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!important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv2445668748 #yiv2445668748templateBody .yiv2445668748mcnTextContent, #yiv2445668748 #yiv2445668748templateBody .yiv2445668748mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv2445668748 #yiv2445668748templateFooter .yiv2445668748mcnTextContent, #yiv2445668748 #yiv2445668748templateFooter .yiv2445668748mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } I saw in a new light the violence of the modern era, from colonialism to Stalinism to Nazism to nuclear war to the environmental crisis.  | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | How I Got Here | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Brian McLaren April 11, 2019I grew up in the fundamentalist Christian sect that gave the world the Rapture, the Left Behind industry of movies and books (and bad politics), and a school of biblical interpretation called Dispensationalism. Like any heritage, my Plymouth Brethren upbringing gave me many gifts: deep interest in the Bible, a passionate desire to do what is good and right, a willingness to challenge convention, and a yearning to live for a cause greater than myself.But it also faced me at an early age with an inconvenient and uncomfortable truth: religious people (like all people) can be unquestionably certain of things that are highly questionable as soon as you step outside their bubble. My tribe was certain that they possessed the only legitimate interpretation of the Bible: no pastors (male or female) – only a plurality of elders, no women allowed to speak in church meetings; all women wearing “head coverings” in obedience to the literal commands of 1 Corinthians 11; a weekly “Spirit-led” communion service without any written liturgy (although the unwritten liturgy was quite rigid); no denominational name (we gathered “unto Christ alone,” which, in a heartbreaking irony, made us better than everyone else!), and so on. Our self-assured superiority faced us with a real problem: if we weren’t right, nobody was, and any step out of our elite circle was a step down into darkness, compromise, and error.If this sounds like a seventeenth-century mindset, it may be, but based on my inbox, in the current century it is still surprisingly common in a variety of groups, from Pentecostal to Restorationist to hyper-Calvinist to Independent Fundamental/Baptist.As a young teenager, I remember thinking that I was probably on my way out of Christianity altogether, but my escape plan was thwarted by a powerful spiritual experience combined with a mentor who started giving me books by Francis Schaeffer and C. S. Lewis. Both figures are complex and fascinating, and both defied fundamentalism before they came to define it, but they are now among Evangelical/Fundamentalist patron saints. For me, as a curious Brethren boy of sixteen or seventeen, Schaeffer and Lewis were gateway drugs into greener pastures. They were thoughtful, intelligent, well-read. They appreciated great art, great literature, history, philosophy, and even science. (They also drank alcohol, a strict taboo for my tribe back in those days.) Of special importance for me, Schaffer was concerned about the environment, and C. S. Lewis saw literary imagination as an organ of faith.By the time I got my BA, my career plan was to go on to graduate school to become a college English teacher, like C. S. Lewis himself, and to open my home to spiritual seekers, as Francis and Edith Schaeffer had done. But I began to hit some road bumps in graduate school. An afternoon seminar on theories of literary criticism became a turning point for me. We had just read Stanley Fish’s Self-Consuming Artifacts, which led to a discussion of new schools of literary criticism that included “reader-response,” “post-structuralist” and “postmodern,” and as that conversation unfolded, I had a moment of insight that took the form of a metaphor of almost visionary quality. First, I pictured the great minds of modernity, each climbing up to stand on his chair (the male pronoun fit in those days) so he could look down upon his peers. Whether it was Darwin, Freud, Hume, Bentham, Skinner, or Marx, each used every tool of critical thinking at his disposal to cut the legs out from under the chairs of every rival theorist. A Freudian, for example, could show how other theorists reached their conclusions due to the dynamics of their Oedipal or Electra complexes. Marx could show how others were simply working out their class conflict. Bentham or Skinner could explain away the beliefs and positions of others based on a theory of “felicific calculus” or stimulus-response programming. Each theorist reduced every other theory to a phenomenon that it could explain and therefore explain away. But each theorist made one small exemption in applying its critical, reductionistic gaze. Each theorist cut the legs out from under every rival theory but never applied his own