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9/07/17, Spong, Wolsey: Where the Rubber Hits the Road; Vosper; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock via OE 07 Sep '17

07 Sep '17

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} .aolReplacedBody #aolmail_templateContainer,.aolReplacedBody .aolmail_bodyContent{ background-color:#ffffff; } .aolReplacedBody .aolmail_bodyContent div a:link,.aolReplacedBody .aolmail_bodyContent div a:visited{ color:#4487cf; }</style><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: none;margin: 0;padding: 0;background-color: #ffffff;width: 100% !important;" class="aolReplacedBody"> <center> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="100%" width="100%" id="aolmail_backgroundTable" style="margin: 0;padding: 0;background-color: #ffffff;height: 100% !important;width: 100% !important;"> <tbody><tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templatePreheader" style="background-color: #ffffff;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_preheaderContent"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"><div style="color: #505050;font-family: Arial;font-size: 10px;line-height: 100%;text-align: left;"> </div></td> <td valign="top" width="190"> <div style="color: #505050;font-family: Arial;font-size: 10px;line-height: 100%;text-align: left;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…"><img style="border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;height: auto;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/print.png"></a></div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateContainer" style="border: 1px solid #4487cf;background-color: #ffffff;"> <tbody><tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateHeader" style="background-color: #D8E2EA;border-bottom: 0;"> <tbody><tr> <td class="aolmail_headerContent" style="color: #202020;font-family: Arial;font-size: 34px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;padding: 0;text-align: center;vertical-align: middle;"> <img alt="" border="0" style="margin: 0;padding: 0;max-width: 600px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;height: auto;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/newsletter_he…"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_headerNavigation"> <h5 style="color: #202020;display: block;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 15px;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;text-transform: uppercase;"> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Homepage</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">My Profile</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Essay Archive</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Message Boards</a> <a style="color: #4487cf;text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Calendar</a></h5></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateBody"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_bodyContent" style="background-color: #ffffff;"> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h1 style="color: #003d4a;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 34px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Where the Rubber Hits the Road</h1> <h3 class="aolmail_null" style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 26px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">By Rev. Roger Wolsey</h3> <p><img height="120" style="border: 0px;width: 125px;height: 120px;margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;float: left;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="125" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/358d93b0-ae4…">Progressive Christianity intentionally seeks to evolve and adapt with the times so that the faith can continue to be sensible, relevant, and meaningful in the lives of people. As part of this, we tend to believe that Christianity isn’t the “best,” “only,” “right,” and/or “true,” religion or way that God is at work in the world. We honor that the Divine is fully at work in all of the major world religions – and beyond.</p> <p>Perhaps a bit like John Wesley before us, a hallmark of progressive Christianity is a liberated freedom to rummage through the theological, ecclesiastical, and liturgical trunks in Grandma’s attic to explore, try out, and weave in the many gems we come across from all across Christian history – including gems that we might find within the very diverse: Roman Catholic trunk, Eastern Orthodox trunk, Coptic trunk, Gnostic trunk, mainline Protestant trunk, Anabaptist trunk, Evangelical trunk, Mysticism trunk, and more.</p> <p>Moreover, knowing that Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on spirituality, we are increasingly open to exploring the trunks in the attics in the houses of other world religions and spiritual traditions. I’ve been known to weave in Buddhist parables in sermons that I preach – right along with ones attributed to Jesus. And I sure love the <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">“upaya”</a> concept that speaks of the “many ways and skillful means” that enlightening insight can be shared with people – which I translate to the many ways that God touches us and evokes salvific (healing & wholeness fostering) transformation in our lives.</p> <p>And yet, I wonder if it might be possible to go “too” far in our explorations, integrations, and appropriations. Let’s wonder together.</p> <p>Let’s consider the Ship of Theseus – an ancient Greek paradox (koan?). Theseus buys a ship and assembles a crew and heads off across the seas for a long voyage. Along the way, the ship runs into storms and wear and tear, and repairs are made with new materials. In various ports, new sails are hoisted, new planks, new decks, new hull, new rudder, new bow, new stern, new crew members, etc… and, by the time it reaches its destination, every part of that ship has been replaced with new materials. The only thing that remains the same is Theseus– the owner of the ship. Question: Did he arrive to his destination on the same ship on which he began his voyage? Think about it.</p> <p>Still more. As Thomas Hobbes went on to inquire centuries later, what would happen if the original boards and planks were gathered up after they were replaced, mended, and used to build a different ship. Which ship would be the actual Ship of Theseus? Mind blown.</p> <p>Okay, let’s apply this to current progressive Christianity. Not a few progressive Christians also practice yoga, vipassana meditation, chant at kirtans, and/or attend rituals on the various solstices. I do several of those things and, along with more conventionally Christian offerings, offer free Yoga taught by a non-Christian, Meditation taught a mindfulness instructor who isn’t Christian, and we hold a gathering for students who identify as spiritual but not religious. Are we still a Christian church/campus ministry? While most of the readers of this newsletter would likely say yes, it is the case that the vast majority of evangelical and more conservative Christians may well disagree.</p> <p>But what of the person who participates in a progressive Christian congregation on Christmas and Easter, but who mostly reads about <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">non-dualism</a> (based on the Hindu concept of Advaita – the idea that all of the universe is one essential reality, and that all facets and aspects of the universe is ultimately an expression or appearance of that one reality, so there really is no good or bad or right or wrong..), participates in yoga, meditation, kirtans, dharma talks, and/or auspicious astrological rites and rituals? Still a Christian? I suppose one might say that, like art, it’s in the eye of the beholder (or self-identifier). Now, what of those who contend that all progressive Christian pastors would do well to tell their parishioners that they <em>should</em> take part in ayahuasca (a Peruvian mind-altering drug consumed in tea) journeys? What of those who contend that there is no God or that we <em>should</em> embrace seeing ourselves as “post-theist” or “post-Christian?”</p> <p><a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img align="right" class="aolmail_alignright aolmail_size-medium aolmail_wp-image-49916" height="150" style="border: 0px;width: 150px;height: 150px;margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="150" src="https://johnshelbyspong.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/roger-wolseys-bike-3…"></a>I own several bikes. One is my “Franken-bike.” It’s a sort of bike that is weird assemblage of parts from various bikes. It started out as a mountain bike, but is now part cruiser and part commuter as well. In fact, only the frame and seat stem are original. While fun to ride, it doesn’t ride as well for commuting as a commuter bike, it doesn’t cruise very well as a cruiser, and I certainly wouldn’t take it off road. Come to think of it, I haven’t ridden it much. Frankly, I’m not even sure why I still have it other than for the curiosity/freak factor. One way I do my part to help “keep Boulder weird” I suppose.</p> <p>Now, for the rubber to the road. The U.S. is facing a time of civil unrest. Statues of Confederate generals are being toppled. The KKK and Nazis are holding rallies promoting white supremacy. Much pushing, shoving, and punching has ensued. A car was driven into a crowd of counter-protestors – injuring many and killing one. This is a matter of life and death.