[Dialogue] What is a social pioneer to do?

[KroegerD@aol.com]

The 2 Spong citations below were most of my basis for my  response
 
12/1/04
 
Following the election many people were shocked by the realization of  just 
how much of the machinery of our nation's government is now controlled by  
religion. A newly elected Republican Senator from Oklahoma proposed making  
abortion a capital crime. Depressed non-evangelical citizens began to form a  
determined opposition. Tensions became harsh between the blue and red states.  The 
religious right, enthralled with its new power, began a post-election push  
toward a full takeover by announcing that moderate Republicans, who did not  
share their values, were to be purged. Senator Arlin Specter felt the first  sting 
of their lash. Others will meet a similar fate. The battle for the future  of 
America is on. It should be an interesting four years. My bet is  
evangelicalism will lose, and when it does, America will win. Time will  tell. 
1/19/05 
When human life first emerged into self-consciousness, a creature had  
finally evolved who was not bound by time and space. Our minds can soar beyond  our 
boundaries. We live inside the flow of time remembering a past that is no  
more, and anticipating the future that is not yet. We know something about the  
life force that surges within us. We recognize the power of love that enhances  
our life. We are aware that we can receive love, and once received we can 
give  love away, but none of us can originate love. Love is a power that flows 
into us  from beyond ourselves. We contemplate what it means to be unique. We 
have both a  sense of who we are and a vision of who we want to be, which is the 
source of  our discontent. These are the authentic parts of a God experience, 
which no  other creature can share. Yes, we have created our image of God, 
that miracle  working supernatural one, but we are not the authors of our 
experience of God.  God is the name of the life within us that opens us to the 
miracle of  transcendence. God is the name of love that comes to us from beyond 
ourselves.  God is the ground or source of being out of which our own sense of 
being has  emerged. Those are the moments when we discover oneness, embrace 
eternity and  know why it is that we call ourselves spiritual beings. 
What a difference this new angle of vision makes. Instead of seeing God  as 
our judge eliciting our guilt, we begin to see God as the source of our  
empowerment. Instead of seeing Jesus as a divine visitor who came to rescue  sinful 
humanity, we see him as the fully human one inviting us into his  divinity, 
which is nothing but humanity transformed by wholeness. Instead of  seeing the 
Holy Spirit as the source of our piety, we see Spirit as the source  of 
expanding life. Instead of blaming God for tragedy and pain, or seeking to  exonerate 
God from blame in an unjust universe; we accept our responsibility for  
building a world where every person has a better chance to live, to love and to  be 
all that each of us is capable of being. We will use our intelligence and our 
 ingenuity not to defend our dying God images, but to understand our world so 
 deeply that we, not some distant mythical God, can be the needed bulwark 
against  the natural fury of earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and drought. 
Instead of  being angry when we are victimized by evil or destruction that we cannot 
 control, we will work together to build a safer world. Instead of seeing 
ethics  as following some divinely established rules to please a parent God and 
avoid  punishing wrath, we will learn to see goodness as those actions that 
enhance  life making all of us more fully human. This means that we will also see 
evil as  those actions which diminish our humanity making us more willing to 
hate than to  love, more able to destroy than to build up. Instead of seeing 
life after death  as a time to receive divine reward or punishment we will see 
it as humanity  merging into divinity, and finitude entering into eternity. 
This coming new spirituality will not promise us security, but it will  give 
us the ability to live in a radically insecure world with hope and meaning.  
It will not promise reward to entice our self-centeredness, but it will invite  
us to risk discovering both life's heights and depths. It will not mean that 
our  lives are safe, but it will mean that we do not die without meaning, 
without  communing with that which is finally real. That is where God is found for 
me.  Someday we will recognize that the God of our past could only be God for 
the  weak and the lost, one who could only win our loyalty by keeping us in a 
state  of emotional childishness. Perhaps the crisis in faith through which 
we are  going today is nothing but the adolescent pangs of a new maturity being 
born.  Surely the God of the past must die if this new day is to  arrive.

 
In a message dated 10/12/2005 4:59:25 PM Central Daylight Time,  
jsanders at bconnex.net writes:

Dear Dick, 
I was surprised by your thoughts on Spong's  response.  You have done much 
more reading/listening/thinking so I take  this an accurate but surprise just 
the same.  Jan Sanders

----- Original Message ----- 
From:  _kroegerd at aol.com_ (mailto:kroegerd at aol.com)  
To: _Dialogue at wedgeblade.net_ (mailto:Dialogue at wedgeblade.net)  
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 2:39  PM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] What is a  social pioneer to do?



 
I think Spong has weighed in.  Trust God,  This malaise will  pass.All is 
Good  Focus on getting th Word into history. Live and  Love wastefully.
 
Thanks be to God
 
Dick Kroeger
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Karl Hess  <_khess at apk.net_ (mailto:khess at apk.net) >
To: Colleague Dialogue  <_Dialogue at wedgeblade.net_ 
(mailto:Dialogue at wedgeblade.net) >
Sent:  Tue, 11 Oct 2005 12:44:12 -0400
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] What is a social  pioneer to do?


Dick, 
 Wonderful questions.  Our rhetoric of the '70's looks pretty naive, 
 doesn't it - or at least our sense of the time scale over which it 
 operates.  When we were in England a few years ago, I noted that from 
 1000-1600 a substantial percentage of the kings and queens of England 
 had been assassinated.  Since 1600 none.  One could say that 
 represents progress, and suggests patience.
 
 Skipping over the distinction between the invisible church and the 
 organized church, I would suggest looking at Sojourners as a pioneer 
 worth emulating - not just admiring.  And I just read that Rick 
 Warren of all people is mobilizing his network (huge!!!) to take on 
 the whole of Rwanda.  Certainly no results yet, but the talk is new.
 
 Whether "society" is worth saving depends on your theology, whether 
 you think you will save it or God will, and what you think of the 
 people who are starving today, who do not have the luxury of 
 speculating like this.  Maybe it is also worth rereading the 
 Foundation Trilogy.
 
 What would Spong do?
 
 Karl
 
 >  The following article is the most depressing I've seen to date. 
 >Yet, I cannot take issue with anything here.  It is all too true!
 >
 >The "church" as social pioneer seems to do well at the local level 
 >helping the poor and idsadvantaged.  However, I cannot seem to find 
 >that "church" leading the way toward justice systemically.  In fact, 
 >I can't seem to find anyone leading that charge!
 >
 >Maybe Daniel Quinn ("Ishmael") is right.  A few will simply abandon 
 >the current system and let it decay into ruin.  I find myself 
 >tempted.  How do you feel?  Is our society worth saving?
 >
 >Dick Kroeger
 








 
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