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Gretta Vosper July 14, 2022While at theological college, a challenge seized with an eager ferocity, was the imperative attributed to theologian Karl Barth that we preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. We, some of whom may not have paid quite enough attention to what ministers actually did before packing ourselves off to seminary, believed we were the first generation to ever hear that bold challenge as clearly as it had been made. We, better than any of the ministers who had stepped into the pulpits of the past, would bring the word of God to the joys and sorrows of the headlines, reminding our parishioners that faith wasn’t about what happened long, long ago in a dusty backwater far, far away, but what is happening right here, right now, in our hearts, our relationships, our families, communities, countries, and the world.   Barth, however, had made it clear that our task wasn’t to just address the issues of the day; it was to engage those issues through the strength and power of the Bible. We were to wrestle with the realities that wrestled with our communities by exploring them through the biblical text, its stories, its central themes, and its greater truths. It wasn’t good enough to just take a position on a local rights issue or a growing global crisis. As those invested with the responsibility of interpreting the Bible for our times, we were to return to that Bible with weekly regularity and build our contemporary position on its ancient words and promises.   The rise of the use of the Common Lectionary – now the Revised Common Lectionary – made the challenge Barth set for clergy awfully difficult. The lectionary is a collection of texts sorted and set out for use in congregations over the course of three years rather colourlessly named “A”, “B”, and “C”. It includes the major festivals – Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, etc. – weaves through both testaments, the psalms, and epistles, and is meant to put the significant elements of the biblical story before congregations on a cyclical basis. (Which is why it had to be revised rather early in its history: the first team of experts forgot there were women in the Bible. Tut. Tut.[1]) Some clergy use the lectionary as a disciplinary measure, driving them away from their favourite texts and forcing them to address some of the more challenging elements of the biblical narrative. Since its initial incarnation as the Common Lectionary in 1983, the use of a shared lectionary has quickly become the norm in mainline pulpits and its use favoured in theological seminaries. I once spoke with a theological graduate who hadn’t been told that the lectionary was a tool, not a requirement, so prevalent has its engagement become.   But imagine trying to explore some of today’s headlines using a set of texts chosen in an overly-lit, windowless room in an urban ecclesial office building far away from any imagining of whatever hell might break out at any moment or several years in the future. This week, the US reels from an Independence Day mass shooting and the implications of the overturning of Roe vs. Wade by a predominantly Christian Supreme Court; Russian military forces continue to bomb Ukraine, directing military attacks toward civilian neighbourhoods, universities, and essential public infrastructure; the collapse of a glacier due to climate change in Italy kills seven hikers while Canada’s Northwest Territories evacuate communities from waters rising as the result of extreme heat; several ministers in the UK government resign after it is made known that their leader didn’t think allegations of sexual misconduct made someone unsuitable for the role of party whip – and that leader finally, but indignantly, resigns; the Israeli government refuses to release the body of a deceased Palestinian teenager shot by Israeli soldiers just weeks after their killing of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the violent disruption of her funeral procession; millions of Somalis brace for another famine ten years after 250,000 died of hunger; Cebu City in the Philippines is flooded, yet again. Etcetera. Etcetera.   With all that in one hand, what would you want your minister to have in the other to help you wrestle with the realities gripping this little blue-maybe-turning-brownish dot we share? The lectionary gives you this (some of you will have heard one or more of these readings on July 10th): - Sara learns she’s going to have a child in her dotage - the psalmist reminds those who despise evildoers that they get the prize – easily interpreted as a nod-of-the-hat to the self-righteous - Paul, who apparently knows little to nothing of Jesus, shares his vast understanding of the Christ and his willingness to suffer for him - and Jesus puts Martha in her place when she gripes about having to do all the work (thanks for that, bro’)  There are a couple of other readings – a piece from Amos that would sear the skin off anyone even thinking of doing something they might regret and another nod-of-the-hat kind of psalm wherein the righteous are encouraged to taunt the evil-doers as the bad guys get their comeuppance. Some might venture into the Amos passage, but we love stories and my money is on your having heard about Sarah, Mary, and/or Martha, yet again. (Please do write and let me know how the Amos sermon went if you preached or heard that one. I’m intrigued.)   And so the title of this article. “What the hell?!!” The world is stumbling its way from one self-made disaster to another while ignoring some of the greatest systemic threats to our survival. And those congregating for worship or religious practice within any religious tradition, rather than being encouraged to wrestle with the one most important news-item-that-never-(okay-rarely)-makes-the-news – the scientific fact that today’s CO2 reading is 417.21ppm and its consequent extinction-level threat – are wrapped in liturgical, textual, ritual, and communal practices that anesthetize us to the reality we are swimming and dying in. As religion ever has done. As it ever shall do?   We become as gods, creating and destroying the world around us at will. The enticing promise – old as time and realized in one way or another in every age humanity has known – isn’t quite so enticing, however, when we see its ultimate potential: the end of the diverse wonder that has evolved on this planet, from microbe to primate, flora, fauna, single-cell, and ecosystem, humanity and anything else in its plundering way. For some, that is a great thing. The end of the world wraps them in a theological story that is the culmination of a belief system to which they are fused. For many of us, however, that is not the worldview in which we have pitched our tents and yet, we walk along its edge, only peering into the abyss when we can bear it, and rarely on a Sunday morning.   So what the hell happens now? What the hell do we do with a Bible that could not imagine the future in which we live? What the hell do we do with stories of a divine being who bred in us a fervent love of life but jubilantly refused to give us the tools to manage it? What the hell do clergy hold in their hands as they seek to master the alchemy of the Sunday sermon if reality is too terrifying and the Bible no longer able to provide the light with which we once illumined our petty lives? What the hell can they offer their congregations in the burning light of these fiery days?   I wonder how Karl Barth would have preached this cataclysm. His theology was fired in the crucible of Nazi Germany, the values of which he entirely rejected. In many ways, the existential threats are paired with their fundamental refusal to cherish the diversity of life. But could he, only a few decades later, hold to his belief that we can understand and interpret the world through the lens of the Bible when the world seems poised on self-destruction of an entirely different order? Could he? Rather than hold to the claims, the theology based on them, and the beliefs forged over centuries, I prefer to think he would stand aghast, exclaim “What the hell?!!”, and challenge us to wrestle things out upon the razed ground of our biblical heritage.   We hold the stuff of that ground in our hands. It is what I attend to and explore – the space in between: the space in between you and me, in between us and the world around us, in between the named and the unknown, in between accepted and emergent ideas, in between rules and their increasingly urgent need to be broken, in between science and the ephemeral, in between gravity and dance, in between defiance and hope. The Bible guided us to that space, but the space is ours and within it, our task is to wrestle with a reality that threatens us all. What the hell else can we possibly do?~ Rev. Gretta Vosper Read online here About the Author The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best-selling books include With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers. Visit her website here.[1] Subsequently, a much-welcomed “inclusive language” version was initially published in the 1980s but I do not think – and could stand corrected – that the project was undertaken by the committee. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer   Q: By A Reader What are the requirements to be considered a progressive Christian? A: By Rev. Roger Wolsey  Dear Reader,We need to begin by reminding ourselves that there were two different lineages and starting points within the umbrella known as progressive Christianity. All of them spring forth as responses to post-modernism. The original form of it, known as “progressive Christianity,” was an evolution from mainline liberal Christianity and was an heir of the Social Gospel movement. Examples of this include the work of Jim Adams, Jim Burklo, Fred Plumer, John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, David Felton, Jeff Procter-Murphy, and Diana Butler Bass. The other form of it was originally known as “emerging Christianity” and similarly, was a response to post-modernism – but within the evangelical world. That cohort of thinkers had a different starting point and tend to maintain some more conventional views about theology but as the years have passed, there has been less of a gap between the two sub-movements. They are known for their efforts in “deconstructing.” With that said, to answer your question, in short, there aren’t any. Pretty much by definition, progressive Christianity seeks to avoid any particular set of creeds, doctrines, or dogmas that persons who identify as progressive Christians “must” adhere to – rather the opposite of fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism. That said, there have been some attempts to create working definitions, lists of tendencies, etc. E.g., “Progressive Christianity is a post-liberal approach to the Christian faith that is influenced by postmodernism and: proclaims Jesus of Nazareth as Christ; emphasizes the Way and teachings of Jesus, not merely His person; emphasizes God’s immanence not merely God’s transcendence; leans toward panentheism rather than supernatural theism; emphasizes salvation here and now instead of primarily in heaven later; emphasizes being saved for robust, abundant/eternal life over being saved from hell; emphasizes the social/communal aspects of salvation instead of merely the personal; stresses social justice, environmental protection, and non-violence as integral to Christian discipleship; takes the Bible seriously but not necessarily literally, embracing a more interpretive, metaphorical understanding; emphasizes orthopraxy instead of orthodoxy (right actions over right beliefs); embraces reason as well as paradox and mystery — instead of blind allegiance to rigid doctrines and dogmas; does not consider homosexuality to be sinful; and does not claim that Christianity is the only valid or viable way to connect to God (is non-exclusive).” The Board of Directors of the ProgressiveChristianity.Org is switching from having an “8 Points of Progressive Christianity” (which itself had several iterations over the years) to the soon-to-be-released new version “Core Values of Progressive Christianity”: By calling ourselves Progressive Christians we mean we are Christians who:  1. Believe that following the way and teachings of Jesus can lead to experiencing sacredness, wholeness, and unity of all life, even as we recognize that the Spirit moves in beneficial ways in many faith traditions.  2. Seek community that is inclusive of all people, honoring differences in theological perspective, age, race, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, class, or ability.  3. Strive for peace and justice among all people, knowing that behaving with compassion and selfless love towards one another is the fullest expression of what we believe.  4. Embrace the insights of contemporary science and strive to protect the Earth and ensure its integrity and sustainability.  5. Commit to a path of life-long learning, believing there is more value in questioning than in absolutes. ~~~ It should be said that progressive Christianity tends to hold such stances and positions loosely and understands them as works in progress that are open to being modified and changed as new information warrants. At a minimum, it can be said that a significant percentage of progressive Christians: * are fully LGBTQI+ inclusive and reject homophobia, transphobia, etc. * embraces contemporary science * embrace women’s role in the leadership of the Church (as clergy, bishops, etc.). * reject racism * reject the notion that Christianity has a monopoly on God and how God operates in the world Many, if not most, also: * reject classism and Christian nationalism And rather a lot also reject the substitutionary theory of the atonement, the notion of original sin, the concept of hell as a place of punishment after people die, the virgin birth, a physical resurrection of Jesus, and literalism as a primary way to understand the scriptures. And quite a few are open to diverse understandings of the Trinity and/or divinity of Jesus. It should also be said that progressive Christianity isn’t progressive politics  – though there is often much overlap. I hope this helps! Blessings to you on your journey in faith,~ Rev. Roger Wolsey Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Roger Wolsey, a United Methodist pastor, is author of Kissing Fish: Christianity for people who don’t like Christianity and blogs for Patheos as The Holy Kiss and serves on the Board of Directors of ProgressiveChristianity.Org. He values the Wesleyan approach to the faith and, as a certified spiritual director, he seeks to help others grow and mature. Roger served as Director of the Wesley Foundation campus ministry, University of Colorado for 14 years, and currently serves as the pastor of Fruita UMC in Colorado. | | | | | | | | 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   "Think Different-Accept Uncertainty" Part XVII:  The Story of the Crucifixion, Part Two Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong September 20, 2012It is certainly a fact of history that a man named Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Romans somewhere around the year 30 CE.  This crucifixion came during the procuratorship of a Roman official named Pontius Pilate, who was in his Judean post according to Roman records between the years 26 and 36 CE.  What role the Jewish religious authorities played in this crucifixion is very unclear.  At the very least we know that, as a conquered people, Jews did not have the power to execute.  The crucifixion was clearly a Roman act done in the Roman manner of execution.  The Romans, not the Jews, were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. The crime for which he was put to death was both religious (blasphemy) and political (sedition).The real question is: how many of the familiar details that surround his crucifixion were also literal events that actually happened and were recorded by eyewitnesses?  The answer is probably very few!  The only records we have are in the New Testament and the relevant books were written 40-70 years after the event they purport to describe.  They were also written in a language (Greek) that neither Jesus nor any of his disciples spoke, read or wrote.  The gospels were written to create faith and to interpret the Jesus experience, not to record what actually happened.  Yet over the years of Christian history these narratives have been mistakenly treated as history. Today I will try to look at the story of the crucifixion in a very different way.First, we need to be aware that the story of a traitor named Judas Iscariot is highly suspect.  The name Judas did not appear in any written Christian materials until the 8th decade of the Christian era and when it did appear, the title “Iscariot,” which means “political assassin,” was already attached to it.  Paul, writing between 51 and 64 CE, had clearly never heard the story of a traitor being one of the twelve.  When Paul suggests that the Risen Christ was seen by “the twelve” on the third day after the crucifixion, it is clear that Judas is still among them (I Cor. 1:1-6).  When we analyze the other details that have been written into the biblical biography of Judas we discover that every one of them is based on a traitor story in the Old Testament. Judas thus appears to be a literary composite of all the known traitors in Jewish history. History, he is not!When we turn to the first biblical narrative of the crucifixion that is in Mark, we discover that it is made up of material developed to be used liturgically during a 24-hour vigil service of worship to mark the anniversary of Jesus’ death, that is, it is designed for use on Good Friday. This liturgical pattern clearly developed very early, since it is reflected in Mark who wrote about two generations after the crucifixion.  In Mark’s narrative we can see the vigil’s outline of eight three-hour segments: The first segment begins with the words, “When it was evening” (Mark 14:17), which means that it began at sundown or about 6:00 p.m.  Jesus, we are told, gathers with his disciples for the Passover meal.  We know that the Passover observance included games and frivolity in addition to the meal and that it also offered the opportunity for the patriarch of the family to tell the story of the flight to freedom of the Jews from Egypt to the gathered family members.  We also know that it normally lasted about three hours and concluded with the singing of a hymn.  In Mark’s story at the meal’s end, the disciples sing a hymn and go out into the night.  It is thus now 9:00 p.m.They went immediately to a place known as the Garden of Gethsemane where Mark tells us that Peter, James and John could not watch with Jesus for one hour, two hours or three hours without falling asleep.  Worshipers at this liturgy would, at this time, be having the same problem. Jesus then emerges from the garden.  It is obviously now 12:00 midnight.The kiss of the traitor is made by Mark to occur at the stroke of midnight, so the darkest deed in human history is said to have been performed at the darkest hour of the night.  Mark has this act of betrayal continue before the symbols of Jewish authority, the high priests and leaders of the Sanhedrin.  The rejection of Jesus was interpreted by Mark to have been a corporate act of the whole nation. That is reflected in the fact that Mark has given the name of the nation to the traitor, since Judas is simply the Greek spelling of Judah. The full account of the betrayal act thus takes three hours in this liturgy, so it is now 3:00 a.m.The watch of the night that begins at 3:00 a.m. and lasts until 6:00 a.m. was known as “cockcrow.”  Into that slot of time, Mark has written the story of Peter’s threefold denial, one act of denial for each hour until the cock crows to announce the arrival of the morning.Right on cue, Mark says, “When morning came” or at about 6:00 a.m., Jesus was taken to Pilate.  There before the representative of the Roman Empire, we have a description of the presumed interrogation that supposedly led to his condemnation. Included is an account of flogging, mocking, a purple robe, a crown of thorns and the introduction of one named Barabbas, all of which are described in detail.  Another three hours in the vigil is over so it is now 9:00 a.m.Mark announces that fact, again right on cue, by saying that they crucified him at the third hour or at 9:00 a.m. and Mark describes that scene with details that, as we mentioned earlier in this series, have been taken out of Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53.  