</p> <p>As a mystic, I’m at a point in life where I don’t have to be a Christian. My connection to the Divine is primary and I do more and more solo connecting. However, I chose to maintain my affiliation with and involvement in Christianity for very specific reasons. Among them, I value its heritage of prophetic speaking truth to power. We have a sense of right and wrong. Good and bad. Holy and Evil. Certain other religions traditions teach that there is no good or bad, or right or wrong, resulting in certain consequences – namely a tendency to moral quietude. An oppressive and unjust <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">caste system</a> comes to mind – where generations of people in certain families are doomed to lives of poverty and squalor.</p> <p>Let me attempt a logical flow and syllogism. Progressive Christianity is a form of Christianity. Christianity is a religion (not just “a relationship” as the evangelicals wish to say). Christianity is an <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Abrahamic religion</a>. The Abrahamic religions are <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">covenantal</a> and involve a sense of right relationship to the Divine, to ourselves, and to others. Progressive Christianity involves concepts of right and wrong, just and unjust. There are <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">progressive Christian understandings</a> of sin and evil.</p> <p>A case could be made that progressivechristianity.org’s <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">“8 Points of progressive Christianity”</a> are a bit covenantal. One needn’t subscribe to supernatural theism to be covenantal. Many progressive Christians embrace <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">panentheism</a>, and many are mystics, and as such we tend to sense a both/and concerning Divinity – immanently within, and transcendently beyond, us. An <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">“I-thou”</a> still meaningfully applies.</p> <p>As I’ve contended in other forums, <em>progressive Christianity is the post-modern influenced evolution of historic mainline liberal Christianity</em> – and it is an heir of the <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Social Gospel</a> movement. To the extent that my assertion is correct, we’d do well to re-familiarize ourselves with the Social Gospel’s aims to help bring about a world that is more just, with less war, and more health and wholeness for as many people as possible. We pursue those things because they are right and their opposites are wrong. If we find ourselves reading more authors lauding non-dualism, and less of the Bible or Martin Luther King, Jr., we should be concerned (<em>possibly</em> – see p.s.).</p> <p>Now before anyone accuses me of being a closet conservative or fundamentalist, as a practicing yogi, I’m fully aware that authentic yoga (not the exercise class type) involves the teaching of the yamas and the niyamas – the “dos and the don’ts.” I’m also aware that there is a recent rise in “engaged Buddhism.” I’m glad to see that. However, I’d suggest that this is largely in response to the East’s exposure to the West – e.g., Thomas Merton’s relationship with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, etc., as well as a felt need of Westerners (including many Jews) who take to Buddhism bringing along a yearning to have it motivate and stimulate work toward justice and needed social change.</p> <p>I recently participated in a 5 day meditation retreat that was based on non-dualism. Over 70 of us sat for 2 hours three times a day. I was very much blessed by the experience and felt much shift taking place within me. Yet, I felt a gnawing critique about the logical implications of some of what I was hearing. It seemed that the gist was that “there isn’t any good or bad, there’s only physical feelings that we feel and sense in our bodies and we can breathe into them and find that we’re okay, we don’t need to do anything to improve anything, and all is well just as it is.”</p> <p>This is helpful in certain ways – as it can lead to increased healing, self-compassion and self-love. Where it can fall apart is if I’m sitting on a plane at the gate across the aisle from a dark skinned Muslim man who is making the xenophobic person next to him uncomfortable and then I see the uncomfortable passenger seek to have that Muslim fellow kicked of the plane. And I witness it escalate. If I know how the whole thing started and I just “breathe into my physical sensations knowing that all is well and perfect as it is” and quietly allow that man to be ejected from the plane, I am complicit in that injustice. And it’s not just my familiarity with, and appreciation of, the secular U.S. Constitution and the American legal and political system that convict me.</p> <p>I believe Jesus and his early followers – and many more recent followers and kindred spirits – call us to not meekly pass by when we see someone beaten up on the side of the road; and to not timidly remain silent in the face of injustice; and to not carry on with life as usual when the powers that be conspire to increase global warming.</p> <p>Let me say it clearly. <strong>White supremacy is sin. Racism is evil. Murder is wrong. And we are called to confront, challenge, and reduce each of them.</strong></p> <p>If progressive Christianity becomes so enamored with non-dualist teachings (esp. if being shallow about it and not deep), and with things that are marked deviations from our prophetic, covenantal heritage that it can’t concur with these things or view them as essential, either it’s wrong, or I’m not as much of a progressive Christian as I think I am.</p> <p>In Christ,</p> <p>~ Rev. Roger Wolsey</p> <p><strong>About the Author</strong></p> <p>Rev. Roger Wolsey is an ordained United Methodist pastor who directs the Wesley Foundation at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and is author of <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity</a>; The <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Kissing Fish Facebook</a> page; <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Roger’s Blog on Patheos “The Holy Kiss” </a></p> <p>ps. As a good progressive Christian, I can’t settle for simplistic truth claims or discussions – the expected 900 word blogs don’t allow for much nuance. It is the case that if one really goes deep with the teachings of non-dualism, one can discern compatibility with Christian panentheism and mysticism. In both cases, ones ethics aren’t really driven by a legalistic sense of dos and don’ts, but more from a shared place/knowing/experience of compassion and love.</p> <p>Jesus is presented as having taught and modeled an ethic of love not of law (“embrace the Shema, love your neighbor as yourself, and do unto others as you’d have them do unto you”). Sure, there were a few times where he radicalized certain laws – but in doing so, he got to the spiritual heart of things. Examples, (paraphrased) “You have heard it said it is wrong to commit adultery, but I tell you that if you even look at someone with lust in your heart you have committed adultery against them…You have heard “an eye for an eye” – but I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, boldly and defiantly turn to them the other cheek toward them. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your underthings as well. If a Roman soldier forces you to go one mile, shame them by going with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; and, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Matthew 5:27-43)</p> <p>Similarly, in non-dualism, one sees that when people intentionally harm others they do so from a place of ignorance for if they really knew what they were doing, they wouldn’t do that. And, if one is truly engaging in non-dualist meditation, one will come to a place of deep compassion for self and others and hence naturally seek to make choices and act according to what is most loving and compassionate in any moment and that may well mean acting toward what is right and just. And, adding in the Hindu concept of karma, there is no “getting away” with wrong-doing and evil as it will result in people not attaining enlightenment, not being liberated from the cycle of samsara, and being reincarnated into a state that is less that desirable (yet, see again the earlier mention of the unjust caste system – which I contend is rationalization for an unjust systemic oppression). Granted, not all non-dualists are Hindus or believe in karma. The point is, without any sort of overt teaching that there is a right and wrong – and encouragement to do the right and avoid the wrong, it is my opinion and experience that many fellow humans may opt out of getting involved when they see wrong happening. I don’t subscribe to reincarnation. While I may not have a conventional view of the Christian notion of resurrection, that is my paradigm – with a focus on the present. This life is what we have, and we need to do good and act boldly for justice here and now.</p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><hr> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">A Reader from the Internet, writes:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> Question:</h4> <p>If you were the moderator of the United Church of Canada with no restrictions... what would the church look like? What do you see as the perfect/ideal United Church of Canada?</p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size:20px">Answer: By Gretta Vosper</span></h4> <p><img align="left" height="154" style="border: 0px;width: 125px;height: 154px;margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="125" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/135046a1-fd3…">Dear Reader,</p> <p>Thanks for engaging. My response is, necessarily, tied to my own denomination but I feel that it has something to say to many mainline denominations today.