[Oe List ...] Still here - See WiserEarth for Hawkin's list
Ken Gillgren
kgillgren at igc.org
Thu Oct 20 10:29:55 EDT 2011
At the same time Hawkins was writing his book, he was leading an online
effort to capture all the information on organizations he was
encountering, and more organizations have been signing on since.
The project is called Wiser Earth (originally, I think, World Index of
Social and Environmental Responsibility, although I note this doesn't
appear any more on the site, which has continued to evolve into an
alternative social media platform).
Here is the link: http://wiserearth.org/
Thanks to all for all you do,
Ken Gillgren
(Milwaukee Metro and House, Amarillo, Indiahoma, Selawik/RVI, Anchorage,
Seoul, Tokyo)
On 10/20/2011 6:55 AM, Tracy E. Longacre wrote:
>
> Wow, I love that definition. That is definitely the movement I am a
> part of. Any groups in that listing in Africa? (I'd hate to buy a book
> just to find out. . .)
>
> Tracy E. Longacre
>
> from Katima Mulilo, Namibia
>
> +264 (81) 712 6581
>
> SKYPE: tlongacre
>
> / Blog: http://tlongacre.wordpress.com
> <http://tlongacre.wordpress.com/>/
>
> / Run Blog: http://revruns.blogspot.com <http://revruns.blogspot.com/>/
>
> / Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlongacre//
>
> / Want to receive occasional updates on me and my work? send an
> e-mail to: /telupdates-subscribe at topica.com
> <mailto:telupdates-subscribe at topica.com>//
>
> //
>
> /"This courage doesn't deny or rush past feelings of fear but lets
> them dissolve into trust: a deep, abiding trust that your human
> experience is exactly the experience you are meant to have; that you
> needn't feel shame or guilt for your imperfections; that you needn't
> grasp for something that isn't coming your way, or reject what is." /
>
> / "Fearlessness," Yoga Journal, June 2011/
>
> *From:*oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net]
> *On Behalf Of *R Williams
> *Sent:* 20 October 2011 15:37
> *To:* Order Ecumenical Community
> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> Tracy,
>
> Regarding whether there is a movement today, one perspective has been
> offered by Paul Hawken in his book /Blessed Unrest/ in which he
> describes what he calls the "largest movement in the world" as follows:
>
> /...a broad nonideological movement...that does not invoke the masses'
> fantacized will but rather engages citizens' localized needs. Its key
> contribution is rejection of one big idea in order to offer processes,
> concerns, and compassion. The movement demonstrates a pliable,
> resonant, and generous side of humanity. It does not aim for the
> utopian, but is eminently pragmatic./
>
> About a third of Hawken's book is a listing, by category, of groups
> all over the world that he calls "mini-movements" that are part of
> this "largest movement."
>
> Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze, in their recent book /Walk Out
> Walk On, /give great examples of 7 "local" (though not necessarily
> "local" as in geographic) communities that fit Hawken's description
> and are doing what Wheatley and Frieze describe as "living the future
> now." I recommend both these books for anyone who wants to know about
> local movements who are indeed already awakened and engaged.
>
> For a prelim of what Wheatley and Frieze are saying, see a 5-page
> paper called "Taking Innovation to Scale" at
> www.oxfordleadership.com/journal/vol1_issue1/wheatley_frieze.pdf
> <http://www.oxfordleadership.com/journal/vol1_issue1/wheatley_frieze.pdf>.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Randy
>
> PS Though often referred to as such, I'm waiting to see if the
> "Occupiers" are, at least for me, what I would call a movement. For
> now I'll just rely on the word of people like Rob Work and others who
> have been there to see first hand.
>
> *From:*Tracy E. Longacre <tel at telphoto.com>
> *To:* 'Order Ecumenical Community' <oe at wedgeblade.net>
> *Sent:* Thursday, October 20, 2011 7:59 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> Randy,
>
> Thanks for this whole conversation.
>
> I agree that the movement is awake and engaged already, though I'm not
> sure there is a thing one could call "a movement". It certainly looks
> very different depending on whether you are sitting in the North or
> the South, for instance.
>
> It occurs to me in this moment that what is needed is truth-telling.
> This is the fundamental power of the Occupy Wall Street (& Portland, &
> SF, & wherever else) actions, I think. A bunch of people that are
> finally standing up and saying, "are you kidding?" If I do NOT assume
> that a huge portion of the educated population are idiots, then I must
> surmise that it has become very difficult to discern basic,
> commonsense truth these days.
