April 2019 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

Short video of Vision of the Green New Deal
by Ellie Stock 18 Apr '19

18 Apr '19

Hi Folks, Thought this 7- minute video on the vision of the Green New Deal was very good. Worth your while to take time to watch it. The world needs to come together to deal with climate change the way it has in the past to address the ozone hole and other global issues. Ellie :)elliestock@aol.com Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Naomi Klein make powerful video no North American should miss

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4/18/91, Progressing Spirit: Matthew Fox: Review of: Science and Spiritual Practices by Rupert Sheldrake; Brian McClaren; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 18 Apr '19

18 Apr '19

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This has always been the case— | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Review of: Science and Spiritual Practices by Rupert Sheldrake | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox April 18, 2019Science and Spirituality need each other. This has always been the case—from Aristotle (who concludes his classic work on Physics with positing an Unmoved Mover) to Aquinas (who fought the fundamentalists of his day about the value of bringing science, namely Aristotle, and the scientific method of his day, namely scholasticism, into the world of faith). With the torture and murder of Giordanno Bruno at the stake in the Jubilee year in Rome in 1600, and with the threats of the Inquisition against Galileo Galilei a decade or two later, there has been a painful rupture between science and religion, psyche and cosmos, in the West for over 400 years. This divorce has been devastating for the Earth and for humanity which is so divided, so violent in its investments in war and weapons and so at war with itself as well as with the Earth. But now something new is afoot. It is primed not only by the deep trouble humanity finds itself in amidst the unprecedented extinction spasm occurring around the planet due to climate change and the rest, but also there is a movement within science away from the arrogance of reductionism and anthropocentrism and probing of deeper questions and explorations into consciousness and mind expansion, intuition, creativity and happiness. Science is beginning to explore these deeper qualities of existence and move beyond self-made boundaries about the quantifiable being the only reality.On religion’s part, in some places at least, there is a movement to put spirituality or experience ahead of structure and dogma and theological righteousness and to reconnect justice—eco, gender, economic, racial, social—with the basic teaching of love and compassion. Also there is an effort to step out of its own narcissism (Pope Francis’ word) in questions like “Am I saved?” “Do I live forever?” and to integrate the search for the truth about nature as the revelatory source that it is. (Aquinas: “Revelation comes in two volumes: Nature and the Bible.”) Creation Spirituality is such a movement within religion and integral to it is a quest for scientific understanding for as Aquinas put it 750 years ago, “a mistake about creation results in a mistake about God.” Or as Hildegard of Bingen put it 100 years previously, “all science comes from God.” Fundamentalists of course are not yet on board with a yearning for scientific truth but maybe there are signs that among the present generation, some of that resistance may melt (along with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica and the glaciers occurring all around the world).If there is a glimmer of hope around religion’s waking up to science (and Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical “Laudato Si” is a solid effort), a book like biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s new book, Science and Spiritual Practices might contribute meaningfully to religion’s wake-up. And science’s. Hopefully both will happen since time is rapidly running out for our species and for the planet as we know it and for countless other species threatened by earth’s demise. (In the interest of transparency I should confess that I am a friend of Rupert Sheldrake and have written two books with him, Natural Grace and The Physics of Angels).Sheldrake’s newest book is a giant step forward. Drawing on his last book, Science Set Free, (which I called in a review “the most important book in the last ten years”[1]) he again challenges scientists to face up to the “hard problem” in the philosophy of mind which is that of consciousness. How can consciousness be strictly “in the brain” as materialistic dogma insists? Materialists, Sheldrake points out in his introduction, “start from the assumption that everything is made of unconscious matter, including human brains.” (p. 16) Then how does consciousness emerge in brains? Even though the practice of religion is in steep decline in Europe “spiritual experiences are surprisingly common, even among those who describe themselves as non-religious.” One study asked British people, “Have you ever experienced a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self?” In 1978 36 % said yes; in 1987, 48%; and in 2000, over 75% said yes. In America, a Gallup poll asked if people had ever had “a religious or mystical experience” and in 1962 22% said yes; in 1994, 33%; in 2009, 49%. (16f) Now some of these statistics may just belie the fact that today spirituality is more easy for people to talk about, but they also demonstrate that, even though religious affiliation is on the decline, spiritual experiences are not. Spiritual practices are happening outside “traditional religious frameworks.” A good example is yoga practices that reach millions in the West. These practices, says Sheldrake, “fill a need that atheism cannot satisfy.” (17)Beginning around the turn of the millennium science began to investigate spiritual practices and their effects on humans. The University of Wisconsin is famous for its hooking Buddhist monks up to scientific gadgets to test what goes on in the brain of a person in meditation. Literally thousands of research studies now exist and what is their general consensus? Sheldrake summarizes the findings this way: “The results generally show that religious and spiritual practices confer benefits that include better physical and mental health, less proneness to depression and greater longevity.” (20). In addition, people lacking the kind of practices he lays out in the book are “unhappier, unhealthier and more depressed. Militant atheism should come with a health warning,” he proposes. (204) Thus, Sheldrake concludes that “the old-fashioned opposition between science and religion is a false dichotomy. Open-minded scientific studies enhance our understanding of spiritual and religious practices.” (20) Two dimensions of this book on spiritual practices particularly stand out to me. First is that Sheldrake is not afraid to speak in the first person, in