January 2013 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

Re: [Oe List ...] Directory Subscription renewal
by Alan 12 Jan '13

12 Jan '13

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Directory Subscription renewal
by Jayandem2＠aol.com 12 Jan '13

12 Jan '13

Dear Friends and Colleagues: >From Mike Tippett: A Good New Year’s Resolution: Renew your subscription to the ICA/OE/EI Directory!! I NEED TO MOVE MORE COPIES!! IF YOU ARE A FORMER SUBSCRIBER, PLEASE CONSIDER GETTING THE 2013 VERSION There is still time for you to order your copy! For those who aren’t familiar with The Directory, it is a listing of names, addresses, phones, emails and occupations of several hundred people who have been at one time or another associated with the I.C.A., or the Ecumenical Institute, or its programs and projects. It’s fun to see where everyone is living and what each is doing. (I’m in Florida and am semi-retired) If you would like a copy of your listing, either write or email me. If you would like a copy of The Directory, send in the form below. Cost of the Directory is $20.00 for either the booklet form, the floppy disk form, or a CD. If you order two forms, it will cost $30.00. ORDER FORM NAME: ______________________________ ADDRESS: ____________________________ CITY/STATE/POSTAL(ZIP) CODE: ____________________________ COUNTRY: ________________________ EMAIL: ______________________________ Make Checks out to and send orders to: Michael B. Tippett, 4676 32nd Court East, Bradenton, FL 34203 (USA) Phone: (941) 753-5189 Email: MovementDir(a)aol.com Please send me a copy of the directory: [ ] Booklet form [ ] CD Cost of the Directory is $20.00 for either the booklet form, or a CD. If you order two forms, it will cost $30.00. I enclose $___________ The CD will contain In Memoriam and Names and Addresses, etc, in Microsoft Word format.

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Re: [Oe List ...] Directory Ready To Mail
by Jayandem2＠aol.com 12 Jan '13

12 Jan '13

Thanks. I appreciate feedback from colleagues. Grace and Peace, Mike In a message dated 12/12/2012 7:09:15 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, susan(a)gmdtech.com writes: Love the cover! Susan Susan Fertig-Dykes (personal email account) From: oe-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Jayandem2(a)aol.com Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 9:19 PM To: Dialogue(a)wedgeblade.net; oe(a)wedgeblade.net Subject: [Oe List ...] Directory Ready To Mail Dear Friends and Colleagues: >From Mike Tippett: The 2013 Directory Of Those Who Care is now being printed. Copies for those who have already ordered a Directory will be mailed out by the end of this week. There is still time for you to order your copy! For those who aren’t familiar with The Directory, it is a listing of names, addresses, phones, emails and occupations of several hundred people who have been at one time or another associated with the I.C.A., or the Ecumenical Institute, or its programs and projects. It’s fun to see where everyone is living and what each is doing. (I’m in Florida and am semi-retired) The Directory 2013 If you would like a copy of your listing, either write or email me. I have a special email for The Directory: _MovementDir(a)aol.com_ (mailto:MovementDir@aol.com) If you would like a copy of The Directory, send in the form below. Cost of the Directory is $20.00 for either the booklet form or a CD. If you order two forms, it will cost $30.00. ORDER FORM NAME: ______________________________ ADDRESS: ____________________________ CITY/STATE/POSTAL(ZIP) CODE: ____________________________ COUNTRY: ________________________ EMAIL: ______________________________ Make Checks out to and send orders to: Michael B. Tippett, 4676 32nd Court East, Bradenton, FL 34203 (USA) Phone: (941) 753-5189 Email: _MovementDir(a)aol.com_ (mailto:MovementDir@aol.com) Please send me a copy of the directory: [ ] Booklet form [ ] CD Cost of the Directory is $20.00 for either the booklet form, or a CD. If you order two forms, it will cost $30.00. I enclose $___________ The Floppy Disk and CD will contain In Memoriam and Names and Addresses, etc, in Microsoft Word format. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Message from A.M. Noel
by Carol Crow 11 Jan '13

11 Jan '13

Dear Friends, I am forwarding a message from our colleague A.M. Noel,currently living in upstate New York: "Dr. A.J.A. Peter, age 77, eldest brother of A.M. Noel, took his last breath yesterday, January 10, 2013 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was a guardian of the ICA for many years." A.M.'s sister had died on A.M.'s birthday, December 17, 2012, followed on December 22 by the death of his father-in-law David VerNooy. A Memorial service for A.M.'s sister and brother will be held in Malaysia in February when the family gathers in Kuala Lumpur. David VerNooy who died in December was a clergyman participant in the Ecumenical Institute's Primal Community Experiment in the 1970's, in Connecticut and New York. Please hold A.M. and his family in your hearts at this time. In Community, Carol

