HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Time for a New Spiritual (not Religious) Order? By Matthew Fox Speaking of a need for a Reformation makes me question whether the time has arrived for a new religious order that is in fact not tied to a particular religion but is a Spiritual Order, one that might help people of various religious faiths and none to gather around a common value and focus. I think our times call for a focus on the sacredness of the Earth and all her creatures. Therefore I propose a new order called “The Order of the Sacred Earth.” Its members may come from any and all life-styles, married, single, celibate, gay, straight and from any and all occupations so long as their work mirrored the values of honoring and supporting the Earth and her creatures. Blue collar and white collar workers would be welcomed. People of all religious traditions and none would be welcome. What then would bind them together as a community? A common vow. One that reads like this: “I promise to be as good a mystic (that is, lover) of Mother Earth that I can be and as good a prophet or warrior defending Mother Earth that I can be.” The Order would be established on this common vow and it would provide both a focus for our life decisions and our citizenship but also a community of support to assist one another in the living out of our values and commitment. It would represent a new stage in religious history actually, a leap forward in our spiritual evolution because it would take us beyond denominationalism and hurl us into the deeper calling to be mystics (lovers) and prophets (defenders of what we cherish). It would allow people to stay in their respective traditions or to move beyond them or to be one foot in and one foot out. Thus it would set a new standard for Deep Ecumenism or Interfaith, Interspirituality existence and work. Why am I so confident that the time has come for such a new kind of order? First, because it is clear, as Bishop Spong has pointed out, that Christianity must change or die—but I also believe other religions are equally challenged today to move beyond their literal teachings to a deeper expression of the very essence of religion—Gratitude and Compassion, Awe and Creativity, Justice and passing on the Earth as the splendid and grace-filled being that it truly is. Whether we talk of the Earth and her creatures as the “Cosmic Christ” or the “Image of God” or the “Buddha Nature” all traditions are trying to wake us up to a sense of the sacred which surrounds us and feeds and nurtures us but which we can all to readily take for granted. How can we possibly say that we love our children (and their children and grandchildren to come) if we are leaving them a despoiled planet, a diminishing planet, a sick planet with untold species going extinct and with seas rising and great cities soon to be inundated with salt water? How can we possible say we love God if we are oblivious to our neighbor—whether that neighbor be another two-legged one or a grand species such as the elephants or tigers or polar bears and others? Once we get over our anthropocentrism (what Pope Francis rightly calls our “narcissism” as a species), we recognize not just the good Samaritan serving his ailing neighbor but we recognize all who are working to heal the plight of so many species being threatened by humans pre-occupied with their own agendas. I am also convinced that it is time for such an Order, an Order of the Sacred Earth (OSE), because of my reading of Christian history. Ours are not the only times that the Christian religion found itself running out of steam, hijacked by forces eager to use it for their own political and economic ends, boring the young people on a regular basis, offering up stale and often dead and idolatrous forms of worship. But in other eras when the Christ path was hijacked or sold out, the response was to reinvent life styles that more clearly mirrored the message and person of Jesus. Such was the case in the fourth century when the “desert fathers and mothers” withdrew from the cities after the marriage of the church and the empire to seek a more authentic life style. Such was the case in the sixth century when St Benedict gave birth to the monastic system which was to preserve much of culture and healthy religion for many centuries during the cold and “dark” ages in Europe. Such was the case when, at the end of the twelfth century the marriage of feudalism and monasticism was choking healthy religion and new leaders such as Francis and Dominic sensed the need to break from the privileges of monasticism and get more real and more involved in the poverty movement that backed the serfs and the young and, with Dominic, the newly “secularized” university system which separated education from the monastic establishment for the first time in many centuries. A similar cultural upheaval in the sixteenth century that grew out of cultural breakthroughs such as the invention of the printing press and that gave birth to the Protestant Reformation and to the opening up of new markets and new continents and encounters with new peoples in the newly “discovered” Americas and in Asia. I think a good argument can also be made than in many respects the various Protestant denominations that began in the sixteenth century were a kind of “lay orders” insofar as they arose in response to corruption in the dominant church structure (what we know today as Roman Catholic Church) but that each denomination, like many of the Orders through the centuries, had their unique form of polities and of worship and training of clergy, etc. The Jesuit Order founded