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by ICA International 28 Oct '21

28 Oct '21

Reminder for entries This reminder is for the Global Buzz that will be published November 5th. 2021 (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 novembre 2021 (S'il vous plaît envoyez vos entrées au moins un jour 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 mes de noviembre 2021 (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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10/28/2021, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Roger Wolsey: Loving the Earth is Essential; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 28 Oct '21

28 Oct '21

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and (max-width:480px){#yiv0668867785 h4{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv0668867785 .yiv0668867785mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent, #yiv0668867785 .yiv0668867785mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv0668867785 #yiv0668867785templatePreheader{display:block !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv0668867785 #yiv0668867785templatePreheader .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent, #yiv0668867785 #yiv0668867785templatePreheader .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv0668867785 #yiv0668867785templateHeader .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent, #yiv0668867785 #yiv0668867785templateHeader .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent p{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv0668867785 #yiv0668867785templateBody .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent, #yiv0668867785 #yiv0668867785templateBody .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv0668867785 #yiv0668867785templateFooter .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent, #yiv0668867785 #yiv0668867785templateFooter .yiv0668867785mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Loving the Earth is Essential | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Roger Wolsey October 28, 2021Our planet is not well. That’s an understatement. The Earth is in a state of crisis. Human aggravated global warming/Climate Change is a real and present danger. The frequency and severity of storms, flooding, and wildfires around the world is increasing. We Are to Blame. “Human activities have caused the world's wildlife populations to plummet by more than two-thirds in the last 50 years, according to a report from the World Wildlife Fund.” Globally between September 2020 and February 2021, 12.5 million people were displaced by adverse impacts of climate change, the annual average exceeding 20 million. Such displacement leads to increased human conflict including war. One of the reasons that I’m an advocate of progressive Christianity is its emphasis upon caring about the Earth that we live on. Unlike most other forms of the faith, progressive Christianity values the environment as part of our seeking to honor God and is committed to ensuring that we do our best to ensure a healthy plant for our children’s children to live upon. Indeed, a case can be made that Climate Change is the single most important moral matter of our day as all of the vital matters of social injustice can only be addressed if there is a sustainable planet upon which we can address them. Talk about inter-sectional. As a somewhat prominent progressive Christian writer I’ve been asked “Why do you continue to be a Christian?” - given that I don’t believe that all Christians need to believe in certain things that many have come to believe are “expected” for Christianity. I don’t believe that all Christians need to believe in a literal virgin birth, in a literal devil or hell, a literal physical resurrection, that Jesus is literally God, that Jesus performed literal miracles (violations of the laws of physics), or that Christianity is the only or best way for humans to connect to God, etc. Notice, I haven’t overtly stated whether or not I happen believe in those things, I stated that progressive Christianity doesn’t require adherence to such beliefs. I increasingly identify as a Christian mystic or as “a mystic who happens to be a Christian.” The mystics of the world’s religions tend to have more in common with each other than they do with the more conventional members of their respective traditions. In other words, I don’t really feel a need to be known or thought of as a Christian. That said, being a part of an established lineage matters to me. I seek to follow the way, teaching, and example of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus (and the faith that centers him) is my love language and I seek to grow and develop in my faith in communion with fellow devotees to the way of love exemplified by Jesus. If anything, my commitment to continue to serve the Church has amplified. My sense of calling has been redoubled, and part of that is an increased awareness of the importance of my work as a Christian writer. There are 2.6 billion Christians in the world and inspiring as many of them as possible to take stewardship of the planet – Creation care – as being essential to Christian discipleship, is the most important thing I can be doing with my time left on the planet. The planet needs it. I feel strongly that this is WJWD – what Jesus would do. Which brings us to an important matter – to what extent is the study of Jesus helpful in getting people to care about the environment? Are we progressive Christians engaging in eisegesis – forcing our agenda onto Jesus and Christianity – rather than truly adhering to the actual teachings of Jesus? Preaching about the environment and caring for God’s good green earth wasn’t exactly a top priority or emphasis for Jesus. I don’t think there’s any passages in the “red letters” attributed to Jesus where he is telling people to become environmentalists. Some scholars have suggested that Jesus truly felt that the world as we know it would end either within his lifetime, or within the lifetime of his first followers. To the extent that’s true, there isn’t much incentive to take care of the Earth or try to ensure it’s in good shape for future generations. And, despite the wishes of certain vegetarians, there’s really no evidence to go around saying that “Jesus was a vegetarian – and that he wants us to not eat meat.” Jesus hung out with fishermen, and served fish to people on several occasions, and, as a faithful Jew, he ate lamb at Passover meals. A story has Jesus driving demons pulled from a man he healed into a herd of pigs which then jumped off a cliff. His parable known as “the prodigal son” features a celebrating father calling his servants to kill a fatted calf (veal) as part of that celebration. Moreover, Jesus seems to imply that humans are of greater worth and value than the other critters “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26) and he goes on to suggest there’s no reason to worry about the future “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (v.34) Yet, if we look at the full constellation of his teachings we can find several very good reasons to believe that Jesus would bless and want us to step up our efforts to take care of this planet. It is clear that Jesus was highly familiar with the agrarian culture he resided in. Many of the stories he told and analogies he used demonstrate someone who was highly aware of botany, farming, animal husbandry, and even meteorology. He employed such references as he knew his followers were aware of those things too. When he interacted with a wealthy man (Mark 10:17-31) he implied that following the basics of the faith is foundational to experiencing eternal/abundant life and experiencing God’s kingdom. Jesus referred to the 10 commandments, but it’s fair to assume that he also meant to assume following God’s very first commandment to humanity – taking care of God’s creation found in the creation myth at the beginning of the Book of Genesis was also a given (Genesis 1:26-30). Jesus actively called for people to repent from their loyalties and addictions to the way of worldly empire, and to instead shift to living simply in relational communitarian community. This way of living, sharing of wealth, resources, and property, tends toward having a low carbon footprint. Furthermore Jesus was a Jew, and the Jewish understanding of salvation (“wholeness/well-being/healing”) is about the societal/collective just as much, if not more, than it is about the personal; and the same is true for its emphasis on the here and now – not just whatever happens after we die. Caring for the environment we live in is consistent for providing both societal and personal salvation. Finally, if nothing else, Jesus was someone who was a radical of love. He called people to expand their sense of who to consider as being “their neighbor” - e.g., persons left for dead on the side of roads, Samaritans, tax collectors, and Roman soldiers. Jesus called us to even love our enemies – including those actively harming us. Jesus called for increasing our circle of care – realizing that everyone on the planet is our brother, sister, and sibling, and seeing that everyone is our neighbor. It is thus entirely consistent for us to work with and expand that teaching to include the rest of Creation in our circle of care – to start seeing the otters, deer, cow, ducks, bats, bugs, ponds, rivers, oceans, land, aquifers, and sky as being our siblings and neighbors too. This isn’t colonialist appropriation of the animist views of native Americans. This is valid, relevant, and appropriate exegeting and interpreting of our scriptures for our current context. Considering the planet that we live upon to not merely be “a stage” for us to temporarily use and abuse – but rather, embrace as a being for us to actively love – is a game-changer. Many progressive Christians have come to reject the theology of supernatural theism and instead embrace the view of God via panentheism – i.e., fully immanent within all Creation as well as being fully transcendent from it. Many of us embrace Tillich’s view that God is “the ground of all being” and this jibes well with the mystic view of the Apostle Paul – that God is “the One in Whom we live, and move, and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) If those are our beliefs and understandings, then let’s behave accordingly. If we view the Earth as imbued with, and indeed part of, God - as being sacred and Divine - then we should practice what we preach and truly take care of the Earth and its environment as a priority. Progressive Christians also do well to learn from womanist and feminist theological perspectives. We also do well to consider the insights of Creation Spirituality. As Jesus put it, what we fail to do to “the least of these” we fail to do to him. (Matthew 25:45) We’re failing to love God by failing to reduce the spewing of global warming gasses. By engaging in such polluting of the atmosphere and aggravating global warming, we’re also “causing the little children on the planet to stumble” and not be able to thrive as God intends for them to do. (Matt. 18:6) Jesus may not have called for us to care about having long lifespans, but he did call us to live faithfully. Living faithfully in 2021 means not just giving lip-service to Creation care. It means more than just switching to LED light-bulbs. It means listening to prophets such as Greta Thunberg and getting all hands on deck to shut down as many coal and natural gas burning power plants as quickly possible, and replace them with as many solar, wind, hydro, and even nuclear power plants as quickly as possible. It means reducing our consumption of red meat. It means reducing our driving and switching over to electric vehicles. It means shifting away from global consumerism and adopting a more regional economy. It means these things and much more. As a member of the Board of Directors of ProgressiveChristianity.Org (formerly The Center for Progressive Christianity) I’ve been part of the ongoing work of continually revising the “8 Points of Christianity” they created decades ago. Our most recent iteration – yet to be posted – has within it a tenet overtly emphasizing seeking the sustainability and well-being of our planet. May God bless us as we become evangelical in spreading the good news of Creation Care, “Green Church,” and calling for people to repent from our addictions to behaviors that harm the planet. ~ Rev. Roger Wolsey (cover art: “Birth of a Planet” by Amanda Sage) Read online here About the Author Rev. Roger Wolsey is a United Methodist pastor who resides in Grand Junction, CO. Roger is author of Kissing Fish: Christianity for people who don’t like Christianity and blogs for Patheos as The Holy Kiss and serves on the Board of Directors of ProgressiveChristianity.Org. Roger became “a Christian on purpose” during his college years and he experienced a call to ordained ministry two years after college. He values the Wesleyan approach to the faith and, as a certified spiritual director, he seeks to help others grow and mature. Roger enjoys yoga; playing trumpet; motorcycling; and camping with his son. He served as the Director of the Wesley Foundation campus ministry at the University of Colorado in Boulder for 14 years, and has served as pastor of churches in Minnesota, Iowa, and currently serves as the pastor of Fruita UMC in Colorado, and also serves as the "CRM" (Congregational Resource Minister/Church Consultant) for the Utah/Western Colorado District of the Mountain Sky Conference. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader How do you deal with the suffering we experience as humans? A: By Rev. Deshna Shine Dear Reader,A wild-woman would say: There is no right or wrong way to deal with suffering, just effective and ineffective. There is often something positive that comes out of suffering, especially when we approach our suffering in an effective way. By effective, I mean, we feel it fully, we take time to process it and we maintain a sense of temporality. Everything is complex and sometimes things that seem “bad” or hard, challenging, frightening, un-grounding, unknown, or tragic in the moment lead to amazing things later that we can not predict. Sometimes, the suffering in the moment leads to evolution down the line that may not even be noticed or seen. My heart feels the suffering on this planet. I can literally close my eyes and tap into the immense grief, fear, and desperation that is being experienced out there. But I can not hold the whole weight of the world. I wouldn't last long. So, I practice beaming my light into the hearts of the souls around me near and far. I lean into the practice and ask that light to travel farther. How far can my love go? How wide can this blessing be? Nothing is permanent and everything changes. So in times of suffering, I remember: this too shall pass. And in times of bliss and abundance, I release, because: this too shall pass. I walk the middle path. Aware of the Darkness within. I send it to fight my battles when I am too sad or tired. And always, I seek to grow my Light. Each person I pass is an opportunity to bring light or to alleviate a bit of their suffering. Each breath is a gift, so I slow down time by being present with my breath, the ground I walk on, the people I am crossing paths with, the trees that breathe with me, the air the fills me, the water that nourishes me, the food that sustains me, the cats that need me, my daughter who sees me, my Beloved who frees me. I deal with suffering by feeling it with all my being and reminding myself that I am held by a loving supportive Presence. I transform my suffering into empathy. I journey into the Darkness and allow myself to be a fully authentic complex human being experiencing a training ground for the evolution of the soul. Suffering is an opportunity, an invitation to surrender into Spirit and to release control. ~ Rev. Deshna Shine Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Deshna Shine is Project Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org’s Children’s Curriculum. She is an ordained Interfaith Minister, author, international speaker, and visionary. She grew up in a thriving progressive Christian church and has worked in the field for over 13 years. She graduated from UCSB with a major in Religious Studies and a minor in Global Peace and Security. She served as Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, Executive Producer of Embrace Festival and has co-authored the novel, Missing Mothers. Deshna is passionate about sacred community, nourishing children spiritually and transforming Christianity through a radically inclusive lens. | | | | | | | | 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.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Examining the Meaning of the Resurrection Part IV: What is the Meaning of Three Days? Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong June 23, 2021First, we asked who stood at the center of the Easter experience and Peter emerged from our study as the one in whom the meaning of resurrection dawned. Then we asked “where” Peter and the disciples were when Easter broke into their consciousness and our study led us to the primacy of the Galilean tradition over the secondary Jerusalem tradition. Now we come to the “when” question. When did this experience occur? Here we begin to confront the unpredictable quality of the familiar symbol: “the third day.” Did the experience of resurrection dawn in Peter on the third day after the crucifixion? If the “third day” is to be treated as a literal measure of time that would place “resurrection” on Sunday as Paul asserts in I Corinthians 15. Recall that this is the first biblical reference to the time of the resurrection. Mark, however, the author of the first gospel to be written (70-72), changes that time reference from “on the third day” to “after three days.” These are conflicting traditions that do not give us the same day. “On the third day” would place the dawning of the resurrection on Sunday, the first day of the week. “After three days,” however, would place it on Monday. While the two phrases sound similar, the two traditions result in contradictory conclusions. The more wobbly of the two time references appears to be that of Mark. At least, we note that both Matthew and Luke had Mark in front of them when they wrote their gospels. Each of these authors actually wrote expanded versions of Mark, but when they came to Mark’s threefold reference to “after three days,” they each changed it, Mathew changed all three of Mark’s “after three days” references to read “on the third day,” while Luke changed two of Mark’s references and simply omitted the third. Why can they not agree on what seems like so small a matter? What, we wonder, is driving this changing time measurement in the early years of Christian history? I suspect it had to do with liturgy more than with anything else. The first day of the week, or Sunday, was celebrated as the day of the resurrection by the early Christians and so liturgical pressure appears to have driven the memory of the experience. If resurrection were to be observed on the first day of the week then the first awareness of it must have occurred “on the third day.” If the date of the crucifixion was Friday, the third day had to be Sunday. The deeper question, however, is what was the experience called “resurrection,” which they were describing? Was it an event that occurred inside history? The earliest references to resurrection that we have in the Bible do not, as we have noted previously, seem to think so. Paul, while listing those who are witnesses to the resurrection, never gives us a single narrative detail, yet he includes himself on that list even though his conversion seems to be no earlier than one year after the crucifixion and no later than six years. Later writings in the Pauline Corpus suggest that Paul saw resurrection and ascension as two parts of the same act with neither of them lying inside the bounds of history. For Paul, resurrection clearly did not mean being resuscitated back into the life of this world. It meant rather being raised into the life of God. How can we locate an event in the life of God within the framework of time and space in which human life is lived? So what seems to be described in these early writings in terms of a time reference is not the reality that happened to Jesus, whatever that was, but the time in which a new realization emerged in the minds of the disciples. That does occur within human history. The third day became a synonym for that emergence. Even that, however, does not clear up the problem. If one insists on reading the gospel narratives literally the actual the time between the burial of Jesus and the resurrection is never more than 36 hours. That is but a day and a half, not three days. The burial occurs shortly before sundown on Friday, which would be about 6:00 pm. From 6:00 pm on Friday until midnight on Saturday is six hours. From midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday is twenty-four hours. From midnight Sunday until dawn or 6:00 am is six more hours. Put them all together and the best you can get is 36 hours, a day and a half. The symbol “three days” appears to at best a kind of shorthand description, not a real measure of time. Then we go to the gospel narratives themselves and look for additional clues. We are surprised to discover that the first gospel to be written never relates a story in which the risen Christ appears to anyone. Mark’s gospel ends at Chapter 16 verse 8, where the messenger directs the women to tell the disciples that they are to go to Galilee and, there in their home region, they will see the raised Jesus. In response, however, Mark tells us that “the women fled in fear and said nothing to anyone.” If we then proceed to literalize the words of the messenger that the disciples must return to Galilee if they wish to see the raised Jesus, we need to observe that Galilee is a seven to ten day trip from Jerusalem, which means that there would be no resurrection appearance inside the three-day frame of reference. When we come to Matthew, the problem is the same. Matthew contradicts Mark and says that the women actually saw Jesus and “held his feet” in the garden on the first day of the week. Mark says that the women only saw the messenger and they fled in fear. Luke, written a little later, agrees with Mark. In the third gospel the women do not see Jesus at dawn on the Easter. So it is two to one against Matthew being accurate. Interestingly enough, Matthew later does describe an appearance of the risen Christ to the disciples in Galilee, but it would have to have occurred after the disciples had returned to Galilee or at least seven to ten days later. Perhaps even more important in this first described appearance of Jesus to the disciples, the Jesus who appears is the already ascended, glorified Lord from heaven, who comes to them out of the sky. This is more a vision of the triumphant Son of Man than it is a narrative about a resurrected body! The time references become even more mysterious in Luke, who portrays the risen Christ as appearing on Easter evening to Cleopas and his traveling companion in the village of Emmaus in the context of a Eucharistic meal. This Jesus, however, seems to have the ability to materialize and to dematerialize at will. When these Emmaus travelers return to Jerusalem to share what they have experienced, they are greeted by the disciples who proclaim that the raised Jesus “has appeared to Peter,” but no details, other than hearsay, are given. Luke then goes on to assert that Jesus himself appeared on a number of occasions over a period of 40 days and that finally all resurrection experiences ceased with the ascension. The Fourth Gospel’s witness is also fascinating and confusing. The risen Christ appears only to Mary Magdalene in the garden on Easter morning and there forbids her to touch him for “I have not yet ascended to the father.” By Easter evening, however, that ascension has taken place and any reluctance to any one touching Jesus has disappeared. Jesus then enters their presence in a transformed state. He is able to walk through locked doors to gain access to the disciples and there to breathe into them the gift of the Holy Spirit. He then disappears and does not return until “after eight days,” which, according to the way the Jews counted time, would be the first day of the second week. On this occasion, however, Thomas is present. Thomas then acknowledges him as “my Lord and my God.” At that point John’s gospel appears to end. There is, however, an epilogue attached to the apparently completed corpus of the Fourth Gospel. This epilogue seems to describe events that were weeks, perhaps even months later, when Jesus appears again, but this time in Galilee where he commands Peter to “Feed my sheep.” So to return to our question: when did resurrection dawn in the hearts and minds of the disciples? Was it on the third day after the crucifixion? Was it after three days? Was it seven to ten days after the crucifixion when the disciples had returned to their Galilean homes? Was it month’s later when they had actually picked up the pieces of their lives and reentered the fishing trade? These are our options. I think there was a significant amount of time – probably no less than six months, no more than one year – between the first Good Friday and the first Easter. There had to be time to allow the followers of Jesus to come to an understanding of how a crucified one could still be the messiah. They had to have time to overcome what they believed was the condemnation of the Torah, which pronounced one “cursed” who had been hanged upon a tree. They had to have time to come to the radical new understanding that the life of God can be experienced through a dying man on a cross. They had to have time to search the Hebrew Scriptures to find messianic images where through weakness and death, God could still be seen as life and love. So, in answer to the question “when,” my suggestion is that Easter dawned some six months to a year after the crucifixion. My third clue thus falls into place. Next we look at what was the context in which the meaning of resurrection moved into human awareness. That is the “how?” question and to that question I turn next week.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Jew Curious Let’s explore my culture… Judaism… Afterlife, the Bible, God, Sacred Texts, Traditions, Languages, Rituals, History... What You Will Get MEMBERSHIP TO: ROTB Online Community Clubhouse. Wisdom. Goodness. Good people. ACCESS TO ROOM: Jew Curious Three hour-long sessions to give you a taste of Judaism. Wednesday, November 3, 10, & 17. 4pm PT. Click here to learn more... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Drop Box scam
by Ellie Stock 27 Oct '21

