[Oe List ...] The Zombie thing or Total Depravity run amok

Sat Oct 24 13:12:30 CDT 2009

Hey John! 

'Total depravity' is pretty pervasive - after all, total is total.  It
assumes the screwed-up-ness in me, everybody else, and how we work in and
use all our institutions.  Sin, remember, is 'hamartia' - literally 'missing
the mark.'  Remember both the Tillich paper and HRN's "Human institutions"
references?  Individual and social are interactive realities, each
participating in the other. We always said that the interior dialogue of the
self engages with the internalized social system as much as the social
system engages multiple individual dialogues.

Screwed-up-ness:  stuff like 'us' vs. 'them.'  "I deserve X."  Who is right
vs. what is right.  The reduction of the self to engaging less than all of
reality.  The desire and will for double-mindedness (to will the good AND
that the good happen through me).  Hating/resisting that which challenges my
illusions about self and others.  All that is pervasive and present in me
and all of us, is not overcome by 'progress,' and is a constant claim in
every moment that doesn't go away.  Those things aren't the problem, they're
the situation.  They become more problematic when the particular illusion
that captures me is that they shouldn't exist.  Then I discover them
existing, and am overwhelmed with resentment, anger, guilt, etc.  Makes it
hard to work with city staff, church leaders, etc.  Acknowledging those
dynamics as simply part of life gets me past the "It shouldn't have to be
this way" that gets in the way of working with it internally and externally.

Unconditional election: In every moment the actual claim to be responsible
and compassionate exists.  That claim is external to me and to others.  It
simply is there.  Discerning that claim and responding to it, making it
clear to self and others is always an option, no matter how much I am
caught, others are caught, or systems are caught in our screwed-up-ness.
(English word 'repentance' is the translation of metanoia - new mindedness.
The 'Oh, I get it!' or 'Oh shit!' moment.

FWIW

Bill Schlesinger
Project Vida
3607 Rivera Ave
El Paso, TX 79905
(915) 533-7057 x 207
(915) 490-6148 mobile
(915) 533-7158 fax
bschlesinger.pv at tachc.org
www.projectvidaelpaso.org

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of John C. Montgomery
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 9:16 AM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] The Zombie thing

Hey Bill,

Did they teach you that at Chicago? Not when I was there! :>)

Help me a bit - is not total depravity more descriptive of the social
bondage than the individual's character.

Marjorie Suchocki has written some about the recovery of "original sin" or
"ancestral sin" in the East as a clue to institutional sin - i.e. sin that I
am born into before I am even conscious of it? So, showing up in the South,
I am a racist, before I ever thought bigoted thoughts about my neighbor?

Unfortunately, we are so inundated by Niebuhr's overemphasis on individual
arrogance (given his and the Order's reliance on existential theological
contexts), we are generally not aware of our being shaped by institutional
sin. So we think if we seek to treat women fairly, we are no longer sexist.
Hello?

If I am correct, then this has huge implications for Christology - moving
from (not entirely) individual reprentance (atonement) and toward (but not
entirely) on social transformation and liberation.

But hey, I'm Wesleyan! 

John C. Montgomery
(c) 678-468-4913

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Schlesinger" <pvida at whc.net>
To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 10:21:45 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] The Zombie thing

Not only am I totally depraved, but I am unconditionally called (elected) to
be responsible, compassionate and to be the beloved one I am.  Tough
situation, no? <g>.  Only a dyed in the wool Wesleyan enthusiast would
believe that they were going on to perfection!

Bill Schlesinger
Project Vida
3607 Rivera Ave
El Paso, TX 79905
(915) 533-7057 x 207
(915) 490-6148 mobile
(915) 533-7158 fax
bschlesinger.pv at tachc.org
www.projectvidaelpaso.org

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Herman Greene
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 5:54 AM
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] The Zombie thing

I find great comfort and delight in two pretty Calvinist beliefs - total
depravity and unconditional [predestined] election. 

Are you totally depraved?

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Bill Schlesinger
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 10:33 PM
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] The Zombie thing

So you're a zombie walking these days? <g>

Bill Schlesinger
Project Vida
3607 Rivera Ave
El Paso, TX 79905
(915) 533-7057 x 207
(915) 490-6148 mobile
(915) 533-7158 fax
bschlesinger.pv at tachc.org
www.projectvidaelpaso.org

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Herman Greene
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 8:14 PM
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] The Zombie thing

So much for the wisdom of Calvin.

Herman

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Bill Schlesinger
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 10:14 PM
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Subject: [Oe List ...] The Zombie thing

'My, hopefully, ever evolving digestion of what we did for and to people's
lives is best reflected in the almost cultic fear, that was helped by JWM,
that once you were in community you could not back out without becoming a
zombie.'

A personal memory:  As a young seminarian in the West side EI world, I was
amazed by the tools and perceptions available to me.  I stopped JWM and
asked, "Should I stay here or should I take these into the local church?"
He stopped and looked at me, and said, "There are only two ways to live.
Either you're in the order or out of the order.  If you're in the order,
there's only one thing you have to do - obey God.  If you're out of the
order, there's only one thing you have to do - Obey God.  Obey God."  Then
he walked on.  

My sense of the walls closing in - and my willingness to leave in the middle
of the night as a result - ended as the conscious rejection of the only
group of folk who came close to being an ideal for me.  I couldn't take the
brokenness underneath the rhetoric.  I find great comfort and delight in two
pretty Calvinist beliefs - total depravity and unconditional election.
We're all screwed up folk - all of us.  And being screwed up doesn't
interfere with all of us being called to compassion, responsibility, and
being the beloved ones we are.

There's another Calvinist doctrine - perseverance of the saints.  It says
basically that once you're awake you can never become a zombie again.  You
can look like one, act like one, hurt yourself and others as though you were
one.  But you can't be one.

FWIW

Bill Schlesinger
Project Vida
3607 Rivera Ave
El Paso, TX 79905
(915) 533-7057 x 207
(915) 490-6148 mobile
(915) 533-7158 fax
bschlesinger.pv at tachc.org
www.projectvidaelpaso.org

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