>
> Anyway, I think this is the right question to be asking.
>
> Tracy E. Longacre
>
> from Katima Mulilo, Namibia
>
> +264 (81) 712 6581
>
> SKYPE: tlongacre
>
> / Blog: http://tlongacre.wordpress.com
> <http://tlongacre.wordpress.com/>/
>
> / Run Blog: http://revruns.blogspot.com <http://revruns.blogspot.com/>/
>
> / Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlongacre//
>
> / Want to receive occasional updates on me and my work? send an
> e-mail to: /telupdates-subscribe at topica.com
> <mailto:telupdates-subscribe at topica.com>
>
> //
>
> /"This courage doesn't deny or rush past feelings of fear but lets
> them dissolve into trust: a deep, abiding trust that your human
> experience is exactly the experience you are meant to have; that you
> needn't feel shame or guilt for your imperfections; that you needn't
> grasp for something that isn't coming your way, or reject what is." /
>
> / "Fearlessness," Yoga Journal, June 2011/
>
> *From:*oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net]
> *On Behalf Of *R Williams
> *Sent:* 19 October 2011 12:48
> *To:* Order Ecumenical Community
> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> Regardless of the particular Mathews may have been speaking to, he is
> articulating what I believe we always understood in our clearer
> moments, that our task was to be the "servants of the servants." We
> were not the movement, we served the movement. The question is, where
> do we see the movement being embodied today and how would the
> "servants of the servants" relate to it. I think we would find that
> the movement today, in its various manifestations, is already awake
> and engaged and therefore requires something different of those who
> would serve it than it did 40 years ago.
>
> Randy
>
> *From:*George Holcombe <geowanda at earthlink.net>
> *To:* Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 18, 2011 5:44 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> I ran across this quote in one of JWM's speeches in the upcoming
> Bending History 2. Kinda interesting to the string.
>
> "I am clearer than ever that we are not and will not be a movement. A
> movement may come but it won't be our movement. I see ourselves as a
> happening. I see ourselves as having the potential of being an
> explosion that could bring forth in our day a new form of profound
> awareness, effective engagement and an absolute plethora of humanness.
> If we become such an explosion, let us remember no person or group of
> people have ever done anything but failed. It is Being itself that
> succeeds in us and allows us to participate in the success of Being."
>
> *GLOBAL COMMUNITY FORUM & GLOBAL SOCIAL DEMONSTRATION*
>
> Joseph W. Mathews
>
> 1976
>
> George Holcombe
> 14900 Yellowleaf Tr.
> Austin, TX 78728
> Mobile 512/252-2756
> geowanda at earthlink.net <mailto:geowanda at earthlink.net>
>
> "Stay hungry, stay foolish" Whole Earth Catalog via Steve Jobs
>
> On Oct 18, 2011, at 9:20 AM, M. George Walters wrote:
>
> While in India we taught the International RS-I (1969-1971) before
> Carol and I went to SFO where we worked with the LCX Galaxies. In the
> curriculum in the states these were split into two different courses.
> I-RS-I had a heavy focus on the parish mission and I loved it. If we
> were to develop anything new that started with theological grounding,
> it might be like putting a frontend on ToP that focused on the
> understanding Randy is talking about and the Sense of secularity that
> is needed to transcend doctrinalism, institutionalism etc.
>
> On the issue of compartmentalization I am always amazed at the smoking
> break section adjacent to the cancer wards in hospitals where the
> nurses and doctors go immediately after surgery.
>
> With kindest regards.
>
> M. George Walters
>
> Resurgence Publishing Corporation
>
> 4240 Sandy Shores Dr
>
> Lutz, FL 33558
>
> USA
>
> Tel: +1 (813) 948-7267
>
> Fax: +1 (813) 333-1787
>
> Mob: +1 (813) 505-9041
>
> URL:www.ResurgencePublishing.com <http://www.resurgencepublishing.com/>
>
> Professional Profile:http://www.linkedin.com/in/mgwalters
>
> *From:*oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> <mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net>[mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net]*On Behalf
> Of*Jaime R Vergara
> *Sent:*Tuesday, October 18, 2011 09:28
> *To:*oe at wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net>
> *Subject:*Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> Randy's question is well phrased.
>
> Visited the westside on February '66 (from Asbury Seminary in Wilmore
> KY) but did not really hear the "no-messiah messiah" until the '68
> assassination of MLK while at SMU Perkins in Dallas, and later in the
> year, resolved to be a 'global citizen' with the 'earthrise' of Apollo
> 8 among residents of the Faith and Life Community House in Greensboro,
> N.C.. Finally joined EI Manila in '72 to live out the Neibuhr church
> dynamic in and outside (mostly) the institutional form
> (serendipitously on the same day that Marcos declared Martial Law in
> the Philippines). The turn to the world saved my anarchic iconoclosm
> but I was under no illusion about 'bending history'; a two-month stint
> in Maharastra made it clear that whatever I did was not going to
> amount into anything piddly (regardless of glowing Prior reports) but
> that my 'sanctification' was simply the absolute freedom to decide to
> "just do it."
>
> Doing it, or being the church, is both a personal resolve and a social
> reformulation, or as Brian Stanfield noted in his/Courage to
> Lead,/transform self, transform society.
>
> The question then requires both a testimonial and methods-manual response.
>
> The power of the Marshalls and the Realistic Living folks is the
> lucidity that one walks one talks, otherwise, it is only a head-trip.
> We differ in practice only at the level of metaphors: RL and the
> Marshalls still adhere to the images of the Christian witness, albeit,
> metaphorically translated. I've ordered Chinese!
>
> Clarity about the 'church dynamic,' however, is in our bones.
> (Returned my Methodist ordination to CalPAC in 2002.)Am living out the
> dynamic with third World foreign students (mostly Moslem and Christian
> adherents, along with secular socialist) and Chinese students whose
> only sole purpose in life is "to make much money so I can take care of
> my folks and travel with my spouse around the world."
>
> How am I being the church? Ask me again in a year! Might have a
> manual then.
>
> Meanwhile, I seem to recall giving up Occupying Main St. Methodist
> Church long time ago. But no mistake about it: I am being the church!
>
> Turning back to Randy, Bud, Karen and the rest of the listserv - might
> not a fruitful conversation be on what we have or are doing (knowing,
> too) in being the church? As to the reason how "turn to the world"
> happened in the EI family - don't know and don't really care, because
> I did, and I am grateful.
>
> j'aime la vie
>
> China
>
> *From*: R Williams <rcwmbw at yahoo.com <mailto:rcwmbw at yahoo.com>>
> *To*: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net
> <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net>>
> *Sent*: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 8:29 pm
> *Subject*: Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> Please allow me to raise an honest question in the midst of this
> conversation. I'm not trying to ring anyone's bell. There are two
> things that come to my mind out of the church section of RS-1. One is
> that one of the perversions of the institutional church was/is that it
> had abdicated its mission to serve the world in favor of building
> itself as an institution--"institutionalism" I think we called it.
> Second, in studying HRN's paper, The Church as Social Pioneer," we
> concluded that when Niebuhr used the word "church" he was pointing,
> not to an institutional form, but to a social dynamic. So wherever
> you saw a group which "in its own thinking, organization and
> action...functions as a world society, undivided by race, class and
> national interests," (one of HRN's descriptive phrases) that was
> the "_c_hurch" (little "c"), whether or not it had a steeple with a cross.
>
> No doubt the institutional church is indeed still greatly in need of
> renewal, by some estimates, with local exceptions, maybe even "beyond"
> renewal. So here's my question. Instead of trying to renew an
> institution, that is clearly more burdened with dogma, ideology,
> hierarchy, gender-ism, etc. than most, just for the sake of the
> institution, why not relate to and serve those groups and communities
> that are already awake, engaged, creating positive change, and doing,
> in today's terms, what Niebuhr described then as the "church"
> dynamic? (I believe there are many such communities but we have to
> search them out.) My assessment of the crisis created by the "turn to
> the world" is, we never got beyond the abstraction of "world" in order
> to decide in any practical sense what or who we were in fact turning
> to. I sense that the national ICAs and ICAI are struggling with that
> issue today.
>
> Again, I'm not grinding an axe here. This is an honest question posed
> for the sake of soliciting new insights in the midst of this dialogue
> about a very important issue.
