I doubt anyone who reads Progressing Spirit believes there is a supernatural god called God who hands out parcels of land to this people or that. Yet many continue to use the word “god” to name something they believe in, which is not a supernatural being who hands out parcels of land to this people or that.
Ever since the first mind countenanced an unknown source of benevolence, religion has held us together as powerfully as it has driven us apart.
If you’re a mainline Christian, you likely experienced liturgy even if you are of a less liturgical tradition than the Episcopal or Presbyterian churches. And very possibly, even if you don’t know what it is, you’ve been steeped in it.
What will happen if we disappear? Not “we” as in Earth’s upright and most capable digit-users, though I’m sure we’ll deal with that over the course of time, but “we” as in progressive thinkers in the church. What will happen if we disappear?
As I write this, 2022 is in its final quarter providing an opportunity to reflect on the tenth anniversary of the worst year of my life. And one of the best. Reviewing our lives is always complicated, isn’t it? Let me share with you.
While at theological college, a challenge seized with an eager ferocity, was the imperative attributed to theologian Karl Barth that we preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.
We evolve through the work we do in the course of our too-short and too-harried days. Embracing that for which we are grateful is our evolution toward joy. Witnessing to that which went well is our evolution toward self-worth. Acknowledging that which we regret is an evolution toward wholeness. These are the things that our faith traditions have offered us.
The number of people whose death would be felt around the world is limited. Bishop John Shelby Spong was surely one of them. It is impossible to determine how far or wide his influence has and will continue to be.
In Canada, it wasn’t just the Roman Catholic Church involved. Both the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church also participated in the residential schools program which, for decades, forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families for the purpose of educating them into the dominant white, Christian culture of the country.
Using the word “god” to conjure an all-powerful deity with biblically-proportioned prejudices and condemnations is dramatically different from using the word “god” to call us to a “no matter what” sort of love. I talk about this a lot. About ditching archaic language. About reading more than just the Bible or not reading the Bible at all.