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11/08/12, Spong: The Birth of Jesus, Part I: Introduction
by Ellie Stock 11 Jan '13

11 Jan '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR The Birth of Jesus, Part I: Introduction Most of the portraits of the mother of Jesus that hang in the great museums of the world are dependent first on the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth and second on the presumed appearances of his mother at the foot of the cross. Take those two traditions away from the New Testament and the mother of Jesus almost totally disappears. Indeed, what remains is mostly negative. She is portrayed in Mark (chapters 3 and 6) as thinking that Jesus was “beside himself,” that is “out of his mind” and she, along with his brothers, moves to “put him away.” He had, this story implies, become an embarrassment to the family. In the Fourth Gospel, in the narrative of the water being changed into wine, the mother of Jesus is portrayed as inappropriately pushing Jesus to act and she receives from him the rebuke, “Woman, what have you to do with me, my hour has not yet come?” She is also not present at the cross in the writings of Paul or in any of the earlier gospels of Mark, Matthew or Luke. Only with the appearance of the Fourth Gospel at the end of the first century did anyone think to portray her at the foot of the cross. These biblical facts force us to recognize that most of the ideas we have about the mother of Jesus are late developing myths that make assumptions the Bible does not make. The birth stories are found first in Matthew, the dating of which is generally between 82 and 85, and second in Luke, which is generally thought to have been written about a decade after Matthew. This means that the New Testament’s accounts of Jesus’ birth are both products of a time 52-65 years after the life of Jesus came to its earthly end and some 82-95 years after the time of his birth. This is not eye witness reporting. Clearly the tradition that was built around the mother of Jesus is both late developing and continues to grow with the passing of years. Once the time of the writing of the New Testament has passed, however, the mythology that developed around the mother of Jesus apparently knew no bounds. The virgin mother of the birth narratives became in successive generations, first, the permanent virgin, thus redefining Jesus’ siblings, referred to by name in both Galatians and in Mark, and referred to in John simply as “his brothers,” as half brothers or cousins. Next she was declared to have been a “post-partum” virgin, which suggested that even the birth of Jesus did not disturb her virginal hymen. In the service of that idea the “Fathers” of the church even searched the scriptures for biblical texts that would support this growing conviction. They settled on two. First, they looked at the writings of a sixth century BCE prophet named Ezekiel, who in the first verse of the 44th chapter wrote these words: “This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut.” Without either apology or embarrassment, they leaped on these words to claim that the “post partum virginity” of the “Blessed Virgin Mary” had actually been predicted by the prophets! The second text was found in the resurrection story according to the Fourth Gospel. In that narrative the disciples were in hiding in an upper room with the doors and the windows closed and locked and Jesus came and stood in their midst. If the risen Christ could pass through walls guarded by locked doors, they argued, it was no great stretch to imagine the infant Christ passing through the birth canal of his mother without breaking the hymen. Mythology always does strange things to facts and to reality. By the 19th century, devotion to the mother of Jesus became so strong that the Roman Catholic Church, in which this devotion was most encouraged, declared that she, unlike all other human beings, had been “immaculately conceived.” That is, her mother had been miraculously cleansed of the sin of Adam, which was believed to have infected all human beings and to have been passed on from generation to generation. For Jesus to have been born without sin, his mother would have to have been especially prepared for this birth. This necessity also reflected the fact that in the early years of the 18th century, the discovery had been made that women have an egg cell and therefore that the woman literally contributes half of the genetic makeup of every person who has ever been born. Prior to this the assumption was that the woman simply provided the womb that nurtured the male seed to maturity. Like “Mother Earth” into which the farmer planted the seed, the woman’s role had been seen as simply to bring to birth the life that came from the male. When the egg cell was discovered, the realization dawned on the leadership of the church that the mother of Jesus was, like all women and indeed like all people, a child of Adam and so the sinlessness of Jesus was compromised through his mother’s line. That had not been a problem in the old view of reproduction. The Immaculate Conception addressed that theological problem demonstrating once and for all that even “infallible” doctrines are forced to adjust to new discoveries. The final chapter in the mythological development of the mother of Jesus came in the 20th century when Mary was declared to have been bodily assumed into heaven. Since she was born without sin, she was not required to go through the passage of death, since death, according to the story of the Garden of Eden, was punishment for sin. Carl Jung rejoiced in the Vatican’s declaration of the bodily assumption of the mother of Jesus into heaven because in his world of symbols this meant that the feminine had finally been lifted into God and the patriarchal tyranny of a God conceived of in only masculine terms and always addressed as “Father” had finally been tempered. In this new series of columns over the next few months, I want, first, to get underneath the mythology of the ages and second, the development found in the New Testament itself, so that we can look at Jesus, the mother of Jesus and the entire Christian story with a set of eyes honed by scholarship and tempered by the facts of history as we can demonstrate them. I trust it will be an illuminating and worthwhile story for my readers. If the familiar biblical images of the mother of Jesus are late developing, what do we have that is original and perhaps trustworthy? That is the question we will address as this series unfolds. I begin with some statements of fact that I will pursue in detail going into each of them deeply before any conclusions are reached, probably some time in February. For