[Oe List ...] 1/05/12, Spong: The Monolithic Conservatism of the American Heartland Is Not So Monolithic!

[Carol Crow]

Yay and Congratulations to Donna Ziegenhorn in Kansas City!  (Read  
article)  I'd love to hear more!

In Community,
Carol
On Jan 5, 2012, at 8:16 AM, Ellie Stock wrote:

> !
>
>
>
>
>      HOMEPAGE        MY PROFILE        ESSAY ARCHIVE       MESSAGE  
> BOARDS       CALENDAR
>
> The Monolithic Conservatism of the American Heartland Is Not So  
> Monolithic!
> There are times when one’s perceptions are challenged and one’s  
> stereotypical prejudices are shattered.  This happened to me in  
> recent days when I fulfilled invitations to speak in three cities  
> that one thinks of as traditional, heartland cities.  They were  
> Birmingham, Alabama, Tupelo, Mississippi, and Kansas City,  
> Missouri.  I share with my readers these experiences and my own  
> response of being surprised by joy.
> I went to Birmingham under the auspices of an organization called  
> SPAFER, which stands for South Points Association for Exploring  
> Religion.  The brainchild of a Presbyterian minister named Ken  
> Forbes, this organization was designed to allow people in the Bible  
> Belt of the South to encounter a non-fundamentalist version of  
> Christianity.  In some ways, it is obviously a counter-cultural  
> movement.  At its beginning the traditional religious voices of the  
> South responded to SPAFER by denouncing this movement and s  
> separating themselves from it, portraying it as “heretical,”  
> perhaps, they hinted with great concern, even “communist.”  I have  
> been the featured speaker at SPAFER events on two previous occasions  
> beginning in 2002.  On one of these earlier events the Episcopal  
> Bishop of Alabama, fearful I suspect of “guilt by association,” took  
> pains to tell the media that I was not in Alabama under the auspices  
> of the Episcopal Church.  I was also invited to be a guest on a  
> morning television talk show in which the co-hosts, who were husband  
> and wife, were consistently rude and derogatory in their interview,  
> which prompted me to ask them whether they were always this rude to  
> their invited guests or if I was somehow being singled out for this  
> special honor?  Religious rudeness seems to be thought of as a  
> virtue in conservative or fundamentalistic circles and it always  
> stems from an assumption that truth is something they and they alone  
> possess.
> The reality was, however, that crowds of people attended those  
> lectures, making me aware that there is a silent, non-fundamentalist  
> minority of some significance in the Bible Belt of the South, hungry  
> for meaning and integrity in their understanding of Christianity.   
> They cannot find this in their local churches so they sink into  
> passive silence.  Perhaps, because of their silence, this audience  
> is simply not in the consciousness of the traditional clergy.
> On this year’s trip, the audience was not as large, but it was still  
> substantial.  Its slightly diminished size can be accounted for, at  
> least in part, by the fact that we were competing with the football  
> game between number-one ranked Louisiana State University and number- 
> two ranked University of Alabama.  If not apparent in a larger  
> attendance, there were, nonetheless, other signs signaling that a  
> new breeze was blowing in the South.  Many of the people who  
> attended were social and economic leaders in the community.  The  
> Southside Baptist Church, a magnificent structure in downtown  
> Birmingham, asked for the privilege of hosting the lectureship.  The  
> leadership of SPAFER, which originally was an Alabama only  
> organization, has moved into other Southern cities in what they call  
> “Roadhouse Communities,” that is, groups of ten to twenty people,  
> meeting on a monthly basis, to explore their faith in ways that  
> their churches would not allow them to do.  The questions following  
> the lecture where consistently thoughtful and were posed, not to  
> counter some perceived threat to their religion’s security, but to  
> clarify, to expand or to open new approaches.  I left Birmingham  
> feeling that a shift in consciousness in the deep South was well  
> underway.  One additional sign of that shift was visible in the huge  
> levels of discomfort that these mainstream Alabama citizens now  
> seemed to have with the “Arizona-type” anti-immigration laws  
> recently passed by the legislature of Alabama and signed by the  
> governor.  One native Alabaman said to me in a letter that Alabama  
> “seems not to be able to function without a visible victim.  First,  
> it was the African-Americans, then it was the homosexuals and now it  
> is the brown-skinned Mexican immigrants.” Yet the over-reaction  
