May 2017 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

Prayers for Janice Hutchinson May
by Janet Sanders via OE 25 May '17

25 May '17

This was just posted on Facebook by the children of Janice May. She and I were bunk mates during the 1972 spring academy. We both decided to intern following the academy. She walked with us in beauty, grit and grace. Blessings to the children and grandchildren. Edan Patrick Hutchinson<https://www.facebook.com/edan.hutchinson?hc_ref=NEWSFEED> shared Carmen T May<https://www.facebook.com/carmentmay?hc_ref=NEWSFEED>'s post<https://www.facebook.com/carmentmay/posts/10155440354334636> — with Janice May<https://www.facebook.com/janice.may.90?hc_ref=NEWSFEED>. 57 mins<https://www.facebook.com/edan.hutchinson/posts/10213080013104228> · [https://scontent.fyzd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p32x32/16425929_10155092539…]<https://www.facebook.com/carmentmay/posts/10155440354334636> Carmen T May<https://www.facebook.com/carmentmay?hc_ref=NEWSFEED> with Janice May<https://www.facebook.com/janice.may.90?hc_ref=NEWSFEED> and Edan Patrick Hutchinson<https://www.facebook.com/edan.hutchinson?hc_ref=NEWSFEED> at Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute<https://www.facebook.com/karmanoscancer/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED>. 1 hr<https://www.facebook.com/carmentmay/posts/10155440354334636> · Detroit<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Detroit-Michigan/114586701886732> · I'm sad to say, today we had to make a difficult but necessary decision to move my mom to hospice care as she is not improving despite all efforts. My brother and I feel like this is in her best interest and her entire medical team has been so helpful and supportive in helping us understand her prognosis and plans for care. We never expected this to happen, so needless to say we are still in quite a bit of shock, but we are going to stay strong for mom and be here for her through it all. Please let us know if you have any questions, just message either Edan<https://www.facebook.com/edan.hutchinson?fref=mentions> or I. Thank you to everyone who gave mom their support and love during her cancer treatment, she was so grateful and honored by your thoughts. We will miss you Janice May<https://www.facebook.com/janice.may.90?fref=mentions>, our lives will never be the same and we were so lucky to have you as our mama. May you pass from this life into the next with peace and grace. Janet A. Sanders

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Re: [Oe List ...] It takes a village . . . .
by Del Morrill via OE 24 May '17

24 May '17

Happy orbit-day, Jim. From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of James Wiegel via OE Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 5:37 PM To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>; Colleague Dialogue <dialogue(a)wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)wedgelade.net> Subject: [Oe List ...] It takes a village . . . . This week i complete my 72nd orbit round the sun. You all are a powerful part of the fabric of my life. Thanks for that. Thanks. Jim Wiegel <x-apple-data-detectors://0> 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353 Tel. <tel:011-623-936-8671> 011-623-936-8671 or <tel:011-623-363-3277> 011-623-363-3277 <mailto:marilyn.oyler@gmail.com> jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com <http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/> www.partnersinparticipation.com "We are no longer living in an era of change. We are living in a change of era." Francis Upcoming public course opportunities click here http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=10 For online registration go to <http://www.top-training.net/> http://www.top-training.net The AZ ToP® Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday, 1-4 pm <x-apple-data-detectors://8> , starting again on Sept 5th <x-apple-data-detectors://9> at ACYR, 648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003 <https://www.google.com/maps/place/648+N+5th+Ave/@33.456329,-112.080545,16z/…> AICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP® courses

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TODAY'S THE DAY: 5/24/17 Resource Extraction Call: DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY
by Ellie Stock via OE 24 May '17

24 May '17

TODAY'S THE DAY: DON'T MISS!! THIS NEXT VERY IMPORTANT RESOURCE EXTRACTION CALL: TODAY: WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2017 2:00PM CENTRAL/3:00PM EST CALL #: (605) 475-3215, Access Code: 180305# TOPIC: THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN DISCOVERY, a follow-up from Standing Rock: the legal and theological premise for political oppression and land, environmental, and resource extraction exploitation Presentations and discussion. Take time to view the online films on the DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN DISCOVERY (see links below). Dear Resource Extraction Friends, May Greetings! Have you ever heard of the DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN DISCOVERY? This IMPORTANT topic is a follow-up from our November 2016 call on Standing Rock but has implications for peoples nationally and globally, particularly Original Nations, Communities and Peoples, including the communities in Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, Ecuador, Haiti, Cameroon, The Republic of Congo and places of focus on previous Resource Extraction Calls. What is it??? The Doctrine of Discovery, initiated by 15h century and after Papal Bulls and Royal Charters from Spain, Portugal, England, France, and The Netherlands, was a commission and permission for explorers to claim and take over lands and to dislocate, relocate, assimilate and annihilate peoples who were not Christian and therefore were not considered to be human, but pagan and infidels. Why does it matter?? Today, the Doctrine of Discovery remains the organic law for Indian Federal Law and legal precedent for the taking of lands by force which continues not only in relation to Native American Communities in the United States but through corporations' and government's taking of land and resources, eminent domain, and national and foreign policy. When 534 clergy and religious gathered in Standing Rock in November 2016, they gathered in prayer and they repudiated and ceremonially burned the Doctrine of Discovery. What has been done?? Many denominations have repudiated The Doctrine of Discovery. The PC(USA) joined them in 2016 when the 222nd General Assembly also voted to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery and apologized for running boarding schools that separated Native American children from their families and tried to "civilize" and "Christianize" them. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA): The 222nd General Assembly (2016) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), meeting in Portland, Oregon in June, passed two overtures which effect the 95 Native American Presbyterian churches across the country: -An apology to Native American’s for the church’s involvement and administration of boarding schools during the late 19th and early 20th centuries whose purpose was the “civilization” of Native American children. -A repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery: this “doctrine” derives its authority from Pope’s and European royal decrees stating “explorers” may seize lands and convert “non-Christians” in their name and for the good of the Christian Church. It remains the basis, as late as 2005, for Indian Law and Supreme Court decisions against Tribes. It has become clear that the PC(USA) is becoming more aware of the struggles that Native American Presbyterians and all Native Americans have faced in the past and are dealing with today. It is my hope that in discussing these issues across the church an impact can be made that not only raises awareness within the church of these issues, but also generates action by Presbyterians. “May the warm winds of heaven blow softly upon you And the Creator make sunrise in your hearts.” (Cherokee Prayer) The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) The Rev. Irvin Porter Associate in the PC(USA) Office of Native American Intercultural Congregational Support The United Nations and many groups have been working to address current issues related to the Doctrine of Discovery, how it affects our lives today, and implications for the future. JOIN THIS IMPORTANT CALL TO LEARN MORE. Special presenters for the call will be: -Elona Street-Stewart, Member of the Delaware Nanticoke Nation, PC(USA) Ruling Elder and Executive of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies--first Native American PC(USA) synod executive. -Fr. Daniel LeBlanc, OMI (Oblates of Mary Immaculate), serving in justice ministries in urban Lima and the high jungle for 30 years and now working with the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which has focused on the Doctrine of Discovery. Below is additional information: 1) Biographical information on the presenters 2) Links to two online videos on the DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY: -"Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery" [43 minutes; grounds it in the resource extractive industries] -"Exposing the Doctrine of Discovery" [9 minutes; education piece by the Episcopalian Church] I invite you to watch these videos between now and May 24, and our call will focus on these videos as well the presenters' information about the Doctrine of Discovery and implications for our times. [Another good resource is the film "The Doctrine of Discovery, Unmasking the Domination Code" based on the book Steven Newcomb's book Pagans in the Promised Land--Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.] 3) Additional links to resources on the Doctrine of Discovery: PC(USA)/Ecumenical and United Nations/Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFFI) The Doctrine of Discovery is a topic that was addressed at the April 2017 Compassion, Peace, and Justice Training/Ecumenical Advocacy Day /Lobby Event in Washington, D.C. and also will be a focus at July The BIG TENT event in St Louis, and also at the Presbyterians for Earth Care Conference in Portland in September. Looking forward to gathering around the Call Table May 24. Please share this email notice with anyone who might be interested. Grace and peace~ Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com (314) 521-8418 1) PRESENTERS FOR THE 5/24/17 RESOURCE EXTRACTION CALL ON THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY: MS. ELONA STREET-STEWART, RULING ELDER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) Synod Executive, Synod of Lakes and Prairies Elona Street-Stewart is a ruling elder and member of Dayton Avenue Presbyterian Church in Saint Paul, MN. She is the Synod Executive for the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, having previously served as Synod Staff Associate for racial Ethnic Ministries and Community Empowerment. She has served PC (USA) in many capacities for many years on racial justice matters in mission development and support programs. Ms. Stewart, member of the Delaware Nanticoke Nation, is the ﬁrst Native American to be installed as a synod executive with PC (USA). She has spent many years serving her communities as well as the church and has served on many non-profits in Minnesota advocating for the education, employment and health of people of color and American Indians. She served 12 years on the Board of Education for Saint Paul Public Schools and both the National and Minnesota School Board Associations. She has also served on the Minnesota Council of churches and with the St. Paul Area Council of Churches' Department of Indian Work. Ms. Stewart cares deeply about these issues, and her passion dates back to the 1970s, when the nation was celebrating the Bicentennial and the "discovery" and "civilization" of this land, and when there were calls for the church "to join tribal leadership to examine the root causes of the poverty, racism, and invisibility of our communities." In November 2016 Ms. Stewart and her husband, Rev. David Stewart, were part of a PC(USA) delegation to Standing Rock (see link below). She has recently facilitated workshops on Standing Rock and the Doctrine of Discovery at the PC(USA) Compassion, Peace and Justice Training and Ecumenical Advocacy Days events. She will lead a similar workshop at the PC(USA) BIG TENT event this July in St. Louis, MO. PC(USA) synod executive Street-Stewart recounts trip to ... Https: › /www.presbyterianmission.org/story/pcusa-synod-executive... ... synod executive Street-Stewart recounts trip to Standing Rock. PC(USA) synod executive Street-Stewart recounts ... Rock as a representative of the PC(USA) synod ... REV. DANIEL LEBLANC, OMI, Staff - Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation; omiusajpic.org Associate, International JPIC Office and Oblate UN Representative - New York Daniel has been a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate since 1971. Daniel is Canadian, but worked in Peru from 1978 until his appointment to the Oblates' General Administration JPIC Office in April 2007. During his thirty years in Peru, Daniel served the urban poor of the capital city, Lima, as pastor of several parishes in the Diocese of Carabayllo and also in the high jungle. He worked on a variety of justice issues from assisting victims of terrorism to investigating mass graves and helping to bring perpetrators to justice. He also studied law at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). For many years, he was a member, as well as Chair, of the Latin American OMI Commission of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC). On June 5, 1992, Fr. Daniel was a victim of a terrorist attack. A car bomb with 600 kilos of dynamite exploded outside a television station located across the street from the Oblates' provincial house. Father Daniel was asleep at the time. He suffered serious injuries that left him unconscious for days. “At one point they had declared me dead but that turned out to be a little premature,” Fr. Daniel now jokes. “There were about 70,000 people killed during Peru's 20-year civil war, but I was not one of them.” Currently Fr. Daniel represents the Oblate Congregation, recognized as an NGO at the United Nations, where he follows the work of the Commissions on Social Development, including the sub-committee on the eradication of poverty, Sustainable Development, the ), Financing for Development and Migration, and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII), the focus of which in 2012 was the Doctrine of Discovery. Issues he has worked on include land-grabbing by the government of Bangladesh against the Garo and Khasi indigenous people, promoting peace and reconciliation during the civil war in Sri Lanka, and efforts along the U.S./Mexico border to promote justice for migrants and immigrants. 2) FILMS ON THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY Movie – Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery (Mennonites,others) [43"] https://dofdmenno.org/movie “The Doctrine of Discovery: In the Name of Christ” This 43-minute documentary has three parts: History of the Doctrine of Discovery and its basis in Christian ... "Exposing the Doctrine of Discovery" (Episcopal Church) [13'59"] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drLnI_k5b6s&;;; 3) DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY RESOURCES: PC(USA; ECUMENICAL; UNITED NATIONS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) RESOURCES: Standing Rock: Religious Leaders repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, November 2016: PC(USA) faith leaders join Standing Rock solidarity gathering: Apology and support for ongoing struggle offered to tribal leaders Facebook page Irvin Porter, Multicultural/Native American Ministries: https://www.facebook.com/Native-American-Ministries-PCUSA-232067750278099/. Presbyterian News Service article re: apology to Native Americans: http://www.pcusa.org/news/2017/3/17/alaska-mayor-acknowledges-pcusa-apology/ and a youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tshc5mwli6o&feature=share. Link for Doctrine of Discovery: https://www.pc-biz.org/#/search/3000074. PC(USA) synod executive Street-Stewart recounts trip to ... Https: › /www.presbyterianmission.org/story/pcusa-synod-executive... ... synod executive Street-Stewart recounts trip to Standing Rock. PC(USA) synod executive Street-Stewart recounts ... Rock as a representative of the PC(USA) synod ... ECUMENICAL RESOURCES: SOCIETY OF FRIENDS: NYYM and the Doctrine of Discovery | New York Yearly Meeting nyym.org › ?q=DoctrineofDiscovery The Religious Society of Friends ... New York Yearly Meeting and the Doctrine of Discovery, ... the Doctrine of Discovery NYYM Actions. New York Yearly ... MENNONITES: Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery – A movement of ... dofdmenno.org Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery A movement of Anabaptist people of faith. Menu. Skip to content. About; Learn More; Movie; Study Guide; Get Involved; Contact ... Movie About Study Guide Act Now Contact Blog Q: What is the “Doctrine of Discovery?” doctrineofdiscoverymenno.files.wordpress › 2015/06/dod... Q: What is the “Doctrine of Discovery?” The “Doctrine of Discovery” is a philosophical and legal framework dating to the 15th century that gave Christian ... NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER Doctrine of Discovery: A scandal in plain sight | National ... ncronline.org › news/peace-justice/doctrine-discovery... As for the doctrine’s more recent ... The papal documents led to an international norm called the Doctrine of Discovery, ... National Catholic Reporter ... UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: THE REPUDIATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY Uccfiles › pdf/DoctrineofDiscovery.pdf DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY ... of Discovery. Rethink theology, bible study and ... and concern in the United States about the Doctrine, the United Church of Christ, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MINISTRIES: Environmental Justice with Indigenous Peoples presbyterianmission.org › wp-content/uploads/2017Earth... Source: “Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery” exhibit, Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Working Group, dofdmenno.org. 2 BIBlE STUDY: PSAlm 24 UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION RE INDIGENOUS RIGHTS/DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY: PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS RIGHTS The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues www.chiefs-of-ontario.org/sites/default/files/files/NITV Staff... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues ... Mandate of the Permanent Forum • To discuss indigenous issues within the ... United Nations Created Date: 4/27/2012 3:07 ... United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Permanent_Forum_on... The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII or PFII) ... UN DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples www.nnhrc.navajo-nsn.gov/docs/UN Declaration on the Rights of... United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples . ... Solemnly proclaims the following United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous INDIGENOUS PEOPLES FORUM ON DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY, ARIZONA, 2012 [Reported to the 2012 UN PFII: Doctrine of Discovery] Doctrine of Discovery conference, Arizona, March 2012 ... https://www2.palomar.edu/pages/aaquallo/2012/03/28/doctrine-of... Doctrine of Discovery conference, Arizona, March 2012. ... This is an awesome article that was sent in response to the Doctrine of Discovery conference ... March 28 ... Indigenous Peoples Forum On Doctrine of Discovery at ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8JO7XARko Indigenous Peoples Forum On Doctrine of Discovery at Arizona Capitol March 23, 2012 ... on the Doctrine of Discovery held at the Arizona State ... UN PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES, 2012: DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues - indianlaw.org indianlaw.org/sites/default/files/UNPFII_11th session report.pdf E/2012/43-E/C.19/2012/13 United Nations ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues shall be held at ... Future work of the Permanent Forum, including issues of the ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues - indianlaw.org indianlaw.org/sites/default/files/UNPFII_11th session report.pdf E/2012/43-E/C.19/2012/13 United Nations ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues shall be held at ... Future work of the Permanent Forum, including issues of the ... UNITED NATIONS PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES ... www.afn.ca/uploads/files/unpfii_undrip_2008-2012_northamerican... UNITED NATIONS PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES ... Permanent Forum will therefore ensure ... indigenous peoples, the United Nations system and other ... UNPFII Discussion: Doctrine of Discovery | Indigenous ... www.ienearth.org/unpfii-discussion-doctrine-of-discovery United Nations Permanent Forum 11 ... agencies of the United Nations that the doctrine of discovery is an ... the rights of Indigenous peoples. Issues ... Indigenous Peoples Forum on the Impact of the Doctrine of ... doctrineofdiscoveryforum.blogspot.com/2012/09/dismantling-doctrine... Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery. ... 2012 a public forum on the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery was ... UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues | The ... https://alanlechusza.wordpress.com/tag/united-nations-permanent... Posts about United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues ... 2012 the NAHUACALLI ... submission in May to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. [UNPFii 2012] The Doctrine of Discovery: its enduring ... aippnet.org/unpfii-2012-the-doctrine-of-discovery-its-enduring... [UNPFii 2012] The Doctrine of ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. ... (article 28 and 37 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) ... United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues www.un.org/press/en/2012/hr5088.doc.htm ... Permanent Forum Told ‘Doctrine of Discovery’, ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues ... The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will ... UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues discusses theme ... https://www.unngls.org/index.php/un-ngls_news_archives/2012/350-un... 2012; UN Permanent Forum on ... “The Doctrine of Discovery: ... She also urged the Forum to change its name to the “UN Permanent Forum on the Rights of Indigenous determination. UN PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES, 2017 UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 2017 lrinspire.com - 3 days ago In the Spirit of World Peace. In the Spirit of Peace with Mother Earth. In global acknowledgement of the INTERNATIONAL SPIRITUAL MONUMENT at STANDING ROCK, in the Oceti Sakowin Treaty ...

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Re: [Oe List ...] Book Age of Discovery . . . JEANETTE this would be a good time . . .
by Jeanette Stanfield via OE 19 May '17

19 May '17

Hi Jim, I have to laugh. I don't have any magic solutions here. There is a video I just saw that sure speaks to the predicament we humans are in around the world. You may have seen it. US military information is central piece of video. http://tvo.org/video/documentaries/the-age-of-consequences Just when you want to scream no more they do move to possibilities. I am convinced that our economic systems need to be fundamentally changed if humans are to have a chance of living sustainably and peacefully. My research question has been what does that new economic approach look like? I am not talking about philosophy here. I am looking at process, systems,principles.. The circle economy is part of this. Europe is exploring this in a number of ways as are some hubs of companies. Some talk about cradle to cradle products. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications These questions and many more are fueling innovation right now. How do we use less water in growing food? How do we use the universe's gifts to us like the sun and wind to fuel this new economy? What will it take to waste nothing that this earth has given us? Add your own questions. Whatever, we need a concrete vision of a new economy we can all create together with principles that care for the earth and all creatures including ourselves regardless of political system. Consensus around the economy we are trying to bring into being would allow appropriate skills training and give young people a standing place for creating their own careers and making a difference for the future. I suspect that as a global community we have the methods and wisdom to elicit that vision. Perhaps there are some young and old ones out there who are ready to take this on in both face to face and online experiences. I may feel old at times but there is still a lot of fire in these bones!😃 Cheers, Jeanette On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 1:41 PM, James Wiegel <jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > This from Milan Hamilton on Facebook this morning. "Opened my closet door > this morning & this t-shirt I bought in Barcelona last year at the Picasso > museum practically jumped out of the closet. I put it on to remind myself > of the chaos and craziness that surround My world and The world, whether in > my role as newly elected president of our co-operative housing association > or watching POTUS in his daily machinations. I should probably wear it > until it sinks in & clears up the confusion over whether there is any other > world for me to live in than the one we have right here-right now!" > > Jeanette, you said, "I am using book to help me plot what is happening". > This would be a good time to share what you found out about what is > happening . . . > > > Jim Wiegel <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=123> > “If you want an adventure . . . what a time to be alive!”. Joanna Macy > > 401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353 > 623-363-3277 <(623)%20363-3277> > jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com <marilyn.oyler(a)gmail.com> > www.partnersinparticipation.com > > Upcoming ToP training opportunities in Arizona > <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=10> > > More info on: > > ToP® Facilitation Methods <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=48> > > ToP® Strategic Planning <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=50>: > Mastering the Technology of Participation > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz3mniiYCdI> > > Register on line / see the ToP National Schedule > <http://www.top-training.net/> > AICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP® courses > > The AZ ToP® Community of Practice > <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=203> meets the 1st Friday, > of every month, 1-4 pm, at ACYR, 648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003 > <https://www.google.com/maps/place/648+N+5th+Ave/@33.456329,-112.080545,16z/…> > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Jeanette Stanfield via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> > *To:* Colleague Dialogue <Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order > Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> > *Sent:* Sunday, April 2, 2017 3:12 PM > *Subject:* [Oe List ...] Book Age of Discovery > > Dear Colleagues, > > I am reading a book that challenges me so thought I would share it with > you. > > It is called Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of our new > Renaissance by Ian Goldin with Chris Kutarna at Oxford University. Ian > was an adviser to President Nelson Mandela. > > They have a whole research team from Oxford working with them. > > Here is link to to Ian's website which > includes 4 minute video sharing context of book:. https://iangoldin.org/ > books/age-of-discovery/ > > I am using book to help me plot what is happening using the social process > triangles as a screen. > > Take good care, > > Jeanette > _______________________________________________ > OE mailing list > OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net > > >

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Margaret Wheatley book
by Karenbueno via OE 18 May '17

18 May '17

Someone cited Margaret Wheatly's book, Leadership and the New Science, so I bought a used copy and read it. I think her thesis sentence is on P. 177: "We live in a world where order emerges out of chaos if people are free to make their own decisions based on shared meaning and values." The book I have is dated 2006, and it is the third edition, apparently. I wonder if she has written a new edition? Highly recommended to all! Karen Bueno.

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5/18/17, Spong/Forrester: Holy Wisdom; Spong revisited: Terrible Texts
by Ellie Stock via OE 18 May '17

18 May '17

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Holy Wisdom By Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. Over these past several weeks, I’ve been reflecting anew on what it means to be a wise person. This is due in part because in the congregations I serve, we describe the spiritual journey of Holy Week as “The Wisdom Way of Christ,” exploring the stories and experiencing the reformed liturgies as a holy path for 21st century seekers. As human beings, we long for wisdom and it is extolled in poetry, song, and art. But what is wisdom, particularly in the spiritual tradition and how does it differ from what we might describe as the “wisdom of the world”? When we are held in our mother’s womb, we experience life for the most part as good enough. We are fed as needed through the umbilical cord. We are kept warm as needed through our mother’s thermoregulation. We float nestled in our amniotic sea, our tiny body suspended and trusting in the wise capacity of fluid Reality to provide. This trust is kinesthetic; we haven’t reasoned to it as a conclusion. We know trust as a somatic truth. We can see this bodily trust in ourselves as newborn infants, lying languidly in our mother’s arms. When we are hungry – mom feeds us. When our bowels are full – we relieve ourselves. When tired – our tiny being slumbers. Reality simply and sufficiently provides, and our infant’s sense of trust is visible in our relaxed mouth and eyes; in our tranquil arms lying loose upon our undulating and soft belly. We live with – no it is even more intimate – we live as a basic trust in the Wisdom of life to provide. With the slow passage of time, however, inevitable disruptions occur and this basic trust is gradually whittled thin. We hunger and are not fed enough or not in a timely fashion. We are cold or too hot. Our tummy is upset and no amount of holding is an effective remedy. We get a fever. As we become toddlers and venture forth, sometimes when we look back for mom or dad, they are not there. Or they are there but seem to be looking right thru or past us. We fall. We experience betrayal and loss. Life seems anything but wise. The hurts and bruises to body and soul continue to accrue and the whittling of basic trust continues. This relentless thinning of trust takes its toll upon our soul. We become convinced that our being’s survival depends upon the mind taking charge. A very specific delusion arises: since Reality seems all too unreliable, we will undertake the responsibility for directing our life’s, our soul’s, unfolding. Our breathing quickens as body and belly contract and harden. Our brow furrows as mind kicks into overdrive. Our pace of life shifts into third gear. Limbs tighten and withdraw. Life is no longer a mystery we receive, but a problem we must solve to survive. We become beings who mistrust Reality. We perceive ourselves as objects separate from and at the mercy of an arbitrary or even capricious external Force. By the time we are self-consciously aware persons, we simply take for granted as common sense this perceptual framework. Only a fool would trust, and we will not be fooled. And yet, we don’t know what work we ought to be about into order to surely and certainly direct our soul’s unfolding. Which path is the correct one? Do we turn left, or right? Do we go forward or backward? There is a desperate quality to our mind’s frantic search for the correct path; believing all the while that there is such a correct path. Our specific reaction to the loss of trust in Reality is to step into the perceived breach and become beings who plan – constantly. Within the delusion that we, as human beings, must direct and control our soul’s unfoldment, Wisdom devolves into wisdom-as-egoic-planning. Basic trust remains, but as a foggy somatic memory, and so we turn to the machinations of our own mind to control the vagaries of life and secure, as best we can, a course and outcome we prefer. We tire. We become disillusioned. We try even harder. And perhaps we begin to wonder: What does it really mean to live a wise life? To be a wise person? We experience the wisdom of the world, which has replaced Holy Wisdom with incessant human planning, as less and less convincing. On a simply practical level, ceaseless mental activity does not satisfy the human heart. What we don’t realize is that our personalities, or egos, in all their strategizing, are themselves a mimicking of an authentic soulful wisdom that lies dormant awaiting rebirth. There is much to be learned by understanding the life of Jesus as a story of the birthing of Wisdom, emerging in and through the same dynamics of those I’ve just described. Jesus is the child of a young woman in a small village, whose paternity is in question, and where tribal lineage remains vitally important. He is a Jewish child whose questionable status leads to being treated with suspicion, some ridicule, and perhaps more than a shadow of shame. A child raised in a holding environment that he could easily have experienced as dropping him on a regular basis; a child hurt and bruised and thus suspicious of the Wisdom of Reality. Here is a child that grows into an adolescent who could have readily questioned the tacit Wisdom of Reality. A boy who matures into a young man, likely drawn to the purported certainty embodied in the apocalyptic plans of the Essenes at Qumran; where the sons of light and the sons of darkness were believed to be preparing for the final spiritual battle. This is a budding Rabbi who is initially captured by the clear, bold, and prophetic plans of John the Baptist. When the basic trust of the soul is “lost,” the searing absence must be filled, and we do it, as best we can, with our egoic planning. We try to direct the soul’s unfolding because we don’t know what else to do and feel compelled to do something to survive. We are afraid to relax and be, precisely because of our history of pain and suffering. We pull back more and more into the small prison of the head. But – our hearts know there is more. Our hearts continue their search. We long to experience true rest in the home of our soul. The labyrinthine human journey, amazingly enough, can bring us right where we need to be. Taking charge is not bad and moral judgments are of no use here. The search leads us to waters of new birth, or rebirth. The soul’s question is whether Reality, washing over, in, and through us, moment-to-moment, is a really womb of life in which she might trustingly rest. It is no accident that the story of Jesus’ adult ministry begins with the account of his initial awakening in the waters of the Jordan. These waters are the ebb and flow of life; they are the current of Reality, which we fear will overwhelm and destroy us. Jesus steps into their depths. He releases his guarded heart to receive the flowing force of life full upon his soul. He chooses to be vulnerable. Although his person is not destroyed, the annihilation of his planning mind begins. How? His heart realizes that its very substance is Belovedness; Boundless Love is the fabric of Reality. Love is the womb of trust and relaxes our constricted heart and feverishly strategizing mind. In this trust, our chest and abdomen relax and soften, and our brow loosens its vise grip around our fearful eyes. We need to appreciate the vitality of the heart-mind connection. As our heart ceases to be a fortress guarded by all manner of defenses, it provides a soft, certain, and sure base upon which our mind may settle in ease. Constant planning is a heavy burden, which weighs down the spirit in darkness. The rebirth of basic trust allows our mind to lay open, allowing living daylight to suffuse the soul once more. The gospels convey this human truth in the lovely imagery of the heavens opening as Jesus realizes that he is the beloved of Reality. Thus, Holy Wisdom is born anew. This Wisdom has nothing to with planning. What is Holy about this Wisdom is that it reflects a loving Reality that does not work by some “divine blueprint”; no, Reality unfolds spontaneously, moment-to-moment. The work of spirituality is learning how to participate fully in this unfoldment; no one and no thing directs it. Holy Wisdom speaks of the objective truth that each and every manifestation of Reality is an expression of the Holy Mystery. Einstein asked whether the universe is for or against us. If that remains our question then the soul will never relax in basic trust. The more basic question – the answer to which is found only in our direct experience of Reality – is whether we realize that all that is is the Holy Mystery. What our soul longs to know is that Reality, like the womb of our mother, is itself a beloved Wise womb; a womb so Wise it embraces and holds our wounds and losses and even our body’s death; a womb so absolute that nothing escapes its Reality. This womb of Holy Wisdom draws our soul forth to live and work in trust, regardless of what befalls us. We don’t plan life, we participate in it, realizing that whatever path we are on is the only path that matters. Beloved, You are the deep and the shallow. You are the fertile as well as the fallow. You are the honey and the bitter. You are the fire as well as the winter. You are the center and the edge. And in truth all between. You are I am, and I am, too. I am your shadow and my soul lives as You. Resources on Holy Wisdom: A. H. Almaas, Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas. Sandra Maitri, The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul. Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey in the Heartland. D.W. Winnicott, Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. ~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester Ph.D. Read the essay online here. About the Author Kevin G. Thew Forrester is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of St. Paul’s Church in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including “I Have Called You Friends“, “Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms“, and “My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You” and “Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland“. Question & Answer Albert Gentleman from Pakse, Laos writes: Question: As a recent evolving Progressive Christian I have started reading Marcus Borg’s “Evolution of the Word”. Wonderful book. But as I was reading I noticed many scriptures that made reference to Jesus dying/sacrifice for our sins. Where did all these scriptures come from and when were they written? How do we understand them? Answer: By Fred Plumer Dear Albert, Yes, the idea the Jesus died for our sins, or sinful nature, is really one of the causes for so many people turning their backs on Christianity today. The truth is that the word atonement was hijacked my Paul primarily from the Book of Leviticus where it is used 52 times.(It shows up briefly in seven other books in the Old Testament) The Book of Leviticus was in large part a guide for Leviticus Priest who were expected to be very pure. However atonement is clearly an opportunity to clear one’s name if you have broken one of their rules. Over the years the Conservative Jews have adopted the rules of Leviticus to live by and in my opinion, fail to understand how the Leviticus Priest followed the law and how it was to be used. (This is another story.) Paul was a contemporary of Jesus but never knew him and frankly had huge battles with Jesus’ disciples. I suppose, Paul was trying to figure out why Jesus had to die and possibly came up with the idea that it was for the sins of society. This was a very different idea than the established use of atonement where only individuals could atone for breaking one of the Jewish laws. This could be satisfied by offering a sacrifice. But according to Paul, it was a done deal. Our sins are atoned when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord. He did not believe, however, in the physical Resurrection. However, over the next 60-70 years as the other writers of the New Testament were developing their own versions of the Jesus story, all different by the way, some of them developed another idea. That was that we would “saved” by believing the Jesus story the way they told it. That included the bodily resurrection by a couple of writers. But none of the gospel writers believed that there was atonement of society or believers or for an unlawful act. You have to remember that the people of the Old Testament were living in a very different world than the people of the New Testament. Granted both had hard lives, however, Jesus does not speak of atonement nor was it part of Jewish life, except once a year during the holidays, for righting a wrong with a sacrifice in the Temple. That is why you have to read the stories with an openness and understanding of how they were living, what did the people know and what did they believe. That is why I focus first on understanding their conditions, their wants, and what information they had. They were still living on a flat earth, walked or rode donkeys wherever they went, most of them were terribly poor and lived in a very small area. However, Jesus managed to see beyond all of that. He did not agree with the Leviticus Priest, was not a big fan of the Temple and lived far away from the city. And, he never mentions atonement, nor did he believe in it, certainly not as the reason for his death. Now fast forward approximately 300 hundred years and the Catholic Church was born, under Constantine's watch. The Priests were masters of manipulation and battled to ultimately settle on something like the Nicene Creed or the Constantinopolitan Creed. Frankly, little has changed in “Rome.” Jesus dying for sins became the “law.” ~ Fred Plumer, President ProgressiveChristianity.org Read and share online here _________________________________________________ Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Terrible Texts: Be Fruitful and Multiply and Subdue the Earth When I was a young theological student, I was assigned the task of reading a book entitled "Ideas have Consequences." I do not recall the author but the title has always impressed me. History is full of episodes that demonstrate its truth. The ideas in Adolph Hitler's "Mein Kampf" or Karl Marx's "Das Capital'surely had consequences. Ideas like those developed by Galileo opened frontiers in our ever-expanding world; while those arising in Osama Bin Laden' mind now terrorize the world. One religious idea that has had both profound and, I believe, destructive consequences occurred when the first human being defined God in theistic terms. By theism I mean the assumption that God is a Being, sometimes called the Supreme Being, supernatural in power, dwelling somewhere outside this world and periodically intervening in human history to accomplish the divine will. This understanding of God informs our language, scriptures, liturgies and hymns, and is omnipresent in our theology. To challenge this concept of theism is so threatening that most people assume that the challenge must originate in the godlessness we call atheism, which has been thought of almost exclusively as theism's only alternative. The way we human beings define ourselves has also been molded by this theistic definition of God. In the Judeo-Christian tradition it is stated that human beings were created in the "image of God." Interestingly enough, this reference is to a late developing idea in Jewish thought. Although found in Genesis 1:26-27, Genesis 5:1 and Genesis 9:16, these verses were all written during the Babylonian exile in the late 6th century as part of the priestly writer's editorial expansion of the Jewish Sacred Story. This means that they are among the last strands of Old Testament material to be woven into the Torah. Once this idea entered the text, however, it quickly won the day, and appears with frequency in the Psalms and the Wisdom literature. We defined ourselves as God's surrogates, God's stewards who were to exert dominion over all living things, both animate and inanimate. God was portrayed as handing over to those claiming the divine image, free reign to rule the earth that was created, we assumed, primarily for our benefit. We, who were but "a little lower than the angels," thus became radically anthropocentric. If it seemed to be in our best interests we could clear the forests, obliterate other species and use up the natural gifts of air and water because God had given us that right. If we destroyed the fragile ecosystem by over breeding, so be it. We live today with the consequences of these ideas. The resources of this planet are strained to the breaking point. The environmental disaster that threatens to end human life has been fueled by the theistic claim that God is external to our world and that we, who think of ourselves as created in God's image, can act as if we are also external to that world. Our right to breed irresponsibly has been supported by major parts of western religion. We do not seem to recognize that the resources of this planet are finite. We appear not to comprehend that the air we pollute is the same air that we breathe or that the water supply that industrial wastes make toxic is the same water we drink. We deny global warming even as we watch the polar icecaps melt. We are not creatures who are like God, somehow external to the world; we are part of nature itself. If our goal is to restore a balance to nature, then perhaps our first step must be to redefine God in non-theistic terms. This means that we must jettison any sense that the God we worship is external to the world we inhabit. The supernatural invasive deity has got to go. That is a threatening path to walk for religious people, but there is no other. To begin the process of overcoming that threat, we need to recognize that in the Judeo-Christian faith story, theism is the dominant but not the only definition of God. Perhaps it is fair to say that theism has been the more satisfying definition. It related us to a God who was our "all powerful protector." It helped us to develop our exalted sense of human importance. It built up our presumed security. There are, however, seldom-noticed images of God in the biblical story that portray God, not as an external supernatural creator, but as a divine presence in the midst of our world. This God image has never been as appealing because, rather than functioning a divine protector, this God is experienced as an immanent life force operating in and through us, calling us to take responsibility for our world, to be accountable for our actions, to exercise mature judgment and to escape our radical human self centeredness. This image produces for us a very different perspective on both God and ourselves but it might just be the idea we need to develop if we wish to escape the consequences of that potential genocide, which surely appears to be our destiny if the present pathway human beings walk is not altered dramatically and quickly. Is it possible that we have misread our own sacred story when we used the theistic definition of God to exclude all other possible God understandings? Is it possible that we have also misread our scriptures when we pretended that the well-being of human life is all that matters in this anthropocentric universe? Perhaps it is now time to look at those sources again in search of alternative images of God that might lead us to different conclusions? The creation story in Genesis portrays the creating presence of God as "Spirit". ~John Shelby Spong Originally Published September 2003 Announcements Beauty and Wisdom in the Qur’an by Jamal Rahman This online eCourse by Spirituality & Practice presents timeless insights and practices gleaned from reflections on verses of the Qur’an revealing its wisdom and beauty. The Qur’an verses will be illuminated by the insights of Islamic sages like Rumi and Hafiz who spent a lifetime meditating on the inner meanings of the Qur’an, by sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, and by teaching stories. May 29th - June 23rd. For more information/registration click here

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FYI: ATTENTION/SAVE THE DATE: 5/24/17 Conference call; Standing Rock follow-up DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY: presenters; videos; resources
by Ellie Stock via OE 16 May '17

16 May '17

Hi folks, FYI...for the last year I have been convening webinars/conference calls through the Presbyterian Church (USA) Resource Extraction and Climate/Environmental Issues Table of the Joining Hands Partnership Program. These one-hour calls have related to resource extraction and primarily indigenous and other communities in Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, Ecuador, Haiti, Cameroon, Republic of Congo and others, including one call on Standing Rock in November 2016. The next call, a follow-up from the Standing Rock call, is on the DOCTRINE OF (CHRISTIAN) DISCOVERY. the theological and legal precedent for European nations' taking over lands in the 15th and 16th century and continues to be part of the organic law, national and international policy the US today, built on the foundation of stolen land and stolen labor. See the call notice and information below. I invite and encourage you to participate in the call. Ellie Stock elliestock(a)aol.com SAVE THE DATE!! DON'T MISS!! NEXT RESOURCE EXTRACTION CALL: WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2017 2:00PM CENTRAL/3:00PM EST CALL #: (605) 475-3215, Access Code: 180305# TOPIC: THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN DISCOVERY Dear Resource Extraction Friends, May Greetings! Have you ever heard of the DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN DISCOVERY? This IMPORTANT topic is a follow-up from our November 2016 call on Standing Rock but has implications for peoples nationally and globally, particularly Original Nations, Communities and Peoples, including the communities in Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, Ecuador, Haiti, Cameroon, The Republic of Congo and places of focus on previous Resource Extraction Calls. What is it??? The Doctrine of Discovery, initiated by 15h century and after Papal Bulls and Royal Charters from Spain, Portugal, England, France, and The Netherlands, was a commission and permission for explorers to claim and take over lands and to dislocate, relocate, assimilate and annihilate peoples who were not Christian and therefore were not considered to be human, but pagan and infidels. Why does it matter?? Today, the Doctrine of Discovery remains the organic law for Indian Federal Law and legal precedent for the taking of lands by force which continues not only in relation to Native American Communities in the United States but through corporations' and government's taking of land and resources, eminent domain, and national and foreign policy. When 534 clergy and religious gathered in Standing Rock in November 2016, they gathered in prayer and they repudiated and ceremonially burned the Doctrine of Discovery. What has been done?? Many denominations have repudiated The Doctrine of Discovery. The PC(USA) joined them in 2016 when the 222nd General Assembly also voted to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery and apologized for running boarding schools that separated Native American children from their families and tried to "civilize" and "Christianize" them. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA): The 222nd General Assembly (2016) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), meeting in Portland, Oregon in June, passed two overtures which effect the 95 Native American Presbyterian churches across the country: -An apology to Native American’s for the church’s involvement and administration of boarding schools during the late 19th and early 20th centuries whose purpose was the “civilization” of Native American children. -A repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery: this “doctrine” derives its authority from Pope’s and European royal decrees stating “explorers” may seize lands and convert “non-Christians” in their name and for the good of the Christian Church. It remains the basis, as late as 2005, for Indian Law and Supreme Court decisions against Tribes. It has become clear that the PC(USA) is becoming more aware of the struggles that Native American Presbyterians and all Native Americans have faced in the past and are dealing with today. It is my hope that in discussing these issues across the church an impact can be made that not only raises awareness within the church of these issues, but also generates action by Presbyterians. “May the warm winds of heaven blow softly upon you And the Creator make sunrise in your hearts.” (Cherokee Prayer) The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) The Rev. Irvin Porter Associate in the PC(USA) Office of Native American Intercultural Congregational Support The United Nations and many groups have been working to address current issues related to the Doctrine of Discovery, how it affects our lives today, and implications for the future. JOIN THIS IMPORTANT CALL TO LEARN MORE. Special presenters for the call will be: -Elona Street-Stewart, Member of the Delaware Nanticoke Nation, PC(USA) Ruling Elder and Executive of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies--first Native American PC(USA) synod executive. -Fr. Daniel LeBlanc, OMI (Oblates of Mary Immaculate), serving in justice ministries in urban Lima and the high jungle for 30 years and now working with the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which has focused on the Doctrine of Discovery. Below is additional information: 1) Biographical information on the presenters 2) Links to two online videos on the DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY: -"Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery" [43 minutes; grounds it in the resource extractive industries] -"Exposing the Doctrine of Discovery" [9 minutes; education piece by the Episcopalian Church] I invite you to watch these videos between now and May 24, and our call will focus on these videos as well the presenters' information about the Doctrine of Discovery and implications for our times. [Another good resource is the film "The Doctrine of Discovery, Unmasking the Domination Code" based on the book Steven Newcomb's book Pagans in the Promised Land--Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.] 3) Additional links to resources on the Doctrine of Discovery: PC(USA)/Ecumenical and United Nations/Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFFI) Looking forward to gathering around the Call Table May 24. Please share this email notice with anyone who might be interested. Grace and peace~ Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com (314) 521-8418 1) PRESENTERS FOR THE 5/24/17 RESOURCE EXTRACTION CALL ON THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY: MS. ELONA STREET-STEWARD, RULING ELDER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) Synod Executive, Synod of Lakes and Prairies Elona Street-Stewart is a ruling elder and member of Dayton Avenue Presbyterian Church in Saint Paul, MN. She is the Synod Executive for the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, having previously served as Synod Staff Associate for racial Ethnic Ministries and Community Empowerment. She has served PC (USA) in many capacities for many years on racial justice matters in mission development and support programs. Ms. Stewart, member of the Delaware Nanticoke Nation, is the ﬁrst Native American to be installed as a synod executive with PC (USA). She has spent many years serving her communities as well as the church and has served on many non-profits in Minnesota advocating for the education, employment and health of people of color and American Indians. She served 12 years on the Board of Education for Saint Paul Public Schools and both the National and Minnesota School Board Associations. She has also served on the Minnesota Council of churches and with the St. Paul Area Council of Churches' Department of Indian Work. Ms. Stewart cares deeply about these issues, and her passion dates back to the 1970s, when the nation was celebrating the Bicentennial and the "discovery" and "civilization" of this land, and when there were calls for the church "to join tribal leadership to examine the root causes of the poverty, racism, and invisibility of our communities." In November 2016 Ms. Stewart and her husband, Rev. David Stewart, were part of a PC(USA) delegation to Standing Rock (see link below). She has recently facilitated workshops on Standing Rock and the Doctrine of Discovery at the PC(USA) Compassion, Peace and Justice Training and Ecumenical Advocacy Days events. She will lead a similar workshop at the PC(USA) BIG TENT event this July in St. Louis, MO. PC(USA) synod executive Street-Stewart recounts trip to ... Https: › /www.presbyterianmission.org/story/pcusa-synod-executive... ... synod executive Street-Stewart recounts trip to Standing Rock. PC(USA) synod executive Street-Stewart recounts ... Rock as a representative of the PC(USA) synod ... REV. DANIEL LEBLANC, OMI, Staff - Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation; omiusajpic.org Associate, International JPIC Office and Oblate UN Representative - New York Daniel has been a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate since 1971. Daniel is Canadian, but worked in Peru from 1978 until his appointment to the Oblates' General Administration JPIC Office in April 2007. During his thirty years in Peru, Daniel served the urban poor of the capital city, Lima, as pastor of several parishes in the Diocese of Carabayllo and also in the high jungle. He worked on a variety of justice issues from assisting victims of terrorism to investigating mass graves and helping to bring perpetrators to justice. He also studied law at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). For many years, he was a member, as well as Chair, of the Latin American OMI Commission of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC). On June 5, 1992, Fr. Daniel was a victim of a terrorist attack. A car bomb with 600 kilos of dynamite exploded outside a television station located across the street from the Oblates' provincial house. Father Daniel was asleep at the time. He suffered serious injuries that left him unconscious for days. “At one point they had declared me dead but that turned out to be a little premature,” Fr. Daniel now jokes. “There were about 70,000 people killed during Peru's 20-year civil war, but I was not one of them.” Currently Fr. Daniel represents the Oblate Congregation, recognized as an NGO at the United Nations, where he follows the work of the Commissions on Social Development, including the sub-committee on the eradication of poverty, Sustainable Development, the ), Financing for Development and Migration, and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII), the focus of which in 2012 was the Doctrine of Discovery. Issues he has worked on include land-grabbing by the government of Bangladesh against the Garo and Khasi indigenous people, promoting peace and reconciliation during the civil war in Sri Lanka, and efforts along the U.S./Mexico border to promote justice for migrants and immigrants. 2) FILMS ON THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY Movie – Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery (Mennonites,others) [43"] https://dofdmenno.org/movie “The Doctrine of Discovery: In the Name of Christ” This 43-minute documentary has three parts: History of the Doctrine of Discovery and its basis in Christian ... "Exposing the Doctrine of Discovery" (Episcopal Church) [13'59"] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drLnI_k5b6s&;;; 3) DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY RESOURCES: PC(USA; ECUMENICAL; UNITED NATIONS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) RESOURCES: Standing Rock: Religious Leaders repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, November 2016: PC(USA) faith leaders join Standing Rock solidarity gathering: Apology and support for ongoing struggle offered to tribal leaders Facebook page Irvin Porter, Multicultural/Native American Ministries: https://www.facebook.com/Native-American-Ministries-PCUSA-232067750278099/. Presbyterian News Service article re: apology to Native Americans: http://www.pcusa.org/news/2017/3/17/alaska-mayor-acknowledges-pcusa-apology/ and a youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tshc5mwli6o&feature=share. Link for Doctrine of Discovery: https://www.pc-biz.org/#/search/3000074. PC(USA) synod executive Street-Stewart recounts trip to ... Https: › /www.presbyterianmission.org/story/pcusa-synod-executive... ... synod executive Street-Stewart recounts trip to Standing Rock. PC(USA) synod executive Street-Stewart recounts ... Rock as a representative of the PC(USA) synod ... ECUMENICAL RESOURCES: SOCIETY OF FRIENDS: NYYM and the Doctrine of Discovery | New York Yearly Meeting nyym.org › ?q=DoctrineofDiscovery The Religious Society of Friends ... New York Yearly Meeting and the Doctrine of Discovery, ... the Doctrine of Discovery NYYM Actions. New York Yearly ... MENNONITES: Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery – A movement of ... dofdmenno.org Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery A movement of Anabaptist people of faith. Menu. Skip to content. About; Learn More; Movie; Study Guide; Get Involved; Contact ... Movie About Study Guide Act Now Contact Blog Q: What is the “Doctrine of Discovery?” doctrineofdiscoverymenno.files.wordpress › 2015/06/dod... Q: What is the “Doctrine of Discovery?” The “Doctrine of Discovery” is a philosophical and legal framework dating to the 15th century that gave Christian ... NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER Doctrine of Discovery: A scandal in plain sight | National ... ncronline.org › news/peace-justice/doctrine-discovery... As for the doctrine’s more recent ... The papal documents led to an international norm called the Doctrine of Discovery, ... National Catholic Reporter ... UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: THE REPUDIATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY Uccfiles › pdf/DoctrineofDiscovery.pdf DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY ... of Discovery. Rethink theology, bible study and ... and concern in the United States about the Doctrine, the United Church of Christ, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MINISTRIES: Environmental Justice with Indigenous Peoples presbyterianmission.org › wp-content/uploads/2017Earth... Source: “Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery” exhibit, Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Working Group, dofdmenno.org. 2 BIBlE STUDY: PSAlm 24 UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION RE INDIGENOUS RIGHTS/DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY: PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS RIGHTS The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues www.chiefs-of-ontario.org/sites/default/files/files/NITV Staff... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues ... Mandate of the Permanent Forum • To discuss indigenous issues within the ... United Nations Created Date: 4/27/2012 3:07 ... United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Permanent_Forum_on... The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII or PFII) ... UN DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples www.nnhrc.navajo-nsn.gov/docs/UN Declaration on the Rights of... United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples . ... Solemnly proclaims the following United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous INDIGENOUS PEOPLES FORUM ON DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY, ARIZONA, 2012 [Reported to the 2012 UN PFII: Doctrine of Discovery] Doctrine of Discovery conference, Arizona, March 2012 ... https://www2.palomar.edu/pages/aaquallo/2012/03/28/doctrine-of... Doctrine of Discovery conference, Arizona, March 2012. ... This is an awesome article that was sent in response to the Doctrine of Discovery conference ... March 28 ... Indigenous Peoples Forum On Doctrine of Discovery at ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8JO7XARko Indigenous Peoples Forum On Doctrine of Discovery at Arizona Capitol March 23, 2012 ... on the Doctrine of Discovery held at the Arizona State ... UN PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES, 2012: DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues - indianlaw.org indianlaw.org/sites/default/files/UNPFII_11th session report.pdf E/2012/43-E/C.19/2012/13 United Nations ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues shall be held at ... Future work of the Permanent Forum, including issues of the ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues - indianlaw.org indianlaw.org/sites/default/files/UNPFII_11th session report.pdf E/2012/43-E/C.19/2012/13 United Nations ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues shall be held at ... Future work of the Permanent Forum, including issues of the ... UNITED NATIONS PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES ... www.afn.ca/uploads/files/unpfii_undrip_2008-2012_northamerican... UNITED NATIONS PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES ... Permanent Forum will therefore ensure ... indigenous peoples, the United Nations system and other ... UNPFII Discussion: Doctrine of Discovery | Indigenous ... www.ienearth.org/unpfii-discussion-doctrine-of-discovery United Nations Permanent Forum 11 ... agencies of the United Nations that the doctrine of discovery is an ... the rights of Indigenous peoples. Issues ... Indigenous Peoples Forum on the Impact of the Doctrine of ... doctrineofdiscoveryforum.blogspot.com/2012/09/dismantling-doctrine... Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery. ... 2012 a public forum on the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery was ... UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues | The ... https://alanlechusza.wordpress.com/tag/united-nations-permanent... Posts about United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues ... 2012 the NAHUACALLI ... submission in May to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. [UNPFii 2012] The Doctrine of Discovery: its enduring ... aippnet.org/unpfii-2012-the-doctrine-of-discovery-its-enduring... [UNPFii 2012] The Doctrine of ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. ... (article 28 and 37 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) ... United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues www.un.org/press/en/2012/hr5088.doc.htm ... Permanent Forum Told ‘Doctrine of Discovery’, ... Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues ... The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will ... UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues discusses theme ... https://www.unngls.org/index.php/un-ngls_news_archives/2012/350-un... 2012; UN Permanent Forum on ... “The Doctrine of Discovery: ... She also urged the Forum to change its name to the “UN Permanent Forum on the Rights of Indigenous determination. UN PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES, 2017 UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 2017 lrinspire.com - 3 days ago In the Spirit of World Peace. In the Spirit of Peace with Mother Earth. In global acknowledgement of the INTERNATIONAL SPIRITUAL MONUMENT at STANDING ROCK, in the Oceti Sakowin Treaty ...

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Re: [Oe List ...] Monthly Colleagues gathering in Austin
by George Holcombe via OE 14 May '17

14 May '17

We met last night for our monthly “ecclesiola” (started by Charles and Doris Hahn in the 90’s) and Dane Adkinson led the study using a paper “Speak the Truth, But not to punish” using the words of Thich Nhat Hanh. Thought you might like to read one of the quotes: “As activists we want to do something to help the world to suffer less, but when we’re not peaceful, when we don’t have enough compassion in us, we are unable to do much to help the world. Peace, love and happiness must always begin in us, with ourselves first. There is suffering, fear, and anger inside of us, and when we take care of it, we are taking care of the world.” It reminded me of one of Joe’s mantras, “You have to take care of yourself, if you want to care for others." (not an exact quote, maybe someone with a better memory than me can get that right.) Looking forward to next month. George Holcombe geowanda1(a)me.com "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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5/11/17, Felton/Spong: Marking the 100th Anniversary of Fundamentalism in America by Bullying Religious Minorities: Spong revisited: Terrible Texts III
by Ellie Stock via OE 11 May '17

11 May '17

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Marking the 100th Anniversary of Fundamentalism in America by Bullying Religious Minorities By David Felten How a “Fact or Fiction” Campaign Continues the Tradition of Betraying the Message of Jesus The Back Story Right after Easter in 2015, I arrived at church as a fellow staff member was going out the door saying, “I’m going to get a picture of one of the banners.” “What banners?!” I’d come in the back way to town and hadn’t seen that down the main street of Fountain Hills, eight churches had posted large identical banners overnight: “Progressive” Christianity: Fact or Fiction?” The next day, those same eight churches (that’s a lot in a town of only about fifteen churches!) – the fundamentalists, break-away evangelical Lutherans (LCMC), and Presbyterians (ECO) – also published a half-page newspaper ad in the local Fountain Hills Times and arranged for both an article and an OpEd piece to appear in the paper. Hailed as a “landmark series” and an “unprecedented step” that demonstrate[s] in a very real way the unity of the ‘body of Christ’, the effort was the work of the “Fountain Hills Ministerial Association,” a group of churches whose pastors had already publicly condemned Progressive Christianity in general as “one of the tools the enemy" and me in particular as a heretic, apostate, and liar. The local Presbyterian pastor confirmed that the six-week series of coordinated messages were meant to push back against the progressive Christian movement. “Frankly, we think Progressive Christianity is misleading a lot of people,” he said. As Pastor of the then only openly “Progressive” Christian Church in town, (welcoming of LGBTQ folks, embracing of science, in dialogue with other religions, etc.) and author of a popular book on the “Wisdom of Progressive Christianity,” it seemed clear who the series was aimed at. Friends of The Fountains like best-selling author Diana Butler Bass (and others who keep a finger on the pulse of the national religious scene) said that they’d never seen anything like this before: a coordinated smear campaign/attack by a majority of the churches in one town against a single other church. It was a sensational and unusual enough event that the local Fox 10 News reporter even came out to do a story – which propelled the affair into the news cycle around the country. Soon it was being podcasted about and blogged about across the internet and written about in news outlets from The Christian Century to the secular media around the world. One of my favorite blog posts was by author John Shore, who dubbed the other churches the “Gang of 8.” He observed that this was more mature than what he wanted to call them in the first place, which was “Churches Rallying Against Progress” (C.R.A.P.). The content of this anti-Progressive Christianity sermon series was nothing new, drawing directly from the well-established Fundamentalist playbook: inerrant Bible, Virgin Birth, physical resurrection, and a six-day creation, among other threadbare claims. And while the proponents of this dogma would like to imply that their doctrines are original to Jesus himself, it turns out that they’re based in a controversy barely 100 years old. The Back Back Story Just over a hundred years ago, The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth was published and distributed all over the world. Consisting of 12 volumes, The Fundamentals contained 90 essays written by 64 authors from several denominations. Union Oil Founders Milton and Lyman Stewart (also founders of the fundamentalist BIOLA University), financed millions of volumes being sent out free of charge to pastors, evangelists, Sunday school teachers, and missionaries around the world. What began as a not-so-anonymous vanity project became an all-out movement to save conventional Christianity. The Fundamentals was compiled and distributed in the run-up to war with Germany, when suspicion and fear towards all things German was running high. Physics in the hands of Germans like Einstein and the alarming new science of psychology advanced by Austrian Sigmund Freud posed what seemed a very real threat to the status quo of not only culture and religion, but reality itself. For religious conservatives, liberal German theology and its “Higher Criticism” was the primary concern. Unleashing elements of the scientific method on the Bible posed a threat to the simple souls of the American faithful. A major flashpoint in the developing controversy between the “Modernists” and those who would come to be called “Fundamentalists” was a debate in the New York Presbytery of the Presbyterian church over the doctrine of the literal Virgin Birth. Several candidates for ordination were hesitant to affirm their full embrace of the historicity of the doctrine. So, in 1910, legislation was passed by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church declaring that five doctrines were “necessary and essential” to the Christian faith: 1. The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this. 2. The virgin birth of Christ. 3. The belief that Christ’s death was an atonement for sin. 4. The bodily resurrection of Christ. 5. The historical reality of Christ’s miracles. These five propositions would become known as the “Five Fundamentals” and, no surprise, were at the heart of the six “essential” beliefs lifted up by the Fountain Hills “Gang of 8” (the main addition being that “Christ is the only way” and that non-believers are going to Hell). So, just over a hundred years later, the “Five Fundamentals” and The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth , are still playing a central role in the task of what Fundamentalists consider to be “drawing a line in the sand” regarding their faith – a faith noticeably lacking in any emphasis on Jesus’ teachings or example (but I digress!). So, out of fear over changing cultural norms and contemporary understandings of Jesus’ life, eight churches in Fountain Hills decided to do exactly what Jesus would have wanted them NOT to do: gang up on people who are different and demonize them as heretical, apostate, and dangerous. As blogger John Shore wrote, And if there’s one message the Gang of 8 is successfully communicating, it’s that they’re feeling threatened. Threatened they are, and threatened they should be. For the Christianity they represent is, in a word, ruinous. It holds that the “unrepentant” LGBT person is destined for hell, that wives must be subservient to their husbands, that Christians alone can enjoy a heavenly afterlife. The Christianity they preach and teach feeds off fear, exclusivity, anger and victimizing “the other.” And right now, in Fountain Hills, Arizona, that “other” is The Fountains UMC.” In the end, the bottom line at issue here is fear. Well, and bigotry. As The Fountains shares its facilities with a Reform Jewish congregation, works with the nearby mosque, and sponsors a monthly PFLAG meeting, it shouldn’t be surprising that trying to discredit The Fountains hit the bigotry trifecta. The thinly-veiled anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and Homophobia of conservative Christianity could all be conveniently concentrated and camouflaged in the garb of pious theological moralizing. And the go-to solution for many who are feeling threatened? Bullying, plain and simple. But the good news is that the bullying backfired. The unanticipated consequences of the “Fact or Fiction” campaign included a sincere interest in the principles of Progressive Christianity by seekers who had never known there was an option to the fundamentalism of their birth. The Just Desserts I was already pretty used to accusations from my fellow clergy, having already been referred to in OpEd pieces in our local paper as, among other things, a vicious liar, hypocrite, and reprobate (it was my first “reprobate”!). But the congregation was a bit anxious at first. While it seemed like all the “respectable” voices in town were ostracizing us, it didn’t take long for them to hear themselves being called “worse than Satan,” “Like a computer virus that needs to be wiped out,” and compared to the Nazis for them to come around and say, “Now Hang on a second! Who are these people to be saying such things? Fellow Christians? Seriously?” In the end, the congregation was galvanized in a way it had never been before. Add to that the biggest summer attendance we’ve had in anyone’s memory, the story being picked up literally around the world and, by the end of the summer, being recognized by a national United Methodist organization with their annual “Voice in the Wilderness” Award, and it was hard to imagine anyone NOT wanting to be shunned by their Fundamentalist neighbors. We really could never have afforded that kind of advertising otherwise! But in the “there’s no such thing as bad publicity department,” let me close with two anecdotes from that summer: The first was on the launch Sunday of the anti-Progressive Christian sermon series. The Fountains had a record-breaking crowd including United Methodist Bishop Bob Hoshibata and his wife, Greta, several LGBTQ groups, two Muslim groups, Buddhists, Jews, and even atheists. And then, across the back row, all lined up in their immaculate suits and ties, the Bishop and his elders from our neighboring LDS ward. The Mormon Bishop and I were laughing with one another that if anyone should have theological differences, it would be us. But we had gone out of our way to include our Mormon neighbors in our interfaith events and our youth groups had met together – and when they saw we were being ganged up on in a way that was all too familiar to them, they were there to support us. This simple act of solidarity was not lost on the congregation. The second happened later in the summer. A woman came to The Fountains and introduced herself after church as being from one of the “Gang of 8” churches. She said, “The more my pastor preached against Progressive Christians, the more I realized I was a Progressive Christian.” She had never really known there was an option – she didn’t know that her doubts and uncertainties were shared along with compassionate, thoughtful people who shared her hopes and hunches about the world. An Intellectual Contagion Harry Emerson Fosdick famously preached that “stagnation, not change is Christianity’s most deadly enemy.” But the stagnation of the status quo continues to hold generations of people in its grip. Fear of the intellectual contagion of Progressive Christianity continues to motivate otherwise kind and compassionate people to betray the message of Jesus, excluding who their pastors tell them are “unclean” and blemished. In the final analysis, it was the support of fellow Progressive Christians and the encouragement of those who had faced similar exclusion that strengthened the members and leadership of The Fountains to not only persist, but flourish in the face of controversy. So in a world where Fundamentalist Christians seem to dominate the secular public’s impression of Christianity as anti-intellectual, bigoted, judgmental and reactionary, the more important it becomes for Progressive Christians to come together, networking with one another and establishing relationships that strengthen us for the moments when we find ourselves being dismissed or bullied. There are countless people out there for whom the message you and I share would be like a breath of fresh air – but they just haven’t heard it. And when they do, they just can’t believe there really is a movement that welcomes all people, that respects other religions, that works for justice, that seeks to confront racism and prejudice in all its forms, and works to heal the world. As Progressive Christians, we have the freedom to loosen our grip on the obsession with certainty and work together to adapt our understandings, our language, and our goals toward embracing the core value of expanding our spiritual horizons. Together, we can go deeper, ask the tough questions, and explore the ways we can be a catalyst for new spiritual directions. Despite the noisy critics, we can make the world a better place. ~ Rev. David M. Felten Read online here About the Author David Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”. A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David and his wife Laura, an administrator for a large Arizona public school district, live in Phoenix with their three often adorable children. Question & Answer Mark from Cheyenne, WY writes: Question: If you do not favor conversion activity, how do you interpret the Great Commission? Answer: By Matthew Fox I think there is a big difference between favoring conversion activity and preaching good news. Now what we call the "Great commission" is found differently in all four gospels and many Biblical scholars believe these are add-ons to the gospels that reflect more the goings on and practice of the early Church and its liturgical rites than the exact words of Jesus after the Easter event. Be that as it may, I recommend sitting down with all four versions of this injunction to get a feel yourself for the diversity of tone and words and meaning found therein. For myself, I most appreciate the Markan words because they take us beyond the human and they emphasize the "good news" while saying nothing about conversion. Says Mark: "Go out to the whole world" (this theme is found in most all the other pericopes as well so it shows this injunction very likely followed the early church's expulsion from the synagogue) and its going out to the gentile world and beyond to "proclaim the good news to all creation." This raises the obvious question: What is the good news that all creation is eager to hear? Mark certainly sets Jesus' teaching and ministry into a more-than-human context, a cosmic context therefore. And clearly it is not about converting so much as "proclaiming good news." The "whole world" is a big place (today we know our universe is made up of two trillion galaxies!) so there is plenty of space to roam in. While Matthew's "Great Commission" talks about teaching the commandments Jesus has taught, at the heart of these are love of God and love of neighbor and vice versa. Our neighbor is not restricted to the two-legged ones, but all creation deserves to hear that humans are busy loving all creatures--not destroying other creatures in narcissistic fits of greed and violence that end whole species while endangering human generations that follow with a depleted earth. Whether the story of the Good Samaritan or the teaching of Matthew 25 that others, especially the needy, are other Christs, it is clear that Jesus' teaching is indeed trying to stretch our meaning and practice of love and compassion. That's the Great Commission and the Great Commandment(s). ~ Matthew Fox Read and share 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 ________________________________________________ Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Terrible Texts: Be Fruitful and Multiply and Subdue the Earth – Part III Subdue the earth! It is an enemy to be conquered not a home to be treasured! Life is an eternal battle for survival between the human creature and the hostile environment. These are the assumptions that shape the primary religious tradition in the Western world. Today we are paying the price of those assumptions. It is as if the environment has launched a counter attack against its abusers. In many areas of our life the limits of abuse seem to have been reached. The prospect of the human species surviving for thousands of years is today an open question. The human future seems to be no more than an even bet. Sometimes just the attempt to raise human consciousness to the dangers now confronting our common environment is rejected as nothing more than “doomsday preaching.” Those whose vested interest lies in not facing reality continue to live in denial. It is an ultimate expression of that sickness that thinks that the comfort of homo-sapiens is the only value to be served. “Subdue the Earth” is accepted among fundamentalist Christians as a divine command since it appears in a book that these believers insist, contrary to massive data, is “The Word of God.” The biblical setting of this “Terrible Text” calling us to “subdue the earth” enters the sacred narrative in the seven-day creation story. Written by the priestly writer during the Babylonian Captivity in the 6th Century B.C.E., it is one of the newer parts of the Old Testament. This story makes no bones about the fact that every beast, every bird, every fish and everything that “creeps on the earth” is to be subjugated to the domination of human life by the commandment of God (Gen 1:28-30). It is overtly anthropocentric. This relatively recent narrative was then merged with the older stories about Adam, Eve and the Garden, which tell the story of the fall from grace plunging the human being into a struggle with the hostile environment. Prior to the act of disobedience in the Garden of Eden, all human needs were filled. But that cosmic act of violating God’s single command to refrain from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil resulted in expulsion from that paradise. The punishment handed out to the woman included pain in childbirth, and for the man the constant need to scratch from the earth a meager living. The divine words used are quite harsh: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you Is there something about Western religion itself that predisposes its adherents to environmental disaster? Do such texts as “Be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth” arise out of something far deeper and more basic in our faith tradition? Why is it that among non-Western religious traditions, the concept of having a religious duty to subdue the earth would be considered a strange and alien idea? In many Eastern worship traditions God is envisioned as a universal spirit or divine presence that cannot be separated from the world. This God is a life force flowing through every living thing, not a distant ruler or a great chief in the sky, who is somehow separate from the world of human experience. Perhaps this distinction might open our eyes to a significant clue, which seems to be so deep in the western religious tradition, that violating the environment and exhausting the world’s resources have become realities that we still seem to think are blessed by God. In Buddhism, for example, God is not an objective presence standing over against the world perceived as subject. Buddhism seeks wholeness or at least a sense of harmony with the whole. That is quite different from seeing human life as called to subdue, to conquer and to exercise authority over the world. In the biblical tradition the claim is made that we know God by divine revelation since God comes to us from outside. Through the sagas of the Bible, God’s divine name is changed from time to time. Yet this distinction always remains. Yahweh became the dominant name for God after the conquest of Canaan and was defined against the fertility cults of the Canaanites and their God who was called Ba’al. Perhaps the most dramatic Ba’al story is the conflict on Mt. Carmel in which Elijah; the prophet of Yahweh first stood down and then slew the priests of Ba’al (I Kings 18:20-40). Contemporary readers of this narrative need to understand that this was a conflict between Yahweh, an overwhelmingly male deity, who lived above the sky, and Ba’al, a deity identified with the agricultural fertility cycles and thus one who was perceived as far more a part of the life of the world. Ba’al actually began his divine career as the consort to Astarte or Asherah who was a fertility goddess. It was only as the concept of the deity as feminine declined in the ancient world that Asherah was de-emphasized and the male consort Ba’al emerged as the primary Canaanite deity who was locked in a mortal struggle with the God of the Jews. While Ba’al was identified with the cycles of nature Yahweh was understood as a deity who invaded history. Yahweh may well have begun as a kind of supernatural tribal deity, but later evolved into being the chief ruler over the entire world. In the Judeo Christian tradition, it was in this image of God that human life was said to have been created. Human beings were said to be the God look alike, to whom was assigned the divine task of exercising dominion over all living things. Israel’s God was said to have created all things out of nothing. This made the world both subservient and answerable to this external divine power who lived in a sphere located beyond the sky. As the Scriptures unfolded, in addition to a heavenly dwelling place, God established a symbolic dwelling place in the midst of the people. First, it was in a mobile tabernacle that was carried by the Jews during their days in the wilderness. That was symbolized by the fact that the tabernacle was connected to heaven by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The tabernacle was in effect a colony of heaven. When the permanent temple was built and dedicated the Shekinah – God presence, perhaps God’s spirit or even God’s light – was sent as the sign of God’s willingness to make that place the earthly home of the Holy One. This God remained, however, primarily the all-powerful creator who viewed the world from outside it. God could fill the world but was never to be identified with it. The world was a creature that neither possessed its own holiness nor participated fully in the holiness of God. So the idea was born in this religious tradition that we human beings, like God, were not really part of this world. We were made to rule the world in God’s name, to have dominion over it and ultimately to make sure that it served our needs as those made in God’s image. This was the attitude, I submit, that enabled the anthropocentricism found in the Bible to be developed. Out of this anthropocentricism, I believe, there arose the insensitivity to and destruction of our common environment, and the human unwillingness to curb our breeding practices. Only a deity who was not part of the world could order the human creature to be fruitful and to multiply and subdue the earth as if the earth was an enemy. I call this definition of God “Theism.” God is a supernatural being, external to the world, who periodically invades the world in a miraculous way. Theism is the dominant definition of God in the Bible and, through the Bible it has become the dominant definition of God in the Western world today. The proof of that is seen in our language, which defines a theist simply as one who believes in God, and the only alternative is to be an a-theist. A theistic God can be thought to manipulate the weather to create the great flood, to engage in political conflict by slamming the Egyptians with plagues and then splitting the Red Sea during the Exodus. This God shapes morality by dictating the law at Mt. Sinai. This God raises up prophets in Israel to speak the divine word. This is also the God, who, in the “fullness of time,” invaded the earth in the person of Jesus and lived among us. So powerful was this “external to the world” God image that it captured the life of Jesus. Jesus came to be seen not as a God infused human being, but rather as a divine visitor who came from heaven. As a divine visitor, Jesus needed a mythological landing field, which is how the miraculous birth tradition of the virgin entered Christianity. He also needed a launching pad in order to make his exit. That is how the story of Jesus’ cosmic ascension became part of the tradition. Between his miraculous entry into the life of the world and his miraculous exit from it, this Jesus was said to have done other God-like things, like walking on water, stilling the storm and expanding the food supply, all of which can be shown as God attributes in the Old Testament. There was also present among the Jews, the hope that when the Kingdom of God dawns in human history, the signs of that kingdom will become apparent. The prophet Isaiah (chapter 35) described those kingdom signs as the blind seeing, the deaf hearing and the lame walking. Therefore, it was quite natural that stories about these kingdom signs would be attached to Jesus and even expanded to include “the dead rising.” The dominant theistic understanding of God shaped the way this “god life” of Jesus was remembered. It was Charles Wesley who, in his 1739 Christmas carol, captured this meaning best when he wrote that far from being human, Jesus was a life that had been “veiled in flesh,” so that we could “the Godhead see.” It is this theistic understanding of God that allows us to view the earth as profane, even secular. This theistic God who is imaged only in human beings has literally drained the holiness out of the life of this world, rendering it an enemy to be subdued. This theistic God allows us to pretend that, like God, we too are separate from this world, that we are the only creatures who are holy and that the world and all that is in it was made for our benefit. One can dominate and subdue a world that is not holy. One can view all life as created for human benefit only if you assume that holiness is external to this world. The theistic understanding of God opens the door to separating the world from holiness because the God, who is the source of holiness, is separated from this world. So long as we view God through the lens of theism, we will see the world as an object, even as an enemy, against which we must struggle to survive. Ideas do have consequences and we are living today with the ecologically disastrous consequences that derive from an anthropocentric view of human life based on a theistic understanding of God and creation. If we are going to overcome our looming environmental holocaust, then the proper place to begin might be to jettison the theistic understanding of God. For most Western people that is an almost unthinkable possibility. Yet I believe it is the essential first step toward both a theological reformation and a realistic hope for a human future. Can the theistic understanding of God be abandoned? The answer to that question is yes but it will mean that we must engage and overthrow the powerful vested interest that religious institutions have in preserving the theistic God who is the source of their authority. The only place I know where we can begin this task is to return to the scriptures to see if theism is the only way there is to envision God. Are there minority voices hidden in our religious past that have been all but drowned out by the claims of the theistic organized religion? Perhaps the environmental crisis that is upon us will be the catalyst to force us to enter this new and radically different understanding of God. If we are successful in this effort, we will inaugurate a reformation so radical that the whole superstructure of organized religion in the Western world, with its intricate authority claims will crumble before our eyes. That means many will vehemently resist it but without it I am more convinced that there is neither a Christian nor a human future. In my next column, I will attempt to lift out of the scriptures a different portrait of God, a God beyond theism. It is a minority view which I believe must soon become a majority view or we have no future. My hope is that it will lead us to a new vision of what it means both to be human and to live in harmony with the world. ~ John Shelby Spong Originally Posted September 2003 Announcements The Seventh Annual Death and Afterlife Conference READ ON...

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Fwd: Richard Rohr Meditation: Grace Is Key
by Herman Greene via OE 08 May '17

08 May '17

Some of you have found Bishop Spong helpful as he seeks to uncover the facts of the Christian tradition. Recently I have been reading Richard Rohr's meditations. I find them very helpful. You may subscribe to these daily meditations. I think he does a pretty good job of explaining RS-1 here. "*Death is not just our one physical dying, but it is going to the full depth, hitting the bottom, going the distance, beyond where I am in control, and always beyond where I am now.** "* Amazing Grace. Herman ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Center for Action and Contemplation <Meditations(a)cac.org> Date: Mon, May 8, 2017 at 2:00 AM Subject: Richard Rohr Meditation: Grace Is Key To: Herman Greene <hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com> Grace is found at the depths and in the death of everything. No Images? Click here <http://email.cac.org/t/d-e-krjditt-nljyuhuyh-a/> <http://centerforactionandcontemplation.forwardtomyfriend.com/d-nljyuhuyh-19…> Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation [image: Image of trees in a forest with daylight breaking through.] Resurrection *Grace Is Key Monday, May 8, 2017 (Feast of Lady Julian of Norwich)* *The goodness of God fills all the gaps of the universe, without discrimination or preference.* God is the gratuity of absolutely everything. The space in between everything is not space at all but Spirit. God is the “Goodness Glue” that holds the dark and light of things together, the free energy that carries all death across the Great Divide and transmutes it into Life. When we say that Christ “paid the debt once and for all,” it simply means that God’s job is to make up for all deficiencies in the universe. What else would God do? *Grace is what God does to keep all things God has made in love and alive—forever. *Grace is not something God gives; grace is who God *is.* If we are to believe the primary witnesses, an unexplainable goodness is at work in the universe. (Some of us call this phenomenon God, but the word is not necessary. In fact, sometimes it gets in the way of the experience, because too many have named God something other than grace.) *Death is not just our one physical dying, but it is going to the full depth, hitting the bottom, going the distance, beyond where I am in control, and always beyond where I am now.* No wonder it is scary. Such death is called “the descent into hell” in the early Apostles’ Creed, while in other sources, “the pit,” “the dark night,” “Sheol,” or “Hades.” We all die eventually; we have no choice in the matter. But there are degrees of death before the final physical one. If we are honest, we acknowledge that we are dying throughout our life, and this is what we learn if we are attentive:* grace is found at the depths and in the death of everything. *After these smaller deaths, we know that the only “deadly sin” is to swim on the surface of things, where we never see, find, or desire God or love. This includes even the surface of religion, which might be the worst danger of all. Thus, we must not be afraid of falling, failing, moving “down.” *When you go to the full depths and death, sometimes even the depths of your sin, you can always come out the other side—and the word for that is resurrection. *Something or someone builds a bridge for you, recognizable only from the far side, that carries you across, either willingly, or even dragging your feet. Something or someone seems to fill the tragic gap between death and life, but *only at the point of no return.* None of us crosses over by our own effort or merits, purity, or perfection. We are all carried across by an uncreated and unearned grace—from pope, to president, to princess, to peasant. The tomb is always finally empty. There are no exceptions to death, and there are no exceptions to grace. And I believe, with good evidence, that there are no exceptions to resurrection. *Gateway to Silence:* Alleluia, alleluia, amen! *Reference:* Adapted from Richard Rohr, *Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self <http://email.cac.org/t/d-l-krjditt-nljyuhuyh-r/> *(Jossey-Bass: 2013), xx-xxii. Read the spring edition of CAC’s spiritual, literary journal *Oneing*: *Transformation* featuring Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, Wm Paul Young, David Whyte, and others *Limited copies of past issues are available:* *Evolutionary Thinking Perfection Innocence Emancipation Evidence Transgression Ripening* Purchase individual editions of *Oneing* at store.cac.org <http://email.cac.org/t/d-l-krjditt-nljyuhuyh-y/>. *Daily Meditations: Rebuilding Christianity “From the Bottom Up”* Drawing from his own Franciscan heritage and other wisdom traditions, Richard Rohr reframes neglected or misunderstood teachings to reveal the foundations of contemplative Christianity and the universe itself: God as loving relationship. Each week of meditations builds on previous topics, but you can join at any time! Watch a short introduction to the theme “From the Bottom Up” (8-minute video)—click here <http://email.cac.org/t/d-l-krjditt-nljyuhuyh-j/>. If you’ve missed earlier messages, explore the online archive <http://email.cac.org/t/d-l-krjditt-nljyuhuyh-t/>. Feel free to share meditations on social media: go to CAC’s Facebook page <http://email.cac.org/t/d-l-krjditt-nljyuhuyh-i/> or Twitter feed <http://email.cac.org/t/d-l-krjditt-nljyuhuyh-d/> and find today’s post. Or use the “Forward to a Friend” link at the top of this message to send via email. For frequently asked questions—such as what versions of the Bible Father Richard recommends or how to ensure you receive every meditation—please see our email FAQ <http://email.cac.org/t/d-l-krjditt-nljyuhuyh-h/>. Did someone forward this message to you? Sign up to receive CAC's free daily, weekly, or monthly emails for yourself by clicking here! <http://email.cac.org/t/d-l-krjditt-nljyuhuyh-k/> Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations are made possible through the generosity of CAC's donors. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation. 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