Don't Miss Sunday!!!

The Center for Progressive Christianity Promotes "Pluralism Sunday" For Progressive Christian Communities

This coming Pentecost, May 27, 2007, TCPC is inviting all affiliate congregations and other churches around the country to celebrate what we are calling Pluralism Sunday. We are encouraging the progressive Christian community to take this opportunity to celebrate the harmony and understanding that is possible among followers of different religions and spiritual traditions.

Pluralism Sunday is a step toward breaking down the walls of pride and prejudice that fuel culture clashes and foster physical violence in our homes, in our communities, and in the world.

We are proposing Pluralism Sunday as…

• time to bring people of other faiths to preach or help lead worship
  
  
• time to teach young people about the validity and value of other faiths
  
  
• time to integrate other religious traditions in worship through songs and liturgy
  
  
• time to let your wider community know that your church embraces religious pluralism: it’s an evangelism opportunity for reaching the many people who reject Christianity because they think it claims the only path to God.
  
  
• time for national and regional publicity for participating churches, through the TCPC network

Stay tuned to www.tcpc.org for more information about this event and how you can participate. For now, put Puralism Sunday on your church calendar! And be thinking of ways you can celebrate it. If you have an idea to share, email Rev. Jim Burklo, TCPC’s Pluralism Sunday coordinator (jtburklo@yahoo.com).

First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton is going to participate. At 9:45 Dr. Bill Kirkwood will provide an introduction to Buddhism during the Adult Forum. Worship at 11:00 a.m. We invite all attendees to wear bright orange, yellow, or red (or all three) to symbolize the Spirit!

Award Winning Film in Elizabethton!

This is from the Elizabethton Star. Hope you can join us Sunday night at 7 at First Presbyterian, Elizabethton

Award-winning film to be shown at First Presbyterian Church

Are you concerned about global warming? Want to know what you can do to prevent global warming and save money on your energy bill?

The public is invited to a local debut screening of "Kilowatt Ours," an award-winning video by Jeff Barrie, at the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, on Sunday, May 27, at 7 p.m.

Produced on a $20,000 budget, this 65-minute documentary reveals the under-reported side effects resulting from America's voracious appetite for coal-generated electricity. "Kilowatt Ours" follows the filmmaker on his 18-month journey across the Southeastern United States, where more than six tons of coal are burned annually to generate electricity for the average home.

Barrie takes viewers from our light switches at home to the sources of our energy, examining social and environmental consequences such as global warming, mountaintop removal, air pollution, childhood asthma and mercury contamination.

Leaving the devastation behind, the story makes an uplifting turn, uncovering hope-filled examples of conservation, efficiency and renewable power at work today. Barrie makes the case that environmental problems could be minimized by utilizing alternative technologies available today. The solutions are surprisingly accessible and affordable to the average American.

"Kilowatt Ours" presents viewers with an ambitious plan for shifting America's energy paradigm towards conservation and renewable power. Currently Barrie is taking his film across the Eastern United States with the hope of igniting an energy conservation craze. His "Southern Energy Conservation Initiative" is designed to help homeowners save hundreds of dollars on energy bills while curbing the harmful effects of energy production.

For more information, call 423-543-7576 or check out the Kilowatt Ours Web site at http://www.kilowattours.org.

Witherspoon Slickers

Remember the film City Slickers? It was filmed in part in Abiquiu, New Mexico on the site of Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian Church (USA) conference center.

Here are some nice pics and some nice paintings by Georgia O'Keefe of Ghost Ranch.

At least 17 films were filmed at Ghost Ranch. How many can you name?

Jack Palance won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as Curly. Curly told the slickers that they needed to find "one thing." What is that "one thing?"


The Witherspoon Society has found one thing. Well, actually three things, but it could be one thing in three persons.



1) Peace
2) Global Justice
3) Creation

A nice trinity, eh? Here is the info:

A WEEK FOR PEACE, GLOBAL JUSTICE AND CREATION

July 30 - August 5, 2007
Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico

This summer the Witherspoon Society is joining with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, Presbyterians for Restoring Creation and the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, along with Ghost Ranch, to provide Presbyterians with a rich selection of leaders and topics centering on just what the title says: peace, global justice, and the creation. The groups collaborating for this week together share concern for how we among the privileged can live as Jesus taught while much of the world suffers extreme poverty, disease, homelessness, violence and exploitation of God’s good earth. (Read More)

Then get on your pony and head up to Louisville and visit your neighbors:

BECOMING NEIGHBORS:
An Invitation to Global Discipleship

A Witherspoon conference
on global mission and justice

September 16 - 19, 2007
Louisville, Kentucky

Globalization, America’s new imperialism, terrorism, a widening rich-poor gap, immigration, health care, and so much more going on. Is this how we thought the 21st century would begin?

How are we to understand our calling as Christians in this challenging new world? And more than understanding our calling, how are we to live it out?

We will look at the world and our mission through three different lenses:

• "Covenanting for Justice in the Economy and the Earth," a project initiated by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, in their Assembly in Accra, Ghana, in 2004, provides us with a truly global perspective on the changes going on in these early years of the 21st century.

• "A New Social Creed," which is being drafted by the Presbyterian Church (USA) along with other members of the National Council of Churches to commemorate a "Social Creed of the Churches" that was adopted in 1908, will lead us into rethinking our social mission today.

• Specific campaigns for justice will provide us with concrete examples to consider the ways that mission and justice can be combined in very powerful and effective ways.

Good stuff this summer and Fall!

Here you go, kids...

From CNN,

Gas prices:

Worse than

'81 oil shock

Gas now at highest level, even adjusted for inflation; AAA's reading of nearly $3.20 a gallon marks ninth straight record high in current dollars.

Want to waste time on which religion is correct? How about we do something about what really matters? Thanks to Tennessee Guerilla Women for this one:

So we have on one hand Global Warming and on the other Peak Oil. Hey, if there is not enough oil in the ground to burn enough CO2 to warm the atmosphere that is good news. However, if there is not enough oil in the ground, how are we going to run everything that has any meaning to us?

In an earlier post, a commenter suggested that environmentalism is the new apocalypticism. He could be right. However, there is no divine savior for this one. We are on our own. Time to get together and figure out what to do. See the screening of Kilowatt Ours this coming Sunday evening from 7-9 pm at First Presbyterian Church, Elizabethton!

More on Pluralism

My post, Jesus Was a Pluralist raised some discussion. Of course, I don't know what Jesus was. The "Historical Jesus" is difficult to find. The Jesus Seminar spent a great deal of time seeking to separate the layers of memory and fiction applied to the historical person. Early Christian Writings has a nice (if incomplete) list of scholars who have differing views of the historical Jesus.

Not on that list are James Tabor, April DeConick, Amy-Jill Levine, Walter Wink, James Crossley, and others. I continue to find more each day! I was a little tongue-in-cheek by suggesting that Jesus was a pluralist. Obviously, that is a modern term and it applies to our modern context. A key issue in our modern context is how Christianity relates to other faiths.

I think the real key is the purpose of faith at all, including Christianity. We speak of Jesus as savior, but savior of what and from what? I am not saying that neither faith nor Christianity has a purpose, by no means! But what is its purpose in a time in which the basic doctrines are being shaken (ie. the Fall, the existence of a literal heaven and hell, the "location" of God, and so forth)?

I think that JD Crossan has done a mighty fine job in understanding the scandal of Jesus in his time. The scandal was Jesus against Rome. I am not sure the historical Jesus would have thought in terms as we do about various faiths. I have no doubt that he would not recognize at all the dogma attached to him by the later church. But I do think he acted in a way contrary to the way of Rome and to the oppression of the "normalcy of civilization" to use Crossan's phrase. That is something we can participate in today, if we dare.

I don't think the issue for Jesus or for us is the religoius tradition we happen to be born into and/or decide to accept as a path to the sacred. I think the issue for Jesus (and for us) is whom we will serve (peace through violence, or peace through justice)--Crossan

Food for the Multitude

First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton is honored to cooperate with six other congregations in Carter County--

• St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
• Southside Christian Church,
• Hampton Christian Church,
  
• Memorial Presbyterian Church,
• St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, and
• First United Methodist Church--

in Food for the Multitude.

Each Saturday 200-250 hot meals are served at St. Thomas Episcopal Church. Participating churches serve on a rotation basis throughout the year and each church provides financial and volunteer support.

Our turn is this Saturday and we are always looking for volunteers to cook, serve, and wash dishes. Join us from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m.!

Also, the annual yard/bake sale to provide funding for Food for the Multitude will take place June 8th and 9th at St. Thomas Episcopal Church. We are looking for base sale goodies, workers, and donations.

Bake sale Goodies--cookies 4/bag, cakes, pies, breads would be great! (Please package and label with suggested price).

Workers needed--at least 6 (six) from our church to cover various shifts.

Got Stuff?--Donations are greatly appreciated...Items can be brought to St. Thomas Thursday afternoon or during the sale.

Sale Hours--8a-8p Friday and 8a-5p on Saturday

Information--Contact Kathy Wing at 543-4091 or kep50@hotmail.com

Armageddon 2

Within the last 100 years or so, science has given us a picture of Earth and the Universe that is far beyond what the ancients imagined, or even the Reformers or Founding Fathers of the United States could have imagined. Now we know that

• Earth is about 4.6 billion years old
• The universe is 13.7 billion years old
• Earth is on the arm of the Milky Way Galaxy
• The stars we see are millions of light years away

The Galaxy Song is a good reminder.

