[Dialogue] "Our only job is to teach RS1"

Mon Mar 5 08:09:38 EST 2012

Thanks Bud and Adam for your questions and reflections on RS1.  Alice 
and I have been out of direct day to day involvement in the Order life 
for more than 30 years and we certainly miss the intimate contact with 
teaching the courses of the Order.  I believe John Cock and others have 
carried on some teaching of RS1 but not, to my knowledge, at the 
intensity we did way back then.  Although much of the experience of RS1 
comes through just taking the course(s), a much richer understanding 
occurs when a person goes through the pedagogy and actual teaching of 
the course.

The question of whether or not this was the only job of the Oder the 
answer is yes and no.  It is the basis of our mutual understanding of 
life through the dimension of Christianity but once exposed to it, there 
is an internal call to do more than just bask in the afterglow of RS1.  
It is a call to go out into the world and either share the experience 
with others or to become engaged in life creating and sustaining 
activities in numerous ways and organizations and even to renewing the 
Church.  Several very profound extensions of the RS1 experience emerged 
through the development and teaching and/or facilitating Town Meetings 
across the US, expanding the Fifth City model through Human Development 
Projects worldwide, taking the LENS course to numerous situations 
including the workplace and corporations that were ready to use more 
comprehensive methods of engagement and other programs.

When we "turned to the world," we only had the demythologized Christian 
heritage as our primary foundation but could not directly apply it to 
other areas of the world where conversion to Christianity would not be 
tolerated.  Our mission became the application of the wisdom of 
demythologized Christianity rather than producing converts.  Through our 
common basis in Christianity we were able to produce the Religious 
Studies courses, but how would this apply to Islam?  Or Hinduism? Or any 
of the multitude of religions in our world?  It is not the same as being 
bi-lingual where a person can translate from one language to another the 
meanings of thoughts and words.  We didn't have ways of making RS1 
courses outside of Christianity nor did that appear to be necessary in 
order to create effective HDPs or facilitate town meetings in other 
countries or teach LENS courses, etc.

Do we need RS1 today?  If you spend any time in the local church you can 
be assured many of them are still couched in the "two-story-universe" 
mindset despite what today's science has discovered.  Do we need RS1 
today?  Probably as much or more so as we watch our world fracturing 
along racial and religious biases, etc.  We are all in danger of 
destroying the only habitat, our Earth, amicable to human beings and so 
we desperately need to face and be participants in Bultmann's 
understanding of the "up-againstness," and Tillich's grace, forgiveness 
and the "Ground-of-Being," as well as Bonhoeffer's thoughts about 
freedom and of course Niebuhr's call to community.

Bud, I hope this is helpful in partially answering your questions.

Jim Baumbach

On 3/5/2012 5:09 AM, Adam Thomson wrote:
> From Adam Thomson, Dover UK.
>
> This is my personal response to Bud Tillinghurst's query concerning RS1.
>
> My own background: I joined the Order in 1972, having arrived from 
> Caracas Venezuela. I joined the eight-week Academy Programme in 
> Chicago on 1st April that year.
>
> I have placed my responses below in relation to the questions that Bud 
> asked:
>
> */1. So at least in 1970 was teaching RS1 seen to be the only job 
> (main job?) of the Order?
> /*
> It's all a question of the poetry you use. You could say that the 
> Order -- if you will -- did not ever do anything else other than 
> "teach RS1", in whatever activities they were corporately and 
> consensually engaged in. The essence of being the Order was, to my 
> mind, corporate and consensual engagement in tasks that changed 
> community thinking, organisation and action as articulated through the 
> Word: teaching RS1.
>
> /2. Was a decision made at some point to no longer see RS1 as the only 
> job (main job) of the Order? When would this have been and for what 
> reason?
> /
> What I've said above means that my response to this question is, I 
> don't see there having been a decision at some point no longer to see 
> RS1 as the only job of the Order. But again this is a question of the 
> poetry we are using. These days we are not using common corporate 
> poetry as we used to. The job of the Order is still to teach RS1.
>
> /3. When was the last RS1 taught? What replaced it and why was that?
> /
> I don't know when the RS1 as a course was last taught - in the terms 
> that Bud is asking the question. I don't think it is particularly 
> important -- especially since my story has it that the Order is still 
> "teaching RS1". Again, it's the poetry each of us cares to use to take 
> a relationship to what for me was the most important event in my life, 
> bar none.
>
> /4. Are there some of you on this list or the other one that have 
> never taken RS1?
> /
> I would guess that there are many people on the list who have not 
> experienced the original RS1 course, which was couched in Christian 
> terms. The point is -- and has been for some time - how do we 
> adequately articulate and act out the RS1 transformative process in 
> other than exclusively Christian terms, in terms that can be 
> assimilated by a wider spectrum of human communities.
>
> /5. Do others feel that "What the world needs now is more RS1?"
> /
> This phrase is a perfectly sound phrase  - but again it has to be 
> demythologised. If we are saying is there a job still for the Order -- 
> or more appropriately the Movement - to do, then the answer is obvious.
>
> It all depends on what we mean by the terms we are using.
>
> Love to all,
>
> Adam Thomson
>
> END OF MESSAGE
>
> At 16:39 05/03/2012, you wrote:
>> On 16 Feb 2012, at 10:28, David Walters wrote:
>>
>>> When I walked into Room A for the first time in the summer of '70 
>>> somebody was up front talking about the summer progam on the Local 
>>> Church, which was to start the next week, saying "Our only job is to 
>>> teach RS1 and teach the hell out of it."
>>>
>>> We also sang Bonhoffer's  words to the Yellow Submarine.
>>>
>>> What the world needs now is more RS1.
>>>
>>> -David Walters
>>
>> A couple questions from one who has been out of the loop for decades:
>>
>> 1. So at least in 1970 was teaching RS1 seen to be the only job (main 
>> job?) of the Order?
>>
>> 2. Was a decision made at some point to no longer see RS1 as the only 
>> job (main job) of the Order? When would this have been and for what 
>> reason?
>>
>> 3. When was the last RS1 taught? What replaced it and why was that?
>>
>> 4. Are there some of you on this list or the other one that have 
>> never taken RS1?
>>
>> 5. Do others feel that "What the world needs now is more RS1?"
>>
>> Thanks for any reflections,
>>
>> Bud
>>
>> Bud Tillinghast
>> rev.bud at mac.com <mailto:rev.bud at mac.com>
>> Google phone: 707-702-1643
>> Skype name: budtill
>>
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