SINGULARITY: The Gospel of John & The Mind of God
Posted on Mar 17, 2011 - 02:22 PM
In my mind, I’m going to South Carolina
Posted on Feb 25, 2011 - 01:08 PM
by Debo W. & David R. Dykes, The D. L. Dykes, Jr. Foundation
February 26, 2011
Anderson, South Carolina, February 2011. More than 700 people attended a FAITHANDREASON® seminar for progressive Christians in this small southern town with its civil war history, to hear Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan present, “Parables By & About Jesus.” Natives of Anderson, SC, were already familiar with the sponsoring organization, The Anderson School of Lay Theology, inaugurated in 1960 by the very visionary young minister, Glenn Dorris. It was a 50th year celebration for the school which has brought some of the most prominent and widely respected scholars, authors, and lecturers to this southern city in the belly of the old confederacy.
Here’s what happened. The Anderson School of Lay Theology decided that after 50 years of faithfully bringing some of the best and most progresses voices of the church to the region, it was time to take their work to the next level and pack the house, creating a critical mass of people who would participate a two day seminar and then engage in follow-on networking with other progressive congregations and groups in neighboring towns and cities.
They decided to collaborate with a notoriously progressive organization also from the deep south, The D. L. Dykes, Jr. Foundation of Jackson, Mississippi. Together the Anderson School of...
Primordial Elements Swim In A Plasma Soup: could it be the mind of God?
Posted on Feb 04, 2011 - 04:57 PM
Scientists call the initial instant of creation, Singularity. And, all the present universe that is, was contained in that singular, unimaginable, brilliant flash. Theoretically, we can take a snap shot of the first billionth of a second when primordial elements swam in a plasma soup and the first matter producing particles were cooked over a fire with temperatures in excess of 3000 billions of degrees.
Now, for those progressives, particularly Christians, who are interested in John the Evangelist, John, in quite different images and terms, describes how the world began. John says that “in the beginning,” in those initial instants, wisdom was active; intelligence was at work. The mind of God was ordering all things.
Clearly the John tradition takes great interest in what was present when the world began. The John tradition makes the startling claim that no thing was created outside of the intelligence and the wisdom of the one who formed it.
The eminent biblical scholar, Gerhard Von Raad, has said that one very good way to understand what God meant when God told Moses that his name is “I am that I am,” would be to translate it to mean, “I who cause to be.” We might improvise with the scholar’s translation and expand it to, “I am the one who makes everything that is.”
Just as the Bible can be said to be the weaving together of a tapestry of...
Our Nation of Weeping Executioners
Posted on Jan 06, 2011 - 03:03 PM
A recent Los Angeles Times’ profile of Rev. Jane Adams Spahr wonderfully captured the loving spirit of one of my few heroes in the Presbyterian Church. This courageous lesbian minister has fought prejudice and fear within our denomination, refusing to surrender to voices of intolerance within the church.
The article also captured the sense of helplessness which threatens to unravel not only the Presbyterian system of democratic government, but, possibly, our nation’s as well.
The Times reporter noted that at Rev. Spahr’s third trial, a religious tribunal found her guilty of violating the Presbyterian constitution because she conducted same-sex marriage ceremonies. The story explains:
But then several of [the tribunal] members apologized to Spahr, and their decision admonished not the faithful minister but the faith itself. “We call upon the church to reexamine our own fear and ignorance that continues to reject the inclusiveness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” panel members wrote while finding Spahr guilty in Napa last August. “We as a church need to be able to respond to … reality as Dr. Jane Spahr has done with faithfulness and compassion.”
Maria L. La Ganga, “Hers is the ministry of ‘yes,’” Los Angeles Times, January 4, 2011.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-minister-profile-20110104,0,6767588,full.story
In other words, the liberal...
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