hope to see Frank and Linda and Milan.! Be nice if we could get together all along the CLIMATE MARCH. *The Great March for Climate Action* www.ClimateMarch.org <http://www.climatemarch.org/> 858-35-MARCH [858-356-2724] ed(a)climatemarch.org [Ed Fallon] The URL for the entire route is posted on the website. And here's the beginning of the route. < https://maps.google.com/maps?source=embed&f=d&saddr=Santa+Monica,+CA&daddr=… Peace, David PS. I'll be attending a week-long workshop that Paul Chappell is conducting at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, beginning Jul 21

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Re: [Dialogue] Request for Prayers
by Phyllis Hockley 13 Jul '13

13 Jul '13

We;re lighting a candle for you and sending healing love. Phyllis and Len 08:35 PM 7/13/2013 -0400, Doris Hahn wrote: >Hey, Joe--we got your back! Remember when JWM had a lung operation? And he >made it through just great! You will have our attention on Tuesday. >Grace and Peace, >Doris and Charles > > >On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 7:39 PM, Nancy Grow ><<mailto:nangrow@verizon.net>nangrow(a)verizon.net> wrote: >Our prayers , memories and good wishes are with you, Joe. > Grace and peace, > Nan and Bill Grow >>----- Original Message ----- >>From: <mailto:abaumbach@new.rr.com>ALICE M BAUMBACH >>To: <mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>Colleague Dialogue >>Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2013 5:43 PM >>Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Request for Prayers >> >>Joe, you are in our prayers. Jim and Alice >> >>Jann Barr <<mailto:jannbarr@gmail.com>jannbarr(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >>Holding Joe in the Light. >>Â >> >> >> >>On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Wilson Priscilla >><<mailto:Pris@teamtechpress.com>Pris(a)teamtechpress.com> wrote: >>>Our colleague, Joe Thomas has surgery scheduled this Tuesday to remove a >>>tumor from his lung. Please pray for his recovery and good health. >>> >>>Priscilla H Wilson >>>Prairie Village, KS >>>Pris(a)TeamTechPress.com >>><http://www.teamtechpress.com>www.teamtechpress.com >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>_______________________________________________ >>>Dialogue mailing list >>><mailto:Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >>>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net >> >> >> >> >>-- >>Jann Barr, Scheduler >>Live Oak Friends Meeting >>ph: <tel:832%20863%208705>832 863 8705 >> >> >>---------- >>_______________________________________________ >>Dialogue mailing list >><mailto:Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net >_______________________________________________ >Dialogue mailing list ><mailto:Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net > > >_______________________________________________ >Dialogue mailing list >Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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Re: [Dialogue] Request for Prayers
by ALICE M BAUMBACH 13 Jul '13

13 Jul '13

Joe, you are in our prayers. Jim and Alice Jann Barr <jannbarr(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Holding Joe in the Light. > > > >On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Wilson Priscilla ><Pris(a)teamtechpress.com>wrote: > >> Our colleague, Joe Thomas has surgery scheduled this Tuesday to remove a >> tumor from his lung. Please pray for his recovery and good health. >> >> Priscilla H Wilson >> Prairie Village, KS >> Pris(a)TeamTechPress.com >> www.teamtechpress.com >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Dialogue mailing list >> Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net >> > > > >-- >Jann Barr, Scheduler >Live Oak Friends Meeting >ph: 832 863 8705 > >_______________________________________________ >Dialogue mailing list >Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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7/11/13, Spong: A Meditation on the State of America on its 237th Birthday
by Ellie Stock 11 Jul '13

