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"Journey Reflection" Blog Posts (July 2017)
by John C via OE 31 Jul '17

31 Jul '17

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"Journey Reflection" Blog Posts (July 2017)
by John C via OE 31 Jul '17

31 Jul '17

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THE 24 HDPs - photos
by Frank Knutson via OE 31 Jul '17

31 Jul '17

COLLEAGUES 2nd REQUEST In October, the ICA, is celebrating 40 years of the 24 HDPs. The Archive team is in dire need of photos for the following projects. The number following is # of current photos. OYUBARI, JAPAN 3 KWANGYUNG IL, SOUTH KOREA 11 SUDTONGGAN, PHILIPPINES 6 HAI OU, TAIWAN 1 NAM WAI, HONG KONG 2 SHANTUMBU, ZAMBIA 2 TERMINIE, ITALY 2 KREUZBERG OST, BERLIN 2 IJEDE, NIGERIA 11 IVY CITY, WASHINGTON DC 3 LORNE DE L'ACADIE, CANADA 2 DELTA PACE, MISSISSIPPI 3 VOGAR, CANADA 2 Please send, ASAP, any photos you have of these projects. If you know of anyone that might have photos, please contact them and email digital copies to f.knutson(a)earthlink.net <mailto:f.knutson@earthlink.net>. The need to respond is NOW. CAN-I-GET-A-HAPPY-ENDING ❤

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Global Buzz reminder for entries
by ICA International via OE 31 Jul '17

31 Jul '17

Reminder for entries This reminder is for the Global Buzz that will be published August 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 Août 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 Agosto 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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Spong/Sandlin: Why I'm So Political; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock via OE 27 Jul '17