The details from Psalm 22 include the hostile crowd telling him to come down from the cross if he is what he clams to be; the dividing of his clothes and the “casting of lots” for his tunic; while the details from Isaiah 53 include the two thieves, one on each side of him and his silence before his accuser, both of which are said to fulfill the words of Isaiah 53, where it is written that the “servant” would be “numbered among the transgressors” and would remain silent in the face of his enemies.  Then, at the sixth hour, or after three hours on the cross, Mark tells us that “darkness covered the whole earth” to announce the next segment of the vigil.That means it was now 12:00 noon.  This is not, obviously, literal darkness.  If one believed, however, as Mark and those who were observing this twenty-four hour vigil did, that Jesus was “the light of the world,” his death would plunge the world into total darkness.  Mark tells us that this darkness lasted while his life hung in the balance from the sixth until the ninth hour.  That is from 12 noon to 3:00 p.m., at which time Mark has Jesus utter the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” which is the first verse of Psalm 22 and then Mark says: he bowed his head in death.  It is now 3:00 p.m.In order to complete the 24 hour vigil, from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Mark tells the story of Jesus burial in a tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea, a ruler of the Jews and thus a rich man.  Isaiah 53 had said that his servant figure would be “with a rich man in his death.”  Mark gives narrative form to that word in developing the Joseph story.  Joseph was an important patriarchal ancestor to the people of the Northern kingdom, the non Judah citizens, so Mark uses that knowledge to portray Jesus as bringing together the Jewish nation in his death.  None of this is history, it is interpretive liturgy written to be acted out in observance of the death of Jesus.Mark also in this narrative tells us the story of Barabbas, a name that literally means son (bar) of God (Abba).   So Barabbas is a second “son of God” in the passion narrative.  In that narrative, the son of God, named Barabbas, is set free.  The other son of God, Jesus, is crucified.  People not familiar with Jewish patterns of worship need to know that in the liturgy of Yom Kippur, there are two animals that are brought to the high priest.  One, normally a lamb, is sacrificed as an offering for the sins of the people; the other, normally a goat, is set free to bear the sins of the people away.  The first creature is called the “Lamb of God” and represents the people’s yearning to come into a sense of oneness with God.  The second is called the “scapegoat” and on it the sins of the people are symbolically carried away, leaving them at one with God. By introducing Barabbas into the passion narrative, Mark is interpreting the crucifixion through the lens of Yom Kippur.  Those unfamiliar with Jewish worship will never understand Mark’s style of writing or see that he never intended his narrative to be thought of as literal history.Many people are so clearly trapped inside the mindset of believing that the gospels must be read literally and that their account of Jesus is biography that they feel there can be no other way to read them.  So when their literal understandings are challenged, they seem to believe there is nothing left.  The gospel writers, however, were surely aware that they were using Jewish words and Jewish images that were so familiar to their original audiences that there would be no chance they would misunderstand their intentions and treat their narratives literally.  Instead they wrote to interpret the profound and moving God experience that they believed they had encountered in the person of Jesus.  It was a transformative, eye-opening, consciousness-raising, life expanding experience.  It was real, indeed more real than anything they had ever known before, but it was also beyond the power of human words, time bound as they are, to capture. When we, today, peel away these interpretive layers, we discover, not that the story has been destroyed, but that the reality is more than ever we imagined.  Everything that matters is left and we are now pointed beyond the explanations of antiquity and into the wordless wonder of the presence of God.When the Christian movement reached the time of the writing of the Fourth Gospel (95-100) this is so deeply a part of the Christian understanding that this work presents us with the least literal and at the same time the most profound portrait of Jesus in the entire New Testament.Do not fear the death of literalism.  Its death opens the door to the meaning of Jesus that literal words actually block and impede.  “Think Different–Accept Uncertainty” is the doorway into a new Christianity in a new world.~  John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements The Gift of Forgiveness with Deborah Briggs Starts June 18th - Online - 4 Weeks   During this workshop, we will explore the impact of our beliefs about forgiveness, begin the healing process and recognize the powerful ways that the things we saw as negative can be transformed into the foundation for living more fully.  READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |