sterrettc

I haven't yet read through the enire tread. I wanted to respond to something in post 5. Michael Durall is quoted giving his vision for the UU church. I would like to respond to parts of that vision. "These churches will have no steeples. I am not sure what problem people have with steeples. no organs, I am a progressive, and I welcome new things. But, I have not compulsion to get rid of the things just because they are not new. The organ is a much better instrument for worship than the alternatives I have seen. no pews, What would they have instead of pews. Would people just be standing, or would they be those horribly uncomfortable chairs that some new churches have? Pews are much more comfortable and practical than the alternatives I have seen. and no stained glass windows. Are we giving up on beauty? ... people will stay and share a meal together, a gourmet fare prepared by a first rate caterer. Potluck is a relic of the past... Please, no. If anything in the traditional church is worth keeping, the potluck dinner surely is. Worship will be conducted to two to three languages, alternating from one to another, with the text of hymns and prayer projected onto large screens, so that all can particpate so to some extent... My problem with this that they never project the music on the screens, but only the words. It is much nicer to have the music in hand, so one can read the part that one is singing. When I have been at services where the songs are projected, the music has also been just insipid praise music, with no theological message. It is different, yes, but it is hardly progressive. These churches will attract interracial couples, both straight and gay, bringing the mix we have never been able to achieve before". The pews, the organ, the stained glass windows, and the pot-luck dinners have never been the reasons the churches did not attract interracial couples, both straight and gay. The style of music, architecture, furniture, etc are not what makes a church progressive. What makes a church progressive is an openness to new persons even if they are unlike us, and an openness to new ideas even if they challenge us, and a willingness to reexamine what we believe and what we do.

I read an article, some time ago, which seemed to defend self designated heretics. Here it is.

I would not say that you are a Christian because you are not evangelical, but I have said that I think that all Christians should be evangelical. However, I have stripped some baggage from the definition of evangelical. Being evangelical means being filled with the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. The additional baggage that I think is improperly attached to the word is being conversion motivated and being attached to a conservative social agenda. Thus, I think that you might be an evangelical, like me: a progressive evangelical. I would encourage you to identify yourself as an evangelical and be outspoken about your progressive views.

BD I think that I know you from Beliefnet. As I recall, about a year ago you were moving to Atlanta and getting married. Further, you were considering some formal study in theology, and Verdugo and I were encouraging you to look into the seminaries there. It is good to see you over here. I think you belong.

Welcome. There is a Presbyterian (PCUSA) church in Watertown at 403 W. Main St. Assuming you are a progressive, the good news is that they are not a member congregation of the Confessing Church Movement, a conservative affinity group. However, they are also not a member congregation of the Covenant Network, a progressive affinity group. Their membership has dropped from 58 to 26 in the last 10 years. The thing about a declining congregation is that they can be very much like a family. If you are willing to put up with a few quirks, they can be very nurturing. It is the quirks that keep most people away. Furthermore, since they are small and declining, you and a few progressive friends could move that congregation into a more progressive path, and perhaps attract enough likeminded new members to turn the decline around. As for the working on Sunday, that is hard. A small congregation usually can muster only one worship service a week, and it will almost always be on sunday morning.

One approach is always to call God God. This involves some forms that seem awkward because they are unfamiliar, but that will change over time if we keep it up. Often, in the progressive Christian context, one now sees the reflexive form "Godself" instead of the "himself" that would always have been there before. At one synogogue I have attended they sing a version of "The Lord Bless You and Keep You." They sing it through twice. The first time they sing the fourth line "The Lord make His face to shine upon you." The second time they sing it "The Lord make Her face to shine upon you." At another synogogue I noticed that the prayer books still uniformly have masculine pronouns for God. However, when the congregation reads the prayers, wherever it says "him" or "he", they pronounce it "God." I found this interesting considering the practice among some Jews not to say "God" at all. I have for some time advocated adopting a neutral pronoun into English. We have adopted so many words from other languages, it is a quite natural thing. I came to this conclusion years ago when I was in graduate school. I was dating another graduate student named Elise. We would usually go to lunch together. One day I was looking for her, and I stopped by the computer terminal room. A student from China was there, and I asked him if he had seen Elise. He looked at me and said "No, I haven't seem him today." I said, "No, I asked about Elise." He told me "He hasn't been here." I remembered then that Chinese has only neutral pronouns, and remembering to use the correct pronoun is one of the difficult things for native Chinese speakers as they learn English. The word I am advocating adopting is ta. It is Mandarin for he, she, him, her, or it. The plural is tamen, the possessive is tade (with the e an unaccented neutral vowel), and the plural possessive is tamende. I am not advocating getting rid of he, she, him, her, or it when the antecedant's gender is clear or it is clearly neuter. But any time you feel like using he/she or him/her, use ta instead. Regarding your granddaughter, I would tell her that God is neither and both. In the Genesis 1 creation account, God created humans in God's image both male and female. When the Presbyterian Church (USA) adopted the Brief Statement of Faith in the 1980's, they dealt with the gender of the parental language by saying "Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home, God is faithful still."

The Original I would like to see is "The Maltese Falcon" (1931) with Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade. I am sure that the 1941 remake that we all know is better, but still, I would like to see the original.

I disagree with those who are skeptical about Tom Hanks ability to play that role. He is one of the most versitile of leading actors currently working. His portrayals in Philadelphia, in Apollo 13, in Saving Private Ryan, in the Green Mile, in the Ladykillers, in Sleepless in Seattle, in Forrest Gump, etc., are all very good, and watching those characters does not constantly remind you of other characters he has played. As you watch his portrayal you see the character. On the other hand, I can't watch Tom Cruise, for example, without constantly being aware that I am seeing Tom Cruise. Cruise never disappears into the character, and you are always noticing his overplayed dramatic method when you want to be paying attention to the story line.

Bonhoffer and others were part of a group called the Confessing Churches. This group produced a statement called the Theological Statment of Barmen. Bonhoffer himself was not part of the writing of the statement, I think he was either in America or a German jail at the time. The statement addresses the Nazi use of religion and religious infrastructure, and makes strong statements against it. The statement is written in a repeating pattern. First there is a Biblical quotation, then a positive theological statement. After that it has the words "We reject the false docrine, as though," followed by an assessment of a claim by the Nazi government or the portion of the church that was following it. This statement has been adopted as part of the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and is found in the Book of Confessions on page 273 ff. (I couldn't figure out how to make the link go directly to page 273.) A lot of Presbyterians who have grave misgivings about the politico-religious situation in the United States today have found this statement to be helpful.

I have not read Kazantzakis's Last Temptation of Christ, nor have I read his more famous Zorba the Greek, though I have been thinking for years that I should. While he was born in the 19th century, he was 17 when the 20 century began, and would have to be considered a 20th century writer. While it had roots in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was in the 20th century that Existentialism flourished and captured public attention.

The Last Temptation came on one of the cable/satelite chanels when Passion was coming out in the theaters, and I recorded it. We had a discussion on the Passion at church, and I took the Last Temptation and offered to let people watch it. It has been circulating ever since. I found the tLToC to be a better movie, overall, than the tPotC. It was more theologically interesting, and it wasn't just gore for gore sake. The only think that I objected to in tLToC was also in tPotC: that Mary Magdalene was identified with the woman who was caught in adultery, an identification that takes great liberties with the biblical text. I thought that the treatment of Judas in tLToC was interesting. I read somewhere an assertion that Godspell was pure blasphemy. I thought that it was pretty light weight, but not blasphemous. Granted, there are some liberties taken, but that is because the movie version is just supposed to be a filmed version of the play, and you always have to take some liberties to present a story on a stage. I haven't seen Jesus Christ Superstar in, probably, 25 years, and I am not sure I remember enough to comment. I remember a couple of pleasant and memorable tunes from it, but it is Andrew Lloyd Webber. I was disappointed with his Evita when I saw it. There were two memorable tunes in the whole movie. It is not that the other tunes were not memorable, but that there were not more than two. He just kept repeating those two through the whole movie.