theory to undercut himself. Freudians never said that Freud’s theory was nothing more than the product of Freud’s psycho-sexual aggression, and therefore wasn’t necessarily true; they actually seemed to believe Freudianism. Darwinians acted as if the human brain evolved to enhance survival, not necessarily to discern truth, and they could apply their theory to every case except the development of their own theory, which they saw as a pristine, objective pursuit of truth. Marxists never said that Marxism was nothing more than a tool for class conflict; they actually seemed to believe it was true, and its truth lent a moral quality to their project. Their own theory-making work was exempted from their critique of other theories. That struck me as supremely unfair, even dangerous: an act of reductionistic aggression that could justify great harm. Suddenly, I saw in a new light the violence of the modern era, from colonialism to Stalinism to Nazism to nuclear war to the environmental crisis. Smart people, armed with excessive and un-self-critical confidence derived from their absolutized ideologies, could commit unspeakable atrocities without having second thoughts.I saw in the few hours of that graduate school seminar something I have not been able to un-see ever since: the danger of excessive confidence and of critical thinking that exclusively critiques others but not oneself or one’s own group.What was happening in this “postmodern turn,” I realized, was that the scholar standing on the chair was taking out his conceptual sword and, in an act of “doing unto oneself as one has done to others,” was cutting out the legs from under his own chair. This self-critical act, it seemed to me, had a profoundly moral motive: it aimed to disarm ideologies that claimed superiority and supremacy and put us all back on the same level ground as frail and fallible human beings.But that moment of insight quickly turned into a moment of terror: weren’t C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, along with other Christian apologists I admired, acting just like typical modernist thinkers? Weren’t they simply climbing up on their chairs and using their Anglicanism or Calvinism or Thomism or other forms of Christianity to cut the logical legs from beneath all their rivals, thus proclaiming their own superiority and supremacy?I distinctly remember thinking, “If this postmodern way of thinking ever catches on, the Christian religion is in a heap of trouble,” which was followed by a thought I’m not terribly proud of: “I hope this postmodern thing doesn’t catch on!”But of course it did. And even if it hadn’t caught on, the seed was already sewn in my own thinking. Modernist Christian absolutism, whether in its Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or Charismatic forms, had lost its luster for me, and I was launched on a quest for a different way to be Christian, and human.That’s one reason why, later in my graduate studies, I was so attracted to Catholic novelist Walker Percy. He was the first Christian thinker I had ever encountered who seemed to understand this postmodern turn. (He wrote about it in a brilliant essays like “The Message in the Bottle” and “The Man on the Train.”) Following Kierkegaard, he proposed that there were two different kinds of communication: the so-called objective communication of the academic or scientist, and the predicamental communication of the living human being who knows that he or she will die, and who speaks out of his or her existential crisis. (Later, I would discover that Michael Polanyi made a similar distinction, between impersonal and personal knowledge.)This thought process continued to unfold as I finished graduate school, became a college English teacher, helped start a congregation, and then left teaching to become a pastor. Preparing sermons and leading Bible studies each week actually got me reading the Bible more than I ever had, not just a famous verse here or there, but all the verses in between. It became increasingly clear to me that the theological framework I’d inherited didn’t fit the actual data. Meanwhile, our congregation had an influx of people who didn’t grow up in the church, and they came with their questions, which I often found superior to the set of answers I had been taught by Lewis, Schaeffer, and others. More forward-leaning authors like Leonard Sweet and Dallas Willard helped me gradually break free from some of my remaining fundamentalist grave-clothes.These experiences prepared me for the brilliance of Walter Brueggemann, even though my conservative background prejudiced me against him because he was seen as a “liberal.” Brueggemann saw tensions and differences among biblical writers not merely as “contradictions” to explain away (as fundamentalists did) or to expose (as other critical scholars often did), but rather as arguments. These seminal arguments presented faith as an ongoing conversation and quest for understanding rather than a fixed and fluid systematic theology or bombproof ideology. In a sense, Brueggemann gave me back the Bible, and helped me see that a fixed “Christian worldview” was neither biblical nor wise. What we need instead of a fixed worldview or doctrinal system is an ongoing Christian conversation that welcomes diverse viewpoints and expects everyone to keep learning, never forgetting what has gone before, but not being imprisoned by it either.The need for diverse viewpoints prompted me to listen to more non-white, non-straight, and non-male voices, including gay theologians like Dale Martin; feminist, eco-feminist, and womynist theologians like Sally McFague, Ilia Delio, JoAnn Badley, and Wil Gafney; Latin American liberation theologians like Rene Padilla, Jon Sobrino, Gustavo Gutierrez, and Leonardo Boff; Black theologians like Dr. King, James Cone, and Howard Thurman; African theologians like Kwame Bediako, Mabiala Kenzo, and Allan Boesak; and indigenous theologians like Richard Twiss, Randy Woodley, Randy Aldred, and Mark Charles.When I first encountered the early Jesus Seminar, it jangled all my remaining fundamentalist nerve endings, and it also alarmed the emerging post-modern part of me because I felt it had a modernist, reductionistic tone. But that began to change when I read The Meaning of Jesus (HarperOne, 1998) in which N. T. Wright and Marcus Borg engaged in civil but real debate. Of course, I was predisposed to prefer Dr. Wright because he had an Evangelical reputation, and Wright’s book The Challenge of Jesus (HarperOne, 1999) was profoundly important in my own theological growth. But I was also attracted to Marcus Borg’s gracious tone, and when I met Marcus in person, I saw that gracious tone embodied. The same was true with Dominic Crossan, and I began to read more of their joint work. They engaged with Scripture with far more depth and attention to detail than any of my conservative scholars had, and, it seemed to me, as time progressed they went beyond modernist critique and even postmodern deconstruction and attempted a more constructive re-envisioning of the Christian message and story in light of their research. I sensed the same movement in Jack Spong’s later work. Borg and Crossan also took the theme of empire and imperial violence seriously, and in that way, they, along with Richard Horsley and others, forever enriched the way I read the four Gospels, and forever changed the way I saw my own Christian tradition’s history.Along the way, I was helped greatly by the work of Nancey Murphy, Stanley Grenz, John Franke, Jack Caputo, and Richard Kearney as they put theology in conversation with postmodernism. John Haught’s “theology of evolution” work was also deeply liberating for me, as was Philip Clayton’s multi-faceted scholarship, and both prepared me for deeper engagement with John Cobb and other process theologians, not to mention Tiehlhard de Chardin. I was also helped along by readings in poetry and fiction (especially Nancy Oliver and Wendell Berry), spirituality and mysticism (especially Richard Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault), social history and “big history” (especially Jared Diamond and Ken Wilber), and anthropology (especially Rene Girard).As a result of all these influences (and so many others), I felt increasingly free and increasingly curious to engage with thinkers and activists from other religious traditions. As I did, I came to appreciate what John Cobb called “the incommensurability” of the world’s religions, and simultaneously, the potential for their diverse resources to be brought to the table for a multi-faith, multi-sector conversation among the whole human community as we face our current quadruple crisis: 1. the life-and-death challenges of climate change and ecological collapse, 2. unsustainable and growing economic inequality and exploitation, 3. the ever-present danger of catastrophic war, and 4. the failure of our world’s religions to provide an inspiring and visionary way forward.One constant and stabilizing influence on me through all these changes has been the outdoors. Whether hiking trails, naming trees, listening for bird-songs, fly-casting for tarpon, keeping tortoises, tending gardens, planting mango trees, observing stars, or studying dragonflies, I’ve always felt that the book of nature has been my most profound and delightful teacher, and has turned me into an incurable contemplative.That’s how, in case you wondered, a fundamentalist boy could grow into a sixty-something man honored to be a progressive Christian voice in a global, multi-faith conversation. If you want to know more about my journey, of course, you can read my books, which are like crumbs dropped along the way, and check out my website, brianmclaren.net.~ Brian McLaren Read online hereAbout the Author Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is an Auburn Senior Fellow and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders called Convergence Leadership Project. He works closely with the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival and the Fair Food Program‘s Faith Working Group. His most recent joint project is an illustrated children’s book (for all ages) called Cory and the Seventh Story. Other recent books include: The Great Spiritual Migration, We Make the Road by Walking, and Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? (Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World).Brian has been active in networking and mentoring church planters and pastors since the mid 1980’s, and has assisted in the development of several new churches. He is a popular conference speaker and a frequent guest lecturer for denominational and ecumenical leadership gatherings – across the US and Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He has written for or contributed interviews to many periodicals, including Leadership, Sojourners, Tikkun, Worship Leader, and Conversations.A frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs, he has appeared on All Things Considered, Larry King Live, Nightline, On Being, and Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. His work has also been covered in Time, New York Times, Christianity Today, Christian Century, the Washington Post, Huffington Post, CNN.com, and many other print and online media.Brian is married to Grace, and they have four adult children and five grandchildren. His personal interests include wildlife and ecology, fly fishing and kayaking, music and songwriting, and literature.   | | | | | | | | Question & Answer   Q: By KevinI believe in God but not an interventionist God. There is too much suffering in this world both amongst believers and non-believers. If we study cosmology in the micro- and macro-universes, God must surely be quite a different being (or non-being) if He is in charge of all the things going on in His Universe. Indeed one cannot blame people for not believing in God as He is presented in many of the belief systems we have on this earth.On the other hand, I do not begrudge those of my children who are fundamentalists; better that than being non-believers and not following the teachings of Jesus.Is it not possible that Jesus did not die on the Cross, but merely passed out, coming to in the cave and making those appearances described in the New Testament? There are many instances of such “miraculous” recovery even to the present day and many of His miracles can be explained scientifically. A: By Joran Slane Oppelt  Dear Kevin,Thank you so much for writing.No, we can’t blame people for not believing in God, especially those versions of God that don’t align with our beliefs or values -- a God that is irrational, wrathful, vengeful, male, white, etc. But thousands of years ago, we placed God on a “throne” because that’s where our lords and rulers held the world in their hands, able to control forces like war, hunger and suffering as well as peace, prosperity and community. We now have more direct and personal control over these forces in our life, and along with it has come a different conception of God -- a responsibility to remake God in our own image, not the image of a king, emperor or avatar. When someone is using old language or an old map, we tend to question why they haven’t caught up with the times, rather than challenge ourselves to draw new maps together.I’m a pluralist, so I’m not sure I agree with the statement “better [to be a fundamentalist] than [to be] non-believers and not following the teachings of Jesus.”I think that the aims of loving God (and one another) can be found in many of the world’s faith traditions. I see it in the worship of “one God” and adherence to religious law found in Judaism and Islam. I see it in the selfless service of the Sikhs. I see it in the social justice focus of the Unitarian Universalists and the Baha’is. I see it in the mysticism of the Sufis and Jewish Renewal. I see it in the metaphysics of Unity and Science of Mind. I see it in the eco-spirituality and “creation care” of many Christian communities (Episcopalian, Methodist, UCC, etc.). I think there are much “better” alternatives than to be a fundamentalist of any religion.For the Christian, the question is, “How are suffering and hope encountered and identified in Christ?” Christ needs to remain the gateway to understanding our place in this world. He is the archetype and the larger idea. He is the mutation of consciousness that we have been given in order to grow beyond ourselves.Pray with Him and keep me posted.The second part of your question is a little easier for me to address.Are there modern-day cases of people being buried alive or returning to life? Sure.Is it possible to attempt to scientifically explain an event like the resurrection? Sure. But, without any 2,000-year-old evidence or eyewitness accounts, it remains conjecture.Are there people who claim that Elvis and Tupac Shakur are still alive and living in an apartment somewhere? Yes. Those