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Hi Folks,
Below is the text and video of words spoken by Michael E. Hill, President of Chautauqua, during vigil Friday night, following the attack on Salmon Rushdie. Prayers for Rushdie and all involved, Chautauqua, and this nation.
Grace and peace ~
Ellieelliestock(a)aol.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Chautauqua Institution <webmaster(a)chq.org>
Sent: Sat, Aug 13, 2022 3:05 pm
Subject: Message from President Michael E. Hill
Message from President Michael E. 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(max-width:480px){#yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973headerContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent, #yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973headerContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent p{font-size:18px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973bodyContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent, #yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973bodyContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent p{font-size:18px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973leftColumnContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent, #yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973leftColumnContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent p{font-size:18px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973rightColumnContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent, #yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973rightColumnContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent p{font-size:18px !important;line-height:125% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973footerContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent, #yiv3157377973 .yiv3157377973footerContainer .yiv3157377973mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:115% !important;}} "What we experienced is unlike anything in our 150-year history"
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| Message from President Michael E. Hill |
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| Chautauqua Institution :: Aug. 13 Message from President Michael E. Hill |
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| Sean Smith/The Chautauquan DailyFlowers and candles are left outside the Amphitheater Friday evening after the attack Salman Rushdie. |
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| By now you have likely heard we suffered a terrible tragedy at Chautauqua yesterday. What we experienced is unlike anything in our 150-year history. It was an act of violence, an act of hatred and a violation of one of the things we have always cherished most: the safety and tranquility of our grounds and our ability to convene the most important conversations, even if those conversations are difficult.Chautauqua is a community of people of all faiths and none. Our collective family is holding Salman Rushdie and Henry Reese, as well their families, close in prayer and close to our hearts. We have been in touch with their loved ones, and I was grateful to spend a very brief amount of time with Mr. Reese yesterday evening. But yesterday was also an attack on an ideal we cherish: that freedom of speech and freedom of expression are hallmarks to our society and to our democracy, they are the very underpinnings of who we are and what we believe, what we cherish most. We are called to take on fear and the worst of all human traits – hate. And let’s be clear: what many of us witnessed was a violent expression of hate that shook us to our core. We saw it with our own eyes and in our faces. But we also saw something else that I don’t want us to forget. We saw some of the best of humanity in the response of all those who ran toward danger to halt it. I watched a member of our staff hurl themselves at the attacker. I saw Chautauquans rush the stage to help secure the perpetrator, making it possible for police to remove him. I saw Chautauquans who are doctors and nurses rush to provide selfless care while the ambulance arrived. I saw what our Chaplain of the week, Terri Hord Owens, called us to possess: a generous, radical love for each other and this community. So where do we go from here? How do we think about the days that follow? When hatred shows its ugliness… The response must be love, of course, but also action. We must return to our podiums and pulpits. We must continue to convene the critical conversations that can help build empathy; obviously, this is more important now than ever. There will be time in the days and weeks ahead to reflect on all we’ve experienced, and we have already been working on how to adapt to yesterday's horror to ensure our conversations continue. We will soon share operational details about how we will proceed through the remainder of the 2022 Summer Assembly.At this time, we are called to double down on our prayers for Mr. Rushdie and Mr. Reese and all those who love them. We are called to stand witness that this Chautauqua has but one choice: to ensure that the voices that have the power to change our world continue to have a home in which to be heard. That is ours to do. We can take the experience of hatred and reflect on what it means. Or we can come together even more strongly as a community who takes what happened yesterday and commits to not allowing that hatred be any part of our own hearts. I know this community and I know that you will make a choice for hope and goodness. |
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| Sincerely,
Michael E. Hill
President |
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| Please find below a link to the New York State Police news conference about the attack on Salman Rushdie at Chautauqua Institution Aug. 12, 2022. Following that is a link to our community vigil where I offered remarks. The vigil was held Friday, Aug. 12, at 7 p.m., in the Chautauqua Institution Hall of Philosophy. New York State Police Statement (8.12.22, updated) Community Vigil Remarks by Michael E. Hill, Ed.D., President of Chautauqua Institution
Stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding this horrific event at update.chq.org. |
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Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their covering,
cast them away as ugly, or heavy, or hard.
Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it
a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.