>
> Randy Williams
>
> *From:*"KarenBueno at aol.com <mailto:KarenBueno at aol.com>"
> <KarenBueno at aol.com <mailto:KarenBueno at aol.com>>
> *To:*oe at wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net>
> *Sent:*Monday, October 17, 2011 5:10 PM
> *Subject:*Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
>
> "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 <mailto: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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> OE at wedgeblade.net <mailto:OE at wedgeblade.net>
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
>
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> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
>
> _______________________________________________
> OE mailing list
> OE at wedgeblade.net <mailto:OE at wedgeblade.net>
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OE mailing list
> OE at wedgeblade.net <mailto:OE at wedgeblade.net>
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
>
> Namibia
>
> +264 (81) 712 6581
>
> SKYPE: tlongacre
>
> / Blog: http://tlongacre.wordpress.com//
>
> / Run Blog: http://revruns.blogspot.com//
>
> / Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlongacre//
>
> / Want to receive occasional updates on me and my work? send an
> e-mail to: /telupdates-subscribe at topica.com
> <mailto:telupdates-subscribe at topica.com>
>
> //
>
> /"This courage doesn't deny or rush past feelings of fear but lets
> them dissolve into trust: a deep, abiding trust that your human
> experience is exactly the experience you are meant to have; that you
> needn't feel shame or guilt for your imperfections; that you needn't
> grasp for something that isn't coming your way, or reject what is." /
>
> / "Fearlessness," Yoga Journal, June 2011/
>
> *From:*oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net]
> *On Behalf Of *R Williams
> *Sent:* 19 October 2011 12:48
> *To:* Order Ecumenical Community
> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> Regardless of the particular Mathews may have been speaking to, he is
> articulating what I believe we always understood in our clearer
> moments, that our task was to be the "servants of the servants." We
> were not the movement, we served the movement. The question is, where
> do we see the movement being embodied today and how would the
> "servants of the servants" relate to it. I think we would find that
> the movement today, in its various manifestations, is already awake
> and engaged and therefore requires something different of those who
> would serve it than it did 40 years ago.
>
> Randy
>
> *From:*George Holcombe <geowanda at earthlink.net>
> *To:* Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 18, 2011 5:44 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> I ran across this quote in one of JWM's speeches in the upcoming
> Bending History 2. Kinda interesting to the string.
>
> "I am clearer than ever that we are not and will not be a movement. A
> movement may come but it won't be our movement. I see ourselves as a
> happening. I see ourselves as having the potential of being an
> explosion that could bring forth in our day a new form of profound
> awareness, effective engagement and an absolute plethora of humanness.
> If we become such an explosion, let us remember no person or group of
> people have ever done anything but failed. It is Being itself that
> succeeds in us and allows us to participate in the success of Being."
>
> *GLOBAL COMMUNITY FORUM & GLOBAL SOCIAL DEMONSTRATION*
>
> Joseph W. Mathews
>
> 1976
>
> George Holcombe
> 14900 Yellowleaf Tr.
> Austin, TX 78728
> Mobile 512/252-2756
> geowanda at earthlink.net <mailto:geowanda at earthlink.net>
>
> "Stay hungry, stay foolish" Whole Earth Catalog via Steve Jobs
>
> On Oct 18, 2011, at 9:20 AM, M. George Walters wrote:
>
> While in India we taught the International RS-I (1969-1971) before
> Carol and I went to SFO where we worked with the LCX Galaxies. In the
> curriculum in the states these were split into two different courses.
> I-RS-I had a heavy focus on the parish mission and I loved it. If we
> were to develop anything new that started with theological grounding,
> it might be like putting a frontend on ToP that focused on the
> understanding Randy is talking about and the Sense of secularity that
> is needed to transcend doctrinalism, institutionalism etc.
>
> On the issue of compartmentalization I am always amazed at the smoking
> break section adjacent to the cancer wards in hospitals where the
> nurses and doctors go immediately after surgery.
>
> With kindest regards.
>
> M. George Walters
>
> Resurgence Publishing Corporation
>
> 4240 Sandy Shores Dr
>
> Lutz, FL 33558
>
> USA
>
> Tel: +1 (813) 948-7267
>
> Fax: +1 (813) 333-1787
>
> Mob: +1 (813) 505-9041
>
> URL:www.ResurgencePublishing.com <http://www.resurgencepublishing.com/>
>
> Professional Profile:http://www.linkedin.com/in/mgwalters
>
> *From:*oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> <mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net>[mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net]*On Behalf
> Of*Jaime R Vergara
> *Sent:*Tuesday, October 18, 2011 09:28
> *To:*oe at wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net>
> *Subject:*Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> Randy's question is well phrased.
>
> Visited the westside on February '66 (from Asbury Seminary in Wilmore
> KY) but did not really hear the "no-messiah messiah" until the '68
> assassination of MLK while at SMU Perkins in Dallas, and later in the
> year, resolved to be a 'global citizen' with the 'earthrise' of Apollo
> 8 among residents of the Faith and Life Community House in Greensboro,
> N.C.. Finally joined EI Manila in '72 to live out the Neibuhr church
> dynamic in and outside (mostly) the institutional form
> (serendipitously on the same day that Marcos declared Martial Law in
> the Philippines). The turn to the world saved my anarchic iconoclosm
> but I was under no illusion about 'bending history'; a two-month stint
> in Maharastra made it clear that whatever I did was not going to
> amount into anything piddly (regardless of glowing Prior reports) but
> that my 'sanctification' was simply the absolute freedom to decide to
> "just do it."
>
> Doing it, or being the church, is both a personal resolve and a social
> reformulation, or as Brian Stanfield noted in his/Courage to
> Lead,/transform self, transform society.
>
> The question then requires both a testimonial and methods-manual response.
>
> The power of the Marshalls and the Realistic Living folks is the
> lucidity that one walks one talks, otherwise, it is only a head-trip.
> We differ in practice only at the level of metaphors: RL and the
> Marshalls still adhere to the images of the Christian witness, albeit,
> metaphorically translated. I've ordered Chinese!
>
> Clarity about the 'church dynamic,' however, is in our bones.
> (Returned my Methodist ordination to CalPAC in 2002.)Am living out the
> dynamic with third World foreign students (mostly Moslem and Christian
> adherents, along with secular socialist) and Chinese students whose
> only sole purpose in life is "to make much money so I can take care of
> my folks and travel with my spouse around the world."
>
> How am I being the church? Ask me again in a year! Might have a
> manual then.
>
> Meanwhile, I seem to recall giving up Occupying Main St. Methodist
> Church long time ago. But no mistake about it: I am being the church!
>
> Turning back to Randy, Bud, Karen and the rest of the listserv - might
> not a fruitful conversation be on what we have or are doing (knowing,
> too) in being the church? As to the reason how "turn to the world"
> happened in the EI family - don't know and don't really care, because
> I did, and I am grateful.
>
> j'aime la vie
>
> China
>
> *From*: R Williams <rcwmbw at yahoo.com <mailto:rcwmbw at yahoo.com>>
> *To*: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net
> <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net>>
> *Sent*: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 8:29 pm
> *Subject*: Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
> Please allow me to raise an honest question in the midst of this
> conversation. I'm not trying to ring anyone's bell. There are two
> things that come to my mind out of the church section of RS-1. One is
> that one of the perversions of the institutional church was/is that it
> had abdicated its mission to serve the world in favor of building
> itself as an institution--"institutionalism" I think we called it.
> Second, in studying HRN's paper, The Church as Social Pioneer," we
> concluded that when Niebuhr used the word "church" he was pointing,
> not to an institutional form, but to a social dynamic. So wherever
> you saw a group which "in its own thinking, organization and
> action...functions as a world society, undivided by race, class and
> national interests," (one of HRN's descriptive phrases) that was
> the "_c_hurch" (little "c"), whether or not it had a steeple with a cross.
>
> No doubt the institutional church is indeed still greatly in need of
> renewal, by some estimates, with local exceptions, maybe even "beyond"
> renewal. So here's my question. Instead of trying to renew an
> institution, that is clearly more burdened with dogma, ideology,
> hierarchy, gender-ism, etc. than most, just for the sake of the
> institution, why not relate to and serve those groups and communities
> that are already awake, engaged, creating positive change, and doing,
> in today's terms, what Niebuhr described then as the "church"
> dynamic? (I believe there are many such communities but we have to
> search them out.) My assessment of the crisis created by the "turn to
> the world" is, we never got beyond the abstraction of "world" in order
> to decide in any practical sense what or who we were in fact turning
> to. I sense that the national ICAs and ICAI are struggling with that
> issue today.
>
> Again, I'm not grinding an axe here. This is an honest question posed
> for the sake of soliciting new insights in the midst of this dialogue
> about a very important issue.
>
> Randy Williams
>
> *From:*"KarenBueno at aol.com <mailto:KarenBueno at aol.com>"
> <KarenBueno at aol.com <mailto:KarenBueno at aol.com>>
> *To:*oe at wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net>
> *Sent:*Monday, October 17, 2011 5:10 PM
> *Subject:*Re: [Oe List ...] Still here
>
>
> "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 <mailto: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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