</p> <p>I don't actually speculate about what I would do were I the moderator! And it is important to note that the moderator doesn't really have the power to shape the United Church. More and more, it seems, as the responsibilities of the church become more complex and centralized, the role relies on the direction set by the General Council and, even more heavily, I believe, on the direction established by General Council Staff in response to the General Council's work. This isn't, of course, the way the work of the church was structurally set up but it is the way it manages to function given the massive scale of responsibility and the dwindling local and regional human resources that support the church's work across the country.</p> <p>The United Church I knew and loved began its deepening relationship with fear in the few years after the 1988 decision to ordain LGBTQ leaders when it first realized the cold reality of decline. Having lost membership and experienced the serious financial impact of that, it stopped making the bold, sometimes irrational, decisions of its youth and began hedging its bets. That has been at great cost to it, to Canada, and to Christianity the world over.</p> <p>Were I to find myself in the position of Moderator, I would challenge the church to give up fear and invite it to invert the terrifying charts of decline and find its "mission field", if you will. If you invert the charts of decline, you see a growing group of people - the secular world - who are those the UCC spent its first sixty-three years preparing to serve. Lloyd Geering argues that the secular world is the evolution of Christianity; it's where we were headed all along. If the church had continued to unflinchingly choose love, it would have continued moving in that direction and could have served the needs of those who inhabit that great growing curve.</p> <p>I have no illusions about where the church is headed; like all Christian denominations, it will either wear itself out or veer back, dramatically, to the right and become, as religion always does, a sedative in the coming trauma of human existence. That sounds bleak. It is. If I were the Moderator, I wouldn't be able to change that but I might be able to find a way to encourage those to whom we have failed to model courage by challenging ourselves to do so. There is much more work needing to be done in the world than shoring up a fearful denomination. If I could encourage the church, those within and those outside of it, to focus fearlessly on that work, then I think we'd lose ourselves in it and forget our fears about denominational preservation. That would be worth it.</p> <p>~ Rev. Gretta Vosper Read and share online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a></p> <p><strong>About the Author</strong></p> <p>The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best selling books include <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…"><em>With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe</em></a>, and <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…"><em>Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief</em></a>. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers.</p> <p style="text-align: center;">______________________________________</p> <h3 style="text-align: center;color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 26px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;"><strong>Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited</strong></h3> <p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:18px"><strong>Unmasking the Sources of Christian Anti-Semitism - Part 1</strong></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="Spong" class="aolmail_wp-image-49832 aolmail_alignleft" height="128" style="border: 0px;width: 121px;height: 128px;margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;float: left;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="121" src="https://johnshelbyspong.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Spong-283x300.jpg"><em>"His blood be upon us and upon our children (Mt.27: 25)."</em></p> <p>The darkest, most disillusioning side of Christianity is revealed in the way that Christians have treated Jews throughout history. Anti-Semitism has been a terrifying prejudice for the Jews to endure. It has also distorted the very essence of the Christian message.</p> <p>Christianity was born in the womb of Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. The tradition tells us he was circumcised on the eighth day and presented in the temple on the 40th day of his life. The story of his journey to Jerusalem at age 12 has the marks of a bar mitzvah-type ceremony. The gospels refer to Jesus going to the synagogue "as was his custom." The picture drawn of Jesus was that of a devout Jew, deeply engaged in the worship tradition of his people.</p> <p>The earliest disciples, beginning with the twelve, and expanding rapidly after the Easter experience, were all Jews. They were members of the synagogue, known as 'the Followers of the Way' until expelled around the year C.E.88, when they began to be called Christians. Their faith story was validated time after time with appeals to the Hebrew Scriptures.</p> <p>Yet something happened that poisoned the relationship between the womb of Judaism in which Christianity was born and the later Christian movement that became dreadfully hate-filled and deeply destructive to the Jews. Through the centuries the primary gifts that Christians have given the Jews have been pain, death, ghettoization and religious persecution that defies imagination. To justify this behavior, Christians quoted the New Testament. The favorite text was from Matthew where the Jewish crowd at the foot of the cross was portrayed as responding to Pilate's plea of innocence by saying, "His blood be upon us and upon our children." No other verse in Holy Scripture has been as responsible for violence and bloodshed as this one.</p> <p>Biblical anti-Semitism, however, is not limited to this single text. Jews are denigrated time after time in the New Testament. Paul, quoting Isaiah (29:10), referred to the Jews as "those to whom God has given a sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear down to this very day (Rom. 11:8)." John's Gospel quotes Jesus as saying that the Jews are "from your father, the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires (8:44)." Whenever the phrase, 'the Jews,' is used in John's Gospel, there is a pejorative undertone. When John tells about the first Easter appearance of the risen Christ, he depicts the disciples hiding behind locked doors, "for fear of the Jews (20:19)." The reason the tomb of Jesus had a detachment of Temple guards placed around it, according to Matthew, was because the Jewish Chief Priests, together with the Pharisees, told Pilate that "this imposter" had predicted that "after three days, I will arise again (27:63)." The list could go on and on. The clear message in the New Testament is that Jews are the dark, sinister characters responsible for the death of Jesus. That definition, emerging from the Bible, has infiltrated 2100 years of Christian history.</p> <p>Even in this present century, synagogues and Jewish gravesites are still defaced periodically with swastikas or hostile words. A noted American politician in the last decades of the 20th century referred to New York City in a derogatory way as "Hymie Town." A national leader of a Southeastern Asian nation, speaking in the 21st century, referred to the Jews as the source of all the ills in the world. It has not been an easy journey through history for those who have defined themselves as "God's Chosen People."</p> <p>Midway into the 20th century in Nazi Germany, something Adolph Hitler designated as "the final solution of the Jewish problem" occurred. Beginning with 'Crystal Night' in 1938 and ending only when the Allied Armies overran the concentration camps in 1945, six million Jews perished. This occurred in a modern, well-educated, western, ostensibly Christian nation with little protest from the Church. Indeed Pope Pius XII has been deeply implicated in these crimes, being referred to in one book title as <u>Hitler's Pope</u>. He either actively supported these atrocities, in the worst-case scenario, or simply acquiesced without opposition, as the best possible explanation holds. Either way, Christian anti-Semitism played a huge role in the Holocaust. Protestant Christian leaders inside Germany did not cover themselves with glory either. The Protestant Church accommodated itself to the Nazi agenda far more than anyone would now like to believe. Those who spoke out, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoeller, were so few that their names are still remembered. Revisionist historians like to suggest that this murderous prejudice was limited just to Germany, but the facts do not support this self-serving conclusion. The governments of Great Britain, Canada and the United States knew what was going on in Nazi Germany but none of them made efforts diplomatically or politically to bring pressure on the German nation to halt this violence. Anti-Semitism was strong enough in each of these nations that politicians were not willing to be perceived as pro-Jewish. Each of these nations also refused to allow persecuted German or Polish Jews to enter their countries as political refugees. These negative responses were manifestations of the underlying hostilities that had marked the relationship between Christians and Jews for two thousand years.</p> <p>Part of what created Hitler was none other than Martin Luther in the 16th century. The great Church reformer helped to establish both the German nation and its language, yet he had a destructive blind spot about Jews. Jews for Luther were evil by nature, without redeeming value or saving grace. He railed against them, publicly and privately, and his followers acted on the permission their leader had given them to engage in their own deeds of anti-Semitism.</p> <p>The story does not get brighter as we journey backward into the 14th century. That was the century in which the devastating bubonic plague swept across Europe killing at least one in five adults on the continent. The population of Western Europe was decimated and people even thought the human race might die out. This plague struck 500 years before science discovered that things like germs caused diseases. Mysterious illnesses were explained by the Church as expressions of divine wrath. Something human beings were doing had infuriated God so deeply that God sent the Black Death as the divine scourge. Whatever this evil was it had to be something in which the entire human population shared, for the punishment fell indiscriminately on faithful God-fearing worshipers as well as godless renegades. Given this way of thinking, the religious leaders sought to understand the mind of God so that repentance, prayer and resolve could root out this evil. That was why they asked such questions as: "Why did this happen? What have we done to incur this unprecedented expression of God's anger?"</p> <p>It was in answer to those questions that two movements developed in Europe. One was called "the Flagellants." These were devout people who, not knowing what they had done to incur the drastic punishment of the plague, decided that if they punished themselves sufficiently and severely enough, God would stop punishing them. They walked through the cities of Europe lashing their bare backs with whips in public acts of contrition. It was self-inflicted violence and obviously masochistic, but the Church Fathers looked upon the Flagellants with favor.</p> <p>The second response, however, moved beyond self-inflicted pain and became more destructive. Since the plague was area wide, it had to be caused by systemic behavior. At last, as with the flash of insight, the cause was identified and it fitted. Christian Europe had tolerated "infidels" in its midst. If Christians would only begin to purge the infidels from their world, the argument went, then the wrath of God would be withdrawn. It was an emotionally satisfying solution. Latent prejudices could be revived. The anger that is present in every tragedy and death experience could be focused. The enemy could be identified and hatreds could flow freely. Who were these infidels? Why they were the Jews, of course! They must have poisoned the wells, infesting the drinking water. That is why the plague was so rampant and so indiscriminate. It was an interesting shift from blaming God to blaming the Jews. It was also a shift from seeing the plague as God's punishment for tolerating infidels to seeing the cause as Jewish poisoning. However, rationality is frequently a casualty when fear and prejudice are running rampant. So the result of the bubonic plague was the worst outbreak of anti-Semitic horror to embrace the Christian world up until Adolph Hitler. Jews were murdered, beaten, kidnapped, forcibly baptized, robbed of their assets, expelled from their homes and ghettoized. Even those Jews, who had converted to Christianity, were investigated and charged with continuing to observe Jewish rites in the privacy of their homes. They were among the most prominent victims who faced the fires at the stake during the period of history we call the Inquisition. It was one more dark chapter in the continuing saga of anti-Semitism in the Christian Church. The bloodstream of Christian history has been so deeply contaminated by this sickness that periodic epidemics were guaranteed. Why did Christians feel justified in this behavior? It was in obedience to the literal Word of God, they said. The Jews themselves had accepted blame for the death of Jesus and had invited this evil upon their own children.</p> <p>Next week we will continue to press this analysis backward in time until we arrive at the birth of anti-Semitism. Tragically, we will discover that it is present in the Jesus story from the very moment these stories came to be written. So stay tuned.</p> <p>~ John Shelby Spong Originally published April 28, 2004</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><hr> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <h3 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 26px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:22px"><span style="color:#000000"><strong>A New Message from Bishop John Shelby Spong</strong></span></span></h3> <p> Dear Friends:</p> <p>It has been almost a year since I had a stroke and I would like to reflect on this experience and my future plans.</p> <p>The date was September 10, 2016. We were in Marquette, MI, a town on Lake Superior on the Upper Peninsula. We arrived on Friday evening because getting to Marquette on the day of the lecture was almost impossible. All that was planned for the evening was dinner with good friends at one of Marquette’s best restaurants. We got to bed at 10 p.m.</p> <p>The next day, Saturday, was a late-starting day with a lecture at the University of Northern Michigan set for 11 a.m. I got up early and went down to the fitness center in the hotel to get in my normal 4-mile run and then returned to my room. Christine was ready for breakfast so we went immediately. Breakfast was delicious and on our return to our room I showered, shaved and dressed. Then it happened without any warning. I fell to the floor and seemed to be unconscious. Yet, I remained aware in a weird kind of way. I saw my body on the floor. From a spot above the room I had some awareness. I watched the rescue team. They decided to cut off my clerical shirt rather than unbutton it – I protested, but no one heard me! – and the shirt was cut into large pieces and handed to my wife. It was the last clerical shirt that I owned. When it was complete I gave into unconsciousness and remember nothing until I regained consciousness the next day.</p> <p>I awoke with my right arm and a right leg that would not move. Yet from somewhere I knew that I would be o.k. Chris told that they had cut off my shirt and that she had the pieces. I told her that I knew that. It was a strange feeling.</p> <p>Two people arrived – I do not know exactly when – but as soon as they could get there. One was my oldest daughter Ellen from Richmond and the other was my step-daughter Rachel, who is a doctor. Their presence gave me great comfort and great joy. I could not walk but with their arms as support I was ready to try. We stayed in Marquette about a week, then taking a medivac plane we flew back to Morristown, N.J. It was a very small plane. There were only four passengers. I was strapped down on a stretcher in the plane with a nurse at my side. Chris rode in the co-pilot’s seat as the fourth passenger. At the Morristown Airport we were greeted with an ambulance that took us to the Rehabilitation Center of Morristown Memorial Hospital on Mt. Kemble Avenue in Morristown. I spent four weeks at this facility where I would learn to walk again. It was followed by six weeks therapy in my home.</p> <p>Today, almost a year later, I still use my running track and do an hour a day, but now I only walk. I cannot write well, so my column is no longer a possibility. I appreciate that they use my old columns as “a voice from the past” to go with the new voices of those they have raised up. I did complete the book I was writing which was almost ninety percent finished, but it was very difficult and, once again, Christine made it possible. It will come out from HarperCollins on or about January 1st under the title <em>UNBELIEVABLE – Why neither ancient creeds nor the Reformation can give us a living faith today.</em></p> <p>I have received permission to write two columns on my old site to launch the book. Next spring I will begin to do lectures in “safe places.” They are places that are very important to me. One is my parish church, St. Peter’s in Morristown, N.J., where Janet Broderick is the rector, and where I will give lectures at the adult forum on four Sunday mornings on the “Meaning of Miracles in the Bible.” The second one is noonday preaching for a week during Lent at St. Paul’s Church in Richmond, where Wallace Adams-Riley is the rector. I will examine “Prayer in the Modern World.” Both are topics from the book.</p> <p>I have two other tentative commitments – a weekend at a retreat center and a five-day lecture series at another location. They will both be on the book.</p> <p>I expect to accomplish these events, which will be my last public engagements. I thank you for your support, your letters, your messages and your prayers. It has been a rewarding and satisfying career.</p> <p>~ John Shelby Spong</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateFooter" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border-top: 0;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_footerContent"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_social" style="background-color: #FAFAFA;border: 0;"> <div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border: 1px dashed #d3d3d3;"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"><div class="aolmail_vcard"><div class="aolmail_adr"><div class="aolmail_street-address"></div></div></div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: left;"></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_d09ffb4b-669e-4948-9a61-2e79133a9561 td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table#aolmail_canspamBar td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table#aolmail_canspamBar td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style> </center><img height="1" width="1" src="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/open.php?u=b51b9cf441b059b…"> </div> </div>

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6th Grade Trip - Rite of Passage Journeys
by Beret Griffith via OE 06 Sep '17

06 Sep '17

On the Rite of Passage Journeys current website it says the program began in 1968 as a journey of self discovery...and goes on to explain the current program. A few sentences are needed for the Chronological History. My recollections are not at all clear. Your assistance is needed.... So far I've written..."*for the 6th grade children of the Ecumenical Institute community. It was a two week as a guided retreat....*." A few more sentences will be helpful. Thanks, Beret

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Message from Katrin Ogilvy
by the telfords via OE 06 Sep '17

06 Sep '17

Dear Colleagues Katrin Ogilvy asked me to let you know that Ian Ogilvy died last Sunday in the presence of family members. The funeral will be held on Tuesday September 12th at 11:30am at the Richmond Uniting Church, Church Street, Richmond (Victoria) Messages can be sent to Katrin Ogilvy<kogilvy(a)tpg.com.au> Katrin & Ian have been long-time members of the Order - they were priors of the Perth House in the early '70s and continued being very engaged in EI/ICA activities when they began living in Melbourne where we met them - 40 years later we are still regularly in touch with Katrin. Peace John & Elaine Telford <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> Virus-free. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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ICA GreenRise Fall 2017 Sojourn Invitation Letter (Corrected Links)
by Wendell Refior via OE 06 Sep '17

06 Sep '17

September 2, 2017 Colleagues – (Apologies if you receive this more than once.) The Global Archives Committee and the ICA staff invite you to participate in the Fall Global Archives Sojourn week (October 9 – 13). (Arrival on October 8). The week’s focus will be commemorating the Band of 24 – the audacious project we did to prove that the participatory methods that were developed in 5th City would work in any community in any time zone with any people. We are using the week to develop the story of the Human Development Projects – what worked and why and what didn’t work and why. From that research and insight from 40 years later, we will discover “the Pearls” – our learnings from the total journey of the projects. These learnings will be incorporated into community and human development today. We will be videotaping the stories that are shared about life in the projects to use on the ICA Global Archives website (which will be unveiled during the week). They may also contribute to a second “Circle of Life” book. We will also be videotaping the singing of the songs that rehearsed each new phase of our mission. Singing is alive and well here in the ICA GreenRise Building (aka Kemper). Please join us in this labor of love. Hopefully a DVD will be created. In talking with many of you, we are finding that there is a wealth of information you all remember – but also that you have information gleaned from trips back to projects over the years. We need this information, not just on the 24 but on any project you were in. We will merge this information with the research from the documents In the Archives in order to update the context for future work with human and community development. Shared during the week will be projects created by colleagues to enable groups and communities to deal with global issues today. Information on all of these projects will be available to everyone through links to the Archives database or other connections that will be shared. For example, the ICA staff did a project involving the 77 neighborhoods of Chicago which ended in an assembly of sharing “Approaches That Work”. The Denver crew have created a project focusing on Climate Change and Sustainability. The have included the University, city agencies, churches and communities. They have created manuals covering “how to” from original framing to recruiting to facilitator training to participant manual to final report to replication. Canada has developed an eight session study based on Brian Stanfield’s *The Courage to Lead*. The second edition with additional guide will be printed in October. The HIV educational program for villages in various African countries will be shared by Louise Singleton. I am including a link to Robertson Work’s book *Compassionate Civilization* http://www.facebook.com/compassionatecivilization/ His stories and reflections about his journey through the HDP years and on to global organizations is phenomenal. These projects are the tip of the iceberg. Let us know what you might bring and share. Here is a link to the letter that spells out how you can register http://bit.ly/Oct-Sojourn Within that letter there is a link to the registration page and a page asking for your experience with the HDPs and to projects you have created in your local situations. We will also send a copy of the week’s timeline. We have 34 people registered and we have 25 beds left on the eighth floor. Join us for this adventure to share our wisdom and methods with the future. ANY questions, call Jean Long (720-633-5008 <(720)%20633-5008>) or Mary Laura Jones (773-636-2022 <(773)%20636-2022>). Jean Long For the Global Archives Committee Forwarded by Wendell Refior P.S. Link to Registration is to Google Drive, and may not work if you are not registered with Google. -- Thanks until later. "To believe what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men -- that is genius." - Emerson in "Self-Reliance" Wendell

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Symbols are Important
by Rod Rippel via OE 04 Sep '17

04 Sep '17

Dear Friends, Symbols are important! I doubt there are many citizens who can remember one thing Andrew Jackson did for our Country. Not that he didn’t do many perhaps. But I am objecting to the President’s recent proposal to remove Harriet Tubman as the new Symbol on our 20-Dollar bill. The struggle to eliminate slavery as an institution and the subsequent turmoil of Civil Rights for all citizens up until, and including this very day, have made a huge impact on our nation and its history. That struggle deserves to be recognized and memorialized and not dismissed. Tubman, or some equivalent figure from our Black citizen’s population, deserves to be honored, and not summarily dismissed by our current President. Rod Rippel

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Global Buzz reminder for September Issue
by ICA International via OE 01 Sep '17

01 Sep '17

Reminder for entries This reminder is for the Global Buzz that will be published September 5th. 2017 (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 Septembre 2017 (Veuillez envoyer vos entrées au moins une journée à l'avance) Veuillez envoyer toutes vos entrées maintenant par courriel ordinaire à : inform(a)ica-international.org avec votre entrée comme un attatchment. Envoyer les détails des articles de nouvelles, des programmes de formation, vos connexions peer to peer avec d'autres CIAS, de toute préoccupation que vous pourriez avoir et de tous les événements qui sont à venir à votre emplacement. Votre rapport peut être longue ou courte, mais rappelez-vous que toutes les autres CIAS aimerait vraiment savoir à propos de choses qui importe où vous êtes et ce que vous faites comme une ICA. Recordatorio de las entradas Este aviso es para el Global Buzz que se publicarán 5 Septiembre 2017 (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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"Journey Reflection" Most Read Blog Posts (August 2017)
by John C via OE 31 Aug '17

31 Aug '17

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8/31/17, Greta Vosper/Fox: If it weren’t for you …; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock via OE 31 Aug '17

31 Aug '17

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR If it weren’t for you … By Rev. Gretta Vosper Much of the work I have been privileged to do over the past thirteen years has been the result of a conversation I had one day with the late Reverend Jim Adams, founder of The Center for Progressive Christianity (now called ProgressiveChristianity.org) If it weren’t for you, much of this would never have happened at all. Think of it as an “It’s a Wonderful Life” contribution! At the beginning of September, Ever Wonder, a conference celebrating the work of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity (CCPC), will take place in Edmonton, Alberta. Leaders from the movement will come together with the many who have been involved over the years to reflect on what has been and, of course, ruminate about what the future might include. The CCPC wound up its operations in 2016 after twelve years of operation. We chose to do so because we felt we had fulfilled our purpose. That there remains work to do is obvious but it is not the work the CCPC stepped out to do. It will fall to others. The Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC) had been a vibrant presence in the United States since its founding by the late Rev. Jim Adams in the mid-1990s. As many Spong readers already know, Adams had transitioned an Episcopal congregation in the heart of Washington, DC, into a progressive, vibrant community. He had done so by focusing less on the ecclesially-approved way of doing things and choosing, rather, to break the hermetic seals that kept stuffy, antiquated theology locked within the confines of the ecclesial edifice. As a result, his community persistently offered progressive explorations that embedded contemporary scholarship in its worship, study, and pastoral leadership. I first learned of TCPC through an article in the Toronto Star. A regular column of the late author and theologian, the Rev. Tom Harpur, told of the TCPCs work in the States. Of course, I googled it, hoping to find congregations in Canada that were part of the organization. Alas, there were none. But West Hill United, the congregation I serve in the east end of Toronto, had been on a journey that seemed to be in step with what Adams was doing in the United States. In 2001, in a Sunday morning service, I had declared my lack of belief in a theistic, supernatural, interventionist god and had not been shown the door. Instead, the congregation, with the Board’s direction, chose to explore what Christianity and the liturgy that shares it would look like beyond the doctrinal language upon which it had remained grounded even after literal belief had fallen away. When Harpur’s article appeared, we were in the process of exploring just what that would look like. Though we had already considered TCPC’s Eight Points as potential models for our work, they did not represent our intentions accurately and so we’d declined to use them. Some time later, as West Hill was beginning the process of creating a comprehensive document that would guide the congregation’s work and choices, we had not yet found a concise way to describe who we were becoming. And we had not found other congregations who might companion us on our journey. So I phoned Jim Adams to discuss the TCPC’s work and determine if there were sufficient synchronicities between us to allow West Hill to join the organization. Jim laughed often about that call, remembering his amusement when, contrary to most of the calls he received, I asked if the TCPC would accept West Hill’s membership even though we believed the Eight Points to be somewhat conservative. Adams, who usually heard people railing against his progressive ideas, was delighted to welcome us to the fold. A year later, the CCPC grew out of Jim’s dream of a global network of progressive theologians and practitioners. Passionate about creating connections that would open the church to seekers, Adams had reached out to leaders in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere to invite them to form networks in their own countries. Almost everyone he contacted did just that. Including me. Adams forwarded me an email list of individuals in Ontario who had been sufficiently moved by the work of TCPC to send donations to the organization. He knew that they were the most likely to be interested in starting a sister organization in Canada. And he was right. In January, 2004, in the midst of an outstanding Ontario snowstorm, twenty four people made their way to the lounge at West Hill. Some of them had spent upwards of three hours fighting the storm to be there, impressing me with their tenacity. I had no agenda other than to discern with these people whether it would be possible, or even helpful, to create a Canadian network of progressive Christians. And so I simply asked those gathered to share with the group how they had managed to get into that room that day. What forces had conspired in their lives to make it important enough to them to join this discussion that afternoon. As it turned out, that was the only agenda we really needed. Each individual spoke passionately about the factors that had stimulated their journey. Some had difficulty because of the powerful emotions evoked by the provision of a space in which they could speak openly and honestly. It took several hours to get around the circle but in the end, we knew we would create a Canadian network. We had to. To a person, isolation was the thread that ran through the stories we held that afternoon. Whether someone lived in a rural area where the only churches available were conservative or evangelical, or was deeply rooted in a congregation that taught progressive scholarship during the week but continued to embrace traditional language, hymns, and liturgy on Sunday mornings, or participated in a large, urban community in which they felt silenced and alone, each person knew the tragedy of isolation on the deeply personal reality of the spiritual journey. We knew that if this was so in a group of twenty-four people in Ontario, it was true for many more across the country. And so, a few meetings, some amazing volunteers, and several months later, we launched the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity in November, 2004. >From the beginning, we knew we were different from the Center out of which we had been born. Our application for charitable status under Canadian law identified that, though we were applying as a religion, we did not believe in a theistic god and would not be promoting one. The Charities Act, however, requires belief in a theistic god for registration. Rather than receive our charitable registration in a timely manner, we found ourselves the instigators of a complete review of the Charities legislation as it applied to religious organization. Despite our lack of belief in a theistic god and the charitable registration of Buddhist communities that did not promote such belief, the Charities Directorate retained the requirement that religious charities be promoting belief in a theistic god. The work we had undertaken to do was embedded in our Charitable Objects which were: 1. To provide a national network for the promotion of Progressive Christianity; 2. To provide support for individuals and organizations in the exploration and development of: ….a. spiritual thought relevant to contemporary needs, ….b. spiritual practices and values meaningful to contemporary humanity, and ….c. spiritual resources for worship and nurture inspiring to contemporary ....seekers. 