now, I simply file them as bullet points for your consideration. As the Book of Common Prayer in my church states these bullet points are designed to be “read, marked, learned and inwardly digested.” This series will provide the time to do just that. We can now date the life of Jesus with some degree of accuracy. Recent discoveries have made it possible to fix the life of Jesus between the years of 4 BCE and 30 CE. We get to these dates first by the discovery in ancient Roman records that King Herod died in 4 BCE and since the clear New Testament tradition is that Jesus was born when Herod was the king so we fix the date of Jesus birth at 4 BCE. Second, we learn, once more from secular records, that Pilate was the procurator of Judea for the Roman Empire between the years 26-36 CE. If, as each of the gospels asserts, the crucifixion occurred under the authority of Pilate, then the crucifixion has to happen some time between those dates. Roman records also provide us with some other facts in the life of Pilate that have to do with the reasons for his removal from office. Since they appear to have happened well after the crucifixion we can squeeze those dates a bit closer to perhaps 28-32 as the time of the crucifixion. We then split the difference and settle on 30, with the knowledge that we might be off two years in either direction. So for our working purposes, we set the life of Jesus between 4 BC and 30 CE. We have nothing preserved in writing anywhere of anything concerning the life of Jesus before the year 51 CE. That is a silent and dark historical tunnel, which can be illumined only by speculation. It is filled in only by what we call “the oral tradition” that we have almost no way of recreating, entering or capturing. Paul the first writer, whose work was destined to be included in the New Testament, did all of his writing between the years 51 and 64. Not all of the epistles attributed to Paul are authentically from his hand. The ones about whom a consensus of the certainty of Pauline authorship exists are I Thessalonians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Philemon and Philippians. This means that II Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, I and II Timothy, Titus and Hebrews are not considered to be from the hand of Paul. Nowhere in any part of the authentic Pauline corpus is there a reference of any kind to the birth of Jesus, nor is there any mention of the mother or father of Jesus. There are in Paul, however, several references, mostly in Galatians, to James, the brother of the Lord. Our study of the birth of Jesus will therefore start with Paul, the earliest writer in the New Testament. That means that we will start our investigation in the sixth and seventh decades of the Christian era. I hope that whets your appetite. We will continue the drama in subsequent columns. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Ed Branthaver, via the Internet, writes: Question: You have been a long time favorite author of mine ever since I read Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. I have every one of your books in my personal library. I grew up in the tradition of a liberal Church of the Brethren to which I still hold some loyalty. However, in all my years, I was never able to understand much of the biblical language or teachings. I was in my 60th year before I discovered you and your writings. Let me say you are the first person who has helped me understand what for a long time has confused me. Recently, I came across a small book by Anthony Freeman, God in Us. He claims that his use of the term God (instead of referring to a supernatural being) refers to the sum of all values and ideals in life: Positive values like goodness, love, knowledge, wisdom, power (used rightly), etc. and negative values like freedom for the fear and tyranny of death, of suffering, etc. He says, “Do you believe in God? is like asking “How long is a piece of string? Just tell me what sort of God you have in mind and I will tell you whether I believe in him (her, it.)” He labels his philosophy, Christian Humanism, and his call to “radical insecurity” which carries an element of uncertainty, sure sounds a lot like your recent call to “Think Different, Accept Uncertainty.” Could you call the New Christianity for a New World Christian Humanism? Answer: Dear Ed, I have known and admired Anthony Freeman for a long time. He was an Anglican priest until the Anglican hierarchy decided that his view of God was not sufficient for him to represent that church as one of its ordained servants. I would never have made such a judgment. No person’s view of God is the same as God! I’m not at all sure that the view of God reflected in those Anglican hierarchical figures is a view of God that is sufficient for them to remain in their respective positions of authority either. They simply validate tradition while Anthony has challenged the adequacy of that tradition. Only time will tell which attitude is closer to the truth and history has consistently shown that those who stand outside the traditional theological lines are harbingers of the future majority. Does this mean that I believe that Anthony’s view of God is complete? No, but neither is the view of his hierarchical theological judges or my view of God. What ecclesiastical heresy hunters never understand is no human mind and no religious tradition can ever fully embrace or express the truth of God in any human words or in any established doctrines and dogmas of any church. Churches are always pretending that they possess the ultimate truth of God. I think that is nothing short of idolatry. I believe I experience God and I can talk about my experience. I do not believe I can define God, nor do I believe anyone else can. I find the phrase Christian Humanism to be an appealing one. The opposite of humanism is not the lack of or the inability to embrace the reality of a supernatural deity. The opposite of humanism is to be inhumane! I think Jesus is about expanded life and expanded consciousness; about calling us into the fullness of lour humanity. Humanism shares that goal, but would probably not embrace my definition. Humanism is thus not my enemy, but my ally. I think of myself as a Christian Humanist, but I want both of these words to carry equal weight. I hope this helps. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2012 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book If you are a paying subscriber, you may login and cancel your account. Sent to elliestock(a)aol.com — why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences ProgressiveChristianity.org · 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. · Unit 1 · Portland, OR 97214