~Fra Giovanni
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8/11/2022, Progressing Spirit: Brian D. McLaren: Thanks, Presiding Bishop Curry; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 11 Aug '22
by Ellie Stock 11 Aug '22
11 Aug '22
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Thanks, Presiding Bishop Curry
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| Essay by Brian D. McLaren
August 11, 2022The Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop Michael Curry was recently asked a question by Bishop Baskerville-Burroughs at a gathering of bishops. His response was, I feel, very important for all Christians, not just Episcopalians.I have long admired the presiding bishop’s work, and often thank God that we have a few extraordinary leaders like him and Pope Francis in these times of religious mediocrity and decomposition. We feel the need for outspoken, courageous, and insightful Christian leaders with special intensity as we as a nation and world stand on a precipice ecologically, politically, socially, economically, and spiritually.In his speech, PB Curry twice emphasized the need to find a voice that is non-partisan ("this is not partisan," "not a partisan voice"). We all know why he needed to say this. The Episcopal church has traditionally been a church that reflected America, with a mix of Republicans, Independents, and Democrats. The fact that politically diverse people could come together in Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, and other Christian denominations helped hold the nation together, for better or worse.But now we know that well-organized forces are pulling the nation apart. They have Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor-Green as their ringleaders; groups like the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and Proud Boys as their vigilante militia; mass media outlets from Fox News to OAN to any number of radio and TV talk shows (including Christian religious networks) as their ministries of propaganda; and social media sites as their recruitment and radicalization system. They control a majority on the Supreme Court, and many leaders in Congress have shown that they will betray the peaceful transition of power and support insurrection to prove their loyalty to this rising army of insurrection, white Christian nationalism, and post-democratic authoritarianism.To proclaim oneself non-partisan matters in these polarized times, especially when one takes seriously the Johnson Amendment. But what happens when forces with increasingly undemocratic and even fascist leanings collude with and control one party? Then it gets more complicated.In the years after the Civil War, it was the Democratic Party that played the reactionary role of deconstructing Reconstruction, and it was the Republican Party that stood for a more perfect union. I’m sure there were some Christian leaders who stood tall during those polarized times, speaking prophetically against lynching, poll taxes, segregation, and the white Christian terrorism that led to the Great Migration. But many avoided those subjects entirely, focusing instead on opposing alcohol and evolution.Now, it is the Republican Party that is all but taken over by extremism, and Democrats, for all their weaknesses, are trying to work with the few courageous Republicans willing to stand for non-authoritarian values. We don't know what the future will hold. Perhaps toxic leaders will be held accountable and public sentiment will change for the better. Perhaps not. Either way, the Republican Party of the past and the Republican party of the present are two very different elephants in the room, and as a result, to be nonpartisan in 2022 is far more morally complicated than being nonpartisan in 1952.We all must acknowledge that many Christians across denominations have been wholly won over to the white Christian nationalist resurgence and the party that hosts it. Many don't realize it, but radicalization has happened to them nonetheless. They continue to participate in Christian liturgy for an hour or so every week or so. But they also participate in the liturgies of their political identity for several hours each day, as they watch TV, as they listen to the radio, as they check their social media feeds. In a real sense, many have been thoroughly re-discipled into political extremism. Others are in danger of being so re-discipled.If their priest or pastor dares to do what Presiding Bishop Curry did - to ever-so-gently name the problems, the threats, the dangers - these radicalized members will typically do one of two things. First, they may find a way to silence or punish their religious leader for causing them cognitive dissonance, for putting their identity as followers of Jesus' way of love in tension with their political party's way of domination and winning at all costs. They may write an email, agitate to have their pastor fired, stop giving, or give a stern rebuke in person. Second, they may simply drop out, because at the end of the day, their membership in their political community has come to matter more to them than their membership in their Christian community. They cannot serve two masters, as Jesus put it, so they choose the one they love most.In response to this challenging reality (I'm sorry for saying it so directly, but I must), many clergy remain silent. Anything that white Christian nationalist members of their congregation deem unpleasant is deemed partisan. So, to avoid being partisan, clergy cannot speak about the environment or climate change as an expression of caring for creation. They cannot advocate for wise public health strategies as an expression of love for neighbor. They cannot address issues of systemic economic injustice, even though the Bible says so much about them. They cannot address racism and white supremacy as real problems, even though the New Testament says that Jesus came to tear down dividing walls of hostility. They dare not identify modern-day Herods as foxes in the henhouse (Luke 13:32), even though Jesus did so. They can not stand up for the full equality of women or sexual minorities, even though Jesus (John 7:57-8:11) and Philip (Acts 8:26-40) did so. By avoiding subjects deemed partisan, they avoid trouble.And in the process of saving their jobs and pensions, they lose their voice, if not their souls.I knew this struggle as a pastor for 24 years. Way back in the 1990’s I watched moderate people slowly but surely become radicalized by radio talk show hosts, Christian radio/TV, and Fox News. I got their angry letters and emails, had fingers wagged in my face, watched people leave with their donations, all because I either said what they didn't want me to say, or failed to say what they wanted me to say. I tried to be considerate without compromising. I more often failed than succeeded.Sometimes, I tried to hide in plain sight behind the shabby camouflage of a so-called middle ground, performing my centrism by throwing someone off both the right and left sides of the bus. My parishioners who were women and people of color reminded me that there was no virtue in being a centrist when it came to the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the 19th Amendment in 1919, or the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Critiquing both sides was a way of pretending to hold the moral high ground, but it really showed my excess of white privilege and a dearth of insight at best — or moral cowardice at worst. Even when I succeeded in doing what my conscience said was the right thing, it still felt like failure when people left.That's why Presiding Bishop Curry’s words are so significant. He dared to challenge an anti-love movement that is present in our nation and our churches. He made clear he didn’t do it for partisan political reasons, but for reasons of discipleship. Clergy are like classroom teachers, and the Presiding Bishop is like the principal who is showing he has their back. Thanks to Presiding Bishop Curry and all who follow his example.~ Brian D. McLaren
