[Dialogue] Redefining FAITH

Thu Mar 22 15:33:50 EDT 2012

Randy,

Your comments about the difference between a movement and an institution raises interesting questions.  So I began to brood a bit on just what generates a "movement" and how does it differ from an "institution".  The last time I thought about this was when the IAF was in its initial stages, moving beyond ICA's direction and beginning to incorporate new people.  I think it faced a fork when it had to decide should it be more movemental (informal, catalytic, issue focused etc.) or should it become a recognized establishment profession?  It obviously chose the latter as it worked on certification, professional journal etc.  Of course those were the days when getting paid to facilitate was a big issue for many and the more it could be seen as a profession the easier that would be for getting work.  

But I was wondering what is the genesis of a movement and why and how does it get into (bend) history, as we used to say.  I think the clue can be found in our Niebuhr paper from the Church section of RS-1.  Social imbalances can exist a long time before they are 'corrected'.  A movement is, for me, a coalesced body of people who are energized and sustained in taking society in a new direction (the definition Niebuhr has for the Church).  We often talked about "critical mass" also when talking about a movement.  I remember saying you need to reach 1,000 with a message to which 100 will be 'awakened' from which 10 will move in a new direction from which 1 will stand forever, or something like that.

But there is more.  movements come and go.  Like an earthquake can generate a tsunami, there are events that trigger what seems to be the 'wave' of the future, but it can just as quickly die.  In some sense it's like a 'fad' in fashion, it seems to be calling for the new, but is just a product of the time.   To last not only does a movement need to be energized by the rebalancing of the social process, but that rebalancing process must be life-calling and life-giving.  Eventually that movement needs to create stories, (myths), rituals and symbols to be the touchstones, or repositories, of that energy.  We know all of this so well from the Spirit Movement days (rituals, songs, uniforms, language etc.) and we codified some of these keys to social process rebalancing in our Pressure Point (where and what) and Whistle Points (how & who) research.  That research still seem relevant today and can be seen over and over again within the various movements now addressing the world's and Earth's contradiction.

I recently posted on Facebook an incredible TED talk on just this topic.  The female speaker, a Brazilian documentary film maker, was asking the question of why an incredible 'event' in Palestine seemed to have no impact beyond the local area of the event?  Why wasn't this act of peaceful protest (Jews, Arabs, Christians, men, women, political factions, world citizens) seen as a way to 'rebalance' an injustice, in this case, the destruction of the village by the Israeli army as they tried to erect the dividing wall?  After all it worked!  As you listen you will see how it takes the packaging of the story (in this case a documentary film) as well as understanding how the story is to be communicated (it's all Imaginal Education).  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d40Aht_9cxY>

As an aside, I still feel the ICA's principle task today is to enable and empower those whose lives are awakened and part of the various movements flowing today.   That of course is another whole conversation!

So, putting this all together, there was an "event" 2,000+ years ago that occasioned a movement, whose people created a "story", linked to an ancient story, that spoke the "Universal Truth" to people as they faced the revealed contradiction in their own lives (and societies).  Faith then becomes the radical commitment to the transparency of the Story and its existential grounding in my own life.  But when that Story is no longer transparent, and the symbols and rituals etc. no longer are repositories of the life-giving energy, and the stewards of those symbols and Story have lost their souls to sustaining the movement vessel (institutional Church)rather than the movement, then Faith gets reduced to ideas, beliefs, opaque rituals & symbols and abstractions.

Thanks for raising the question.

Grace & Peace,

Jack

On Mar 22, 2012, at 9:09 AM, Richard Alton wrote:

> Randy, yes, what creates a movement, but must be more than a common story, song and symbol..is it not more like a new spirit that comes at the wonder once again..I am not so sure you create movements, but rather discover them..
> Dick
> 
> Richard H.T. Alton 166 N. Humphrey Ave, Apt, 1N Oak Park, IL 60302 T:1.773.344.7172 richard.alton at gmail.com Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back Babe Ruth
> 
> Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:15:30 -0700
> From: rcwmbw at yahoo.com
> To: dialogue at wedgeblade.net
> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Redefining FAITH
> 
> Marsha,
>  
> When I say "religion" I'm thinking more in terms of the first 300 years of Christianity when it was more of a movement than an institution.  Those early Christians had no dogma, hierarchy or bureaucracy, but they had something that held them together as a community.  I'm sure there are other good historical examples of this.  Whatever that "something" was is what I mean by "religion," that which creates and sustains community.  It may be no more that a common story, style and symbol.
>  
> 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, 3/19/12, Marsha Hahn <mhahn013 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> From: Marsha Hahn <mhahn013 at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Redefining FAITH
> To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
> Date: Monday, March 19, 2012, 7:42 AM
> 
> I find the notion that faith does not have to be tied to any particular religious construct very freeing. This is not to say, however, that your desire to reunite faith and religion is not a worthy one for you and others. But the idea that faith is bigger than any one religion's domain - yes, that is very appealing and rings true to me. Perhaps this is because I have been unable to find a home in any organized religious tradition.
> 
> Thanks for sharing, Randy.
> 
> Marsha
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
> On Mar 19, 2012, at 6:43 AM, R Williams <rcwmbw at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Colleagues,
>  
> I first knew of Jeremy Rifkin back in the 80s when I read his book Entropy.  I recently rediscovered him and find that he delves into subjects and issues that the faint of heart would never venture near.  Here's an example from his book The Empathic Civilization:
>  
>      ...faith (is) the belief that one's life is worth living, and for that reason alone, it (has) meaning in the larger scheme of things and therefore (needs) to be lived fully in deep connection with others.
>      ...faith...can be purloined and made into a social construct that exacts obedience, feeds on fear of death, is disembodied in its approach, and establishes rigid boundaries separating the saved from the damned.  Institutionalized religions, for the most part, do just that.  (pgs 169-170)
>  
> Is this too harsh a judgment on Rifkin's part, or is he on target?  I continue to struggle with what I perceive to be a wedge that has been driven between faith and religion by religious institutions.  I long to see faith and religion reunited, and an appeal to what our culture is imposing as a rather simple understanding of "spirituality" in the form of "back to nature" movements, etc., does little to resolve that conflict, at least for me.
>  
> 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)
> _______________________________________________
> Dialogue mailing list
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
> 
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Dialogue mailing list
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
> 
> _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue at wedgeblade.net http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
> _______________________________________________
> Dialogue mailing list
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20120322/0e36fa16/attachment.html>