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1/10/13, Spong: The Birth of Jesus, Part VII. The Role of Ruth: The Seductress
by Ellie Stock 10 Jan '13

10 Jan '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR The Birth of Jesus, Part VII. The Role of Ruth: The Seductress The third woman mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is also unique in a number of ways. Her name is Ruth and she, like Rahab, is a foreigner. Rahab was a Canaanite citizen of Jericho. Ruth was a Moabite, and the widow of a Jewish man named Mahlon. Her story is found in the tiny book that bears her name that is nestled in the Hebrew Scriptures between Judges and I Samuel. It is a dramatic tale involving some unfamiliar Jewish practices that are strange to us today, but that made sense in terms of the Jewish values of that day, rooted as they were in both tribal and patriarchal assumptions. Listen first to the story. It was around the year 1100 BCE when a time of famine produced a down turn in the Hebrew economy. Elimelech, a citizen of Bethlehem, his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, moved to the land of Moab in search of work, food and survival. Soon thereafter, Elimelech died leaving Naomi with her two sons, strangers and aliens in a foreign land. The two sons then assumed the care of their mother and settled into their life in Moab, living there for about ten years, during which time they even took Moabite women to be their wives. Mahlon married Ruth and Chilion married Orpah. Then tragedy struck once again when both Mahlon and Chilion died, leaving the remaining members a very vulnerable family of three widows, women who had no male support and no male protection. This patriarchal society had not developed any way of enabling lone women to care for themselves outside the protective structure provided by a father, a husband or a son. “An independent woman” was an unimaginable category. Hebrew law, therefore, required that women who are alone be cared for by the nearest male kinsman in the family. Normally this meant that the next oldest brother in the family must take the widow of his deceased brother as his wife. In the case of Naomi, Orpah and Ruth, however, there were no younger brothers and, with Naomi being of post-menopausal age, there was no chance of ever producing any. Nothing was more fragile or tragic in this society than a woman who had no father, no husband and no son. She thus fell out of the social safety net, which that society had built to care for the vulnerable. The next level of support was to identify the male, who was simply the closest of kin and to turn all of her assets over to him. This included his taking the widowed woman to be his wife, or at least a member of his harem, for which he had responsibility and for which he assumed sexual privileges with the stated hope of raising up children to the deceased male. As long as this fragile trio of women lived in the land of Moab, there was no male closest of kin. Naomi, facing this reality, called her two daughters-in-law to her and told them that she was moving back to the land of the Jews, presumably to Bethlehem. She instructed the young widows to do the only thing left open to them. She told them to return to their families and to the protection of their fathers. That was a demeaning act as these widows would from then on be considered “damaged goods.” They would be unable to contract another “proper” marriage. Perhaps some men could be found to take them, but prospects were bleak; not as bleak, however, as what they faced as a family of three vulnerable women living alone. Orpah accepted that option and returned to her family, disappearing from this story forever. Ruth, however, declined and informed Naomi that she would go with her back to the land of the Jews, that she did not want to leave her mother-in-law alone and that together they would face the hardship that both knew awaited them. In one of the most beautiful passages in this book, Ruth says words that have been set to music today and we know them as “The Song of Ruth,” “Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God shall be my God, where you die, I will die and there will I be buried.” (Ruth 1:16-17) This song of Ruth is frequently sung at weddings as the bride and groom stare deeply into each other’s eyes.. I wonder how many couples would choose this music if they knew that originally it was Ruth’s song sung to her mother-in-law! The two single women then returned to Bethlehem and began their struggle for survival. It was the time of the beginning of the barley harvest. Naomi plotted her strategy. She was aware that her husband, Elimelech, had a kinsman named Boaz, who owned much land in the Bethlehem area. She thus settled into a humble dwelling near the fields of her husband’s distant relative. Jewish law also required that the reapers should not seek to harvest every grain of barley, but that some should be left in the field to be gleaned by the poor. Each day Ruth went into these fields to gather the grain the reapers had missed. She brought it