David

Words, words, words. I think Tillich was successful in creating new words. Although he constantly uses the word Christ he created the words “New Being”. Although he constantly uses the word God he created the words “Ground of Being”. The pattern here is that he will take the traditional word and create a new sense of the word without destroying the old word. Tillich was very aware that he wanted to hold on to the history of Christianity (see “Paul Tillich; A History of Christian Thought From Its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism” Edited by Carl E. Braaten). From that book: “The prophet hopes to get to the heart of the matter with his knife of radical protest; the false prophet is known in the tradition as one who cuts the heart itself”. My opinion is that the heart has been cut out with the loss of the word God.

This chapter talks about the fact that we are part creature and part “united with that which is not creature and whose creative ground no creature can destroy”. It seems important to me that two things are being said here. One is that nothing can separate us from God, and the other is that nothing can separate us from being a creature. Problems arise when words point us towards a total separation from God so that we need a Christ to relate to a super and separate being, but problems also arise when we think that we can be “one with God” if we do not also say in the same breath that we do not lose our creatureness. Like Rivanna I was impressed with Tillich using words like “love” as examples of separation. Tillich says “love” is one of those powers that can separate even though we say “God is love”. The problem in part is a language problem. Tillich may say “such is life” which is made up of good and evil where “fascination and fear, joy and guilt, creation and destruction” are mixed in every moment. But I think some words are better than others. So I like “New Being” better than “Christ”. I like words that point towards the realities that Tillich talks about rather than words that point towards a super and separate being. The word God seems like another word that may separate us from the reality that it supposedly intends to point towards. Perhaps this is why the word God has been removed from point one of the eight points. Words are important. Words matter/words can not separate us from God. Seems to me important to understand the ambiguity of this. I am hopeful that the word God can be saved in spite of the ambiguity. It may help to highlight Tillich’s word “creative” when he talks about that with which we are united. It seems to me that the “human/divine” relationship (so to speak) is creative with each person while it is common to all. That creativity has to do with what Tillich would call “the courage to be”. Without that courage we can reach the point of being overcome by separation. That separation is real. The Principalities and Powers are real. Otherwise there would be no power in the receipt of accepting that you are accepted. There would be no power in the accepting the unacceptable. There would be no power in grace. It seems to me that how that all works out is creative and unique to each person while it is common for all. "Life is not a machine well constructed by its builder and running on according to the laws of its own machinery. Life, personal and historical, is a creative and destructive process in which freedom and destiny, chance and necessity, responsibility and tragedy are mixed". These "drive us to the question of courage which can accept life without being conquered by it…."

For "extra" Tillich reading I highly recommend the first chapter "Religion as a Dimension in Man's Spiritual Life" which can be found here without charge. Theology of Culture by Paul Tillich, Robert C. Kimball I am hoping that Rivanna and I will take turns first posting on each chapter until someone comes along with a better suggestion. So she will post first on Chapter seven.

Maybe with few participants the discussion can move more quickly. With that goal let me comment on Chapter six. Perhaps because I am a child of the 60’s I resonate with a vision of “holy waste” that contrasts with the reasonable or utilitarian. The passion that drives an “abundance of heart” and leaves reason in its wake seems to have motivated much of the 60’s “generation of love”. People left the safety of being conventional and became “flower children”. “Wasting….beyond the limits of law and rationality” may have been the theme song for the 60’s. The failure of the 60’s may be understood if we can see that Tillich is not suggesting that the 60’s search for “self fulfillment” is the answer. The hubris of the 60’s resulted in people being persuaded that they were mini gods capable of avoiding the Cross. Tillich points out that the Cross “is the fulfillment of all wisdom within the plan of salvation”. There is no traditional theory of atonement here. The experience of the Cross was shown by Jesus, but only shown as part of the structure of reality, not as a one time exception to reality. The Cross has to do with the ecstatic waste that makes it holy. But because it is part of the structure of existence the Cross “does not disavow the purposeful act, the reasonable service”. There is no sense here of participating in the Divine without the Cross. This is Tillich’s challenge to the survivors of the 60’s and to those religious organizations that would take down the Cross from their buildings.

It strikes my “amazing/awe” sense when the Gospels reach out and touch us out of their time and place into our time and place. In the midst of the ancient concept of healing that meant casting out unclean spirits in a flat world with heaven/earth/hell in three tiers we can hear the words of Jesus that were certainly spoken with those ancient understandings and be able to recognize healing in our time and place (and as Rivanna points out see the limits of “wished for” healing). For me this requires some work in our time and place where we have to wade through the magical thinking but with or without that deconstruction healing happens. Amazing grace.

Tillich does not shy away from putting the Divine in the middle of existence but in doing so ambiguity and the problem with language results. When talking about healing you do not hear Tillich talking about replacing the doctor with Jesus, the Savior. He says of course we go to the physicians and psychotherapists, which means that the word healing obviously includes appropriate treatment for illness. But also you do not hear Tillich talking about “faith healing”. We hear and read about healing that comes as a result of intensive concentration or self determination or even psychosomatic cures. There seems to be some evidence that how we respond mentally and emotionally to illness has an affect on healing. I don’t see Tillich denying this, but I also don’t see Tillich saying that this is what he means by healing via Jesus, the Savior (although an elementary reading of the gospels can be and often is interpreted to be “faith healing”). Tillich would reject using the word “faith” in relationship to this kind of healing. Tillich equates healing with salvation. This kind of healing “makes whole and sane what is broken and insane” even though “disease has not disappeared”. Tillich would make a distinction between “existential anxiety” and “neurotic anxiety”; the latter is a concern for the psychotherapist, the former is a concern for the priest. The former has to do with Jesus, the Savior; the latter has to do with the hospital. Both are interrelated within existence and so it seems wise to always have that hospital chaplain around.

I agree with Tillich that we are responsible for the common visions of Jesus as moral teacher and Jesus as social reformer and we have not paid enough attention to the gospel stories that show Jesus as healer. Tillich notes that our problems with this have been focused on “miracles” when such talk is foolishness because healing does not represent “negation of natural laws”. The abuses or the “distortion into magic and superstition” according to Tillich can be solved by “good theology and good practice”. I am not so sure that we have the courage of Tillich to confront others with defects in theology and practice. I see too much of the liberal tendency to “live and let live”, a philosophy that has as its most serious sin the attempt to challenge the self understanding of those who need healing (all of us). I think that it is important that Tillich does not speak about healing as the absence of brokenness even though he seems to say this at times. It is important to hear Tillich say “that the old reality of conflict and disease has not disappeared” in the healing process. Wholeness involves a process where “within the unity of the body struggling elements can be reconciled. And this is possible even if deep traces of former struggles in our body remain as long as we live”. It is only in this sense that the word “unity” makes any sense. For the most part Tillich seems to prefer the word “wholeness” which better captures the sense that what is broken remains broken but is “reconciled”, is “conquered”, but not eliminated. “Wholeness” better captures the sense that the broken parts lose the power to tear us apart. In that sense we experience healing without escaping what Tillich calls “the basic insecurity of human existence and the driving anxiety connected with it…felt everywhere and by everyone”. I agree with Tillich on this and therefore I fundamentally distrust any “savior” who promises to eliminate that insecurity and anxiety. Healing does not take us to another world. “We know, even when we confess this faith, that the old reality of conflict and disease has not disappeared. Our bodies ail and die, our souls are restless, our world is a battlefield of individuals and groups. But the new reality cannot be thrown out. We live from it, even if we do not know it. For it is the power of reconciliation whose work is wholeness and whose name is love….Not always, of course, but in those moments of grace”. The vision of healing is a vision of grace which puts into perspective our attempts to heal based upon what we “know”. Jesus first talks about the forgiveness of sin and only then is health regained. But remember from the early chapter that this process is not a process of making ourselves or others "worthy of forgiveness". The “New Being” has “grasped” those who are healed. “Faith means being grasped by a power that is greater than we are, a power that shakes us and turns us, and transforms us and heals us.” And…."not always, of course, but in those moments of grace".

Tillich and Progressive Christianity is worthy of a separate discussion. I don’t want to turn a book discussion into that. Tillich lovers may disagree with me (I wonder how Spong feels about taking the word God out of point one) but again that is a diversion from this book and I will try to stay focused on the book.

Here is my side note to rivanna's side note. I would argue that Tillich would not embrace the current version of the eight points and I would argue that Tillich would not consider himself a Progressive Christian as commonly defined and practiced today. I have raised on a couple of occasions the issue of justice and implied the concerns of morality associated with justice. Tillich would reject any concept of justice and/or morality that is not sourced in the “ground of our being”. “Being” always precedes values. Thus one cannot understand justice or morality without participating in “the ground of being”. Being precedes and makes possible values/justice/morality. The problem with Progressive Christianity as commonly defined and practiced today is that it makes no distinction between this and, for lack of a better word, a secular understanding of justice/morality. Without such a distinction the whole reason for being called Christian becomes meaningless. Although it has not been germane to this discussion I mentioned in passing that Tillich would not support perhaps the most important of the eight points, which talks about the oneness and unity of all life. It is fundamental to Tillich that a person both belongs to and is separated; is both “conditioned” and “unconditional”. When Tillich talks about God he talks about sin/grace, about separation and the power of grace that is the power to accept what is unacceptable. This dynamic is hardly realized in point one of the eight points and point one seems to me to be actually a different vision of the Divine than what Tillich has preached. Sorry for the diversion. Looks like we are losing participants. But I note that this thread has had over 5,000 views which means people are reading this thread?

Once again I think Tillich challenges Progressive Christianity in Chapter 4. Progressive Christianity lifts up justice as primary whereas Tillich suggests that justice is secondary. Progressive Christianity may have come to this conclusion because there is no agreement on what God’s “reuniting love” means. We saw Tillich put justice in a secondary position in the first chapter and suggested that those who are most righteous/just may have a problem experiencing forgiveness/love. In this chapter Tillich states, “the justification of him who is unjust is the fulfillment of God’s creative justice, and of His reuniting love”. Read the sentence again and underline “unjust”. Being in a secondary position does not make justice less important nor does it mean that calculating justice is not a necessary condition. Every day we have to calculate justice and every person must support personal actions and political conditions that are more just than the alternatives. I think that being human is to have some sense of “reuniting love” and for humans it is not possible to practice justice without Love although there are persons who are obviously better at this than others. There are not too many persons who practice what Tillich warns about when he talks about “justice without love is always injustice”. In fact, Tillich says “for the other one and I and we together in this moment in this place are a unique, unrepeatable occasion, calling for a unique unrepeatable act of uniting love”. Every situation then becomes on the one hand “listening to the call” of uniting love and on the other hand the calculation of what justice would look like. The hoped for result is what Tillich would call “God’s creative justice”. I think I have witnessed on rare occasions where God’s reuniting love came close to totally being reflected in the form of justice, but for the most part every occasion is an ambiguous mix of our “foolishness” and our “wisdom” because it is impossible (or as Rivanna says, too idealistic) to act fully like God or make the world look exactly like God. That means that our world is/we are at least in part broken. Every occasion will be an ambiguous mixture of justice and injustice. Be aware of any savior who wants to persuade you otherwise (including the new point one of the eight points that speaks of the “oneness and unity of all life”). “Love makes justice just. The divine love is justifying love accepting and fulfilling him who, according to calculating justice, must be rejected”. This is not an “either/or” but is a “both/and” statement. The part of us that must use calculating justice will “reject” while the part of us that hears the call of “reuniting love” will accept. The actual occasion or event will be an ambiguous mixture of both. I don’t think Tillich is rejecting the Golden Rule. I just think he is saying that the Golden Rule is limited and more importantly does not speak to the most essential.

In Chapter Three Tillich does not provide anything new to our contemporary ears, but I think that it is important to try to hear this sermon in the context of Tillich’s time and place. The collection of sermons was published in 1955 so the sermon was given sometime prior to that. This was a time before the women’s movement in the 1960’s and so it seems significant that Tillich chose a woman as an example of “abiding in Love/abiding in God”. Historically this was before Bishop Robinson’s “Honest to God” (Robinson’s important book is heavily influenced by Tillich) and before the “Death of God” movement when there was general acceptance within Christianity that god was a super and separate being. That god required a son in order to negotiate the needs of humanity with the divine. Tillich blew that god up and I think Tillich has to be considered one of the sources for a theology that throws out the separate “personal” or “being” named god for the existential reality of God.

