[Dialogue] appreciation and a request

[Kenneth Barley]

Dear Richard

I'm sure you don't know me from Adam but I am on your list and receive your regular email for which I am always grateful.

My wife and I were member of the Order in the 60s and early 70s when the Ecumenical Institute was located on the West Side of Chicago. We were fortunate to be part of the first religious house in Kuala Lumpur and have always found RS I to be the foundation for a new understanding of Christianity. I am now retired (a former Presbyterian pastor) while my wife just recently stepped down from a role as V-P of  educational research and evaluation with an outfit called McRel. 

At any rate I always look forward to Spong essays which you regularly forward and to the occasional articles that you forward via email. In particular I was overwhelmed by Keith Olbermann's article "This Hole in the Ground." Therein lies my request. I inadvertently erased it from computer before I had a chance to forward to a number of people who I know. If you still have it, could you send it to me again. I promise to be more careful with it.

I have also note that you seem to be active in the MN chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives. I was fortunate to attend both meetings in Berkeley  and Washington. We are currently organizing a chapter here in Denver - in fact our first meeting is tonight. There is already a chapter in Boulder. To my way of thinking it is the most important movement being formed in the U.S. and has given me renewed energy and commitment to effect change in this grand old nation before it is too late.

Again, thanks for including Zoe and me in your weekly communications.

Ken and Zoe

Ken and Zoe Barley
klbarley at earthlink.net



----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: nspmn at googlegroups.com
Cc: Dialogue at wedgeblade.net; MICAH6-8 at topica.com
Sent: 9/13/2006 5:42:50 PM 
Subject: [Dialogue] Spong on Crosswalk and healthcare


September 13, 2006
Crosswalk America Arrives in Washington, DC 
It began on April 16, 2006, following a sunrise service in Phoenix, Arizona. It ended on September 3, 2006, at a celebration in the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, DC. Between those two dates, more than five million steps were taken, at least three pairs of shoes per person were worn out, over 2,500 miles were registered and 12 states were crossed. These fascinating facts constituted just a few of the dimensions of the journey undertaken and completed by a group of people, who called themselves "Crosswalk America." The purpose of their walk was to lift up another face of Christianity that is quite different from the Christianity seen in the media today. They walked to publicize something they called the 'Phoenix Affirmations' that involve these principles: 
Christians must have an openness to other faiths 
Christians must care for the earth and its ecosystem 
Christians must value artistic expression in all its forms 
Christians must welcome and include all persons 
Christians must oppose the co-mingling of Church and State 
Christians must seek peace and end systemic poverty 
Christian must promote the values of rest and recreation, prayer and reflection 
Christians must embrace both faith and science
It was the hope of this group, who certainly put their bodies where their mouths were, to raise in the national awareness the presence of the progressive Christian movement throughout America. They were tired of having the Christian faith, to which each walker was deeply committed, constantly identified with the negativity of the anti-abortion movement and the anger of the anti-homosexual stance employed by so many who use the name Christian. They wanted to demonstrate that those who are committed to Christ would not set the citizens of this land against each other over differing religious beliefs and practices. Their desire was to turn the present course of Christianity in America away from its divisive pro-war, anti-female, anti-gay public face, where those who disagree are relegated to an emotional status somewhere between being excommunicated and burned at the stake, to a religion identified with the words 'love' and 'inclusion.' In every community entered across this nation, these walkers went to the local churches, identified themselves and shared their message. They worshiped in all kinds of settings, deliberately including the most fundamentalist. One was called 'The Jesus Baptist Church' in Springerville, Texas, that stated publicly their belief in the inerrancy of the Bible and the sinfulness of homosexuality, but they also worshiped in a Metropolitan Community Church in New Mexico, that was organized just for homosexual people who had been forced out of their churches by religious and biblical prejudice. One town that was not eager to entertain the walkers had only very conservative churches, yet they found a welcome in that town from a group of people who, tired of the religious atmosphere in their own community, had formed a "House Church" that met every Sunday. In the Texas town of Bovina, less than 30 miles from the town of Hereford, the names of which indicate the dominance of the cattle industry in Texas, they discovered that their stance on inclusiveness was not nearly so offensive to the locals as the fact that three of the walkers were vegetarians! 
They received the apology from the mayor of Clovis, New Mexico, a town that advertises itself as the "most welcoming community in America," because the head of the ministerial alliance refused even to meet with the walkers much less to provide them with any hospitality. The mayor challenged the clergy there and insisted that the welcome of Clovis did extend to progressive Christians. 
They were picketed at two services in St. Louis, Missouri, where they had been invited to share their story with two congregations. One was the Episcopal Cathedral in the heart of the city; the other was the Metropolitan Community Church in the suburbs. Interestingly enough, while the picketers carried a number of religious placards, the majority of their signs were anti-abortion/pro-life. Since the MCC congregation is made up entirely of homosexual persons, it represented the first time in the history of that denomination that they had been the target of anti-abortion picketers. Abortion is not frequently part of the life experience of gay people! 
They were interviewed by the local press and appeared on local radio all along their route. One memorable interview occurred in Farwell, Texas, on a station known as "Jesus Radio." They went expecting to be attacked for not being fundamentalists but they found themselves embraced by the owner. "So what if we don't agree on every issue," he said, "You're out walking for Jesus and loving people!" This man could separate the wheat from the chaff. He admitted he would probably get a lot of criticism from his listeners for having this group on the show but, he said, "I will tell them that they are to run their churches and I will run this radio station!" 
The Crosswalk America idea was born in the mind of Eric Elnes, a United Church of Christ/Congregationalist minister in Scottsdale, Arizona and an emerging national leader. A learned man with a PhD in Biblical Studies from Princeton, he had long chafed at the rising tide of fundamentalism in America. While on a retreat in Oregon, he wondered how people might respond if he planned a walk across America in the name of a progressive, scholarly and inclusive Christianity. When he returned to Arizona, he shared his idea with a few friends and found it excited all who heard about it. One person in particular who resonated with this dream was Rebecca Glenn, who had once been the moderator of Dr. Elnes' church. She was a very successful, high-ranking vice president in the information industry. Her husband was the head of an insurance company. She said that all her life she had been looking for some way to act out what she believed about Christianity and this possibility captured her imagination. She resigned her job to be part of it. Dr. Elnes and Rebecca Glenn became co-presidents of what they named Crosswalk America and the dream began to move toward reality. Rebecca Glenn's daughter Katrina also joined the walk and Rebecca's mother and father, Ray and Donna Gentry, drove the van that accompanied the walkers, carrying luggage and supplies and being available to transport any walker to safety should sickness or accident strike. Others on the march had equally exciting backgrounds. One man named Mark walked from Oregon to Phoenix just to hook up with the walkers before completing the Phoenix to Washington DC journey. Another named Merrill heard about it in nearby Phoenix and immediately joined the effort. "I've never been good at talking," he said, "but I am good at walking, so I'll let my feet talk for me." 
Last April, I wrote a column about this walk before it began. That column can be found here. I followed their progress across America on the Internet with great interest and was delighted to accept their invitation to be the keynote speaker at their final celebration in Washington, DC. 
Quite characteristically, the Foundry United Methodist Church, one of the District of Columbia's outstanding congregations, that has claimed among its members both Bill and Hilary Clinton, as well as Robert and Elizabeth Dole, and whose former pastor, Philip Wogaman was a well known and highly respected national religious leader, invited this group to hold the celebratory service in their sanctuary. To get a feel for the spirit of the event, my wife Christine and I joined the walkers on the last two days of their pilgrimage from Maryland into Washington. The walk on Saturday, September 2, was a bit less than 10 miles, but tropical storm Ernesto had passed through that area the previous night so we walked in a steady, misty drizzle and stepped over branches and leaves that had been ripped off trees by the wind. We worshiped the next Sunday morning at the Silver Spring Congregational Church and then, with perhaps 200 people, many from the Washington area, we walked from Meridian Park the final mile to 16th and P where we held a news conference on the steps of Foundry Church. The celebratory service began at 4:00 p.m. and ended at 6:30 p.m. It was as if something precious was being held tightly and no one wanted to let it go. 
I listened as we walked those final two days to the life-changing stories of the walkers. A cameraman named Chris, who joined them to produce a documentary, told me of his distaste for Christians as he had experienced them in the past, but what it had meant for him to be embraced by this group as a non-believer. Another walker, named Meighan, who had left her job with the Seattle Symphony to join the walk said she had found her voice on this walk and now could talk about what Jesus meant to her without sounding like those religious people whose "Jesus talk" repelled her. She also found a new vocation into which she is now quickly moving. 
Eric Elnes is completing a book on this experience that will be out from Jossey-Bass Publishing Company in about six months. Another religious voice, this one of tolerance and compassion, is now in the American religious conversation. Will the image of Christianity in America be changed by this wild imaginative act? Only time will tell. However, if nothing else happens except that a group of people found in Christianity in the year 2006 the power to motivate them to walk across America, to bear witness to what Christianity can be, it will be enough for me. For that means that this venerable faith tradition, to which I am so deeply committed, still has within its ranks those who can reform it and renew it to live in another century. I rejoice in that. 
John Shelby Spong 
Note: Those who want more information on Crosswalk America may find it at www.crosswalkamerica.org. You may also correspond with its leadership by writing Eric Elnes or Rebecca Glenn at: Crosswalk America, 4425 N. Granite Reef Road, Scottsdale, Arizona, 85251. A congratulatory card or letter from you would mean a great deal to them. 
John Shelby Spong 
Note from the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at bookstores everywhere and by clicking here! 
Question and Answer
With John Shelby Spong
Dwight Oxley, via the Internet, writes: 
Dr. Cato in his excellent essay several months ago, suggested that Christians should take a position on the morally appropriate allocation of medical resources in the event of a flu pandemic. I believe that the likely allocation pattern can be easily deduced from current public policy on health care: most resources will go to the elderly through the Medicare program and the children will be left out. This is misguided and immoral: children and the parents who provided for them should receive the highest priority. Medicare recipients like myself (age 69) are grateful for the Medicare benefit, but the future of our society does not depend much on 69 year-olds. It depends very much on those who are now children. Even in the "best of times" (i.e. no flu pandemic) millions of children go without routine immunizations because their parents are poor, but too "rich" for Medicaid. I propose that the children, rich and poor alike, have what Dr. Cato calls ".the most value to (society)." I am a member of a small Episcopal parish in Kansas and I have already written my Congressional delegation about my views. You seem to suggest that we should do more to influence (i.e. change) public policy. But how? 
Dear Dwight, 
I hope your letter in this column helps. Thank you for your response. We do spend as a nation more than 90 cents out of every healthcare dollar on the last year of a person's life. Most of this is spent on the elderly, but children who are born with defects and cannot be saved despite numerous procedures are also in that number as well as accident victims but who die in a year from complications. In our free society, we must decide how to allocate the money raised through taxes to allow for the greatest good. If we choose to do so, I suspect that we, as a nation, have enough resources to provide health care for all people unless we face a cataclysmic disaster. There is a political question as to whether we will or not. If the world's population continues to expand at the present rates, all social systems will be overrun and a disaster is guaranteed. 
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