Read online here
About the Author
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is an Auburn Senior Fellow and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders called Convergence Leadership Project. He works closely with the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival and the Fair Food Program‘s Faith Working Group. His most recent book is Faith After Doubt. He is the author of the illustrated children’s book (for all ages) called Cory and the Seventh Story, The Great Spiritual Migration, We Make the Road by Walking, and Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? and his newest book, Do I Stay Christian?. He is a popular conference speaker, a frequent guest lecturer for denominational and ecumenical leadership gatherings, has written for or contributed interviews to many periodicals, including Leadership, Sojourners, Tikkun, Worship Leader, and Conversations, and is a frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs. |
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Question & Answer
Q: By Carter
We were having a discussion at church last night about theism and worship. How is the Eucharist relevant if theism is taken away, or more appropriately, how can our Episcopal liturgy and worship change to reflect the loss of theism?
A: By Dr. Carl Krieg
Dear Carter,Thank you, for your question, which presents a very challenging set of questions. I am not familiar with Episcopalian liturgy, so you’ll have to excuse me for not dealing directly with that. But the issue you raise is common to all Christians and is bracketed by two inter-related questions. First, how are we to conceive of God? This is where the concept of theism enters the picture. And secondly, where might we encounter this God? This is where the topic of worship enters.I realize that many today believe we have gone or must go beyond theism, and if by that mean a God who intervenes all the time curing disease, helping your team win, and fighting alongside our army against the enemy, then we happily say goodby to such a God. But to be replaced with what? The Encyclopedia Britannica defines theism as “the view that all limited or finite things are dependent in some way on one supreme or ultimate reality of which one may also speak in personal terms. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this ultimate reality is often called God.” The problem with this definition is that it could include a deistic God who once created and then took a vacation, leaving us on our own. If we ask what, specifically, we mean by theism, it seems it should include the concept of a God who is, in some way, actively involved in the world. But then,… rooting for our team?, helping our army?Personally, I don’t find helpful the words theism, deism, pantheism, and panentheism, and prefer to ask simply: how do we conceive of God? To this question there are two basic answers: we think of God as One who loves creation, and we think of God as present in all creation. God as Relating Person and God as Reality. There are many attempts to understand and describe how these two attributes of God go together, but none of these attempts are completely satisfactory. And so I conclude that how God is God is a mystery. God loves as a Person would love, and God is the Supportive Ground of all that is. It is a dialectical truth that goes beyond our current understanding.Now, where does one encounter this God? Traditionally, the church has said that God may be found generally in nature, but also that this God reveals God’s self in special ways and places, such as in Jesus, and by connection, as in the Lord’s Supper. There have been long and bloody wars over the question of how Christ was present in the Supper. The Catholic church asserted that the bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ, and it is my understanding that the Episcopalian Eucharist may be close to this idea. The Lutherans did not say that the elements were transubstantiated, but rather that Christ was present “in, with, and under” the elements, a doctrine known as consubstantiation. Other Protestant churches thought of the Supper as more of a remembering of Jesus the Christ, and a celebration of all being together. Just as I do not find useful the words theism, deism, pantheism, and panentheism, so too I find useful neither the concept of a sacrament nor the delimiting and confining of God’s full Presence in any way. We can encounter God anywhere, and that God that we can encounter anywhere and any time is the same God we find in Jesus and also in the community being together while celebrating a symbolic meal. ~ Dr. Carl Krieg
Read and share online here
About the Author
Dr. Carl Krieg received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith, The Void and the Vision and The New Matrix: How the World We Live In Impacts Our Thinking About Self and God. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife Margaret in Norwich, VT. |
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| 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 |
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| This Week's Featured Author
Our newest and final edition of
A Joyful Path Children's Curriculum
Book
The Year 3 theme is All Life is Sacred. The 38 sessions explore how to deepen our spiritual connection with Earth, one another and our more-than-human relatives. Year 3 looks directly to Earth for the lessons She readily provides, namely the importance of relatedness, across and throughout the web of life. As Jesus reminded us through parables and metaphor, the continuing cycle of creation reminds us it is our nature to be loving, generous and united. Read On ... |
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Birth of Jesus, Part II: Paul and the Virgin Birth
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
November 15, 2012In the writings of Paul, there is not a single reference to a supernatural birth tradition, regarding Jesus of Nazareth. That is a fact easily established. Determining what that fact means is a bit more complicated.
