- Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

5/26/2022, Progressing Spirit: Rev. David M. Felton: “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” at 100; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 26 May '22

26 May '22

“Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” at 100#yiv6911505896 p{margin:10px 0;padding:0;}#yiv6911505896 table{border-collapse:collapse;}#yiv6911505896 h1, #yiv6911505896 h2, #yiv6911505896 h3, #yiv6911505896 h4, #yiv6911505896 h5, #yiv6911505896 h6{display:block;margin:0;padding:0;}#yiv6911505896 img, #yiv6911505896 a img{border:0;height:auto;outline:none;text-decoration:none;}#yiv6911505896 body, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896bodyTable, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896bodyCell{min-height:100%;margin:0;padding:0;width:100%;}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnPreviewText{display:none !important;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896outlook a{padding:0;}#yiv6911505896 img{}#yiv6911505896 table{}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896ReadMsgBody{width:100%;}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896ExternalClass{width:100%;}#yiv6911505896 p, #yiv6911505896 a, #yiv6911505896 li, #yiv6911505896 td, #yiv6911505896 blockquote{}#yiv6911505896 a .filtered99999 , #yiv6911505896 a .filtered99999 {color:inherit;cursor:default;text-decoration:none;}#yiv6911505896 p, #yiv6911505896 a, #yiv6911505896 li, #yiv6911505896 td, #yiv6911505896 body, #yiv6911505896 table, #yiv6911505896 blockquote{}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896ExternalClass, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896ExternalClass p, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896ExternalClass td, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896ExternalClass div, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896ExternalClass span, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896ExternalClass font{line-height:100%;}#yiv6911505896 a .filtered99999 {color:inherit !important;text-decoration:none !important;font-size:inherit !important;font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;line-height:inherit !important;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896bodyCell{padding:10px;}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896templateContainer{max-width:600px !important;border:5px solid #363232;}#yiv6911505896 a.yiv6911505896mcnButton{display:block;}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImage, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnRetinaImage{vertical-align:bottom;}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent{}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent img{height:auto !important;}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnDividerBlock{table-layout:fixed !important;}#yiv6911505896 body, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896bodyTable{}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896bodyCell{border-top:0;}#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896templateContainer{border:5px solid #363232;}#yiv6911505896 h1{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:26px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;}#yiv6911505896 h2{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:22px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;}#yiv6911505896 h3{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:20px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;}#yiv6911505896 h4{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templatePreheader{background-color:#FAFAFA;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:9px;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templatePreheader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templatePreheader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p{color:#656565;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;line-height:150%;text-align:left;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templatePreheader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent a, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templatePreheader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p a{color:#656565;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateHeader{background-color:#FFFFFF;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:0;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateHeader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateHeader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateHeader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent a, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateHeader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p a{color:#007C89;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateBody{background-color:#FFFFFF;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:2px solid #EAEAEA;padding-top:0;padding-bottom:9px;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateBody .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateBody .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateBody .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent a, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateBody .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p a{color:#007C89;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateFooter{background-color:#FAFAFA;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:9px;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateFooter .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateFooter .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p{color:#656565;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;line-height:150%;text-align:center;}#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateFooter .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent a, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateFooter .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p a{color:#656565;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;}@media only screen and (min-width:768px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896templateContainer{width:600px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 body, #yiv6911505896 table, #yiv6911505896 td, #yiv6911505896 p, #yiv6911505896 a, #yiv6911505896 li, #yiv6911505896 blockquote{}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 body{width:100% !important;min-width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnRetinaImage{max-width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImage{width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCartContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionTopContent, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnRecContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionBottomContent, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnTextContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnBoxedTextContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageGroupContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionLeftTextContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionRightTextContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionLeftImageContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionRightImageContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageCardLeftTextContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageCardRightTextContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageCardLeftImageContentContainer, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageCardRightImageContentContainer{max-width:100% !important;width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnBoxedTextContentContainer{min-width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageGroupContent{padding:9px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionLeftContentOuter .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionRightContentOuter .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent{padding-top:9px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageCardTopImageContent, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionBottomContent:last-child .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionBottomImageContent, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionBlockInner .yiv6911505896mcnCaptionTopContent:last-child .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent{padding-top:18px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageCardBottomImageContent{padding-bottom:9px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageGroupBlockInner{padding-top:0 !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageGroupBlockOuter{padding-top:9px !important;padding-bottom:9px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnBoxedTextContentColumn{padding-right:18px !important;padding-left:18px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageCardLeftImageContent, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnImageCardRightImageContent{padding-right:18px !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;padding-left:18px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcpreview-image-uploader{display:none !important;width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 h1{font-size:22px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 h2{font-size:20px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 h3{font-size:18px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 h4{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 .yiv6911505896mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templatePreheader{display:block !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templatePreheader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templatePreheader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateHeader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateHeader .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateBody .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateBody .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateFooter .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent, #yiv6911505896 #yiv6911505896templateFooter .yiv6911505896mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" at 100 | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. David M. Felten May 26, 2022When I first read Harry Emerson Fosdick’s Shall the Fundamentalists Win?, it changed my life. In disbelief, I read portions of it over and over again and looked at the date. I read it AGAIN and thought, “What?” How in the world could he have preached this in 1922 and it STILL be controversial?! Why hasn’t this message gotten out? It was as obvious to me then as it is today: “real” Christians STILL find what Fosdick was preaching a hundred years ago to be heretical and unchristian. In fact, when the local Baptist pastor in my town found out I was preaching a series to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Shall the Fundamentalists Win?, he let loose with a Facebook tirade of end-times alarmism, even calling me a reprobate (a badge I wear with honor!). And yet, what Fosdick was preaching has been being taught in our seminaries for generations. I learned it in seminary and so has every other mainline and Roman Catholic seminary student for over ONE HUNDRED YEARS. So, how could this be? The short answer is, because the Fundamentalists HAVE won in many ways. They’ve managed to stake out a very particular and unchanging set of beliefs that they are convinced must never be questioned and must be defended at all costs. AND, with their appeal to the status quo and what they believe to be the “unchanging truth” of God, they’ve managed to convince the vast majority of practitioners of Christianity that theirs is the only authentic and acceptable way to be a Christian. Meanwhile, those of us in more mainline traditions, steeped in the values of inclusion and tolerance, have said, “Fine, believe what you want. No skin off my nose.” But by being inclusive and tolerant, we’ve made space for Fundamentalists (who HATE inclusivity and tolerance) to get a foothold in our churches and work to discredit the very values that we embrace. So, while we’ve been going on our merry way with an evolving faith, embracing the realities of cultural change and progress, Fundamentalists have continued to promote a static, unchanging slate of archaic doctrines and tell their people, “You are to believe what we tell you to believe. No questions asked.” OK, but how did we get here? Back in the early to mid 19th century, German theologians began reading the Bible in new ways. Theologian David Friedrich Strauss developed the idea of what we now know as the “Historical Jesus” while Karl Heinrich Graf and Julius Wellhausen developed what came to be called the Four Source Hypothesis of Hebrew Scripture (namely that the Pentateuch was NOT written by Moses). Bombshells from London included Darwin publishing the Origin of Species AND newly translated cuneiform tablets from Iraq suggested that the authors of Hebrew scripture had plagiarized earlier “Ancient Near Eastern” texts. The religious establishment went into convulsions. Despite every effort being made to guard against these ideas crossing the Atlantic, cross they did, creating major intellectual conflicts in academia, seminaries, and churches across America. So, in 1909, a defense of orthodox Christian doctrine and an attack on the new learnings from Europe was mounted. Founder of Union Oil, Lyman Stewart, anonymously paid for the writing of, printing, and mailing of 90 essays in 12 volumes called “The Fundamentals: a Testimony to the Truth.” Over three million volumes were sent free of charge to ministers, professors of theology, Sunday school superintendents, and any other Protestant religious worker they could think of. Based on Union Oil’s propaganda blitz, the 1910 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was then primed to adopt a five-point declaration which all candidates for ordination had to affirm. They included: 1. The inerrancy of the Bible 2. The virgin birth of Christ 3. Christ’s substitutionary atonement 4. Christ’s bodily resurrection 5. The authenticity of Christ’s miracles In the midst of this religious drama and the trauma of World War I, Harry Emerson Fosdick was receiving his seminary training, preaching at his first church, and serving as an Army chaplain in France. As the Presbyterians continued to tear themselves apart after the war, First Presbyterian in New York sought to fend off Fundamentalist influences with an intentionally progressive message and hired the Baptist Fosdick as their “preaching pastor.” His Christianity not only embraced social changes, scientific advances, and the new knowledge of Biblical scholarship, his theology resonated with many whose faith had been shaken by the social and theological upheavals of the early 20th century and the horrors of WWI. Soon, capacity crowds packed the sanctuary every Sunday. The crowd often overflowed outside onto 5th Avenue where loudspeakers were set up so people could hear the sermon. Despite the broad popularity of Fosdick’s message, Fundamentalists were putting clergy on trial and actively driving people who didn’t believe the “right things” out of religious institutions around the country. So, on May 21st, 1922, Fosdick preached what was essentially a plea for tolerance, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”. Acknowledging the gulf of disagreement between the “modernists” and the Fundamentalists, he wondered (naïvely?) if there could ever be a church “inclusive enough to take in both liberals and conservatives without either trying to drive the other out.” But then as now, Fundamentalists thrive on the fear of change — and the early 20th century was seeing a “great mass of new knowledge coming into [humanity's] possession.” Plus, the 19th amendment had just passed, giving women the right to vote, a change that Fundamentalists opposed on the Biblical grounds that Eve was subservient to Adam. Despite the Fundamentalist efforts to hold back time, Fosdick believed that one’s faith and the modern world can’t be kept in opposition to one another. He said: .....“We must be able to think our modern life clear through in Christian terms, .....and to do that we also must be able to think our Christian faith clear .....through in modern terms.” His other main emphasis was on what he suggested was the shame Christians should be feeling to be quarrelling over trifling matters of theology when the world was dying of great needs. He asks, .....