by St. Ignatius in the sixteenth century was another response to the corruption of the dominant religious paradigm. One important lesson to learn from the history of religious orders is that they can be very readily co-opted by powers that be, both ecclesial and secular powers and combinations of the two. No better example of this need be offered than the fact that within one generation of the founding of the Franciscans they were enrolled by the Vatican to partake in the Inquisition. The same is true of the Dominicans. I maintain that Francis saw the handwriting on the wall when the ecclesial powers took his order from him (including his desire that his brothers not become priests but stay out of that clerical status and mindset) and that his being stripped of the very brotherhood he had launched brought about his broken heart, his stigmata, and the end of his life. This lesson from history is one reason I insist that an Order today ought to be spiritual and not religious, that it should owe no allegiance to any particular religious hierarchy or headquarters but should pick up the sign of our times which is the reality that human consciousness is outpacing religious institutions and that the very essence of religion, spirituality, is what needs to be preserved at its best and carried on. And this is what the Order of the Sacred Earth would be about surely. And this would happen on a post-denominational plane, in a time of deep ecumenism and interfaith and interspirituality. This sense of interfaith would also lie at the heart of the new Order. What unites the members is not their particular religious affiliation or identity (or lack thereof), but their common vow to protect Mother Earth and her creatures, humans included. One’s allegiance will be to that reality and that shared value and that criterion that will become the litmus test for being a participating member of said community or Order. Agnostics and atheists I could see as part of the movement. The late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heshel declared that there are three ways to respond to creation: To exploit it; to enjoy it; or to accept it with awe. This latter way is the starting point for recovering the sacred. And recovering the sacred lies at the heart of the Order of the Sacred Earth. To recover the sacred means not to take nature or creation for granted and to explore that part of ourselves that rejoices to be in the presence of the Holy even on a daily basis. But it also means to fight and carry on the pursuit of preserving the Sacred, preserving Mother Earth in all her beauty and diversity. It means taking on those enemies of the Earth from Climate Change and pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere to destroying forests and soil and rainforests and countless species headed for extinction. One’s way of battling on behalf of Mother Earth may vary broadly—from supporting political movements to running for office oneself to employing sustainable ways of living in one’s life style and work places to educating others, to raising money for eco causes, etc. etc. What it does not mean is doing nothing. Or remaining silent. Or contributing to the ongoing pollution of our greatest inheritance and our greatest gift we bequeath to our descendants—the health and well being of Mother Earth. The Order of the Sacred Earth (OSE) is scheduled to launch this Fall. Indeed, we intend to have the first day of public vow taking to be winter solstice, 2017, and we hope to live stream it from many sites where people might gather to make a commitment. (2017 is the 500th anniversary of the launching of the Protestant Reformation marking Luther’s pounding of theses at the church door in Wittenburg, Germany). While I am a founding elder and intergenerational wisdom is at the core of the vision, still its leadership needs to come from 30-somethings whose generation is called to stand up at this critical moment in Earth history in a special way. Currently a couple of 33 years old, Jan Listing and Skylar Wilson, are leading the project with me. A book entitled Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action in which Skylar and I offer essays laying out its philosophy and Jan and a number of other responders offer short essays of vision and hope for OSE will be available in the Fall in a private edition and publicly in the Spring from Monkfish Publishing Company. ~ Matthew Fox Read the essay online here. About the Author Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 32 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 60 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the FleshTransforming Evil in Soul and Society, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved and Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest Question & Answer MaryAnn from the Internet, writes: Question: I am choosing one of Rev. Spong's books for our newly formed group. Do you have a suggestion for a particular book? Thank you for your help. Answer: By Fred Plumer Boy you are asking a tough question that begs for a good response. I suppose that is why this ended up on my desk. Frankly the choice would depend on the level of sophistication of your group. I believe two books would work if you are moving your group into a new way of thinking, I would start with Why Christianity Must Change or Die or a later book, A New Christianity for a New World written several year later. If you think your group would like to tackle some specifics, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism or The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic would be terrific