Does this omission mean that Paul was unaware of this part of the Christian tradition? Is it possible that a story as dramatic as the one that appeared 20-30 years later in the gospels of Matthew and Luke could have been ignored by Paul, if it had been known? Paul was an educated man. The idea of a great person being born in a supernatural way that presaged his greatness was not unknown. There were birth legends surrounding the nativity of such icons as Alexander the great, Romulus and Remus and the deity called Mithra, for example, all of which were almost certainly known by Paul. So the evidence suggests that Paul did not include any reference to this tradition in regard to Jesus’ birth because he had never heard of it. If Paul had never heard of this tradition, the overwhelmingly probable explanation of this fact would be that the miraculous stories of Jesus’ birth had not yet been written, which means that they were not an original part of the Christian story. That is, however, an argument from silence and as such is not regarded as particularly definitive. So we turn to Paul’s writings to see what might be possible for us to conclude as the reality that Paul knew on this subject.
Paul gives us some biographical details in one of his earliest epistles, the Epistle to the Galatians. Here he argues that the gospel he proclaims “is not man’s (nor according to man) gospel.” He goes on to say, “I did not receive it from man nor was I taught it but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:10-12). Then he recites his history as a persecutor of the Christian Church. Obviously that was well known, but we need to be aware that the details of his conversion on the road to Damascus will not be written until Luke produced the Book of Acts in the tenth decade of the Common Era, some 30 plus years after the death of Paul.
Paul then describes his life in Judaism in which he asserts that he was “extremely zealous” for “the tradition of my fathers” (Gal. 1:14). Then he described his conversion saying that God had “set me apart” and was “pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.”
To back up this claim, Paul says that after his conversion, which scholars place between one and six years following the crucifixion, he went to Arabia for three years and only then went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephus, that is Peter, and stayed with him for 15 days. He says he saw no other apostle “except for James, the Lord’s brother.” So somewhere no earlier than four years and no later than nine years after the crucifixion, Paul was in the presence of Peter and James, the brother of Jesus. In the first epistle to the Corinthians in chapter 11 and in chapter 15, Paul uses the phrase, “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.” In chapter 11 that phrase introduces Paul’s understanding of the institution of the “Lord’s Supper” and in chapter 15 he relates the final events in Jesus’ life: the crucifixion, the burial and the Easter experience of resurrection.
>From putting these things together we know that Paul learned many of the details of the Jesus story from his association with the disciples, though Paul insists that he got to know Jesus directly, by way of a revelatory experience. He also knows that Jesus had a brother. If the miraculous birth of Jesus had been a fact of history instead of a later developing legend, it seems obvious that an event of this presumed degree of importance would have been communicated to Paul. It wasn’t. In none of Paul’s writings is there any mention of the mother of Jesus, the father of Jesus or the birth of Jesus.
This still remains, however, an argument from silence and as such continues to be weak and inconclusive. So, back to the Epistle to the Galatians we go in search of more data. Here we discover that Paul actually discusses the origins of Jesus. Interpreting the differences in being a child in a family as opposed to being a slave in a family, he argues that children are heirs and that even though they are placed under the authority of guardians, teachers and trustees until they come of age, they are nonetheless destined for freedom and their inheritance. Paul uses this analogy to explain the role of the law given to the people of Israel. The law is to them what guardians, teachers and trustees are to children who are not yet of age. They are obedient to them while they wait for their promised inheritance. In Paul’s mind, the role of Jesus was to give to all human life, Jews and Gentiles alike, the inheritance of full humanity, “sonship” he called it in the patriarchal world.
Then in a wonderfully clear affirmation, Paul asserts this: “When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that we might receive adoption as “sons” (Gal. 4:8).
For Paul, Jesus was “born of a woman.” That is, he was born just like any other person. It is not possible, he was suggesting, to be born in any other way. Could the word that is translated “woman” have in it any connotation of virgin? Not a chance! The Greek word used here is a form of the word “gunos” from which we get the word gynecology. It is not the word “parthenos” from which we get the word “parthenogenesis,” that is to give birth by a single sex and which does include the connotation of virgin. Jesus came from God the way every life comes from God, he was born of a woman. Paul also says that like every Jew he was also born under the law. Paul could not be clearer. The idea of a miraculous or virgin birth is never hinted at by this early Christian writer because he had never heard of it. The story of Jesus’ supernatural birth had not yet been written or developed.
When these birth stories were written, one of their purposes was to assert that from the moment of his birth, Jesus was uniquely related to God. It is also clear that this idea was not one even entertained by Paul. To make this case we turn to the opening verses of the Epistle to the Romans.
Paul certainly gives expression to his conviction that somehow and through some means, the reality of God they thought of as transcendent had been experienced as present in Jesus of Nazareth. In his early epistles he was content simply to proclaim the reality of this experience not to explain it. So he wrote that “God was in Christ” and the content that made this claim real was the experience of “reconciliation.” In the Christ experience, those people who had once been separated are brought together. Again, in Galatians, the apostle proclaims that inside the Christ experience, human differences and human barriers simply fade away. In Christ, there is no such thing as tribal identity, that is, there is no Jew or Greek, no Jew or Gentile, but one humanity. In Christ, there is no gender identity, no male or female, but a single humanity. In Christ, value is not established by economic or social standards, there is no bond or free, no slave or master, but a new creation, a new oneness. That was the God experience that Paul found in Jesus. It was a theme resonating throughout the New Testament.
We see it in the Pentecost story of Acts 2 where spirit-filled people are said to be able to communicate in the same language of human oneness. We see it in the divine commission in Matthew 28 where the followers of Jesus are instructed in the name of Jesus to go to those whom they have previously described as unclean and unworthy and to proclaim to them the limitless love of God. We see it in the Fourth Gospel in which Jesus defines his purpose as giving abundant life to all. That is the God experience that his followers believed they had met in Jesus. When did this God presence enter into Jesus? Paul says it was at the time of the resurrection. This was the moment in which God and Jesus became one in the mind of Paul. So to the Romans he writes that Jesus was descended from King David “according to the flesh,” but was “designated Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:3-4).
As the tradition developed, that moment when God and Jesus became part of each other would get earlier and earlier. In Mark it was when he was baptized. In Matthew and Luke, it was when he was conceived. In John it was at the dawn of creation. The story of the origins of Jesus’ power would develop significantly between Paul and the later gospels. In that later development, the story of the Virgin Birth would be born and it would begin to grow. Paul, however, knew nothing of this tradition, since it was not developed until well after his death.
The witness of Paul is clear. He never heard of the Virgin Birth. This fact begins to relativize the power of this claim as “revealed truth.” The Virgin Birth is not an essential ingredient in the Christian story. Why? Because one can hardly say that Paul, who had never heard of the Virgin Birth tradition, was not a Christian.~ John Shelby Spong |
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Announcements
Things That Matter: The Spirituality
of Reproductive Freedom – Part 3
Parts One and Two were wonderfully enlightening conversations about reproductive rights with Diana Butler Bass, Sharon Jacob, and Jacqui Lewis. Join us on Wednesday, August 10 at 2:00 p.m. ET/11:00 a.m. PT on Facebook or Youtube as we have a roundtable discussion of pastors and scholars about the “clobber verses” conservative Christians use against reproductive freedom. Read on...
Watch on Facebook or YouTube
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8/04/2022, Progressing Spirit: Carl Krieg, Ph.D.: Diversion, Dictatorship and the Concentration of Wealth; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 04 Aug '22
by Ellie Stock 04 Aug '22
04 Aug '22
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| Diversion, Dictatorship and
the Concentration of Wealth |
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| Essay by Carl Krieg, Ph.D.
August 4, 2022In an op-ed for the NY Times, David Brooks berates the Jan 6 committee for focusing on the conspiracy to overthrow the government, analyzing who did what when. What we require, he shouts, is a committee that can discover why the social movement we call maga believes and acts as they do: promoting a stolen election, endorsing violence if necessary to overthrow the government, and flouting the norms and values that have been the glue in our society for over 200 years. A committee to discover the problem!!
We all know what the problem is. If you consistently deprive people of education, health, homes, and hope for a better future, forcing them to question their own value and the value of a system that so belittles them, then you already know where it leads. A messiah arises who promises whatever a beaten down person dreams about, demanding absolute power and loyalty, deluding the masses into believing that he cares about them when in reality the charade is nothing but self-aggrandizement. Liz Cheney knows that the base of the Republican party, followed by party lawmakers, is a cult cheering on messiah Trump. We don’t need a committee. We know what the problem is.
The solution to the problem is obvious. The wealth of the country must be shared. Even some billionaires have said that. Over the course of the pandemic millions lost jobs and savings, while the billionaires doubled their wealth, increasing their assets by trillions of dollars. Elizabeth Warren proposed a tax that would impose a small percentage on wealth over 50 million, a proposal shot down as too radical. Trump’s great legislative achievement was a tax cut for the super rich, depriving society of funds for education, health, housing, and hope. Not too radical there. We know what the problem is.
It has been shown that wealth actually changes the structure of a person’s brain, destroying a sense of empathy for others while at the same time creating a sense of entitlement. I can do what I want, just because I am rich. Not only that, but I deserve more. The rich and powerful feel as though they deserve even more wealth and power, and need not share any of it. This is where we are. On the one hand, the millions with no education, no home, no health, and no hope, on the other hand those whose purpose in life, admitted or not, is to gather and steal more, wherever it may be found. And the folks in the middle are confused about the problem.
The poverty/wealth disparity, determinative as it is, creates a downward spiral wherein division and chaos serve the needs of the rich and powerful. Public education is a core necessity for a democracy, but it also costs a lot of money, money that the haves would just as soon keep for themselves. The attempt to kill public education for all involves shifting money to private charter schools, where some students are allowed in and others not. The current chaos fomented by “cancel culture”, and the cry that parents have a right to say what their children learn, is a blatant tactic of white nationalism that appeals to the masses by shifting the blame for their difficulties away from the rich to people of color. We know what the problem is.
One might expect that keeping machine guns out of the hands of the public would make us all feel safer, but no. This is an issue capable of creating the deep division and chaos that creates opportunity for those with power to step in and “create order”, and so it will not be resolved, even if schools become the battleground. The more killing, the more chaos, the greater need for the messiah, and the greater diversion from the real problem.
The issue of abortion, also, is a creator of division and chaos. Fifty years of settled law has been overturned. Why? Is it because it is a real issue, or an issue fabricated to make people turn against one another? Abortion is used to stir up the maga people, giving them a focus other than their own despair.
The list goes on and on. Mask mandates. Vaccination. Banning books. Any issue that can create confrontation is thrown into the public arena. The idea is not to change a policy or to settle a question, but simply to create division and chaos. Why division and chaos? Because they take the focus away from the real cause of poverty and the loss of the middle class, and open the door for authoritarian intervention. Diversion and dictatorship. We know what the problem is.
As long as news commentators and politicians limit the discussion to details of the issue- any issue- there will be no change. Should an 18 year old be allowed to purchase a machine gun? Let’s talk about it. And how many rounds in a magazine? Do we need more police in schools? teachers with guns? Should family members be prosecuted for encouraging abortion? Which books should local school boards ban? On and on. Raising and discussing these types of issues is a smokescreen that only serves to divide so that wealth can conquer. The real issue is economic justice, and that is an issue that the haves don’t want to talk about, and the compliant politicians prostrate themselves and betray their constituents for 30 pieces of silver.
Mammon and betrayal are not new, as the 30 pieces remind us. The seeming omnipotence of the rich and powerful has been the scourge of the earth since the beginning of history. If the US has inherited anything from the Judeo-Christian tradition, it should be that God is against the exploitation of the weak and helpless, the “widows and orphans” to use the biblical phrase. Read the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures who again and again warn the wealthy that they must change their ways. Jesus walked in the footsteps of Amos and Ezekiel and the myriad other prophets who spoke the Word of the Lord. Who can forget or neglect the powerful imagery of the Gospel of Matthew? To those who have kept the wealth for themselves, Jesus throws these words: “ ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’” Although this was written by a disciple, Jesus most likely not believing in eternal damnation, the point is clear. We know what the problem is, and we know where God stands on the issue.
Studies have shown that peak happiness, if we can use that term, happens when one has enough but not too much. In 2022 America, that annual income number is a bit over $75,000. More is less. Greed is not conducive to happiness. Love is. Love is who we are and can and must be. Sharing with and caring for one another is the path to peace and happiness. We know what the problem is. And we know how to fix it.~ Carl Krieg, Ph.D.
Read online here
About the Author
Dr. Carl Krieg received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith, The Void and the Vision and The New Matrix: How the World We Live In Impacts Our Thinking About Self and God. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife Margaret in Norwich, VT. |
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Question & Answer
Q: By A Reader
Writings by Progressive Christians have left me very sad and with a profound sense of loss. I always thought there would be heaven awaiting--where I would continue to exist---and see those that I have loved. Now, I know that is not true. I will "meld", for want of a better word, into the Cosmos. There is no reward for sacrifice or painful times, no reward for giving or suffering. There is not even the "God" I used to believe in, and talk to. There is no one there. Why bother to "love wastefully" ?? Why sacrifice?? Why do anything or be anything beyond being a relatively decent, law-abiding person?