3. To provide mutual encouragement and fellowship to those engaged in this endeavour. We welcomed almost 500 people to our launch in Mississauga, ON, almost exclusively because we had managed to book Bishop Spong as a speaker at that event. It was a powerful evening. Both Bishop Spong and Jim Adams spoke. Tom Harpur was in attendance. My husband, Scott Kearns, a composer of powerful music for the evangelical church and who hadn’t written a single piece since leaving it, managed to create, in two days’ time, an amazing song which became a sort of theme for our work. In the light of love our lives have meaning. In the light of love our purpose shines. Wherever there is justice to be dared, compassion to be shared, this is our calling, in the light of love. So lift it up, hold it high write it clear across the sky. Burn it deep within your soul, live it well and live it whole, for nothing more is needed but nothing less will do, for nothing else can take the place of love.(1) We quickly recognized the need for national gatherings and organized our first conference with the late Rev. Jack Good, author of The Dishonest Church, as our keynote speaker and offering workshops in everything from organizational change to the meaning of Jesus in a post-Christian world brought by former Moderator of The United Church of Canada, the Very Rev. Bruce McLeod. The following year, we brought Bishop Spong to Ottawa along with Joanna Manning, author of The Magdelene Moment; A Vision for a New Christianity. Conference in Toronto, London, and Halifax followed, always drawing a diverse and enthusiastic crowd. Our first annual meeting took place at Toronto’s Factory Theatre where we had booked the house for CCPC participants to enjoy Rick Miller’s Bigger Than Jesus, a theatre extravaganza that opens all the questions. Over the course of the work of the CCPC, we offered a magazine, Progressions, which was published three to four times a year and conferences in London, Toronto, Oshawa, Ottawa, and Halifax. We travelled across the country sharing our work with congregations from Halifax to Victoria. Twice I participated in Progressive Christian Networks in the UK and spoke at conferences and events promoted by networks in Australia and New Zealand. The energy for the work was great and the influence we had was, I believe, significant. As to questions about why we disbanded, my feelings are that the isolation experienced by those who had joined together on that icy day in 2004 had dissipated. The year after our launch, Mark Zuckerberg provided most of them a platform for finding one another easily on the internet and Facebook now hosts hundreds of communities devoted to living beyond traditional beliefs. We provoked questions across the country that are still under debate. And we reached a place that challenged us to move beyond even the furthest boundaries of progressive Christianity, moving into the arena of non-religious values and beliefs. The work of freeing individuals and communities from the stifling language and ritual of traditional Christianity is not over. It will continue, fed by the resources and conversations we ignited across the country. This work and these conversations are the legacy of the CCPC and it is a rich, vibrant, and lasting legacy. ~ Rev. Gretta Vosper Read the essay online here. P.S. Gretta’s next article will address the difference between the American and Canadian Centres and the specific challenges that arose in the Canadian Context. About the Author The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best selling books include With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers. (1) “The Light of Love” © 2004, R. Scott Kearns. Printed in The Wonder of Life; Songs for the Spirit. R. Scott Kearns (File 14: Toronto, 2014) p. 61 ff. Question & Answer Mike from San Francisco Asks: Question: I am interested in spirituality but not in religion but isn’t spirituality the same as religion? Answer: By Rev. Matthew Fox Recently I had a thoughtful discussion with a thirty-something who wanted to talk about spiritualty but seemed to see it exclusively in the context of religion. And, like many of his generation, he was no longer connected to religion as such. He had a hard time seeing spirituality in his everyday world and yet he was working hard in preparing himself for a new profession, namely one in alternative (Chinese) medicine. I tried to get him to think of that as a spiritual calling; as a vocation of service. At first he was very hesitant. Then I asked him, “What is your favorite painting?” Immediately he responded that it was Van Gogh’s painting of his shoes. “Why?” I asked. “Because it was so ordinary a subject,” he remarked; “Shoes take us places every day; I identified with those shoes. I just love that painting.” He was getting it. Spirituality is our everyday experiences of depth and deeper meaning and the connection that they carry. Spirituality is present wherever we undergo or observe deeply. In this instance it came alive for this individual who is moved to observe or consider the shoes, the maker of the shoes, the wearer of the shoes and the fact that shoes take us places including to work, and to our loved ones and to home. Thus the artist painting the shoes and the young adult seeing this painting 140 year later—all of it comes alive and is triggered in Van Gogh’s painting of his shoes and the young man’s memory and appreciation of that painting. Rabbi Heschel says that the role of ritual is “to preserve single moments of radiance and keep them alive in our lives." An artist does that. Even our shoes carry radiance worth keeping alive in our lives. Often the first question about spirituality comes to this: “What makes you most come alive?” In this story, it was Van Gogh’s painting of his shoes. And you? ~ Rev. Matthew Fox Read and share online here About the Author Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 32 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 60 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the FleshTransforming Evil in Soul and Society, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved and Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest ______________________________________ Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Bible and Homosexuality The Church's Dance in the 21st Century - Part 3 "They glorified God not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened (Romans 1:21 KJV)." "For this cause God gave them up into vile affections; for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet (Romans 1: 26,27 KJV)." These Pauline verses represent the strangest and most overt condemnation of homosexual acts that can be found in the New Testament. Included here is the single biblical allusion to female homosexuality. These texts are frequently quoted to justify the overt prejudice of homophobia while their obvious meaning is either ignored or dodged. Paul is here asserting that homosexuality is neither a sickness nor does it result from a moral choice, it is rather God's punishment given to those who fail to worship God properly. Read it carefully, Paul is saying that God will afflict people with homosexual desires if they fall into improper habits of worship. It is both a startling and an ignorant claim. Imagine what it would be like to live in fear that if one does not worship in 'the right way,' one's sexual desire would be turned toward those of one's own gender! Would the God who either could or would do that, be worthy of anyone's worship? Would that not turn God into a demon? Would it ever be appropriate to use such a text to condemn homosexuality? Why would anyone articulate such an idea or suggest that this convoluted and bizarre idea should be called "The Word of God." Why do people still look in the Bible not for truth but for the confirmation of their cultural prejudices? Paul was in many ways a tortured man. The passages from Leviticus and Genesis, condemning homosexuality convinced him that to be homosexual was to stand under the condemnation of the Torah for which the penalty of death was proscribed. Paul also knew the books called Maccabees that were incredibly popular in the first century so he would certainly be aware of the injunction in IV Maccabees 2:1-6, which suggested that if one were faithful and disciplined enough in worship, all desires could be overcome. Fortunately, for our interpretive purposes we have other works of Paul like Galatians and Philippians in which he relates some of his autobiographical history, his passion for the law, his zealousness in his studies, his advancement in holiness beyond all of his fellows. What becomes clear in these epistles is that Paul's religious zeal approaches fanaticism. Fanatics are always defending a threatened security. That is why they erupt in rage when their religious ideas are challenged. Recall Paul's days as a persecutor of the Christians, his desire to exterminate that movement, throwing its adherents into prison and even participating in their execution. These are the typical responses of religious fanatics. Fanatics are deeply controlling people, seeking to silence their critics. They bind themselves inside the authority of religious rules, which become unbendable and self-defining. The