After the first chapter wherein I think Tillich challenges Progressive Christianity I agree that this chapter lifts up Progressive Christianity and one can see why Tillich has had such an influence on current Progressive Christian theologians such as Spong. It seems important to me that Tillich gives no preference to “uncircumcision”. He says to those persons that they should not “boast too much that you have no rites and myths, that you are free from superstitions, that you are perfectly reasonable….It is of no avail”. This speaks to my UU background and also challenges many persons who relate to Progressive Christianity. One reason that I like Spong is that, like Tillich, he is challenging for persons within the Christian Church while at the same time telling people that he loves that Church and inviting people to a reformation. My primary interest has been how we can “do Church” when “it is the maturest fruit of Christian understanding to understand that Christianity, as such, is of no avail”, but at the same time saying that being “uncircumcised” is also “of no avail”. How do we “do Church” based upon “boasting about the fact that there is nothing to boast about” but then "boasting" about the New Being or the New Creation. There is a difference between saying that no religion has ultimate significance and saying there is no ultimate significance. Tillich makes a huge claim that the ultimate significance of the New Being or the New Creation judges all religions and also judges those "without religion". Such a judgment is a challenge to the postmodern mind which runs away from such judgments. My hope rests in Tillich’s claim that humanity “still lives, and it could not live any more if the power of separation had not been permanently conquered by the power of reunion, of healing, of the New Creation”.

Thanks Rivanna for another insightful post. I think you are correct to further explain that “forgiveness happens” only when you are open to it (Tillich says "forgiveness could not come to us if we were not asking for it and receiving it") and so in that sense there may be some “cause/effect” going on, but it is something that is “beyond our control”. I think that Tillich does border on a mystical approach mostly because of the inadequate nature of language. I find Tillich most challenging with his conclusion to this sermon: “Each of us who strives for righteousness would be more Christian if more were forgiven him, if he loved more and if he could better resist the temptation to present himself as acceptable to God by his own righteousness” (let us all forgive Tillich for his dated use of “he” and “him”). Tillich offers some major challenges to Progressive Christianity. The first challenge is that it is possible to suggest that one can be “more Christian” than one is already. In other words being Christian is based upon realities that create the ability to say more Christian. Furthermore, Tillich challenges the assumption that being “more Christian” is related to “more righteousness”. The current emphasis in Progressive Christianity on ethics then is challenged. The point that they will know that we are Christians by how we treat each other ethically is challenged. This is not to say that righteousness is not a good thing. Tillich himself was known for his speaking about political things and Tillich was forced to leave Germany because of his open antagonism towards National Socialism. But Tillich suggests that being “more Christian” means to resist the temptation to be “acceptable to God” via righteousness. It is striking to read Tillich when he says that the woman in this story was rightly judged unacceptable. In other words it was right for her culture to find her unacceptable. She knew. All those around her knew it. The point that Tillich is trying to make is that there is no ethical condition here that makes her “worthy of forgiveness”. Yet she experiences forgiveness and since much has been forgiven her capacity to love is “more”. The “more Christian” is directly related to when “more is forgiven” which enables one to “love more”. This is a challenge to Progressive Christianity, which has not found the ability to talk about sin and forgiveness.

I come back periodically to see what is happening here. For the most part I don’t see much change in the dynamics here that caused me to leave some time ago and so I don’t intend to become real active again. But I cannot resist a discussion focused on Tillich. Tillich has always been a primary influence for me. I worked closely with Bob Kimball in Berkeley who was the executor of Tillich’s literary estate. At any rate here is my response to the sermon “To Whom Much is Forgiven…”. Tillich works hard to show the ground that exists between “the universal and inescapable dominion of sin over this world” and “something” that happens to persons that is “unconditional” (words can not contain that experience because words are entirely conditioned). Tillich would disagree with anyone who says that one can escape or “rise above” the existential reality of sin into some world of universal consciousness. But likewise Tillich would disagree that this existential reality has ultimate significance and that “something” happens to persons that we call forgiveness. But that forgiveness is not tied to any “because”. In other words it is not tied to any cause and effect that exists in the time/space existence. Forgiveness happens “in spite of” the “universal and inescapable dominion of sin over this world”. There is a sense of being “conquered though not removed”. So Tillich is careful to stress that sin and righteousness are real; they are not temporary states of mind that can be lost in a world of universal consciousness. At the same time when one experiences forgiveness “something” happens so that humans, living under the powers of sin and righteousness, are able to accept the realities of life because they have “received” forgiveness (remember no cause/effect). Tillich’s world is a world of ambiguity. “There is a section of life which is nearer to us than any other and often the most estranged from us”. There is nothing we can do that can overcome this existential reality. Tillich uses the word “forgiveness’ in the sense that Jesus could not forgive and people can not forgive themselves. But forgiveness happens. Tillich says that Jesus can and did give love to those who searched for a love based upon forgiveness. The righteous cannot give that love because righteousness does not ask the question for which forgiveness is the answer. The sinner burns with that question and so the sinner is able to receive the answer and is able to love. We are all both righteous and sinner. Tillich would encourage us to love based upon being sinners while at the same time encourage us to be righteous (“The elder son did what he was supposed to do”. Jesus “does not doubt the validity of the law”.) Tillich reminds us that although the righteous part of others and ourselves is not to be rejected, it does not lead to the question that is answered by forgiveness. In fact, there is a tendency to “turn away from righteousness” because we seek a “love that is rooted in forgiveness”. “It is not the love of the woman that brings her forgiveness, but it is the forgiveness she received that creates her love”. This is Tillich crystalized. This challenges the liberal’s tendency to equate God with love without speaking about forgiveness. This may explain the power of the evangelical preacher’s sermon about the need for forgiveness even to modern minds who want to reject any attempt at truth that is not based upon what can be explained with our cause/effect minds. If this is all true then Tillich shows that there is no truth in the claim that Jesus forgives your sins but “something” happens and so when forgiveness happens it is very easy for the Church to persuade people that Jesus is the answer to the question that has been answered in their lives. Then the proverbial climbing up the signpost instead of going down the road happens. And so the evangelical preachers become rich based upon a truth they do not understand.

Your mission/purpose is related to theology. So secular organizations such as the United Way would not be included (nothing wrong with this but excluding the secular world takes out a lot of people--also a theologically related mission implies that somehow people have to learn theology or learn the "unity" version so you have to know where your "customers" are coming from). So how would this mission be different than the Unity Church? Have you had experience in the Unity Church? If you did not want to be a member why not? If you have been a part of a Unity Church how did you find their ecumenical work? If you were not satisfied with the organization of the Unity Church could you take that Church and change the organizational structure to make it more ecumenical or more like the network that you envision? I like your mission/purpose and some form of that would be appropriate for my dream of a new denomination called the Progressive Christian Church which I think should be locally controlled with the abililty to be flexible and dynamic in response to cultural needs and changes. Again thanks for your love of unity and dreaming about how to implement it.

The United Way may be a model for the organization that you are thinking about. They are a network of groups that “operate on parallel levels but may never work together”. Yet I see a mission or a purpose with the United Way that I do not see in your suggestion. One can pretty well tell whether a group is going to be included in the United Way or not. I can not tell how a group will be included/excluded in the network that you are talking about. The mission or purpose will include/exclude. If your network has no mission or purpose it will not include at all. No one will see the point. If your network has such a broad mission or purpose then there is no way to see how “value is added” to our world by such a network then people will not be motivated to spend time with that network versus the United Way, the local peace group, etc. I sense that you are trying to take your love for unity and make it practical. I encourage you to keep thinking along those lines.

Wayseer, Very well said. Thank you.

You are singing my song Soma.

This part of your post just jumped out at me. I know it is based upon my experience in the UU world. The UU world has a history of “anti clergy” and has a history of passive/aggressive behavior towards “leaders”. Somehow they realize they need to have leaders, but there have been some pretty bad experiences for “leaders” coming from those who do not want to be led. I’m wondering how you envision a community without leaders. Is a message board a community? I don't know. Certainly not a Church. I guess it would meet a minimal definition of a community. We may have gatekeepers on message boards, but there are no formal “leaders”. However, you don’t have to go very far on this internet location to find leaders. You have leaders making decisions that affect the face of Progressive Christianity. I would suggest that those leaders will have more impact on Progressive Christianity than anyone posting on this board. This internet location does not appear to be designed to reflect that “one table” that you talk about. It appears to relate to the table of Progressive Christianity. Not only that but it appears to relate to a particular definition of Progressive Christianity (say as opposed to those definitions that focus only on justice issues). I don’t disagree with your goals of peace, etc. and I support the challenge to change starting with our self. I just do not see how the cause of peace, etc will happen without leaders. And obviously leaders will only happen if people are willing to be led.

Do you think there is any basis for doing ecumenical work beyond justice issues? In other words has "ecumenism" just become another word for getting together to do the right things? What about having your local group attempt to do interfaith worship services? These have had some success in some places.

I am not at all clear about what you are saying. Are you saying anything more than was already been said with our discussion on boundaries and the possibility for hope for the Church? You want to identify with those that may not end up at the “mature” table. Valid point. Again I would suggest that because the Church has not been perfect and will never be perfect does not mean that we should not attempt to “do Church”. Again I would suggest that “doing Church” requires boundary sensitivity. Knowing that there may be “closet progressives” among those that exclude does not mean to me that we should not exclude those that exclude. But we have had this conversation. I wondering if you picked up on the idea of “levels” and that is what you are responding to. Are you asking how anyone can “define” maturity and so you object to having a separate table for children? If that is your point I would suggest that pluralism provides that “definition”. If one is not mature enough to recognize that a person with a different faith may also be experiencing the same God then they are not mature enough to come to the “mature” table. That may seem like an “arbitrary” boundary to you. Well yes and no but we have had that conversation. At times you give me the impression that you think that you have “progressed” beyond the need to sit at the table at all. You don’t need others to help you understand yourself. That individualism keeps coming out. To the extent that this is true then you may have no interest to relate to others around the table and so the invitation would be meaningless to you anyway. “No one is listening to the Church” means certainly that you are not. Whether the Church has a future is still up in the air. Certainly some people are interested. Spong is interested. I am interested. But why argue about who is right? Either support the Church or not. Seek to change it or not. I will not judge you for not seeking to change/support the Church. I can certainly understand that position. I would just suggest that you not judge too harshly those that still have hope for the Church and are trying to figure out better ways of doing it.

Maybe..... I would just say I would sit at that table and listen to that part of me that still has the faith of a child. Point is however that you may be able to sit at the children's table, but the invitation to the other table is based upon maturity.

If this is not a Zen koan meant for my enlightenment then it must be related somehow to my post. Give me a hint. Just say it’s like one hand clapping and I’ll know what you mean. Maybe the poverty of my ability to understand?