I don't want to dismiss your observations regarding similarities, but I feel that it is important that we recognize some differences between the stories. Dorothy did not intentionally leave home and always desired to return. The prodigal son had to experience disappointment before he desired to return. Furthermore, there does not seem to have been as much singing and dancing in the prodigal son parable.

I had the oportunity, a couple of weeks ago, of having a casual conversation with one of the members of the task force. I had met him last year at General Assembly, and I ran into him at an event not related to the task force. I told him that I had read a number of responces to the Final Report from advocates on both the progressive and the conservative side of the contentious issues facing the church. These responces had expressed dissappointment in the report. I told him that I thought that the responces had missed the point. If the purpose of the task force had been to decide the contentious issues, there is no way that it could succede. The purpose of the task force was to determine ways that we can live together faithfully while we continue to work out the solutions to the issues. I believe that, if we see the report in light of what their task really was, and if we listen to and consider their recommendations, we can, in fact, preserve our Peace, Unity, and Purity. The name of the task force, for any who might not know, comes from one of the questions that officers of the church--Deacons, Elders, and Ministers of Word and Sacrament-- must answer in the afirmative at the time of their ordination. "Do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church." (G-14.0207g; G-14.0405b(7); G-14.0801g(7)) As a progressive, I am disappointed that the fourth member of the list has been left out. In another place in the denominations constitution, it says that governing bodies of the church have the power "to do those things necessary to the peace, purity, unity, and progress of the church under the will of Christ." (G-9.0102b)

Churches of the reformed (Calvinist) tradition would not rebaptize. There are churches of the reformed tradition from one end of the liberal-conservative spectrum to the other, even if the conservative ones tend to think that the liberal ones have left the reformed tradition. Actually, I don't know of any church that would admit that they rebaptize. The Baptist churches would insist that they are baptizing for the first time-- that the previous "baptism" was no baptism at all. The Catholic Church, pre reformation, had a one-time-only rule, and believed that in baptism the sins one had committed were washed away. One of the problems was that there were people who would put off baptism because of a belief that only the pre-baptism sins were washed away. The strategy was to be baptized on your death-bed. Of course, miscalculation might result in none of your sins being washed away. Jesus baptism has been a topic of debate since the early church. The church, in 325, at the Council of Nicaea, "acknowledge(d) one baptism for the remission of sins." The interpretation of Jesus' baptism is that, in that act, he was fulfilling the torah and the prophets, but if that is the interpretation, why is that not the interpretation for baptism of Jesus followers? I have always been skeptical of the claims that our sins could not have been forgiven except by Christ's death, or that such a substitutional atonement could not have been effective had he not been sinless himself, or that Jesus could not have been sinless had his mother not been a virgin. If God is sovereign, then God could have forgiven our sins by any means God chose. If God chose this means, we should not assume God could not have chosen otherwise.

Probably some of you have heard this, but I thought it was worth repeating. I don't know the origin of it. It was reported in one newspaper that Pat Roberson, in addition to saying that Hugo Chavez should be killed, has called for the coveting of Chavez's house, wife, ox, donkey, and his man- and maid-servants. It seams likely, also, that Roberton has born false witness against Chavez. That leaves 7 out of 10. In many contexts 70% is a C-, which is a passing grade, if barely.

I don't think that assassination is ever a good idea. I don't think that it is morally right and I think that it is not likely to produce the results that are desired. But that aside. Even if assassination was called for, I think that it is really stupid to publicly say that we should assassinate a foreign head of state. Thank God we didn't elect someone that stupid to be president. Or did we?

Well your baptism was obviously not valid. I am sure God intended that the water be shockingly cold. The presbyterian take on this would be that your new affirmation of faith should cover the conversion that you feel. At the same time, I still say that only you can be the judge of whether your earlier baptism was effective. Most people I know would be happy to have you baptized anew, so long as it did not seem to be that you were forming a pattern of having new conversion ever few years and getting baptized because of them. If you had been baptized twice, and did not feel that either of them was effective, you might have to convince the church that it is reasonable for you to think that the third time would be.

I see two sides to this issue. I have been a member of several congregations over the last 40 years. In some of them there were many progressives and in others there were very few. Being in a progressive minority challenges one. It is like vigorous exercise, and it makes one stronger. But, in addition to exercise, one needs rest. Progressives need a supportive environment where we need not constantly defend our positions. I think that the original poster was feeling that her refuge was being taken away from her. Yes we all need to be challenged, but not all the time. Not all conversation should be debate.

I think that the belief among non-Christian progressives that Christianity is inconsistent with progressivness is, in large part, a reaction to their having been told by non-progressive Christians that that progressiveness is inconsistent with Christianity. It has been my observation that this is the case with Christianity and science. I grew up in West Texas. I know from first hand experience that many Christians believe that a scientific viewpoint is inconsistent with Christian faith. While I have always had deep religious beliefs, I was also drawn to science. It was only when I got a physics teaching job at church related college that I was able to resolve some of the tension that had been imposed on the relationship of science and Christianity by non-scientific Christians and non-Christian scientists. I want to be clear that I mean a real scientific viewpoint, and not that pseudoscience where they try to show that evolution isn't real or that the existence of God is provable. I believe that evolution is real, the earth is about 5 billion years old, humans of one sort or another have been around about 1.5 million years, and that the existence of God is a matter of faith, not proof.

I don't believe that your acquaintence was correct. A simple verse count indicates the other way around. The word "hell" occurs in 9 verses in Matthew, in 1 verse in in Mark, in 3 verses in Luke, and not at all in John. On the other hand, the word "heaven" occurs in 68 verses in Matthew, in 16 verses in Mark, in 29 verses in Luke, and in 16 verses in John. This is according to the King James Version at blueletterbible.org. Some prominent progressive Christians of earlier generations would have told us that Jesus message was primarily about the Kingdom of God, and that we were to look for the Kingdom of God not only in the world to come but in this world as well. Walter Rauschenbusch's theology for the Social Gospel argued from this Kingdom of God theology in favor of social justice. C.H. Dodd argued that the apostles preached a realized eschatology, that the Kingdom has begun already, and that we are not to wait until the world to come.

Worms and space exploration? That's an interesting combination.

I heard an interesting thing about Watt, but I don't have any verification of it. It was that one of the first things he did as secretary of interior was to have the seal of the department changed so that the bear faced to the right instead of the left. Clinton's appointee had the old seal restored.

I would say that orthodox Christianity of those first few centuries often came up with what they thought were the right words to describe this mystery, and then insisted on subscription to those words. One of the problems for later Christians is that the common meaning of the words changes, and it is even more significant if the language of those words is not your language. Later generations of "orthodox" Christians have often continued to insist on subscription to the same words, although the words now fail to communicate to most people the mystery that the authors felt was so well captured by them.

I have both the 1991 "Tanakh" and the 1927 "The Holy Scriptures," both of which are tranlsations published by the Jewish Publication Society. The 1927 is thought to be a more literal translation. My copy of the 1927 is also two volumes, with English and Hebrew columns on each page. I would also recommend the software called Bibleworks. One of the things you can do with it is look at multiple translations at the same time, stepping through them verse by verse. It has both the 1927 and 1991 JPS translations as well as the KJV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, NIV, NAB, etc., and the Lenningrad Codex of the Greek New Testament, the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Septuagint, and the Vulgate.

I also wanted to say the following: When I think of Progressive Christianity, I think of Harry Emerson Fosdick and most especially about his book Christianity and Progress. Although it was written over eighty years ago, I think it is still charged with lessons still valid today. Every progressive Christian should read it.