A: By Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.Dear Reader,I would begin by inviting you to remain with your profound sense of loss and your feeling of sadness. I’m aware that it might not feel like this now, but they are gifts. They are gifts because they are expressions of your soul here and now. I invite you to breathe into the loss and the feeling of sadness in your body. Come to know them – Are they contractions in your solar plexus? A hard pit in your belly? A lack of sensation in your pelvis? Hot? Cold? Too often we “intellectualize” our bodily experiences and miss the wisdom being communicated. So, I invite you to begin with honoring where you are. In the darkness of your loss and sadness is your path – the unfolding thread of your personal journey.
What I say next is not meant to make you feel better or even differently. I offer these words as possible aids to your own curiosity in your unfolding journey.
Each of us is an embodiment of Holy Mystery – Boundless Love. Love, as you are discovering is not an object, or a person, but the very fabric of Reality itself. When we are young the primary way we understand this love is as a God that is a person, like us, only greater. But to realize that God is Love is to slowly awaken to the truth that the fluid fabric of Reality itself is Love. And that there could never be anything more intimate than that. This is a kind of intimacy we can only discover for ourself within the loss of something familiar to hold onto.
We love, we care, we forgive, we sacrifice, because it’s the true nature of our soul – our being. We love, care, forgive, sacrifice not in hope of a reward, or out of fear, or because of a command; we love because love is our deepest longing, and we experience profound joy in being true to what we are. Even when that truth involves loss and sadness, such as you are experiencing now. When we don’t love, we feel hollow, cold, and lost.
Because Love is the fabric of Reality, no creature, no person, no friend, is ever lost, forsaken, or forgotten. Love never ends. None of us knows, or can know, how the spiritual journey continues to unfold after our body dies. But my sense is that the journey does indeed continue because Love has no end.
I don’t see any reason for you to stop talking with Holy Mystery. Let your heart and body express itself – its loss, its sadness, its confusion, its longing. Express yourself in words, tears, song, silence, and ritual. The response of Holy Mystery will not be in words but in your continuing journey of awakening as the embodiment of Love. The possibility is that your sense of intimacy with your soul, with the ones you love, and with Holy Mystery, will deepen in ways you never imagined possible.~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.
Read and share online here
About the Author
Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. 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 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. Visit Kevin’s Blog: Essential Living: For The Soul’s Journey |
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Birth of Jesus, Part I: Introduction
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
November 8, 2012Most of the portraits of the mother of Jesus that hang in the great museums of the world are dependent first on the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth and second on the presumed appearances of his mother at the foot of the cross. Take those two traditions away from the New Testament and the mother of Jesus almost totally disappears. Indeed, what remains is mostly negative. She is portrayed in Mark (chapters 3 and 6) as thinking that Jesus was “beside himself,” that is “out of his mind” and she, along with his brothers, moves to “put him away.” He had, this story implies, become an embarrassment to the family. In the Fourth Gospel, in the narrative of the water being changed into wine, the mother of Jesus is portrayed as inappropriately pushing Jesus to act and she receives from him the rebuke, “Woman, what have you to do with me, my hour has not yet come?” She is also not present at the cross in the writings of Paul or in any of the earlier gospels of Mark, Matthew or Luke. Only with the appearance of the Fourth Gospel at the end of the first century did anyone think to portray her at the foot of the cross.
These biblical facts force us to recognize that most of the ideas we have about the mother of Jesus are late developing myths that make assumptions the Bible does not make. The birth stories are found first in Matthew, the dating of which is generally between 82 and 85, and second in Luke, which is generally thought to have been written about a decade after Matthew. This means that the New Testament’s accounts of Jesus’ birth are both products of a time 52-65 years after the life of Jesus came to its earthly end and some 82-95 years after the time of his birth. This is not eye witness reporting. Clearly the tradition that was built around the mother of Jesus is both late developing and continues to grow with the passing of years.
Once the time of the writing of the New Testament has passed, however, the mythology that developed around the mother of Jesus apparently knew no bounds. The virgin mother of the birth narratives became in successive generations, first, the permanent virgin, thus redefining Jesus’ siblings, referred to by name in both Galatians and in Mark, and referred to in John simply as “his brothers,” as half brothers or cousins. Next she was declared to have been a “post-partum” virgin, which suggested that even the birth of Jesus did not disturb her virginal hymen. In the service of that idea the “Fathers” of the church even searched the scriptures for biblical texts that would support this growing conviction. They settled on two. First, they looked at the writings of a sixth century BCE prophet named Ezekiel, who in the first verse of the 44th chapter wrote these words: “This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut.” Without either apology or embarrassment, they leaped on these words to claim that the “post partum virginity” of the “Blessed Virgin Mary” had actually been predicted by the prophets! The second text was found in the resurrection story according to the Fourth Gospel. In that narrative the disciples were in hiding in an upper room with the doors and the windows closed and locked and Jesus came and stood in their midst. If the risen Christ could pass through walls guarded by locked doors, they argued, it was no great stretch to imagine the infant Christ passing through the birth canal of his mother without breaking the hymen. Mythology always does strange things to facts and to reality.
By the 19th century, devotion to the mother of Jesus became so strong that the Roman Catholic Church, in which this devotion was most encouraged, declared that she, unlike all other human beings, had been “immaculately conceived.” That is, her mother had been miraculously cleansed of the sin of Adam, which was believed to have infected all human beings and to have been passed on from generation to generation. For Jesus to have been born without sin, his mother would have to have been especially prepared for this birth. This necessity also reflected the fact that in the early years of the 18th century, the discovery had been made that women have an egg cell and therefore that the woman literally contributes half of the genetic makeup of every person who has ever been born. Prior to this the assumption was that the woman simply provided the womb that nurtured the male seed to maturity. Like “Mother Earth” into which the farmer planted the seed, the woman’s role had been seen as simply to bring to birth the life that came from the male. When the egg cell was discovered, the realization dawned on the leadership of the church that the mother of Jesus was, like all women and indeed like all people, a child of Adam and so the sinlessness of Jesus was compromised through his mother’s line. That had not been a problem in the old view of reproduction. The Immaculate Conception addressed that theological problem demonstrating once and for all that even “infallible” doctrines are forced to adjust to new discoveries.
The final chapter in the mythological development of the mother of Jesus came in the 20th century when Mary was declared to have been bodily assumed into heaven. Since she was born without sin, she was not required to go through the passage of death, since death, according to the story of the Garden of Eden, was punishment for sin.
Carl Jung rejoiced in the Vatican’s declaration of the bodily assumption of the mother of Jesus into heaven because in his world of symbols this meant that the feminine had finally been lifted into God and the patriarchal tyranny of a God conceived of in only masculine terms and always addressed as “Father” had finally been tempered.
In this new series of columns over the next few months, I want, first, to get underneath the mythology of the ages and second, the development found in the New Testament itself, so that we can look at Jesus, the mother of Jesus and the entire Christian story with a set of eyes honed by scholarship and tempered by the facts of history as we can demonstrate them. I trust it will be an illuminating and worthwhile story for my readers.
If the familiar biblical images of the mother of Jesus are late developing, what do we have that is original and perhaps trustworthy? That is the question we will address as this series unfolds. I begin with some statements of fact that I will pursue in detail going into each of them deeply before any conclusions are reached, probably some time in February. For now, I simply file them as bullet points for your consideration. As the Book of Common Prayer in my church states these bullet points are designed to be “read, marked, learned and inwardly digested.” This series will provide the time to do just that.
We can now date the life of Jesus with some degree of accuracy. Recent discoveries have made it possible to fix the life of Jesus between the years of 4 BCE and 30 CE. We get to these dates first by the discovery in ancient Roman records that King Herod died in 4 BCE and since the clear New Testament tradition is that Jesus was born when Herod was the king so we fix the date of Jesus birth at 4 BCE. Second, we learn, once more from secular records, that Pilate was the procurator of Judea for the Roman Empire between the years 26-36 CE. If, as each of the gospels asserts, the crucifixion occurred under the authority of Pilate, then the crucifixion has to happen some time between those dates. Roman records also provide us with some other facts in the life of Pilate that have to do with the reasons for his removal from office. Since they appear to have happened well after the crucifixion we can squeeze those dates a bit closer to perhaps 28-32 as the time of the crucifixion. We then split the difference and settle on 30, with the knowledge that we might be off two years in either direction. So for our working purposes, we set the life of Jesus between 4 BC and 30 CE.
We have nothing preserved in writing anywhere of anything concerning the life of Jesus before the year 51 CE. That is a silent and dark historical tunnel, which can be illumined only by speculation. It is filled in only by what we call “the oral tradition” that we have almost no way of recreating, entering or capturing.
Paul the first writer, whose work was destined to be included in the New Testament, did all of his writing between the years 51 and 64. Not all of the epistles attributed to Paul are authentically from his hand. The ones about whom a consensus of the certainty of Pauline authorship exists are I Thessalonians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Philemon and Philippians. This means that II Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, I and II Timothy, Titus and Hebrews are not considered to be from the hand of Paul.
Nowhere in any part of the authentic Pauline corpus is there a reference of any kind to the birth of Jesus, nor is there any mention of the mother or father of Jesus. There are in Paul, however, several references, mostly in Galatians, to James, the brother of the Lord.
Our study of the birth of Jesus will therefore start with Paul, the earliest writer in the New Testament. That means that we will start our investigation in the sixth and seventh decades of the Christian era.
I hope that whets your appetite. We will continue the drama in subsequent columns.~ John Shelby Spong
You can purchase the book, The Birth of Jesus, Here |
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