[Oe List ...] Beth Rickey
Terry Bergdall
bergdall2 at gmail.com
Fri Sep 18 04:32:23 CDT 2009
Thanks, Pat, for bringing this remarkable woman to our attention.
On 18 Sep 2009, at 03:23, Patricia Tuecke wrote:
> This conversation on healthcare hit very close to home this past
> week. The
> death of my cousin, Beth Rickey from Louisiana is a prime example of
> how our
> medical/health care system is broken. Beth became somewhat famous
> for a
> while for exposing David Duke when he ran for LA Governor; he had
> not left
> behind his KKK and Neo-Nazi actions in his bid for Governor. He he was
> defeated. He was running against Edwin Edwards, another crooked LA
> politician, known for his corruption. One of the slogans in that
> race, "Vote
> for the Crook, not the Nazi!" She was the person that stopped Duke.
> Jim
> Stovall's father, a Methodist minister, was one of the coalition
> members
> that worked to defeat Duke. You can find out more in most of the
> articles
> about her death.
>
> But that's not the reason I'm writing. Beth died homeless and
> penniless, but
> not forgotten. Family and close friends helped her numerous times,
> but none
> of us could take on her serious health issues and humongous medical
> bills.
> For 13 years she had been struggling to cure a serious aliment
> picked up in
> Mexico. She also developed Crohn's Disease. The medicines for these
> were
> exorbitant. She couldn't get insurance for a prior condition(s). She
> couldn't hold a job because of her illnesses. Even with all of that,
> her
> death was unexpected.
>
> If you Google Beth Rickey you get over 100 articles in various news
> media.
> The ones I've read a mostly accurate.
>
> R.I.P. Beth Rickey [Mark Hemingway]
> Rickey, a conservative Republican activist, was the individual most
> responsible for bringing about David Duke's downfall and keeping him
> out of
> the Lousiana governor's office. Quin Hillyer's obituary in The
> Washington
> Times is touching, and highly recommended. 09/15 12:55 PMShare
>
> Here's the link:
> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/15/beth-what-can-we-do/
>
> Here is another: http://www.forward.com/articles/114205/
>
> Beth knew many people; these two writers were among them. David Duke
> commented on Beth's death at his website.
>
> Pat Rickey Tuecke
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net]
> On Behalf
> Of oe-request at wedgeblade.net
> Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 12:11 PM
> To: oe at wedgeblade.net
> Subject: OE Digest, Vol 65, Issue 96
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. a new religious mode (Jean Watts)
> 2. 9/17/09, Spong: The Origins of the New Testament, Part I:
> Introduction (elliestock at aol.com)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:05:59 -0500
> From: "Jean Watts" <jeanwatts at cox.net>
> Subject: [Oe List ...] a new religious mode
> To: <oe at wedgeblade.net>
> Message-ID: <C7A3756EAB5B407A87F808E92C1C85CE at JEANSLAPTOP>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
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>
> Jack Gillis wrote:
> "Why aren't we remembering our own deep and profound insight that
> there will
> be no New Social Vehicle without a New Religious Mode?"
>
> Been thinking the same thing.... and another colleague just sent me
> these
> quotes today:
>
> "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to
> collect wood
> and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long
> for the
> endless immensity of the sea."
> - Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry
>
> "Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we
> mean to
> or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so
> deeply
> interconnected with one another. Working on our own consciousness
> is the
> most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love
> is a
> supreme creative act."
> - Ram Dass
>
> I wonder, just what is the 'New Religious Mode' today? And where do
> we see
> it emerging in ourselves or others?
> Jean
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:22:15 -0500
> From: Jack Gilles <icabombay at igc.org>
> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] An excellent article on Health Care costs
> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
> Message-ID: <970E70B2-836E-4189-A0E3-943B7A464474 at igc.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed";
> DelSp="yes"
>
> Herman,
>
> This article is fantastic! It's if for the first time the
> contradiction is named (for me) and we can see what needs to really
> happen. No longer am I distraught over the loss of the "public
> option". It is not addressing the contradiction. What it does
> clarify for me is something that I have brooding about throughout all
> these emails zinging back and forth. Why aren't we remembering our
> own deep and profound insight that there will be no New Social Vehicle
> without a New Religious Mode? I find this article not only says that,
> but points out what areas we need to work in to make it happen. And
> his words that as of now, that possibility is becoming less not more
> prevalent is sobering. I personally feel that this thinking and
> action is what we need to focus on, not just our method for coming up
> with an analysis and plan (ToPs Methods). Anyway, thanks for bringing
> this to our attention and I hope everyone will read it.
>
> Grace & Peace,
>
> Jack
>
>
> **********************************
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:42:11 -0400
> From: elliestock at aol.com
> Subject: [Oe List ...] 9/17/09, Spong: The Origins of the New
> Testament, Part I: Introduction
> To: Dialogue at wedgeblade.net, OE at wedgeblade.net
> Message-ID: <8CC05CCF01DE20C-4FBC-12C9B at webmail-m079.sysops.aol.com>
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> Now Available!
> Eternal Life: A New Vision Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond
> Heaven and
> Hell
> By John Shelby Spong
> About the new book
>
> Bishop Spong will soon be reading from and signing his new book at
> various
> locations, including Outwrite in Atlanta on September 29. More
> locations to
> be announced soon.
>
>> From the book's publisher:
>
> "Browse Inside" the book
>
> Find a Bookseller
>
> Buy the Book in Bishop Spong's Online Bookstore
>
>
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>
>
> Thursday September 17, 2009
>
>
>
> The Origins of the New Testament
> Part I: Introduction
>
>
>
> I launch today a series of columns that will appear regularly over
> the next
> twelve to eighteen months. As I always do in this column, this
> series will
> augment the essays that are time sensitive and that seek to illumine
> contemporary issues through my theological lens. Last week's column
> on the
> health care debate is a case in point.
> The purpose of this unfolding series is to take you, my readers,
> deeply into
> those books that constitute the New Testament. There are twenty-
> seven in
> number and together they form the volume that arguably has been the
> most
> influential and shaping piece of narrative writing in the history of
> the
> world. The earliest book of the New Testament is probably I
> Thessalonians,
> generally dated around the year 51 CE, while th
> e latest is probably II Peter, generally dated around the year 135
> CE. The
> influence of this book, while always powerful, has been both
> positive and
> negative. On the positive side it is clear that the institution
> called the
> Christian Church, which grew out of these twenty-seven books, has
> inspired
> quite literally millions of people in many ways. Most of the great
> universities of the world were begun as part of the Christian Church's
> commitment to knowledge and, in particular, to impart to people the
> saving
> knowledge of the sacred scriptures. Most of our healing
> institutions, from
> hospitals to hospice, arose out of that Christian sense that every
> human
> life is of infinite worth, which carried with it the compelling need
> to
> alleviate suffering insofar as it is possible. Most of the great art
> of the
> ages, at least up until the 17th century, has as its content scenes
> from
> these twenty-seven books. These art treasures are of such immense
> value
> today that for the most part they are stored in the world's greatest
> museums
> as a constant source of enrichment for the people. Most of the great
> music
> of the ages, at least up until the dawn of modernity, was an attempt
> to put
> the primary themes of the New Testament into the indelible sounds
> that we
> today still recognize and sing. One thinks of the St. Matthew
> Passion and
> the St. John Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach and of the Christmas
> Oratorio,
> "Messiah" by George Frederick Handel as familiar and much loved
> cultural
> treasures. One cannot understand the history o
> f the Western world or explore these cultural artifacts without
> becoming
> deeply aware of the i mpact the New Testament has had on the life of
> our
> civilization.
>
> There is, however, also a dark side of the New Testament that must
> be faced
> and lifted beyond the stained glass accents of antiquity into full
> consciousness. The New Testament has had victims whose lives have been
> diminished at best and destroyed at worst by the direct impact of
> reading
> from this "sacred" source. I think of the Jewish people who have
> suffered
> throughout Christian history because of this book. The words
> attributed to
> the Jewish crowd by Matthew in his narrative of the crucifixion,
> "his blood
> be upon us and upon our children," have caused much Jewish blood to
> flow in
> everything from the Crusades to the Holocaust. The Fourth Gospel's
> use of
> the phrase "The Jews," spoken so often through clenched teeth, has not
> infrequently been used to legitimize anti-Semitism. The portrayal of
> a man
> called Judas, a name that is nothing but the Greek spelling of the
> name for
> the entire Jewish nation, as the anti-hero of the Jesus story,
> served to
> give permission to Christians through the ages to justify their
> feeling of
> revenge against this ethnic group of people. Lost in this hostile
> passion is
> the truth that Jesus was a Jew, the disciples were all Jews and the
> writers
> of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament were also Jews. The
> only
> possible exception to this statement is Luke, thought to be the
> author of
> both the gospel that be
> ars his name and the book of Acts, who is believed to have been born a
> Gentile, but to have converted to Judaism and thus to have come
> through the
> Synagogue into the Church. This means that when we read the New
> Testament,
> we are reading only the words of Jewish writers, interpreting the
> experience
> and impact of the Jewish Jesus primarily in the light of the Jewish
> Scriptures and under the ongoing influence of the Synagogue
> traditions of
> the Jews. Yet these books have fueled over the centuries a killing
> frenzy of
> anti-Semitism. The single greatest carrier of this hostility has been
> nothing less than our Sunday school curricula and materials. Jewish
> people
> thus have a hard t ime seeing these twenty-seven books as "sacred
> scriptures."
>
> The institution of slavery was affirmed throughout history from
> words in the
> New Testament. Slavery was practiced in the west by God-fearing,
> Bible-reading Christians. The popes at various times owned slaves. The
> section of the United States that fought fiercely to preserve this
> evil
> institution was also known as the Bible Belt. It was the Bible-reading
> people of the South who made lynching legal, who replaced slavery with
> segregation and who resisted every effort to keep racial justice
> from being
> achieved. Much of their justification for this behavior came from
> quoting
> St. Paul, who in his letter to Philemon urged the runaway slave
> Onesimus to
> return to his master, while simultaneously urging Philemon, his
> master, to
> be forgiving to his slave. In the Epistle to the Colossians, Pa
> ul, or one of his disciples, instructed slaves to be obedient and
> masters to
> be kind. Perhaps it could be said that a kinder and gentler slavery is
> better than a cruel and harsh one, but it is to be noted that Paul
> clearly
> accepted the legitimacy of this cruel institution, making no effort to
> abolish it and thus legitimizing it in the minds of others for
> centuries.
> One wonders how those who were enslaved and their descendents might
> view the
> New Testament from which texts were cited to justify both slavery and
> second-class citizenship. These scriptures were not sources of life
> to these
> victims of our prejudice.
>
> Women have also not fared well at the hands of these male written,
> male read
> and male interpreted books of the New Testament. They have rather
> fed the
> deep-seated cultural misogyny of the ages with such admonitions as
> those
> found in Ephesians for wives to obey their husbands, or in
> Corinthians for
> women to keep quiet in church, or in Timothy where women are
> forbidden to
> exercise authority over men. Under the influence of the New
> Testament women
> in the Christian world were denied higher education for centuries.
> As a
> result they were denied entrance into the professions, denied the
> right to
> vote, denied the ability to own property in their own name and denied
> leadership roles in the Christian world until well into the 20th
> century.
> When progress did come for women it was driven by the secular spirit
> while
> organized religion as expressed in the Christian Church resisted these
> changes with sc
> ripture-quoting vehemence. In major sections of the world this anti-
> feminist
> Bible-laced rhetoric continues to be articulated both officially
> through
> ecclesiastical bodies and by individual believers. One wonders how
> women
> would ever be drawn to the texts of this book.
>
> The same could also be said for the victimization of the gay, lesbian,
> bi-sexual and transgender segments of our population. They too have
> lived
> throughout history with Bible-fueled hostility that manifested
> itself in gay
> bashing and in actual murder. Texts were quoted from Romans that
> called
> homosexuality "unnatural" and condemned it, to references in other
> epistles
> that mistranslated the Greek word arcenokoitus, which refers to a
> passive
> male, as deviant, sodomite or pervert, even though its original
> meaning
> appears to have been male prostitutes. There is no doubt that the
> center of
> homophobia in the western world today remains the Christian Church,
> now
> ghettoized from the mainstream of society, and is regularly
> articulated by
> Christian voices from the Pope to Pat Robertson. One wonders how
> homosexual
> people could ever appreciate the message of the New Testament.
>
> In my experience, I do not find it possible to overestimate the
> levels of
> biblical ignorance present today inside the Christian population.
> Most of
> these just-cited abuses rise out of that ignorance. Much preaching
> that
> emanates from both Catholic and Protestant pulpits not only reflects
> that
> ignorance, but also continues to spread it.
>
> In this series of columns I will, therefore, attempt to counter t
> his biblical ignorance and to break the grip that it has on much of
> our
> population. While seeking to avoid the technicalities of biblical
> scholarship that seem to amuse so many in the academy, I will try to
> state
> clearly how these books came to be written and so endeavor to oppose
> the
> rampant literal misunderstanding that embraces so much of our
> culture today
> in regard to the Bible. I will go into both the meaning and the key
> points
> of each book in the New Testament, as I have done in past years with
> the
> books of the Old Testament. I will try to show the differences among
> the
> four gospels that reveal more contradictions than most people
> believe to be
> possible. I hope you will enjoy the journey. I know I will.
>
> One final note. A number of small churches across the English-
> speaking world
> now use this column for their Sunday morning adult education
> classes. These
> essays are subscribed to by the members of the various classes with
> extra
> copies reproduced for visitors so that the class and the discussion
> can have
> a common basis for discussion. The leader of the class simply
> convenes the
> group and introduces the topic. That leadership role can be constant
> or
> rotated so long as the purpose is accomplished to allow people to
> discuss
> issues openly, to raise any questions they wish and to engage in any
> debate
> that arises. When the group gets too large for discussion, it
> subdivides
> into two groups. I am gratified to learn this and rejoice that this
> column
> might be an instrument in the New Refo
> rmation for which many of us yearn. At the very least I hope people
> find a
> richness in this book that small ecclesiastical minds have tried for
> centuries to hide from the average pew sitter. Have fun!
>
>
> ? John Shelby Spong
> ?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Question and Answer
> With John Shelby Spong
>
>
>
>
> Deb McCollister from Nebraska writes:
>
> Militant fundamentalism in any family of faith seems to threaten our
> world.
> Readers of your newsletter are aware of Christian scholars who examine
> long-held assumptions. Can you tell us about penetrating scholarship
> in
> other faith walks, study that examines history while seeking meaning
> and
> deeper truths?
> Deb McCollister from Nebraska writes:
>
> Militant fundamentalism in any family of faith seems to threaten our
> world.
> Readers of your newsletter are aware of Christian scholars who examine
> long-held assumptions. Can you tell us about penetrating scholarship
> in
> other faith walks, study that examines history while seeking meaning
> and
> deeper truths?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Deb,
>
> A very good question. The intellectual revolution that started with
> Copernicus and traveled through Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Freud,
> Einstein and
> many others has had an enormous impact on the religious tradition of
> the
> west in both Judaism and Christianity. We have also in both
> traditions been
> dealing with critical biblical scholarship for about 200 years. That
> scholarship, while welcomed by many, has also served to create a
> fundamentalist backlash in parts of Christianity and Judaism. We have
> certainly seen evidence of thi
> s in the political arena, where the religious right has been very
> vocal in
> America in the fight to restore prayer to the classrooms of public
> schools,
> to resist the teaching of evolution, to oppose sex education and to
> keep
> people like Terri Schiavo alive well after anything resembling real
> life had
> long departed.
>
> In the less developed and less well educated parts of the world,
> religion
> serves a variety of purposes. It gives hope to the hopelessness of
> the poor
> and downtrodden. It links people with their ancestral past. It helps
> them
> deal with the radical insecurity of human existence. When threatened
> by
> challenging insights into the origins of these faith traditions, many
> religious people who are unable to embrace or to process new
> religious ideas
> turn defensive and become both rejecting and fundamentalist. There
> is not as
> yet a tradition of radical religious scholarship in Islam that would
> call
> into question the way fundamentalist Muslims today use the Koran to
> justify
> violence. In the world of Buddhism and Hinduism I find today that the
> intellectually elite simply walk out of religion into secularism.
> Religion
> therefore becomes more and more the activity of the unlearned. It is
> therefore more and more likely to resist change, which makes
> modernizing
> that religious system all but impossible.
>
> I am convinced that my religious heritage points me to truth that no
> religion in and of itself can envision. I do not believe that secular
> non-belief is the only alternative to being religious, but it takes
> hard
> work,
> deep understanding, rich dialogue and a willingness to embrace vast
> amounts
> of fear and insecurity to reach this conclusion. I can testify,
> however,
> that to me it has been well worthwhile. As a witness to this truth
> let me
> quote a retired bishop who said, "The older I get the more deeply I
> believe,
> but the fewer beliefs I have." I think that is where I am and I
> believe that
> is where all religious systems will have to go if they want to live
> in our
> 21st century world.
>
> Change must come, however, from within the religious system itself.
> It can
> never be imposed from outside. So you and I, Deb, must work within
> the faith
> of our fathers and mothers. I have found my journey into the depths of
> Christianity to be the most exciting adventure and the most affirming
> experience of my life. I invite others to journey with me into the
> unfathomable mystery of God and life and being.
>
>
> ? John Shelby Spong
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Send your questions to support at johnshelbyspong.com
>
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