fact he confesses in his Preface that he has participated himself in all of the practices. It is refreshing to see the “I” word throughout this book. So few scientists seem willing to let go of the objectivity dogma to admit actual participation in life and its deepest searches. Sheldrake is not one of these people. In fact, in his chapter on Pilgrimage he tells a moving story of relating to his godson this way. Instead of giving a birthday object as a gift, he began giving a birthday experience each year, and each year he and his teen age godson would take a pilgrimage together. Great things happened.Second is that Sheldrake, while not ignoring the East (where he lived as a young scientist and began his journey out of atheism and met a mentor in the wonderful Benedictine monk Bede Griffiths), focuses his book primarily on his own tradition, namely western religious practices. Why not? He is a westerner after all and he and his wife Jill Purce (who plays an important role in the chapter on chant and song since she is an important practitioner and teacher of both) are practicing Christians in the Anglican tradition. This is especially important because so many Westerners are so mystically illiterate that they do not have a clue that the West has also developed spiritual practices over the centuries both within its monastic traditions and outside them. One might credit Sheldrake for following Carl Jung’s warning when he said Westerners should not be pirates thieving wisdom from foreign shores as if our own culture was an error outlived. And also credit Sheldrake for paying more than the usual pious lip service to the advice of the Dalai Lama who encourages Westerners not to become Buddhist but to explore more deeply one’s own spiritual traditions. Rupert does that.Sheldrake presents seven practices in seven chapters and a concluding chapter. He treats the practices both from the perspective of experience and scientific understanding by bringing in studies of the effects of each practice. The practices are laid out in the Table of Contents of the book as follows: 1. Meditation 2. Gratitude 3. Reconnecting with the more-than-human word 4. Plants 5. Rituals 6. Singing, chanting and the power of music 7. Pilgrimages and Holy Places. He also promises a follow-up book which will consider other practices. That book is now available from England or on Amazon but not yet from an America publisher. It is called Ways To Go Beyond and Why They Work.This first book, Science and Spiritual Practices, is a breakthrough. It is a promise and sign of hope in a dire time, an apocalyptic time, but a potentially revelatory time also (the word apocalypse from Greek can also be translated as “revelation” after all). Is it true that the modern age of antagonism between science and religion, psyche and cosmos, can be healed? Is it true that this is happening right now? That spiritual experience is available to believers and unbelievers alike? Read this important book and find out for yourself. I have previously endorsed this book in a brief form and I repeat that endorsement here for it summarizes some of the richness and excitement and readability of the text. “I love this book! For its clarity, its first-person stories and applications, its science and experientially based facts, its timeliness, its humor, its blunt questions and challenges put to the guardians of die-hard scientific materialism, its breadth of topics and depth of insights historical, philosophical, religious and spiritual. Few living scientists have the courage and the chops to ask the questions Rupert does, research them, and deliver answers in language all can understand. Be prepared as you read this book for an exciting and free-ranging ride, a sort of scientific pilgrimage journeying into spiritual practices and how they have benefited and can benefit humanity.”There is much despair in the air these days both among the general public and among scientific groups I have met with. If “hope is a verb with the sleeves rolled up” as eco-philosopher David Orr puts it, then part of the rolling up of our sleeves that needs doing today, part of the necessary work of our time, is inner work. We cannot accomplish all that needs to happen and all that needs to give birth to out of anger or action/reaction response alone. We also must do the inner work. Sheldrake’s book assists us to understand why the ancient practices of our ancestors were not in vain and were not foolish but have a solid meaning behind them that even science can appreciate anew. Now there is no excuse for not “rolling up our sleeves” and doing our work—both inner and outer–and blending the two.[2]~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox Read online here About the Author Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 35 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 71 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. Recent books include The Lotus & The Rose: Conversations on Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Christianity with Lama Tsomo; Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the God Without a Name; new paperback version of Stations of the Cosmic Christ with Bishop Marc Andrus. A Special Eckhart@Erfurt workshop in June, 2019. [1] Matthew Fox, “Rupert Sheldrake’s The Science Delusion: The Most Important Book of the Decade?” See my website, www.matthewfox.org.[2] See Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994). | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Lonnie How to talk to Fundamentalist Evangelicals? I grew up as one but like to ask questions and realize you are all on the right track. I along with my wife attend an Evangelical church nearly every Sunday and wonder the best ways to talk about science, global warming, the age of the earth, evolution, biblical errors and so on, of which Evangelicals seem so terrified. A: By Brian D. McLaren Dear Lonnie,Many Evangelicals are so 100% bought in to the whole package they have been given - original sin, penal substitutionary atonement, biblical inerrancy, young earth creationism, denial of climate change, unwillingness to hear the arguments for LGBTQ equality, support for Donald Trump - that if you challenge them, they'll feel attacked and respond defensively or simply start avoiding you. When people become defensive, they tend to double down on what they're defending and identify themselves even more closely with it, so any attempts to argue can actually cause people to become more resistant to different ways of thinking.I think of Jesus' words about being wise as serpents and innocent as doves, meaning that we have to be completely non-aggressive (doves) but also look for the tiniest opening (serpents) to get the seed of a new message through their defenses. Here are four suggestions:1. You can wait for someone to say something you find false, unhelpful, or offensive. Then, rather than arguing back, just say, "Wow. I see that differently." They'll likely ask why, and rather than arguing (especially in public, which almost guarantees a defensive reaction), I'd recommend you say - with pleasantness and kindness, "I'd rather not go into it now. For now I just wanted you to know that I see it differently. If you're curious sometime in the future, I'll be glad to share why in private." There's great power in a non-directive, non-aggressive statement (I see that differently), and a great gift in differing without needing to convince. 