typical pattern is to suggest that to 'oppose my views is to oppose God.' The most rigid priest I have ever known lived this pattern out totally and in his way, beautifully. He never appeared in public without the proper uniform of jet-black suit and clerical collar. He followed a rigid discipline of daily prayers, including the obligatory rites of Matins and Evening Prayer. He celebrated or attended Mass each day of his life. The idea that the liturgy might be modernized was anathema to him. The possibility that women might ever become priests was inconceivable. Those things could happen only if the church sacrificed everything that was holy to him. When this man's bishop would visit his church for confirmation, it would create in this priest almost unmanageable anxiety. For weeks in advance, he would choreograph that liturgy to make sure that the bishop would do it his way, so as not to allow his people to know there were options. This anxiety spilled over into the congregation, many of whom were attracted to that church out of deep security needs. The rigidity of worship and their ability to master the intricate details of their complicated liturgy, gave them a strange kind of comfort. Ultimately, all of these control needs proved too much to be sustained and this priest literally fell apart psychologically and, for a period of time, was unable to function. The dark specter of depression began to consume him as parts of his identity that he believed were unacceptable began to rise in his consciousness. Suicide and a total psychotic break were both distinct possibilities. Instead, like Paul, in the book of Acts, this man had a kind of Damascus Road experience in which he accepted, as Paul seems to have done, a love that surrounded him just as he was. A sense of acceptance swept over him allowing him to face his reality as a homosexual person. In that moment he found the courage to let go of those things he believed were loathsome and evil and to be himself. At that moment the healing process began. That priest began to live anew. To use the language of Evangelical Christianity, he was" born again." He accepted his homosexual reality, began to allow himself to be honest and ultimately he was able to lay down both his rigidity and his fear. As he was restored to health, a person came in to his life that he allowed himself to love. In time they became partners and lived with each other in life giving faithfulness until age itself finally separated them in death. This priest helped me to see Paul's reality in a whole new way. "Paul was just like me before I became honest with myself," he said, "Both of us were rigid about all the rules, violent when challenged, persecutors of those who suggested that the law, with which we bound ourselves, was not itself ultimate. After his conversion Paul began to acknowledge, just as I have been able to do, that even those parts of his identity, which he had not been able to accept, could be accepted by the God he had met in Jesus." That was an amazing insight to me and under the tutelage of this priest, I began to look at Paul in a brand new way. Listen to Paul's language: "There is a war going on in my body," --- "With my mind I follow one law but with my body, I follow another" --- "Sin dwells in my members, causing me to do those things that I do not want to do and not to do the things I want to do" --- "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" These are the plaintive cries of a man who endured the torture of being what he believed it was evil to be. They are articulations of ancient, painful memories. When those cries fade into the affirmation of acceptance Paul utters words like: "Thanks be to God who has given us the victory in Christ Jesus!" Then he goes on to say, "now I know that nothing can separate me from the love of God ---- not even my own nakedness." It is a remarkable portrait of a remarkable man, who strangely enough, is still quoted today by homophobic people to condemn what Paul surely knew that he was. Yes, I am convinced that Paul of Tarsus was a gay man, deeply repressed, self-loathing, rigid in denial, bound by the law that he hoped would keep this unacceptable reality so totally under control that even he would not ever have to face it. Repression, however, kills. It kills the repressed one and sometimes, in the form of defensive anger, it also kills those who challenge, threaten or live out the thing that is so feared. Much of the persecution of gay and lesbian people in the Church today has been carried out by self-rejecting, deeply closeted homosexual people. Frequently they wrap their externalized, rejecting and sometimes killing fury, inside the security of an authoritative verse from a sacred source called "The Word of God." This is how a terrible text is born and that is how Paul's tirade in the first chapter of Romans has come to be viewed as a legitimate basis for condemning homosexual people. It is a sinister, inaccurate and incompetent way to use the scriptures. We now expose it for what it has always been with the hope that, weakened and revealed, it will no longer claim new victims in every age. There are other places in the Pauline and pseudo-Pauline corpus, which have also been used to hurt homosexual people, such as 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, and 1 Timothy 1:10. There are also single references in 1 Peter and Jude that are favorites of the Bible quoters searching for a scriptural basis to support their prejudice. Scholars now conclude, however, that these texts may just as well be referring to temple prostitutes or the sexual practices of exploitation that no one, homosexual or heterosexual, would regard as appropriate and life-giving behavior. The Christian ethic is ultimately a life ethic. When behavior increases life, expands love and calls all parties involved into a new being, then it must be called good. But when behavior denigrates, violates or diminishes anyone, it must be called evil. Sexuality per se is morally neutral. Both heterosexuality and homosexuality can be lived out in either life affirming or life destroying ways. If the Christian Church could only, instead of worrying about its internal unity, begin to lead the world to recognize the right of homosexual people to be accepted just as they are and to have their legitimate desires and sacred commitments blessed by the church and legalized by the state, then the Church would be a moral leader once again. For the fact is that all relationships that give life are holy and those that do not are unholy. ~ John Shelby Spong Originally posted April 14, 2004 Announcements Starting September 1st, The Shadow Course is an Online, Eight-Week Journey to Know Yourself and Bring Light to the World. In The Shadow Course, you’ll explore how to uncover the hidden parts of yourself and see the secret forces at play in the world. You’ll learn to: · Heal and transform the parts of yourself that keep causing negative patterns · Reveal your hidden archetypes and better understand their connection to the Shadow · Unearth new strengths, insights, and wisdom—there’s buried treasure in the Shadow · See our collective shadows and break free from systems that keep us disempowered · Step into your sacred calling and make a difference in a world that needs you now Click here for more information/registration

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Houston area colleagues?
by Marilyn Crocker via OE 29 Aug '17

29 Aug '17

Dear OE/ICA colleagues, We have been watching with horror and sorrow the pictures of Hurricane Harvey's devastation of the Corpus Christie and Houston areas of Texas. According to our Directory we have many colleagues living in that general area. Is there any news of their safety and wellbeing? Perhaps this is covered among many of you via Facebook, but we are not so into that social media, so would appreciate any news via the listserves. Additionally, we are praying for our colleagues in New Orleans who have suffered enough from Katrina, yet may be in for a piece of this history-making weather event. We hold all of you in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico in our hearts. Grace and peace, Marilyn and Joe

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Oaxtepec
by Beret Griffith via OE 27 Aug '17

27 Aug '17

Thank you to all of you who provided information on Oaxtepec. I will add a couple of sentences to the ChronHist, and.....will pull the rest of the information together in a hopefully coherent Google document. There is very little information in the ICA Global Archives on the event. It was a time of huge change and it would be good to have a written record of what happened. After I've written up what you all have contributed, I will send it out and see if more memories are jogged. Does anyone have photos of the event? The event time design? Report of the event? Who were the members of the Panchayat at the time, 1988..... ? Thanks again for your contributions. Beret

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