11 Jul '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR A Meditation on the State of America on its 237th Birthday The United States celebrated its 237th birthday this past week. It seems, therefore, a fitting time for some moments of national reflection. In today’s column I seek to identify some of the forces that now appear to hold this nation in its grip. America is, I believe, going through an identity transition in which a new definition is emerging as to who and what this nation is. Such a time of expanding consciousness is never easy for a nation to endure. These transitions normally create great anger, but they are inevitable for, in the words of the poet James Russell Lowell, “time makes ancient good uncouth.” Change is a necessary aspect of every living thing. Death alone ends change. The power of change, as well as its fear, is present in the three major debates that engage America today. All of them have aroused intense political feelings and highly-spiced political rhetoric. I seek not to judge the rightness or wrongness of the competing sides, but to help myself and others to understand what these issues mean; out of what they might arise; why such deep emotions swirl around them, and finally, to see if the resources of our Christian faith have anything to bring to bear on the debate. The three debated issues are: 1) the move to fix our immigration laws, 2) the constant anti-female bias and rhetoric that shows up in a variety of bills targeting a wide array of issues, 3) gun control laws, especially the requirement of a background check before gun purchases. The irrationality of the debates becomes immediately obvious when we ask the obvious questions: Why does a nation of immigrants have such negativity about immigration? Why do males seem to be threatened by females so deeply that they harass and seek to control them in public life? What is it that causes the citizens of this nation to own more guns per person by a huge number than the citizens of any other nation in the world? Another interesting thing about these debates is that polls reveal a decisive majority of American voters believe that the immigration laws need to be changed; that women should have equality in both economic life and in health care, including reproductive health care and birth control, and that background checks for gun ownership should be required by law. So our curiosity is aroused as to why our elected leaders have chosen on each of these issues to defy this majority point of view. These debates have also aroused excessive emotions. Such frenzy reveals the presence of feeling, operating consciously and unconsciously. I want to understand these emotions. All three of these contentious issues are, I believe, related. Each reflects a nation in transition and each reveals a dramatic shift in power. It is the stuff of politics and nation building. A quick view of some historical facts might be helpful. This nation was not born as a democracy, but as a republic in which the right to vote was both controlled and limited. A prerequisite for voting was the ownership of land. That fact limited the franchise originally to upper class, well-to-do white males, but the pool of voters was destined in time to be increased dramatically, making control less and less possible. Non land-owning white males were the first to be added to the voting rolls, although poll taxes were quickly passed by the land-owning white male legislatures to discourage massive voter participation. Poll taxes kept poor whites from voting before they were used as a racial tool. That step, nonetheless, began to stretch the power of white males if ever so slightly. Following the Civil War, the vote was extended by a constitutional amendment to black males, but in the South, where the majority of the black people lived, intimidation made black voting dangerous and so the black vote was minimized. The poll tax now had a racial purpose. To this the threats of physical violence including lynching were added by the Ku Klux Klan. When those tactics came to be treated as crimes other means of suppressing the black vote would be devised. Requiring special voter identification and limiting voting hours are two of them. In 1920 a constitutional amendment was adopted extending the vote to women. Great male fear accompanied that amendment and its passage was fought with hysterical rhetoric. Even Frederick Douglass, one of the great voices of black emancipation, was a vehement foe of women voting. Among the reasons used to deny women the vote were these: Women didn’t understand politics! Women vote on emotions not rationality! Women might get together and elect the wrong person! The fact is that during the first seventy-five years of women voting, they split in an almost identical pattern with the men’s vote. As more women began to be educated, however, and to enter the work place as business executives, politicians, doctor, lawyers and even clergy a significant gender gap developed in American politics. In 1996, the women’s vote finally and decisively did elect the president of the United States, returning Bill Clinton to the White House for a second term. Without the women’s vote, Robert Dole of Kansas would have become the President of the United States. That gender gap was even larger in 2012. White male power was shaken. As long as women could be controlled by their biology and thereby be restricted by their inability to plan their families then competition from women for power could be minimized. The opposition to birth control and abortion was the immediate result. In 1954, the Civil Rights movement succeeded in desegregating the schools and in 1964 and 1965 a public accommodation act and a voting rights act were passed and black people began to climb the ladder toward economic and political power. These black voters did not vote for the party of Lincoln, but for the party that best addressed their economic agenda. Also in 1965 the Hart-Celler National Immigration Act was passed ending the system of immigration quotas assigned to each nation, which had served to privilege immigration from the nations of Europe and to limit severely immigration from Latin America, Asia and Africa. Now immigration, legal and illegal, began to change the complexion of the American body politic. It became more brown, more black, more female and younger. The Senate now reflects this shift, with twenty women senators forming a critical mass. The House of Representatives also reflects this shift. The Congressional Black Caucus has become a force with which to reckon. Then in 1971, and as the result of the Vietnam War, a constitutional amendment was passed lowering the voting age in America from 21 to 18, adding three more years of youthful voters to the voting rolls and once again a shift in the voting population was achieved. Later in 2008, the power of white males ruling America was broken and, to the horror of some, an African-American senator won the White House, defeating an American war hero and a long time member of the ruling establishment. The response to this election was a determined effort to limit him to one term and a campaign was waged against his legitimacy. His birth in the United States was questioned. He was accused by Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, of “channeling his Kenyan father’s anti-colonial prejudices.” The Tea Party was born to call America back to yesterday’s values. They were against immigration and against women having the power to free themselves from biological necessity. Despite all of this frenzied activity, the President was re-elected in 2012 by an even larger majority. When the vote in the 2012 election was analyzed, Mr. Romney still won the majority of white male voters, but only among those over 40. President Obama won large majorities among black voters, Latino voters, women voters and young voters, giving him the victory. The fear level among white males was now at frenetic levels. They looked into the future and saw a woman standing in the wings ready to take them on and to win the White House in 2016. They saw the Latino and the black populations growing. They saw the women’s vote becoming as militant as that of the Tea Party. They saw young people rising in power. It was as if they were facing a “last stand” and every tactic of opposition and gridlock began to be used. If the immigration bill were to pass, eleven million, now illegal, residents would be added to the voting rolls. Women were no longer willing to be second class citizens. Next a move was being made to limit their access to guns. The fear became rampant. Gridlock became real. A new America is being born – those who were once treated as outcasts are now owning their place in America’s life. Those who once ruled without serious challenge are seeing their power weakened and passing to those who seem to them to be “different, foreign or alien.” Fear creates irrationality, ideological arrogance and efforts to suppress. History reveals, however, that these tactics never work. The United States is in the process of learning that today. That kind of fear is always greater than the reality it fears. New leadership tends to carry on far more than to destroy. Women in power become both Democrats and Republicans. When blacks and Latinos become wealthy citizens, they too will become conservative. When young people grow older, they will increasingly reflect the values of the establishment. So America will walk through this transition. The Republican Party will ultimately move back to the center and in time will be returned to power. History reveals that despite all the changes I have outlined, the White House has in the last 113 years been occupied by the Republicans for 60 years and by the Democrats for 53 years. This country has remarkable balance. Finally, in this political process we, as a people, are redefining humanity. We are learning an ancient biblical lesson: In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, Democrat nor Republican, male nor female, gay nor straight, black nor white, bond nor free, there is simply a new humanity, a humanity without barriers or boundaries, celebrating all that humanity can be. I suggest that we ride out the political storm that is raging in America at this moment and see it as little more than the birth pangs of a new understanding of what it means to see the image of God in every human life. Happy 237th! John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer John Otto Liljenstolpe writes: Question: Why do so many of your comments remind me of Bill Maher? Answer: Dear John, It is certainly not in the fact that I refrain from profanity and Bill does seem to enjoy the shock value of certain words. As a matter of fact, I have always enjoyed Bill Maher. He is a kind of liberal Bill O’Reilly. I believe I have been on his program, Politically Incorrect, seven times, one of which was a one on one version of that program. Bill is a very fierce critic of organized religion and in his comments he reveals that he cannot accept some of the more egregious of religious, irrational formulas like “Jesus died for my sins” and “It must be the will of God.” I must admit I find those phrases nonsensical myself. Bill’s religious background is Roman Catholic through one parent and Jewish through the other. God was communicated to him more like a punishing parent or a hanging judge who was going to get him rather than through the concept of life-affirming love. Bill is quick-witted, insightful and good at what he does. On great issues, he has integrity. He was fired by Disney from his program, Politically Incorrect, because he challenged a politician who called the terrorists who struck the World Trade Center in 2001 a group of “cowards.” Cowards, said Bill Maher, are those who fire long range missiles at civilian targets and never feel any fear of retribution. Cowards are those who bomb cities from 35,000 feet in the sky. The terrorists were willing to die for a cause in which they believed. You may question the appropriateness of that cause. You may be horrified at the pain it inflicted on innocent victims. Call them evil if you will, he continued, but they were not cowards. The Disney Corporation (owners of ABC) could not process that insight in the irrationality of the post 9/11 American World, but Bill was right and Disney was wrong. Bill Maher will always have cheerleaders and detractors. Anyone as insightful, quick-witted and honest as he is will always elicit both responses. He will also incur the ire of politicians and religious leaders when he punctures their arrogance, exposes their pomposity and peels the perfumed cover from their propaganda. Exposed people always react to that exposure with hostility. I like Bill Maher and I think he contributes to making America a more honest country. So I’m glad I remind you of him. Whether Bill likes that association will be up to him. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements New! Videos of Bishop Spong speaking all in one place. Visit our Videos Page today! We will be adding more on a regular basis. Send us your favorites to support(a)johnshelbyspong.com. 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 our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book