home, ground it and baked it into a barley cake sufficient to keep Naomi and herself from starving. Her faithful caring for Naomi was noticed. Boaz inquired of her identity and learned that she was Naomi’s Moabite daughter-in-law, that she had asked permission to glean in the field behind the reapers and that she had gathered the scanty remains from sunup to sundown without resting. Inspired by this example, Boaz spoke to Ruth, telling her not to gather grain in any other fields and gave her access to water drawn by the young men for the workers in the field. He ordered the young men not to molest her. Ruth thanked Boaz for his kindness, inquiring as to why he was so gracious to a foreigner. Boaz replied that her faithfulness in the care of Naomi had inspired him and revealed that he had been told of the death of Ruth’s husband and of her willingness to leave her own people in order to care for Naomi. Boaz then instructed the reapers to leave some of the sheaves that they had gathered for her to glean. When Ruth told Naomi about the kindness of the man who owned the fields, Naomi was pleased that the trap she was setting was about to be sprung. She waited until the harvest season was over before she put her plan into operation. Naomi shared with Ruth that Boaz was a distant relative of Elimelech, her father-in-law, and thus of Mahlon, Ruth’s husband. He thus had a social responsibility to care for her. When the reaping was over, Boaz and his workers would celebrate at the threshing floor and Ruth would attend that celebration. She prepared carefully, she bathed, she anointed herself with perfume, she put on her best dress and off she went. Naomi instructed her that she was not to make herself known until the man had finished eating and drinking. The text says until “his heart was merry.” The wine flowed freely that evening and by midnight Boaz, now well drunk, lay down on the floor and went to sleep. Ruth came over to him, placed a pillow under his head and covered him with a blanket. Then the text says she “uncovered his feet,” and lay down at his feet. In the scriptures the word “feet” was a euphemism for the male genitals. The fact is that Ruth undressed him and climbed under the blanket with him. This was an overt act of seduction. When Boaz awakened at the dawn’s first shaft of light, he found this woman under the blanket with him. He had no idea who she was or what he might have done in his drunken stupor, and so he spoke to her. “Who are you?” He asked. She replied: I am Ruth, you are my next of kin. Marry me!” Boaz pretended to be flattered that she had not gone after a younger man, but he was not quite ready to accept this new responsibility. There was one other, he said, who was a closer kinsman to her husband than he. He would have to speak to him first. It seems this other man had the right of first refusal. Boaz went to meet with him, telling Ruth not to let it be known “that a woman came to the threshing floor.” He then gave Ruth “six measures of barley,” perhaps it was payment for her “night’s work” and he went off to the city. Ruth reported back to Naomi with this grain and Naomi rejoiced. Her plan had clearly worked. Boaz, gathering ten men of the city to serve as witnesses, met with this nearest kinsman and the negotiations proceeded. Boaz informed this man that Ruth, Mahlon’s widow, has returned from Moab and that she has a parcel of land that belonged to Mahlon’s father, our kinsman, Elimelech. You, as the nearest of kin, have first refusal. Will you redeem this land? If not, I am next in line. The nearest of kin agreed to redeem it. Then Boaz said that is fine, but you need to know the day you take over this field, you are also agreeing to care for Naomi, Elimelech’s widow, and to take Mahlon’s widow, Ruth, to be your wife and to raise up children to her deceased husband. That was a sticky wicket. He would then have to include any children he might have with Ruth among those who would inherit his estate. So he declined. “I cannot redeem it,” he said, “Lest I impair my own children’s inheritance.” So, in the presence of the elders, he renounced his claim. The decision was affirmed in the traditional way of exchanging a sandal. Boaz then was authorized to buy the parcel, to become heir of all that belonged to Elimelech, Mahlon and Chilion. He would care for Naomi and Ruth would become his wife so that the name of Mahlon would not be cut off in the land. The elders saluted Boaz and said, “May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” thus linking these two stories. Boaz and Ruth had a son whose name was Obed. When Obed reached maturity, he had a son named Jesse. Jesse in turn grew up and had a son named David, who became the great king of the Hebrew nation. Ruth was thus the great grandmother of King David. Matthew incorporated Ruth into the genealogy of Jesus that served as his prologue to the introduction of the first account of Jesus’ miraculous birth, In that genealogy, Matthew is saying the line that produced Jesus of Nazareth flowed through the incest of Tamar, the harlotry of Rahab and