July 2018 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

On behalf or the Roberts Family
by Paula Philbrook 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

*Dear ICA Family it is with a heavy heart that we inform you of the passing of Sharyn Marie Roberts in Asheville NC, on July 19th. Born September 7th, 1944 in Jackson Michigan, Sharyn graduated from St. Marys High School in Lansing MI, and later earned a degree in Journalism from Michigan State University. After working as a reporter for the Lansing State Journal, Sharyn moved to Detroit to teach high school Journalism teacher at the height of the civil rights movement, where she played an active role in helping students voice their concerns, both in the classroom and on the streets. Sharyn joined the ICA in 1970 while in Detroit, where she met her husband of 45 years, Alvin Roberts. From 1974 - ‘76 the two were deployed to Samoa, before moving to Alaska, for four years, living first in Anchorage, and later in the Athabaskan village of Minto. In 1980 Sharyn and her family moved to Rochester NY and then on to Chicago. In 1982, their final deployment took Sharyn and her family to Nairobi Kenya, and ultimately to a development project in Mugumoini. In 1984 they returned to Chicago, and eventually left the ICA in 1986 to start a retreat and conference center in Western Michigan called The Haven. Sharyn is survived by her husband Alvin, and their children, Helen, Jean, Wayne, Jeff, Dan and Andrew. A funeral and memorial service is scheduled for Sat. Aug. 11th at 11:00 am. Saints Cornelius and Cyprian Church in Leslie, MI. Cards and Condolences can be sent to : Alvin Roberts20 Mt. Pisgah Church Rd.* *Candler, NC 28715*

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8/11/16, Spong: The Unlikely Honored Guest at the Democratic National Convention
by Ellie Stock via OE 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

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He was surrounded in that reserved and exclusive seating area by the power-elite of the Democratic Party: A former President, the sitting Vice-President and the “second lady,” the spouses and children of the nominees, as well as those especially invited guests, who were uniquely and politically related to the convention’s eventual nominee. This unlikely guest was in his own way quite unique. He was a Republican, one who had been elected to a state-wide office as a candidate of the opposition party. He served as the governor of Virginia from 1970 – 1974 and was the first Republican governor of Virginia since 1869 in the last days of reconstruction. Later he sought his party’s nomination to the Senate of the United States, losing to another Republican, John Warner, who served with distinction from 1979 until he retired in 2008. The name of this mystery quest is Abner Linwood Holton. He is now, and has been since the day I first met him, an extraordinary man. People, unaware of the history of the Democratic Party in Virginia, find it strange that the man I regarded as the best governor of Virginia during the years I lived in that state would be a Republican. Let me tell you his story.</p> <p>Linwood Holton was born in 1923 in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, a town deep in the heart of Appalachia. He was a Republican from the moment of his birth. He was also bright and ambitious. Being a Republican in Virginia in those days was to be part of a distinct minority, perhaps even an endangered one! The Democrats of Virginia were the only cohesive political force in the state. This majority party was run by Virginia’s senior United States Senator, Harry Flood Byrd, who after serving a term as governor from 1926 to 1930, effectively ran the state until he died in 1966. It was said of Harry Byrd that he and a few of his closest political advisors would sit on the porch at his home in Berryville, Virginia, and pick the candidates for every political vacancy in Virginia from governor on down. The electorate was deliberately kept small by poll taxes, which effectively discouraged both blacks and poor whites from voting. A Byrd loyalist was in every county seat in Virginia to run the party. Racism was deep and “States Rights” was a holy slogan designed to make racism seem socially acceptable. Virginia was a one party state. Frequently the Republicans would not even nominate candidates and, even when they did, no one paid much attention to them because whoever won the Democratic primary seldom even campaigned in the general election, since Republicans simply did not win in this state! Linwood Holton made it his life’s ambition to establish two-party politics in Virginia.</p> <p>He graduated from Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia, and then entered the law school at Harvard University. Along the way he married a Roanoke girl, named Virginia Rogers, who went by the name of Jinks. She was the daughter of Frank Rogers, an upright, but ultra-conservative, successful and well-connected Roanoke citizen, who was the grandson of the first Episcopal Bishop in Southwestern Virginia. In his mind, the two greatest virtues were to be a conservative Episcopalian and a loyal Byrd Democrat. Jinks, the more rebellious of Rogers’ two daughters, chose to marry a Republican and a Presbyterian! Supported by this remarkable woman, Linwood began his life’s task of strengthening Virginia’s Republican Party. This party’s base, such as it was, had always been in the mountains of the western part of Virginia. As a force in opposition to Byrd Democrats, the Virginia Republican party tilted slightly leftward. There was no room to the right of the Byrd machine. The Virginia Republicans were known for their party’s efforts to improve education statewide and to develop better state mental health facilities. Linwood’s organizational efforts were so successful that in 1965 he was the Republican nominee for governor opposing the Southside, Virginia, Byrd Democrat, Mills Godwin, who had emerged as the new leader of the Democratic Party. The sickness, retirement and subsequently the death of Senator Byrd meant that the torch of party leadership had to be passed to the next generation. It is interesting that Harry Byrd, Jr., always known as “Little Harry,” who was appointed to succeed his father in the Senate, did not succeed him in the leadership of the statewide Democratic Party. Holton was defeated in that first run for the governor’s office, but he garnered a respectable total of votes and succeeded in introducing himself to the state. The day after the defeat, he began planning for his second run in 1969. The governorship in Virginia, we need to note, is limited by the Constitution to a single term.</p> <p>National issues soon began to erode the Byrd majorities. Poll taxes were declared unconstitutional in 1964. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 opened the ballot to people of color. The feminist movement began to galvanize women into an effective political force. A national- thinking Virginia Democrat, named Henry Howell, began to build a liberal political base made up of labor unions, blacks, women and young people. His challenge to the Byrd machine resulted ultimately in his election as Lt. Governor in 1971, but he could go no farther. He remained anathema to Byrd Democrats. In the Democratic Primary of 1969, the Byrd candidate, William Battle, the son of former Governor John Battle, defeated Henry Howell in a bitter contest. The party could not heal this division, so in the General Election, Linwood Holton, supported by many of Howell’s still angry voters, rode to victory with a 65,000 vote majority.</p> <p>In his inaugural address, Holton called for an end to Virginia’s pattern of racial discrimination and its racist politics. No Virginia Governor had ever uttered such words before. Words, however, were not enough. People looked for actions. They would follow soon.</p> <p>In the most dramatic step imaginable, the new governor and his wife made the decision not to put their children in the church-related or independent private schools of Richmond, where all governors’ children had previously attended, but to enroll them in Richmond’s public schools which were at that time about 80% black. It was such a startling action for a Virginia politician that the New York Times covered it with a front page story and a picture of Virginia’s Governor Holton escorting one of his daughters into a school surrounded by a host of black faces smiling broadly. In a state where the official response of the ruling Democratic machine to “Brown vs. the Board of Education,” had been to call for “massive resistance to the law of the land,” a state in which some counties chose to close their public schools rather than to integrate them, here was the highest elected official in the state escorting his children into the majority black public schools of Richmond, Virginia. No action could have announced better that a new day was dawning in what had once been the capital of the Confederacy. One of those Holton children entering those public schools on that day was their oldest daughter, Anne.</p> <p>The white population of Virginia was shocked. They believed and stated that their new governor was sacrificing his children on the “altar of integration.” Many suggested that the “inferior education” that his children would receive in those heavily black schools would cripple them for life. It was a strange argument that gave the lie to the previous white claim that all of its racially segregated schools were “separate, <em>but equal</em>.” Anne, in her early teens, would be an exemplary student. She received a fine education and upon graduation from high school would be admitted to Princeton University, from which she graduated <em>magna cum laude</em>. She seemed not to have been penalized at all in her educational achievements. After Princeton she was accepted into the class of 1983 at the Harvard Law School, from which she now holds a doctor of Jurisprudence degree. From there she went into a legal career that in time would include being a domestic relations judge and Virginia’s Education Secretary.</p> <p>While at Harvard she met, fell in love with and married a fellow law student, who was born in Minnesota and educated at the University of Missouri. His name was Tim Kaine. She lured him back to Richmond, where his earlier life experiences, including his Jesuit high school education, his year as a volunteer missionary to Honduras and his mastery of the Spanish language, prepared him to begin his Richmond law practice as a civil rights attorney. Then responding to an expressed community need, he entered politics at the most local of levels, running for a seat on Richmond’s nine-member City Council. In a majority black city, Tim not only won that seat, but was also later elected by that majority-black city council to be Richmond’s Mayor. Two years later, in 2001 he moved to the state level, being elected Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor. In 2005, he won the governor’s office. His wife, Anne Holton, became the first person to be at one time living in the governor’s mansion as the child of a Republican governor and then a second time as the state’s first lady and wife of a Democratic governor. In 2012, Tim Kaine won a seat in the United States Senate. In 2016, with two years remaining in his first term as senator, he was chosen by the presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, to be her vice-presidential running mate. Anne Holton was there with him, waving to the crowd on the final night. As Hillary Clinton raised Tim Kaine’s hand high, former president Bill Clinton was at her side and Anne Holton was at Tim Kaine’s side. The crowd roared with approval.</p> <p>In the VIP section of that vast Philadelphia arena sat the former Republican Governor Linwood Holton, now 92 years old, with his wife Jinks, both still vibrant and attractive, watching their daughter being introduced to the nation. There is sometimes a reward for integrity. Linwood and Jinks Holton, who would not allow their lives to be twisted by the prejudice of racism, challenged the distorting and debilitating social structures of his generation in Richmond, Virginia. Doing what is right sometimes carries with it intimations of transcendence and even immortality. To this day he remains one of my heroes.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Alberto Mejia Aguilera from Mexico writes via the internet:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> Question:</h4> <p>I am from Mexico and I would like to know your opinion about Liberation Theology. Do you think that this theology is still an inspiration for the struggle against the social injustice?</p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Alberto,</p> <p>Liberation theology was, I believe, was born in Latin America, so you should be especially proud of it. I associate the name of Leonardo Boff, primarily, with it, but there were others like the murdered Bishop Oscar Romero. It was born in an attempt to apply the principles of the gospel not just to individuals, but also to the structures of our society, which so often drive the masses into poverty. It identifies God with the poor. For those reasons it tended to be resisted in ecclesiastical circles, especially by the leaders of the Roman Catholic during the years of Popes John Paul II and Benedict, both of whom were so politically conservative that they saw it as another manifestation of Communism. I think they were both wrong in this judgment. Liberation theology, I believe, constituted a call to Christianity to see that its alliance with power, both in Europe and the new world, had corrupted the essential justice that Christianity requires.</p> <p>Christianity was born among the poor and the outcasts. It rose to dominate society and so became the religion of kings. Liberation Theology was a necessary correction.</p> <p>I wish you well.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Read and Share Online Here</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img align="none" height="262" style="width: 350px;height: 262px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="350" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/e67ac6a0-334…"></a></div> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:26px"><span style="color:#000000">Bishop Spong at the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan September 10th & 11th</span></span></h2> <strong>Schedule:</strong> Saturday, September 10, 2016 1:00 pm at the Reynolds Recital Hall, Northern Michigan University 7:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Marquette Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:00 pm at the Memorial Union Building , Michigan Technological University At each location, there will be an opportunity for Q&A and book signing.</div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="top"> </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_1c149769-41d3-4c3b-8300-eaccdde19ae7 td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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On behalf of the Roberts Family.
by Paula Philbrook 31 Jul '18