“If, during the war, when the nations were wrestling upon the very brink of .....hell and at times all seemed lost, you chanced to hear two [people] in an .....altercation about some minor matter of sectarian denominationalism, could .....you restrain your indignation? You said, "What can you do with folks like .....this who, in the face of colossal issues, play with the tiddledywinks .....and peccadillos of religion?" I ask myself the same question today – and every poll indicates that this is the very reason why so many people have given up and abandoned religion altogether: When the world is in conflict and people’s hopes and dreams are being crushed by prejudice, injustice, and greed, how is it that the church is still wasting its time arguing over the “tiddledywinks and peccadillos” of religion? The simple answer is: because the Fundamentalists are still at work! They can’t let go of the arcane and obsolete doctrines they’ve been clinging to for over 100 years — and they’ve brainwashed a LOT of people. They so fervently believe they are doing God’s will that they justify actively hurting people, harming communities, institutionalizing prejudice, and misrepresenting Jesus. Who was most adamantly opposed to Civil Rights and the end of segregation in this country? Fundamentalist Christians. Who is behind most of the punitive and hateful anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion laws passing through legislatures right now around the country? Fundamentalist Christians. The current effort to shut down teaching about racism and evolution in our schools is being driven by who? Fundamentalist Christians. If ANYONE tells you that religion is irrelevant today, they are NOT paying attention. Fundamentalist values and organizational skills are in the background of almost every single story you read on your newsfeed. So, Shall the Fundamentalists Win? They certainly seem to be. So, here we are, 100 years later, the social conflicts may be a little different, but the theological ones are not. And just like 100 years ago, the Fundamentalists are much better at getting their message out than the mainline church ever has been. Truth be told, the Fundamentalists have done a GREAT job over the last 100 years of infiltrating almost every corner of global Christianity. Over the last few years, every single mainline denomination has split precisely because none of our denominations have been able to fend off the influence of Fundamentalists throwing a wrench into the continued evolution of Christian thought. Sadly, the question of whether the Fundamentalist will win remains acutely relevant. Likewise, do progressively-minded Christians have a relevant response? There’s an apocryphal story about Fosdick going for a walk in Central Park with a young man who was nervous about questioning the conventional faith of his childhood. As they walked and talked, they came upon a rectangular concrete reflecting pool. The water was still and peaceful – but much of it was choked with weeds. Fosdick commented to the young man, “Christianity is either like this pool — where you can stake it out, measure it, and control it — OR it’s like a river that has sprung up from a spring deep and unknowable. Its waters flow, dance, change, and, added to by tributaries, grows and changes course, always moving, often noisy, but never still, never stopping, and most certainly not moving backwards.” Contrary to what the Fundamentalists fear, Fosdick believed that change is not Christianity’s most deadly enemy. Stagnation is. Fosdick in his day and we in ours have the challenge of showing the world that Christianity is not a stagnant weed-filled pond, but a dynamic, developing, and living faith. Sam Keen has written, “History is littered with the remains of civilizations that chose to die rather than change their organizing myth.” What Fosdick knew then and what we need to remember today, is that without a re-evaluation of the organizing myths of Christianity, the church, too, is poised to pass into the irrelevance to which so many religions of the past have been relegated. Despite the setbacks all around us, my hope is that the progressive commitment to critical thinking, embracing reality, and compassionate action will inspire us to answer that 100-year-old question, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” with a solid, “Not on my watch!” ~ Rev. David M Felten Read online here ________________ Don’t miss out on additional resources available in reflecting on the centennial of Harry Emerson Fosdick’s “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” - First Presbyterian Church in New York City (where Fosdick preached the sermon) is hosting a monthlong series of esteemed preachers (including fellow Progressing Spirit columnist Brian McLaren) You can find links to the sermons at fpcnyc.org - Diana Butler Bass is posting a monthlong series of excellent reflections on “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” (She answers, “Yes. Yes they have.”). These include in-depth backstories and commentary on the damage Fundamentalists are currently wreaking on our culture. Check them out on her site, The Cottage - During the month of May, I’m preaching a sermon series at The Fountains deconstructing the “Fundamentals” with which many Christians are still obsessed. They include “The Case Against Virgin Birth,” “The Case Against Biblical Inerrancy,” and “The Case Against Substitutionary Atonement.” You can view the archive on The Fountains YouTube page HERE About the AuthorRev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions” and authors of Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity. He is a co-founder of Catalyst Arizona and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church. Visit his website here. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Ray Is it essential for a Christian to believe in the Trinity? A: By Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers Dear Ray,I hope not! The belief in a triune God may have confused more people than it has helped. Like all “developed” doctrines, the Holy Trinity evolved from a way of trying to understand God to a central belief that Christians must adapt, regardless of how impossible it is to take literally. Bishop Spong put it this way: “The Holy Trinity is not now and never has been a description of the being of God. It is rather the attempt to define our human experience of God.” We experience God as creator; Jesus as the incarnation of God’s love; and the Holy Spirit as the means through which we are drawn to and inspired by that love. It is a metaphor that should remain, as William Sloane Coffin Jr. put it, “a sign-post, not a hitching-post.” But as the church sought to secure its power and exclusivity, the Trinity became more than just a metaphor or the poetry of liturgy. When the church declared that the Holy Spirit could only issue from the Father and the Son, a great schism arose that split the church into East and West. Rome made the Holy Spirit into a kind of exclusive franchise, while Constantinople saw it operating independently. This is what happens when we “literalize” our metaphors. We move from suggesting a helpful way to understand God (who can never be fully understood) to a demand that there is only one way to understand God. That’s why I have been a non-trinitarian minister for my entire life. Three-in-one and one-in-three (like fully human and fully divine) not only makes no logical sense, but it sells the mystery of God short. One of my favorite bumper stickers was spotted on the car of a wise English teacher who loved Star Wars: METAPHORS BE WITH YOU. ~ Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers is retired senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church, Oklahoma City, Distinguished Professor of Social Justice Emeritus at Oklahoma City University, and Adjunct Professor of Homiletics at Phillips Theology Seminary. He is a fellow at Westar, a member of the God Seminar, and his most recent book is Saving God from Religion: A Minister’s Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age. Visit website here: RobinRexMeyers.com | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | “I am not a Christian, but I am grateful that Progressive Christianity is out there doing its work. It appears to be pulling the world in a mature, spiritual direction and I like that.” - Jay Moore, Waterloo, ON Dear Friends, We are striving to do exactly what Jay suggests, pull the world in a mature, spiritual direction… even if the world is kicking and screaming! However, truth be told, this work requires funding and it’s been hard to come by. We are a small, donor-funded non-profit, seeking to have a significant impact. This year is a critical year for our organization as we attempt to both continue our current offerings and expand our resources. We are struggling and need your help! If you appreciate the work that we are doing, could you give a donation to ProgressiveChristianity.org today? Small donations go a long way for us, and a recurring donation makes a world of difference. Without your donations, we won’t be able to continue this important work. Thank you for helping us to pull the world in a better direction. Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines Co-Executive Director, ProgressiveChristianity.org Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong. Click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podme | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited My Way into an Interfaith Future Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong June 28, 2012Last week I introduced you, my readers, to an interfaith “think tank” in which I shared recently at a conference center known as the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York. Some fifty leaders from among all the major religious systems of the world gathered there to explore the common ground that might lead to deeper interfaith cooperation and appreciation. The goal seemed desirable and all of the participants came with hope and excitement. The need for interfaith cooperation is apparent all over the world. Where divergent religious systems confront each other, violence almost always ensues. One has only to look for documentation at the Jewish-Moslem conflict in the Middle East, the Hindu-Moslem conflict between Pakistan and India, the Christian-Islamic violence that cuts across Africa, the Catholic-Protestant tensions in Ireland or the Sunni-Shia conflict that keeps Islam divided in the Middle East. One could also look at Christian history to see the anti-Semitism of the ages, the violence of the Crusades directed against Islam, or the Thirty Years’ War in Europe that followed the Reformation as both Protestant Europe and Catholic Europe sought to impose its faith on the other. This reality forces us to ask what there is about religion in most of its forms that makes violence all but inevitable as it appears to be in religious history. At the Chautauqua conference it did not take long for this flaw to be revealed. Indeed, it became present and visible in the first presentation. This presentation was given by Dr. John Cavadini, a Roman Catholic Professor of Theology from Notre Dame. The Roman Catholic Church articulates its claim to supremacy quite overtly. The current pope has reiterated a position taken by his predecessor that there is but one true religion and that is Christianity and that there is only one true version of Christianity and that is the Roman Catholic Church! He went on to warn those Catholics engaged in ecumenical relations that they should never refer to other Christian traditions as “sister churches,” since that implies some legitimacy. When that point of view is publicly articulated there is a genuine embarrassment in the listening audience. Such an attitude makes any significant conversation aimed at unity a rather worthless activity. Professor Cavalini tried at our gathering, unsuccessfully I believe, to navigate these troubled waters by making a distinction between revealed truth and our understanding of this truth. The central Christian doctrine of the Incarnation was not subject to debate, he said, but the way we understand that doctrine is always unfolding. Lest the blame for interfaith failure be placed too heavily on Roman Catholic shoulders, let me hasten to say that almost every religious tradition makes similar claims to be the exclusive possessor of revealed and “saving” truth. Protestant fundamentalists assert that the Bible is the literal “word of God” and those denying that claim are either to be condemned or subjected to conversion pressure. Protestant evangelicals believe that the prerequisite for salvation is that one must be “born again” or “accept Jesus as their personal savior.” Muslims make the Islamic claim that in the Koran the Word of God was dictated directly to the prophet Muhammad. Within Islam itself both the Sunnis and the Shia claim that theirs is the only true expression of that faith tradition. Other sacred writings from the religions of the East are similarly invested with claims of being vessels through which the absolute truth of God has come into human possession. These claims that ultimate truth is the possession of a particular religious system are what make interfaith conversation all but impossible. The attempt to be open, to understand or to appreciate another faith perspective is thus deeply threatening to every religious system. One of the things that every religious system seeks to do is to offer religious certainty and for that to be possible that religion must escape the quicksand of relativity. Relativity, at the same time, is almost always impossible to escape without falling into religious triumphalism. At the Chautauqua “think tank” these problems were quickly identified and named. We could not start without finding a new way into the interfaith issue. As I thought about this over the next few days I tried to discover that illusive new path. Let me try to outline it briefly. The first step in any interfaith process is to be conscious of the fact that these exclusive claims exist and that we must begin where people are, not with where we wish they were. No one speaks in a vacuum and no one listens in a vacuum. We need to listen to each other closely, the same way we want others to listen to us. Let me then begin this process autobiographically. I am a Christian. Any interfaith activity in which I am engaged must start with that fact. I am not apologetic about this self-identification, nor am I willing to jettison this definition of myself for the sake of interfaith unity. The deepest commitment of my life is my commitment to walk the Christ path as my doorway into the mystery of God. Christianity is of absolute importance to me. I want to explore its wonders as deeply as I possibly can. Yet, I do not think that God is a Christian, certainly not in any creedal way, and that insight opens me up to all kinds of new possibilities. Christianity, like every other religious system in history is clearly a human creation that has evolved over the centuries. The virgin birth, for example, did not enter the Christian tradition until the ninth decade of the Christian era. It was certainly not a part of primitive Christianity. Neither Paul nor Mark appears ever to have heard about such an idea. The ascension was a tenth decade addition. Surely a quick reading of Paul would reveal that Paul was not a Trinitarian. The doctrines of the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity were not worked out until the third and fourth centuries. Doctrines are always attempts to put rational forms onto a transformative experience. Doctrines, therefore, can never be ultimate, but the experience that made the development of the doctrine seem proper might well be. Can we then separate the God experience that we Christians believe we have met in Jesus from the explanations of that experience which form the content of our faith tradition? That is a crucial distinction. The Jesus experience might well offer me a doorway into that which is ultimate, but Christianity itself cannot be ultimate and it thus cannot be the final revelation of God. God can never be contained inside any human form or bound by any human words. This means that neither my understanding of God nor my Church’s understanding of God can ever be ultimate. This realization does not, however, invalidate the truth of my experience. As a Christian, I walk the Christ path. My deepest hope is that if I walk the Christ path long enough and faithfully enough, I will discover that I inevitably will transcend the boundaries of my own religion. That reality thus becomes a religious inevitability. When I articulate the fact that this is true for me I discover that it also seems to be true for people in all other religious systems. The Muslim must walk the Islamic path; the Jews must walk the Jewish path; the Hindus and Buddhists must walk the Hindu or Buddhist path. All walk with the realization, however, that God is not a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu or a Buddhist. All religious systems are designed by human beings to help its adherents walk into the mystery of an unbounded God. If any of us walks our own faith path long enough and faithfully enough, we will discover that our walk carries us beyond the boundaries of our own religious systems, since God can never be limited by or exhausted in any thing that is a human creation, whether it be scripture, creeds, doctrines or dogmas. To say it boldly the God experience may well be ultimate, but the religious system through which we walk into the God experience can never be. The next realization comes when we discover that while we are walking our separate paths, we are also taking into ourselves the values and the treasures found in our own tradition. We hold these treasures close to our hearts; we do not want to lose them. I grasp joyfully the pearl of great price that Christianity gives me. Then I realize that my brothers and sisters in Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism are doing exactly the same. They must embrace the treasures of their religion and cling to the pearl of great price that they have received from their religious system. So perhaps the deepest and the common religious call to each of us is not to affirm our unique creeds so much as it is to explore our faith so deeply that we each transcend its boundaries and escape fear-laden limits. Then beyond the boundaries and the limits of the faith system that has nurtured each of us, but without sacrificing the pearl of great price that our own tradition has given us, we can turn and face in a new way our brothers and sisters who have walked a path different from our own. In that setting I can speak to them and say: “This is the essence of my faith. This is the treasure that I have received as I walked the Christ path and now I want to share this treasure with you.” Each of my interfaith pilgrims will in turn do the same. They will say to me: “This is the essence of Judaism, of Islam, of Hinduism, of Buddhism. This is the treasure, the pearl of great price that I have received by walking faithfully and deeply the path of my religion and I want to share it with you.” We each receive the treasure of the other. No one has to sacrifice the treasure of the system which has nurtured him or her. We all become enriched. We no longer have to protect our truth or play the familiar religious games of supremacy that we have so often played in the past. No one loses, everyone gains. The alternative to genuine interfaith cooperation may well be genocide. While we can assert that there is no relativity in the God experience, there can also be no triumphalism in the various explanations of that experience. No religion is therefore ultimate, but God is and God is met on many paths and our call is to walk our path faithfully. In that realization, the beauty of an interfaith future is born.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements How to find some peace with others (and yourself too) The full program will run Wednesdays 06/01 until 06/29 at 5:15pm PT Read ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

1 0

Responding to Ellie Stock and Frank Knutsen's call for songs
by Karen Snyder 24 May '22

24 May '22

Singing The links below can be found in the Inner Life Collection: Rituals of the Global Archives website: https://icaglobalarchives.org/collections/ Contextual talks have been given and papers written reflecting on the purpose of songs and singing. In January 1967 The Image periodical published Volume I <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/4638.pdf> and Volume II <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/4906.pdf> Songs of the Spirit Movement with a context in Volume I. Joseph Mathews gave two talks in June 1973 on the purpose of songs: June 10th <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/4905.pdf> and June 19th <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/5431.pdf>. For many years each Summer Research Assembly compiled a songbook; and various other songbooks were created over the years. Here is a sampling: Archives Sojourn Songbook 2017 <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/20824.pdf>, compiled by Jean Long for the Human Development Celebration ICA Related Songs <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/21538.pdf> Local Church Experiment Songs <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/21537.pdf> Spirit Journey Retreat 2007 <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/20601.pdf>, songs and rituals compiled by John and Lynda Cock The Global Songbook 1983-1984 <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/21981.pdf> Two major collections of songs compiled from various sources are now available: 485 <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/20118.pdf> songs and 788 <https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/20119.pdf> songs. Karen Living on the land of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi with representatives from 100 nations living in what is now called Chicago.

1 0

Remembering Dorcas Rose
by Karen Snyder 23 May '22

23 May '22

Ellen Howie shared these memories of Dorcas Rose: Dorcas died February 2, 2022. Her Memorial Service on May 14, 2022 was held at the United Methodist Church in Troy, with a video tribute created by her daughter Alice Rose showing the extent to which she lived a life of servant-leadership. Paul Marano, Alice’s husband sang Amazing Grace. The luncheon which followed included a menu from a plethora of Troy restaurants. Margaret Stoner spoke of her work with the ICA and Troy Area United Ministries (TAUM). I got to spend time with Ken, Alice, David and families at the service and luncheon. Dick and I visited Dorcas and Ken several times during her final, difficult years. I often telephoned Dorcas to reminisce about our adventures and friendship over many years. What a woman, what a colleague. Love to all, God’s Grace and Peace, Ellen Obituary Troy, New York - Dorcas B. Rose, 84, died at home Wednesday, February 2, 2022, surrounded by family after a long battle with Parkinson's Disease. She and her husband of 63 years, Kenneth Rose, have been proud Troy residents for the last 40 years. They met at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana where she earned her B.S. and M.S. in chemistry. Born in Champaign, IL, she was the daughter of Homer Baker and Alice Koehler Baker. Dorcas had a life-long passion for justice and inclusion. Over the decades she worked tirelessly to make sure everyone's voices were heard in community development projects including town meetings, promoting home ownership, community art projects, neighborhood associations and more. Active member of Christ Church United Methodist, the Institute of Cultural Affairs and former Board President of Troy Area United Ministries, Dorcas always looked for opportunities to serve. She traveled widely, enjoyed crafting and time with her grandchildren. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her son David (Christine) Rose of Reading, MA, her daughter Alice (Paul Marano) Rose of Troy, NY, and her grandchildren Christopher, Nathan and Madeline Rose. She will also be missed by her siblings Marian Kohlstedt of Berkeley, CA, Audrey (Fred) Warren of Marquette, MI, and David (Karen Fletcher) Baker of Portland, OR. Burial was at Oakwood Cemetery in a private service. A memorial service was held on May 14, 2022 at 11:00 am at Christ Church United Methodist, 35 State St, Troy. Karen Living on the land of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi with representatives from 100 nations living in what is now called Chicago.