the seduction of Ruth. It also proclaimed that Moabite blood flowed in the veins of the Jewish King David, thus countering all of the claims of racial purity made for the Royal House of David. One more woman will appear in Matthew’s genealogy. We will turn to her story when this series continues, but surely by now we should be asking what Matthew’s purpose is; what is his agenda that he has chosen to introduce the Virgin Birth story in this way? ~JSS Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Jan Weston from Morrow, Ohio, writes: Question: I know that you are invited to Unity Village, Lee's Summit, Missouri, on occasions. I think I have read a comment from you saying that Unity was a positive resource for the future understanding of faith. My wife and I have regularly attended a Unity congregation until recently. I had searched to see if you had written anything in regards to interpreting scripture metaphysically and could not find any articles. I would like to know in more detail your feelings of the strengths and weaknesses as you see it in Unity thought. Also, any suggestions for a resource other than the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary and Charles Fillmore's The Revealing Word: A Dictionary of Metaphysical Terms. I look forward every Thursday to receiving your articles. Answer: Dear Jan, Thank you for your letter. I have had the pleasure of being at Lee’s Summit on several occasions and have spoken in perhaps as many as 200 Unity Churches across the nation. I find the Unity Movement exciting and open. It is not, however, their metaphysical interpretation of the scriptures that impresses me so much as it is their insistence on seeing religion as an asset to wholeness. They simply are not into sin, original or otherwise. The traditional Christian message, which is rooted in the theology of Augustine in the Fourth century and expanded by Anselm in the twelfth century, is based on the assumption that human life began as perfection, only to fall into sin and, therefore, it needed to be rescued, saved or redeemed. So Jesus is presented as savior, redeemer or rescuer. By defining Jesus in this way, we also inevitably define human life as fallen or lost. I think that is an incorrect description of the origins of human life and any theological system based on that primary assumption will inevitably contribute to the destruction not the enhancement of human life. We human beings are not fallen sinners so much as we are creatures evolving toward some future destiny. We have never been perfect, we have never fallen and we do not need to be saved. When it comes to interpreting the Bible, a metaphysical approach was adopted by the founders of Unity because that gave them a way out of the necessity for reading the Bible literally and at that time very little else was then available to them at that time to accomplish this task. The Bible was never meant to be read literally, but that was nonetheless the pattern that the church applied to the Bible over the centuries. If we shatter the hold literalism has on scripture, we have many options open to us for reading the Bible non-literally. Metaphysically is one of them and that was the method chosen by Unity. I see it as one among many ways to approach the scriptures. My own study, however, has led me to a rather different approach. I seek to go to the origins of the text, examine the historical circumstances, which produced that material in the first place and then try to discover the experiences that lie behind the biblical explanations. It is that experience which makes contact with my human experience today. For example, all four of the gospels reflect the Jewish-Roman War from 66-73 CE, during which the city of Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE. The gospels all assume this event and their message is even shaped by it, even though they each purport to write about a life that was crucified in 30 CE, two to three generations before Jerusalem’s fall. In a similar way, much of the Old Testament reflects the division of the Hebrew nation into two competitive states, Judah and Israel, which occurred around the year 929 BCE, yet that fact is written into the story of the patriarchs who lived some 700 to 900 years before this split took place. The point of this is to force us to face the fact that what we have called “the word of god” is a quite human book and a very subjective one. That is the kind of wrestling with the text that opens to me the doors through which I feel compelled to walk in the confidence that this approach will yield the meaning I seek. A metaphysical reading of our sacred texts will also deliver us from literalism, but for me it does not go as deeply as I feel I must go in search of truth. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements The New Study Guide for the 8 Points of Progressive Christianity is now available from ProgressiveChristianity.org Read More Here or Click on the Image below! Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2013 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book

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Musings by Del
by Del Morril 09 Jan '13

09 Jan '13

The news is rotting my brain!! January 8, 2013 Musings by Del A six-year old child is sent home for pointing his finger at other kids in his class and saying "bang". A columnist pushes this stupidity to extremes in her spoof on dangerous 6-year -olds. Are we getting so crazy that 6-year-olds are that scary? And speaking of scary, three days after the Sandy Hook massacre of 6-year-olds and their teachers, in her own school, a teacher found the journal of a 17-year old boy, in which he plans his own massacre - six of his targets being Black schoolmates. Also, it was discovered that he was building bombs for this event, in his basement. We are a country (and maybe a whole world) gone mad! Yet the rhetoric continues, and people will soon forget Sandy Hook and all the rest that came before, probably without anything changed. Many people think that if we would just kinder to each other, get more psychological help, or if people are checked better when getting hand guns, or if we put a guard in each school, the carnage will stop. As far as I'm concerned, you'll never get all the crazies before they commit their monstrous acts. How about this thing we used to discuss called "structure is the key to change!" And what are the structures that need to come at the SOURCE of things, not at the various responses. How about some major changes in law that can begin to solve the problem of a nation that owns 100 guns to every 120 people! I would like to see Congress do three things: 1) Enact a law that no manufacturer can sell an automatic weapon to any individual, including any military person. They can only be sold to the military as a whole. 2) Ban all violent games; heavy fines and even jail time to any manufacturer of same. Laws make it more difficult to have child pornography get to children; why not the violence which is just as offensive and dangerous to young minds? 3) Put in place a stricter censorship of the movie and TV cable industries that limits showing gratuitous violence on the screen. Now, we already know these are bound to be impossible, don't we? This country is so driven by "individual rights" and the NRA lobby so strong, and our leadership so conservative, timid or hung-up on making sure Obama never gets anything he wants, that it neglects to do anything to protect society at large. Parents CHOOSE to not inoculate their children, so that later on their children can spread diseases that once went out of existence due to inoculation therapies. People who have AIDS don't have to have bloods tests or take meds, or even let anyone know they have it, so that they can spread the disease even further. Our quarantine system is a joke, practically non-existent, letting people walk around spreading whatever they have and choosing to do so by their own individual rights. Those whose pockets wouldn't be getting as full will have the final word, as usual, by insisting that our rights are being violated should Congress try to do anything to curb the spread of terror and disease. They'll insist that violence on the screen, whether in the home or in the theatre, doesn't do anything to children's brains and ideas. They'll insist on the right to have assault weapons (how many bullets does it take to bring down a deer anyway?). There seems to be little questioning as to why any individual needs anything more than a single-shot weapon. We continue to create laws that, so far, seem to protect the doer and not the "done-to" victim. The best and freest treatment, including surgeries, seems to be in the prisons. No wonder convicts keep going back in once they get out. Suddenly they have to pay for their lodging and food and TV and weight room and sports equipment, and pay for their own hospital care, instead of everyone else's taxes. Perhaps we should all find a way to retire in the prisons! We are a culture gone mad with our so-called individual rights. I am convinced that our forbearers did NOT have this kind of world in mind when it created our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Maybe it is time that those masterful documents be updated to the realities of the world we have been and still are creating. It is truly appalling to me that our own nation should be at the top of the list of nations in violent deaths - above the worst of nations who systematically kill off anyone who the leader disagrees with. No, we are a nation PROUD of the fact that we don't have such dictators - we just let anyone run amok, killing whomever displeases them. Do we believe that our killing rate is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the horrible things like various holocausts caused by other nations in the world. Do we really? Let's start adding up all of the victims and see whose total is higher, shall we? What do you want to bet that we would WIN! Del Del Hunter Morrill 3217 North Mason Avenue Tacoma WA 98407-5419 H: (253) 752-1506; W: (253) 383-5757 delhmor(a)wamail.net Web site: www. hypnocenter.com The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. (Joseph Campbell)

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Re: [Oe List ...] George's Response to Del
by Del Morril 09 Jan '13

09 Jan '13

What I've wondered is why, when people are concerned about water, and even in drought times, no one seems to raise the question of why so many think they must have a shower every day, and why so many who do feel it's their meditation time, so they should have a very LONG one. Not only does showering your body every day remove its protective oils, but it probably, altogether in this nation, uses up far more water than lawns do. Del P.S. People used to accuse me of being too emotional and even dogmatic about my beliefs; and I accused myself of being too cynical. Had a revelation that neither is a problem - I'm just "passionately indignant!" _____ From: oe-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of LAURELCG(a)aol.com Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 9:06 AM To: oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] George's Response to Del Thank you, George, for bringing us to the primary issue of climate change. I looked at my front lawn this morning and thought, "This is the time to dig it up and plant a native, drought tolerant ground cover of some kind. Our ground water in the San Joaquin Valley is polluted with nitrates, but it's still precious. Hopefully, some young people are working on purifying it. Thankfully, we have a good snow pack so far this season. I pray for rain (and sanity) for my native state of Texas. Hope appeareth indeed. And thank you, Del, for starting this discussion. Blessings, Jann McGuire