27 Jul '17

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Why I'm So Political By Rev. Mark Sandlin It surprises me just a little bit how frequently I get asked about my very visible participation in politics. The truth is while some might assume that as a minister I probably start my day off with prayer and/or a devotion, I start my day with about an hour of reading through the news and scheduling the stories I find the most important or engaging on various social media outlets. Probably the most notable of those outlets is The Christian Left. As you might imagine the name “The Christian Left” provokes plenty of negative responses, everything from “isn’t that an oxymoron” to “they call the organization that because all the REAL Christians have LEFT it.” The reality is, as a minister, I feel very strongly about the importance of being involved in politics. When Charles Toy asked me if I’d join with him in getting The Christian Left started, I barely paused to take a breath before I said, “yes.” I do catch quite a bit of grief because of it. As a matter of fact, if it wasn’t important to me, my life would be much more stress-free if I just walked away from it. But, I can’t. I can’t because of my theology. I can’t because I believe this world would be a much better place if Christians started acting a lot more like Jesus and a lot less like many of their contemporary leaders. I can’t walk away from being political because I’m trying to follow the teachings of Jesus and those teachings keep leading me to be political. Just ask yourself, “Why did Jesus die on a cross?” Was it as some Christians say, “to save us from our sins?” Regardless of your personal belief, you should recognize that, within theological circles, the idea that Jesus had to die to atone for our sins is debatable. What isn’t debatable is why he was crucified. In his day and age, people who were crucified were crucified by Rome. Rome crucified people who were seen as a threat to the political order. Jesus was crucified because the Roman authorities of the day saw him as a real threat to the state, a threat to political order, and (most importantly) a threat to those in power. The way people encourage me and other Christians to stay away from politics, you’d think that Jesus must have preached about the perils of being involved in politics during the Sermon on the Mount (which, by the way, turns out to be a very political speech). It couldn’t be further from the truth. Jesus didn’t end up hanging from a tree for being NON-political. In the first-century Roman empire wandering spiritual teachers posed no threat to the state if they weren’t political. As a matter of fact, there were plenty of wandering spiritual teachers at the time that never drew the ruling government’s attention in the slightest. However, the things Jesus said and did were very much political. Not so surprisingly, the Roman government sentenced him to death because of his activity. American Christians tend to get confused on this point because our country’s founding ideology was based on the separation of church and state (as relative as it may sometimes seem). In our oh-so-privileged way of normalizing everything to ourselves, many people imagine our modern situation is the same as the religious and political process of Jesus’ day. That can hardly be further from the truth. It’s important to realize that the primary governing body of Jesus’ time in Judah was not Roman. The Romans frequently left governing to local leaders in the territories they occupied. For Judah, this meant the governing body was the Sanhedrin. Depending on which expert you go to on this, the Sanhedrin was either made up of Sadducees or Pharisees or both. Yep, the primary governing body of Judah was made up of religious figures. The Sadducees who were primarily wealthy conservatives, and the Pharisees who were more like what we think of as the business class. Even someone with a cursory familiarity with the Gospels probably knows that Jesus was constantly bumping heads with the Sadducees and Pharisees. Every time the Bible speaks of the Sadducees and Pharisees approaching Jesus you can almost hear an announcer saying, “Let’s get ready to rum-ble!” In their interchanges, Jesus is prone to rebuking them and pointing to their hypocrisy and errant interpretations of Hebraic Law (Matthew 23:27-28). As you might imagine, the wealthy and the powerful don’t tend to take kindly to some homeless, wandering Rabbi rebuking them. In reading the Gospels, it doesn’t take long to start realizing that Jesus was no friend of the religiously and politically powerful. As a matter of fact, in one of the most surprising stories about Jesus (and I would argue the story that most influenced his being given a death sentence), he strikes at one of the most essential tools of the powerful – money. When Jesus starts flipping the moneychanger’s tables in the Temple courtyard, he is striking at a very important source of power for the Sadducees and Pharisees. Not only does he strike at one of their sources of power, Jesus goes a step further and denounces the religious elite for turning God’s temple into a “den of thieves” (Mark 11:17) – because that’s what it had become. Those who were already wealthy were taking advantage of those who had little – some would even be considered “the least of these.” (That may sound oddly familiar to those who follow U.S. politics). In the courtyard, moneychangers exchanged Roman money for Jewish currency. Folks needed to do this because Jewish currency was the only currency accepted in the Temple and on the Temple grounds. They needed the Jewish currency to buy animals which had been approved for sacrifice. It probably won’t surprise you to find out that the Sadducees and Pharisees profited outrageously in exchanging Roman money for Jewish currency. It probably also won’t surprise you to learn that the religious leaders also made quite a profit on the sale of the approved animals. Now, the story gets even more politically interesting when you consider the Temple’s architecture. The temple courtyard was surrounded by a tall wall. During Passover, which was the time of Jesus’ table flipping, those walls would be lined with Roman guards, who were insuring nothing got out of hand during a festival that celebrated the Jewish people escaping an ancient oppressive ruler: the Egyptian Pharaoh. The thought process probably went a little like this: If you are the occupying Roman government, the last thing you want is the story of the Jewish nation escaping an oppressive ruler to give the commoners any ideas. So, you make your military presence felt. So, in this story, we have Jesus walking into the watchful eye of the Roman guards, into the seat and source of power for the local ruling Sadducees and Pharisees, and then he loses it. He confronts the corrupt system that misuses its power and oppresses those in need. He literally and figuratively begins flipping tables on the powerful. He makes a political statement calling them a “den of thieves.” And he does it all under the watchful eye of armed militants. It is laughable to say that Jesus wasn’t political. Jesus confronted the very political structures and people who were twisting and using religion to step on those thought of as “the least of these.” He confronted the politically powerful Sadducees and Pharisees at every turn, calling out their hypocrisy and distorted use of the Hebraic Law. And, he then taught what the Law was really meant for: the expressing of Heaven on earth; a place where grace, love and justice were practiced. So yes, I’m political. I’m not a Republican or a Democrat. I’m an independent. And, in general, I don’t support particular politicians. I’m more about supporting laws and government programs that help those most in need and about resisting laws and government programs that hurt people. Theologically, I simply can’t see how to follow the teachings of Jesus without being political, being willing to stick out your own neck, and being willing to challenging the hypocritical power structures and leaders on behalf of the oppressed. So, for theological reasons, I’m political. ~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Read online here About the Author Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, RevMarkSandlin, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on “The Huffington Post,” “Sojourners,” “Time,” “Church World Services,” and even the “Richard Dawkins Foundation.” He’s been featured on PBS’s “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and NPR’s “The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin Question & Answer Betty from Minnesota, writes: Question: My grandchildren have started attending a conservative private school because of the large sizes of the classes in the public schools. Their parents have recently become concerned because of the introduction of the Devil in the curriculum of that school at the first and third grade levels where our grandchildren are students. Their questions are: "When did the concept of the Devil get introduced into the pre-Christian world? How is the Devil to be interpreted in several Bible stories? Why did the culture at that time accept the image of the Devil? Why do conservatives today not get beyond the personal Devil image? How can evil be explained without using the idea of a real Devil? Answer: By Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. Dear Betty, I can’t respond fully to all the questions, but let me share some thoughts. The pre-Christian world is a mighty big place, so I’m going to focus on the origin of what is called the satan in the Jewish tradition. An excellent book, by the way, is that of Elaine Pagels’ The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics. Pagels points out that in the 6th century BCE, “when Israelite writers excoriated their fellow Jews in mythological terms, the images they chose were usually not the animalistic or monstrous ones they regularly applied to their foreign enemies.” Rather, they “most often identified their Jewish enemies with an exalted, if treacherous, member of the divine court whom they called the satan. The satan is not an animal or monster but one of God’s angels, a being of superior intelligence and status…” She goes on to say “As he first appears in the Hebrew Bible, Satan is not necessarily evil, much less opposed to God. On the contrary, he appears in the book of Numbers and in Job as one of God’s obedient servants – a messenger, or angel…. In Hebrew, the angels were often called ‘sons of God’, and were envisioned as the hierarchical ranks of a great army, or the staff of a royal court.” Contrary to popular mythology and fundamentalist theology, “In biblical sources the Hebrew term the satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character.” Later Christianity would anthropomorphize this adversarial role which would enable it to create a dualistic world view where God would be contending against the Devil. This dualism, which was a projection of our own internal struggles with the adversarial quality of our own instinctual drives and emotions, would also be disowned and projected onto human adversaries, whom we would claim were under the control of this satanic character. As Pagels helps us to understand, the root stn means “one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.” (The Greek term diabolos, later translated as ‘devil,’ literally means ‘one who throws something across one’s path.)” In truth, life is continually throwing things in our path, challenging the plans and desires we have. In the Hebrew scriptures, “the satan’s presence in a story could help account for unexpected obstacles or reversals of fortune.” When the obstacle prevented someone from a costly or even fatal mistake, it was praised as gift from God, as in the story of Balaam in the book of Numbers. As human beings, we find it very difficult to own as our own the parts of ourselves we have split off into our unconscious as little children, because they threatened our sense of safety and survival in our family system – often, because they were judged morally as wrong and shameful and thus we resorted to repressing them to avoid the sense of debilitating guilt. In time, we also learned to project these unwanted parts of ourselves onto others, thus providing a justification for our judgment of them. For myself, evil is most fruitfully understood as the experienced absence of the presence of goodness. There is no thing or no character responsible for evil. Evil arises from the dispossessed, disowned, unconscious qualities of our own human soul. As an unconscious force, we are blind to its effect on our perception of reality; and so evil distorts and contorts and can destroy our lives. Our spiritual response is not to further judge and disown, but to understand the truth of the unconscious obstacle, whatever it is, and learn to grow from the experience. There are also times in our lives when someone is so constricted and cut-off from conscious awareness of who they truly are, that they threaten the integrity of ourselves or others. The response is not to demonize that person/nation/group, but to stop them from carrying out their destructive behavior with the least amount of force possible. In effect, ironically, we need to be the satan, or messenger, obstructing their damaging path. ~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. Read and share online here About the Author Kevin G. Thew Forrester is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of St. Paul’s Church in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including “I Have Called You Friends“, “Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms“, and “My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You” and “Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland“. _____________________________________________________ Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited "The Passion of the Christ" Mel Gibson's Film and Biblical Scholarship – Part III There are some aspects of the gospels' passion narratives that Mel Gibson seems not to know. That is surprising since they are commonplace in the world of New Testament scholarship. First, in the earliest narrative of the Passion of Jesus (Mark 14:17- 15:47), a poignant but little noticed fact is registered. Mark informs his readers that when Jesus was arrested, "They (the disciples) all forsook him and fled." Let me make certain that those words are heard; 'All' of his disciples forsook him and fled. So authentic and real was this memory of apostolic desertion that a powerful need arose to exonerate the disciples for this undeniable behavior. A text from the book of Zechariah (13:7) that reads, "strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered" filled this requirement. These words were quoted often in the gospels (see Mk. 14: 27, Mt. 26: 31, and Jno.16: 32) to show that the disciples were bound to fulfill the scriptures, and thus had no choice. We are told that Peter tried to hang around incognito until his cover was blown then, denying that he had ever known Jesus, Peter also disappeared. The fact is that Jesus died alone. There were no disciples who witnessed his death. The passion of Jesus was something he endured alone! Who then created the passion narratives? Once this realization sinks in a second question arises: Where did the gospel writers get the details that are woven so beautifully into the story of the crucifixion? Who wrote them down if there were no eyewitnesses? Who was there to recall the dialogue between Jesus and the chief priests, Jesus and Pilate, Jesus and the soldiers, Jesus and the crowd, Jesus and the penitent thief? Who would have known about Joseph getting permission from Pilate to bury Jesus in a new tomb in Joseph's lovely garden? Who was there to record the earthquake, the darkness at noon, the cry of dereliction, the abuse and taunting of the crowd? Since Jesus died alone, those questions must be raised. The only conclusion to which we can possibly arrive becomes so obvious. The story of the passion of Jesus is not remembered history. It was created by the second, perhaps even the third generation of the Christian Church to aid them in the liturgical function of recalling the meaning of the one who had been crucified. If that essential premise can be embraced, then the question becomes where did these early Christians get the content to create the liturgy of "The Lord's Passion!" The simple answer is that they got it directly out of the Hebrew Scriptures. The gospels are Jewish books shaped by the Jewish Scriptures. This is as true of the story of the crucifixion as it is of any part of the Jesus story. So intimate is the connection between these biblical sources and the Passion Narrative that conservative Christians have claimed that the ancient Jewish Scriptures were divinely-inspired prophecies that Jesus, by virtue of his divine nature, had miraculously fulfilled. The truth is exactly the opposite. The story of Jesus' passion was written with these passages from the Hebrew Scriptures in front of the authors and the story of Jesus was crafted to comply with these various Jewish expectations. It was not the other way around. So central is this insight to cracking the stifling literalism that surrounds the story of Jesus in popular religious circles, that it requires a full exposure. I begin by concentrating on the passion narrative in Mark's Gospel since it was foundational and was largely incorporated into both Matthew and Luke's narratives, while John heightened the story time after time. A close reading of Mark's account of the crucifixion will reveal that it is designed to go from 6:00 p.m. on Thursday to 6:00 p.m. on Friday, thereby creating a 24-hour liturgical vigil. One can see the divisions at 14:17-31, 14: 32-42, 14: 43-65, 14:66-72, 15: 1-20, 15:21-32, 15:33-39 and 15: 40-47. The hours are actually marked in verses17 and 37-41 of chapter 14 and in verses 1, 25, 33, 34, and 42 of chapter 15. Note also that the betrayal is made to occur at midnight, so that the darkest deed in human history can occur at the darkest moment of the night. It serves the drama needs of the liturgy not the facts of history. Most Christians are also unaware that the Palm Sunday procession in Mark is again not history but is taken directly out of the Jewish liturgy of Sukkoth, a fall harvest festival of eight days duration. In the liturgical observance of Sukkoth, worshipers marched around the Temple or synagogue waving a 'lulab,' a bunch of leafy branches made up of willow, myrtle and palm, in their right hands. As they marched, they shouted the words of Psalm 118, "Hosanna! which is translated "Save us" and Blessed is he who enters (comes) in the name of the Lord (vs. 25 and 26)." That ought to sound familiar. This Palm Sunday idea introduced by Mark is based on a text (Zechariah 9:9-11), which reads: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your King comes to you, triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey and the foal of a donkey." Zechariah's narrative has been adapted as the vehicle through which to tell the Jesus story. When the story of the cross unfolds, this pattern of adapting Jesus to the Hebrew Scriptures continues. We tend to forget that Paul, before any gospel was written had observed that, "Christ died ---- in accordance with the scriptures (I Cor. 15:3)." The only scriptures Paul knew were what we today call the Old Testament. The details of the story of the cross are quite familiar since worshipers have read and relived them for 2000 years. Jesus is given over into the hands of wicked people. He is silent before Pilate and his accusers. He is mocked and abused. His clothing is divided among the soldiers. They cast lots to determine who would get what. He is crucified between two bandits or thieves. The crowd passing by derided him. His fellow victims taunt him and he cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" He is buried in the private tomb of a rich man named Joseph. What is not familiar to worshippers, however, are the accounts from the Hebrew Bible that Christians have adapted through which the story of Jesus can be told. We are not reading history when we read the passion story from the gospels; we are participating in the interpretative liturgy through which Jesus was rooted in the scriptures of his people and to interpret him as the fulfillment of Jewish expectations. The passion story of Jesus is actually based on two primary sources in the Old Testament. I will deal with one of them, Psalm 22, this week. That Psalm opens with the cry of dereliction, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" These words were quite deliberately placed onto the lips of Jesus by Mark. Psalm 22 goes on to say, "All who see me, mock at me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; he committed his cause to God, let God deliver him (Ps. 22:7-8). Surely Mark had this Psalm in front of him when he wrote, "Those who pass by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha, you who would destroy the Temple . . . save yourself" (Mk. 15:29ff). Matthew made the connection even more overt by adding, "He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he wants him." (Mt. 27:43). Psalm 22 continues by saying, "I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint." (v. 14). This verse and the phrase "I can count all my bones," near the end of this Psalm (verse 17), gave rise to the tradition that the bones of Jesus were not broken. John once again develops the story more fully (Jno. 19:31-37), by augmenting his narrative with a reference to another Psalm (34:20), where the psalmist adds, "He keeps all his bones, not one of them was broken." These words revealed the growing liturgical identity between Jesus and the sacrificial lamb of the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. In the Yom Kippur liturgy, the sacrificial lamb had to be physically perfect, no scratches, blemishes or broken bones. Only the blood of the perfect lamb of God could cleanse the people from their sins. The theme of thirst is also found in Psalm 22 (v.15) where the psalmist writes, "My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue cleaves to my jaws: thou dost lay me in the dust of death." This idea was incorporated by Mark into the Passion Narrative when Jesus is given wine mingled with myrrh to drink prior to the crucifixion. He declines. Later the Fourth Gospel heightens the thirst theme by having Jesus actually cry, "I thirst!" John says, he was given a sponge filled with vinegar to drink. To buttress this story John quotes another Psalm (69:21), where it is written, "for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." After this, John has Jesus say, "It is finished," before he breathes his last (Jno. 19:28-30). Psalm 22 further says, "They divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots (v.18)." Mark says of Jesus, "They divided his garments, casting lots for them to determine what every man should take." The dependence on this text is more obvious when the Fourth Gospel describes the scene even more graphically by turning one piece of Jesus' clothing into a seamless robe for which literal dice are rolled to award possession. Can anyone seriously doubt that Psalm 22 was a major source employed in the creation of the details of the passion story of Jesus in order to shape the worship life of the early Christian Church? We are not dealing in the gospel story with the literal history of the final events in the life of Jesus as Mel Gibson and so many, not very well informed, Christians seem to think. We are dealing with a liturgical attempt to lead the second and third generation of Christians to meditate during Holy Week on who it was who was crucified and what the ultimate meaning of his life is. The second source for the content of the passion is Isaiah 53, to which I shall turn in next week's column. ~ John Shelby Spong Originally published March 10, 2004 Announcements Pilgrimage as a Journey of the Heart Online eCourse July 31st - August 25th Pilgrimage is a spiritual practice for nearly every major religion of the world. Pilgrimage transcends religious, national, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. This e-course will explore the many dimensions of pilgrimages as a spiritual practice and offer resources to aid those called to the journey today. Click here for more information/registration

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My location
by Wesson Gaige via OE 26 Jul '17

26 Jul '17

I’m in Denton. Are there others about NT? Wesson Gaige 9628 Colbert Cove Denton, Tx 76207-5608 wesgaige(a)mac.com 940 262-0945 214 906-2909

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Missional Wisdom Foundation
by Wesson Gaige via OE 26 Jul '17

26 Jul '17

I discovered this organization a while ago. It is headquartered here in North Texas. It seems to be carrying on some of the principles of the OE. If you have not known about it, here is their URL. https://www.missionalwisdom.com <https://www.missionalwisdom.com/> "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley Wesson Gaige wesgaige(a)mac.com

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PICTURES
by David Zahrt via OE 25 Jul '17

25 Jul '17

Y'all, The camera we had took pictures on film We have pictures of people--Oombulgurri,etc. Austrailian colleagues would probably have better ones! We have pictures of - the house at Delta Pace - the garage at Memphis We can scan them and send them. -- Peace, David

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Barefoot Jessus
by Rod Rippel via OE 22 Jul '17

22 Jul '17

Jim, Thank you for resurrecting Joe’s paper. Joe’s paper captures the essence of conclusions from over 70+ years of scholarly work on the New Testament and the historical Jesus. The popular assumption is and has been that the faith and teaching of the church are rooted in the faith and teaching of Jesus. This idea, however, proves completely unfounded when you check the data. The truth is that there is a dichotomy between Jesus and the church. While the church may name Jesus as its founder, what it preaches and what Jesus had to say are very different. The ‘Jesus Sayings Traditions’ were quickly eclipsed in favor of the church’s power game based on the Christ happening, death and resurrection and exaltation as abstracted doctrines. Rod R

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7/20/17: Forrester/Spong: What does it mean to speak of God’s reign?; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock via OE 22 Jul '17

22 Jul '17

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Thew Forrester, Ph.D.</h3> <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="left" class="aolmail_alignleft aolmail_size-full aolmail_wp-image-49801" height="125" style="border: 0px;float: left;width: 125px;height: 125px;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/00b950f5-89f…"></a>One of the most characteristic features of Rabbi Jesus’ teaching is his experience of the reign of God as present here and now. This manifestation of God’s reign is not a reality to be feared, but as we hear in the synoptic gospels, is to be received as “good news.” But why? What are some of the qualities of the reign of God that tell of its goodness in our lives? And what does it even mean to speak of “God’s reign” in the 21st century within a culture in which kingdoms and monarchs do not exist, and resonate within our imagination and lives as antiquated and oppressive?</p> <p>Let’s begin by exploring a few of the essential qualities we can associate with the reign of God. These qualities might then enable us to briefly reconsider what we mean when we invoke these biblical words. I am going to draw from several early childhood experiences with my own father, because they are experiences, I now know, that introduced me to qualities of God. There is not necessarily anything gender-specific about these experiences; what is key is that a nurturing adult in my young life invited me to realize within my quotidian existence the presence of Being itself in all of its goodness.</p> <p>When I was about 4 years old, I awoke early one summer weekend morning and strolled quietly to my parents’ bedroom. My mother was already downstairs with her coffee, but with the door slightly ajar, I could see my dad lying peacefully upon the bed, the covers pulled down to his waist to receive the cooling morning breeze through the open window. I tiptoed in, climbed up beside him – not knowing if he were sleeping – and laid my wondering boy head upon the nest of curly hair on his belly. As I ran my little hands through his hair my head floated upon the undulating movement of his belly, his breath gently coming and going. The sun ever so slowly continued its morning climb, its warmth, like that of my dad’s body, melted any distance there may have been between his heart and mine. A golden sense of Oneness arose, lying pleasurably upon the bed, our single being unencumbered by any edges, expanding endlessly like the azure sky of dawn.</p> <p>This is one of my earliest experiences of realizing union of heart and soul in all its golden wonder. My father was this tender, strong, inviting gate into the endless expanse of the beauty of creation. I was tasting the gift of being one with the ground of Being in and through the specific being of this young man, my father. There is a basic and undeniable goodness in the melting of hearts that invites us on the lifelong path of letting go and experience the golden quality of merging with Being at the center of our own being. Here is the taproot of Jesus’ realization that he and his Beloved are one.</p> <p>About a year later, I was with my dad at a football game on a Friday evening in southeastern Michigan. Standing beside him, we were engulfed in an arboreal sea of humanity. As I looked around, I felt as if I were deep inside a forest of giant trees swaying vigorously from a strong wind. I sensed myself as tiny, week, disoriented and vulnerable. I had no idea where to turn. The next moment I was being scooped up and planted firmly upon my dad’s broad shoulders, like a small chickadee suddenly finding a secure perch on a steady oak in a storm. Now, with my skinny little legs within the firm grasp of my dad’s hands I surveyed the scene. My heart relaxed and my eyes excitedly widened; I had embarked on an adventure. I wasn’t simply tolerating the crowd, I was enjoying, even relishing, the excitement. The vital strength of my father’s heart was coursing through my body. The strength of his soul was now mine. I knew that “I can do this.” We strode together, as if he were one of Tolkien’s Ents bearing a hobbit, with the swaying trees of humanity seeming to part as needed as we wandered about.</p> <p>Strength – knowing that we can do what needs to be done – is an essential quality of being a human being. Without it we withdraw and cower and feel we are without capacity to engage whatever is before us. Strength is an essential quality of the reign of God, and it is critical that we have caregivers in our lives who introduce us to our capacity to do what needs to be done. Over again, Rabbi Jesus’ encounters with people results in the astonishing realization of the strength of their being. Jesus mixes spittle and mud, applies it to the man’s blind eyes, and he discovers the strength to see clearly.</p> <p>One final vignette. The summer after I turned seven, my parents gifted my older sister, brother and I with an unescorted train trip from Michigan to Illinois. Illinois may well have been China for me; it was a far away land that we would reach by rail after many hours. Such pride: we had been deemed capable of making an exotic trip without our parents aboard. The evening before our departure, neighbors joined us for a celebratory spaghetti dinner. As the eating and partying progressed I found myself feeling worse and worse; I quietly stole away into a corner alone in what quiet could be found. It didn’t take long before my mother discovered me curled up. My temperature had soared and my tummy had become exquisitely tender to the touch. Dad scooped me up and drove me to the emergency room. There I sat upon the vinyl clad examination table, covered by that crunchy white paper in place to ward off germs. The room was cold and sterile. The doctor probed and prodded and muttered to himself until finally he said to me, “son, you aren’t going anywhere. Your appendix is infected and about to burst. You need to have surgery right away.” I sat stunned and crushed, with tears rolling down my ashen cheeks. The adventure had vanished as if it had been a midnight dream. My dad came and stood in front of me as I sat on the table. He held the gaze of my eyes gently but firmly and said, “I think you should be the one to call and tell your mom.” Without question, my heart knew that he was right. But even more, I knew, even though I was in tears and heartbroken, that I could do it. There was a powerful peace in my dad’s gaze and it held me and touched me and assured me of my own power to be with what was happening. Nothing was being denied – not the pain, not the sorrow, not the lost dream. It was all there and I hated much of it; but it was there held within the power of my little being to endure.</p> <p>Essential to the reign of God is the realization of the power to be the truth of who we are within the circumstances of where we are. In this most simple and intimate exchange between my dad and I, he was inviting me to discover the power that is woven into the very substance of my soul. This power was not reactive. This power was the response of Being as my being. It was the same power that enabled Rabbi Jesus to accept the cup before him in the Garden of Gethsemane.</p> <p>Union. Strength. Power. These are essential qualities of the reign of God. They do not come to us magically out of the blue, but are introduced to us through the significant people in our lives who don’t miss the chance when the chances arise. Nature is grace, but we often fail to perceive and respond. History is God manifest, but often unrecognized and unseen. On these three occasions, my dad was graciously attuned to the present moment. He had no conscious idea of the mystery he was inviting me to discover. But, because his own heart was soft and open, Love drew his heart and soul to mine in an act of trust in its wisdom to guide us both.</p> <p>What happens when we don’t have someone to introduce us to these qualities of the reign of God in our lives? We can become like ashes, without substance, and a victim to the forces that blow all about us and through us. Without a sense of union, strength, and power (and these are just a few of the qualities of God’s reign), we can feel unbearably thin and without the capacity to engage life. Like Peter, when confronted with the unknown we can seek the shadows or find ourselves sinking below the turbulent waves of life.</p> <p>In their book, <em>Proverbs of Ashes</em>, Brock and Parker describe such ashes in the lives of women who experience themselves with no strength or power to act in order to relieve themselves from violently oppressive relationships. To add insult to injury, they find in such language as “the reign of God,” religious justification to remain powerless and seemingly disunited from God. They believe they need to suffer the blows and indignities of abuse, because that is what they think Jesus did – the reign of God demands acquiescence. If we suffer like Jesus, perhaps we will then be graced with the chance to rest our heads in peace and know the union we long for.</p> <p>Here is where we need to return to the matter of what we mean by the reign of God, which is simply a poetic way of speaking about Divine Presence. Rabbi Jesus is a wisdom teacher who invites us to discover that <em>within</em> our daily interactions we can come to experience and know directly the living and abiding Presence of the Beloved; not apart from nature and history; not above nature and history; but as the very warp and woof of nature and history. There is a depth to reality we tend to overlook in our habitual ways of skating along on the surface. This depth is the Divine heart of <em>this</em> life. This Presence, Jesus teaches, can come to reign in our lives as our way of living, which means we can come to know Being as our being, as the true nature of our own human nature; as the sure and strong beat of our own powerful heart.</p> <p>We each need living, breathing, human beings to introduce us to the essential goodness of life. Jesus is such a human being in the lives of the disciples. There is nothing magical about his interactions, nor those of my father. But when those relationships don’t exist, tragedy arises in history as human ashes. Divine Presence, the reign of God, has many essential qualities that enable us to experience the goodness of our own human fullness. Three of these are union, strength, and power.</p> <p>~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">here</a>.</p> <p><strong>About the Author</strong></p> <p>Kevin G. Thew Forrester is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of <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…">St. Paul’s Church </a>in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including “I Have Called You Friends“, “Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms“, and “My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You” and “<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…">Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland</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">NJ via FaceBook, 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>How is it that liberal-minded people who claim that they are open to allowing people to believe what they want and live the way that they want attack people like me who stand on the Bible? That's real tolerant now isn't it?</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 Rev. David M. Felten</span></h4> <p><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…"><img class="aolmail_alignleft aolmail_size-medium aolmail_wp-image-49812" height="156" style="border: 0px;float: left;width: 125px;height: 156px;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://johnshelbyspong.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/David-Felten-242x300…"></a></p> <p>Dear NJ, First off, allowing people to believe what they want is just one characteristic of “liberal-minded people.” But to characterize liberalism as some willy-nilly-believe-what-you-want perspective is a false claim. True, liberals are OK with people believing what they want – but only insofar as those beliefs respect the basic dignity of other people and doesn't do others harm. That's a big difference. I've also heard it said that liberals tolerate anything but intolerance. I think that's about right.</p> <p>And let's be clear, you're probably not being "attacked" for being a person who "stands on the Bible," but for being a person who's "stand" on the Bible is not in keeping with other peoples' "stand" on the Bible.</p> <p>Let me remind you that people "stood on the Bible" to defend slavery, they "stood on the Bible" to keep women from having the vote, they "stood on the Bible" to defend segregation. Without "liberals" who opposed those racist, misogynist, and un-American practices, our world would be a very different place indeed (and not for the better). Many of those appalling liberals, by the way, were faithful Christians who appealed to the Bible to further the causes of freedom and basic human rights. I’m going to assume that, in these areas, you agree with them and their “liberal” interpretation of the Bible.</p> <p>Among today’s front line issues of defense on behalf of basic human dignity and human rights are LGBTQ rights and reproductive choice. Bizarre Biblical attitudes toward women and sexuality notwithstanding, neither of these (as we currently understand them) are topics in the Bible (uh-oh, no place to “stand”!). Similarly, although there’s no mention of cultural practices like female genital mutilation and sex-trafficking in the Bible, many conservatives “stand” with liberals in opposition to these sex-related challenges – and do so on the grounds of that eminently liberal notion of human rights.</p> <p>Then, if you manage to filter out all the propaganda, cultural prejudices, and superstitions from the Bible, there are plenty of examples of where scripture is clearly aligned with what you would call today’s “liberal agenda.” Opposing racial injustice and the U.S.’s unjust immigration policies are just two examples where liberals have all kinds of Biblical precedent on which to “stand.”</p> <p>So, don't mistake the liberal tendency towards tolerance (which allows you – in broad strokes – to believe what you want and do what you please) to remain silent when what you believe and advocate fails to respect the rights or freedom of others. You can claim that your “stand” is the definitive interpretation of what the Bible says, but so did the slave-owning, sexist, and racist Christians of the past – and so do the discriminatory, misogynistic dogmatists of today.</p> <p>~ Rev. David M. Felten</p> <p>Read and share online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a></p> <p><strong>About the Author</strong></p> <p>David Felten is a full-time pastor at <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…">The Fountains</a>, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “<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…">Living the Questions</a>”.</p> <p>A co-founder of 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…">Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology</a> and also a founding member of <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…">No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice</a>, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in 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…">Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church</a> and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the <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…">Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet</a>.</p> <p>David and his wife Laura, an administrator for a large Arizona public school district, live in Phoenix with their three often adorable children.</p> <p style="text-align: center;">______________________________________________________</p> <p> </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;"><strong>"The Passion of the Christ" Mel Gibson's Film and Biblical Scholarship – Part II</strong></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"></p> <p>Mel Gibson claims that in his film, "The Passion of the Christ," he has "followed faithfully the texts of the Gospels." That is demonstrably not so, as I sought to show in this column last week. Yet, what interests me about this even more is that many religious people think that biblical accuracy is the only criterion by which this film should be judged. If it is true to the Bible, then it seems not to matter whether it increases the virulent cultural prejudice against Jewish people. Upon viewing the film, no less a person than John Paul II, for example, stated approvingly, "It is as it was!" The Pope clearly bought the argument that the biblical account itself is accurate. These words reveal a failure to embrace some uncomfortable aspects of contemporary biblical scholarship on his part. It is not dissimilar with the other Christian leaders. To make that clear, one has only to lift several facts of history into the public awareness.</p> <p>First, the most elementary study of the familiar material in the passion story will reveal that it is not the work of eyewitnesses. Jesus' earthly life came to an end around the year 30. The first account of the events in Jesus' life from Palm Sunday to Easter was not written until Mark's Gospel came into being between 70-75 or, at a minimum, forty years after the events being described. This means that these narratives were developed and passed on orally in some context for at least forty years before they were written down for the first time. In that world there were no places to go to research events of the past.</p> <p>Second, this Passion story in Mark's Gospel was then, during the next ten to twenty years, incorporated into both Matthew and Luke, each of whom wrote an expanded version of Mark. Matthew, who copied some ninety percent of Mark into his gospel, wrote probably between 80 and 85, and Luke, who copied some fifty percent of Mark into his Gospel, wrote probably between 88-92. Since we can compare these narratives today, we recognize that both Matthew and Luke changed the passion details dramatically, adding new things and omitting others. For example, Matthew develops the story of Judas Iscariot by placing into the narrative such things as the 30 pieces of silver as the price of his treachery, the attempt to return the money, the refusal of the high priests to receive it, Judas hurling it back into the Temple and his suicide by hanging, none of which were in Mark's original story. Matthew also introduces the story of the Temple guard placed around Jesus' tomb, heightens Mark's messenger of the resurrection into being an angel with the power to cause these guards to faint and adds an earthquake to his story. Then he contradicts Mark on whether the women, who came to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week, actually saw the Risen Christ.</p> <p>Luke continues the development of Judas' story by finally giving the reason for the betrayal and expanding the dialogue that Judas has with Jesus. Luke also adds three of the familiar "last words of Jesus" from the cross, while omitting the cry of dereliction that, according to Mark, were the only words that Jesus spoke there. Only in Luke do we find the sayings: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," spoken to the soldiers; "Today you will be with me in Paradise," spoken to the penitent thief; and "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit," spoken presumably to God. In the Resurrection narrative, Luke denies the Galilean tradition as the locus of any resurrection experience for the disciples, which contradicts a major feature in both Mark and Matthew. Luke expands Mark's resurrection messenger into not one but two supernatural angels. The story is certainly not static.</p> <p>John, writing between 95 and 100, adds the words from the cross committing Jesus' mother to the care of the beloved disciple, the cry "I thirst," that was related to a prophetic saying (Ps. 69:21) and the final words of triumph, "It is finished." He introduces the story of the soldiers breaking the legs of the thieves to hasten their deaths, but not breaking Jesus' legs, relating this to a prophetic saying (Ps. 34:20), the account of a soldier hurling the spear into Jesus' side, which he suggests was foreordained by the writing of the prophet Zechariah (12: 10) and the story of the soldiers rolling dice for Jesus' clothes. John's resurrection narratives are also radically different from the other gospels. John focuses on Mary Magdalene, a miraculous entry by Jesus into a locked and barred home in Jerusalem, and the conversation with the doubting Thomas. He then tells a Galilean story of a resurrection appearance, together with the account of Peter's restoration, which was set months after the crucifixion. None of these details are found anywhere else. It is quite clear that between the first Gospel of Mark and the last Gospel of John, the story of Jesus' passion and resurrection has grown considerably. The question that this brief sketch raises is simply this: "If the details grew that much between 70-100 when the narratives were written, how much did the story grow between 30 and 70 when there were no written narratives?"</p> <p>The only things we find in those hidden years are scanty details in Paul's writings during the mid-fifties (I Cor. 15:1-6). There is no narrative here about Jesus' betrayal, his arrest or his torture. Paul says only that, "Christ died." There is no crowd, no trial, no thieves, penitent or otherwise and no words spoken from the cross. Then Paul says just as simply, "He was buried." There is no tomb, no garden and no Joseph of Arimathea. Next Paul says still sparingly, "He was raised on the third day." There are no women coming to the tomb. Indeed there is no tomb, empty or otherwise. There are also no angels, no earthquakes, and no narration of an appearance to anyone. Paul provides only a list of witnesses to whom, he says, Jesus appeared.</p> <p>That list is fascinating in several details. Cephas or Peter is first. The mention next of the number 'twelve' implies that Judas is still among them. Paul does not seem to know the tradition that one of the twelve was the traitor. The name James, third on this list, begs the question as to which James is intended. Is it James the son of Alphaeus, James the son of Zebedee, or James the brother of Jesus? The phrase, "the apostles" placed fourth on this list causes us to wonder who they are, since the 'twelve' have already been named! Then after mentioning 500 brethren, Paul lists himself as the last one to whom the raised Jesus appeared. The fact that Paul's experience was certainly not that of a physically raised body suggests that Paul did not regard the resurrection of Jesus as physical at all. Paul thus offers us no clues about the historicity of the passion narratives as the gospels describe them. Perhaps the papal words about Gibson's film, "It is as it was," ought to be rendered, "It is as gospel writers 40-70 years after the event suggested it was." That is not a very vigorous claim.</p> <p>Another thing that causes scholars to question the historicity of the passion narratives, as they appear in the gospels, is the kind and sympathetic way that Pilate is portrayed. He is exonerated from blame. In no way does this portrait connect with the historical references from secular sources that we have about this Roman Governor.</p> <p>Pilate is introduced into the Christian story by Mark (15:1-44) who portrays him as "wondering" at Jesus' lack of response when being interrogated, as trying to free him and being overwhelmed by the crowd's cry for his crucifixion, and as protesting Jesus' innocence by asking, "Why, what evil has he done?" Finally, Pilate is pictured after the death of Christ as granting Joseph of Arimathea permission to bury Jesus properly. Matthew follows Mark's story line closely (Mt. 27:11-65), but adds a scene in which Pilate's wife sends him word to "have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much over him this day in a dream." Then Matthew has Pilate wash his hands, claiming to be innocent "of this man's blood."</p> <p>Luke introduces Pilate earlier by name when Jesus emerges to be baptized by John (Lk. 3:1). He also refers to Pilate's atrocity of mingling the blood of Galileans in pagan sacrifices (13:1). Luke then quotes Pilate in the crucifixion story (Lk. 23:1-53) as saying, "I find no crime in this man." Later, Luke says, Pilate tries to escape involvement with Jesus by sending him to Herod since Jesus was a Galilean and thus not part of Pilate's responsibility. Next, Pilate reiterates his belief in Jesus' innocence and tries to release him after scourging him, hoping that whipping the prisoner will satisfy his enemies. Only then does he acquiesce to the crowd.</p> <p>In John, Pilate is portrayed as seeking to save Jesus by ordering the Jewish accusers to try Jesus according to their law that did not provide for an execution; then as waxing philosophical by asking, "What is truth?" Finally, John has Pilate repeat his belief in Jesus' innocence, seek again to release him, and even to refer to him as the 'King of the Jews.'</p> <p>The story line of the gospels read as if Pilate is simply trapped by events over which he has no control, benign at worst, benevolent at best. Even Jesus is quoted in John's Gospel as establishing Pilate's innocence by saying, "He who delivered me to you has the greater sin (19:11)." This, it must be stated, is a far cry from the portrait of Pilate that we meet in history.</p> <p>Pilate appears, in the records of antiquity available to us, to have been a murderer of unspeakable cruelty. A Jerusalem Post writer, after researching his life, has referred to him as "the Saddam Hussein of his time." His contemporary, King Agrippa, in a letter written to the Emperor Caligula, referred to Pilate's corruption, his murder of untried and presumably innocent people and his ruthless inhumanity. Philo, a first century Jewish philosopher, called Pilate an "unbending and recklessly hard character, famous for violence ----ill treatment of the people --- and continuous executions without even the form of a trial." Roman records indicate that Pilate was recalled in the year 37 for sadistic actions, among which was his slaughter of 4000 Galileans who had gathered on their holy mountain, an act that made Pilate a political liability even to the Romans. At the same time, historical records abound in which the Romans routinely crucified self-proclaimed messiahs and kings of the Jews: There was Judah in the year 6, Theudas in 44 and Benjamin in 60, just to name the most famous. None of this negativity, however, appears in the New Testament portrait of Pontius Pilate or of the Romans.</p> <p>So, where is the truth? How trustworthy historically is the biblical account of the crucifixion of Jesus? Is there some other agenda operating at the particular time that the gospels were written that caused their authors to exonerate Pilate and to shift the blame for Jesus' death from the Romans to the Jews? Is it enough for Mel Gibson to claim that he is following faithfully a biblical text that becomes nothing but his pious rationalization for pumping enormous amounts of anti-Semitism into the bloodstream of the western world? Is it not time for Christian leaders including even John Paul II, to acknowledge that the way the gospels describe the death of Jesus may well not be the way it was?</p> <p>Next week, I will propose a different way to read the Passion story in the New Testament, by placing it into the context of its own history, some 40 to 70 years after the crucifixion. Perhaps that exercise will help us to understand why the annual reading of the story of Jesus' final days has continuously created anti-Semitism which Mel Gibson in this film has now raised to an art form that will be seen by millions and for which he apparently feels no shame.</p> <p>~ John Shelby Spong Originally published March 3, 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> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"> <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;"><span style="color:#FFFFFF">........</span><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…"><img height="266" width="400" style="border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;height: auto;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/5320d28b-af3…"></a></h1> <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;"> Identity, Dignity and Compassionate Inclusivity Webinar Series</h1> <div style="text-align: left;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;">The purpose of this series is to provide accurate information and first-hand accounts of the international refugee and immigration crisis. 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