2 1

5/19/2022, Progressing Spirit: Re. Dr. Robin Meyers: Requiem For Roe V. Wade; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 19 May '22

19 May '22

| | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Requiem For Roe V. Wade | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers May 19, 2022 Progressives seem shocked that Roe v Wade has essentially been overturned, given a first draft leaked and then published by Politico. Written by Samuel Alito, the words are unmistakable: “We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overturned, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.” All the assurances that this is not the final draft and things could change have about as much credibility as did the words of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett when they assured us that they revere stare decisis, or settled law, and that they have no personal or political agenda when it comes to a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. The integrity of the high court is now profoundly compromised. What’s more, if the standard is what the Constitution does not mention, just think what else may be on the line. I fear same-sex marriage will be next. By the way, women are not mentioned in the Constitution. Sadly, none of this surprises me. I have been telling my congregation, my family, and my friends for years that this day was coming. My own mother, who died just a few months ago at 92, refused to believe that overturning Roe was possible. Perhaps it is a blessing that she did not live to see it. But the truth is, this has been the singular obsession of Republicans and the Christian Right for half a century now. They have out-worked, out-preached, and out-organized the rest of us, all with the fervent certainty that God was on their side, that life begins at conception, and that abortion at any stage of pregnancy is murder. Harry Emerson Fosdick once preached his famous sermon, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” That question has now been answered. They did. They have turned the church into a weeping, self-centered spectacle of gushing gratitude for the cosmic bargain that is the blood atonement (“He did this for me!”), moved into affluent, all-white suburbs to please a Jesus who hung out across the tracks with the last and the least, and claimed that “character counts” while voting overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, the most morally corrupt man ever to be president of the United States. Why? Because when it comes to a contest between power and virtue, power will make the true believer ignore virtue, unless it is their opponent who lacks it. Trump promised to nominate justices who would overturn Roe. He did. They delivered. Now there is rejoicing in mega-churches everywhere. Precious babies will be saved, the preachers will thunder. As for their mothers? Well, they are God’s handmaidens, and after all, there are “consequences” to the moral choices that women make. Much less so the choices that men make. In Oklahoma, bills have already been introduced which copy the Texas “heartbeat” law, and make abortion illegal after six weeks, when most women don’t even know they are pregnant. The rest of us will be deputized, so we can turn in our neighbors instead of loving them. As for rape and incest, there are no exceptions, except for a “health emergency” in the mother. That is, if you can find a doctor willing to make this diagnosis when abortion is a crime. An Oklahoma lawmaker said recently, “We don’t want to punish the baby for the sins of the father.” When the reporter asked him, “But what about the mother?” he seemed unable to answer. That silence speaks volumes. Let’s be honest about the fear that is now driving the culture wars and have brought us to the precipice of losing our democracy. White men on the right fear they are losing everything to the brown and black barbarians at the gate. When abortion became a constitutional right half a century ago, and birth control became widely available to women, a seismic shift rumbled deep in the male psyche. Women now had agency to prevent pregnancy, and the right to end one. So, what was to stop them from making their own decisions about sex now that the fear of pregnancy was greatly reduced? In other words, men lost a large measure of control over women, and that emasculated them. So just imagine this. A 14-year-old in Oklahoma could be raped by her stepfather and then forced to bear his child. What do you think will happen to that girl, and what are the prospects for that child? Women are forced into sex in myriad ways, including by the “heads” of their households, and now they will have no choice but to bear children they did not want and often cannot afford. When Republicans are asked whether they plan to greatly expand social services to help deal with the consequences of millions of unwanted children, they are silent again, stammering out something about how all children will be loved and supported once we all take personal responsibility for our decisions and accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior. Since abortion is the unyielding moral dilemma of our time, a pluralistic society that was founded on the separation of church and state should err on the side of choice, not on the side of eliminating choice. That is, because there are people with equally strong but diametrically opposed beliefs about when life begins and whether women ought to have control over their own bodies, our best approach is not to codify one choice while eliminating the other. Simply put, if you don’t believe in abortion under any circumstances, then don’t have one. Likewise, if you don’t believe in gay marriage, then refrain from marrying a gay person. Just say no. This is the tragedy of faith as absolute certainty and moral self-righteousness. Jesus had a few things to say about this. “A brood of vipers” comes to mind. Years ago, during what was called Operation Rescue, Wichita, Kansas because the epicenter of the antiabortion movement. I attended a rally once to represent prochoice clergy. When a Catholic priest saw me in my collar, he looked at me with utter disgust and mouthed, “Shame on you.” But the shame does not belong to those who would trust women to make this choice, but to those who presume that there is anyone else who should ever make it. Not now. Not ever. One thing is certain. We know what the future looks like because we have been there. Rich women will always have access to abortion, while poor women will drive through the night. Under the weight of shame and with no resources to pursues legal remedies in a timely way, the moral autonomy of women will suffer its biggest setback in our lifetimes. My three granddaughters will grow up in a state without abortion rights, and the message will be clear: this state does not trust you to make this decision. In a place where everybody says they love Jesus but would have anyone who looked or acted like him arrested immediately, one thing will be conspicuously absent: the moral imagination. We have no right to make this decision for women whose lives we know nothing about. Fear is the enemy of the moral life. It is now the weapon of choice in American society. Never has the adage been more clear or relevant: If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. Lord have mercy—for the suffering this will bring. ~ Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers Read online here About the Author Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers is retired senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church, Oklahoma City, Distinguished Professor of Social Justice Emeritus in the Philosophy Department at Oklahoma City University, where he still teaches. He is the author of eight books on religion and American culture, the most recent of which is, “Saving God from Religion: A Minister’s Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age.” More information is at RobinMeyers.com | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Garfin Why are there so many Christian denominations or sects and different Bible versions? Ex: 73 Catholic versions and 66 Protestant versions. A: By Dr. Carl Krieg Dear Garfin, Thanks for your question. Let’s begin with the plenitude of versions of the Bible by remembering that there was no original version of anything. The earliest fragments from which persons tried to create full documents date from centuries after the events they purport to describe, and come from different locations. Strange as it may seem, there were no church councils that decreed which documents were authentic and authoritative. Given this process, it should not surprise us that different editors and churches in different places would come up with different translations. The variety is compounded by the fact that as the centuries went by, different social/cultural influences would impact new translators. The King James version, for example, is written in Olde English. Some modern English versions attempt to be more colloquial and relevant. Unfortunately, sometimes the attempt to be relevant strays from the original intent, and that is reason enough to use a version that represents the conclusions of collaborative scholars who dedicate their life to approaching an “original” as best they can. With respect to the multiplicity of denominations, there are indeed many interpretations of who Jesus was and what he did, and that variety is found in the New Testament itself. Paul’s letters, the earliest writings in the New Testament, clearly reveal that different theologies had arisen in those earliest communities that Paul himself had founded. Different people had different and often contrasting ideas, and even Paul had difficulty accepting that fact. Furthermore, as the first century moved along, cultural influences changed the whole tenor of the Christian community. The starkest example of this change pertains to the issues of equality, and of submission to authority. The family of friends gathered by Jesus was a microcosm of the way God willed life to be, a life of equality between men and women, with caring and sharing between all. This family stood in total contrast to the oppressive patriarchy and patronage of Roman culture. At the end of the first century, this prophetic living of the new life had completely disappeared in the church of the Pastoral Epistles, especially 1 Timothy, and had been replaced by a system that demanded submission to the emperor, the slave owner, and the male. There is no doubt in my mind that it was the rich and powerful of society that implemented this total reversal of the gospel message. After the first century, the palace intrigue continued, and one controversy followed another, culminating in the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, the two defining christological decisions that have determined Christian thinking ever since. The point to remember is that up to this point, there was no orthodox belief, only a variety of opinion, and those who lost the debate were declared heretics, even though the loss may have been due more to political influence than right thinking. There is another question, however, not verbalized, but pervasive, and that is the question concerning the search for truth. Given the multiplicity of both Bible translations and Christian denominations that interpret those translations, is there anything that is “true” compared to all else that is “false”? This is a difficult question. On the one hand, both individuals and groups come from a particular point of view and need to relate their interpretation of theology to who they are and where they are. The lesson here is that we must keep open minds and listen to what others have to say. Each denomination/sect has a point of view that completes the blindness of others. On the other hand, there are some persons and events that we can denounce with force and clarity, saying “this is wrong”. Hitler was wrong. Genocide is wrong. There are some basic truths that transcend one’s relative place in space and time.The difficulty is in identifying and differentiating the two. ~ Dr. Carl Krieg Read and share online here About the Author Dr. Carl Krieg received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC and PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith and The Void and the Vision. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife Margaret in Norwich, VT. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podme | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Is an Interfaith Future a Possibility in Our World? Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong June 21, 2012 Recently I was part of an intensive two-day “think tank” experience on “The Future of Interfaith Cooperation,” which asked the question as to whether the religious violence that marks so much of our world can ever be overcome and be replaced with interfaith understanding and cooperation. This “think tank” was sponsored by the Chautauqua Institution located in Western New York about an hour south of Buffalo. For those of you not familiar with this institution, let me give you some background that will reveal their interest in this particular subject. The Chautauqua Institution is a vacation community made up of both owners and renters that draws into its planned programs some 170,000 people each summer. Chautauqua began in 1874 as a Methodist training camp, but it has grown since then into being one of the most impressive intellectual and interdisciplinary centers in America. Over the years to its grounds have come speakers drawn from the ranks of American presidents and presidential candidates, U.S. senators, Supreme Court Justices, Cabinet Secretaries, novelists, scientists, poets and even entertainment celebrities. Every morning there is a public lecture in the amphitheatre by someone at the top of his or her field followed by questions from the assembled audience that numbers as many as 5,000 a day. In years past, I have attended lectures here given by the poet John Ciardi, the scientist Buckminster Fuller of geodesic dome fame, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, the best known commentator on world religion in our generation, Karen Armstrong, as well as a host of best-selling novelists, noted historians and top tier scientists. The conversation at meals and on the campus is rich because new ground is always being broken and lives are always processing and interacting with new ideas. At 2:00 pm each day in an open space called the Hall of Philosophy, which with special chairs added across the spacious lawn can accommodate over 2000 people, there is a “religion” lecture given by top theologians, biblical scholars and even critics of religion. Frequently the religion lecture will interact with the lecture given in the morning, making the dialogue rich indeed. Though this center began with quite specifically Christian roots, over the years a significant Jewish population has come as both owners and renters, giving the community a quality that is always missing in a monochromatic world. Recently, Muslem, Hindu and Buddhist people have begun to discover this place. During the nine individual weeks of the summer program, as many as 7,500 people will be on the grounds at a time. To complete the daily experience, in the evening, once again in the large amphitheatre, there is an event that will draw people not just from the Chautauqua community but from a wide orbit of Western New York and Western Pennsylvania. This event might be a Broadway play, a symphony, an opera or a ballet. It might feature famous acrobats, popular vocalists and even Country and Western stars. I have met there entertainers like the flutist James Galway and Margaret Hamilton, who played the wicked witch in the “Wizard of Oz” with Judy Garland. I have also met Alan Alda, the star of M.A.S.H., who played Hawkeye, Jim Lehrer the long time anchor of the PBS newshour and many others. It is a very rich intellectual diet. The religious aspect of Chautauqua life has always been central, but it has also been directed by those willing to walk the frontier of religious thought, drawn by the intellectual power of this community. The pressure to explore the interfaith area comes from the increasing religious pluralism that already marks this community and from the anticipation that this trend is not likely to diminish any time soon. How various religious traditions can live together in mutual respect is a question that is also increasingly being asked in world at large. It is driven by the fact that the vast distances that once marked our world are shrinking rapidly caused by such things as increasing air travel, by the instant communications of the Internet and quite frankly by the fact of the destructive tensions that always seem to mark those places where competing religious convictions have collided in the past and still collide today. One thinks of the violent anti-Semitism that has been part of the Christian West since the first century of Christian history. Reaching a crescendo in the Holocaust of 20th century Germany, it was presaged and predicted by such historical events as the Inquisition and the expulsion from or the ghettorization of the Jews in almost every nation in Christian Europe. It was present in the call for the burning of synagogues by no less a Christian figure than the father of the Reformation, Martin Luther, and by the acquiescence to the Nazi agenda by both Pope Pius XII and the German Lutheran Church in the 1930’s and 1940’s. In the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, collisions between Christianity and Islam shaped world history and created the Crusades. Led by the Vatican, the Crusades were aimed at the destruction of the Muslims and their removal from Christian holy places. Islam was defined by Christians as evil and its members as “infidels.” In the first years of the 21st century, that hostility was reversed. The anger, long brewing in the victims of the Crusades, has helped to fuel the fury of the Islamic fundamentalist movement. Members of a branch of this movement known as Al Qaeda, saw themselves as vindicating Islam and its “one true God, Allah” against the “infidels” of the West in their attacks on September 11, 2001. Interfaith awareness was enhanced for most Americans during the Vietnam War when this nation found itself confronting a Buddhist culture and we watched as Buddhist monks immolated themselves in the streets of Saigon in protest against the war. Later in the two wars in Iraq, the people of the West suddenly confronted the heretofore little known division of the Sunnis and the Shia in Islam that added a dimension of civil war to those conflicts. Why that was such a shocking surprise is hard to understand since for 400 years we have watched Ireland being torn apart by violent, hate-filled and destructive religious bitterness between Protestants and Catholics. For these reasons the need for interfaith dialogue and cooperation has been growing for some time. This is what motivated the leaders at Chautauqua to convene this “think tank.” They are aware of the bitter history of religious wars and religious hatred. They are also aware that the seeds of intolerance are present in every religious tradition. They began to ask whether an interfaith future for our world was possible if it were intentionally encouraged. The leaders of the Chautauqua community, specifically Thomas Becker, president, and Joan Brown Campbell, the head of the Department of Religion, decided to assemble the “think tank” to see if the Chautauqua Institution could make a contribution to an era of genuine religious peace and good will in an increasingly interrelated and deeply pluralistic religious world. To this interfaith gathering were invited Catholic and Protestant professors and pastors, Muslims imams and academics, national interfaith leaders, Buddhist monks and nuns, Hindu scholars, rabbis and Jewish academics, as well as representatives from the National Council of Churches of Christ in America. They also tapped the resources present in various colleges and universities that already deal with multi-faith realities. Some journalists were also in attendance. The gathering opened with great hope, but it did not take long to see that good will, high hopes and even cross-cultural friendships are not enough to bridge the religion gap. Interfaith dialogue cannot occur as long as any single religious perspective claims for itself a corner on ultimate truth. No one can say or think “My religion is the only true religion,” “My church is the only true church” or assert that one religion alone controls the access to God. Yet at some point, no matter how camouflaged or perfumed, in some form those claims are made by almost every religious system, and it is powerfully present in the thinking of almost all forms of Christianity. These attitudes were certainly articulated at this meeting. Those advocating this point of view felt this discomfort, but found themselves caught between the twin terrors of total relativity and triumphalism. They tried to remove the offense with pious words, calling for love and forgiveness and even suggesting that while ultimate truth is claimed in their faith tradition, that truth is never fully understood. So flexibility in understanding is allowed, but only to the degree that the ultimate truth they claim for themselves has not yet been fully worked out. This provided a facade of openness that attempted to escape relativity on one side and triumphalism on the other. It was an argument that represented a stretch for those who presented it, but it also showed how difficult developing interfaith cooperation really is. If the doctrine of the Incarnation, for example, is the lynchpin that protects Christianity from meaningless relativity, there is no way that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus will ever be more than tolerated partners in a meaningless interfaith dialogue, while the secret agenda will remain to convert everyone else to another’s religious “truth.” Until these difficulties are recognized and dealt with, no progress toward an interfaith future seems possible. We are left to enjoy friendships and to articulate unrealistic hopes. Unless we find a new way to relate to the world’s religious pluralism we will have only the two choices of the acceptance of continuing religious violence or of watching benignly as all religious systems as we now know them die. Unity might be found in our common humanity, but that does not appear to be possible unless we can develop a common religious understanding. I think there is another possibility to these two fairly dreadful and certainly stark options. This possibility will, however, require that religious people think differently from the way we have been taught to think before. I will try to spell that possibility out next week in this column. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements InterSpiritual Wisdom Online: May 22nd - July 2nd, 2022 InterSpirituality encourages people from different spiritual traditions to come together, to enter into a deep dialogue of sound and silence, and to articulate the practices and experiences that are the foundations of their respective traditions. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

1 0

George West memorial event
by Terry Bergdall 16 May '22

16 May '22

A year ago this month, George West completed his life journey on this earth. At 1:00pm CDT (18:00 UTC), there be a zoom memorial service to mark his passing. While a zoom link will be sent a week before the event, please mark your calendars if you would like to attend. If you happen to have a photo or two of George, please send them to me. Thanks, Terry Bergdall

10 12

Remembering Michael Gergen
by Karen Snyder 13 May '22

13 May '22

It is with a deep sense of sadness for me to report that Margaret Gergen’s husband, Michael, passed away Sunday, May 8, from complications following a sudden series of cardiac arrests. Margaret and Michael were staff members with the ICA for many years, joining first in the Minneapolis regional office and serving also in Chicago, Atlanta and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. After their time with the Institute, Michael worked in the publishing industry and later taught English as a second language. Their home is in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago and their children, Paul and Teresa, are both living and working in the Chicago area. Peace, Karen Snyder Troxel