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Re: [Oe List ...] George's Response to Del
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 09 Jan '13

09 Jan '13

My prayer answered! Water has been fought over in California forever. Jann In a message dated 1/9/2013 9:14:02 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, rcwmbw(a)yahoo.com writes: Jann, In the Dallas area we've had nearly 2 inches of rain since last evening. It's still raining slowly and soaking in, and it's supposed to continue until tomorrow morning. This is the first significant rainfall we've had here since before Easter. So little precipitation is very unusual for this time of year, but it could be the new normal. I wonder if some day people will fight over water they way they fight over oil today. Randy "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley

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Great Teachings for climate change:Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow's newsletter
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 09 Jan '13

09 Jan '13

Colleagues, these links lead to fabulous resources, imho. Jann Dear Friends and Fellow Evolutionaries, Greetings in the New Year! Three things this month: 1. What's New on The Great Story website: _http://thegreatstory.org/new.html_ (http://thegreatstory.org/new.html) (Parents: we highly recommend the "_Elemental Birthdays_ (http://solstice-and-equinox.com/elementalbirthdays.html) " resource!) 2. Our awakening to the moral urgency of climate change, as intergenerational injustice / intergenerational evil: Best short videos and most helpful resources on the subject: _http://thegreatstory.org/climate.html_ (http://thegreatstory.org/climate.html) Direct link to our "personal awakening" video on YouTube: _http://youtu.be/a1HpkCiOaiI_ (http://youtu.be/a1HpkCiOaiI) My HuffPost blog post: _http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-michael-dowd/intergenerational-evil-of_b… (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-michael-dowd/intergenerational-evil-of_b_…) 3. My dear friend and mentor David Gershon, co-founder of Empowerment Institute, is one of the world's foremost authorities on behavior-change, community empowerment, and large-system transformation. I know this from personal experience, as we worked closely together in the mid-to-late 1990s. David's work has addressed a wide diversity of issues: * low carbon lifestyles * livable neighborhoods * sustainable communities * organizational talent development * corporate social engagement * cultural transformation David is offering a free teleseminar this Sunday, January 13, 2013 @ 2pm EST / 11am PST: _http://davidgershonjan2013.eventbrite.co.uk_ (http://davidgershonjan2013.eventbrite.co.uk/) This hour-long teleseminar is appropriate for anyone wishing to make change happen. David presents strategies and tools for shifting habits, empowering communities, and transforming large systems. Drawing on his highly acclaimed book Social Change 2.0, he describes how each of us can step up our ability to make a difference in the world. David also introduces his "Masterclass in Transformative Social Change" that starts on January 27th. (Learn more about that _here_ (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001AAh2gICnjSLOn2bq6hB8lj0Rg3iPSomvPyU0FXZ4baDn… e1D9AyR_Bm1r__uf0cE7Z_wtplpG-KvjT61raV-PyKCgJo3z1NZWNNlAtlQesuQFPOheFpFyxrON ZXI-bopNZMQ==) .) Connie and I will both be on the teleseminar call and will also be enrolling in David's masterclass. _Download a free PDF_ (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001AAh2gICnjSLOn2bq6hB8lj0Rg3iPSomvPyU0FXZ4baDn… ozK5YAX5OaYQXHZX55AbWyEs_1VgaQbUl_MxF8cAEhxEfO6j7oCeFAumtqTIHT8A-SRuyDCxfFqJ aiwexg7avDDFmbGhOSy) of "Reinventing Social Change," the introduction to the book, Social Change 2.0. View a short video by David Gershon on pushing the envelope as a change agent: _http://vimeo.com/4417571#at=0_ (http://vimeo.com/4417571#at=0) And here's another short video of David talking about Social Change 2.0 with Deepak Chopra: _http://youtu.be/wxZgaXbzoXs_ (http://youtu.be/wxZgaXbzoXs) NOTE: As a member of Connie's and my "Evolutionary Times" email list, if you register for David's Masterclass (which is separate from the free teleseminar/introduction) you are entitled to a tuition reduction of $35. Just type "Evolutionary Times" into the partner organization box. Again, here's the link to register for the free January 13th teleseminar: _http://davidgershonjan2013.eventbrite.co.uk_ (http://davidgershonjan2013.eventbrite.co.uk/) Wishing everyone a joyful, productive, and fulfilling 2013! Natural blessings, ~ Michael and Connie _http://thegreatstory.org/MD-writings.html_ (http://thegreatstory.org/MD-writings.html) _http://thegreatstory.org/CB-writings.htm_ (http://thegreatstory.org/CB-writings.htm)

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