Pay Dirt: Apostrophe

Folks - here is a poem written by a good friend of mine...you can read it and more at his blog (www.bookpuddle.blogspot.com):

Apostrophe

Life’s one.
Remember how long we were confused about it?
Do you? I recall asking
Your opinion of the Fall.
You argued for myth, and I stuck to
Fact. So much, I damn near convinced myself.
The serpent was not even a snake, you said.
And I asked how you knew this.
I was there, you said.
You bit the fruit?
It was not a fruit.

And what’s so wrong with wanting to know?
This was you, and I, donkey-like, replied
Some things are a violation of the --
You lovingly stopped me, with a finger on
My stupid lips, and you whispered,
A violation of what?
Knowledge we were denied access to, I breathed,
And knew I was wrong.
Always, had been
Wrong.

Listen, dear -- you began. But I stopped you
A finger to your lips.
And just as I said We are God’s,
You proved to me that we are gods.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Pay Dirt: Top 2007 Religious News Stories

The 2007 Top Religion Stories as selected by Religion Newswriters are:

1. Evangelical voters ponder whether they will be able to support the eventual Republican candidate, as they did in 2004, because of questions about the leaders' faith and/or platform. Many say they would be reluctant to vote for Mormon Mitt Romney.
2. Leading Democratic presidential candidates make conscious efforts to woo faith-based voters after admitting failure to do so in 2004.
3. The role of gays and lesbians in clergy continues as a deeply dividing issue. An Episcopal Church promise to exercise restraint on gay issues fails to stem the number of congregations seeking to leave the mainline denomination, while in a close vote, Canadian Anglican bishops vote to nullify lay and clerical approval of same-sex blessings. Meanwhile, Conservative Jews become more open to gay leadership.
4. Global warming rises in importance among religious groups, with many Mainline leaders giving it high priority and evangelical leaders split over its importance compared to other social and moral causes
5. The question of what to do about illegal immigration is debated by religious leaders and groups on both sides of the issue. Some take an active role in supporting undocumented immigrants.
6. Thousands of Buddhist monks lead pro-democracy protest in Myanmar, which is brutally crushed after a week.
7. Some conservative U.S. Episcopalians realign with Anglican bishops in Africa and elsewhere in the global South, initiating legal disputes about church property ownership.
8. The Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote rules on the conservative side in three major cases with religious implications: upholding a ban on partial-birth abortions, allowing schools to establish some limits on students' free speech, and denying a challenge to the Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.
9. Death takes evangelical leaders known, among other things, for their television work: Jerry Falwell, Rex Humbard, D. James Kennedy, plus Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, and Jim Bakker‚s ex-wife, Tammy Faye Messner. Other deaths include Gilbert Patterson, presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ, and Bible scholar Bruce Metzger.
10. The cost of priestly sex-abuse to the Roman Catholic Church in the United States surpasses $2.1 billion with a record $660 million settlement involving the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and earlier settlements this year totaling $100 million in Portland, Ore., and Spokane, Wash.

The survey polled active members of the Religion Newswriters. Of those polled, 80 people responded, for a 27% response rate. The poll was conducted via an electronic ballot from Dec. 7-13, 2007. Respondents were asked to select the top 10 from 20 choices.

Religion Newswriters is the world's only membership association for people who write about religion in the general circulation media. It is the leader in providing tools and training to help journalists write about religion with balance, accuracy and insight. The annual Top 10 survey has been conducted for more than 35 years.

Pay Dirt: Bishop Spong's Christmas Wisdom

The story of Christmas as told by the biblical evangelists has a meaning beyond the rational. It portrays a truth beyond the scientific; it points to a reality that no life touched by this Jesus could ever deny. The beauty of our Christmas story is bigger than literalization could ever produce. For when this Lord is known, when love, acceptance, and forgiveness are experienced, when we become whole, free and affirmed people, the heavens do sing, "Glory to God in the Highest," and on earth there is "Peace and Good Will among Us All."