reads. And finally for an overview of how the Bible is been misused, misinterpreted, misleading, Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World. This book was first published in 2010 and reprinted in paper back in 2013. It is considered by some theologians as one of Spong’s best books. I hope this is helpful. I did narrow it down a bit but it really depends on your audience. ~ Fred Plumer, President ProgressiveChirsitanity.org Read and share online here __________________________________________________ Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Terrible Texts: The Attitude of the Bible Toward Women – Part VI "In Christ Jesus...there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:26,28)." The apostle Paul was a man of great ability, passion, and energy and yet his writings reveal enormous turmoil. He comes out of a rigid, patriarchal background which he reflects again and again when giving instructions to his churches: Women are to keep quiet in church; men ought not to marry unless they cannot control their passion; women are to have their heads covered as a sign of respect; women are forbidden to hold authority over a man, etc. etc. As women have come increasingly into leadership roles in Christianity, they have vented their anger at this misogynist Paul. I know women clergy today who dismiss him as an enemy who had to be defeated before they could be accepted in the Church. Paul, however, was not single minded. In almost every area of his life, he lived in conflict. The prejudices that Paul possessed, the training he had undergone, the rigidity of his pious practices, all were countered by a conversion experience that kept him in internal tension. There was a war, he said, going on between his mind and his body, his past and his present, his tradition and his future. Luke described his conversion in Acts as "scales falling from his eyes." In many places Paul does not appear to be anti-female, expressing his appreciation to women like Priscilla, Lydia and Chloe, who were his colleagues and sending greetings to various women in his epistles. The place where Paul's perceived negativity toward women is most overtly countered is found in Galatians, probably Paul's most passionate and revelatory epistle. Scholars date this work in the early fifties. In a rather strange way, it reveals an authentic unfiltered Paul, whose anger at those who wished to separate Jewish Christians from Gentile Christians prohibits the luxury of thinking about what he is saying. His Christ experience, he asserts, has removed all the boundaries inside which he once found security. He listed those boundaries as tribe, gender and economic bondage. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Please note that latter phrase. As a result of his Christ experience, he states, the power equation between men and women has been broken. That equation, presumably built on the will of God, as found in the story of creation, was the justification for the woman's second class citizenship, which historically had included periods in which women were considered to be property. Laws informed by this attitude enabled polygamy, wife beating, the right to put one's wife to death, and the refusal to allow divorce as an option for women. The assumptions were that women were neither educable nor intelligent enough to be full citizens. Paul was suggesting, however, that a new reality had broken into the world in Christ that had rendered these definitions no longer operative. When we move to the Gospels evidence suggests that this new insight was present before the Church used the authority of the 'Terrible Texts' to suppress it. In Mark, the earliest Gospel, we read the story of a woman who, in the last week of Jesus' life, intruded herself on a dinner in Bethany at the home of one called Simon the Leper. First, she poured over his head an expensive perfume. This act was a violation of every Jewish patriarchal custom and if allowed, all norms would be forever broken. The men at the banquet thus moved quickly to condemn her behavior. Jesus, however, is portrayed as rebuking her tormentors. "She has done a beautiful thing to me," Jesus is quoted as saying, "She has anointed my body beforehand for burying (Mk. 14:3-9)." That same story echoes three more times in other gospels, but with interesting variations. In Matthew, it is recounted almost identically (Mt. 26:6-12). In Luke, however, there is a dramatic shift (Lk. 7:36-50). This episode does not occur in the last week of Jesus' life and it is not a prelude to his burial. Luke locates it, rather, in the early Galilean phase of Jesus' ministry, and not at the home of Simon the Leper but at the home of Simon the Pharisee, that is, one who is known for upholding the moral norms and taboos of the tradition. The woman's character has also been heightened, but in a very negative direction. She is "a woman of the city," a prostitute. As such, she is unclean and unwelcome. Her actions, according to Luke, are much more bizarre than those recorded by any other gospel writer. They are overtly sensual and clearly violate the social norms for women. Only in Luke does this woman wash Jesus' feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. One cannot perform such acts without fondling the feet of the recipient. In a society where a woman would never touch a man in public, this was an act of dramatic challenge. Once again, the value systems of the past emerged in the emotional responses of the male dinner guests, who condemn her roundly. They also condemned Jesus for allowing this outrage to happen to