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Georgianna McBurney
by Wilson Priscilla 08 Jul '13

08 Jul '13

Begin forwarded message: > From: "Kitty Cole" <colekitty(a)comcast.net> > Subject: Georgianna > Date: July 8, 2013 10:54:48 AM CDT > To: "Ann Wood" <awoodewm(a)aol.com>, "Elizabeth Hill" <elizabethhill(a)verizon.net>, "Mary Moffett" <marywmoffett(a)comcast.net>, "Wilson Priscilla" <pris(a)teamtechpress.com> > > Hi everyone. I do not have all the NWF email addresses, so could you pass this on to others. Georgianna’s memorial service was just right with her family, her colleagues and friends from Malibu and ICA connections from myself and Linda Hamilton. The stars were Georgianna’s 4 grandchildren who called her granddear. Jana’s and Wei Wei’s children ranging in age from 22 to 14 are the most beautiful, accomplished and charming kids. I am attaching some remarks I made at the service. Georgianna died well (she had written instructions) and it was a fine celebration of her life. Kitty Priscilla H Wilson Prairie Village, KS Pris(a)TeamTechPress.com www.teamtechpress.com

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7/04/13, Spong: JUNE 26, 2013, A GREAT DAY FOR AMERICA
by Ellie Stock 04 Jul '13

04 Jul '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR JUNE 26, 2013 A GREAT DAY FOR AMERICA I was surprised at how elated I felt on June 26 when the Supreme Court handed down its two historic decisions affecting gay and lesbian people. The first decision mandated federal recognition of gay and lesbian couples in states that permit same-sex marriage by declaring the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to be unconstitutional. The second reopened the door for same sex marriage in California by refusing to consider the appeal from the court that had declared Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional. Impressive and, to some, as startling as those decisions were, the court in actuality took only baby steps toward justice by leaving the nation in a patchwork of conflicting practices in regard to the rights of same-sex couples. On the Proposition 8 decision they showed no great courage by allowing that proposition to go down on a technicality. This was hardly the sweeping and courageous change that was shown by the Warren Court in 1954 with its 9-0 desegregation opinion in the case of Brown v. the Board of Education. When these decisions were announced, however, the immediate reality was and is that the right of people to marry whomever they love was established, and that this nation will be forever different. There will be no turning back. Surely within a brief span of time, no more than five years at most, the patchwork pattern these decisions have left will disappear and marriage equality will be universal in this country, yes, even in Texas and South Carolina. One of the things that helped to make this victory so compelling and ecstatic for me came when I listened to the reactions of the defeated voices. To our shame as members of the church, so much of that negative reaction came from Christian leaders. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York called June 26 “a tragic day for America.” The Rev. Dr. Albert Mohler, the fundamentalist president of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, called it “a sad day for America.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said “the court got it wrong.” Evangelist Pat Robertson opined that Justice Kennedy must have gay law clerks working for him and that God would soon send something drastic upon this country because of these rulings. All of these responses broadcast loudly that their negativity had been defeated. The political response from the far right was also loud and predictable. Republican Representative Michelle Bachman fulminated; other Republican House members proclaimed that such a change should have come, not from the nine people on the court, but from a majority of the voters. These Representatives seemed not to recognize that in our democracy basic human rights are guaranteed by the constitution. They are not decided by a vote of the majority. One wonders where Justice Clarence Thomas would be today if the rights of black people had been determined by a voting plebiscite rather than by the courts. It was interesting to listen to Tea Party members castigating the “liberal” decisions of the Supreme Court, whose majority was appointed by conservative Republican presidents: two by Ronald Reagan, one by George H.W. Bush and two by George W. Bush. On that court today also sit six Roman Catholic Justices, two of whom voted to recognize same-sex marriage. These reactions convinced me that the decision of the court was greater and more far-reaching than I had at first fully understood. As this wave of euphoria then floated over me I became quite nostalgic. The battle for acceptance and justice for the gay community has seemed like a long one and in that battle there have been both heroes and casualties. I thought of people like the Rev. Jimmy Creech, a Methodist minister serving in Omaha, Nebraska, who was removed from the Methodist Ministry by his Conference for presiding over the blessing of two gay couples in his church, one in 1997 and one in 1999. How wrong those Methodist leaders look today. They punished their prophet. I thought of the Rev. Janie Spahr, a Presbyterian minister, who has been hounded, harassed and finally punished by her church for living in a relationship of commitment with her partner and for acting in the cause of gay justice. Janie was in touch with truth. Synod Presbyterian leaders were not. I thought of the Rev. Paul Woodrum, who was the first priest to confront me about my prejudice against homosexual people. When I discovered near the beginning of my career as a bishop that he lived with his partner in the rectory of the church, I informed him that since I could not allow an unmarried heterosexual couple to occupy a rectory, I could not allow him and his partner as a homosexual couple to do so either. Prejudice sometimes masquerades as “evenhandedness.” Paul responded to my pious words by saying “The heterosexual couple has a choice: they can get married anytime they choose. Neither my Church nor my State has been willing to give that choice to me.” That was the comment that drove me to study sexual orientation with some doctors at the Cornell Medical Center in New York City, a study that turned my attitude, my life and my career around. In that study I became convinced that sexual orientation is a given, not a chosen, aspect of life. It is like gender, skin color and left-handedness. One cannot be judged moralistically because of what one is. This seemed so obvious to me on the other side of my prejudice. I realized then that I did not choose to be heterosexual. I also did not choose to be white, male or right-handed. Armed with this conversion of my mind and heart, my life had to follow and I took on the prejudice against homosexual people as my own cause and that work became a major focus in my career. My campaign began with a charge to the people of the Diocese of Newark in 1984 to study “changing patterns in family life.” That sounds innocuous enough today, but the changes I asked them to consider was having this church bless the sacred commitments of gay and lesbian people. Their recommendations, when reported out in 1986, called on our clergy and congregations to give to gay and lesbian couples “the same recognition and affirmation, which have nurtured and sustained heterosexual couples, including appropriate liturgies, which recognized and blessed such relationships.” In 1986 this was a ground-breaking statement. It was the first time a unit of a major Christian church had put itself on the line for the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people. To support this initiative of our diocese, I wrote a book entitled Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality, which appeared in book stores in 1988. This book has been credited with sparking the debate on gay rights in American churches. It called for all Christian Churches to develop liturgies for the blessing of same sex unions, to recover the meaning of “betrothal” and to offer it liturgically to young adults when they decide to live together outside the bands of matrimony, and for churches to develop liturgical services to recognize the death of a marriage, to be used when divorce occurs. When that book came out, my life was destined never to be the same. Those ideas put me into the category where the word “controversial” would be forever attached to my name in both the religious and secular press. While that debate was still raging I acted once again on December 16, 1989, to ordain the first openly gay priest, living with his male partner in a publicly-acknowledged, committed relationship. I did this with the full support of all the decision-making bodies of my diocese. This prophetic act set off a massive wave of public and ecclesiastical negativity. Our presiding bishop, Edmond Browning, handed me and my diocese an official “letter of disassociation.” I was told that I had violated “the collegiality” of the House of Bishops. My wife and I then took our case across America speaking on radio, television, to the print media and in public addresses. We were spat upon as we walked through a crowd of demonstrators into a church in La Jolla, California. We were set upon and physically threatened by demonstrators in Rockford, Illinois, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas. I received sixteen death threats that were quite specific. Abusive mail and telephone calls poured into my office. The students at my own seminary invited me to speak to them on this subject, while the faculty boycotted the evening in protest. When one’s mind is convinced of the rightness of an action, one’s heart, one’s will and one’s life has got to follow. To hide in some safe haven of acceptable moderation is not an option if integrity is to be served. This battle in my church was tense and difficult, but attitudes were changing. We were heralding the birth of a new consciousness. Today, in 2013, the leaders of my church greeted the decision of the Supreme Court with excitement and approval. My former seminary now has a lesbian faculty member. Two openly homosexual bishops now serve my church with competence. When I retired as the Bishop of Newark in 2000 we had in our diocese 35 out of the closet gay and lesbian clergy serving churches, thirty-one of them living in publicly acknowledged partnerships. They were a powerful witness to the people of our diocese and to the state of New Jersey. I was and am enormously proud of each one of them. Now the smoke of battle is clearing away. The victory is obvious. Gay and lesbian Christians are fully included in the life of my church and their claim to full citizenship in this nation has now been extended to them by the Supreme Court. There is no doubt in my mind that the struggle was worth the sacrifice. We have witnessed a new understanding of what it means to be human receive cultural affirmation. Justice and human dignity have been extended to one more group of people who were once marginalized and rejected by human prejudice. I rejoice in this day as a citizen of the United States. As a Christian I rejoice that the promise of Jesus to all people recorded by the Fourth Gospel: “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly,” has now been guaranteed to our homosexual brothers and sisters by my country and affirmed by my church. June 26 was a great day for America and let it be said by this Christian leader, it was an even greater day for the cause of Christ. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Jean Ruffin, via the Internet, writes: Question: I greatly admire your writings and find them very helpful to me in understanding how it is possible to be a Christian in this day and age. I have a question, however, that intrigues me. I have just read a wonderful book about the 16th century heretic, Michael Servetus. It is entitled: Out of the Flames by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone. Servetus was burned at the stake by John Calvin for being an anti-Trinitarian. I was struck by how modern (and appealing to me) the beliefs of Servetus sounded and how much that seemed to me like what I understand that you believe. I was also surprised to learn that his early followers started what became the Unitarian Church. Do you consider yourself somewhat like the Unitarians? Answer: Dear Jean, Servetus was a great reformation leader. He was a “heretic” only to those who condemned him. To accuse a person of heresy assumes that the truth is actually known and that the one who makes the heresy charge actually possesses it. I think participants on both sides of that equation dangle between being ignorant and being idolatrous. They are ignorant because they think they know what ultimately cannot be known, namely the nature of God. They are idolatrous because they have identified God with a definition of God produced by the limited human mind. In effect these people have bound God inside human words and concepts. They have created God and think that their creation is God. That is the meaning of idolatry. Trinitarians defined God as a Trinity. Unitarians objected to that definition and insisted that God is a unity. That is a debate in which few people engage today and this rhetoric of the past seems strange to modern ears. I do not believe that the holy God can ever be defined by anyone. All any of us can ever really do is to define our own human experience of God. There is a vast difference between God and my experience of God. I have great admiration for the Unitarian-Universalist Church. I have been invited to lecture in Unitarian churches across this country. When I taught at Harvard Divinity School in 2000, several of my pre-ordination students were Unitarians. I think that all but one of them are now pastors in Unitarian-Universalist’s churches today. They were among my most talented students and I deeply appreciated my opportunity to know them. I am, however, quite content to remain in the Episcopal Church and to define myself primarily as a Christian, even a Trinitarian Christian. I am sometimes embarrassed by some parts of my church. The bishops of the Church of England, the mother church of us Episcopalians, seem to me to be quite often caught up in unbelievably silly positions - -women may be priests, but not bishops; homosexuals may be cathedral deans, but not bishops; homosexuals may get married, but they have to remain celibate. Periodically the Anglican Communion produces frontier thinking bishops, who are castigated and opposed by the church hierarchy in their lifetimes, only to be claimed and appreciated within a generation after their deaths. I think particularly of my mentor, Anglican bishop and New Testament scholar, John A. T. Robinson. I would laugh at all of these positions if I did not understand the hurt that is visited by them on so many. When I realize that, I am more prone to weep than to laugh. I do want my church always to allow and to encourage rigorous theological debate and that cannot happen if anyone suggests that the truth of God has already been received and codified. The great gift and witness of the Unitarian-Universalist tradition is and has been that they engage without fear the theological issues of the day. Servetus was one of the great pioneers of that tradition and the Unitarians keep the torch of theological learning alive at the congregational level. John Shelby Spong Announcements At ProgressiveChristianity.org, we have over 1500 resources for your evolving faith? Like this one: INTERDependence Day- a Full Service Liturgy Check them out today! 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 our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book

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Further thoughts on the future - the easy one
by Herman Greene 02 Jul '13

02 Jul '13

The easy issue I raised was what is the difference between the OE and Dialogue listservs, given (if it is true) that the people on the two lists are mostly the same and there are a lot of double postings. You might respond by starting with these statements: - I am on both listserves because . . . - I am on only one listserv, the ______ listserve, because . . . - I agree, there is no difference and they should be combined. Here's why . . . - The OE listserv is for ____________ and the Dialogue listserv is for __________ At my advanced old age (as I am reminded on these lists), I of course no that things get into history for different reasons and then remain after those reasons no longer apply. The OE listserve was initiality to address concerns related to sexual abuse of the emerging generation in the order, but this is not longer addressed on that listserve. In my view the OE listserve is more about the personal lives of former members of OE, but then when I joined the Dialogue listserve I found that it concerned almost the same thing. By the way, I'm not expecting the listserves to be combined, simply because (because what I'm not sure). Still some may find this an interesting topic. I'm inclined to go back to OE only because I joined these conversations to stay in touch with those dear colleagues with whom I shared an important part of my life. Herman -- __________________________________________________ Herman F. Greene 2516 Winningham Road Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-942-4358 (ph & fax) hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com

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Sustainable Households from Jim Wiegel
by jfwiegel＠yahoo.com via surveymonkey.com 01 Jul '13

01 Jul '13

Jim Wiegel here. The link below is asking for your wisdom and reflections on a question that has become important for me: "Based on your experience, what are the key ingredients of a truly sustainable household? -- one that fully engages its members and others in getting the "real work" of life done for all its members in a way that continually develops their capacities and gives energy to their involvement and contribution in the larger community and world of which they are a part. Here is a link to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=zrcNdqh4JedF8CswNDibTg_3d_3d This link is uniquely tied to this survey and your email address. Please do not forward this message. Thanks for your participation! Thinking back to days gone by, between the notion of the "religious house" and the "missional family", we created and were sustained by some very interesting household forms. I sometimes think that the creation of those two were really the key to releasing a remarkable amount of global energy out of us. Last December, our whole family was gathered here in Arizona and I used to occasion to interview everyone in the family, down to the age of 6, asking them for their list of key ingredients for a sustainable household. Now, I would like your two cents on this. Thanks in advance for participating. If you do not wish to receive further survey emails from us, please click the link below, and you will be automatically removed from our mailing list. http://www.surveymonkey.com/optout.aspx?sm=zrcNdqh4JedF8CswNDibTg_3d_3d

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"Journey Reflection" June 2013 Top-viewed Blogs
by Lynda Cock 30 Jun '13

30 Jun '13

Dear colleagues, Following are the top-viewed blog posts during June <blocked::http://rejourney.blogspot.com/2013/06/journey-reflection-blog-revi ew-june-2013.html> 2013 (after viewing a blog post, click top-left return arrow on your computer to return to view another blog post). As always, we appreciate your quote suggestions, comments, and sharing blog posts with others. Happy 4th of July to you in the USA, Lynda and John >Daily Blog: "Journey Reflection" at 4 links ... Google: <http://www.rejourney.blogspot.com/> www.reJourney.blogspot.com Google Plus: <https://plus.google.com/u/0/114307312715975337692/posts> Journey Reflection/Google Plus Facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/transcribebooks> https://www.facebook.com/transcribebooks Twitter: <https://twitter.com/transcribebooks> https://twitter.com/transcribebooks >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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6/27/13, Spong: My Mentors, Part 5 - Richard Henry Baker
by Ellie Stock 27 Jun '13

27 Jun '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR My Mentors, Part 5 Richard Henry Baker He may have had fewer obvious gifts than any person I ever watched in a position of significant power and authority. He was not an impressive personality. One would describe him more as homespun than as notable. He was more like a favorite uncle or a comfortable neighbor. He was not particularly tall, perhaps stretching to five feet and nine inches. What one noticed at first about him was that he walked with a slight limp, the result of a World War I injury. He had little oratorical power. It would not occur to most people to want to listen to a speech he might deliver. The public speaking required of him in his profession was experienced by him as a chore. He did it, but he did it rather poorly. Audiences were seldom moved; endured would be the word they would have used. He had few administrative skills and was looked upon as one who was never quite organized. On more than one occasion, enough to form a pattern in the minds of some, he got his schedule confused and showed up at the wrong place on the wrong date and at the wrong time. He ran his organization as if it were a family, feeling it was everyone’s duty to bear one another’s burden. That of course could not be done unless people’s burdens were well known. He was not malevolent, but confidentiality was not his strong suit. He frequently sought to encourage one person by telling him or her about another person, who had confided in him and who, in his opinion, had much the same problem. I do not mean to be critical, but to be descriptive. This man, now deceased, was a bishop, elected bishop-coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina in 1950 and succeeding to the diocesan bishop’s office in 1959. He filled that office until 1965, not a long term as those things are normally measured. He ordained me deacon on June 24, 1955. Today I regard him as the most influential bishop under whom I ever served. His name was Richard Henry Baker and he helped me understand the complex nature of effective leadership. He modeled a leadership style that is absolutely unique. So let me tell you the story of my fifth great mentor and, in the process, help you, my readers, to understand that genius comes in many forms. Richard Henry Baker came to the Episcopal office after a long rectorship at the Church of the Redeemer in a rather fancy suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. When he went there in the early1930’s, Redeemer was a little country church, well suited to Dick Baker’s informal, one on one, personal style. Prior to and following World War II, however, the suburbs around the great cities of America exploded. Great farms were carved into beautiful sculptured lots, roads were paved, trees were planted, homes were built and shopping malls were erected. The face of America was dramatically changed and the little Church of the Redeemer in Baltimore County evolved into a large, wealthy and influential suburban church. Its rector, Richard Baker, grew with them. He was there for so long that children he had known in the Sunday school and various youth groups left home for universities and graduate schools, got married, began their families and then returned to the neighborhood and the church of their upbringing, but now as admired, successful professionals. They were among Baltimore’s leading citizens. Many were doctors whose careers at Johns Hopkins Medical School and Hospital achieved national recognition, but they were still known to Richard Baker as little Earl or little Billy. The Church of the Redeemer expanded its physical facilities time after time to accommodate its growing congregation. The staff at this church also grew to meet this congregation’s expanding needs. At this faith community’s center, however, was still this simple man who knew everyone and who was, it seems, loved by all. No one expected him to be what he was not. Everyone was quite pleased that everything was changing except Dick Baker. He was an anchor in a swirling sea. His Sunday sermons were brief and practical. No one would mistake him for a scholar. As a pastor he was more an advice giver than a skilled counselor. He was a comfortable part of the furniture at this increasingly affluent and dominating congregation. Meanwhile, in the Diocese of North Carolina, the bishop, whose name was Edwin Anderson Penick, was approaching the mandatory retirement age of 72. He had been elected bishop when he was only 35. Most of the people in that diocese had never known anyone else in that office. He also filled that office magnificently. He was a powerful speaker, a respected intellect and a master administrator. He was known as “Prince Bishop,” a larger than life ecclesiastical figure. He was accorded honor and status in whatever setting he entered. When the time came to choose his successor, it was clear that the diocese wanted someone just like him. The nominees were of that mold. One was the dean of an Episcopal theological seminary, a scholar, a published author and one whose skills in leading clergy were already established. Another, the rector of a large Virginia Church, who bore a name that reflected the ancestry of Virginia’s landed gentry, combining in his three names three distinguished Virginia family lines. To speak his full name was like a roll call of the “first families of Virginia.” The third nominee was a rector of a large church in Richmond, Virginia, a city that, probably more than any other, gloried in its history. Anyone of these would have been a fitting successor to Bishop Penick. The election convention got off to an interesting start when a North Carolina lay delegate extolled the virtues of the man with three noble Virginia names a bit too effusively, dwelling on the history of his three distinguished family lines. The next speaker, put off by this excessive tribute to blue blood, asked if we were interested in this man as our next bishop or were we bringing him to North Carolina for breeding purposes? The Virginia blue blood never had a chance after that. So the seminary dean was elected and the people felt good about their choice. The Dean, however, declined his election, an action that stunned the people of North Carolina and deflated their corporate egos. A year later, another convention was called and Richard Henry Baker of Baltimore, Maryland, was chosen. The contrast could not have been more severe. The Diocese of North Carolina had turned to a man beloved in his community because he had been there for so long and they had thrust this wonderful, but limited man into a position of great power and influence to succeed an icon of respect and effectiveness. When Dick Baker began to be known in North Carolina, a sense of despair about the future of the diocese became palpable. How will we manage when this man takes over it was asked? It was a fair question. It is said of bishops that upon election, they either grow or swell. Bishop Baker did neither. His great gift was that he knew who he was and he made no effort to become anything else. He certainly did not swell. He sat loosely to authority. He elicited gifts from others that he did not have. Some of North Carolina’s top business leaders, fearing that the diocese was in poor hands with this bishop, volunteered their services, taking over the business and financial leadership of the diocese. Senior clergy ceased to be parochial in their outlook and began to give this bishop the best leadership they had to offer. Bishop Baker kept delegating his authority to clergy whom most regarded as too young to be effective leaders and then he watched them grow. He trusted others to provide him with the talent he knew he did not possess. He empowered congregations and clergy to risk in dramatic ways. In 1959 when a group of young clergy simply closed the segregated camp the diocese had operated for “colored Episcopalians,” deciding that the one diocesan camp, known as Vade Mecum, would serve all the children of the diocese, Bishop Baker approved that decision without hesitation and rode out the storm that ensued among North Carolina’s “old white establishment” with a serenity that was impressive.. He never wavered and the attempt to overturn that decision made by those “young upstarts” failed because this bishop exercised veto power. Another young priest, not five years out of seminary, became chair of the prestigious “State of the Diocese” committee, empowered to bring sweeping recommendations to the convention about future policy. Bishop Baker did not flinch when one of those recommendations was to close a hospital in Charlotte that it had run for years for “colored people,” thus forcing the city to provide public tax-supported medical care to blacks and whites alike. Bishop Baker empowered the clergy of his diocese to grow into who they were capable of being. He asked others to give gifts of leadership that he knew he himself did not possess. That was and is a tremendous gift of leadership. People today look back on that period of church history in North Carolina with some sense of wonder. It was a time of intense conflict over race and the role of women in the church. It was an era when angry people withheld their money from the church as a weapon to keep control and when congregations voted to withdraw from the Episcopal Church in order to keep their prejudices intact. In retrospect people were heard to say such things as “The Diocese of North Carolina got through those difficult days in spite of having such a weak man in the bishop’s office.” How wrong they were. We got through those days because we did have Dick Baker in the bishop’s office. Today I am aware of the contributions that clergy developed under Dick Baker have made in the larger Church. They have become bishops, deans and rectors of some of America’s greatest congregations. One founded the Alban Institute, many were active in the Civil Rights movement, the movement for women’s equality in church and society and the movement for justice and full acceptance of the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender community. They are the results of the ministry of Richard Henry Baker, who assessing his weaknesses accurately, called many more into being something they did not know that they had the ability to be. I salute him as one of the great mentors of my life. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Dr. Franklin Woo, of California writes: Question: I have been following your work for many years, especially when we were living in New York Now in retirement in California, I found your book A New Christianity for a New World most helpful, as if tailor made to fit my needs. Before retirement, I had essentiality two roles: one of chaplain and lecturer in religion at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1965-1976) and director of the Chinese Program, National Churches of Christ in the USA (1976-1993). Experiences in these two roles have sealed my definition as a bi-cultural person with dual belongings in value systems of both Chinese traditions and Christianity, despite the fact that I was born in the U.S. (San Francisco Chinatown). In Hong Kong and Asia, I learned so much about Chinese and East Asian traditions, especially from students, colleagues and other faculty members. I was very much attracted to the best in the Confucian tradition, especially “Neo-Confucianism,” after classical Confucianism had interacted for centuries with native Daoism and Indic Buddhism to become a more inclusive system that embodies nature and the cosmos. While in New York, I attended monthly Neo-Confucian seminars at Columbia University, where professors from colleges and universities of the Atlantic seaboard did rigorous exegesis of ancient texts, the envy of Christian scholars. In retirement I still worship regularly with my wife in a local Presbyterian congregation for the sake of discipline and community, although all of my work has been in ecumenical contexts. I have found Christian worship, however, to be essentially boring banality. Its confession and absolution are too facile, not to mention that my sins are much more sophisticated than what the superficiality of the confession texts state. Maybe this is all as you mentioned in your book, “familiarity breeds contempt.” I actually resonated well with your quote of Bonhoeffer in the Preface, especially “Before God and with God we live without God.” Your liberating of Christianity from theism has enabled faith for me to converge more directly with so much in the Chinese and East Asian traditions. My first encounter with ridding the supernatural from Christianity was from David Ray Griffin’s book: Reechantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (Cornell University Press, 2001). His rigorous and specific critique really did it for me. Your intellectual honesty (a la John A. T. Robinson) resonates well with the best in Neo-Confucian fundamentalism, which is the fundamental commitment to the human discourse. Your beginning with the dawn of humanity’s consciousness and the struggle for survival reminded me of Robert N. Bellah’s Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (Harvard 2011), an interreligious work which took Bellah 15 years to write after retirement. The 746 pages appear to be his reading notes to himself. Your stating that the description of religious experience can never encompass the entirety of that experience resonates well with the Daoist claim that all articulations of experience, if absolutized, can be “an idolatry of words.” Your Christianity of expansion into larger and larger realms of exclusivity resonates with the best of the Confucian paradigm of each person being a center of relationship from family, to community, to society, to nation, to world, to the cosmos (ping tian xia) “all under heaven.” Your integrating good and evil is likened to the Daoist yin-yang, where everything in life is seen an interconnected. There is no facile isolating of that which is “evil,” since every person is a combination of many facets of personhood. There is little dichotomy in Daosim; life and death are one. Your idea of giving away self and love resonates well with Buddhist non-attachment to things, to loved ones, to life, even one’s own. It is the art of letting go in both Christian and Buddhist kenosis, though the latter has made it a vocation. Your emphasis on the imperative of community is also central to Confucianism where to be human requires at least two; no one is an atomistic individual. In retirement I have been trying to stay intellectually alive by reviewing books for an academic journal, China Review International, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Hawaii. To date they have published close to 70 of my reviews since 1995. Thank you for answering one of my most fundamental questions by demythologizing the notion of a theist parent/fixer, alleviating us of all responsibility. Answer: Dear Franklin, Thank you for your incredible letter and for your permission to reprint it in my column. I think it gives my readers a sense of how rich a cross-cultural religious experience can be. I have gained much from my dialogues with Hindus in India, Buddhists in China, Jews and Muslims in the USA. Perhaps we can get our churches to work on their prayers of confession so that they can be developed to cover “the sophistication” of your sins. I like that idea! I would love to meet you someday. John Shelby Spong Announcements Happy Summer! “And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, 'You owe me.' Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky.” ~Rumi We hope this finds you well and enjoying these days as the sun graces us. Soon we will head back into shorter days and longer nights...but it is our love that can light up the sky. This month's free eBulletin from ProgressiveChristianity.org was all about children. It is full of resources to guide children on a compassionate and wonder-filled path. Check it out here if you missed it! Are you looking for people or faith communities in your area? Search our Global Network Directory for community near you. May your days be filled with laughter, light and delight! ~The team at ProgressiveChristianity.org 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 our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book

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