- John Shelby Spong

Pay Dirt: The Magnificat

The Magnificat

Joy Cowley

My soul sings in gratitude.
I'm dancing in the mystery of God.

The light of the Holy One is within me

and I am blessed, so truly blessed.

This goes deeper than human thinking.

I am filled with awe

at Love whose only condition

is to be received.

The gift is not for the proud,

for they have no room for it.

The strong and self-sufficient ones

don't have this awareness.

But those who know their emptiness

can rejoice in Love's fullness.

It's the Love that we are made for,

the reason for our being.

It fills our inmost heart space

and brings to birth in us, the Holy One.

****************************

Merry Christmas to all!!

CM

Pay Dirt: The Human Perception of God

Larry J. Kluth from Mesa, Arizona, writes: Where was the Christian God before he appeared to Moses and declared that the Israelis were his chosen people? Why didn't the great civilizations of the world, prior to this appearance, know about this God?

*****************************************

Dear Larry,

I'm tempted to follow the old adage attributed to Augustine of Hippo, who, when asked what was God doing before he created the world, responded, "God was creating hell for people who ask questions like that." I shall, however, avoid that temptation.

The Christian God, as you describe this deity, did not appear to Moses. That would be the God of the Jews. The idea that any people are God's specially chosen is a tribal idea that is shared by all tribal entities. We tend to associate that idea with the Jews because Christians have incorporated the Jewish God into the Christian story by proclaiming that we have encountered this God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses in a new way in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

However, it is not God who is ever changing. It is the human perception of God. Of course, God was present among the ancient people of the world. God was called by different names, endowed with different qualities and understood in different ways. Some of these aspects of God are seen as immoral by people living today, such as child sacrifice, the purging of anyone who thought outside the box and the divine blessing of violence.

The human God consciousness is always growing. This is true even in the Judeo-Christian faith story. There is an enormous difference between the God of Moses, who was perceived as sending plagues on Israel's enemies, the Egyptians, the last of which was the murder of the firstborn son in every Egyptian household; the God of Joshua, who was perceived as stopping the sun in the sky to facilitate the slaughter of the Ammonites by Joshua's army; or the God of Samuel, who ordered King Saul to commit genocide on the Amalekites; when that God is compared to the God of Jesus, who said, "Love your enemies."

Please remember that while the experience of God may be a universal experience, the explanation of the God experience is always a human creation shaped by the perceptions of people living in history. Every God explanation, every sacred text and every creedal formula is always time bound and time warped. That is why literalizing religious formulas is so destructive. It is literalized formulas that cause us to believe our limited view of God is the same as God. Out of that view come questions like yours that reveal the absurdity of so many popular religious claims and therefore I thank you for your question.

- John Shelby Spong

Pay Dirt: Pentecostal threats

Cardinals discuss Pentecostal threats
By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer

VATICAN CITY - The Roman Catholic Church must figure out what it is doing wrong in the battle for souls, because so many Catholics are leaving the church to join Pentecostal and other evangelical movements, a top Vatican cardinal said Friday.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, who heads the Vatican's office for relations with other Christians, told a meeting of the world's cardinals that the church must undergo a "self-critical pastoral examination of conscience" to confront the "exponential" rise of Pentecostal movements.

"We shouldn't begin by asking ourselves what is wrong with the Pentecostals, but what our own pastoral shortcomings are," Kasper told the gathering, noting that such evangelical and charismatic groups count 400 million faithful around the world.

The Vatican has been increasingly lamenting the rise of Protestant evangelical communities, which it describes as "sects," in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere, and the resulting flight of Catholics. In Brazil alone, Roman Catholics used to account for about 90 percent of the population in the 1960s; by 2005, it was down to 67 percent.

Kasper's comments came on the eve of Saturday's ceremony to elevate 23 new cardinals. As he did during his first consistory in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI asked the world's cardinals to come to Rome early for a meeting to discuss church concerns.

This year, Kasper briefed the cardinals on relations with other Christians, focusing on the church's relations with the Orthodox, Protestants and Pentecostal movements.

Kasper said the rise of independent, often "aggressive" evangelical movements in Africa and elsewhere had complicated the church's ecumenical task. Nevertheless, Kasper told reporters that "ecumenism is not an option but an obligation."

Kasper opened his remarks by updating the cardinals and cardinal-designates on an important new document approved by a Vatican-Orthodox theological commission that has been working to heal the 1,000-year schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

In the document, Catholic and Orthodox representatives both agreed that the pope has primacy over all bishops — although they disagreed over just what authority that primacy gives him.
The development is significant since the Great Schism of 1054 — which split the Catholic and Orthodox churches — was precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the pope.
Kasper told the cardinals that the document was an "important turning point," since it marked the first time that Orthodox churches had agreed there is a universal level of the church, that it has a primate, and that according to ancient church practice, that primate is the bishop of Rome — the pope.

Kasper said that the Vatican's relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, in particular, had become "significantly smoother" in recent years.

"We can say there's no longer a freeze but a thaw," Kasper said.

Tensions between the two churches have been strained over Orthodox accusations that the Vatican is seeking converts on traditionally Orthodox territories, particularly in eastern Europe — charges that Rome denies.

The rift has precluded a meeting between a pope and Patriarch Alexy II, long sought by Pope John Paul II and pursued by Benedict.

Kasper noted that Moscow had "never categorically excluded" such an encounter.

Pay Dirt: God in Creation?

Well, I just returned from a safari in South Africa. It was a very cool experience. And I must say that seeing nature in its finest really makes one reflect about whether all of 'this' could really just be the result of random luck.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not questioning the validity of evolution or that the earth is billions of years old or anything like that. I'm also not suggesting that God intervened periodically to 'create' a new species.

But what I am raising is utter awe about the beauty and complexity of the planet we find ourselves on. I found it so inspiring that it pushes me to believe that all of 'this' was started by God who somehow set all of 'this' in motion and shaped the evolutionary path to allow us to continue to evolve and produce some of the most amazing beauty imaginable.

On the safari, I saw everything from the most beautiful, peaceful scenes to the raw, ugliness of animal carnage. Here are a few examples of what I saw:

Sunsets...

Tall beauties...

Brutalities of nature...

Prehistoric wonders...

Living pieces of art...

Overall, a very cool experience! And one that makes me appreciate the wonders of nature all the more!

Pay Dirt: Why Are You Still a "Christian"?

Renee from the Internet writes: I was a Christian once - for about 18 years, or most of my adult life. But then I read the Bible honestly and realized it was mostly evil. I am now Pagan/Hindu and will never be a Christian again. I know you agree that there is much evil in the Bible. You even reject basic Christian doctrines like being born in sin, the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus' blood for those who believe and heaven and hell. How then are you still a Christian? The depiction of Satan in the Bible is far better that the depiction of God. If the Bible reflects God in any way truly, then he is a monster and Satan is a hero for rebelling. Don't you agree? So, why are you still a Christian?

John Shelby Spong responds: Dear Renee, no, I do not agree. Of course, there are parts of the Bible that reflect tribal hatred and portray God as a vindictive ogre. I point them out constantly in this column and in my books. However, that fact does not render the core message of the Bible to be either wrong or irrelevant. The Bible defines God as love in the book of Hosea. The Bible defines God as justice in the book of Amos. The Bible asserts that proper liturgy is not God's desire but proper lives that "do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God" are. That is the message of Micah. The Bible stretches the tribal deity of its own limited past into a universal presence in the book of Malachi. The Bible enjoins us to rise to ever new levels of humanity in Jesus' exhortations to love your enemies and to bless those who persecute you. So I study the Bible daily and treasure it as a resource.

In three quick sets of statements, I cherish the Bible because
- It affirms that my life is holy and that all of us were created in God's image.
- It proclaims that I am loved no matter what I do or who I am.
- It calls me to be all that I can be.

Please note the Trinitarian formula, for that is what I mean when I acknowledge God as Father (creator), Son (fully loving life), and Holy Spirit (life giver).

I do not worship the Bible. I do not regard it as the inerrant word of God. I know its content far too well for that to be a possibility. I accept the Bible for what it is, the chronicle of a faith story that grows as people journey through time, seeking to understand their God experience.

The things you call basic Christian doctrines like "being born in sin" or the "vicarious sacrifice of Jesus' blood for those who believe" and "heaven and hell" are not basic Christian doctrines to me at all. They are various theories developed by a behavior-controlling religious institution designated to frighten people or to make them pliable. There is no sense of hell in Paul, for example, and the vicarious sacrifice as the interpretation of the cross appears not to be something that Jesus taught but the message of the Jewish Day of Atonement being literalized and applied to Jesus by a later generation of Christians. Only then did Jesus become the new sacrificed Lamb of God. I have no desire to worship a God who requires the death of Jesus as the means of achieving salvation. Sadism is hardly a Godlike attribute, neither is the victim's masochistic pleasure in being crucified. That idea of salvation is simply not consistent with the message of the Fourth Gospel that the purpose of Jesus was to give life abundantly.

So I suggest that the Christianity you reject is not Christianity at all, but a terrible distortion that we all need to reject. Christianity, as I understand it, is far more than that. I hope you will find someday a church that does not distort Christianity, as your present experience seems to indicate.

The Eightfold Path

This is my second entry on Buddhism...this one covers "the eightfold path", which is where I left off my last Buddhism entry. To recap, in the four noble truths, Buddha started with the symptom (life is out of joint), followed with the diagnosis (our drive for private fulfillment is causing life to be out of joint), and then with the prognosis (we can cure this disease by overcoming the egoistic drive for separate existence). His last noble truth was the prescription...the eightfold path.

The eight steps in the path are preceded by one that he doesn't include in his list, but refers to so often elsewhere that is was likely a presupposition here: right association - that is, we should associate ourselves with people that will help us attain illumination (truth-winners) and converse with them, serve them, observe their ways, and imbibe by osmosis their spirit of love and compassion. With that preliminary step in place, here are the eight steps proper:

1: Right views - life needs a map the mind can trust if we are to deploy our energies in the right direction; we need to know what life's problem basically is. As such, right views consist of the four noble truths (I know, a little circular, but I didn't come up with these!).

2: Right intent - this involves making up our hearts as to what we really want...people who achieve greatness are almost invariably passionately invested in some one thing.

3: Right speech - this involves becoming aware of our speech and what it reveals about our character. Instead of resolving to speak nothing but the truth, it is likely more realistic to start by trying to notice how many times per day we deviate from the truth and follow-up by asking why we did so. Similarly with uncharitable speech. Once we do this, we can move on to try to attempt changes in our speech. First toward veracity (habitual observance of truth in speech or statement) and second toward charity.

4: Right conduct - again, we should start by trying to understand our behaviour before trying to improve it...reflect on our actions with an eye to the motives that prompted them. Then move our conduct to selflessness and charity.

5: Right livelihood - if we are intent on liberation, we should engage in occupations that promote life instead of destroying it...occupations that were conducive to spiritual progress as opposed to ones that would impede it.

Note that the third, fourth and fifth steps can be grouped under the heading of morality - with Buddha making it clear that moral ineptitude risks not the wrath of a deity, but the retardation of one's own inner development.