him. "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him." Because Jesus did not condemn her, his credentials as a holy man were obviously compromised. Since he had allowed this 'intimacy' at the hands of an unclean woman, he was now ceremonially unclean. But again Jesus sets aside the patriarchal rules with its doctrines of cleanliness and affirms the woman, accepts her action and tears down the barrier that would cause her to be rejected. He was acting out the Pauline insight that in Christ there was neither male nor female. A new humanity, transcending ancient definitions, ancient rules and ancient religious barriers, was being born. The 'terrible texts' of the past that had relegated women to a position of inferiority were being set aside. The same story was also told in John (Jno. 12:1-8). This time the anointing of Jesus, while still in Bethany, occurs at the home of Mary and Martha. All of Jesus' disciples are present as well as the family of Mary and Martha, including a brother named Lazarus, who had been, this Gospel alone asserts, recently raised from the dead. In this very public setting Mary is the woman who anoints Jesus' feet. There is no sense here of scandal and certainly there is no rebuke. How very strange, one thinks. Where did the patriarchal rules go? Why was this action suddenly acceptable? The only thing that in that day would have allowed this act to occur in a public setting without rebuke, would be that everybody present at this gathering knew that Mary was Jesus' wife! Is this a new insight? Maybe. But I suggest it is merely the lifting into the open of a long repressed gospel tradition, which contradicted later Church teaching that Jesus' anti-female bias led to his commitment to celibacy. In another revealing story, told by Luke, the ability of Jesus to break open the negative definitions that had always surrounded women is once again related, but in an enigmatic way. Jesus is again a dinner guest at the home of Mary and Martha. Martha is busily engaged in the work of preparing the meal. Mary is sitting at Jesus' feet listening to him teach. This means that Luke has cast this woman in the role of a learner, a pupil, perhaps even a rabbinic student. These, obviously, were roles that in first century Jewish society, women were not allowed to play. Martha enters the room and rebukes Mary, demanding that Jesus order her to help in the kitchen. Jesus refuses, going so far as to suggest that Mary has chosen the "higher way." He was asserting that a woman could be a student. Nothing can rule this possibility out since in Christ "there is neither male nor female." The suppression of truth regarding Jesus' relationship to Mary is again present in this narrative. Please note that Martha asked Jesus to order Mary to the kitchen. Why did Martha not speak directly to her sister? Her demands of Jesus would be appropriate only if, as Mary's husband, he had the authority to command and Mary had the duty to obey. Now, suppose this Mary was the same woman who came to be called Magdalene. Mary Magdalene was portrayed in the gospels as the leader of the female disciples who had followed Jesus all the way from Galilee (see Mk. 15:41, Mt. 27:55, and Lk. 23:49). What kind of women would accompany an itinerant band of men in the first century Jewish world? They would have to be either wives or prostitutes. There were no other options. Mary Magdalene was both the flesh and blood woman at Jesus' side during his life, and the chief mourner at his tomb in his death. Magdalene was portrayed in the Fourth Gospel's resurrection narrative as calling him both "my Lord." and "Rabboni," intimate titles, appropriate in Jewish society to be used by a woman for a respected teacher only if he was also her revered husband. She was the same Mary who demanded access to his deceased body from the one she thought was the gardener, an act appropriate only if she were the nearest of kin. Finally, suppose the word "Magdalene" has no reference whatsoever to a village of Magdala, a village that no one has yet been able to locate in any ancient source, but was, rather, a play on the Hebrew word "Migdal" - which means "large" or "great." Migdal was once a word that referred to a tower from which shepherds could view the fields in which their flocks were grazing. This would suggest that by calling this Mary "Magdalene," the earliest Christian community was asserting that this was "the great Mary," the female partner and wife of Jesus, to whom he gave a dignity and an honor that broke the barriers of the sexist definitions of the past. For those who live 'in Christ,' Paul was suggesting, no barrier can be erected against women, and no definition of the past can be used to suggest that women are somehow less than fully human. Jesus called and empowered people to step beyond every debilitating definition of our survival-oriented humanity to claim the new humanity that lies beyond the gender boundaries of the past. The Church, once the enemy of this new day, quoting and acting upon the basis of these 'terrible texts' might yet, through this vision, become the ally of the oppressed and the community in which a new humanity is lived out. That is my dream! ~ John Shelby Spong Originally published February 4, 2004 Announcements It's what you have been waiting for: ProgressiveChristianity.org offers our most popular children's books deeply discounted for the month of July. Perfect timing for summer reading or to purchase now and put aside as future gifts - at 70% off it's time to stock up on your favorites. Click here and use Coupon Code JULYBOOK to receive 70% off select children's books - discount expires 7-31-17.