31 Jul '18

*Dear ICA Family it is with a heavy heart that we inform you of the passing of Sharyn Marie Roberts in Asheville NC, on July 19th. Born September 7th, 1944 in Jackson Michigan, Sharyn graduated from St. Marys High School in Lansing MI, and later earned a degree in Journalism from Michigan State University. After working as a reporter for the Lansing State Journal, Sharyn moved to Detroit to teach high school Journalism teacher at the height of the civil rights movement, where she played an active role in helping students voice their concerns, both in the classroom and on the streets. Sharyn joined the ICA in 1970 while in Detroit, where she met her husband of 45 years, Alvin Roberts. From 1974 - ‘76 the two were deployed to Samoa, before moving to Alaska, for four years, living first in Anchorage, and later in the Athabaskan village of Minto. In 1980 Sharyn and her family moved to Rochester NY and then on to Chicago. In 1982, their final deployment took Sharyn and her family to Nairobi Kenya, and ultimately to a development project in Mugumoini. In 1984 they returned to Chicago, and eventually left the ICA in 1986 to start a retreat and conference center in Western Michigan called The Haven. Sharyn is survived by her husband Alvin, and their children, Helen, Jean, Wayne, Jeff, Dan and Andrew. A funeral and memorial service is scheduled for Sat. Aug. 11th at 11:00 am. Saints Cornelius and Cyprian Church in Leslie, MI. Cards and Condolences can be sent to : Alvin Roberts20 Mt. Pisgah Church Rd.* *Candler, NC 28715* <https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1538.Stephen_R_Covey>

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Global Buzz reminder
by ICA International 30 Jul '18

30 Jul '18

Reminder for entries This reminder is for the Global Buzz that will be published August 5th. 2018 (Please send your entries at least a day or more ahead) Please send all your entries by regular e-mail to: inform(a)ica-international.org with your entry as an attatchment. Send details of news items, training programmes, your peer to peer connections with other ICAs, any concerns you may have and of any events that are coming up at your location. Your report can be long or short, but remember that all other ICAs would really like to know about the things that matter where you are, and what you are doing as an ICA. Peter, for ICAI Communications Pour les entrées de rappel Ce rappel est à la Global Buzz qui sera publié le 5 août 2018 (Veuillez envoyer vos entrées au moins une journée à l'avance) Veuillez envoyer toutes vos entrées maintenant par courriel ordinaire à : inform(a)ica-international.org avec votre entrée comme un attatchment. Envoyer les détails des articles de nouvelles, des programmes de formation, vos connexions peer to peer avec d'autres CIAS, de toute préoccupation que vous pourriez avoir et de tous les événements qui sont à venir à votre emplacement. Votre rapport peut être longue ou courte, mais rappelez-vous que toutes les autres CIAS aimerait vraiment savoir à propos de choses qui importe où vous êtes et ce que vous faites comme une ICA. Recordatorio de las entradas Este aviso es para el Global Buzz que se publicarán 5 agosto 2018 (Favor de enviar sus entradas al menos con un día de antelación) Por favor envíe todos sus entradas ahora por correo electrónico a: inform(a)ica-international.org con su entrada como un archivo adjunto. Enviar detalles de noticias, programas de capacitación, el peer to peer las conexiones con otros convenios o acuerdos internacionales, las preocupaciones que usted pueda tener y de los eventos que se aproximan en su ubicación. El informe puede ser a corto o largo, pero hay que recordar que todos los demás convenios quisiera saber realmente sobre lo que realmente importa, y lo que están haciendo una ICA.