6: Right effort - Buddha laid tremendous stress on the will...reaching the goal requires immense exertion - there are virtues to be developed, passions to be curbed, and destructive mind states to be expunged so compassion and detachment can have a chance. "Those who follow the way" says Buddha, "might well follow the example of an ox that marches through the deep mire carrying a heavy load. He is tired, but his steady gaze, looking forward, will never relax until he comes out of the mire, and it is only then he rests." A low level of volition for this goal won't do. Buddha added some thoughts on timing and balance, having more confidence in an approach involving a steady pull rather than in quick spurts.

The last two steps represent the most distinctive aspects of Buddha's teaching - namely the pivotal importance of meditation (or mental development, or mental cultivation). This involves two things which are described in the last two steps.

7: Right mindfulness - "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think." Right mindfulness aims at witnessing all mental and physical events, including our emotions, without reacting to them, neither condemning some nor holding on to others. Through right mindful practice, we begin to see that every mental and physical state is in flux, and habitual clinging to these states is at the root of much of life's problems. We also see that we have little control over our mental states and our physical sensations, and normally little awareness of our reactions. Most important, we begin to realize that there is nobody behind the mental or physical events, orchestrating them. It becomes apparent that consciousness itself is not continuous...like the light from a light bulb, the on/off is so rapid that consciousness seems to be steady, whereas in fact it is not. With these insights, the belief in a separate self-existent self begins to dissolve and freedom to dawn.

8: Right concentration - while the eighth step, in many ways it comes before the seventh because to undertake mindfulness exercises effectively, one must first learn to focus on'e mind. Buddhism counsels patient, persistent attempts at sustaining one's full attention on a single point, a common one being simply one's breathing. Initial attempts are inevitably shredded by distractions; slowly, however, attention becomes sharper, more stable, more sustained.

It should be noted that concentration does not end when mindfulness begins; in fact, they are mutually reinforcing.

Note: the above was extracted from Buddhism: A Concise Introduction by Huston Smith and Philip Novak.

Pay Dirt: Why Worship?

From John Shelby Spong's weekly email Q&A:

Chris from Central Texas writes: I attended your recent lectures in Austin and realize I forgot to ask you a question that has been increasingly on my mind: How does the concept of "worship" figure into your vision of a new Christianity? For a long time I have felt that God doesn't need my worship or praise, and to think that God does need my worship and adoration seems silly. (I think that "worship" and "adoration" are different from feeling a sense of gratitude and connection to God.) My church has been having some serious discussions regarding worship changes and I've heard some folks say that worship shouldn't be about us — it's simply about praising God. Well, I think that worship is very much about me and about the other worshipers as well — it's about drawing us closer to God, about the community called the church, about inspiring us to care for others, etc. Creeds that I can't say, prayers of confession that beat people up, hymns focused on atonement messages, and an emphasis on liturgy and ritual over spirituality only impede my relationship to God. Am I just spoiled and self-centered to want a more meaningful and more relevant worship experience?

Spong's reply: Dear Chris, yours is a perennial question. I cannot imagine a God who "needs" worship, or a God who has some innate need to be flattered by the human praise that is so often the content of worship. Listen to the words of such hymns as "How Great Thou Art" and "Almighty, Invisible God Only Wise."

Worship is always a human activity that meets a human need. Whenever one engages in worship, it is not for the purpose of working on God but on the human being who is worshiping. Worship is designed to enhance our humanity: to increase our capacity to live, our ability to love and our courage to be all that God created us to be. If worship makes us "religious" or "righteous" or turns us into being intolerant "true believers," then it has become nothing more than an act of idolatry.

Worship in most of our churches today is a mixed blessing. It is frequently the result not of careful study and critical planning, but of rote and tradition. Much of it is designed to keep us childlike and immature and to make a virtue out of chronic dependency. One of the reasons churches exhort its people to be "born again" is that this will postpone forever the necessity of their growing up.

Worship at its heart is the practice of becoming aware of the presence of God so that we become more deeply and fully human. I judge every worship experience in which I participate by that definition.

- John Shelby Spong