27 Oct '21

Hi Folks, If you received an email/notice from me about opening a drop box link, it is a scam. I don't have a drop box account, so don't try to open it. Sorry for any inconvenience. Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com

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A poem by St. Francis that, for me, speaks to the 21st century
by Jann McGuire 23 Oct '21

23 Oct '21

*THE SACRAMENTS* *I once spoke to my friend, an old squirrel, about the Sacraments –* *he got so excited* *and ran into a hollow in his tree and came* *back holding some acorns, an owl feather,* *and a ribbon he had found.* *And I just smiled and said, “Yes, dear,* *you understand:* *everything imparts* *His grace.”*

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A question about the distant past
by James Wiegel 22 Oct '21

22 Oct '21

What was the analysis and strategy that led to “the renewal of the local church for the sake of the world”?? I think there was one, but time wears away memories or, at least, hides them Anyone?? Jim Wiegel “A revolution is on the horizon: a wholesale transformation of the world economy and the way people live.” Fred Krupp > On Oct 21, 2021, at 5:32 AM, Ellie Stock via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > > > > View this email in your browser > > > He Calls us to the Task of Loving > > Essay by Rev. Deshna Shine > October 21, 2021 > I miss him and he was never really mine. Meaning he was rarely even in my life. He was not my pastor, my family member or even really my friend. Though I would have loved to call him each of those. He was not mine. He was someone on the periphery of my life, a hero, a distant lighthouse. He was a giant to me and yet, he was one of the most down to earth humans I have ever known. And I miss him and deeply wish I had sat at his table more often. > When he wrote a recommendation letter for my application into the Chaplaincy Institute, he wrote, "I would welcome Deshna as my pastor and my friend.” I was in a bit of shock when I read that part. What in the world could I offer this incredible human being in either of those roles? I wish I had believed those words, believed in myself sooner and made the effort to become his friend. I regret not writing him more often. Yes, we were colleagues at some level. Yes, we respected each other, and yes, I had the honor of working with him as his new publisher of this newsletter. But here was a living hero inviting me to befriend him and I was just… what? Busy? Scared? Lacking confidence? Intimidated? Something got in my way of accepting that invitation. And it makes me wonder, as I look at the blur of those years and all those moments I could have reached out, how often do we get in our own way? > I read his words each week. His precise, wise, eloquent, compassionate, and passionate words. I made suggestions here and there, minor edits, paragraph spaces, meaningless things. Christine had already done the real work of editing and shaping his brilliant prose into words that made sense and moved us. I read them and was never not moved. He had the unique ability to bring to life the story of Jesus, to guide us past the literal and into the mystical. If I had been paying more attention, I would have seen how I was getting in my own way of living fully and loving wastefully. I would have seen his kind words as an invitation. > In his last lecture, in June of 2018 at the Chautauqua Institution’s Interfaith Lecture Series, Jack said, “I tried to develop a crucial distinction between the Christ experience and the Christ explanation. The experience is real and timeless; the explanation is in the language of its day and is thereby time-warped and time-bound. The explanation must be surrendered, but the experience does not have to go with it.” > He did not just try. He succeeded. Fully and with an impact on millions of people’s faith and lives. The Christ experience that he illuminated for us was one of deep profound love, boundarylessness, and a life fully lived. The Christ experience that Jack so clearly saw and shared, was one of universalism, of open doors and open hearts. Jack saw God within Jesus and within each of us. He set out to discover the “holy within every human” and he found powerful ways to live into that awareness by lifting up all humans as beloved, divine beings. > I wrote my last column on nuanced conversation and I intended to write this one on how Jesus used nuanced language in his teachings… but that will have to wait. However, it’s fitting, because today I write of a man who was so comfortable in nuance that he banished duality from his ministry! Dualism has no life force in nuance. Dualism is not a part of God or Christ. God is not a being, he taught, God is Be-ing. God is Being fully. Humans cannot conceptualize God, he said, it is not possible. God is not black or white, male or female, angry or loving. God is so much more complex and incomprehensible than that. Though we can’t conceptualize or frame God into some neat and tidy box, we can experience God. > Jack experienced God as the source of all life. There is no duality within God, there is only sacred oneness. And so he reminded us that if God is the source of all life, then the best way to worship God is to live fully. Jack also experienced God as the source of love. “Love is the power that embraces life. Love flows through the whole universe. The love of God is present in the mama cat taking care of her kittens, in the cow licking the new born calf. If God is the source of love, then the only way I can worship God is by loving and loving wastefully!” > I sit here today, tears streaming down my cheeks, wondering when have I refused this invitation. The invitation that Jesus called us to and showed us by example? When have I gotten in my own way of living fully and loving wastefully? When have I judged others, deemed them unworthy of my love? When have I seen someone as unclean? Undeserving? Where have I been stagnant, bored, lazy, scared, distracted, unmindful, when I could have been fully alive and present? > The answer, I know, is not to look back and feel shame and regret. The answer is to look fully at myself now and see a human who is trying so hard to become something that I am exhausted and full of guilt and shame! My effort to become gets in the way of my Being. In a world where God is hard to find, we hold ourselves to some unachievable level that we must get to if we are to deserve to be fully accepted and loved wastefully. > Jack said, “By wasteful love I mean the kind of love that never stops to calculate, never stops to wonder whether the object of its love is worthy to be its recipient. Wasteful love is love that never stops to calculate deserving. It is love that loves, not because love has been earned. It is an act of loving wastefully. That is where God is made visible.” At what point will I consider myself worthy of wasteful love? How can I be a beacon of wasteful love in my own life and ministry? > Jack taught me that Jesus calls us to the mission to transform the world so that every living being has the opportunity to live fully, love wastefully and be all that they can be. In this experience of God, there are no outcasts, no others. In this experience of God, we are fully accepted just as we are. That must and can only begin within each of us. First we must accept ourselves fully as we are, “without one plea.” And then we must put ourselves on task of growing to BE all that we can be and loving the world wastefully. > Jack told us a story of Jesus that embodied this mission. This Jesus was not changed by flattery or even the threat of death. He was fully himself always. He loved so totally, so wastefully, he was “an infinite source of love.” > And so, the brilliant man, my hero and would be friend, leaves us with such a simple mission “to live fully, love wastefully, and become all that we can be.” He invites us to embrace life, to increase love and to have the courage to be. I passed on his invitation before, I failed to fully live because I couldn’t fully love myself. I certainly couldn’t waste love on myself. But I hear you now, Beloved One. I see you and I stand with so many others who have heard your call. > The Christ in me is an infinite well of love that I can pour wastefully, over myself, over you, over all of life. God within me asks for nothing less than a life fully lived. May I rest from this eternal struggle of becoming and see within me a perfect being. May the infinite well of love within me overflow over all of humanity. May I see each living being with eyes of the Christ, where no boundaries exist. May my love “bring oneness out of diversity, wholeness out of brokenness, and eternity out of time.” May we join together in this ministry, the ministry of Be-ing a Christian and disciples of Jesus Christ. > To my friend, my dear Jack Spong. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation not just to work with you or to be your friend, but the one of your life’s calling and prophecy. The invitation to each of us to walk through the doorway of Jesus into the mystery of God. Thank you for your bravery, your courage, and your resilience. You didn’t just try, you succeeded. You lived fully, loved wastefully and became all that you could be. Thank you for showing us the way. > > ~ Rev. Deshna Shine > > Read online here > > About the Author > Rev. Deshna Shine is Project Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org’s Children’s Curriculum. She is an ordained Interfaith Minister, author, international speaker, and visionary. She grew up in a thriving progressive Christian church and has worked in the field for over 13 years. She graduated from UCSB with a major in Religious Studies and a minor in Global Peace and Security. She was Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, Executive Producer of Embrace Festival and has co-authored the novel, Missing Mothers. Deshna is passionate about sacred community, nourishing children spiritually and transforming Christianity through a radically inclusive lens. > Question & Answer > > Q: By Alice > > Growing up and attending a southern Baptist church, I was constantly aware of the term salvation. I am now, thankfully, attending a more progressive and open minded church (PCUSA), but still hear this word. I have never been comfortable with this term and would like to know how you see salvation and what it actually means in progressive Christianity. > > A: By Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers > > Dear Alice, > Great question, and a perennial one for those who grew up in more conservative churches where “salvation” meant believing certain things in order to get certain rewards, especially the assurance of going to heaven. Your discomfort comes from critical thinking, since to be “saved” assumes that you are lost and cannot save yourself. It also assumes that we are born into Original Sin as an inheritance, like being born left-handed or with red hair. Like so much of the language of evangelical Christianity, the “believer” is helpless and hopeless until we submit to a higher power. Or, more accurately, until we agree to say that we “accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior” and know that our sins were forgiven by his death on the cross. It also assumes that the whole purpose of the life of Jesus was to die, when in fact he was killed. So, when you begin to consider old words like “salvation” and what they might mean in progressive Christianity, it is always helpful to turn to the wisdom of Marcus Borg, whose work in helping us reconsider and even redefine words like salvation is found in a book called “Speaking Christian.” Here are some of his words on this topic that I hope will be helpful: > > The term “salvation” and the concept afterlife have been linked in Christian and religious conversation. Salvation has been made to be about gaining a “positive” afterlife. It has become a normative thought that this is the point of all religions—to ensure a happy eternal resting place. Borg would argue that the goal of the Christian life is salvation—but not primarily about before or after death ... . The best single English synonym for “salvation”—“transformation”. Transformation of ourselves and the world. It’s about personal transformation and transformation of society as a whole. Salvation can be experienced as healing—a salve. Salvation is a healing ointment. Giving the transformation from blindness to seeing. In Eastern orthodoxy—primary definition of salvation is enlightenment. Jesus came as a light in our darkness, etc. This speaks to the idea of living people who are dead inside—salvation being the transformation from death to life. Moving people from pre-occupation and anxiety to presence and compassion. Salvation is about the individual transforming and also the transformation of the world, transformation from a world justice to a world of justice. Transformation from a world of war to a world of peace. > ~ Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers > > Read and share online here > > About the Author > Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers is retired senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church, Oklahoma City, Distinguished Professor of Social Justice Emeritus in the Philosophy Department at Oklahoma City University, where he still teaches. He is the author of eight books on religion and American culture, the most recent of which is, “Saving God from Religion: A Minister’s Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age.” More information is at RobinMeyers.com > 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. > Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! > > > As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. > > For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. > > We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. > > Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! > > * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. > Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited > > Examining the Meaning of the Resurrection, Part III: > Where Were the Disciples When They Saw? > > Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong > June 16, 2011 > When people have a life-changing experience, they tend to freeze in their minds forever where they were and even what they were doing when the news broke or the new awareness entered their world. I can recall to this day where I was when, as a ten-year old child, I heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When I was 32 and a young priest, I remember my precise circumstances in which I learned of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Almost everyone in America, but especially those of us who live in the New York City area, can recall where we were and with whom when the recognition dawned that the World Trade Center had been attacked with commandeered commercial airliners being driven into the Twin Towers. > > Each of these moments was a shaping experience and each would be lived and relived in our memories for the rest of our lives. The recent navy seal raid on Bin Laden’s secret hideout in Pakistan and the death of the planner and perpetrator of this monstrous act caused many to relive that original moment and to recall just how its awareness not only entered, but also shaped our lives. > > The New Testament clearly regarded the moment we have named “Easter” as a life-changing experience, indeed so powerful a moment was it that eventually the followers of Jesus decided to make it indelible for all of history by making the decision to view the life of Jesus as the life by which history was itself divided. So all of human history came to be seen and understood as having two distinct parts. There were the years before Christ, which were to be called BC, and the years after Christ referred to as years lived in the power of his ongoing and continued presence, which we called Anno Domini, or AD, “The Year of our Lord.” > > Given both that human proclivity of remembering and the impact which the first Easter brought to the followers of Jesus, it is surprising, perhaps even amazing, that the New Testament does not seem to know where the disciples were when whatever the experience occurred that we came to call “the resurrection of Jesus.” The gospels simply do not agree on the disciples’ location when Easter dawned in their conscious awareness. There are two centers that appear to compete for the honor, one is Galilee and the other is Jerusalem. Let me now go through the available biblical data and lay out the evidence contained therein. > > We start with Paul because he is the first author of any book or work that is today contained in the New Testament. Paul, however, turns out not to be particularly helpful. He gives us no location for any of his “witnesses.” All he tells us is that Peter was the first to see and then “the Twelve.” Clearly their natural setting would be Galilee since all of them were in fact Galileans. We are told, however, that they did go to Jerusalem for the Passover so they could have been in Jerusalem. If the connection between Passover and the crucifixion is a liturgical interpretation more than a historical recollection, as I have previously suggested, the argument would be stronger that the “appearances” to which Paul is referring were events that happened in Galilee. The best we can say, however, is that the witness of Paul on this issue is ambivalent and so we move on. > > Turning to Mark, the earliest gospel (70-72), we find the anomaly to which I have previously referred, namely, that this original gospel does not relate a resurrection appearance by Jesus to anyone. Mark has only a tomb story that would clearly be in Jerusalem, but at the tomb the women find the grave empty and they hear a proclamation from one who is described only as “a young man in a white robe,” who tells them that Jesus has been raised and who then directs the women to tell the disciples that Jesus “goes before you to Galilee and there you will see him as he said unto you.” The last few words in this quotation refer back to an earlier text in Mark in which Jesus predicts that the disciples will be scattered, but “after I am raised up I will go before you into Galilee.” It is clear that Mark believes that the disciples would and did encounter the risen Christ in Galilee. It is also clear to biblical scholars that Mark’s gospel ends at 16:8 and that both the shorter ending (16:9-10), an account of an appearance to Magdalene, and the longer ending (16:14-20), which recounts an appearance “to the Eleven” are added to Mark many years later, probably in the second century, in an attempt to harmonize Mark with the other gospels. The earliest manuscripts of Mark did not contain these additions and they are universally regarded in the world of biblical scholarship as inauthentic. So we have a probable vote in Paul and an overt suggestion in Mark that Galilee is the place where the disciples are located when the meaning of Easter comes to them and captures them. > > Matthew is a further witness to the Galilean tradition. This second gospel, written in the early to mid eighties, however, does contradict Mark, whose gospel he obviously has in hand and from which he draws much of his material, by suggesting that the women saw the raised Jesus at the tomb. That would be a witness to the Jerusalem tradition. Mark had said that they did not. Luke agrees with Mark and says the women did not see him, so Matthew’s contrary view is highly suspect. Matthew, however, does agree that it was only in Galilee that “the Twelve” have a resurrection experience. This, in fact, is the first biblical account of the risen Christ appearing to the disciples anywhere. Matthew, having heard by now the story of the defection of Judas, calls them “the Eleven.” This Matthean narrative is, however a very strange one. The risen Christ who appears is not a physically-resuscitated body, but rather a transformed and glorified one, and though the ascension story had not yet been written, he is clearly an ascended, heavenly being. He comes out of the clouds to a mountain top. Matthew says that Jesus had directed the disciples to this particular mountain, though there is no indication as to when that direction was given. Then in that Galilean setting, Jesus is said to have given the great commission: “Go into all the world.” This was the first time that a suggestion was made that the raised Christ had spoken to anyone. Matthew, though ambivalent is surely in the Galilee column. > > Luke counters the Galilean tradition sharply. The resurrection of Jesus for him is a Jerusalem area only event. In Luke the women do not see Jesus at the tomb, but Cleopas and his unnamed traveling companion experience him in the breaking of bread in the village of Emmaus, less than six miles from Jerusalem. Luke later tells us that the raised Christ has also appeared to Peter, presumably that was also in Jerusalem. Finally, according to Luke, Jesus appears to all the disciples in the afternoon of Easter Day, bids them peace, identifies himself clearly, asks for food to eat, opens their minds to understand the scriptures, directs them to remain in Jerusalem until “empowered” from on high and then departs. Luke specifically denies any Galilean experience connected with Easter. > > When we come to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus first appears to Mary at the tomb, then to the disciples that evening in Jerusalem in a locked and barred room without Thomas being present. One week later, still in Jerusalem, John tells us that Jesus appears again to the disciples, but this time with Thomas present. That is where the gospel of John seems to end. Then, however, we have an epilogue, relating yet another appearance to the disciples, but this time it is much later and it is in Galilee by the Sea of Galilee, and with this narrative the epilogue ends. > > That is the biblical data and it reveals significant conflict about where the disciples were, physically, when Easter was dawned on them. Paul probably, Mark by inference and Matthew specifically say that the disciples were in Galilee when they “saw” the risen Christ. Luke refutes that and makes the Jerusalem area the sole locale of resurrection. John supports Luke in the Fourth Gospel itself, but in the attached epilogue, the scene is clearly Galilee. With such inconclusive data, our next step is to look at the various accounts of the resurrection in each of the two locales. When we do that the scales begin to tilt toward Galilee for a number of reasons. The Galilean narratives are vague, primitive and mysterious and thus appear to be original. They express something of the stunned and startled response that feels natural in those circumstances. In the Jerusalem narratives, the miraculous has been heightened and the body has become quite physical. The resurrected body of Jesus can even be touched and handled. Only in the Jerusalem stories does the risen Christ do such physical things as eat, walk, talk and interpret scripture. By every measurement, Galilee seems to be original and Jerusalem seems to be a later development. > > We have one final test. Remembering that no gospel is written except in the light of the resurrection, we examine some other stories in the gospels that are set in Galilee and which seem to have resurrection themes attached to them. The accounts of Jesus walking on the water and stilling the storm are both Galilean stories. The narrative of the disciples confessing Jesus as messiah has a Galilean setting. Jesus being transfigured before their eyes together with the long- deceased Moses and Elijah is set in Galilee. All of these narratives have a numinous, mysterious quality about them. These are the data that tip our conclusion toward an original Galilean setting. It is far easier to understand how the resurrection experience might have been shifted out of Galilee to the much more prestigious location in Jerusalem, than it is to imagine a shift going in the other direction. Recall that the birth of Jesus, which in all probability occurred in Nazareth of Galilee, was also shifted to Bethlehem near Jerusalem to provide Jesus with a more prestigious place of birth. > > Our clues thus begin to be assembled. Peter appears to have been the first to “see” and thus the first to experience whatever resurrection was. That experience appears to have occurred to him in Galilee. We turn next to the “when” question and examine the meaning of “three days.” > ~ John Shelby Spong > Announcements > > Spiritual Psychology > November 3rd - December 5th > If you are working with clients, want to begin mentoring others, or want to deepen your own personal growth, join me in learning the Tree of Life model, a powerful transformative tool for psycho-spiritual development. READ ON... > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > OE mailing list > OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] A question about the distant past
by Vera M Barber 22 Oct '21