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A Happy 80th Birthday to Bob Fishel today + followup on African bishops, etc.
by W. J. 29 Jul '18

29 Jul '18

Bob and Judy, here are my Sunday morning thoughts after our conversation yesterday. And a Happy 80th Birthday to Bob today! I really enjoyed celebrating at lunch with bites of birthday cake! I forgot to mention that one of the highlights of the CoB meeting at Lake Junaluska last fall was Bishop Karen Oliveto's sermon at their public worship service on Tuesday in the Harrell Center auditorium. I would have been there had I been tuned into the grapevine. The report from those who were there was that she had the African bishops applauding and shouting their Amens with great enthusiasm. What amazed me was that choosing Karen to preach from among 100+ bishops could not have been by chance. The powers that be in the council leadership must have been very intentional, though they claimed that all the bishops got their shot at the sermon slot in rotation. Yeah, fat chance! My other point is that the best argument against the One Church Plan is Bishop Karen. By removing the prohibition, there WILL be more like her! (Lesbian bishops! Gasp! BTW, she is the first 'out' lesbian bishop, but definitely NOT the first. I can name several who are/were closeted, including Bishop Susan Morrison, whose cabinet included Art Brandenburg and who spoke at the symposium honoring Bishop Mathews and his brother Joe at Wesley Theological Seminary. She retired to Rehobeth Beach, MD--big clue!). Remember that "episcopalizing" Bishop Gene Robinson was a huge affront for the Anglican communion around the world. Especially in Africa, I would surmise. Conservative Riley Case, whom I don't agree with, made the point in 2011: "If changing our stance on sexual morality would wreck havoc in American churches, the effect in the African churches would be many times greater. And, the effect in lands where Muslim presence is strong would be devastating." Read the whole article about the 36 retired bishops who 'came out' @https://methodistthinker.com/2011/02/21/riley-case-retired-bishops-statement/ BTW, I DID attend the opening Memorial Service for the CoB (and their spouses) @ FUMC Waynesville. Beautiful and elaborate with the full pipe organ and their church choir and the bishops' colorful robes in procession down the aisles. I sat on the back row directly behind a long pew full of African bishops and showered them with my silent prayers of blessing and profound gratitude. That's the closest I ever got to them. Afterwards I made eye contact and nodded a greeting to a few bishops without saying a word. Including Bishop Talbert. Finally, here's a BIG CLUE as to why the Connectional Conference Plan can NEVER pass muster with a 2/3 vote of annual conferences:Bishops dismayed at United Methodist Church's failure to affirm gender equality | | | Bishops dismayed at United Methodist Ch... | Grace and Peace, Marshall And here's an article on the (former) ministry of Rev. Bryne Comrade, who was smuggled out of Uganda and whom I met recently in SF as he awaits his asylum decision by USCIS:Providing HIV Services To A Hidden LGBT Network in Uganda – This Is Brian’s Story | | | Providing HIV Services To A Hidden LGBT... |

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Fw: my comments on the Traditionalist Plan
by W. J. 27 Jul '18

27 Jul '18

Colleagues, those of you who may have a deep historical connection to United Methodism may be aware that this church faces the likely possibility of schism in February, 2019. If it is of interest, I invite you to read the attached first draft of my analysis of the competing plans and voices that will 'come to a boil' at the General Conference of 2019. Warning: it's an eight-page slog! If you can get through it, I'd be appreciative of your thoughts and reflections. I would add as a footnote that I highly value our work in Human Development Projects and through a global network of indigenous ICA's.I am SO grateful to all of us for pioneering in creating a non-colonialist model for genuine service to humankind around the world. Marshall Jones Below is my letter to my United Methodist colleagues: I am writing to you with a heavy heart to ask you to seriously read and offer your comments on my first draft of the attached opinion piece on the 'Traditionalist Plan' that was written by a few bishops and included with the report from the Commission on A Way Forward. I would normally prefer to remain seething in silence, but, having read and reread the Commission's report and devoured all the commentary I could find, I felt forced to dig in and list in detail what I believe is the 'poison pill' hidden at the heart of the Traditionalist Plan. It's not the obvious punitive focus of the Traditionalist Plan that concerns me, but rather the political reality of the African elephant in the room. If the Plan passes at General Conference, it will be because the majority of African delegates will have been persuaded to support it, not fully realizing its implications for their work at home. So far I have seen no commentaries that dig in depth into just how the African delegates are being duped by the 'Reform and Renewal Coalition' to vote with them at GC 2019. To spell out the hidden, implicit dynamic between the Coalition and the African delegates, I faced the difficult task of tackling the underlying racism and cultural prejudice that burdens the dialogue between African United Methodists and the white majority of American United Methodists. After working for the former Methodist Board of Missions in my twenties, I have a great appreciation and respect for the entire history of Christian missionary work across Africa, including reducing African languages to writing and then translating and publishing the NT in those languages and organizing schools reflecting western patterns, including Africa University. Yet our current situation is the result of planting Methodism in Africa with a polity based in and adaptive to our American roots, and then asking the African delegates to vote on polity changes that are primarily sensitive to changes in American culture. It would take a great leap of faith and imagination for African delegates to vote to remove the exclusionary language of "incompatibility" from our Discipline while retaining it in their Central Conferences. I would hope that they would be more ready and willing to do this if they realized how deeply their 'heteronormative' biases are being 'played' by the Coalition and how deeply racist and manipulative their conservative white male "friends" are in fact. And if they can be challenged to honor the humanness of LGBTQ members of our communion with the grace and graciousness we all deserve. Please let me know if you would be willing to read and comment on the attached document. Otherwise, simply delete this message! Wayne Marshall Jones, MDiv, MA (Psychology) Elder (retired), WNCCUMC

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8/26/18@aol.com, ProgressingSpirit: Sandlin: True Blue Miracle?; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 26 Jul '18

26 Jul '18

True Blue Miracle? Column by Rev. Mark Sandlin July 26, 2018 I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that reports of bonafide miracles seem to have gone the way of dinosaurs about the time cameras came along – maybe doubly true since video cameras were invented. (Of course, during the early days of Photoshop we did see a bit of a revival.) I mean to the thinking person in an age of science, miracles like the ones we read about in the Bible are just a difficult concept to buy into. It only takes a quick Google search to find an expert debunking what someone has claimed to be a true miracle. As a matter of fact, it’s easier than that. Netflix currently has a show entitled, “Derren Brown: Miracle.” The thing is, Mr. Brown is an atheist, mentalist, illusionist, pop philosopher, and debunker of scam artists and mediums. Throughout the show he presents “miracles” that look very much like those one might find at a tent revival or from certain televangelists. He’s remarkably skilled at replicating the miracles. Possibly the most intriguing section of the show is the faith healing that takes place. Brown fully takes on the persona of a faith healer, shouting, “We give you the glory, we give you the praise,” and “Hallelujah.” And he proceeds to heal people of what ails them – from vision problems to back problems. For good measure, he even tosses in a palm to the person’s forehead and folks falling over backwards just like you’ve problably seen on TV. The thing is he thinks the whole thing is a bunch of hooey. Throughout the show, he talks about how we are constantly telling ourselves stories. Those stories, he says, impact what we can and cannot do. The full reality behind his miracle healings is, of course, much more complicated than that, including heightening a person’s adrenaline as well as a few other tricks. But, the thing that struck me the most was the demonstration of how powerful the stories are that we tell ourselves. Bishop Spong’s latest book, Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today is put together in a series of theses. Thesis 5 is on miracles. He opens the section saying, “In a post-Newtonian world, supernatural invasions of the natural order, performed by God or an ‘incarnate Jesus,’ are simply not viable explanations of what actually happened. Miracles do not ever imply magic.” Considering that a typical Christian would probably tell you that the Bible is chock-full of miracle stories and would associate some degree of magic with them, what do we do with Spong’s statement? Well, let’s start with the reality that the Bible isn’t actually filled to the brim with miracle stories. As Spong points out, the miracle stories are mostly limited to three sets of people throughout the Christian Bible. The first two sets are in the Hebrew Bible, Moses and his successor Joshua, and Elijah and his protege Elisha. Pre-Moses/Joshua? Not so many miracles. Post-Elijah/Elisha? Nope. Which brings us to the Christian Bible and the miracles that we are most familiar with, those performed by Jesus and then his successors, the disciples. What is important to note here is that these are some of the pillars of our faith. These folks are meant to be understood as larger than life. Not only that, the recording of their lives only happened after being passed down verbally for quite some time. Even though the Gospels come first in the New Testament, they are not the first recordings of Jesus. As a matter of fact, most of the places where Jesus is referenced in the rest of the New Testament actually predate the Gospels. An intriguing reality is that they just don’t mention Jesus doing miracles. It’s a bit odd, don’t you think? I mean, if the person you are forming your religion around is capable of performing actual miracles, don’t you think you’d probably want to mention it from time to time? Obviously, if you look to modern Christians who believe that Jesus performed miracles, the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” But, our earliest recordings of Jesus simply do not. They definitely seem to be late additions to the stories of Jesus. Even more curious is that the miracles that were ultimately credited to Jesus are remarkably similar to those of Elijah and Elisha, and the miracles of Elijah and Elisha are remarkably similar to and build on those of Moses and Joseph. So, what is going on here? As Spong points out, it’s important to understand that in the Jewish tradition these miracles were meant to be understood as “expressing the reality of [an] invasive, supernatural power designed to meet human needs.” They “were never intended to be supernatural stories of divine power operating through a human life.” He goes on to say, “Perhaps we have been defending an idea that even the biblical authors never intended.” As Derren Brown tells us, the stories we tell ourselves are powerful. It stands to reason then that stories as important to us as biblical stories are all the more powerful. For that matter the stories of the largest heroes are probably particularly important. Important enough to tell them in a way that clearly communicates how much larger than life they were. Important enough to even add symbolic meaning to them to ensure we don’t underestimate their importance in our religious heritage. I find Spong’s conclusion to this section of his final book particularly strong and would like to include it fully in his words, “After centuries of laboring to understand stories that made no sense to us, we now discover that the problem was that we did not know how to read those stories. With this insight, our ability to chart a new reformation has passed another huge obstacle!” He goes on to remind us that, “The miracles were interpretive signs.” So, there’s no such thing as miracles? Let me share an answer from one of the wise women in my congregation. We have a feedback time after my messages and on a recent Sunday she spoke of the miracle of the rescue in the Thai cave. She talked about being amazed at the sheer number of people that had to come together to make that rescue happen. For her, that was the miracle – the coming together of so many communities with a focus on rescuing those boys. Frankly, I’m with Albert Einstein on this one, “There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” I tend to lean toward the “everything” on this one. After all, everything we experience is part of our story and stories are powerful things. ~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on “The Huffington Post,” “Sojourners,” “Time,” “Church World Services,” and even the “Richard Dawkins Foundation.” He’s been featured on PBS’s “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and NPR’s “The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin Question & Answer Q: By Brandon I came across a video of Bishop Spong saying he doesn't believe in hell. He believes in some kind of life after death, but it doesn't have a thing to do with reward and punishment. The indoctrination of Heaven/Hell has been around as far back as the creation of Zoroastrianism, maybe further. It's all through the bible, whether you pay attention to Hell being mistranslated as Sheol/Hades/Tartarus or Gehenna. Or if you find only that those who won't spend eternity in heaven will only be completely erased from existence. To me, this paints God as either an Ogre that was willing to sacrifice his own son in coercion for your belief in them, or as an infinite being who would give up on you after a single lifetime. I want to ask you, what do you believe will happen in the afterlife? Are we as the human race going to be okay? Should I worry about what's going to happen to me after death? My girlfriend who believes in God but struggles with what to believe in exactly, is she going to be okay? I’m terrified right now, and as one of the very few looking past religious Dogma, I need your help, or at least some insight into what I should be doing, praying for, anything. A: By Rev. Irene Monroe Dear Brandon, Various religious and folkloric traditions speak of an afterlife. One belief in the afterlife refers to an individual’s soul or spirit living beyond the life of their physical body. It is the belief that one’s moral choices and actions in life can result in their soul residing -based on divine judgement - in a place of reward or punishment, known as Heaven or Hell respectively, in Christianity. A soul like Socrates, however, lives in an eternal destiny of Limbo. Because Socrates was born before Christianity, he’s deprived of the purported benefits of Christianity, like the salvific advantages of having faith in Christ. And, according to Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” a soul can reside in Purgatory, a temporal punishment for sin, representing the penitent Christian life. You’re correct in stating that Spong doesn’t believe in Hell. In the chapter “Life After Death-Still Believable?” in his new book Unbelievable Spong lays out a cogent argument about the inutility of the concept. “I have no use for life after death as a tool or method of behavior control. …The one thing which we are certain, even as we begin this quest, is that the liberalized post-death images of our religious past cannot be resurrected. There is no hell, no heaven, no limbo, no purgatory, no lake of fire, no milk or honey. Those concepts no longer mark our lives.” Spong understands that many religions create theologies with elaborate and fictive narratives of reward and punishment systems as a form of social control, like the human-made Christian concept of Heaven and Hell. Like Spong, I don’t think after death one is likely to go to Heaven or Hell in an afterlife. I do, however, believe in a living hell created by crushing setbacks, grinding poverty, racial, gender, sexual discrimination, and religious profiling (to name a few), that many Americans, like myself, confront and navigate daily. I also concur with Karen Armstrong, a prolific British religion writer and former Catholic nun, that beliefs of an afterlife can distract attention from and to important issues. For me, the belief in an afterlife can create complacency and/or indifference to present social justice issues and crimes against humanity like the Holocaust, American slavery, lynching, and the immigration crisis presently at the U.S. - Mexico border. In the case of enslaved Africans, the belief in an afterlife was passed on to my ancestors as an intentionally Christian theological concept as a form of social control to maintain the status quo of perpetual servitude. The indoctrination of an overjoyed and jubilant afterlife wasn’t to make them better Christian but instead obedient, subservient and God-fearing slaves. For African American slaves, however, the belief in an afterlife was a coded critique of an unfulfilled life denying them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this life. The belief in an afterlife functioned as an eschatological hope and aspiration that their future progenies would indeed have a fulfilled life that they could only supposedly experience in death. There is a plethora of material supposedly proving the afterlife, like the New York Times bestseller “Proof of Heaven” by Harvard-trained neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, MD. I feel, however, the concept- real or imagined- can potentially deprive you of living fully present in this life - missing small miracles, random acts of kindness, and the beauty of a sunrise and sunset in a single day. ~ Rev. Irene Monroe Click here to read and share online About the Author The Reverend Monroe is an ordained minister. She does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), a Boston member station of National Public Radio (NPR), that is now a podcast, and a weekly Friday commentator on New England Channel NEWS (NECN). Monroe is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women Abolitionists (Boston) - Detour Monroe’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in cities across the country and in the U.K, Ireland, Canada. Monroe writes a column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and Opinion pieces for the Boston Globe. Monroe stated that her "columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As an religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other ” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism.” Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College's research library on the history of women in America. Click here to visit her website. Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Bias Against Women in the Judeo-Christian Tradition Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November 23, 2005 Last week I began an exploration of the origins of that incessant religious negativity toward women. I located its deepest root in the evolutionary process where survival becomes the ultimate self-conscious value that dominates the human psyche. I suggested that part of this survival process involved the definition of the stronger and faster male as superior to the smaller and slower female. It was a definition based on observable biology since women, especially in the last stages of pregnancy and the period of child nursing, had to be dependent. So the primitive tribe organized its life around this observable reality. Since it was not part of the defined role of the woman to think, education for women was not encouraged, which helped to develop the image of the woman as a less intelligent creature who should not be allowed to participate in the decision making processes of the tribe. The woman’s role, in the tribe’s quest for survival, was to be the supporter of the males who protected them. That God created her only for breeding and the ancillary domestic roles became an ingrained idea. In time sacred stories were composed to demonstrate that these realities were in accordance with the will of God, making it inappropriate for any human being to seek to change them. When feminist rebellion against this stereotype finally arose it was perceived to be a rebellion against God. That is what set the stage for most religious systems to be not just anti-female but to be specifically against any attempt to assert woman’s equality. To continue this analysis, I now seek to look at how this bias found expression in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Bible begins with two contradictory accounts of creation. The opening story of the six-day creation is actually the younger, written in the 6th century BCE while the Jews were in exile in Babylon. In this account human life is made as the final act on the sixth day before God’s Sabbath of rest began. Its primary purpose was to establish for the Jews, the custom and authority of the Sabbath, which was one of the barriers erected to avoid amalgamation with the Babylonians. The second and much older creation story by some 300 years is in Genesis 2:4 – 3:24. It features Adam, Eve and the Garden of Eden. The major reason this became the primary creation story in Christian history was that Paul quoted it, making it part of the tradition that was destined to become the dominant religious system in the Western world. It behooves us, therefore to look at this account in detail in order to discern in it the tap root for Western Christian patriarchy and sexism. It is surprising how few of us really know the details. In this account, God created first the heavens and the earth. God also created separately every plant and herb before God put them into the earth since that was not yet possible because, as the text says, it had not rained and there was no man to “till the ground.” However, God remedied that problem by causing a mist to rise from the earth, enabling God to create the first man out of the dust of the earth now made pliable by the mist. The picture in this text is not unlike that of a child making a mud pie. When the man was fully formed, he was still inert but God came down upon that creature in an act of divine mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, breathing into the nostrils of this lifeless form the very breath of God. Since God’s breath, according to this story was the source of life; this was the moment in which the man became “a living soul.” Next God fashioned a garden in a place called Eden into which God placed this newly formed man. Out of the now moist ground, God then made trees to grow. Some were pleasant to look at. Others produced food to eat. God also placed into the midst of the garden two mysterious trees: one was the Tree of Life; the other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Four rivers watered the garden, two of which were named the Tigris and the Euphrates, which means that the writers located the Garden of Eden somewhere in present day Iraq. The garden also had within it both gold and onyx. It is not clear why the man needed either gold or onyx but whoever wrote this story knew that gold and onyx were valuable so felt that both must be present in the Garden of Eden. This being done, God placed the man in the garden to till and care for it with permission to eat of the fruit of every tree save one. On pain of death, the man was not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That, this story asserts, is how human life began. It was very male at its origin, However, the story continues, God perceived that the man was lonely. Perhaps the man complained about that with great frequency, so God decided to “make him a helper fit for him.” God then inaugurated an almost hilarious process of trial and error seeking to fashion a proper friend for the man. No matter how many creatures God made, none appeared to satisfy the man’s yearning for a friend. One gets the sense that God became frustrated with the divine inability to satisfy the man’s wishes. That explains, according to the author of this story, why there is among the animals and birds so much variety. Some creatures were big like elephants. Some were small like cats and rabbits. Some had straight tails, others had curly tails, and still others had no tails. No matter how many varieties of beast and bird God fashioned, none satisfied the man. Adam, demonstrating the human claim to dominance, defined each creature by naming it, but among them all, the Bible asserts, was not found “a helper fit” for the man. This primitive and obviously imperfect God must have said something like: “Adam, you are very hard to please!” To which Adam must have responded: “But, God, how can I describe what I want if I have never seen it?” So, the story says, God reverted to another plan. This time, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, probably using an anesthesia that would not be discovered for thousands of years. With Adam thus out of it, God opened his chest, removed a rib and then closed the patient up. What kinds of sutures were used was not disclosed. With that rib, God fashioned the woman. As one feminist biblical scholar observed, “it was childbirth as only a male who had never had a baby could have imagined it!” God stood this newly formed woman before Adam displaying all of her charm and feminine pulchritude, while gently bringing Adam out of his deep sleep. One gets the impression that Adam’s eyes bulged out of his sockets as if on coiled springs at his first viewing. The King James Bible records Adam as having said, “This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.” It is a rather calm translation for what was in Hebrew a slang expression. It might have been more accurately rendered, “Hot diggety, Lord, you finally did it.” The Bible closes this ancient story by saying that the man named the woman Eve demonstrating male authority over the woman and accepted the divinely appointed destiny to grow up to the point where he will leave his parents and cling to his wife. In the King James English, the woman was designed by God primarily to serve the man, to meet his needs. Unlike the man, the woman was not thought to have been made in God’s image. She was higher than the animals but always meant to be subject to the authority of the lordly male. That is the oldest and most influential definition of a woman in the Bible. Because she existed for the man’s pleasure, she soon came to be thought of as his property. Polygamy in the Bible was justified on this basis. A man could have as many wives as he could afford. Harems were nothing but a sign of wealth. Even the Ten Commandments carried with them this degrading definition of women as property. The 10th Commandment ordered the people not to covet their “neighbor’s wife (Ex. 20:17).” Note there is no injunction in any book of the Bible against anyone coveting a neighbor’s husband! That appears to be proper; one just cannot covet another’s wife. Husbands were not property, but wives were and this commandment was about property rights. The neighbor, who is clearly a male, has his property listed in order of its perceived value: his house, his wife, his slaves, his ox, his ass and his other possessions. One wonders if those who want to put the Ten Commandments in our courtrooms realize that, literally interpreted, 50% of the human race would become the property of the other 50%. Religious emotion covers up so many facts of history. The same definition of women as property is reflected in the 7th Commandment against adultery. People need to realize that the style of marriage present when the prohibition against adultery was promulgated was polygamy. A man could have as many wives as he could afford. Some 300 years after Moses was said to have received the Commandments on Mt. Sinai, King Solomon had one thousand wives. What does adultery mean when one man owns a thousand women? If with a thousand wives you still have some need to commit adultery, you do have a problem! I suspect it is not even a moral problem. When one couples this with the fact that a sexual liaison with an unmarried woman was not considered adultery but rather a crime against the property of that woman’s father, the operative biblical definition of a woman becomes clear. Her journey out of this biblically imposed definition was destined to take centuries. The echoes of this “God imposed” prejudice still are heard in Christian churches in the 21st century. Those churches that still refuse to allow women to become priests and bishops do so, they say, because a woman cannot represent God before the altar. The woman is defective in that she is not created in the image of God. Other churches will not allow women to become senior pastors since the Bible, they say, forbids a woman from having authority over a man. How long, one wonders will a new generation of women tolerate this sexist ignorance? When will some appropriate person say: “What the church calls a ‘sacred tradition’ is nothing more than a lingering prejudice that no living institution in the 21st century can continue to tolerate. Where do we go from here? Stay tuned. ~ John Shelby Spong Announcements Walking on Sacred Earth Online eCourse August 6th - 31st, 2018 “Walking on Sacred Earth” provides guided opportunities for deepening our intimacy with the natural world. When we see all of life as sacred, we also experience ourselves as part of the web of life in relationship with all beings. We are encouraged to establish a respectful connection with the Earth community so that we can move into a just and sustainable way of being on the planet. This is the goal of the movement known as eco-spirituality. Click here for more information/registration. Copyright © 2018 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved.

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Completed life of James Moffett
by Timothy Wegner 24 Jul '18

24 Jul '18

>From Mary Laura Jones : ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Dear Colleagues, James Moffett, son of Mary Warren and Don Moffett died on July 9 in New York City. Jim owned and was the proprietor of the Great Jones Cafe for 20 years. He was dearly loved by family, co-workers, guests and friends. Jim was born in 1968 in Bryn Mawr, PA. He graduated from New Trier HS in Winnetka and spent two years at Boarding School near Munich, Germany. Jim attended Pomona College in Claremont, California. He worked on Wall Street for 25 years before purchasing the Great Jones Cafe. Jim is survived by his mother, Mary Warren, his brother D.W. Moffett (Crystal), his niece Lilly, his nephew, Harry and his cousins, Dan (Parry) and Steve (Beth) Slattery. A service will be held in Siasconset, MA on Nantucket Island on July 25. His remains will be interred in the Columbarium at 'Sconset Union Chapel. Cards and memorials may be sent to Mrs. Mary Warren Moffett The Admiral at the Lake 929 W. Foster Avenue - Apartment 1115 <https://maps.google.com/?q=929+W.+Foster+Avenue+-+Apartment+1115+%C2%A0+%C2…> Chicago, IL 60649 <https://maps.google.com/?q=929+W.+Foster+Avenue+-+Apartment+1115+%C2%A0+%C2…> Mary Laura Jones Grants Resource Development Consultant 1454 W. Fargo Avenue <https://maps.google.com/?q=1454+W.+Fargo+Avenue+%0D%0A+Chicago,+IL+60626&en…> Chicago, IL 60626 <https://maps.google.com/?q=1454+W.+Fargo+Avenue+%0D%0A+Chicago,+IL+60626&en…> cell: 773 636-2022 mljones2022(a)gmail.com

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Transformational Strategy: Facilitation of Top Participatory... Bill Staples
by George Holcombe 23 Jul '18

23 Jul '18

Got a notice in my email today from Amazon with Staples' book at the top of the list. I’m way behind the curve. 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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7/19/18, Progressing Spirit: Irene Monroe: Building a “beloved community” is an act of radical inclusion - Part 2; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 19 Jul '18

19 Jul '18

View this email in your browser Building a “beloved community” is an act of radical inclusion - Part 2 Column by Rev. Irene Monroe July 19, 2018 A pall hangs over many Americans since Trump has taken office. One sign of this dark cloud has been an uptick in dystopian novels. Classics like George Orwell’s “1984”, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” Sinclair Lewis’s “It Can’t Happen Here,” and my favorite, Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale,” a drama web television hit on “Hulu” are now all horrifyingly prescient. Our devouring of these tomes is a search for answers to potentially a frightening new normal. While I am nervous where we are in 2018 after an Obama presidency, I am also reminded, however, of MLK and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. My looking back at that era gives me hope to look forward beyond this moment. Martin Luther King, Jr. articulated his dream of wanting every town and city throughout the world “Building the Beloved Community.” The King Center explains the concept: “In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger, and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood.” During the time of King’s dream of “Building the Beloved Community” Southern states had long systematized a peculiar brand of justice with its “separate but equal” laws that allowed for separate drinking fountains, restrooms, restaurants, hotels, to name a few. The South during the civil rights movement was a place where the entire country could watch African Americans being subdued by blazing-water hoses or being charged by aggressive German shepherds on national television. And at night, when no one was watching, the Ku Klux Klan rode through black neighborhoods to burn their property and/or them, brandishing fire and terror as symbols of white supremacy. However, racism did not just situate itself unabashedly in the South; it, also, tainted life in the North for African Americans, albeit differently and less visible. And, although segregationist practices directly violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the federal government exerted little to no effort to enforce these amendments -- in either North or South. For example, Cambridge is my community, but it falls short of King’s dream. Cambridge, proudly dubbed as “The People’s Republic of Cambridge,” is ranked as one of the most liberal cities in America. And with two of the country’s premier institutions of higher learning -- Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- that draw students and scholars from around the world, Cambridge’s showcase of diversity and multiculturalism rivals that of the UN. Cambridge is no doubt a progressive city. However, when you scratch below Cambridge’s surface, there is also liberal racism that is as intolerant as Southern racism. Just like Southern racism that keeps blacks in their place, liberal racism does, too. For example, Cambridge’s liberal ruling class maintains its racial boundaries not by designated “colored” water fountains, toilets or restaurants, but rather by its zip codes; major street intersections known as squares, like the renowned Harvard Square; and residential border areas that are designated numbers, like Area 4 (now known as the Port) -which was a predominantly black poor and working-class enclave - that is now gentrified by the biotechnology and pharmaceutical boom. Cambridge’s liberal ruling elite exploit these tensions by their claims not to see race until, of course, an unknown black man appears in their neighborhood. Segregation in this city is not only along racial lines but class, too. With Cambridge’s tony enclaves sprinkled with homes at starting prices over a half million dollars, Cambridge has become a city that is predominately white and upper class. Poor working-class whites and white immigrants do not experience the fullness their white skin privilege would abundantly afford them if they too were part of Cambridge’s professional and/or monied class. As Christians, we have to be careful not use scripture to tear us away from building MLK’s concept of the “beloved community.” For example, Christians like U. S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions like to smugly recite biblical scripture to promulgate their self-righteous acts of discrimination. In defending Trump’s indefensible policy of separating children from their families - even a child while being breastfed - Sessions cited a passage from Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans: “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” Sessions said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.” While clearly, Sessions is no biblical scholar evident in his bastardization of Paul’s message, Sessions knows Romans 13 is nonetheless used as an edit to obey authority. The scripture has been used as a text of terror by miscreant thugs in power throughout history: slave owners, Nazi sympathizers, apartheid-enforcers, supporters of Japanese-American internment and loyalists opposed to the American Revolution, to name a few. Christians like Sessions are now trying to apply Romans 13 to present-day issues like abortion, taxes and same-sex marriage. If Apostle Paul were alive today I know he would be apoplectic with rage by how Sessions used his sacred text. Apostle Paul was about building a beloved community, evident in his writing in Ephesians 2: 15, 19-22. The text talks about the ongoing struggle for human acceptance at a difficult time along the human timeline for the Ephesians. The Ephesians were a people of various backgrounds and nationalities. The two largest and warring ethnic groups in this city were the Jews and Gentiles. The temple the Jews and Gentiles attended was a divided place of worship. The inner court of the temple was only opened for the Jews while the outer court was where Gentile visitors were admitted. The wall of partition in the temple symbolized the temple’s system of segregation. When Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians, “Jesus abolished the Law with its commandments and rules, to create out of two races one new people in union with himself," Paul is referring to Jesus lifting the legal restrictions that maintained a system of segregation and perpetuated a state of hostility between Jews and Gentiles. When Paul later pens in this epistle “you Gentiles are not foreigners or strangers any longer” the Gentiles no longer had temporary or limited rights in the community. Gentiles were now allowed every privileged and status the Jews had, like being known as the people of God, and being accepted into the family of God. There was no longer a group of people who were insiders and outsiders, no system of “separate but equal." The belief was if anyone comes into this temple, no group of people is better than another. In breaking down the wall of partition that existed in the Temple, Paul had not only broken down the hostility between the Jews and Gentiles, but had reconciled both groups to God as one body known as the church. Walls of partition have always existed in our churches. They are never erected as part of the actual physical blueprint of the church, but the walls are built as the result of our spiritual brokenness within the body of Christ. In this present administration, we hear a lot from our president about building “The Wall” and making "Mexico pay for it." We shake our heads in absolute disbelief. But we build walls in our community, too, and we have and are paying the price of it. For example, I went to see a play recently titled “Allegiance. ” “Allegiance” is both a play and a history lesson of the forcible incarceration of 120,000 Japanese-Americans in 10 U.S. internment camps during World War II, and it is a cautionary warning about today. The play is inspired by the true childhood experience of the brilliant and renown George Takei. If you’re a Baby Boomer, you may know Takei as Hikaru Sulu, the chief helmsman of the Starship Enterprise. Today we know Takei as one of the country’s leading LGBTQ activists, especially in the fight for marriage equality. What many of us are now learning about Takei is his childhood memories of being incarcerated in the Japanese internment camps - another shameful time in American history. "I was 5 years old at the beginning of our internment in Arkansas. I remember every school morning reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, my eyes upon the stars and stripes of the flag, but at the same time I could see from the window the barbed wire and the sentry towers where guards kept guns trained on us,” Takei wrote in a New York Times op-ed “Internment, America’s Great Mistake.” “Allegiance” is also about the love of family and country, and the deleterious effects racial profiling has on innocent Americans. The play takes you into the harsh day-to-day life of the fictional Kimura family in the internment camps. It reveals some of the daily indignities many Japanese-American families endured - no private bathrooms, housed in horse stables, and if lucky, housed in barracks - in uninhabitable swamplands like Rohwer, AR, and Tule Lake, CA. Sadly, loyalty to the country for Japanese-American males rested solely on their responses to questions on the “Application for Leave Clearance” form that registered all male citizens of draft age. It was also used for volunteers to serve in an all Japanese-American combat team, which is an essential plot in the play. Their responses - young and old - on the form would seal their family’s fate in the internment camps. And, these two highly divisive questions were designed to achieve this goal: Question 27: Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered? Question 28: Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attacks by foreign and domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or disobedience to the Japanese Emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization? A “no-no” response to the questions, as the patriarch of Kimura family gave, sent him to one of the harsher and high-security internment camps, which happened to Takei’s family, too. Because topics of race in this country too often is talked about in “black and white" terms, the history of discrimination against other minority groups gets overlooked. Case in point, the Japanese-American internment is not talked about and not often taught, if at all, in American history books. "Allegiance" is both courageous and dangerous: it speaks truth to power in this xenophobic-stricken political times of building walls, closing borders and banning immigrants of color from “shithole” countries. Watching the play one can easily see how President Trump’s Executive Order 13769, titled "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, "referred to as the “Muslim Ban” is eerily reminiscent of FDR’s 1942 Executive Order 9066. The Order 9006 authorized the immediate incarceration of Japanese-Americans following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. President Trump’s proclivity for racist remarks comes as no surprise with his comment about building a wall along the U.S.- Mexico border, but I advise Trump read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in order to “Make America Great Again.” One wall that Paul tore down was bigotry toward Christians. And in so doing, he was then able to build up his ministry to the Gentiles; and, therefore, build a better church. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians emphasizes the inclusivity of the church as the body of Christ. These letters to the Ephesians are the earliest evidence of the missionary expansion of Christianity because they were circular letters. As circular letters, they were never intended just for one church and its problems, but they were expected to circulate from church to church in the region. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians speaks to us who as Christians must carry on the work of building up the body of Christ by tearing down the existing walls of partition in our churches, communities or anywhere in the world. They remind us that the Christian life is not static but instead requires constant growth. In Paul removing the wall of partition between the Jews and Gentiles in their place of worship, he extends that act to us all by inviting us in communion with one another, so we are not foreigners or strangers any longer. MLK shared his dream of the beloved community. Paul showed us how to build a beloved community. Where does your community measure up? ~ Rev. Irene Monroe Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author The Reverend Monroe is an ordained minister. She does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), a Boston member station of National Public Radio (NPR), that is now a podcast, and a weekly Friday commentator on New England Channel NEWS (NECN). Monroe is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women Abolitionists (Boston) – Detour Monroe’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in cities across the country and in the U.K, Ireland, Canada. Monroe writes a column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and Opinion pieces for the Boston Globe. Monroe stated that her “columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As an religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other ” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism.” Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s research library on the history of women in America. Click here to visit her website. Question & Answer Q: By John What are your thoughts about where progressive Christianity is going from here? In some groups I find it barely different than other evangelical sects, and other expressions seem to feel completely new-age without hardly a remnant of Christianity. A: By Eric Alexander Dear John, I very much understand that perspective. Over the past decade I have seen progressive Christianity trend from a more academically advanced group of people, toward a much broader type of “Evangelical Lite,” where the core tenets are to lean Democrat, sympathize with gay rights, and reject the idea of an eternal hell. And while that is all good stuff, if one suggests something like the physical resurrection of Jesus as being non-historical, some still struggle with that and want that person to leave Christianity all together. As progressive Christianity has absorbed the Emergent label it has inherited even more of a tension between those two macro factions. Mainly, those who still see Jesus as ontologically unique in divinity in comparison to every other human ever to live, and those who don’t. Those who lean very progressive sometimes feel pushed out and unwelcome within this big tent they founded as their sanctuary from closed-mindedness. And some of those who are less progressive want to draw lines within that sanctuary and ensure that other progressives don’t dismantle Christianity to a point that is uncomfortable to them. I think that path of evolution will continue to take its course. Only time will tell whether progressive Christianity trends toward a huge tent that caters broadly to most left-leaning Jesus followers. Or whether progressive Christianity stays closer to its roots as a theologically progressive leading-edge that champions truth and integrity wherever it may lead. My bet is that the big tent model will prevail, and those who originally labeled as progressive Christians will become more uncomfortable in the growing tent. My hope however is as the new breed of progressives come into the fold they become humbled enough to learn from the veterans who have spent years studying and wrestling with this stuff. And likewise, I hope that those veterans can still see value in the passion that those newer progressive Christians express within their still-somewhat-creedal faith. ~ Eric Alexander Click here to read and share online About the Author Eric Alexander is an author, speaker, and activist. He is a board member at ProgressiveChristianity.org, and is the founder of Jesism, Christian Evolution, and the Progressive Christianity and Politics group on Facebook. Eric holds a Master of Theology from Saint Leo University and studied negotiations at Harvard Law School, and authored the popular children’s emotional health book Teaching Kids Life IS Good. Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Women: Religion's Traditional Victims Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November 15, 2005 Have you ever noticed that organized religion has historically been a major force in the oppression of women? Have you ever wondered why? The battle over abortion being waged in America today, with the support of both the Vatican and the religious right is simply the latest chapter in this perennial war. Since ‘religion’ is assumed by many to be something that is basically good, its negativity toward women is thought of as proper and justified. So the irrationality of sexism is first hard for some to understand and second even harder to banish. So let me begin by establishing the reality of the sexist hostility that permeates religious traditions. Throughout the world, a quick survey will reveal that the more religiously oriented a nation is, the lower the status of women is in that country. In Europe one can document a direct correlation between those countries where people still largely honor and even worship the Virgin Mary and the entrenched second-class status of women in those nations. In most religious systems women are regarded either as less than complete or as actually flawed human beings. In the United States, during the struggle in the early part of the 20th century to amend the constitution to enable women to vote, the primary opposition came from the Christian Church, with the suffrage movement being condemned regularly from most Christian pulpits. The later defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982 was brought about by the combination of religious forces together with a right wing Republican administration. It is worth noting that the impetus toward equality for women in the Christian West did not begin in earnest until secularism’s rise signaled the decline of religious power. In the Islamic Middle-East the impact of Shariah law on women reflects the same pious hostility by stripping basic human rights from women. Shariah law says that girls can be married at the onset of puberty and that a man may divorce one of his multiple wives by simply saying: “I divorce you,” in the presence of two male witnesses. The Taliban in Afghanistan acted out these laws with a terrifying severity producing a “Catch 22” situation for women in that women could not become doctors and no male doctor was allowed to treat Islamic women. In China, where the principal religions were Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, binding the feet of girls and women developed in response to cultural pressure informed by religious rules. This practice kept women weak, out of power and under male domination. In India, a land shaped primarily by Hinduism the religious custom for centuries called for the widow to throw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre, since the loss of a husband was deemed to be tantamount to a proclamation of the surviving widow’s worthlessness. How did this universal human negativity toward women develop? Why was it endorsed and thus blessed by almost every human religious system the world over? What is there about women in general and women’s bodies in particular that appears to be so threatening to males that they have to employ religion to help in the process of female suppression? These are the questions I would like to raise and address. I begin this quest by looking for clues in our human origins. Human life has been on this planet for no more than two million years and no fewer than one hundred thousand years, depending on how one defines human life. I tend to lean toward the more recent number since full humanity to me requires a brain sufficiently developed to become both self-conscious and self-aware, including the ability to live in the medium of time, which allows us to remember the past and to anticipate the future. It also involves the ability to think abstractly so that sounds can be turned into symbols called words, which in turn enables language to develop. However, there is a huge emotional price that self-conscious, self-aware, time-oriented abstract thinking human beings must pay for these evolutionary advances. That price involves living with chronic unabated anxiety, having to anticipate our own deaths and thus to be forced to wage an unending, but always losing, battle for our own survival. It takes enormous courage to be human and our constant fears force us to seek security in a variety of ways. Our first response is to become deeply tribal in our thinking, since tribal membership gives us a better chance at survival than we have as individuals. The tribe then defines what is needed for survival and forces those definitions on the people. Assigned roles for both men and women are part of that. Tribal religion is always the enforcer of these behavior patterns since it teaches the people to accept our assigned places in this tribal pecking order. That order, we are told, was set, by God. God chose the tribal chief to be God’s earthly ruler. The Divine Right of Kings was born here. In our hard-wired tribal mentality, we learned to fear and to hate those who were strangers with whom we were destined to come into contact periodically. An alien would be outside our organized structures and thus a threat to our tribe. That fear still feeds our xenophobia and our irrational prejudice against those who are different by race, language or physical characteristics. This same value of tribal survival also compelled our ancestors to define women biologically and to reduce them almost universally to a second-class status. Women were clearly recognized as the bearers of life and as those whose lactating skills insured the life of the tribe’s progeny. Those were essential functions for tribal survival but they were not valued in the same way as were strength and speed, which were the male values that assured survival in warfare and success in the hunt. Women, particularly when pregnant or nursing, were liabilities in this survival struggle. Since they needed to be protected and defended, they came to be thought of as childlike, helpless and dependent. So women were taught from the very dawn of civilization that their role had been defined, handed down and circumscribed by God, who made them the way they were. As dependent, second-class creatures their need to be educated was minimized and that in turn caused them in time to be viewed as incapable of learning. A women’s potential was thus effectively muted. The clear law of nature said that women were divinely fashioned to serve the needs of the male for support, sexual pleasure, comfort and the flattery of ego fulfillment. The male was obviously meant to be the dominant member of the species. Tribal religion enforced these survival patterns and explained them in mythological language. The sun was thought of as a symbol of the male deity who lived beyond the sky and who ruled the day. The moon became the symbol of women, smaller, less illuminating, dark and even seductive. The sky, as the abode of the male God brought forth powerful male-like things: thunder, lightening, wind and rain. The earth was seen as passive and feminine. It absorbed the fury of the sky god, received the falling rain that came to be thought of as divine semen sent to impregnate mother earth, causing her to bring forth life. Since the woman was defined as subhuman, it is easy to see how polygamy developed. Powerful men laid claim to many wives. Harems were a fact of life. The woman’s destiny was to go from being subservient to her father to being subservient to her husband. She had few rights. It was her duty to obey the dominant male in her life. Her body belonged to her husband whenever he desired it. In most ancient cultures, the husband had the right to punish his wife even to the point of death. She had no right of appeal since nothing he did to her was a crime. It was inevitable that women, who are also driven by the ultimate human battle for survival, would develop survival skills of their own. They would take the only asset that they possessed that seemed to have value, namely the allure of their bodies and use it to gain some control over their lives. They would flirt, tease, seduce, withdraw, taunt until they achieved power. Since women were relegated to managing the hearth, they developed the intuitive skills required to allow them to live in close interdependent communities, while the males developed the individualistic skills that enabled them to be successful in their quest for food or victory. The stereotypes that still underlie our sexist prejudices were born in this primitive context. The stronger male almost inevitably translated different as inferior and complementary as unequal. To make it even more difficult to escape these survival-imposed definitions, tribal religion almost universally asserted that these patterns were God-given, God-imposed and God-ordered. To question them, to undermine them in any way, to rebel against them was to oppose God and all that was holy. Sexism thus came to be thought of as ‘the will of God.’ This is why the feminist revolution is today so viscerally opposed by both the Vatican and right wing religious leaders. This is why Pat Robinson can say on the 700 Club: “The feminist agenda is a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” That is why religion has always been a foe of the female struggle for equality. That is why even today, that male-dominated institution we call the Church believes that its leaders have a right to sit in all male circles, wearing the frocks of their religious profession and to pronounce, in the name of a God called Father, what a woman can do with her own body. This is also why organized religion is so viscerally opposed to homosexuality, leading as it does to persecutions, purgings and constitutional amendments. The religious definition of a male homosexual is that he, though a man, condescends to act like a woman. Sexism is a very complex mixed bag of irrational and emotional elements. However, that is where the religious negativity toward women originates. We must embrace this insight first before we can move on to others. ~ John Shelby Spong Announcements The Eckhart at Erfurt Retreat June 16 - 21, 2019 join Matthew Fox and Others for a UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY to study the great medieval mystic MEISTER ECKHART in Erfurt, Germany in the very rooms where he lived and taught and prayed as a Dominican! Our week will consist of body prayer in the mornings followed by teachings and discussions on Eckhart by Matthew Fox; and art as meditation classes in the afternoons. Participants will choose for art as med either “Moving to Eckhart’s Words” led by dance instructor Meshi Chavez; or “Dreams and Journaling with Eckhart” led by Jungian therapist and author Steve Herrmann. An optional Process Seminar will be offered daily after art as meditation by Claudia Picardi. Register by October 15, 2018 for special retreat price of $1250. Click here for full details...

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