[Oe List ...] Still here

[KarenBueno at aol.com]

"the Church is at least as much in need for renewal as it was in the  
1970s."   Ain't it the truf, Bud.  Those of us who are still  working in ordinary 
local churches, those that RS1 did not reach and  make an impact, can 
surely agree.  And the course about Progressive  Christianity is a great need.  
It would probably take as huge a maneuver as  it took to put RS1 into history 
to create and disseminate such a course.
 
Will our beloved Christianity die, if it does not change (as Bishop Spong  
writes)?  And those good-hearted folks who still show up on Sunday morning  
to worship and study, those good-hearted women who still show up at the 
women's  groups will probably just disappear into history.  The United Methodist 
 Women, in their district and conference and global bodies, if not in the 
local  churches, seem to be able to make an "end run" around theology and 
step forward  to do justice activities.  That is why I continue to work there.
 
I doubt that a weekend course, or maybe any format of a teaching method,  
(as books, study group curriculums, etc.) will reach enough people to make a  
difference.  I think it will need to be something that explodes on the  
internet, in order to catch the attention of those who might be able to  
listen.  
 
So many seem to be able to put all of their scientific learnings into one  
box, and then put their faith understandings locked away somewhere else in 
their  brains.  When people don't have to confront the difference between the 
two,  they don't necessarily think about it.  
 
And those who understand that scientific understandings contradict orthodox 
 Christianity seem as likely to just quit the church as to try to 
reinterpret the  faith.
 
I'm guessing that the lack of responses to your proposal is a lack of  
vision, not a lack of interest from our colleagues, about how such a  movement 
would be structured.   
 
Karen Bueno  (active with EI/ICA since 1967)



In a message dated 10/17/2011 1:39:57 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,  
rev.bud at mac.com writes:

Several  days ago I posted for the first time on this listserv. I want to 
let you know  I am still here. Thanks for the number of you who responded to 
my emails in my  mission to try to create a transformational course for 
Progressive Christians.  I haven't got back to all of you yet. I will, but I 
have been trying to catch  up on having been out of touch with you for over 30 
years. Right now I'm going  through the archives to see where you have been 
in those years. I've come  across an issue that had made me reflect on my 
own experience.

I read  with sympathy the responses of some members of the movement who had 
just been  laid off in 2007 by the ICA. They felt there was an injustice. 
An action was  taken that was not corporately decided. They felt they were 
'riffed', just  like they were workers in some hierarchical corporation rather 
than in a  community that made decisions corporately.  

This made me remember  how we who were part of the Local Church Experiment 
felt when the movement  took the 'turn to the world'. We were riffed. And we 
had had no say. It was  just reported back that the decision had been made, 
like it was coming down in  a hierarchical decision from Rome. But in this 
case, the Order had convinced  us all that decisions were to be made not 
only intentionally but corporately.  Those of us in the churches were left high 
and dry.

I enjoyed the  emails where Brother Van's song was reconstructed on the 
listserv. If the  clergy and laity in the LCX could have added to Spirit Songs 
it might have  included: 
"It isn't so easy believing, you'd leave after all  we've been through. 
It's breaking my heart to  remember the Dreams we depended upon. 
You're leaving a slow  dying ember; I'll miss you my love when you've gone."

Reading Slicker's  memories of the beginning of the Order reminded me of 
how central the renewal  of the Church was in its reason for being. So it was 
no little shift to desert  the churches when you took the 'turn to the 
world'.

There had been no  place to raise a couple questions back then: How was 
this turn decided? Who  decided it? Why were those of us who had made the 
commitment to renew the  church through the EI methodology not included in the 
decision? 

In  reading the prologue to the LCX on the Golden Pathway DVD I'm struck 
that the  Church is at least as much in need for renewal as it was in the 
1970s.  

Grace and Peace,

Bud  Tillinghast




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