Soma, I have always appreciated your posts. But many times they do not address how we take theology/philosophy to a “practical” level which is mostly always my concern. This last post does and I thank you for that. I wanted to respond before DavidK comes back and refuses to be a tadpole because I think your idea, if I understand it, has merit. I thought of you when I started to read about Ken Wilbur’s “Integral Spirituality”. Wilbur’s point is that there are “stages of development” and each stage represents a level of organization or a level of complexity. Wilbur makes the statement that I think you made elsewhere that with his “theory of everything” he sees “all views are correct” in the general sense that every level has its own important truths that not only disclose that level, but also act as important and necessary ingredients of the higher levels. Wilbur argues that there is a hierarchy as one “moves up”. “Moving up” involves a dissonance with the level one is on and a willingness to let go or “dieing to” the present level. (I should say that Wilbur’s use of the “death” image is not entirely descriptive because he wants to say that “moving up” may involve differentiation, integration, transcending or including the “lower” level). Wilbur says that “a rational scientist who despises every variety of mythology because it is a lower level is simply someone out of touch with his or her roots”. My “practical” response to Wilbur and perhaps to you is that this “what makes sense” seems inherently tied to the level that you are involved with. In other words the “faith of a child” makes sense from the viewpoint of a child. We can argue that some never get to the next level and so nothing beyond the “faith of a child” makes sense. You can see that many liberals/progressives make this claim about fundamentalism. Wilbur would suggest here that even within the same "level" there are "better" choices than others so that the "faith of a child" has better choices than fundamentalism. But for me the practical question is what we do with this understanding in the ecumenical world. One response is not to talk negatively about levels that may seem “lower” than the one you are “on” not because it is not “respectful”, but because that level is really still a part of you. This is where I think you have a valid point (if I am understanding you with the help of Wilbur). There is much about the “faith of a child” that still speaks to me because it still is not only a part of me, but it gives added dimension to my present spiritual path. However, I still have “practical” questions. The practical issue for the “spiritual elders” is how to relate to those who think they are not only as much of an “elder” as you, but even more of an “elder” than you (like my teenagers acted). Plato would argue that we need “philosopher kings” and I would not disagree. However, by default the system that “works best” is democracy. However, democracy only can work if we do not let children vote. There is a parallel I think in the ecumenical movement which I would suggest is pluralism. Pluralism suggests to me that some immature persons will never make it to the ecumenical table. In other words those persons who are not mature enough to recognize the maturity in other people will not be invited to the table. Like at Thanksgiving, there will be a “children’s table”. That will be an important table because we all set there at one time and we can enjoy being in the same room with that table, but it will not be the table where we will want to set. Also, at the ecumenical table there will not be a place setting for the “highest” spiritual elder and “lower” spiritual elders. Each will recognize that there is hierarchy, but that hierarchy can not be the basis for ecumenical work. We each will return to our own spiritual communities where that hierarchy maybe more recognizable and we will be more comfortable talking about “levels”. So for me the ecumenical world really is involved only with the difference between the children’s table and the adult’s table. In our own spiritual communities we can talk more about what Wilbur is talking about.

I said earlier: I do not think that the ecumenical movement has to include DavidK and we need to exclude those that exclude. However, more problematic is what do we do with the “inclusivists”, those liberals/progressives that have the tendency that I had in wanting to include DavidK. I am thinking that ecumenism demands that we embrace pluralism and that may mean some challenges dealing with “inclusivists”. I keep making the same point. DavidK keeps posting. He is lately the most active poster on this message board. Some have decided to exclude those who exclude. Others keep talking to DavidK. Some have evidently decided to stop talking at all. So far there is only one active DavidK. I do fear that the urge to include will draw others. Maybe the message board could survive, but I do not think the ecumenical movement survives the mix. This message board is not the ecumenical movement but you can see the difficulty of attempting to include in the ecumenical movement those who exclude. The "inclusivists" will continue attempting to bridge a divide that can not be bridged. I have seen some Churches attempt to deal with this by creating a “discussion group” kind of separate from the main mission of the Church in hopes that the consequences of the divide could be diffused—sort of like this message board does with the Debate versus Progressive sections. But that does not work. I continue to watch with interest how people deal with DavidK who is not going away as long as he feels included. So you are sitting around the ecumenical table with DavidK and attempting to plan the next project. What are you going to be able to do? Is it worth it to include all of those groups that exclude around that ecumenical table in hopes that one or two groups contain “closet progressives” trying to get out? Does that not result in a stalemate? For DavidK stalemate is the goal as long as he “reaches” someone reading this message board. For DavidK’s Church stalemate of the ecumenical movement is the goal. Why give them that goal? I think DavidK said somewhere that we use the same words but with entirely different meanings. I have suggested that this is because we do not share the same epistemology. It is not so much a matter of disagreeing with “what you know”, it is a basic disagreement in “how you know”. Diana Eck has made the same point and I have noted that earlier. I have also noted earlier that it is not helpful to quote the Bible to someone who sees the Bible as DavidK does when you do not share the same epistemology. Has this ever worked for anyone? Why do it here? Why do it within the ecumenical movement? Sorry to keep making the same point.