6 5

5/12/2022, Progressing Spirit: Dr. Carl Krieg: What the Disciples Believed About The Resurrection of Jesus; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 12 May '22

12 May '22

What the Disciples Believed About The Resurrection of Jesus#yiv1094316170 p{margin:10px 0;padding:0;}#yiv1094316170 table{border-collapse:collapse;}#yiv1094316170 h1, #yiv1094316170 h2, #yiv1094316170 h3, #yiv1094316170 h4, #yiv1094316170 h5, #yiv1094316170 h6{display:block;margin:0;padding:0;}#yiv1094316170 img, #yiv1094316170 a img{border:0;height:auto;outline:none;text-decoration:none;}#yiv1094316170 body, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170bodyTable, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170bodyCell{min-height:100%;margin:0;padding:0;width:100%;}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnPreviewText{display:none !important;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170outlook a{padding:0;}#yiv1094316170 img{}#yiv1094316170 table{}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170ReadMsgBody{width:100%;}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170ExternalClass{width:100%;}#yiv1094316170 p, #yiv1094316170 a, #yiv1094316170 li, #yiv1094316170 td, #yiv1094316170 blockquote{}#yiv1094316170 a .filtered99999 , #yiv1094316170 a .filtered99999 {color:inherit;cursor:default;text-decoration:none;}#yiv1094316170 p, #yiv1094316170 a, #yiv1094316170 li, #yiv1094316170 td, #yiv1094316170 body, #yiv1094316170 table, #yiv1094316170 blockquote{}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170ExternalClass, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170ExternalClass p, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170ExternalClass td, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170ExternalClass div, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170ExternalClass span, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170ExternalClass font{line-height:100%;}#yiv1094316170 a .filtered99999 {color:inherit !important;text-decoration:none !important;font-size:inherit !important;font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;line-height:inherit !important;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170bodyCell{padding:10px;}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170templateContainer{max-width:600px !important;border:5px solid #363232;}#yiv1094316170 a.yiv1094316170mcnButton{display:block;}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImage, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnRetinaImage{vertical-align:bottom;}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent{}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent img{height:auto !important;}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnDividerBlock{table-layout:fixed !important;}#yiv1094316170 body, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170bodyTable{}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170bodyCell{border-top:0;}#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170templateContainer{border:5px solid #363232;}#yiv1094316170 h1{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:26px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;}#yiv1094316170 h2{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:22px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;}#yiv1094316170 h3{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:20px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;}#yiv1094316170 h4{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templatePreheader{background-color:#FAFAFA;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:9px;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templatePreheader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templatePreheader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p{color:#656565;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;line-height:150%;text-align:left;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templatePreheader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent a, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templatePreheader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p a{color:#656565;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateHeader{background-color:#FFFFFF;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:0;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateHeader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateHeader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateHeader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent a, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateHeader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p a{color:#007C89;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateBody{background-color:#FFFFFF;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:2px solid #EAEAEA;padding-top:0;padding-bottom:9px;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateBody .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateBody .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p{color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateBody .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent a, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateBody .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p a{color:#007C89;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateFooter{background-color:#FAFAFA;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:9px;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateFooter .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateFooter .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p{color:#656565;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;line-height:150%;text-align:center;}#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateFooter .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent a, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateFooter .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p a{color:#656565;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline;}@media only screen and (min-width:768px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170templateContainer{width:600px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 body, #yiv1094316170 table, #yiv1094316170 td, #yiv1094316170 p, #yiv1094316170 a, #yiv1094316170 li, #yiv1094316170 blockquote{}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 body{width:100% !important;min-width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnRetinaImage{max-width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImage{width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCartContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionTopContent, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnRecContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionBottomContent, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnTextContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnBoxedTextContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageGroupContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionLeftTextContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionRightTextContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionLeftImageContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionRightImageContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageCardLeftTextContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageCardRightTextContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageCardLeftImageContentContainer, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageCardRightImageContentContainer{max-width:100% !important;width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnBoxedTextContentContainer{min-width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageGroupContent{padding:9px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionLeftContentOuter .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionRightContentOuter .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent{padding-top:9px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageCardTopImageContent, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionBottomContent:last-child .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionBottomImageContent, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionBlockInner .yiv1094316170mcnCaptionTopContent:last-child .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent{padding-top:18px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageCardBottomImageContent{padding-bottom:9px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageGroupBlockInner{padding-top:0 !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageGroupBlockOuter{padding-top:9px !important;padding-bottom:9px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnBoxedTextContentColumn{padding-right:18px !important;padding-left:18px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageCardLeftImageContent, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnImageCardRightImageContent{padding-right:18px !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;padding-left:18px !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcpreview-image-uploader{display:none !important;width:100% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 h1{font-size:22px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 h2{font-size:20px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 h3{font-size:18px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 h4{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 .yiv1094316170mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templatePreheader{display:block !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templatePreheader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templatePreheader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateHeader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateHeader .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateBody .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateBody .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateFooter .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent, #yiv1094316170 #yiv1094316170templateFooter .yiv1094316170mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | What the Disciples Believed About The Resurrection of Jesus | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Dr. Carl Krieg May 12, 2022 We don’t know when Jesus was born, but we do know when he died. His birth was linked to existing pagan festivals celebrating the winter solstice, but his death can be dated relatively specifically, and occurred during the Passover Festival, Jerusalem, early April in year 30. According to the narrative, he rose from the dead three days after he was crucified, a day we call Easter, a day celebrated around the world, not by all, but by many. It behooves us, as best we can, to review the pieces of the puzzle as we seek to understand historically what really happened. That is to say, setting aside any analysis or statements that presuppose some sort of faith, what can we say about what the disciples describe as their experience? We investigate through the eyes of a secular historian and seek to understand what happened to the disciples of Jesus.There are seven facts that shape that understanding.Fact 1 We have no direct and conclusive evidence of what the disciples experienced when they were with Jesus. At first there were only oral reports that were gathered into narratives, collected in various cities, and then written down for use in church liturgies. The earliest of these documents dates from about 70 ce. Fact 2 Most people may have been intrigued by Jesus, but not enough to become disciples. Those who were personally impacted by him remembered his life and teaching, and ultimately committed their witness to writing. Fact 3 The documents that we do have that possibly offer information about the historical Jesus are six in number. 1: the gospel of Mark, which Matthew and Luke used in part as the basis of their gospels, 2: a second source, referred to as Q, which, along with Mark, also formed the basis of Matthew and Luke, 3: verses peculiar to and found only in Matthew [M], 4: verses peculiar to and found only in Luke [L], 5: the extra canonical, non-biblical document known as the gospel of Thomas, the reliability of which many scholars put on a par with Mark, Matthew and Luke, and 6: perhaps some sections in the gospel called John. Paul, whose various letters are the earliest documents in the Christian Writings, offers no information about the historical Jesus.Fact 4 Significantly, two of the sources, Q and Thomas, have no account of the empty tomb. Equally significant, the other sources’ accounts of the empty tomb [Mark, M, and L] all differ from one another in the details of what supposedly happened. Fact 5 Paul makes no reference at all to an empty tomb, but instead speaks of the post crucifixion new life of Jesus as a “spiritual body” raised from the dead.Fact 6 The crucifixion of Jesus did not destroy the commitment of the disciples to their Lord. In fact, they became even more dedicated to the mission of spreading the newness of life that they had discovered because of Jesus.Fact 7 Despite the fact that there were thousands upon thousands of crucifixions committed by the Romans, archaeologists have discovered only one intact skeleton of a person who was crucified, and that person was not Jesus.This last fact alone indicates that, from a purely historical perspective, Jesus the troublemaker, like thousands of others, was crucified and left hanging on the cross. There was no tomb. But aside from the manner in which Roman crucifixion was carried out, we can also look at the resurrection narrative from a perspective internal to the young community. Focus on the fact that two of the primary sources for knowing anything at all about Jesus, Q and Thomas, have no reference to an empty tomb whatsoever. The takeaway is that the empty tomb was not an event that the early disciples experienced. We need to understand why this is so, why it is that the resuscitation of a dead body who left the grave was not integral to the story developed by these disciples.Imagine Jesus walking around the villages and countryside of Galilee. He is a powerful personality. He teaches, criticizes the power structure that dispossesses the poor, and he continually flaunts the social codes. Some people are attracted to him, some of whom become his disciples. Some of those disciples stayed with him [I will refer to these as the stayers] and some moved on [I will refer to them as the movers], but all of them felt that they had discovered in him a new awareness of who they were and who God was. Those who did not remain with him did not witness the crucifixion, and so when their thought was later put into the written form of Q and Thomas, the cross and the empty tomb did not appear. What happened to these disciples, what changed their lives, happened while Jesus was still alive and with them, showing them a new perspective on life.The disciples who did remain with Jesus, about 25 women and men, were also encountered and felt awakened to a new life while Jesus lived, the only difference being that they chose to stay. So what we find, both among those who moved on and those who stayed, are people profoundly affected by Jesus, embodying a new lifestyle that did not falter, no matter the circumstance, and which carried on throughout their life. And, contrary to everything we have ever been told or believed about Easter morning, the empty tomb and a resuscitated Jesus was not part of the disciples’ experience. But what they did claim to have was the Spirit of Jesus in their midst. That spirit was with the movers even while Jesus was still alive in Galilee and Jerusalem. And that Spirit was with the stayers even though Jesus had been crucified. Both groups claim to have experienced a new type of being in their midst, a type described by Paul as a “spiritual body”, a reality beyond description because it was beyond understanding. The Spirit of Christ was a mystery that transcended comprehension, but a reality for them nonetheless. If we think of this new life as a resuscitated corpse, we fail to recognize the power of the resurrection-belief on the disciples. Because if we now take this one step further, the faith that Jesus lives in a new form, meant for the disciples that evil and death are overcome. The basic faith that Jesus rose convinced the disciples that evil and death, as epitomized in the crucifixion, have no ontological status. They believed that within the context of Reality, death and evil have no ultimate reality. That is the essence of the disciples’ faith, the source of their excitement, their confidence, their boldness, and their joy. ~ Dr. Carl Krieg Read online here About the Author Dr. Carl Krieg received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC and PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith and The Void and the Vision. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife Margaret in Norwich, VT. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader I don't understand why Faith appears to be on a decline, I find God by observing his work here on earth. Do you think it has to do with so many people choosing to live in concrete jungles/cities and failing to understand the importance of connecting with and being close to nature? A: By Rev. Matthew Syrdal Dear Reader,I am glad to hear you find God by observing his work here on earth. It is encouraging to look for God. I am not sure if I am sensing your meaning entirely, but it is a concern I have heard shared by many people that religion and faith appear to be on a decline. There has been broken trust by those in authority, especially spiritual authority, and a cultural reckoning of the abuses of power within the church. Many people are turning away from institutional forms of religion, mainline denominations and even Evangelicalism because of disillusion, anger, and fear. It is also true that a growing percentage of people are authentically trying to forge a new path of faith and spirituality and looking for faith-oriented communities that can support them as seek belonging, greater authenticity, and risk change to their old belief systems. One place people are seeking a supportive container is in exploring a deeper reconnection with faith and the natural world, the Creation and spirituality. Another place people are seeking support is through learning communities rooted in direct experience and prayer practices, rather than external authority and a reliance on dogmatic theology. You mention the tension between the struggle for identity and a healthy and authentic way of life and the difficulties and injustices of city life. This is not a new problem. The historical John the Baptist movement of the first century CE, through which Jesus entered the public stage, is an example of wrestling with purity, connection with nature as a place of revelation, and the healing energy of shalom. Bless you as you continue to ask the hard questions! ~ Rev. Matthew Syrdal Read and share online here About the Author Matthew Syrdal M.Div., is a pastor in the Denver area, visionary and founder of Church of Lost Walls, a Denver-based wild church and co-founder of Seminary of the Wild, an eco-spiritual training program for leaders on the edge of spirituality and ecology. Matt has begun a new venture seeding an online project called Mythic Christ, developing a mystery school for awakening mythic imagination and ritual embodiment, and is launching a new podcast coming in September of 2022. Matt speaks at conferences and guides immersive nature-based experiences around the country. Matt has a mentoring and coaching practice as a certified Wild Mind nature-based human development guide through the Animas Valley Institute. His work weaves in myth, archetype, dreams, deep imagery and ceremony in nature as a way for people to enter into conversation with the storied world in which they are a part. Matt’s passion is guiding others in the discovery of “treasure hidden in the field” of their deepest lives cultivating deep wholeness and re-enchantment of the natural world to apprentice fully and dangerously to the kingdom of god. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Dear friends of ProgressiveChristianity.org,I'm going to keep this short and to the point.Last year our organization saw a pivotal change to our finances – real hope that our work was sustainable.How did it happen? You. In numbers we hadn't seen before, you stepped up and gave financial support for the work that we do. We couldn't be more grateful.This year, however, has not been like last year. We are well behind where we need to be in donations in order to not only sustain the work we have always done, but also to create the new resources we'd like to make available.If you are able, please donate today. Schedule it to be a monthly donation and insure our work going forward.We are striving to continue to bring you the most useful progressive Christian information and resources. Thank you for helping us continue to do so.PEACE! Rev. Mark Sandlin Board President & Co-executive Director Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podme | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited "Think Different—Accept Uncertainty" Part XII: Are the Miracles of Jesus Miracles or Interpretive Signs? Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong June 14, 2012Last week, we began to look at the miracles attributed to Jesus in the gospels. Most of them are familiar stories to those of us raised in the Christian faith. When I was a young child growing up in North Carolina, I was taught that the miracles were both demonstrations of Jesus’ divinity as well as proofs of that divinity. He could do these supernatural things, I was told, because he and God were identical. It was a comfortable, but pre-modern and uninformed conclusion that was destined not to stand the test of time. Miracles would prove to be a casualty of the advancement of our knowledge, both about the Bible and about how the world operated. The first crack in this religious armor came when I discovered that there were other miracle stories in the Bible connected with people besides Jesus. If one has to be divine to do miracles, then it seemed to me that they should be limited to the life of Jesus. Yet I discovered that miracles are found in three distinct cycles in the biblical narratives, only one of which is related to Jesus. First, there were the miracles associated with Moses, the founder of the Jewish religion. Moses’ power was such that miracles seem to continue to gather around his successor, a man named Joshua. Second, there were miracles associated with Elijah, who was regarded as the founder of the prophetic tradition. Elijah’s power, like that of Moses, was so great that miracles continued to gather around his successor, a man named Elisha. Third, miracles were associated with the Jesus of the gospels and so great was Jesus’ power that these miracles seemed to gather around those who were portrayed as Jesus’ successors, the apostles. Apostolic miracles are narrated in the book of Acts. The pattern was thus quite similar in all three cycles. That was my first surprise. Once I had identified this similarity in the miracle stories in the Bible, I then examined each cycle eager to see if I could discover any other similarities. The first thing I noticed was that prior to Jesus the ability to do miracles did not result in the claim of divinity. Instead the assumption was that the miracle workers were simply so close to God that God’s power could work through them as chosen vessels. No one, however, subscribed divinity to the vessel. Turning first to the Moses-Joshua cycle of stories, I found that the miracles they were said to have performed fell into two categories. One category had the ring of magic about it. These are miracle stories hardly ever quoted, referred to or preached about in Christian churches, not even by fundamentalists. There is almost an embarrassment associated with finding them in the Bible. These magic signs were special powers that God had supposedly given to Moses to equip him to negotiate the release of the Hebrew slave people from Egypt. One of these was Moses’ ability to hurl his staff to the floor and have it turn into a snake or serpent. If Moses’ negotiations with the Pharaoh were not going well, Moses was to resort to this miracle. It was a pretty spectacular trick, but Pharaoh was not impressed. Instead he brought his court magicians into the negotiations and they replicated Moses’ magic. They threw their staffs on the floor and these staffs also became snakes. A miracle that can also be performed by one’s opponents is not an impressive tool for negotiations. The story was rescued, along with God’s power, when we learn that Moses’ snake proceeded to eat up the snakes of the Egyptian magicians. It is no wonder that such a tale is better not being mentioned or even by forgetting that it is actually in the Bible. It is there, however, and you may read it in Exodus 4. The second of the miraculous signs that were supposedly given to Moses in order to assist him in these negotiations was that of thrusting his hand into his bosom, Napoleon style, and then drawing it out to reveal a hand filled with leprosy. When those he was trying to impress were sufficiently horrified he would then thrust his hand back into his bosom and it became clean and healthy again. If those two tricks were not sufficient to convince the Pharaoh of God’s authority and thus of the Pharaoh’s need to release the Hebrew slaves, Moses was empowered to produce a third magical sign by taking some water from the Nile River, pouring it on the ground and watching it turn into blood before the eyes of the assembled hosts. If all of these miracles failed to secure the release of the chosen people from the oppression of the Pharaoh, then the Bible tells us that Moses and God would turn to natural miracles on a grand scale. These heightened miraculous events are described for us in the book of Exodus when we read about the plagues that were to fall on Egypt. There we learn that the waters of the Nile River were turned to blood and became undrinkable. When that did not secure the freedom of the chosen people a multitude of frogs infested the whole land covering everything from the Egyptians’ bedrooms to their kitchens. When that did not work, first gnats and then flies swarmed over the land. Then all the cattle were struck with something like Mad Cow disease. Next, all the Egyptians broke out with boils. This was followed by a storm of hailstones and then the sky was filed with locusts. Next a strange darkness covered all the earth. When none of these plagues caused Pharaoh to change his mind, the final plague visited on this nation was the death of the first born male in every Egyptian household. This slaughter took place on the night of the Passover. Moses was surely believed in the Bible to have had miraculous power to alter the circumstances of the physical world. That power was newly confirmed when later he split the waters of the Red Sea and then was able to call down from heaven bread, called manna, to feed the Israelites in the wilderness. When Moses died, this power was said to have been transferred to Joshua, who could then, in Moses-like fashion, part the waters of the flooded Jordan River; cause the walls around the city of Jericho to fall to the ground, and even stop the sun in the sky to allow more daylight in which to slaughter his enemies, the Ammonites. The miracles attributed to Moses and Joshua were all in the category of manipulating the forces of nature. They were thus “nature” miracles. About 400 years later in Jewish history, miracle stories appeared again in the biblical narrative, but this time about both Elijah and Elisha. Most of their supernatural acts also appeared to be nature miracles. Elijah was said to have had the ability to call down fire from heaven, as well as the ability to manipulate the weather patterns in order to create draughts or to allow rain. Both of these prophets also were said to have had the ability to expand the food supply. It was not manna from heaven, but it was oil and meal that never diminished no matter how much was used. A new miraculous power, however, begins to appear for the first time in the Bible in this Elijah-Elisha cycle. Elijah raises from the dead the only son of a widow. Elisha raises an official’s child from the dead. Elisha heals the leprosy of a Syrian named Naaman. The miraculous tradition is growing. There was one other place in the scriptures before the text reaches the Jesus story, in which the ability to perform miracles is described and anticipated, but not acted out. In the 38th chapter of Isaiah, someone must have asked the prophet how one would know when the Kingdom of God was drawing near or when “the end of the world” could be anticipated. Isaiah responded by describing the signs that will accompany the end of the age. “Water will flow in the desert,” Isaiah said, and then other signs would break out for all to see. Human life will be made whole: “the blind will see, the deaf hear, the lame leap and the mute sing.” So into the Jewish expectations of the messianic age came the idea that the arrival of the Kingdom of God on earth would be announced in the wholeness that would replace the brokenness of human life. When these sources of miracle stories are lifted out of the Hebrew Scriptures we find that many connections to the miracles attributed to Jesus become visible. Turning now to those New Testament miracles of Jesus we discover that the same three categories, which were in the Old Testament cycles, are present there. First, there are the nature miracles: Jesus walks on water; Jesus stills the storm; Jesus expands the food supply of five loaves and two fish to feed a multitude of thousands, and Jesus lays a curse upon a fig tree causing it to die to its roots. These are all nature miracles. Second, Jesus like Elijah and Elisha can raise the dead. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, he raises from the dead a child of an official. In Luke alone, he raises from the dead the only son of a widow. The raising of Lazarus story is told only in John and culminates his book of signs. Finally, in the first three gospels, there is a portrayal of Jesus engaging in numerous healing miracles. He seems to act out the signs of the coming of the Kingdom as enumerated by the prophet Isaiah. He gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, wholeness to those who are lame or who possess withered limbs and the ability to speak to those who are mute. Can we begin to see a pattern here? Are the familiar stories found in the Hebrew Bible regarding Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha being dusted off, expanded and retold about Jesus in the New Testament? Are the accounts of eyes being made to see, ears to hear, lameness being overcome and the mute breaking into song historical events or are they interpretive signs designed to convey the conviction that Jesus is the expected messiah, who will inaugurate the Kingdom of God? The analysis raises some different questions and offers us a new way to look at miracles. We will continue this discussion when this series resumes.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Sacred Earth, Sacred Self: Harmonize With Nature & Reconnect to the Human Community Through the Wisdom of Eco-Prophet Thomas Berry Join Matthew Fox on May 17th for this free online event. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

1 0

Let's Look at RECOVERING ABUNDANCE by Adam Henry and maybe organize a book study!
by James Wiegel 12 May '22

12 May '22

Lookingfor a book study?? Join us for a preview of RECOVERINGABUNDANCE by Andy Henry. Wednesday, May 11 at 6:30pm Phoenix/San Francisco time (7:30 pm Denver, 8:30pm Chicago, 9:30 pm Toronto, 9:30am Taipei). James Wiegel and Jeanne Marie Mudd invite you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Let's Look at RECOVERING ABUNDANCE by Adam Henry and maybe organize a book study! We’ll talk with the author and review the introduction and table of contents with the author. It will be fun! Then, for those of you who are interested we will organize dates and times to study it. Time: May 11, 2022 06:30 PM Arizona (Pacific Daylight Time -- same as San Francisco) Join Zoom MeetingJoin our Cloud HD Video Meeting | | | | Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video an... | | | Meeting ID: 892 2528 1351Passcode: 656666One tap mobile+16699006833,,89225281351#,,,,*656666# US (San Jose)+12532158782,,89225281351#,,,,*656666# US (Tacoma) Dial by your location +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)Meeting ID: 892 2528 1351Passcode: 656666Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kkgIZxEM8 RECOVERINGABUNDANCE invites readers to live a new story--to join amovement of renewal for small towns and rural communities. Offering twelve civic-spiritual practices, rooted in Jesus's miracleamong the multitude, that rural and small-town leaders can use torenew their congregations and communities. Learn more https://www.amazon.com/Recovering-Abundance-Practices-Small-Town-Leaders/dp… RECOVERINGABUNDANCE Mycolleague Andy Henry's marvelous book is due in March! I'm lookingforward to Recovering Abundance: Twelve Practices for Small-TownLeaders. Thisbook invites readers to live a new story--to join a movement ofrenewal for small towns and rural communities. Offeringtwelve civic-spiritual practices, rooted in Jesus's miracle among themultitude, that rural and small-town leaders can use to renew theircongregations and communities. Throughthese twelve practices, Henry helps readers tune in to an alternativestory, one he discovered in his own rural Ohio community. Yes, he sawthe commonly lamented decline and devastation that have broughtsuffering to rural Americans and that seem to foster resentment anddespair. However,as he dug deeper into the stories of his neighbors, he began tonotice that small towns and rural regions are working. They areworking to build inclusive, thriving, local economies, to weave awelcoming social fabric in their region, to co-create a positivefuture--following the practices he explores in this book. RecoveringAbundance is a new story about the agency and creativity of whatHenry calls "ordinary leaders," not a story about scarcityand deprivation but one of abundance and generosity. Jim Wiegel Theunknown is what is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybodyscurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, allthat. Unknown is what is. Accept that it's unknown, and it's plainsailing. John Lennon 401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353 623-363-3277 jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com

3 4

Is "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" available?
by David Dunn 11 May '22

11 May '22

Hi Colleagues. I’m beginning to read up on “spiritual bypassing;” Robert Masters calls it “avoidance in holy drag.” Pretty good! I’m looking for a related book, Chogyam Trungpa’s Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. I remember well the expression spiritual materialism, but I don’t have the book. Does anyone have a copy they’d sell me? Thanks for looking and letting me know. With regards and good wishes to all. David — David Dunn 740 S Alton Way 9B Denver, CO 80247 720-314-5991 dmdunn1(a)gmail.com

2 1

Rex Vaughan
by James Wiegel 05 May '22

05 May '22

Saw This On Facebook This Morning Obituary Harvie Rex Vaughan, 85, died on May 1, 2022. Rex was born on July 1, 1936, the 4th of 5 children of Harvie Leslie Vaughan and Maggie Jane Larrew Vaughan, in Frederick, Oklahoma. After graduating from Frederick High School in 1954, Rex attended Oklahoma City University, where he met the love of his life and wife of 64 years, Sacra Nan Faull Vaughan. Rex and Sacra married on January 30, 1958. After they both graduated from OCU later in 1958, they moved to Evanston, Illinois, where Rex attended Garrett Theological Seminary. After graduation from Garrett, he was ordained in the United Methodist Church in the Oklahoma Conference. In 1970, they moved from Oklahoma City to Chicago, IL, with the Ecumenical Institute. After a year in Chicago, they moved to Atlanta GA. Rex worked for Fulton County in their Finance Department from 1970-1981, when he moved to the Finance Department of DeKalb County, where he worked until he retired in 2001. Rex had many passions in life, among them gardening, reading, traveling, spending quality time with friends and family, and telling bad jokes. Rex had friends from every part and place of his life. He and Sacra loved traveling and meeting new friends around the world. Perhaps his greatest joy were his grandchildren: Xander, Nick, Sally and Jake. Rex shared all of his passions with his grandchildren and was always their biggest fan. Rex was a long-time member of the Knox-Peabody Sunday school class at Decatur First United Methodist Church and a long-time supporter of Decatur Cooperative Ministry. Rex is survived by his wife Sacra (Decatur, GA), his daughter and son-in-law Jennifer and Jeff Rorabaugh (Athens, GA), his son and daughter-in-law Jeff and Leah Vaughan (Decatur, GA), his brother and sister-in-law Joe and Marilyn Vaughan (Norman, OK), his grandchildren Xander Rorabaugh (Fort Collins, CO), Nicholas Rorabaugh (Athens, GA), Sally Vaughan (Memphis TN), and Jake Vaughan (Atlanta, GA) and many nieces, nephews, grand nieces and grand nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents Harvie and Maggie, his sister and brother-in-law Phyllis and H. L. Gilbreth, his brother and sister-in-law J.W. and Patti Vaughan, his sister and brother-in-law Lois and Gordon Elsener, his cousin Dorothy Mae Graham, his mother-in-law Eloise Faull, and his brother-in-law and sister-in-law Joe and Betty Faull. A memorial service will be held on Friday, May 13, at 2:00 pm, at Decatur First United Methodist Church. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Decatur Cooperative Ministry or a charity of your choice Jim Wiegel “A revolution is on the horizon: a wholesale transformation of the world economy and the way people live.” Fred Krupp

1 1