people are delusional and/or they have not properly been shown how to grieve.Regardless of its historicity, by attempting to explain this event away, we rob the event of its meaning on many levels, including the impact it has on our very souls.Mythically, we rob Jesus of his ability to “overcome the world.” The primacy of the resurrection and the days that follow are pivotal in this story. Jesus “lived on” in the hearts and visions of those that knew him. That is where we must still look for him today.Metaphysically, we rob ourselves of the ability to achieve salvation through Christ. This can happen once-in-a-lifetime or it can happen daily. But we must be able to surrender ourselves and give over all of our pain and suffering and “sin” to Jesus in his ninth and final hour. We must commit ourselves to entering the dark night of the soul -- the via negativa -- with Jesus at his crucifixion. Because on the other side of that is the via creativa. On the other side of that is something new in ourselves, something resurrected and reborn.And, we rob the women who witnessed the resurrection of their stories. Why were these women the first to see (and hear) Jesus after his death? Why were they chosen? What makes them special? What did they have in common? What is the feminine experience of this witnessing and this resurrection? There is a social significance to the shared vision of these women who were the first to enter into the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. And there’s been enough robbing women of their stories throughout history.These are great questions. Keep them coming and thank you for keeping the conversation moving forward.Sincerely,~ Joran Slane OppeltRead and share online here About the Author Joran Slane Oppelt is an international speaker, author, interfaith minister and award-winning producer and singer/songwriter. He is the owner and founder of the Metta Center of St. Petersburg and Integral Church – an interfaith and interspiritual organization in Tampa Bay. Joran is the author of Integral Church: A Handbook for New Spiritual Communities, Sentences, The Mountain and the Snow and co-author of Order of the Sacred Earth (with Matthew Fox) and Transform Your Life: Expert Advice, Practical Tools, and Personal Stories. He currently serves on the board of Creation Spirituality Communities and has spoken around the world about spirituality and the innovation of religion. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Special Question and Answers from Bishop Spong Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong - May 9, 2007Dear Friends,This week in place of the column I want to share my answers to two readers that required more space than the question and answer format allows. Both answers involve people known across the world, Desmond Tutu and Elizabeth Edwards. In the case of Mrs. Edwards we are reminded of the humanity of all people even our headline worthy politicians. I thank you for all of your cards, letters and e-mails. They are the lifeblood of this column. I particularly enjoy having subscribers identify themselves to me when I am on the lecture circuit. I am constantly amazed at the scope and penetration of this column. Its readers are now quite literally all over this world.Shalom.John Shelby SpongGeorgia Riggs from Grove, Oklahoma, writes:When you spoke of forgiveness while lecturing recently in Oklahoma, my mind jumped to Desmond Tutu. I was honored to hear him speak in Tulsa. Since you have known him for so long, could you give us an insight into his spiritual journey?Dear Georgia,I met Desmond Tutu in the summer of 1976 about six weeks after I had been ordained as a bishop. I was in The Republic of South Africa, landing there just after the dreadful riots in Soweto, an apartheid community adjacent to white Johannesburg. Desmond, who was at that time serving as the Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg, had became the voice of the people following those riots in which between 200-300 black teenagers had been killed by South African police in the dark days of apartheid. The police sent a flat bed truck into Soweto and hurled these deceased bodies unceremoniously onto that truck to haul them to the morgue. The picture of grieving parents at that morgue trying to find their own child in that pile of bodies haunts me to this day. Things were incredibly tense, with fear and hatred the dominant emotions that were finding expression.  Click here to read full answer.~  John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements   Heal Ancestral Patterns Live 4-Day workshop April 25-28 in Redwood City, CA   - Do you have Family patterns you want to clear? - Ancestors you want to forgive? - Healthy boundaries you want to create? Join us for an amazing weekend to heal difficult family patterns and family trauma – this can be generational trauma and your own personal trauma with Family.READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |