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ICAI General Assembly January 21 (Saturday) at 12:00 Togo Time
by Karen Snyder 13 Jan '23

13 Jan '23

ICA International is inviting you to the 2023 General Assembly Zoom meeting. Topic: ICAI General Assembly January 2023 Time: Jan 21, 2023, 12:00 PM Universal Time UTC Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87457656453 Meeting ID: 874 5765 6453 For your information: 1. Minutes of the last ICAI Global Assembly (July 2022): 2. Minutes of the last ICAI Board meeting (December 2022) that includes a draft of the 2023 ICAI Budget for your review: 3. ICAI Core Team Report - note on the second page the proposals for General Assembly consideration:

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Undaunted. Brooke Kroeber
by James Wiegel 13 Jan '23

13 Jan '23

https://youtu.be/oUsqaz0JTV8 Wait for the scene from 4750 Jim Wiegel “…the long work of turning their lives into a celebration is not easy. Come and let us talk“. The Sunflowers. Mary Oliver

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1/12/2023, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin More God in Us, Less Us in God; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 12 Jan '23

12 Jan '23

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Dr. Mark Sandlin | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | More God in Us, Less Us in God | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin January 12, 2023Few progressive Christians believe that God is something we can truly ever fully understand. Yet, in constantly choosing to anthropomorphize God, we provide ourselves with fertile mental ground for believing we are doing just that. I'm not saying that anthropomorphizing God is all bad. I am, however, saying that when we lean into it and over-emphasize it, like most of Christianity does, we end up growing God into something that is far more human than divine. I am definitely saying that is bad. It's bad, in part, because we tend to attach the biases (good and bad) that we have about each other to God. Those biases are developed through observation of and social interactions with humanity over extended periods of time. Applying them to the divine is like trying to smell the color 9. (Thanks to contemporary Christian singer/songwriter Chris Rice for the concept). We end up with ideas about God that are much more human than they are divine. They even get in the way of actually observing what we can know of God because we start with the orientation of human biases, which everything we observe must then be filtered through. It's called subjective observational bias. It happens when the person observing has preconceived expectations that can influence their observations. That's particularly true when the expectations are personal. In the case of a believer, or even a seeker trying to understand what God is, and what attributes God has, there's a very good chance that they bring personal expectations to the table. Because of the teachings of the Church, those expectations are very likely to be very humanlike qualities. After all, a dominant source for the Church in trying to understand God is the Bible which was written some 2000 years ago or more in an age when many gods were understood to have humanlike attributes and when the concept of subjective observational bias was not a concept at all. It is not the least bit surprising that as those who wrote the various books of the Bible tried to communicate their experience of God, they did so in very anthropomorphic ways. What is surprising is that some 2000 years later, we still insist on primarily communicating about God in that way. Like I said, or rather like Chris Rice said, it's like trying to smell the color 9. I'm not advocating that we completely ditch anthropomorphic idealizations of God. As a matter of fact, I believe there is a lot of good that comes from doing it. I just don't think doing it a lot is good. Anthropomorphizing helps us understand things that aren't like us. It allows us to feel more connected to them and, frequently, more positive about them. The Chris Rice song referenced talks about how distant this thing we call God can feel. We see evidence of it throughout the Bible, from the Psalmist(s) to Jesus on the cross shouting "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” or “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” (Which, come to think of it, is Jesus quoting the Psalmist). It is easy to feel distant from God, to feel like God is so much unlike us that we may never experience God. There's no shame in it. It's to be expected. Anthropomorphization helps us make sense of something that is not like us. Anthropomorphizing God shrinks that feeling of distance by helping us identify more closely with God and feel more connected. There is definitely good in giving human qualities to things that are decidedly non-human. So, it can be good, but we definitely do it too much, and when we do, we create our own obstacles in trying to understand God. Things like unintentionally inserting subjective observational biases. We almost can't avoid it when we spend so much time humanizing God. Studies have discovered that the parts of the brain that are activated when we anthropomorphize God are the same parts that are used to derive the thoughts and emotions of other humans. We end up sloppily pasting our own human thoughts and emotions onto something that is supernaturally divine. I just don't see how that will ever get us any closer to understanding God. As a matter of fact, I believe it is one of the big reasons we haven't made more progress over the last 2000ish years. As a matter of fact, I believe it has done more harm than just that. As I said, anthropomorphization helps us make sense of something that is not like us, to believe we have a better understanding of it. The problem is that it is an all too easy step to conflate that feeling of connectedness with attributions of agency. The divine begins to become a controllable thing. We have some sense of agency over/with the divine. Influence over the divine (or at least the belief of having it) is a horribly dangerous thing. At its mildest, it gives us profiteers convincing folks to send in money in return for blessing from God. At its worst, it gives us things like ethnic cleansing, crusades, systematic commissioning of murder, sexual violence, and genocide - all done at and/or by the hand of God. We can (and sometimes do) end up with versions of God that look very much like the worst parts of humanity: a God that is wrathful, angry, judgmental, and jealous. On a side note, it is interesting that the images of God we form this way seldom have more positive human attributes like playfulness, a sense of humor, silliness, creativity, and being sympathetic. There's enough packed away in why that happens to write several doctoral theses, I imagine. In the end, too much anthropomorphizing of God allows us to think of ourselves as God-like in very human ways. We see ourselves as being made in God's image, primarily in the ways we push our humanity onto God through anthropomorphization. I have to believe that less humanizing of God will help us more readily recognize the reflection of the love of God that is in us. Far too many of our theological perspectives about God are grown out of bias ladened assumptions that are heavily connected to the humanization of God. It gets in our way of observing the true divine in the world, forming understandings of it, and then turning the knowledge inward to recognize the divine in ourselves. I also have to believe that the more we begin to recognize and understand the true divine in ourselves and in others, the more we will find ourselves in a better position for creating a better world for everyone.~ Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin Read online here About the Author Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. Mark also serves as the President and Co-executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His Podcast The Moonshine Jesus Show is on Mondays at 4:30pm ET. Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Steven I am an Atheist.and wonder why is it that most Christians insist that the Gospels were essentially dictated to (inspired) by God to write his unerring Word. Given the number of inconsistencies and that the narratives were clearly written by different authors who couldn’t even get the story straight, why is the Bible the go-to source for the answer to everything? Rev. Brandan Robertson Dear Steven,Thank you for this question. Many Christians simply do not understand how the Gospels, specifically and the Bible in general, were composed, and thus concoct various mystical and supernatural theories that bear no resemblance to reality. Simply raising the fact that no one followed Jesus around recording his teachings and actions, and in fact, most of his disciples were likely illiterate, can be enough to cause a crisis of faith- how then do we have the Gospels, and how can they be trusted as reliable at all? But progressive Christians, on the other hand, have long embraced the understanding that the Bible is not a divinely composed book, that it is a product of human effort, and thus should be engaged with critically even as we engage with it with reverence as the foundational document of our faith. While many scholars believe that many of the teachings of Jesus are in fact authentic and rooted in an earlier document often called Q, we also accept that many of the details of Jesus’ life are mythological and even sometimes copies of other myths from the cultures surrounding the Gospel writers. At the same time, we still draw on these stories for guidance and inspiration because myths are profound containers of truth- it is irrelevant, for instance, whether Jesus was born in Bethlehem to a virgin. But what is relevant in the profound message beneath the details of the Christmas story- is that God is found amid the most unexpected people and places, among the poor, marginalized, hopeless, and oppressed. All of this to say, Christians who view the Bible as the Word of God without error have a mountain of challenges to that belief- it’s not historically a Christian belief and is certainly not how the Jewish tradition viewed their Scriptures throughout much of history. Progressive Christians, on the other hand, invite critical engagement with the Bible, wrestling with the text like Jacob wrestled with God, drawing inspiration from its ancient stories and wisdom teachings while at the same time critiquing and rejecting the many places where it offers a theology or ethic that is far inferior to our modern theology of justice, inclusion, and love. ~ Rev. Brandan Robertson Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Brandan Robertson is a noted spiritual thought-leader, contemplative activist, and commentator, working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal and the author of Nomad: A Spirituality For Travelling Light and writes regularly for Patheos, Beliefnet, and The Huffington Post. He has published countless articles in respected outlets such as TIME, NBC, The Washington Post, Religion News Service, and Dallas Morning News. As sought out commentator of faith, culture, and public life, he is a regular contributor to national media outlets and has been interviewed by outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, SiriusXM, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Associated Press. He leads Metanoia, a digital spiritual community at MetanoiaCenter.org | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podbean | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited On Building a Christianity without Security or Creeds Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong August 15, 2013One of my readers, Henry Gael Michaels, has shared with me an anonymous story on the meaning of God with which I open this column. It also reveals, I believe, what is wrong with all theology. I am grateful for this gift. This is his story. The mystic was back from the desert. “Tell us,” the people said, “What is God like?” The mystic wondered just how he could ever tell them what he had experienced in his heart while in the desert. Can God ever be put into words? He finally decided that in response he would give them a formula that was so convoluted and literally impossible, so inaccurate and so inadequate that their only choice would be to do as he had done and go into the desert to experience God for themselves. Alas, however, that is not what his hearers did. Instead they seized upon his formula, turning it into a sacred text or an infallible doctrine. Then they imposed it onto others as a creed or a set of holy beliefs. They even proclaimed that it was necessary to hold it, if one wants to be saved. They began to persecute and to kill those who would not consent to this formula. They went to enormous efforts and great costs to spread this formula to foreign lands. Some even gave their lives for this cause. The mystic was sad. “It might have been better,” he said, “if I had said nothing!” “Perhaps,” Henry Gael Michaels concluded in his letter to me, “This is why Jesus never wrote anything down.” It seems to me that this story articulates the problem that modern religious men and women have with organized religion and theology. Religion has adopted theological formulas based on two things: First, there is an experience of God, which people come to believe is both real and authentic, which makes them aware of transcendence. This experience is life changing, seemingly unrepeatable and certainly stretching to those having the experience. It leads to new dimensions of life and to new understandings. All religion, along with all theology, is born in such a primary experience. The second thing involved in religion and theology is, however, the compelling need to explain that experience to another. That is the moment when the experience is inevitably put into human words. The experience and the wordy explanation are never the same. If the experience is true, it is timeless, external and transformative! The explanation, however, is always time bound, time warped and finite. Every explanation freezes the experience in the vocabulary of the explainer. The explanation reflects the world view of the explainer, the explainer’s level of knowledge and the explainer’s time in history. There is no such thing as an eternal explanation. As time moves on, the destiny of every explanation is to become increasingly foreign to its audience, increasingly irrelevant to its time and finally to be dismissed or ignored as no longer appropriate to its world. If people begin to identify the experience with its explanation, the experience will die when the explanation dies. That is the law “of the Medes and the Persians,” and that is also the reality of human history. Now look at modern Christianity. Jesus was a first century experience in which people came to believe that they had encountered the transcendent reality that they called God. The New Testament was a first century attempt to explain that experience. There is no doubt that in the Jesus experience, lives were transformed. People, who at the time of Jesus’ arrest, had forsaken him and fled in fear, somehow came back together after his death and were empowered with a new courage. Previously fearful ones were now ready to die for the reality of an experience they could no longer deny. Even though these people had been raised inside a strict Jewish code, their “Jesus” experience forced them to expand that code so dramatically that the singularity of God was compromised and they could no longer see God apart from Jesus, nor could they see Jesus apart from God. Their understanding of God was thus modified and changed for ever. In time, this new understanding forced them to adopt a new holy day on which to celebrate this experience. That was when the first day of the week began to be observed and a new form of worship, based on the Passover meal, but expanded into something new that they called “The Eucharist,” came into being. That sacramental meal was said to mark the fact that Jesus “was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” The New Testament was thus the written attempt by the followers of Jesus to capture the power of their Jesus experience in words. Inevitably, they were the words of the first century. Can we keep our hold on their experiences by literalizing their words today? Of course not! We cannot twist our minds into first century pretzels and think of God in the same way that they did. God cannot be to a post-Galilean, post-Newtonian world a being who lives above the sky, and who once entered the earth by causing a baby to be conceived in the womb of a virgin. Our minds and hearts are not drawn to the picture of a miracle-worker, who possessed such supernatural power that he could expand the food supply, heal the sick, banish the demons of epilepsy and mental illnesses, and even transcend the limits of death before he returned to God’s heavenly home by ascending into the sky of a three-tiered universe to a realm from whence this Jesus supposedly had originally come. That explanation may have fit the world of the first century quite well. Today, however, that understanding of Jesus sounds strange, foreign, dated, and mythological. Space age people cannot imagine such a heavenly being. The explanation of the New Testament may well point to truth, but the first century words they had at their disposal, can never capture the reality of that experience for all time. Explanations no matter how ancient, revered or sacred always die. No explanation is timeless, not even the explanations contained in the gospels. None can, therefore, be eternal. By the time the fourth century arrived in Christian history, Christians began to turn their first century New Testament explanations into creeds that were couched in the words that reflected the common assumptions of fourth century Greek-speaking people. That world thought in terms of dualism. By this I mean that they saw a strict division between heaven and earth, between the human and the divine, between the body and the soul and even between the flesh and the spirit. Dualistic concepts therefore permeated the language of the fourth century creeds and began to shape Christian understanding. The word “Incarnation,” for example, which literally means “to enter the flesh of,” became a doctrine designed to explain the way Jesus was to be understood. Next, Jesus was transformed into being the second person of the Holy Trinity. The human Jesus began to fade from view and a religious system that neither Paul nor the gospel writers would have ever recognized came into being. It was this theological system that poured anti-Semitism into the blood stream of the Christian West, producing such things as the expulsion from or the ghettoization of the Jews in every Christian nation of Europe. That killing violence finally exploded in the genocidal horror of the Holocaust in which 6,000,000 people died as the victims of religion gone mad. It was this system that also expressed itself in the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries that sought to kill the infidel Muslims. These fourth century creeds also gave birth to heresy hunts, religious wars and the Inquisition. It takes enormous energy to keep dying explanations viable. By the time the 13th century arrived, we turned these dated theological explanations into liturgies and repeated them in worship. Far more than most people recognize, the worship services in all Christian churches were born in 13th century understandings and practices. In that era, human life was denigrated and devalued. So Christian worship began to proclaim that we were “born in sin,” that we were “miserable offenders” and that we were not worthy to “gather up the crumbs under the divine table.” In our hymns we began to call ourselves “wretches” and “worms.” Life became something to be escaped, not something to be lived. We proclaimed a God who was all-seeing, one “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid” and thus a God before whom we quaked in fear and were compelled constantly to beg for mercy. Perhaps that is why worship seems so strange, so unpleasant, so boring to people in the 21st century. That is not our understanding of life. Can we Christians escape, or at least relativize, our explanations from the past without losing in the process the power of the experiences which caused the explanations in the first place? That is the perennial question that both religion and theology asks. The clear answer is that if one literalizes any explanation of an experience, that experience becomes mortal and it is doomed to die. Truth is thus never served by static religious or theological explanations. This means that the Bible cannot be taken literally unless one wants the Bible to die. That means that orthodoxy can never be defined in creeds or doctrines unless one wants orthodoxy to die. This means that liturgical forms must always be changing, they can never be set in stone unless one wants all liturgies to become irrelevant. So religion as we now know and practice it is doomed. Once it is literalized, its destiny is only to create fundamentalists who will exact enormous energy from us in order to protect the religious formulas of the past and when they fail at this task, as they are destined to, they will produce secular humanists who can no longer live with integrity in those religious definitions of antiquity and so they will abandon all religion. The Church Alumni Association will be the fastest growing organization in the heretofore Christian world. That is where we are. What can we do about it? That will be my topic next week. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Paul Winter’s Winter Solstice Celebration The 43rd annual Paul Winter Consort Winter Solstice Celebration, in the form of a video retrospective, is now available to watch for free on YouTube. Entitled Solstice Saga, this epic three-hour journey interweaves iconic performances from the first forty years of these celebrations at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Info re January 19 Environmental Film: LIVING IN THE FUTURE'S PRESENT
by Ellie Stock 09 Jan '23

09 Jan '23

JANUARY ENVIRONMENTAL FILM: "LIVING IN THE FUTURE'S PRESENT" The Ferguson Eco Team (Ferguson, MO) begins its winter/spring environmental film series, Thursday, January 19, 2023, 7:00 PM (CENTRAL TIME) with the Jeff Bridges documentary: LIVING IN THE FUTURE'S PRESENT. The film will be shown via zoom. A reflective conversation will follow the film. TO REGISTER FOR ZOOM LINK: https://bit.ly/FETJan2023 For more information: (314) 521-8418 or carletonstock(a)aol.comFlyer attached In this beautifully photographed tour de force of original thinking, Academy Award winner, Jeff Bridges shares the screen with scientists, profound thinkers and a dazzling array of Earth’s living creatures to reveal eye-opening concepts about ourselves and our past, providing fresh insights into our subconscious motivations and their unintended consequences. Living in the Future's Past shows how no one can predict how major changes might emerge from the spontaneous actions of the many. How energy takes many forms as it moves through and animates everything. How, as we come to understand our true connection to all there is, we will need to redefine our expectations, not as what we will lose, but what we might gain by preparing for something different. Featuring interviews with Dr. Piers Sellers (Director of the Earth Science Division at NASA, Meteorologist and Astronaut), Wesley Clark (General, US Army (ret.)), former NATO Supreme Allied Commander), Dr. Leonard Mlodinow (Physicist and Author, ‘Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a time of Change’) Dr. Ruth Gates, (Marine Biologist), Mark Plotkin, (Ethnobotanist), Dr. Bruce Hood, (Developmental Psychologist, Author, The Self Illusion) "A stunning environmental documentary."-IndieWirePresents philosophical, scientific, easily implementable, and potentially course-rerouting fixes.”-Entertainment Weekly "Not your typical documentary vision of doom and gloom on the environment...Managed to find that ever elusive happy medium on a polarizing subject while retaining intellectual honesty...Well-paced and highly thought-provoking throughout...Will spark a much more fruitful discussion on a vitally important problem which affects us all"-The 405 #yiv3645255290 filtered {}#yiv3645255290 filtered {}#yiv3645255290 p.yiv3645255290MsoNormal, #yiv3645255290 li.yiv3645255290MsoNormal, #yiv3645255290 div.yiv3645255290MsoNormal {margin:0in;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv3645255290 a:link, #yiv3645255290 span.yiv3645255290MsoHyperlink {color:#0563C1;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv3645255290 span.yiv3645255290EmailStyle19 {font-family:sans-serif;color:windowtext;}#yiv3645255290 .yiv3645255290MsoChpDefault {font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv3645255290 filtered {}#yiv3645255290 div.yiv3645255290WordSection1 {}

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The Directory
by Richard Alton 07 Jan '23

07 Jan '23

Dear Colleagues, my birth month has passed but I keep witnessing. It is hard to stop once you get in the flow. I was in Santa Fe, late December, working with Louise Singleton on Africa Climate Change when she mentioned that her name was not listed under New Mexico in The Directory. Looked at her Directory and sure enough she was not listed under the State of New Mexico or Colorado or North Carolina, but was listed under Singleton inside the Directory. So, who gets listed under a state? Big mystery? There are eight names listed for New Mexico: Epley; Frazier; Gilbert; Karpoff; MacKay; Packard; Rippel and Wilson. Looked up Wilson-- we have some great Wilsons in the Directory, but only John N ‘Bud’ Wilson lives in New Mexico: born 27 Sept, 1925 (yes, he is either 97 or 98); Youth Work; Sangre de Cristo Youth Ranch; El Prado NM…now, I think I remember this Bud as we had a late Indian lady named Shakuntala who use to help at this ranch. So googled Bud: It turns out the ranch is now partnering with an organization called Localogy which has Bud’s story on their front web page. Bud grew up running a farm as a young man, then flew planes with the Navy, went to school and for fifty years Dr. Wilson practiced open heart surgery with practices in the US and India. Bud poured in his money developing this ranch for youth-- all free-- he wanted all youth to lead a life as blessed as his. Now, I still don’t know why Bud has his name in the Directory, but I did talk to the ranch manager and he said Bud has had some health difficulties, but has made his way through them. Am sure others know more about Bud? Now I was intrigued about these names under the State of New Mexico: Know Packards, but they were visiting their son in Mexico City and then could not get out of Dallas. Two of the names listed under New Mexico, I could not find inside: Gilbert and MacKay. There was a Frazier listed in New Mexico – a Suzie Frazier in San Juan Pueblo, listed as a facilitator but the two numbers listed were disconnected. The Karpoff’s number did not work; Elsie Rippel did not answer her phone, but Walt Epley did answer the phone and we chatted about what he knew about his New Mexico colleagues-- not much-- in the middle of the conversation Walt stopped- “you are that Richard who does the Last Chapter?” Walt is very sharp. I also realized that Kaze Gadway, my old Kenya Human Development Training School (1979?) partner, who lives in Albuquerque should be listed under New Mexico as well as Louise Singleton. I did feed this to Michael Tippett, our Directory manager. Hey, the next time you take a trip bring your Directory with you and give some people a call. It is great to start by googling their name to see what comes up. Bud had a story and Kaze has some great videos about her life. Just start by saying, “Am visiting here and saw you are in the Directory. If you have time, I would like to hear your story of why you are in the Directory? I mean we are family." This is better and easier than the Wiegels showing up at your front door wanting to make a video of your life story. But this all reminds me when I was first around the Institute in San Francisco, Saturdays were set aside for RS-1 recruitment, and this was serious recruitment. I mean we would do cold calling from the phone book or just show up at a recent RS-1 graduate’s house to ask, “If we could just take a moment of their time, to do some reflection about the course.” This usually ended up with them agreeing to invite their friends to a course. Keep that Directory close at hand… and make sure your information is up to date. Dick -- Richard H. T. Alton ICA Global Fund Methodist Eco-Sustainability T/F T: 773.344.7172 richard.alton(a)gmail.com Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2 Won't you be my neighbor?

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12/052023, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Brandan Robertson:The Kingdom of God Within: A Challenge for Progressive Christians; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 05 Jan '23

05 Jan '23

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screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6473560314 #yiv6473560314templateBody .yiv6473560314mcnTextContent, #yiv6473560314 #yiv6473560314templateBody .yiv6473560314mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6473560314 #yiv6473560314templateFooter .yiv6473560314mcnTextContent, #yiv6473560314 #yiv6473560314templateFooter .yiv6473560314mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} By Rev. Brandan Robertson | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Kingdom of God Within: A Challenge for Progressive Christians | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Brandan Robertson January 5, 2023I was walking through the Upper West Side of Manhattan and I came across a building that caught my eye. It had a rainbow flag flying high about its brownstone exterior, a “Black Lives Matter” banner hanging above the door, and when I approached, I noticed a sign that said “We Declare A Climate Emergency” hanging next to the entrance. Right above that sign was another sign that revealed this building was a church - obviously a progressive Christian community. I smiled to myself and continued my walk through the city. It was good to know that there were faithful communities like this one surrounding me in New York City and, indeed, across the country, that were bearing witness to the call of the Gospel to manifest the Kingdom of God in our world “as it is in heaven.” But then I began reflecting on my own experience as a progressive Christian minister and writer, and I was a bit convicted by another reality - that for all of the energy I expend trying to speak truth to power, demand policy change, and paint a picture of a more just and inclusive world, I often have neglected the important work of cultivating an inner spiritual vibrancy - what I have come to understand as the “Kingdom of God within.” Not only have I not personally taken the time in my own life to cultivate a deep spiritual life, as of late, I have noticed that very few of my progressive Christian colleagues have spoken about this either. Most of our energy is expended declaring the revolutionary message of the Gospel to the neglect of allowing the good news to nourish our own souls at a deep level, which often results in burnout and cynicism. As we enter a new year and are thinking of ways that we might change our lives to be more whole and balanced, I want to challenge progressive Christians to spend as much time building the inner Kingdom of God as we do working for the Kingdom of God in our world - for the sake of our crucial work to bring about justice and equity in our communities and culture. At the heart of the Christian faith is the central command of Jesus to love God by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. In other words, the precursor to effectively loving God and effectively loving others is to build a healthy rhythm of self-love. This reminds me of the instructions we hear every time we board an airplane and are told about the oxygen masks dropping in an emergency - the flight attendant will say, “Make sure you put on your own mask first before attempting to help others.” Why? Because if we do not have access to oxygen as airplane pressure drops, we could lose consciousness and be utterly unable to help anyone else. To be the most helpful to others, we must first help ourselves. Jesus makes a promise that those who follow him will experience an “abundant life,” and he demonstrates what this looks like in his own ministry - regularly breaking up his public teaching and healing with naps, prayer, and downtime with his friends. It’s no accident that the Gospel writers include stories of Jesus’ self-care - each story is placed intentionally in the text to help teach us something about how we should live as disciples of Christ. Yet, in the Capitalistic Christianity that has become dominant in the world today, we’ve bought into the lie that our only work is to work. We’ve believed that if we are not being productive, then we are doing something wrong. In my own life, I can often scarcely carve out an hour or two just to nap, let alone pray, meditate, or contemplate my life without feeling like I am wasting my time. And this sometimes results in a lifelessness in the work that I do, a pervasive cynicism that, despite my true desire to embody the Gospel in the world, perhaps none of it will actually work and none of it actually matters. And the more that inner cynicism grows, the less impactful and fulfilling the work that I do becomes. On the other hand, if I can make space to care for myself, to experience the rest, relaxation, and freedom that God created me to experience, I walk throughout my day with a heightened sense of the presence of God and have a clearer vision of what exactly I can do to help bring more justice and light to the world. If we are to be effective at confronting the growing storm clouds of Christian Nationalism, climate change, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, and economic injustice, we must first ensure that the Kingdom of God is firmly established “within us” - that our mind, body, and souls are nourished, cared for, and rooted in a deep awareness and experience of God’s love. We must come to the belief that self-care, in and of itself, is an act of resistance and revolution. If we are going to actually see our world transformed into the “Kingdom of God,” we must encourage one another to embrace a regular rhythm of rest, spiritual practice, and personal enjoyment - for these are as much a reason for our existence as working to make the world a better place. As we stand on the brink of the new year, looking toward what the next 360 days have in store for our lives and our world, let us commit to self-care, resisting the urge to do more at the expense of simply being and experiencing the beauty and majesty of life, even in such a broken and unjust world. If we are to see the Kingdom of God manifest on earth as it is in heaven, we must first see it manifest in our own lives. Let’s resist the theology of self-sacrifice and embrace Jesus’ message of self-love as the basis for effective ministry in the world in 2023 and beyond.~ Rev. Brandan Robertson Read online here About the Author Rev. Brandan Robertson is a noted spiritual thought-leader, contemplative activist, and commentator, working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal and the author of Nomad: A Spirituality For Travelling Light and writes regularly for Patheos, Beliefnet, and The Huffington Post. He has published countless articles in respected outlets such as TIME, NBC, The Washington Post, Religion News Service, and Dallas Morning News. As sought out commentator of faith, culture, and public life, he is a regular contributor to national media outlets and has been interviewed by outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, SiriusXM, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Associated Press. He leads Metanoia, a digital spiritual community at MetanoiaCenter.org | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Connor With the recent introduction of Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT, how worried should pastors and other writers be about the possibility of being replaced by “Rev. Skynet”? A: By Rev. David Felten Dear Connor,Short answer? Based on some of the lousy sermons I’ve heard in my day, some clergy should be REALLY worried. But first, this technology is so new (released at the end of November 2022), that few people have even had a chance to use it, let alone have an opinion on its threat or promise. So first, what is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is a “chatbot” designed and developed by the for-profit company, OpenAI. The GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) component is a learning neural network trained to respond to questions by aggregating internet data and then generating text responses. It is blazingly fast, frighteningly accurate, and — for a computer — mind-blowingly creative. Should pastors be worried about it taking their jobs? Don’t ask me! Ask ChatGPT! After simply registering at chat.openai.com, I typed in the following: “100 words on the potential ChatGPT has for writing sermons for pastors.” In less than ten seconds, the bot provided the following text:.....ChatGPT is a powerful language model that has the potential to assist pastors .....in writing sermons. By inputting a topic, ChatGPT can generate relevant .....text that covers different angles on the topic. While ChatGPT can be a .....useful tool, it's important for pastors to use their own knowledge and .....experience to craft their sermons and ensure they are meaningful to their .....congregations. Pastors should also carefully review any output from .....the model before using it in their sermons. What about plagiarism you ask? Not to worry. In its first month, countless desperate students have already turned to ChatGPT to generate their final essays for teachers across the country. The teachers, suspicious of the high quality of the essays, ran the essays through plagiarism detection software and, voila! Few to no violations. Why? Because what ChatGPT generates is totally original. Granted, it can be a little dry and encyclopedic, but it is otherwise trained to be creative in presenting the data it collects from the internet. Case in point, I next asked the bot to “Write a 100 word persuasive description of Progressive Christianity.” Again, in TEN SECONDS flat, it wrote the following: .....Progressive Christianity is a movement that values inclusivity and social .....justice. It encourages individuals to interpret the teachings of Jesus and the Bible .....in a way that resonates with their own experiences and understanding of the world. .....Progressive Christians also prioritize social justice and actively work towards .....a more equitable and inclusive world. This movement offers a fresh approach .....to faith that is both rooted in tradition and open to new ideas. It is relevant, .....inclusive, and empowering, and has the potential to make a positive impact .....on the world. Not bad! It may not replace the creativity of Mark Sandlin, but it may replace ME! Seriously though, if I’ve got writer’s block and can just ask ChatGPT to get me started on a topic, what a gift! In short, ChatGPT promises to revolutionize the way creatives go about their work and the fundamental value of what creatives have to offer. If just anyone can generate a factually accurate description of Progressive Christianity by simply asking a question of an AI, the unique insights of creative and inspiring leaders will become all the more valuable. Make no mistake, this is a revolution in the making. ChatGPT will write computer code, make suggestions for celebrating a 10-year-old’s birthday party, compose poetry, or provide step-by-step instructions for cleaning the carburetor on a ’57 Buick (true! I tried it!). One wag on Tik-Tok entered a dozen random ingredients from his refrigerator and the bot came back with a detailed recipe on how to use each and every item in preparing dinner (which he claims was delicious). Not only that, but the same company also just launched the DALL·E digital image generator that, given written prompts, will create never-before-seen works of art in whatever style you request. So, should pastors be worried? Nope. Excited. Harnessed for research and inspiration, AI bots like ChatGPT promise to stoke all kinds of creativity and productivity. Of course, the same thing was said about AI right before Skynet wiped out humanity, too. So, use it while there’s still time! ~ Rev. David “Skynet” Felten Read and share online here About the Author Rev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, 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, “Living the Questions” and authors of Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity. A co-founder of Catalyst Arizona and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church 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 Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David is the proud father of three reliably remarkable human beings. Visit his website here. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podbean | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited On Parting - Never to Meet Again - An Experience of Timelessness Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong August 12, 2013There are some moments in life when the transcendent is expressed inside the mundane; where the eternal seems to enter the passage of time. They are moments, usually unexpected, perhaps not even recognized until later. I had such a moment earlier this year that will not go away and so I have decided to write about it. We invited to dinner a couple who have been our friends for many years, despite the fact that they live on another continent. The conversation at this meal was easy, as it normally is when it comes out of a long history of relatedness. We recalled shared experiences, some of which brought laughter and some of which had been painful, but we are both survivors. It did not occur to me until near the end of this meal and their subsequent departure that this would probably be the last time we would ever have time with this couple. When they drove out of our driveway, my nostalgia turned to a deep sadness, tinged with the positive realization that relationships are what give life its beauty, its meaning and perhaps even its intimation of immortality. So let me introduce you to these friends. We first met Ann and Peter Carnley in their home in Perth, Australia, in the early 1990’s. At that time, he was the Anglican Archbishop of Perth in the Province of Western Australia. Ann was his lovely, no even beautiful, wife and the mother of their fantastic children, who are now grown and are marvelously creative adults. I was on my first foreign book tour with my book Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. Most authors on a book tour of Australia tend to limit their exposure to that continent to the eastern part of that country visiting Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne. I had, however, also received invitations to speak and to be interviewed by the media in Canberra, Adelaide, Darwin and Perth. So our tour was an extensive one. On our stop in Perth, we were the guests of the Archbishop and his wife. Peter was one of the better-educated Anglican bishops of the world, having studied extensively at Cambridge University in England and having taught theology in Australia prior to being chosen to be a bishop. He was a well-known author and the recipient of a number of honorary doctoral degrees. He was also a brilliant interpreter of the cultural life of Australia. When he was chosen at a relatively young age to be the Archbishop of Perth (the Anglican Church of Australia is divided into the various provinces of the country with Archbishops in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane), he went immediately from being a priest to being an archbishop. As the Archbishop of Perth he was in charge of a territory constituting about a third of Australia’s land mass. Perth is a city of just under four million people. It is near the port city of Fremantle. From where I live when one is in Perth, one is literally half-way round the world. This is symbolized by the fact that 12 midnight in Perth is 12 noon in New York and that summer and winter are exactly reversed. The nearest major city to Perth is Singapore. Perth is famous for the beauty and variety of its wild flowers. To us, however, it was famous primarily because Peter and Ann Carnley lived there. Over the years we made nine trips to Australia and on three of those trips we went to Perth and spent time with the Carnleys. It was always a highlight of the trip. We met some of their friends, including on one occasion the governor general of Western Australia, who eventually would become the governor general of all Australia. That is Australia’s ceremonial head-of-state position; ultimately the representative of the Queen of England. We went to the theatre together in Perth and saw Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, a play about the trial of the witches in Salem, Massachusetts in the 17th century. Miller’s play, published in 1962, was written to counter the hysteria generated by the late Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt carried out during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. Together we watched Australian football, known in that land as “footie,” which is different and rougher than any professional game I have ever seen. We talked about life together, including church life. Both Peter and I sat uneasily on what passed for evangelical religion with its uninformed literal use of the sacred scriptures. My primary audience in Australia was drawn from among those who were alienated from organized religion by this very kind of mindless fundamentalism. Peter, who was later to become the Primate of Australia’s Anglican Church, had to deal with Sydney Anglicans, who reminded me of 18th century Northern Irish, Catholic-hating Protestants, who had migrated to the South Pacific and frozen their faith in time. Sydney’s bishops and clergy were like a group of Ian Paisleys, only now ordained as Anglicans. They made both Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson look bright and liberal. Evangelical Christians so often act as if they possess the full truth of God and they can be quite imperialistic. I had confronted this same fundamentalist reality in my career; first in the struggle for inclusion into the life of the church of people of color in the segregated South; later, in the quest for the full equality of women in both the church and the society, and finally on the issue of justice and welcome for gay and lesbian Christians. Peter confronted them in Sydney, where to this day, women are denied ordination and homosexuals are treated as either sick or sinful people. So we had lots in common and battle scars to show for it. On one trip to Perth, Christine and I traveled up the northern coast of Australia and headed east, seeing some magnificent scenery. On another, we went straight east into the heart of Western Australia to the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie, a town that advertises: “We have more brothels than churches.” It is the only place I have ever known where a brothel offers guided tours in the mornings when business is slow, complete with cookies and lemonade at the end. The bishop of Kalgoorlie, Gerald Beaumont, was one of Peter‘s assistants. We had known Gerald and his wife Lyn, who is a doctor, when he was the Anglican priest in Alice Springs and had driven with him to Uluru (Ayers Rock) on a memorable trip. The two of them had been called by Peter to work in Kalgoorlie and they had blessed it with their presence. When Peter retired, he returned to teaching and accepted a position that brought him for one semester a year to the General Theological Seminary in New York City. So we continued to see the Carnleys. On one occasion, he filled in for me as the confirming bishop at one of our churches in the Diocese of Newark. On another occasion, I taught a class for him on the resurrection of Jesus at General Seminary. So, in those days, it did not seem to be so difficult to say goodbye whenever we parted. We could always anticipate meeting again. Not so this last time, Peter was completing his work in New York City and did not plan to teach there again. There is little possibility that we will ever return to Australia at this stage of our lives. In the middle of dinner, this realization began to overwhelm me. I looked at these two special people: Peter tall and stately with an infectious smile; Ann with a face that always exudes love and the kind of caring that reaches deeply into her being. We had been colleagues in our struggles within the Anglican Communion to move this church of ours into life giving stances, especially toward those the church has consistently marginalized. We had both taken our lumps from those who did not share our vision. We had both been sustained and upheld by the love of our wives, who shared in our lives more deeply than most can only imagine. On this occasion, however, they were retiring to their newly-built home well outside Perth. So I began to realize that this would probably be our final encounter. Of course, there is e-mail, Facebook and Christmas cards, but those are not the same. The realization that we would probably never see these two again in person felt very much like enduring a death experience. Suddenly, the end of the meal became emotional. We shared with them our gratitude for what they had meant in our lives. When the time came to say goodbye, we embraced each other a little more firmly and a little longer than would normally have been the case. This embrace had to last for a lifetime. They got into their car and began to pull away. We stood at the door waving until they passed out of view. Christine and I turned and embraced each other. I suspect a tear or two trickled down our cheeks. A part of our life was ending. That relationship would live from now on only in our memories or, as the old song says, “Among my Souvenirs.” Ann must have felt something similar for she wrote afterwards that she was feeling “the terror of Australia’s distance.” Life does not stand still. It is an ever-moving stream that bears all its sons and daughters away. It hurts to have a final parting with those you have loved for so long. If I could change the nature of life, however, I would not do it. I have been enriched by many relationships. Peter and Ann Carnley are two of them. I am more alive today because I know them. Their physical departure from my life will never remove what they have given me. Life is not quite so individualistic as we pretend. Life expands and contracts regularly and always in response to being loved and losing those we love. I often wonder if we are ever really alone. Do we not always transcend our limits when we enter deeply into another’s life? If God is the Source of life, do we not worship God when we live fully? If God is the Source of love do we not worship God when we love wastefully? If God is the Ground of Being, do we not worship God when we have the courage to be all that we can be? Is not this God found in those relationships that enrich our lives, expand our love and give us the power to share our being with another? Is this not what an intimation of immortality is? Thanks Peter! Thanks Ann! You have been something of the life of God to us and when we live in the life of God distance become finite and time enters eternity.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Awakening Mythic Imagination Eco-Depth Yearlong Program This New Year, consider if the time is right for your own plunge into the mysteries of nature and the soul, for a deeper commitment to Earth and your true place in the world. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Fwd: Fw: 2022 Campfire Storytelling Jan 5-2023 6pm San Francisco time
by Sunny Walker 02 Jan '23

02 Jan '23

See below: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Alan Gammel <agammel(a)hotmail.com> Date: Mon, Jan 2, 2023, 10:2 ------------------------------ *From:* Alan <agammel(a)ix.netcom.com> Please register by clicking on one of the links at the bottom. Alan Gammel Dear friends, We welcome you to join us in our yearly celebration of life experience. A group of us linked to the ICA came together last year to share our journey through the years of the pandemic and to experience solidarity in human experience. We have decided to reprise the event and open it to all who might be interested in joining us. This is not a training or marketing event. It is a time to BE together in a pitstop of life as we explore our diverse interests and concerns. Think of it as an oasis - a reflective break. Below is a flyer with the registration information. The 2 sessions will be held to enable participants from different time zones to choose their preference. You could also register by writing in response to the emails provided or to my email directly: agammel(a)ix.netcom.com * SESSION WEST - hosted from San Francisco at 6pm on 5th Jan (10am Beijing & 1pm Sydney, 6th Jan) Link: http://bit.ly/3h3cybD <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3h…> * *SESSION EAST - hosted from Beijing and Malaysia at 7pm on 6th Jan (11am Togo & 10pm Sydney on 6th Jan) Link: http://bit.ly/3iGZ1H4 <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3i…> *

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New Year's Greetings from David and Burna
by David Dunn 02 Jan '23

02 Jan '23

Hello Colleagues. Here’s a PDF attachment with notes, reflections and photos from 2022. Best wishes for 2023. David and Burna — "Mystery, possibility, and the power to choose" David Dunn/Burna Dunn 740 S Alton Way 9B Denver, CO 80247 720-314-5991/720-314-5987 dmdunn1(a)gmail.com bldunn1(a)gmail.com

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12/29/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

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12/28/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

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