Not only has Earth been spinning and revolving around our star for 4.6 billions years, there is no reason to think it won't spin for billions of years more. When our star finally uses up its energy, the galaxy and the universe will continue on its way.

The picture was far different when the biblical texts were written. At that time Earth was conceived as flat with heaven above.


One could easily imagine this Earth and Heaven coming to an end as it came in the beginning by the Word of God. Humanity has been de-centralized by our scientific understanding. Human beings and the planet we inhabit is no longer the center of the universe, nor are human beings the crown of creation. Who knows what is out there? Who knows where evolution will take us?

Yet, the majority of Americans do not "believe in" evolution according to polls. As if we we could not "believe in" gravity! A vast number (whether it is a majority or not, I do not know) think that Earth will come to some kind of "end" and soon. This shows that Americans are deeply ignorant of science and the Bible.

The Bible is often used as a source (the Book of Daniel, Revelation, and the little apocalypse of Mark 13). It is not difficult to find preachers who by referring to passages in the Bible, suggest that the "end times" are near. Christ will come in a literal way to make a new Heaven and a new Earth. The popularity of the Left Behind novels, televangelists such as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, John Hagee, Jack Van Impe, and others continue to intepret political events in the light of so-called biblical prophecy as if the Bible was talking about us.

The basic picture in a nutshell is this:

The world is going to get worse and worse, wars, famine etc.
The "true believers" will be raptured up into the clouds.
There will be a period of tribulation for those left behind.
There will be a big war (Armageddon) on the plains of Megiddo in the Holy Land.
Finally, after a lot stuff, Christ will return and establish an everlasting peace.

The Islamic tradition also has an endtime scenario.

I offer two websites of thousands that offer their version of "the end":

Answering Christianity (one Islamic point of view)
and
Left Behind (LaHaye and Jenkins--a Christian point of view)

If you read these folks, you find common themes:

• The world is divided up into good and evil.
  
• Good and evil will clash in a final battle.
  
• There is nothing you can do about it except to get on the right side.
  
• No bother saving the environment, negotiating peace, looking toward the future.
  
• It is all fixed.
  

Here is an excellent video by PBS, Apocalypse: The Evolution of Apocalyptic Belief and How It Shaped the Western World


Signorelli's depiction of the antichrist as jesus' demonic twin





Take the AntiChrist quiz!

A scientific approach to the future.

• Who knows what the future holds?
• We can be certain that if humans fry ourselves into a crisp, the Universe will go on.
• Earth is home.
• Earth is home for future generations.
• Yet, we are headed for challenging times.
• Energy, Food and overpopulation will challenge us.
• And, we have the capacity to actually destroy life--completely.

Check this out.

Some of the endtime enthusiasts think that nuclear war is part of God's plan.

Do you?

Armageddon

In response to my last post, Sandra asked about discussion regarding Armageddon. Before I go there, I should say how enlightening was the presentation from Dr. Patricia Williams regarding science and religion. She took us through the history of cosmology, geology, and biology. If you didn't make the conference (or if you did) and would like a cd of the event, e-mail me and I will have cds available for $15. She will speak tomorrow at the adult forum at 9:45 regarding Christianity's contribution to science and preach at eleven. The sermon title is "Where is God?" All of her lectures and her sermon will be on the cd for the $15 price. It is well worth it.

She spoke today about "Science as a Form of Biblical Criticism." We have often thought as science as opposed to religion, but this has really been a recent development. Scientific exploration was really the way thinkers in the Western Tradition regarded giving "glory to God." They referred to two books: the Book of Revelation (the Bible) and the Book of Nature (the natural world). The quest was to discover more about both.

Throughout her lectures, I continued to find myself amazed at how quickly and how recently modern science has developed. We have learned so much about the Book of Nature in the last few hundred years, especially this last century. The biggest areas of controversy during the Enlightenment were over the Book of Revelation (the Bible). It used to be interpreted in many different ways, metaphorically, allegorically, etc., but it is really in response to science that fundamentalist or literalist interpretation has taken the forefront. Thanks in part to the Reformers (Luther and Calvin) who insisted on a literal interpretation.

Dr. Williams made a reference to St. Augustine (4th and early 5th century) who said in essence that when the Bible contradicts the Book of Nature, go with the Book of Nature. Today, of course, those who do not understand either book claim that the Book of Nature should be subservient to their interpretation of the Bible. Here is a fine quote from Augustine:

"It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on topics non-Christians know from reason and experience.

"If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him trying to support his foolish opinion from the Bible, how are they going to believe the Bible on the important matters of faith when they think the Bible is full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

"Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on us all when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of the Bible.

For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion."

[From John Taylors, Ancient Christian Writers, The Words of the Fathers in Translation, no. 41 New York: Newman Press, 1982, vol. 1, pp. 42-43] From www.soulforce.org

This leads me to Dr. Dobson and others regarding the Bible. The Bible is an ancient text. It is not the Word of God in any sense that can contradict what we know from the Book of Nature. It is not a book of prophecy that we supposedly can figure out future or current events. This is the distortion that has been put forth by many Christians including Dobson. It is a dangerous distortion. It could lead to our destruction. How? Simply put: If the Bible is prophecy that predicts future events such as inevitable war between good and evil, then to work for peaceful compromise is to go against the Word of God. There is no reason to work for peace between enemies of the U.S. Instead, we are on a fated collision course whose end is destruction (and then redemption for us, the good guys--those of course "redeemed by Christ").

The more we can learn about science and the scriptures (rather than relying on Dobson to interpret for us) will enable us to see what is reality from what is fantasy. More on the nonsense of Armageddon next time.

James Dobson and his 90 Minutes of Fame

I have never been in close contact with the President of the United States, any president, or presidential candidate for that matter. Yet James Dobson claims that he spent 90 minutes with President Bush last week. What kind of clout does it take to meet with the President of the United States for 90 minutes? Check out this from The Raw Story. The article begins:

President George W. Bush met privately with Focus on the Family Founder and Chairman James Dobson and approximately a dozen Christian right leaders last week to rally support for his policies on Iraq, Iran and the so-called "war on terror."

“I was invited to go to Washington DC to meet with President Bush in the White House along with 12 or 13 other leaders of the pro-family movement," Dobson disclosed on his radio program Monday. “And the topic of the discussion that day was Iraq, Iran and international terrorism. And we were together for 90 minutes and it was very enlightening and in some ways disturbing too."

Dobson and his pals from the "pro-family movement" met to discuss Iraq and Iran. I guess that being "pro-family" means he has special insight to international politics. But that's not all. Dobson apparently bragged about all of this on his Monday radio show. Click that link then move to about 21 minutes when Dobson starts. Here is more:

Dobson went on to enumerate a series of meetings convened by Christian right leaders in Washington to discuss the supposedly existential threat to the United States from a nuclear Iran.

“I heard about this danger [from Iran] not only at the White House but from other pro-family leaders that I met during that week in Washington," he said. “Many people in a position to know are talking about the possibility of losing a city to nuclear or biological or chemical attack. And if we can lose one we can lose ten.

"If we can lose ten we can lose a hundred," he added, “especially if North Korea and Russia and China pile on.”

Here is the clincher:

Later in his broadcast, during a discussion about Iran with author and self-proclaimed “prophecy expert” Joel Rosenberg, Dobson drew a parallel between current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Adolf Hitler.

“The world looked at Hitler and just didn't believe him and tried to appease him the way we're hearing in Washington today,” Dobson remarked. “You know, the President seems to me does understand this, as I told you from that meeting I had with him the other day, but even there it feels like somebody ought to be standing up and saying, ‘We are being threatened and we are going to meet this with force -- whatever's necessary.’”

Dobson continued, “Some of our listeners might not like that but I tell you, if we didn't stand up to Hitler, we'd be speaking German today.”

Got your drum? Beat it to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers. The right-wing Christians will be leading it. Iran is next. Saddam was Hitler. But Hitler has now been reincarnated into the president of Iran. I haven't listened to Dobson's program before. But I listened to the whole thing tonight. It is amazing how politically active Focus on the Family is in government. It is not politics alone. It is religion as well. Dobson quotes the Bible as prophecy. His program is filled with apocalyptic language of evil. According to Dobson, we are in the last days. Nothing in his program about diplomacy, negotiation, or conversation of any kind. It is all black and white. They are evil and we are good. It is all planned out in the Bible.

Listen to this program. It will be enlightening regarding the vision of the "pro-family" folks like Dobson who are the biggest supporters of this current administration and its policy of war.

Sausalito Summernight

This one is for Mystical Seeker who blogs eloquently at Find and Ye Shall Seek.

It is also for the good folks at the Sausalito Presbyterian Church. May the Mystical Seeker find you one day and find parking. See here for reference.

Now, I remember dancing to this song in my dorm room when I was a Freshman in college in the early 80's. I especially liked singing the chorus, Sausalito Summernight.

It all comes back to me!

Diesel was a one-hit wonder, and here is the one, Sausalito Summernight, with some footage of California traffic.