2. You can share your perspectives in a way that makes it easy for others to differ, while always remaining positive, emphasizing not just what you're against, but what you're for. You might say, "I'm pretty sure that I hold a minority opinion on this, but I find the creation story in Genesis much richer when read as a poem that conveys meaning instead of a scientific or historical account." You're not asking anyone to agree with you (I hold a minority opinion), and you're focusing not on their fault (interpreting literally) but on what you have found meaningful (reading poetically).3. You can share books or other recommendations. Most Evangelicals won’t be ready for Jack Spong or even Marcus Borg, but they might listen to Rachel Held Evans or Pete Enns or Brian Zahnd, or perhaps even some of my books. There are some tremendous podcasts out there to recommend too, geared especially for questioning Evangelicals. Pete Enns’ “The Bible for Normal People” and Tripp Fuller’s “Homebrewed Christianity” and Jen Hatmaker’s “For the Love” are among my favorites.   4. Whenever possible, tell your story. Don't say, "You're a homophobic bigot" or "You're so Islamophobic!" Instead, say, "You know, I used to see things the way you do. But then, a lifelong friend confided to me that he was gay...." Or, "I often hear the opinion of Muslims that you just expressed, but I should tell you about my friends Mustafa and Zaid. We met two years ago ..." When you share your story, you're adding data to their data bank that they can process later on their own.   Soren Kierkegaard said that "the apostle" (the person who carries a message of good news) must be like a midwife. Midwives know that no mother wants to give birth in public. Similarly, people generally prefer to give birth to a new opinion in private. So we offer what we can in public, but then withdraw so that people can process and "go through labor" on their own.~ Brian D. McLaren Read and share online here About the Author Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is an Auburn Senior Fellow and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders called Convergence Leadership Project. He works closely with the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival and the Fair Food Program‘s Faith Working Group. His most recent joint project is an illustrated children’s book (for all ages) called Cory and the Seventh Story. Other recent books include: The Great Spiritual Migration, We Make the Road by Walking, and Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? (Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World). Brian has been active in networking and mentoring church planters and pastors since the mid 1980’s, and has assisted in the development of several new churches. He is a popular conference speaker and a frequent guest lecturer for denominational and ecumenical leadership gatherings – across the US and Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He has written for or contributed interviews to many periodicals, including Leadership, Sojourners, Tikkun, Worship Leader, and Conversations. A frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs, he has appeared on All Things Considered, Larry King Live, Nightline, On Being, and Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. His work has also been covered in Time, New York Times, Christianity Today, Christian Century, the Washington Post, Huffington Post, CNN.com, and many other print and online media. Brian is married to Grace, and they have four adult children and five grandchildren. His personal interests include wildlife and ecology, fly fishing and kayaking, music and songwriting, and literature. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together. Join Our Facebook Community Today! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Substitutionary Death of Jesus on the Cross Alone Brings Salvation: Part One Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong May 30, 2007 It is hard in our generation to put into a single sentence the substance of the Third Fundamental that traditional Christians, at the beginning of the 20th century, said was essential to the Christian faith. Officially, it is referred to as “The doctrine of the substitutionary atonement through God’s grace and human faith.” Those words communicate almost nothing today. From generation to generation its meaning has been carried for Protestant Christians in the popular mantra, “Jesus died for my sins,” while in Catholic Christianity it finds expression in talk about “the sacrifice of the mass” or in references to the cleansing power of Jesus being received sacramentally. These expressions employ the language of what the church has typically called: “the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement.”Over the next three weeks in this column, I intend to examine this familiar Christian idea that I regard today as a completely bankrupt way of understanding the Christian faith. In my opinion these atonement ideas have succeeded primarily in turning God into a child-abusing heavenly parent.They have also turned Jesus into being the ultimate, perhaps even the masochistic, victim of a sadistic father God. Furthermore when literalized, these ideas have turned ordinary Christians into people burdened by the weight of guilt that at best is immobilizing and at worst serves to create a religious justification for their own abuse of others. It had been primarily responsible, I believe, for the levels of anger that have infected Christian history, finding expression in the burning of heretics, anti-Semitism, religious wars, religious persecution, the Crusades and in the rampant homophobia that embraces so much of the Christian Church today. Click here to read full essay.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements NEW! Progressing Spirit Bumper Stickers! Start conversations around your progressive faith by putting these stickers on your re-usable mugs, water bottles, and notebooks. Spread the Progressive Christian movement by adding the bumper stickers to your car. Let’s share the good news that there is an alternative to fundamental Christianity! These Bumper stickers with removable adhesive that are ideal for cars and trucks. With thick, durable vinyl that protects your stickers from scratches, water & sunlight. Only $4 each! Progressing Spirit Bumper Stickers Purchase here only $4 each! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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April Reminder for Winds&Waves magazine
by ICA International 16 Apr '19

