rivanna

thanks, Janet.

Halin wrote,

There is a featured article in this week's TIME magazine about Rob Bell and his book. The TIME correspondent seems to think that Pastor Bell's opinions are new and revolutionary.

I haven’t seen the article, but find this conclusion strange in several ways--

partly because Bell’s earlier work had already expressed the universal salvation idea in Velvet Elvis (perhaps inclusivism would be a better term—Bell seems uncomfortable with the word universalism)

partly because there have been a number of recent books affirming the same view – If Grace is True, by Philip Gulley / Jim Mulholland; others by Carlton Pearson, Eric Stetson, etc

and partly because, as Bell points out in Love Wins, universal salvation is not a new concept at all, but dates back to the earliest years of Christianity – to the gospel, to Jesus himself--

“And so, beginning with the early church, there is a long tradition of Christians who believe that God will ultimately restore everything and everybody, because Jesus says in Matthew 19, there will be a renewal of all things; Peter says in Acts 3 that Jesus will restore everything, and Paul says in Colossians 1 that through Christ God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven. In the third century the church father Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, affirmed God’s reconciliation with all people. In the fourth century, Gregory of Nyssa and Eusebius believed this as well. In their day, Jerome claimed that most people -- Basil said the mass of men, and Augustine acknowledged that very many -- believed in the ultimate reconciliation of all people to God.

To be clear, again, an untold number of serious disciples of Jesus across hundreds of years have assumed, affirmed, and trusted that no one can resist God’s pursuit forever, because God’s love will eventually melt even the hardest of hearts….At the center of the Christian tradition since the first church, have been a number who insisted that love wins in the end and all will be reconciled to God….At the heart of this perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence.”

Bruce Cockburn is recommended by Bruce Sanguin in this weeks blog --

http://ifdarwinprayed.com/

I dont know the songs from Big Circumstance but have heard a couple of his early ones, like Wondering where the lions are. Maybe something of his might lend itself. good luck!

I’ve read most of the new book -- as far as the subject and thesis, there is very little we haven’t read before in Borg, Spong, Crossan, Meyers, McLennan etc. Bell’s style is more engaging and visually poetic, also more evangelical --though without the exclusivism; he builds bridges instead of walls.

One idea that I hadn’t seen expressed this way--

“It’s very common to hear talk about heaven framed in terms of who gets in, how to to get in. What we find Jesus teaching is that he’s interested in our hearts being transformed so that we can actually handle heaven. How many of us could handle it, as we are today? How would we each do in a reality that had no capacity for cynicism or slander or worry or pride? Imagine living with no fear. Ever. That would take some getting used to. So would a world where loving your neighbor was the only option. Imagine being a racist sitting down at the great feast and realizing that you’re sitting next to one of those people, the ones you’ve despised for years. Your attitude would simply not survive. The flames of heaven, it turns out, lead us to the surprise of heaven.

If we thirst for shalom, and we long for the peace that transcends all understanding, it’s poured out on us, lavished, heaped, like a feast where the food and wine do not run out. To that craving, yearning, longing, desire God says yes. Yes there is water for that thirst, food for that hunger, light for that darkness, relief for that burden. If we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours. That’s how love works. It can’t be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins.”

It is awful about the NC minister losing his job because of this controversy.

I might order Love Wins, though I don’t expect it contains any real departure from his earlier work. To me, his book Velvet Elvis was very much in keeping with PC.

Kath, I don’t know how you got the idea that Bell is a literalist about the bible – far from it. He says repeatedly the bible is open ended and has to be interpreted, and spends many pages giving examples.

If you want to try one book that would help you understand the PC approach to the bible you might check out Marcus Borg’s Reading the bible again for the first time.

A couple more suggestions --the HarperCollins Study Bible (NRSV).

Also I’ve seen good reviews of the Women’s Bible Commentary (Newsom & Ringe).

To me, Yancey is an interesting author who doesn’t fit into categories all that neatly. I admired a lot of his writing in What's so amazing about Grace. As I recall he seems on the cusp of PC in some ways, like his acceptance of gays.

Yancey said this, in an issue of Christianity Today, 2004 --"Perhaps our day calls for a new kind of ecumenical movement: not of doctrine, nor even of religious unity, but one that builds on what Jews, Christians, and Muslims hold in common....Indeed, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have much in common."

Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh in that post...

One thing implied by Fred Plumer’s article is that progressives would do better to define what Christianity means to them, rather than reject the term as if it were hijacked by fundamentalists.

Also what Plumer says about church leaders was striking –

“Sometimes the battles are over LBGT issues and other times it may be about politics. But far more often, the conflict is rooted in theology and ideology. Frankly, with rare exceptions, clergy cannot freely teach what they learned in seminary or more importantly, what they have come to believe about their own understanding of the Christian religion, the bible or their faith. The resultant message is often mixed or muddled and almost always without passion.

The good news is that… the Anne Rice event is stirring things up and people are reading, writing and hopefully having serious conversations in their homes and in their churches. Maybe this will be an opportunity for more church leaders and people in the pews to have honest dialogue about the meaning of Christianity in the 21st century.”

It is regrettable when people feel they have to dissociate themselves from the term Christian because they think it’s been usurped by right wing extremists. Seems like a defeatist stance. Personally I’d just as soon refer to myself as a Unitarian (or Universalist), or even secular humanist, if someone says Christian and means fundamentalist / evangelist.

It’s not clear whether Anne Rice was rejecting Catholicism (again) or Christianity per se, but it probably had alot to do with her son being condemned for homosexuality. This outrage I can certainly understand.

Michael Rowe wrote in the Huffington Post, that for Rice and many others, Christianity is identified with “a body of believers who no longer represent anything of what we believe, and indeed represent the very opposite of what Christ's teachings are.” It’s as if the Pharisees simply changed their name and remained the same exclusivist, racist, misogynist group that Jesus condemned for their so-called purity codes.

related but slightly off topic –

This forum has been consistently respectful, open, egalitarian – but the past couple of years it seems that women drop out after one or two posts. why is this? has TCPC become The Center for Patriarchal Chauvinism? The moderators are always welcoming toward women who join; I’m just lamenting that there isn’t more of a balance of male/female voices. It’s a lonely feeling --imagine if it were the reverse, and you were the only man speaking on a board that was 99% posts by women. Fred Plumer once said that most internet discussions, even liberal ones, are male dominated, but still...

"Going to the Elvis impersonator semi-finals in Memphis..."

does this mean you're one of the contestants?

sounds like fun.

Hi progressive,

Thanks for the recommendations. There are some excellent blogs and reviews on the Beatitudes site, with many women contributing. In the news section I saw that Marcus Borg has another book coming out this fall, Speaking Christian, sounds interesting.

This is a bit of a departure from the soul searching and personal journeys, but I thought it might be helpful to have some idea of how people here view current events in the US and elsewhere. If you don’t mind my asking - which of these issues seems most pressing to you at this point? Financial regulations, the energy bill / environment, implementing health care reform, employment, immigration laws, gun control, the Middle East, terrorism? gay rights, other concerns?

On a related note—why aren’t more women posting on this progressive Christian forum-- surely that can’t be too much “audacity of hope” :-)

from Frederick Buechner –

“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”

“You can be sure, whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are. More often than not, God is speaking to you of the mystery of where you have come from and summoning you to where you should go next.”

Not sure that last part has been clear to me very often, but I almost always get tears in my eyes when I read the bible.

Janet,

Maybe you should start your own PC radio show! Or start planning a program for when your kids are grown. You have musical talent, compose your own lyrics, play / sing in church-- ? you could do it!

That’s terrible about the anti-gay statement on the air – shameful. I’ve always read in theology books, that the biblical negativity toward homosexuality was mainly due to the widespread practice of older men seducing or raping young boys, owning them as slaves etc. The NT was against that type of abuse, rather than prohibiting loving relationships among same gender adults. Paul may well have been gay or bisexual himself. I would bet at least one of the apostles was homosexual, and many of the first disciples.

I’m not into most religious pop music (though I think there’s plenty that could be called liberal). I just wish there were a classic rock station that didn’t keep repeating the same old songs while neglecting hundreds of great hits from the 60s--80s that get little or no play.

Greetings Dutch, good to see you again. Happy new year.

I guess the C.S. Lewis quote affirms the PC idea of “to each his (or her) own.”

Tariki, perhaps you won’t mind this rather well known poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, a native of northern Ontario:

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own. If you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Julian of Norwich is great. Franz Wright is perhaps a bit too dark. This time of year with the shorter colder days affects my whole outlook, despite the fact that holidays are just around the corner (and I’m way behind on preparations!)

A short quote from poet Louise Bogan -

“I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!”

Beautiful poems - Edward Thomas I’m familiar with, but this name was new to me.

here is another by Franz Wright –so many good ones in God’s Silence it’s hard to choose. Though his life has been full of anguish and addiction (his father James Wright, a well known poet, abandoned him when he was a child), his writing always aches to get beyond his own private demons and drama toward a larger order – sometimes with ironic wit /detachment, more often a blend of passion / compassion--

Why is the Winter Light

Why is the winter light disturbing,

and who if anyone shares this impression?

Surrounded by so vast a cloud of witnesses

why do I feel this alone

in the first place?

Why do I want to live forever,

and the next day fervently wish I had died

when I was young? Why do I abruptly feel blessed?

Empty me of the bitterness and disappointment

of being nothing but myself

Immerse me in the mystery of reality

Fill me with love for the truly afflicted

Awaken me to the reality of this place

And from the longed for or remembered place

And more than this, behind each face

induct, oh introduce me

into the halting soundless words of others’ thoughts

Blot me out, fill me with nothing but consciousness

of the holiness, the meaning of these unseeable,

all these unvisitable worlds which surround me:

others’ actual thoughts – everything I can’t perceive

yet know

know it is there.

Another one by Mary Oliver

MAYBE

Sweet Jesus, talking his melancholy madness,

stood up in the boat

and the sea lay down, silky and sorry.

So everybody was saved that night.

But you know how it is

when something different crosses the threshold –

the uncles mutter together, the women walk away,

the young brother begins to sharpen his knife.

Nobody knows what the soul is.

It comes and goes, like wind over the water –

sometimes, for days, you don’t think of it.

Maybe, after the sermon, after the multitude was fed,

one or two of them felt the soul slip forth

like a tremor of pure sunlight,

before exhaustion, that wants to swallow everything,

gripped their bones

and left them miserable and sleepy,

as they are now,

forgetting how the wind tore at the sails

before he rose and talked to it –

tender and luminous and demanding as he always was –

a thousand times more frightening

than the killer sea.

Always liked "This be the verse" --must be Larkin's most famous poem.

Here is one by Louise Gluck, from her book THE WILD IRIS

The Red Poppy

The great thing

is not having a mind.

Feelings: oh, I have those;

they govern me. I have a lord

in heaven called the sun,

and open for him, showing him

the fire of my own heart,

fire like his presence.

What could such glory be if not a heart?

Oh my brothers and sisters,

were you once like me, long ago,

before you were human?

Did you permit yourselves

to open once, who would never

open again? Because in truth

I am speaking now

the way you do. I speak

because I am shattered.

A touching, powerful poem by Laura Gilpin – I love it when a short piece can convey so much. I’d like to see more of her work.

Also liked the Billy Collins poem on Buddha in your Trees thread.

I tried to recall a poem related to thanksgiving or feasting, none came to mind, but this short poem by Rene Char seems to be about gratitude for small things – translated by Franz Wright, whose work is intensely spiritual.

The Truth Will Set You Free

You are the lamp, and you are the night.

This small upstairs window

is yours to look out from,

this cot is for your exhaustion alone;

this single drop of water’s

going to cure your thirst forever!

And these four walls belong to the being

your pure light brought into the world,

oh prisoner—

oh bride.

Joseph,

thanks for posting the link-- I admired Brian Davis’ column on religion not being about belief, and Ian Lawton’s sermon on afterlife.

It’s a shame that Dutch had to leave, hopefully in time he can return.

Tariki,

Beautifully put - my belief is universal salvation (or restoration) also, and Ive never seen it better expressed.

Luther said we cant know any more about life beyond death than a fetus does about the world it's going to enter. But universalism is the only view of eschatology that reconciles a loving God with a suffering world.

Guess I have to respond to this since my grandmother was a Buchanan! Never been to Scotland, though my husband has and loved the people and scenery. My dad had an ancestor who was on the Jamestown voyage and then on the Mayflower.

What’s on your Bucket List?

I admired Janet’s list also.

I’ve always liked John 14 through 16, the chapters that include Jesus saying “My peace I give to you, not such as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

For me, Jesus’ teachings are best seen in context --extracting them as abstract statements can give a false impression. He was acutely aware of each person’s condition and what they needed to hear. Reading the gospels, we need to imagine the encounters – the setting, the cultural expectations --to fully appreciate Jesus’ words.

Also I’m drawn to the parables because they can stand alone without knowing the social situation in which they were spoken. The one about the unjust steward has always fascinated me. The father’s good gifts, the children in the marketplace. And the parable of the talents. For me and I imagine for many others here, there is a need to activate or affirm one’s spirituality by writing on line. Sometimes we might feel like burying it, out of fear of being misunderstood. But the parable makes it clear that we are to continue to be bold and unafraid to take risks as the work of faith in action. Arland Hultgren says about this parable, “Jesus invites his disciples into the joy of his kingdom, and we are not meant to worry too much about securing our own lives, but live with self-abandon and witness, knowing that the grace of God in Christ will more than compensate for any mistakes we might make.”

Last week my sublet at the downtown art studio came to an end, kind of a sad time. One of my artist friends cheers me up with her emails, here’s her latest--

A man was riding his Harley along a California beach when suddenly from the sky came a booming voice, and the Lord said, “Because you have tried to be faithful to me in many ways, I will grant you one wish.”

The biker pulled over and said, “Lord, please build a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over anytime I want.”

The Lord said, “Your request is too materialistic --and it would nearly exhaust several natural resources. I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Try and think of something that could possibly help mankind.”

The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, “Lord, I wish that I, and all men, could understand our wives and girlfriends. I want to know how she feels inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothing's wrong, and how I can make her truly happy.”

The Lord replied, “You want two lanes or four on that bridge?”

I’ve always liked the way Merton and others relate Christianity to Buddhism. Marcus Borg sometimes compares the wisdom books of the bible to the Tao. He says Ecclesiastes’ critique of conventional wisdom is similar to what we hear in the writings of Lao Tzu--subversive, alternative wisdom that leads beyond convention...the “road less traveled.” The parallels seem to flow out of similar reflections on human experiences and the sacred.

A saying from Saichi: "The truth is, there is nothing the matter with one; and there is nothing more that makes one feel at home."