[Oe List ...] New Century, Different Crisis

Sat Nov 3 10:22:53 EDT 2007

Thanks for getting us on a roll here, Randy. I
certainly agree with John C. that all of creation has
to be our context, though it is surely more demanding
than just "all of God's people." Our reductionism of
the past puts the pressure on today. 

What is the category, John? I am sure you and Thomas
Berry (and others)must use it all the time. It has to
communicate to the general populous, yet at the same
time catch their attention. Clarity on this issue
will, of course, inform the strategies.

Doris Hahn

--- John Cock <jpc2025 at triad.rr.com> wrote:

> I hear you, Randy, and know that is what you
> believe, but we need to say it
> so we cannot be misunderstood. "Social/society"
> doesn't mean all creation or
> the earth community to most people, I judge.
>  
> John
> 
>   _____  
> 
> From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
> Of R Williams
> Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 8:50 AM
> To: Order Ecumenical Community
> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] New Century, Different
> Crisis
> 
> 
> John,
>  
> I believe the word "social" is inclusive of all
> creation (key--earth
> "community") and that Niebuhr's three evils can be
> restated to be inclusive
> as well.  Nationalism and economic imperialism are
> at least two of the
> contradictions underlying the degradation of the
> earth. (Example: Bush's
> rationale for pulling out of Kyoto--"not good for
> business.")  By the way,
> some of the materials at www.rauschenbusch.org quote
> and/or refer to Thomas
> Berry and The Great Work, so they too understand the
> importance of what you
> are saying..
>  
> Randy
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: John Cock <jpc2025 at triad.rr.com>
> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
> Sent: Saturday, November 3, 2007 7:33:17 AM
> Subject: [Oe List ...] New Century, Different Crisis
> 
> 
> What about care for the total earth community? As
> Thomas Berry says many
> ways, we can spend all our energy on social/human
> problems and go out of
> being as a species. This statement trumps HRN's
> three or Rauchenbusch's one
> or two. How do we honor and yet radically recontext
> our existing
> human-centered paradigm within our thinking,
> organization, and action?
>  
> John
>   _____  
> 
> From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
> Of R Williams
> Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 7:50 AM
> To: Colleague Dialogue
> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] New Century,Same Crisis--The
> Social Gospel 100 Years
> Later
> 
> 
> Len,
>  
> HRN put wheels under Rauschenbusch's social gospel
> and the key insight that
> it's not just individual conversion but social
> (meaning instituitional)
> change as well.  We translated what it means to be
> social pioneers into the
> three master strategies of (1) contextual
> reeducation, (2) structural
> reformulation and (3) spiritual remotivation..  Even
> though all three of
> these address social as well as individual
> contradictions, the
> transformation of society's structures is, I
> believe, the one most directed
> at socia change and the one that most often is
> neglected.  We said 30 years
> ago that Niebuhr's social evils of "racialism,
> nationalism and economic
> imperialism" were as predominant then as they were
> in Niebuhr's time.  I
> think that is still true for today.  To the point,
> today as ever in order to
> care for those who care one must address the
> structures of society which
> continue to institutionalize racialism, nationalism
> and economic
> imperialism, and not focus just on the first and
> last strategies.  No single
> one of them is effective unless all three are
> spinning.
>  
> Maybe Springboard should dust off those old
> strategies and decide what the
> contemporary form of them must be.  What do you
> think?
>  
> Randy
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Len Hockley <lenh at efn.org>
> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>;
> Order Ecumenical Community
> <oe at wedgeblade.net>; Colleague Dialogue
> <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
> Sent: Friday, November 2, 2007 4:36:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] New Century, Same
> Crisis--The Social Gospel 100
> Years Later
> 
> A good read Randy.  
> 
> I always  thought there was a basic difference
> between Reinhold and H
> .Richard.  Hooray for H. Richard
> 
> Any way you can see this wisdom to be of use to our
> meeting of
> "Springboard"?
> 
> Len
> 
> 
> At 01:43 PM 11/2/2007 +0000, R Williams wrote:
> 
> 
> Colleagues,
>  
> In the introduction to the G-O-D Lecture in RS-1 we
> marked the year 1907 as
> the beginning of the 20th century, and we grounded
> this with events such as
> Einstein's theory of relativity, the Bolshevik
> Revolution, World War I, etc.
> One of the events we did not mention was the
> publication in that year of the
> book by Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the
> Social Crisis, which
> introduced what has come to be known as the "social
> gospel."
>  
> I have attached an article from Commonweal magazine
> in which Carey Nelson
> Blake states that "Rauschenbusch tore down the wall
> that separated faith
> from the public world and called on the church to
> address the suffering and
> degradation that accompanied the rapid
> industrialization of the United
> States."
>  
> Regarding the importance of this for our roots, H.
> Richard Niebuhr was
> clearly influenced by Rauschenbusch when he stated
> that the church as social
> pioneer turns its back on the manifestations of
> "sin" or "evil", abolishes
> it within itself, and leads in the social act of
> repentance.  For
> Rauschenbusch, according to Blake, "Sin was embedded
> in institutional
> arrangements, not just in individual motivations and
> actions...  A faithful
> life demanded of sinners both personal and social
> repentance."
>  
> Another note of interest, Paul Raushenbush, a
> great-grandson of Walter, has
> edited a new edition titled Christianity and the
> Social Crisis in the 21st
> Century.
>  
> I hope you have time to read the attached article. 
> I would be interested in
> your reflections.
>  
> Randy Williams
> 
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