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

Tue Mar 6 09:09:26 EST 2012

Thank you Jim, Adam, Bud and all for this dialogue.

My sense is that the only thing the church (little "c") has ever been about is metanoia, conversion, being born again, changing hearts and minds, however you want to talk about it.  Another of my assumptions is that this metanoic, grace-filled, transformative event does or can happen over and over again throughout ones life.  I was asked recently by one of my fundamentalist friends if I had been saved.  I replied, "Absolutely, three times today and twice last week," (a slight exageration.)

The task stays the same but the times change.  Back in the day when RS-1 was a 44-hour weekend seminar, we understood that our purpose was the awakenment and engagement of the local church.  There is indication that those who today are "living the future now" (my current definition of the social dynamic of the "church as social pioneer") are already awake and engaged.  So if the task of the church in any age is metanoia, and if the result was to be something other than awakenment and engagement, as I contend it would, what would that "other" be?

I would therefore concur that "our only job is to teach RS-1" but would maintain that the structure, methodology and purpose are continually changing with the times.  Today it probably would not be a 44-hour seminar with 4 pedagogs wielding two by fours.  (As the saying goes, "the sage on the stage has been replaced by the guide on the side.")  It probably would not take place in a seminar room but in the midst of some form of active engagement out in the community/world, with dialogue and reflection before, during and after.  And it could be that it happens by default, without visible structure, in the midst of our day-to-day work to serve the world

Randy

"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires."
-Martin Buber (adapted)

--- On Mon, 3/5/12, Ken Fisher <hkf232 at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Ken Fisher <hkf232 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] "Our only job is to teach RS1"
To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Date: Monday, March 5, 2012, 7:14 AM

Well said, JIm.  k  (like!)

On 2012-03-05, at 8:09 AM, Jim Baumbach wrote:

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
Google phone: 707-702-1643
Skype name: budtill

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