22 Oct '21

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Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] A question about the distant past
by James Wiegel 22 Oct '21

22 Oct '21

Click the link for a clip from Joe Slicker, and a playlist from colleagues https://youtu.be/_7hwHDLQheI Jim Wiegel “A revolution is on the horizon: a wholesale transformation of the world economy and the way people live.” Fred Krupp > On Oct 21, 2021, at 9:03 PM, Karenbueno via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > > > I remember that about 1972 we were moving into India, and we were told they didn't really want more Christians. I think that was when Joe Mathews made his remark about an end run around the church. > > Karen Bueno > > > -----Original Message----- > From: W. J. via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> > To: Dialogue Lists <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> > Cc: W. J. <synergi(a)yahoo.com>; O:E Lists <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> > Sent: Thu, Oct 21, 2021 5:40 pm > Subject: Re: [Dialogue] A question about the distant past > > Let's go a little deeper than the image of those little cigar boxes with steeples! > 1. That image refers to the gift of the existing geographical positioning of a global institution in 'the local'. There's a penetration strategy there. > 2. Then there's the historical wisdom that the proclamation of the Word about life is transformative both for individuals and for social structures that groups and individuals are empowered to change. The transformation of the Roman Empire and the 'Christianization' of pagan Europe are part of our history. Jesus was a very obscure nobody messiah in a very minor and rebellious bit of geography. > 3. Then there's the reality that the institutionalization and institutional forms of 'church' and 'Christianity' are always ripe for, and in need of, structural revolution, or transformative 'infiltration' (for lack of a better term). > 4. Remember Stalin's model of social change from RS-1? It was about creating an organized 'elite' with a 'vision' that transforms society by impacting old dead structures with 'imaginal education' (our term) and modeling 'comprehensive community reformulation' (our term) and 'womb to tomb' care for every human being within a given hunk of geography through the dynamic tactical implementation of a locally determined, targeted strategic model that addresses the underlying contradictions by 'cadres' of trained and motivated corporate community groups. Or something like that. > But the bottom line question(s) for me are: > 1. Were we strategic in our focus on the 'historical church'? Was there a 'Plan B' (like 'ICA')? > 2. Were our efforts just too little and/or too late? > 3. What happened to our strategic focus on the 'historical church' with our 'turn to the world'? Were we hedging our bets? > 4. Given the radical secularization and globalization of human cultures, is the westernized form of the 'historical church' just irrelevant as a vehicle for 'glocal' change? > 5. What alternative strategy/target structure could we have bet on with our whole lives and the internal mission structures of a 'religious order'? The Kiwanis Club? The Salvation Army? > 6. We had a twentieth-century strategy that was arguably culturally relevant 'back then.' What would be radically new in creating a twenty-first-century strategy in a radically changed 'glocal' culture? > Maybe this is enough to get a ball rolling with further reflections. Go for it, guys. > Marshall > > > >> On Thursday, October 21, 2021, 02:42:21 PM EDT, Ken Fisher via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> Jim, >> >> How about….. >> >> Around the world, 1 million little cigar boxes with steeples. >> >> What if they all took responsibility for the geography of their parish boundaries without regard for membership or dogma? >> >> All the challenges, all the ages, all the people, all the decisions, all the goods? >> >> Ken >> >> On Oct 21, 2021, at 1:21 PM, James Wiegel via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: >> > > What was the analysis and strategy that led to “the renewal of the local church for the sake of the world”?? > > I think there was one, but time wears away memories or, at least, hides them > > Anyone?? > > Jim Wiegel > “A revolution is on the horizon: a wholesale transformation of the world economy and the way people live.” Fred Krupp > >> On Oct 21, 2021, at 5:32 AM, Ellie Stock via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: >> >> >> > > View this email in your browser > > > He Calls us to the Task of Loving > > Essay by Rev. Deshna Shine > October 21, 2021 > I miss him and he was never really mine. Meaning he was rarely even in my life. He was not my pastor, my family member or even really my friend. Though I would have loved to call him each of those. He was not mine. He was someone on the periphery of my life, a hero, a distant lighthouse. He was a giant to me and yet, he was one of the most down to earth humans I have ever known. And I miss him and deeply wish I had sat at his table more often. > When he wrote a recommendation letter for my application into the Chaplaincy Institute, he wrote, "I would welcome Deshna as my pastor and my friend.” I was in a bit of shock when I read that part. What in the world could I offer this incredible human being in either of those roles? I wish I had believed those words, believed in myself sooner and made the effort to become his friend. I regret not writing him more often. Yes, we were colleagues at some level. Yes, we respected each other, and yes, I had the honor of working with him as his new publisher of this newsletter. But here was a living hero inviting me to befriend him and I was just… what? Busy? Scared? Lacking confidence? Intimidated? Something got in my way of accepting that invitation. And it makes me wonder, as I look at the blur of those years and all those moments I could have reached out, how often do we get in our own way? > I read his words each week. His precise, wise, eloquent, compassionate, and passionate words. I made suggestions here and there, minor edits, paragraph spaces, meaningless things. Christine had already done the real work of editing and shaping his brilliant prose into words that made sense and moved us. I read them and was never not moved. He had the unique ability to bring to life the story of Jesus, to guide us past the literal and into the mystical. If I had been paying more attention, I would have seen how I was getting in my own way of living fully and loving wastefully. I would have seen his kind words as an invitation. > In his last lecture, in June of 2018 at the Chautauqua Institution’s Interfaith Lecture Series, Jack said, “I tried to develop a crucial distinction between the Christ experience and the Christ explanation. The experience is real and timeless; the explanation is in the language of its day and is thereby time-warped and time-bound. The explanation must be surrendered, but the experience does not have to go with it.” > He did not just try. He succeeded. Fully and with an impact on millions of people’s faith and lives. The Christ experience that he illuminated for us was one of deep profound love, boundarylessness, and a life fully lived. The Christ experience that Jack so clearly saw and shared, was one of universalism, of open doors and open hearts. Jack saw God within Jesus and within each of us. He set out to discover the “holy within every human” and he found powerful ways to live into that awareness by lifting up all humans as beloved, divine beings. > I wrote my last column on nuanced conversation and I intended to write this one on how Jesus used nuanced language in his teachings… but that will have to wait. However, it’s fitting, because today I write of a man who was so comfortable in nuance that he banished duality from his ministry! Dualism has no life force in nuance. Dualism is not a part of God or Christ. God is not a being, he taught, God is Be-ing. God is Being fully. Humans cannot conceptualize God, he said, it is not possible. God is not black or white, male or female, angry or loving. God is so much more complex and incomprehensible than that. Though we can’t conceptualize or frame God into some neat and tidy box, we can experience God. > Jack experienced God as the source of all life. There is no duality within God, there is only sacred oneness. And so he reminded us that if God is the source of all life, then the best way to worship God is to live fully. Jack also experienced God as the source of love. “Love is the power that embraces life. Love flows through the whole universe. The love of God is present in the mama cat taking care of her kittens, in the cow licking the new born calf. If God is the source of love, then the only way I can worship God is by loving and loving wastefully!” > I sit here today, tears streaming down my cheeks, wondering when have I refused this invitation. The invitation that Jesus called us to and showed us by example? When have I gotten in my own way of living fully and loving wastefully? When have I judged others, deemed them unworthy of my love? When have I seen someone as unclean? Undeserving? Where have I been stagnant, bored, lazy, scared, distracted, unmindful, when I could have been fully alive and present? > The answer, I know, is not to look back and feel shame and regret. The answer is to look fully at myself now and see a human who is trying so hard to become something that I am exhausted and full of guilt and shame! My effort to become gets in the way of my Being. In a world where God is hard to find, we hold ourselves to some unachievable level that we must get to if we are to deserve to be fully accepted and loved wastefully. > Jack said, “By wasteful love I mean the kind of love that never stops to calculate, never stops to wonder whether the object of its love is worthy to be its recipient. Wasteful love is love that never stops to calculate deserving. It is love that loves, not because love has been earned. It is an act of loving wastefully. That is where God is made visible.” At what point will I consider myself worthy of wasteful love? How can I be a beacon of wasteful love in my own life and ministry? > Jack taught me that Jesus calls us to the mission to transform the world so that every living being has the opportunity to live fully, love wastefully and be all that they can be. In this experience of God, there are no outcasts, no others. In this experience of God, we are fully accepted just as we are. That must and can only begin within each of us. First we must accept ourselves fully as we are, “without one plea.” And then we must put ourselves on task of growing to BE all that we can be and loving the world wastefully. > Jack told us a story of Jesus that embodied this mission. This Jesus was not changed by flattery or even the threat of death. He was fully himself always. He loved so totally, so wastefully, he was “an infinite source of love.” > And so, the brilliant man, my hero and would be friend, leaves us with such a simple mission “to live fully, love wastefully, and become all that we can be.” He invites us to embrace life, to increase love and to have the courage to be. I passed on his invitation before, I failed to fully live because I couldn’t fully love myself. I certainly couldn’t waste love on myself. But I hear you now, Beloved One. I see you and I stand with so many others who have heard your call. > The Christ in me is an infinite well of love that I can pour wastefully, over myself, over you, over all of life. God within me asks for nothing less than a life fully lived. May I rest from this eternal struggle of becoming and see within me a perfect being. May the infinite well of love within me overflow over all of humanity. May I see each living being with eyes of the Christ, where no boundaries exist. May my love “bring oneness out of diversity, wholeness out of brokenness, and eternity out of time.” May we join together in this ministry, the ministry of Be-ing a Christian and disciples of Jesus Christ. > To my friend, my dear Jack Spong. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation not just to work with you or to be your friend, but the one of your life’s calling and prophecy. The invitation to each of us to walk through the doorway of Jesus into the mystery of God. Thank you for your bravery, your courage, and your resilience. You didn’t just try, you succeeded. You lived fully, loved wastefully and became all that you could be. Thank you for showing us the way. > > ~ Rev. Deshna Shine > > Read online here > > About the Author > Rev. Deshna Shine is Project Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org’s Children’s Curriculum. She is an ordained Interfaith Minister, author, international speaker, and visionary. She grew up in a thriving progressive Christian church and has worked in the field for over 13 years. She graduated from UCSB with a major in Religious Studies and a minor in Global Peace and Security. She was Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, Executive Producer of Embrace Festival and has co-authored the novel, Missing Mothers. Deshna is passionate about sacred community, nourishing children spiritually and transforming Christianity through a radically inclusive lens. > Question & Answer > > Q: By Alice > > Growing up and attending a southern Baptist church, I was constantly aware of the term salvation. I am now, thankfully, attending a more progressive and open minded church (PCUSA), but still hear this word. I have never been comfortable with this term and would like to know how you see salvation and what it actually means in progressive Christianity. > > A: By Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers > > Dear Alice, > Great question, and a perennial one for those who grew up in more conservative churches where “salvation” meant believing certain things in order to get certain rewards, especially the assurance of going to heaven. Your discomfort comes from critical thinking, since to be “saved” assumes that you are lost and cannot save yourself. It also assumes that we are born into Original Sin as an inheritance, like being born left-handed or with red hair. Like so much of the language of evangelical Christianity, the “believer” is helpless and hopeless until we submit to a higher power. Or, more accurately, until we agree to say that we “accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior” and know that our sins were forgiven by his death on the cross. It also assumes that the whole purpose of the life of Jesus was to die, when in fact he was killed. So, when you begin to consider old words like “salvation” and what they might mean in progressive Christianity, it is always helpful to turn to the wisdom of Marcus Borg, whose work in helping us reconsider and even redefine words like salvation is found in a book called “Speaking Christian.” Here are some of his words on this topic that I hope will be helpful: > > The term “salvation” and the concept afterlife have been linked in Christian and religious conversation. Salvation has been made to be about gaining a “positive” afterlife. It has become a normative thought that this is the point of all religions—to ensure a happy eternal resting place. Borg would argue that the goal of the Christian life is salvation—but not primarily about before or after death ... . The best single English synonym for “salvation”—“transformation”. Transformation of ourselves and the world. It’s about personal transformation and transformation of society as a whole. Salvation can be experienced as healing—a salve. Salvation is a healing ointment. Giving the transformation from blindness to seeing. In Eastern orthodoxy—primary definition of salvation is enlightenment. Jesus came as a light in our darkness, etc. This speaks to the idea of living people who are dead inside—salvation being the transformation from death to life. Moving people from pre-occupation and anxiety to presence and compassion. Salvation is about the individual transforming and also the transformation of the world, transformation from a world justice to a world of justice. Transformation from a world of war to a world of peace. > ~ Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers > > Read and share online here > > About the Author > Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers is retired senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church, Oklahoma City, Distinguished Professor of Social Justice Emeritus in the Philosophy Department at Oklahoma City University, where he still teaches. He is the author of eight books on religion and American culture, the most recent of which is, “Saving God from Religion: A Minister’s Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age.” More information is at RobinMeyers.com > 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. > Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! > > > As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. > > For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. > > We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. > > Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! > > * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. > Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited > > Examining the Meaning of the Resurrection, Part III: > Where Were the Disciples When They Saw? > > Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong > June 16, 2011 > When people have a life-changing experience, they tend to freeze in their minds forever where they were and even what they were doing when the news broke or the new awareness entered their world. I can recall to this day where I was when, as a ten-year old child, I heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When I was 32 and a young priest, I remember my precise circumstances in which I learned of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Almost everyone in America, but especially those of us who live in the New York City area, can recall where we were and with whom when the recognition dawned that the World Trade Center had been attacked with commandeered commercial airliners being driven into the Twin Towers. > > Each of these moments was a shaping experience and each would be lived and relived in our memories for the rest of our lives. The recent navy seal raid on Bin Laden’s secret hideout in Pakistan and the death of the planner and perpetrator of this monstrous act caused many to relive that original moment and to recall just how its awareness not only entered, but also shaped our lives. > > The New Testament clearly regarded the moment we have named “Easter” as a life-changing experience, indeed so powerful a moment was it that eventually the followers of Jesus decided to make it indelible for all of history by making the decision to view the life of Jesus as the life by which history was itself divided. So all of human history came to be seen and understood as having two distinct parts. There were the years before Christ, which were to be called BC, and the years after Christ referred to as years lived in the power of his ongoing and continued presence, which we called Anno Domini, or AD, “The Year of our Lord.” > > Given both that human proclivity of remembering and the impact which the first Easter brought to the followers of Jesus, it is surprising, perhaps even amazing, that the New Testament does not seem to know where the disciples were when whatever the experience occurred that we came to call “the resurrection of Jesus.” The gospels simply do not agree on the disciples’ location when Easter dawned in their conscious awareness. There are two centers that appear to compete for the honor, one is Galilee and the other is Jerusalem. Let me now go through the available biblical data and lay out the evidence contained therein. > > We start with Paul because he is the first author of any book or work that is today contained in the New Testament. Paul, however, turns out not to be particularly helpful. He gives us no location for any of his “witnesses.” All he tells us is that Peter was the first to see and then “the Twelve.” Clearly their natural setting would be Galilee since all of them were in fact Galileans. We are told, however, that they did go to Jerusalem for the Passover so they could have been in Jerusalem. If the connection between Passover and the crucifixion is a liturgical interpretation more than a historical recollection, as I have previously suggested, the argument would be stronger that the “appearances” to which Paul is referring were events that happened in Galilee. The best we can say, however, is that the witness of Paul on this issue is ambivalent and so we move on. > > Turning to Mark, the earliest gospel (70-72), we find the anomaly to which I have previously referred, namely, that this original gospel does not relate a resurrection appearance by Jesus to anyone. Mark has only a tomb story that would clearly be in Jerusalem, but at the tomb the women find the grave empty and they hear a proclamation from one who is described only as “a young man in a white robe,” who tells them that Jesus has been raised and who then directs the women to tell the disciples that Jesus “goes before you to Galilee and there you will see him as he said unto you.” The last few words in this quotation refer back to an earlier text in Mark in which Jesus predicts that the disciples will be scattered, but “after I am raised up I will go before you into Galilee.” It is clear that Mark believes that the disciples would and did encounter the risen Christ in Galilee. It is also clear to biblical scholars that Mark’s gospel ends at 16:8 and that both the shorter ending (16:9-10), an account of an appearance to Magdalene, and the longer ending (16:14-20), which recounts an appearance “to the Eleven” are added to Mark many years later, probably in the second century, in an attempt to harmonize Mark with the other gospels. The earliest manuscripts of Mark did not contain these additions and they are universally regarded in the world of biblical scholarship as inauthentic. So we have a probable vote in Paul and an overt suggestion in Mark that Galilee is the place where the disciples are located when the meaning of Easter comes to them and captures them. > > Matthew is a further witness to the Galilean tradition. This second gospel, written in the early to mid eighties, however, does contradict Mark, whose gospel he obviously has in hand and from which he draws much of his material, by suggesting that the women saw the raised Jesus at the tomb. That would be a witness to the Jerusalem tradition. Mark had said that they did not. Luke agrees with Mark and says the women did not see him, so Matthew’s contrary view is highly suspect. Matthew, however, does agree that it was only in Galilee that “the Twelve” have a resurrection experience. This, in fact, is the first biblical account of the risen Christ appearing to the disciples anywhere. Matthew, having heard by now the story of the defection of Judas, calls them “the Eleven.” This Matthean narrative is, however a very strange one. The risen Christ who appears is not a physically-resuscitated body, but rather a transformed and glorified one, and though the ascension story had not yet been written, he is clearly an ascended, heavenly being. He comes out of the clouds to a mountain top. Matthew says that Jesus had directed the disciples to this particular mountain, though there is no indication as to when that direction was given. Then in that Galilean setting, Jesus is said to have given the great commission: “Go into all the world.” This was the first time that a suggestion was made that the raised Christ had spoken to anyone. Matthew, though ambivalent is surely in the Galilee column. > > Luke counters the Galilean tradition sharply. The resurrection of Jesus for him is a Jerusalem area only event. In Luke the women do not see Jesus at the tomb, but Cleopas and his unnamed traveling companion experience him in the breaking of bread in the village of Emmaus, less than six miles from Jerusalem. Luke later tells us that the raised Christ has also appeared to Peter, presumably that was also in Jerusalem. Finally, according to Luke, Jesus appears to all the disciples in the afternoon of Easter Day, bids them peace, identifies himself clearly, asks for food to eat, opens their minds to understand the scriptures, directs them to remain in Jerusalem until “empowered” from on high and then departs. Luke specifically denies any Galilean experience connected with Easter. > > When we come to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus first appears to Mary at the tomb, then to the disciples that evening in Jerusalem in a locked and barred room without Thomas being present. One week later, still in Jerusalem, John tells us that Jesus appears again to the disciples, but this time with Thomas present. That is where the gospel of John seems to end. Then, however, we have an epilogue, relating yet another appearance to the disciples, but this time it is much later and it is in Galilee by the Sea of Galilee, and with this narrative the epilogue ends. > > That is the biblical data and it reveals significant conflict about where the disciples were, physically, when Easter was dawned on them. Paul probably, Mark by inference and Matthew specifically say that the disciples were in Galilee when they “saw” the risen Christ. Luke refutes that and makes the Jerusalem area the sole locale of resurrection. John supports Luke in the Fourth Gospel itself, but in the attached epilogue, the scene is clearly Galilee. With such inconclusive data, our next step is to look at the various accounts of the resurrection in each of the two locales. When we do that the scales begin to tilt toward Galilee for a number of reasons. The Galilean narratives are vague, primitive and mysterious and thus appear to be original. They express something of the stunned and startled response that feels natural in those circumstances. In the Jerusalem narratives, the miraculous has been heightened and the body has become quite physical. The resurrected body of Jesus can even be touched and handled. Only in the Jerusalem stories does the risen Christ do such physical things as eat, walk, talk and interpret scripture. By every measurement, Galilee seems to be original and Jerusalem seems to be a later development. > > We have one final test. Remembering that no gospel is written except in the light of the resurrection, we examine some other stories in the gospels that are set in Galilee and which seem to have resurrection themes attached to them. The accounts of Jesus walking on the water and stilling the storm are both Galilean stories. The narrative of the disciples confessing Jesus as messiah has a Galilean setting. Jesus being transfigured before their eyes together with the long- deceased Moses and Elijah is set in Galilee. All of these narratives have a numinous, mysterious quality about them. These are the data that tip our conclusion toward an original Galilean setting. It is far easier to understand how the resurrection experience might have been shifted out of Galilee to the much more prestigious location in Jerusalem, than it is to imagine a shift going in the other direction. Recall that the birth of Jesus, which in all probability occurred in Nazareth of Galilee, was also shifted to Bethlehem near Jerusalem to provide Jesus with a more prestigious place of birth. > > Our clues thus begin to be assembled. Peter appears to have been the first to “see” and thus the first to experience whatever resurrection was. That experience appears to have occurred to him in Galilee. We turn next to the “when” question and examine the meaning of “three days.” > ~ John Shelby Spong > Announcements > > Spiritual Psychology > November 3rd - December 5th > If you are working with clients, want to begin mentoring others, or want to deepen your own personal growth, join me in learning the Tree of Life model, a powerful transformative tool for psycho-spiritual development. READ ON... > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > OE mailing list > OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net > _______________________________________________ > Dialogue mailing list > Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net > > _______________________________________________ > Dialogue mailing list > Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net > _______________________________________________ > Dialogue mailing list > Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net > _______________________________________________ > Dialogue mailing list > Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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10/21/2021, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Deshna Shine: He Calls us to the Task of Loving; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 21 Oct '21

21 Oct '21

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Deshna Shine October 21, 2021I miss him and he was never really mine. Meaning he was rarely even in my life. He was not my pastor, my family member or even really my friend. Though I would have loved to call him each of those. He was not mine. He was someone on the periphery of my life, a hero, a distant lighthouse. He was a giant to me and yet, he was one of the most down to earth humans I have ever known. And I miss him and deeply wish I had sat at his table more often.When he wrote a recommendation letter for my application into the Chaplaincy Institute, he wrote, "I would welcome Deshna as my pastor and my friend.” I was in a bit of shock when I read that part. What in the world could I offer this incredible human being in either of those roles? I wish I had believed those words, believed in myself sooner and made the effort to become his friend. I regret not writing him more often. Yes, we were colleagues at some level. Yes, we respected each other, and yes, I had the honor of working with him as his new publisher of this newsletter. But here was a living hero inviting me to befriend him and I was just… what? Busy? Scared? Lacking confidence? Intimidated? Something got in my way of accepting that invitation. And it makes me wonder, as I look at the blur of those years and all those moments I could have reached out, how often do we get in our own way?I read his words each week. His precise, wise, eloquent, compassionate, and passionate words. I made suggestions here and there, minor edits, paragraph spaces, meaningless things. Christine had already done the real work of editing and shaping his brilliant prose into words that made sense and moved us. I read them and was never not moved. He had the unique ability to bring to life the story of Jesus, to guide us past the literal and into the mystical. If I had been paying more attention, I would have seen how I was getting in my own way of living fully and loving wastefully. I would have seen his kind words as an invitation.In his last lecture, in June of 2018 at the Chautauqua Institution’s Interfaith Lecture Series, Jack said, “I tried to develop a crucial distinction between the Christ experience and the Christ explanation. The experience is real and timeless; the explanation is in the language of its day and is thereby time-warped and time-bound. The explanation must be surrendered, but the experience does not have to go with it.”He did not just try. He succeeded. Fully and with an impact on millions of people’s faith and lives. The Christ experience that he illuminated for us was one of deep profound love, boundarylessness, and a life fully lived. The Christ experience that Jack so clearly saw and shared, was one of universalism, of open doors and open hearts. Jack saw God within Jesus and within each of us. He set out to discover the “holy within every human” and he found powerful ways to live into that awareness by lifting up all humans as beloved, divine beings.I wrote my last column on nuanced conversation and I intended to write this one on how Jesus used nuanced language in his teachings… but that will have to wait. However, it’s fitting, because today I write of a man who was so comfortable in nuance that he banished duality from his ministry! Dualism has no life force in nuance. Dualism is not a part of God or Christ. God is not a being, he taught, God is Be-ing. God is Being fully. Humans cannot conceptualize God, he said, it is not possible. God is not black or white, male or female, angry or loving. God is so much more complex and incomprehensible than that. Though we can’t conceptualize or frame God into some neat and tidy box, we can experience God.Jack experienced God as the source of all life. There is no duality within God, there is only sacred oneness. And so he reminded us that if God is the source of all life, then the best way to worship God is to live fully. Jack also experienced God as the source of love. “Love is the power that embraces life. Love flows through the whole universe. The love of God is present in the mama cat taking care of her kittens, in the cow licking the new born calf. If God is the source of love, then the only way I can worship God is by loving and loving wastefully!”I sit here today, tears streaming down my cheeks, wondering when have I refused this invitation. The invitation that Jesus called us to and showed us by example? When have I gotten in my own way of living fully and loving wastefully? When have I judged others, deemed them unworthy of my love? When have I seen someone as unclean? Undeserving? Where have I been stagnant, bored, lazy, scared, distracted, unmindful, when I could have been fully alive and present?The answer, I know, is not to look back and feel shame and regret. The answer is to look fully at myself now and see a human who is trying so hard to become something that I am exhausted and full of guilt and shame! My effort to become gets in the way of my Being. In a world where God is hard to find, we hold ourselves to some unachievable level that we must get to if we are to deserve to be fully accepted and loved wastefully.Jack said, “By wasteful love I mean the kind of love that never stops to calculate, never stops to wonder whether the object of its love is worthy to be its recipient. Wasteful love is love that never stops to calculate deserving. It is love that loves, not because love has been earned. It is an act of loving wastefully. That is where God is made visible.” At what point will I consider myself worthy of wasteful love? How can I be a beacon of wasteful love in my own life and ministry?Jack taught me that Jesus calls us to the mission to transform the world so that every living being has the opportunity to live fully, love wastefully and be all that they can be. In this experience of God, there are no outcasts, no others. In this experience of God, we are fully accepted just as we are. That must and can only begin within each of us. First we must accept ourselves fully as we are, “without one plea.” And then we must put ourselves on task of growing to BE all that we can be and loving the world wastefully.Jack told us a story of Jesus that embodied this mission. This Jesus was not changed by flattery or even the threat of death. He was fully himself always. He loved so totally, so wastefully, he was “an infinite source of love.”And so, the brilliant man, my hero and would be friend, leaves us with such a simple mission “to live fully, love wastefully, and become all that we can be.” He invites us to embrace life, to increase love and to have the courage to be. I passed on his invitation before, I failed to fully live because I couldn’t fully love myself. I certainly couldn’t waste love on myself. But I hear you now, Beloved One. I see you and I stand with so many others who have heard your call.The Christ in me is an infinite well of love that I can pour wastefully, over myself, over you, over all of life. God within me asks for nothing less than a life fully lived. May I rest from this eternal struggle of becoming and see within me a perfect being. May the infinite well of love within me overflow over all of humanity. May I see each living being with eyes of the Christ, where no boundaries exist. May my love “bring oneness out of diversity, wholeness out of brokenness, and eternity out of time.” May we join together in this ministry, the ministry of Be-ing a Christian and disciples of Jesus Christ.To my friend, my dear Jack Spong. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation not just to work with you or to be your friend, but the one of your life’s calling and prophecy. The invitation to each of us to walk through the doorway of Jesus into the mystery of God. Thank you for your bravery, your courage, and your resilience. You didn’t just try, you succeeded. You lived fully, loved wastefully and became all that you could be. Thank you for showing us the way. ~ Rev. Deshna Shine Read online here About the Author Rev. Deshna Shine is Project Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org’s Children’s Curriculum. She is an ordained Interfaith Minister, author, international speaker, and visionary. She grew up in a thriving progressive Christian church and has worked in the field for over 13 years. She graduated from UCSB with a major in Religious Studies and a minor in Global Peace and Security. She was Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, Executive Producer of Embrace Festival and has co-authored the novel, Missing Mothers. Deshna is passionate about sacred community, nourishing children spiritually and transforming Christianity through a radically inclusive lens. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Alice Growing up and attending a southern Baptist church, I was constantly aware of the term salvation. I am now, thankfully, attending a more progressive and open minded church (PCUSA), but still hear this word. I have never been comfortable with this term and would like to know how you see salvation and what it actually means in progressive Christianity. A: By Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers Dear Alice,Great question, and a perennial one for those who grew up in more conservative churches where “salvation” meant believing certain things in order to get certain rewards, especially the assurance of going to heaven. Your discomfort comes from critical thinking, since to be “saved” assumes that you are lost and cannot save yourself. It also assumes that we are born into Original Sin as an inheritance, like being born left-handed or with red hair. Like so much of the language of evangelical Christianity, the “believer” is helpless and hopeless until we submit to a higher power. Or, more accurately, until we agree to say that we “accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior” and know that our sins were forgiven by his death on the cross. It also assumes that the whole purpose of the life of Jesus was to die, when in fact he was killed. So, when you begin to consider old words like “salvation” and what they might mean in progressive Christianity, it is always helpful to turn to the wisdom of Marcus Borg, whose work in helping us reconsider and even redefine words like salvation is found in a book called “Speaking Christian.” Here are some of his words on this topic that I hope will be helpful: The term “salvation” and the concept afterlife have been linked in Christian and religious conversation. Salvation has been made to be about gaining a “positive” afterlife. It has become a normative thought that this is the point of all religions—to ensure a happy eternal resting place. Borg would argue that the goal of the Christian life is salvation—but not primarily about before or after death ... . The best single English synonym for “salvation”—“transformation”. Transformation of ourselves and the world. It’s about personal transformation and transformation of society as a whole. Salvation can be experienced as healing—a salve. Salvation is a healing ointment. Giving the transformation from blindness to seeing. In Eastern orthodoxy—primary definition of salvation is enlightenment. Jesus came as a light in our darkness, etc. This speaks to the idea of living people who are dead inside—salvation being the transformation from death to life. Moving people from pre-occupation and anxiety to presence and compassion. Salvation is about the individual transforming and also the transformation of the world, transformation from a world justice to a world of justice. Transformation from a world of war to a world of peace.~ Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers is retired senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church, Oklahoma City, Distinguished Professor of Social Justice Emeritus in the Philosophy Department at Oklahoma City University, where he still teaches. He is the author of eight books on religion and American culture, the most recent of which is, “Saving God from Religion: A Minister’s Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age.” More information is at RobinMeyers.com | | | | | | | | 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.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Examining the Meaning of the Resurrection, Part III: Where Were the Disciples When They Saw? Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong June 16, 2011When people have a life-changing experience, they tend to freeze in their minds forever where they were and even what they were doing when the news broke or the new awareness entered their world. I can recall to this day where I was when, as a ten-year old child, I heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When I was 32 and a young priest, I remember my precise circumstances in which I learned of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Almost everyone in America, but especially those of us who live in the New York City area, can recall where we were and with whom when the recognition dawned that the World Trade Center had been attacked with commandeered commercial airliners being driven into the Twin Towers. Each of these moments was a shaping experience and each would be lived and relived in our memories for the rest of our lives. The recent navy seal raid on Bin Laden’s secret hideout in Pakistan and the death of the planner and perpetrator of this monstrous act caused many to relive that original moment and to recall just how its awareness not only entered, but also shaped our lives. The New Testament clearly regarded the moment we have named “Easter” as a life-changing experience, indeed so powerful a moment was it that eventually the followers of Jesus decided to make it indelible for all of history by making the decision to view the life of Jesus as the life by which history was itself divided. So all of human history came to be seen and understood as having two distinct parts. There were the years before Christ, which were to be called BC, and the years after Christ referred to as years lived in the power of his ongoing and continued presence, which we called Anno Domini, or AD, “The Year of our Lord.” Given both that human proclivity of remembering and the impact which the first Easter brought to the followers of Jesus, it is surprising, perhaps even amazing, that the New Testament does not seem to know where the disciples were when whatever the experience occurred that we came to call “the resurrection of Jesus.” The gospels simply do not agree on the disciples’ location when Easter dawned in their conscious awareness. There are two centers that appear to compete for the honor, one is Galilee and the other is Jerusalem. Let me now go through the available biblical data and lay out the evidence contained therein. We start with Paul because he is the first author of any book or work that is today contained in the New Testament. Paul, however, turns out not to be particularly helpful. He gives us no location for any of his “witnesses.” All he tells us is that Peter was the first to see and then “the Twelve.” Clearly their natural setting would be Galilee since all of them were in fact Galileans. We are told, however, that they did go to Jerusalem for the Passover so they could have been in Jerusalem. If the connection between Passover and the crucifixion is a liturgical interpretation more than a historical recollection, as I have previously suggested, the argument would be stronger that the “appearances” to which Paul is referring were events that happened in Galilee. The best we can say, however, is that the witness of Paul on this issue is ambivalent and so we move on. Turning to Mark, the earliest gospel (70-72), we find the anomaly to which I have previously referred, namely, that this original gospel does not relate a resurrection appearance by Jesus to anyone. Mark has only a tomb story that would clearly be in Jerusalem, but at the tomb the women find the grave empty and they hear a proclamation from one who is described only as “a young man in a white robe,” who tells them that Jesus has been raised and who then directs the women to tell the disciples that Jesus “goes before you to Galilee and there you will see him as he said unto you.” The last few words in this quotation refer back to an earlier text in Mark in which Jesus predicts that the disciples will be scattered, but “after I am raised up I will go before you into Galilee.” It is clear that Mark believes that the disciples would and did encounter the risen Christ in Galilee. It is also clear to biblical scholars that Mark’s gospel ends at 16:8 and that both the shorter ending (16:9-10), an account of an appearance to Magdalene, and the longer ending (16:14-20), which recounts an appearance “to the Eleven” are added to Mark many years later, probably in the second century, in an attempt to harmonize Mark with the other gospels. The earliest manuscripts of Mark did not contain these additions and they are universally regarded in the world of biblical scholarship as inauthentic. So we have a probable vote in Paul and an overt suggestion in Mark that Galilee is the place where the disciples are located when the meaning of Easter comes to them and captures them. Matthew is a further witness to the Galilean tradition. This second gospel, written in the early to mid eighties, however, does contradict Mark, whose gospel he obviously has in hand and from which he draws much of his material, by suggesting that the women saw the raised Jesus at the tomb. That would be a witness to the Jerusalem tradition. Mark had said that they did not. Luke agrees with Mark and says the women did not see him, so Matthew’s contrary view is highly suspect. Matthew, however, does agree that it was only in Galilee that “the Twelve” have a resurrection experience. This, in fact, is the first biblical account of the risen Christ appearing to the disciples anywhere. Matthew, having heard by now the story of the defection of Judas, calls them “the Eleven.” This Matthean narrative is, however a very strange one. The risen Christ who appears is not a physically-resuscitated body, but rather a transformed and glorified one, and though the ascension story had not yet been written, he is clearly an ascended, heavenly being. He comes out of the clouds to a mountain top. Matthew says that Jesus had directed the disciples to this particular mountain, though there is no indication as to when that direction was given. Then in that Galilean setting, Jesus is said to have given the great commission: “Go into all the world.” This was the first time that a suggestion was made that the raised Christ had spoken to anyone. Matthew, though ambivalent is surely in the Galilee column. Luke counters the Galilean tradition sharply. The resurrection of Jesus for him is a Jerusalem area only event. In Luke the women do not see Jesus at the tomb, but Cleopas and his unnamed traveling companion experience him in the breaking of bread in the village of Emmaus, less than six miles from Jerusalem. Luke later tells us that the raised Christ has also appeared to Peter, presumably that was also in Jerusalem. Finally, according to Luke, Jesus appears to all the disciples in the afternoon of Easter Day, bids them peace, identifies himself clearly, asks for food to eat, opens their minds to understand the scriptures, directs them to remain in Jerusalem until “empowered” from on high and then departs. Luke specifically denies any Galilean experience connected with Easter. When we come to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus first appears to Mary at the tomb, then to the disciples that evening in Jerusalem in a locked and barred room without Thomas being present. One week later, still in Jerusalem, John tells us that Jesus appears again to the disciples, but this time with Thomas present. That is where the gospel of John seems to end. Then, however, we have an epilogue, relating yet another appearance to the disciples, but this time it is much later and it is in Galilee by the Sea of Galilee, and with this narrative the epilogue ends. That is the biblical data and it reveals significant conflict about where the disciples were, physically, when Easter was dawned on them. Paul probably, Mark by inference and Matthew specifically say that the disciples were in Galilee when they “saw” the risen Christ. Luke refutes that and makes the Jerusalem area the sole locale of resurrection. John supports Luke in the Fourth Gospel itself, but in the attached epilogue, the scene is clearly Galilee. With such inconclusive data, our next step is to look at the various accounts of the resurrection in each of the two locales. When we do that the scales begin to tilt toward Galilee for a number of reasons. The Galilean narratives are vague, primitive and mysterious and thus appear to be original. They express something of the stunned and startled response that feels natural in those circumstances. In the Jerusalem narratives, the miraculous has been heightened and the body has become quite physical. The resurrected body of Jesus can even be touched and handled. Only in the Jerusalem stories does the risen Christ do such physical things as eat, walk, talk and interpret scripture. By every measurement, Galilee seems to be original and Jerusalem seems to be a later development. We have one final test. Remembering that no gospel is written except in the light of the resurrection, we examine some other stories in the gospels that are set in Galilee and which seem to have resurrection themes attached to them. The accounts of Jesus walking on the water and stilling the storm are both Galilean stories. The narrative of the disciples confessing Jesus as messiah has a Galilean setting. Jesus being transfigured before their eyes together with the long- deceased Moses and Elijah is set in Galilee. All of these narratives have a numinous, mysterious quality about them. These are the data that tip our conclusion toward an original Galilean setting. It is far easier to understand how the resurrection experience might have been shifted out of Galilee to the much more prestigious location in Jerusalem, than it is to imagine a shift going in the other direction. Recall that the birth of Jesus, which in all probability occurred in Nazareth of Galilee, was also shifted to Bethlehem near Jerusalem to provide Jesus with a more prestigious place of birth. Our clues thus begin to be assembled. Peter appears to have been the first to “see” and thus the first to experience whatever resurrection was. That experience appears to have occurred to him in Galilee. We turn next to the “when” question and examine the meaning of “three days.”~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Spiritual Psychology November 3rd - December 5th If you are working with clients, want to begin mentoring others, or want to deepen your own personal growth, join me in learning the Tree of Life model, a powerful transformative tool for psycho-spiritual development. READ ON... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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October/November Update of Global Schedule
by Karen Snyder 18 Oct '21

18 Oct '21

GLOBAL SCHEDULE EVENTS OCTOBER studies from September continue this month: * Doughnut Economics * Courage to Lead * Common Earth * Choosing Earth followup conversation this Monday or Thursday led by Jim Wiegel, Jan Sanders and Lauren Brika Liga. Send an email to jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com <mailto:jfwiegel@yahoo.com> if you would like to dialogue with the questions: "What will it take to release large amounts of sustained human energy towards significant social (economic, political, cultural) change over the rest of this century? And what are the practical implications for our personal, family, professional, movemental and community lives?" NOVEMBER events include: * A Canadian film festival on climate change * The Thinking Christian dialogue with Gene Marshall * The D.R.E.A.M. class with Katherine Barton. ***** To see upcoming events, copy this this link into your browser: https://icaglobalarchives.org/social-research-center-events <https://icaglobalarchives.org/social-research-center-events> Remember: YOU are invited to: Offer a presentation you are interested in giving; Recommend other people to present; Participate in any of the events and encourage your friends to attend; and 4. Give feedback by emailing: icaglobalschedule(a)gmail.com <mailto:icaglobalschedule@gmail.com> Thank you, and we look forward to hearing from you. Alan Gammel, Washington Jan Sanders, Toronto Karen Snyder, Illinois Robyn Hutchinson, Australia Sunny Walker, Colorado Virginia Kanyogonya, Toronto The Global Schedule team is working with the ICAI Global Communications Team, established by the General Assembly (GA) in July 2021. The Communications Team focus includes: ICAI website, Winds and Waves, the Global Buzz, ICA/OE listserves, specific language groups and social media. We look forward to developing the best possible user friendly ways of sharing our stories, achievements and challenges, via these platforms.

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10/14/2021, Progressing Spirit, Rev Dr. Robin R. Meyers: Religious Exemptions?; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 14 Oct '21

14 Oct '21

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and (max-width:480px){#yiv8108866115 h4{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8108866115 .yiv8108866115mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent, #yiv8108866115 .yiv8108866115mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8108866115 #yiv8108866115templatePreheader{display:block !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8108866115 #yiv8108866115templatePreheader .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent, #yiv8108866115 #yiv8108866115templatePreheader .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8108866115 #yiv8108866115templateHeader .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent, #yiv8108866115 #yiv8108866115templateHeader .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent p{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8108866115 #yiv8108866115templateBody .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent, #yiv8108866115 #yiv8108866115templateBody .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8108866115 #yiv8108866115templateFooter .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent, #yiv8108866115 #yiv8108866115templateFooter .yiv8108866115mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Religious Exemptions? | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers October 14, 2021Like so many of you, I had planned to pen a tribute to Jack Spong on this page, but there is little I can offer that has not already been said. Truth be known, I am an author because Jack once gave his personal recommendation to Harper Collins that they should consider my work. He lectured to my congregation at Mayflower UCC one Saturday morning for four and half hours. When Fred Plummer asked me at a Westar meeting to consider taking over the Spong newsletter, I declined for one simple reason. I am not Jack Spong. There was only one, and he changed the religious landscape for so many grateful souls. It has been said that immortality can be found between the covers of a book. May it be so. There is something else I’d like to write about, however. It has been both strange and infuriating to me. Like so many of the injustices and inequities revealed by the pandemic, evangelical Christianity’s deepest values have also been unmasked. Now that more and more businesses are requiring those who return to work to get the vaccine, people who have already decided not to get the shot, often by feasting on misinformation, have also decided that their “personal freedom” trumps any biblical injunction to be our sister and brother’s keeper. But that is not all. They are now claiming that being vaccinated against the deadly Delta variant in the middle of a terrifying surge is also against their most deeply held religious beliefs. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 allows employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees who object to work requirements based on religious beliefs that are “sincerely held.” Since this exemption cannot be waived for social or political beliefs, religion is broadly defined as an individual’s beliefs, not necessarily the beliefs of a particular religion or denomination. This works well for people who claim to follow Jesus but whose love of the neighbor is hard to recognize. There is abundant evidence to suggest that after deciding not to get the vaccine for personal or secular reasons, a “religious exemption” is now the go-to rationale. That is, people who refuse to get a miraculously safe and effective vaccine to protect not only themselves but the rest of us are suddenly finding God, and then creating God in their own image. Who knew that God is the real Q? As reported in the New York Times, a couple in Paducah Kentucky, have found a way not to get the shot after the hospital where one of them works announced a vaccine mandate. “There are many reasons why we don’t want to take it, and faith is one.” Their concerns include a perception that the vaccine was rushed, problems with what they have read about the vaccine’s remote connection to abortion and similarities to the biblical “mark of the beast,” a symbol associated with the Antichrist.” Of course, they do not believe that they will get the virus itself. What’s more, pastors are now helping people who have just discovered their “religious” reasons for keeping the pandemic alive and deadly for the rest of us. They are drafting letters for their parishioners (often in exchange for a donation), so that the religious reasons seem more “sincere.” You just check a box confirming that you are a “practicing Evangelical that adheres to the religious and moral principles outlined in the Holy Bible.” Hold on right there. A person who adheres to the moral principles outlined in the Holy Bible would be getting the vaccine to be like the Good Samaritan who helped the man who was beaten and left for dead (on a ventilator) along with all the other unvaccinated fools who worship God in the wrong way or on the wrong mountain. She would be like Jesus, listening for the voice of health care workers who are crying out, like blind Bartimaeus, to be seen and healed. We laud them as heroes, and then we make their lives a living hell by failing to roll up our sleeves and get a shot that would empty out most of the ICU beds in the country. No wonder they are leaving the profession in droves. A person that adheres to the moral principles outlined in the Holy Bible would understand that if faith does not make a person more selfless, but instead provides divine sanction for acting more selfishly, it is worse than the atheism they despise. According to Mark, the first gospel, Jesus is a healer who teaches entirely in parables. So, what would he make of people who begged science for a miracle, got one, and then decided that their hatred of the government, or Democrats, or the Deep State requires them to reject it? Would he not tell a modern parable of the Fool Who Would Not be Vaccinated? A small-town pastor in rural Iowa is busy writing letters for his congregation that provides Godly reasons for not getting vaccinated, offering them a four-paragraph letter stating that “a Christin has no responsibility to obey any government outside the scope that has been designated by God.” If this is true, then we should all consider ignoring the most basic rules of civic compliance that are not found in the Bible. To begin, at every intersection on the roads built for us by the state, we should stop on green and go on red. Afterall, no one is going to tell us that we can’t kill ourselves and others if it means a victory over the forces of darkness! Now those lying abed in our hospitals have essentially closed ICU’s for the rest of us because they did not get vaccinated. But when they get covid they beg those in the citadel of science to heal them, and suddenly believe the science behind monoclonal antibody infusions. Each infusion costs $2,100 per dose, paid for by the evil federal government, compared to free vaccinations which overwhelmingly prevent hospitalization in the first place. The difference is that conservative talk show hosts, and their hero, Donald Trump (who in my opinion is the answer to the question What Would Jesus Not Do?) got the treatment—at the country’s finest government hospital no less—and it saved their lives. Then Mr. Trump never told a single soul, including his goose-stepping legions, to get the vaccine. It brings to mind the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept. This madness plays out like a political map of the U.S. Seven southern states who perpetuate the lie that Biden did not win the election, account for 70% of the orders for monoclonal antibody infusions. They hate wasting tax-payer dollars, so perhaps they might consider getting the vaccine as a deficit reduction plan? The real problem, of course, is that they think of such problems as the fault of other people they despise. They consider themselves to be the victims of vast conspiracies that they read about, believe, and then act upon in ways that endanger us all. When they are lying in a hospital bed gasping for breath and clinging to life itself, they often announce both their penitence and stupidity, but it’s too late. A single vaccine would have saved them, and protected countless others, while the treatments they demand now save only themselves. This is how the pandemic unveiled the true nature of so much evangelical Christianity in America. This is how a gospel of love and inclusion for the Gentiles (everyone else) became a cosmic bargain, the individualized reward for those who say they believe the right things—even though most of those things are developed doctrines that Jesus would not recognize. The mark of a truly religious person should be a heightened moral imagination, not a weeping spectacle of fawning gratitude because Jesus died to save the most unholy of Trinities—Me/Myself/and I. In searching for a reason not to be vaccinated, a woman in Indiana did “research” into the dangers. She listened to a “health and freedom” conference hosted by an anti-vaccine podcast, and download materials from America’s Frontline Doctors, an organization that peddles false information about the vaccines and promotes as a treatment the livestock drug ivermectin. She finally landed on a verse from the Bible to back it all up from 2 Timothy: For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Exactly. Amen.~ Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers Read online here About the Author Rev. Dr. Robin R. Meyers is retired senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church, Oklahoma City, Distinguished Professor of Social Justice Emeritus in the Philosophy Department at Oklahoma City University, where he still teaches. He is the author of eight books on religion and American culture, the most recent of which is, “Saving God from Religion: A Minister’s Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age.” More information is at RobinMeyers.com | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Jeff I was brought up to understand that we meet God in church. What is it supposed to mean when people say that God is within me? I don't think I've found that to be true. A: By Rev. Mark Sandlin Dear Jeff,It's hard for me to say what a particular person or persons meant when you heard them say that, but I can tell you what it means to me. Think of humanity as the ocean and each person a wave. Each wave is different, but equally wet, equally made of the ocean. Wetness is to the ocean as God is to humanity. We each are a unique part of a whole, yet decidedly part of that whole. We are made of the same stuff. And, in each of us resides the divine. Not separate and different parts of the divine – instead, we are all part of the same Oneness. We are all part of the ocean that is God. We are all dripping wet. A conversation between a young man and his guru was once overheard, the student proudly stated, “The purpose of religion is to find God.” His teacher responded, “Not quite, the purpose of religion is to find ourselves, within which we shall find God.” Or, as Rumi once said, “I looked in temples, churches & mosques. But I found the Divine within my Heart.” Look into every great religious, spiritual, and wisdom tradition, and we find the same precept — that life’s ultimate truth, its ultimate treasure, lies within us. Jesus was once asked when the kingdom of God would come. The kingdom of God, Jesus replied, is not something people will be able to see and point to. Then came these striking words in Luke 17:21: “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” With those words, Jesus gave voice to a teaching that is universal and timeless. Particularly for those who grew up in conservative or mainline churches, the trick is letting go of some of the things we've been taught about God. It's particularly true when it comes to ideologies which suggest that God is separate from us and, thus, must be sought after and searched for. When you do begin letting go of those, instead of always looking for God, you end up feeling God and enjoy walking in the joy of this ineffable Presence. The Good News is that it produces real transformation in how you think, live, treat others and the world, because it opens up up to see God all around us and not only within. In the end, I’d simply say, there is nowhere that God isn’t and that includes inside you. ~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Read and share online here 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. Mark also serves as the President and Co-executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org. 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. Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin. | | | | | | | | 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.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Thoughts on the Future of Christianity After a Conversation with the Founder of the Alban Institute Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong June 9, 2011Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to have lunch with the Rev. Dr. Loren B. Mead, known to many of you as the creator of the Alban Institute. A think tank operation, funded largely over the last fifty years with grants from major foundations, the Alban Institute has studied and made recommendations on every aspect of congregational life imaginable. For the benefit of those who might not be familiar with its activities, the Alban Institute was the source of such almost universally accepted practices today as setting congregations on the path of undergoing a self-study and creating a parish profile prior to beginning the search for a new pastor. That process, not coincidentally, has also created the position of “Interim Pastor,” a role deemed as necessary to making that long, reflective search process viable. Now retired, Dr. Mead was surely one of the 20th century’s great primary ecclesiastical innovators and Christian leaders. So enormous is his reputation and so solid has his knowledge of church life been that I listened to his words with care and gave them the attention that they merit. On that day, he discussed with me the economic crisis in which institutional Christianity is living today. The financial problems facing the Christian Church, he asserted, “are far more than just a reaction to the current economic turndown.” It is, he believes, “a reflection of something quite systemic.” To make his point, he used the analogy of a rising and receding tide. He referred to the 20 years following World War II (1945-1965) as a time in which a rising tide of interest in religion had carried all churches into a sense of well-being. In those two decades the churches followed the culture’s rush to suburbia with the building of huge numbers of suburban structures which almost immediately were filled with people and became going concerns. That changed about 1965, he added, and between 1965 and 1975, the tide began to recede, so slowly at first that it was not discernable, but picking up speed as the years flowed by. Religious interest has clearly declined and church attendance is no longer the “thing to do.” While he did not go into the causes of this, some of them are obvious. There were great tensions inside the church brought about by the civil rights movement as ecclesiastical racism was brought to the surface. Recall that Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was addressed to the leaders of Alabama’s Christian community. There was also the conflict that rocked this nation over the Vietnam War, setting the generations against each other and causing patriotism to cease being a virtue for many. Then there was the feminist movement that struggled against many church-inspired restrictions on women and opened doors to sexual freedom. Next came the battle for justice in regard to the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in both church and society. Only recently has that battle ended in a clear victory for gay rights. In each of these social transformations institutional Christianity was generally on the losing side. The signs of those losses are present everywhere one looks in our society today and the Christian Church has been called on to adjust to these new realities. By being on the wrong side of history and then by exhausting its resources in losing battles, the credibility of the Christian Church suffered a huge setback. Christians used quotations from the scriptures to under gird their dying prejudices and in the process served to call the integrity of these scriptures into question, especially among the members of the rising generation. The fact that international leaders from the Pope, who has not yet addressed with honesty or integrity the scandal of abusive behavior on the part of the ordained and who still calls homosexuality “deviant” behavior, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who still believes Christian unity is a higher virtue than truth or justice, constitute other symptoms of our time that illustrate our inability to enter the future or to face reality. Neither Dr. Mead nor I, however, believe that these things alone, as gripping as they are, are sufficient to account for the rapid demise of organized religion in our time. There is clearly something more. In denomination after denomination, including every branch of Christendom the mood of the Christian Church today is that of contraction, merging and the closing of congregations. Even the fundamentalist churches, particularly in the South, which appeared to counter this receding tide and the mega-churches built significantly on the personalities of their charismatic clergy, appear now to have reached their limits of expansion. Many of them splinter over internal control issues or seem not to be able to survive the departure of their founder. Following this conversation with Dr. Mead I began to pull together thoughts that I have had for some time, but they never seemed to form a consistent pattern. Perhaps, after this conversation, they did. At least I want to state them and to invite others to react to these possibilities. The reason I believe Christianity is in a steep decline is that it cannot bring itself to face self-consciously the fact that the presuppositions on which our faith story was erected in the past are today no longer self-evidently true or even believable. To say it boldly, there is no God who lives above the sky and is ready to come to our aid, as most of the language of prayer assumes to be a reality. That God could be imagined only when we believed that the earth was the center of a three-tiered universe and that God not only watched over and judged the world from a heavenly throne above the sky, but also intervened regularly to answer our prayers or to assert the divine will. To please this heavenly parent and ultimate judge was what we thought would assure our eternal destiny. This concept of God began to die with the revolution in thought started by Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo in the 16th and 17th centuries, but it has grown as we have become citizens of a space age and are now beginning to embrace the enormity of the size of the universe. Our planet Earth is not only not the center of the universe, it is not even the center of our galaxy that includes some 200 billion other stars, most of which are bigger than our star that we call the sun. This God, traditionally defined as supernatural in power, we assumed was capable of miracles in a wide variety of circumstances. When Isaac Newton began to publish his work in the latter years of the 17th century, introducing us to natural law and to cause and effect, both miracle and magic were squeezed out of our consciousness. Elie Wiesel’s book NIGHT on his experience in the Holocaust was the most powerful articulation of how this idea of God died. The God of the Bible, who had intervened in human history in the cause of freedom by sending plagues upon the Egyptians and by splitting the Red Sea to enable “the chosen people” to escape from slavery at the time of the Exodus, was nowhere to be found when this God was so desperately needed to free “the chosen people” from death in the prison camps of Nazi Germany in the 20th century. Belief in such an intervening God became simply no longer credible. Next, the entire way we tell the Jesus story was challenged and, though many Christians cannot admit it, actually set aside as no longer believable by the work of Charles Darwin. The primary Christian myth assumes an original perfect creation from which human life has somehow fallen. That idea makes no sense when we embrace the fact that we have actually evolved over billions of years from single cell organisms to complex self-conscious creatures. There was no fall from an original perfection since there was no original perfection. The concept of “original sin” is largely regarded as nonsense today. Yet the fall from which Jesus has rescued us is the way we continue to tell the Jesus story. Our churches and clergy still parrot that incredibly negative Christian idea that we have been “saved by the blood of Christ.” Protestants still shout their guilt-producing mantra “Jesus died for my sins,” and Catholics still refer to “the sacrifice of the Mass” as reenacting the moment when salvation was procured. These concepts fill our hymns, our liturgies and our sermons despite the fact that they make no sense outside the parameters of the pre-suppositions that are culturally no longer believed. How can one be saved if one has not fallen? How can one be restored to a status that one has never possessed? How can God be worshiped if this God requires the death of the divine son in order to have our sins forgiven? If there is no payoff, no benefit to be gained from faithful worship and righteous living, then many ask today “why bother?” These are the things the Christian Church is up against today in this post-Christian age. None of them will be solved by inviting people to listen once again to the “old, old story” or by joining in the singing of “The Old Rugged Cross.” The problems facing institutional Christianity today in the Western world cannot be addressed by tinkering around the edges of our theological formularies or structures. As important as they have been making good parish profiles will not do it nor will even making wise choices in the selection of our clergy. We are not today in a temporary status of watching the tide go out with confidence that in time the tide will come back in . We are rather living through a cataclysmic transition from the presuppositions by which we once lived and having no idea how to tell our faith story in terms of the emerging world view for which our religion of yesterday has no relevance. So churches are dying, vast anger, rising out of cultural depression at the loss of yesterday’s meaning and unstoppable changes, are now our daily bread. The consensus of the past is breaking up. The consensus of the future has not yet been formed. We live in interesting times and dangerous times also. Political shell games and pious rhetoric will no longer suffice. Before we can move to address these issues we must understand them. I see little present indication that either church leaders or political leaders understand the depth of the problem we face. Time alone will tell, but in the meantime doing church business as usual or practicing politics as usual is a prescription not only for disaster, but for extinction.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Be Fearless. Inspired. Unstoppable. For Change Online weekend retreat with Linda Tucker and Andrew Harvey Exploring LionHearted Leadership™ and Sacred Activism October 15th – 17th READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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