16 Apr '19

Any problem reading this message please click or paste this URL in your browser's address bar http://windswaves.icai-archives.org/new-ww/ en français en español April 2019 This is a reminder for entries to our new Winds and Waves Magazine We are delighted to invite you to share your stories here via this link medium.com/winds-and-waves We also welcome videos that show the work you are doing. And we would be delighted if you would share stories from Winds and Waves on your own social media networks. For information about how to work with Winds and Waves on Medium: Please see attachment here Please be sure to send this invitation on to your ICA members and friends, colleagues, partners, family, so they too can participate. You can get further information by contacting us at icawindandwaves(a)gmail.com Best wishes, Robyn, Dharma, Roma, Rosemary, Isabel, Peter, for W&W team Published by The Institute of Cultural Affairs International, 401 Richmond Street, West, Toronto, ON. M5V 3A8, Canada All rights reserved. For more information or to unsubscribe, email: inform(a)ica-international.org

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Remembering James Stovall
by Dawn Collins 13 Apr '19

13 Apr '19

Farewell to James who was a welcome and steadying presence on the course of the mission whether with youth in numbers or older colleagues... May your soul travel lightly and joyfully as you make your entry into the final transcendence into the Other World... Dawn CollinsMarian Plaza We love the Source/Creator because the Creator/Source loved us first.- 1 John 4:19

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4/11/19, Progressing Spirit: Brian McLaren: How I Got Here; Spong answers questions
by Ellie Stock 11 Apr '19

11 Apr '19

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

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Fwd: Completed Life of Jim Stovall: April 10, 2019
by Richard Alton 11 Apr '19

11 Apr '19

After Jim attended his first RS-1 while still in high school, he joined the Order Ecumenical and served in the ICA / EI in the student house, India, Egypt, Indonesia and the US, from 1974 - 1984. More recently, in 1993, Jim founded The Mediation Institute in Oklahoma City through which he conducted family and commercial mediation and mediation training. Stories from Jim's time in OE:EI:ICA are invited and will be appreciated. Regards, Sally Sally Stovall sallystovall(a)gmail.com 773-315-1109 Dear Colleagues, I just received an email from Bill Parker with the news of Jim Stovall’s passing. He had non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. He was the President of Board of the Human Community Network. His service will be this Saturday afternoon at the Church of the Open Arms. We have lost another dear colleague and I have lost a good friend as well. May love and peace be with his friends and family. Bill requested i send out the news to the larger networks. Jack _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net Sally Stovall 773-315-1109 sallystovall(a)gmail.com -- Richard H. T. Alton One Earth Film Fest ( OEFF) Green Community Connections Interfaith Green Network T: 773.344.7172 richard.alton(a)gmail.com **Save the Date! One Earth Film Festival 2019, March 1-10* http:www.oneearthfilmfestival.org Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2

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Memorial for the Life of Jean Marie Long
by Paula Philbrook 11 Apr '19

11 Apr '19

Friends: I don't know Who — or what — put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer *Yes* to *Someone*— or *Something* —and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal. From Dag Hamershol's Markings You are invited to come celebrate the Gift of Jean Marie Long's Life at a Memorial Dinner on Tuesday April 16th. We will share a dinner from Jean's beloved India, conversation, song & verse. Please feel free to bring a song or poetry you have shared with her or your own writings. Please let us know if you are able to attend the event by rsvping here <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfxyVlaYg54z3O_3jaZsbq0D9-7IXa_akc…>, or if you are unable to attend but would like to share a note or reflection you can do so here <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11qOK85-Bmw6ZAp0awehf1M2utsfxRPvYP0UwjmIrHQ…> . ICA Greenrise, 4750 N Sheridan 6th floor Tuesday, April 16th - 6pm In Love and Remembrance, Paula Philbrook

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Completed Life of Jim Stovall
by Jack Gilles 11 Apr '19

11 Apr '19

Dear Colleagues, I just received an email from Bill Parker with the news of Jim Stovall’s passing. He had non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. He was the President of Board of the Human Community Network. His service will be this Saturday afternoon at the Church of the Open Arms. We have lost another dear colleague and I have lost a good friend as well. May love and peace be with his friends and family. Bill requested i send out the news to the larger networks. Jack

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(no subject)
by Beret Griffith 09 Apr '19

09 Apr '19

Jean Remembered.... The year Jean Long joined the ICA Global Archives team...I can't even remember the year. It always seemed like she had been there forever. Paul and I were very excited, along with the rest of the archive team, when Terry announced that Jean would be moving to Chicago. Her presence was much anticipated and lifted our spirits. It is wonderful to hear all of your memories of Jean. Thank you.... Jean kept the archive team on its toes. One of her MUST HAVES in the archive space...a square table whenever possible, with decor in the center of the table...ALWAYS a colorful cloth, something growing, even a small piece of growing "greenness" in a tiny vase, a piece of international decor and a candle. And.. she was particular about processes in the archive..."be sure you put an orange paper in the files whenever you take a file out of a drawer." She took great delight in throwing out unnecessary files that seem to continually accumulate in the archive space. She did not operate easily in the electronic universe and readily gave "us" notice that she was NOT going to dive in to learning how to do everything in cyberspace. She did like email and the archive team "hangovers" as she called the Archives Advisory Council (AAC) weekly on-line meetings. She had strong opinions on most everything...and the team listened. She was the anchor of the archive sojourns, welcoming everyone who could spend time working in the archives with open arms. She handled all the logistics, meal arrangements with Alice, orchestrated housing for everyone and was always up early to put on the coffee. She sat in the same chair, in the same spot during pre-sojourn preparation meetings where she oversaw those who came in early as we created a long list of "to-dos" to keep us out of trouble the weekend before the sojourn. Two tasks she took upon herself to make sure they got done: 1. Guiding a team of herself, Marge Philbrook and Sally Fenton to make sure every page of every publication was scanned, then instructed Wendell to put it all on line. Take a look: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15rvwId-UEezAAFU_-wGavYSECcrMotoySJb… 2. Building the ICA Book Collection - if you have written a book, you no doubt got a request from Jean to "send in your book." Well... Every year, since I can remember, Paul and I would keep in touch with Jean as we drove to Chicago. Each time we arrived we would unload "stuff" as quickly as possible and call Jean to meet in the lobby and go to dinner around the corner at DIB. The last few years Frank Knutson joined us and the four of us would laugh, gossip and talk about the current sojourn... Journey on...all of us Beret & Paul

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Van Gogh Exhibit
by Del Morrill 09 Apr '19

09 Apr '19

In memory of friend and colleague, Jean Long: https://1funny.com/magical-van-gogh-exhibit

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