> present in that anti-immigration legislation is now bringing wide  
> spread economic pain to all segments of the society including un- 
> harvested crops in the fields of Alabama farmers, something that  
> those who pushed for the passage of these laws simply did not  
> anticipate. Amendment and/or repeal of these laws is now obviously  
> under discussion.
> We went next to Tupelo, Mississippi.  The Tupelo lecture was housed  
> in something called the Link Centre, which is directed by a Harvard  
> graduate named Melanie Deas.  It was held at 2:00 pm on a Sunday  
> afternoon, hardly a prime time for a church going occasion.  Yet  
> there were almost a hundred people in attendance and a significant  
> number of them were young people.  In this lecture, I spoke quite  
> specifically to the fears inside organized religion in America about  
> both homosexuality and evolution.  This gathering included some  
> quite openly-gay people.  I asked them whether they were seeing a  
> shift away from the homophobic hostility that has long marked the  
> cultural atmosphere in the deep South, spread as it is by  
> evangelical and conservative Catholic churches. They said “Yes,” and  
> gave content to this answer by saying: “Now, it is OK to be gay in  
> Mississippi, but you are not supposed to talk about it.”  As strange  
> as that sounded to me, it is in fact a rather significant shift over  
> the last 20 years.
> The hot topic among the people we met at a social event, housed in  
> the home of one of Tupelo’s most prominent citizens, was, however,  
> not the gay issue, but the state-wide referendum that had been  
> placed on the November ballot to declare that human life began the  
> moment the egg was fertilized.  This law, if passed, would in fact  
> ban abortion in all circumstances in Mississippi.  We learned at  
> that gathering that every candidate for public office, both Democrat  
> and Republican, had endorsed this proposition, including Haley  
> Barbour, the popular Republican governor.  In fact, there had been  
> no local or statewide political leader who had opposed it. All of  
> the vocal religious voices were also loud in their support, leading  
> to the general assumption that it would pass by a wide margin.  They  
> were, however, destined to discover that even in Mississippi, there  
> is a silent vote of which no one seemed to be aware and this measure  
> was defeated by a substantial majority, embarrassing both the  
> political and religious establishment.  Mississippi, thought to be  
> the most anti-abortion state in the nation, was in fact not in favor  
> of this draconian measure. Monolithic Mississippi was not so  
> monolithic after all.
> Next, we went to Lee’s Summit, Missouri, to do an event for the  
> Unity Movement at its national headquarters, a truly beautiful  
> campus.  Unity had bought three tables at a Kansas City Interfaith  
> luncheon and Christine and I were invited to join their delegation  
> at this event.  There were some 500 people present at this elegant  
> luncheon, including a significant part of the Kansas City social and  
> political establishment.  The Mistress of Ceremonies for this event  
> was a popular, local Kansas City Television News anchor.  The  
> blessing of God before the meal was offered by representatives of 14  
> different religious traditions, including Christianity, Judaism,  
> Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Wicca, Sufi and Baha’i.  Two highly-  
> esteemed recognition awards were handed out, one to an individual  
> and one to an institution, for effective work in contributing to the  
> task of building “an interfaith atmosphere of respect” that makes  
> Kansas City “a welcoming center to all people.”   The honored woman  
> was Donna Ziegenhorn, who, in her attempt to build interfaith  
> understanding, had produced a highly-acclaimed film entitled The  
> Hindu and the Cowboy that had taken its message of interfaith  
> respect to countless numbers of school children and adults across  
> that city.  The honored institution was no less that the prestigious  
> Kansas City Public Library, which had sponsored classes, designed to  
> build mutual respect and religious tolerance into being saluted as  
> community values.  A spokesperson for the library, Crosby Kemper,  
> received the award on behalf of the library.  He told the assembled  
> people of his own personal journey into interfaith understanding.   
> He happened to be, not only a practicing Episcopalian, but a direct  
> descendant of one of the great missionary bishops of the Episcopal  
> Church in the West, the Rt. Rev. Jackson Kemper.  Mr. Kemper is also  
> a highly respected attorney and a recognized leader of the city.
> Kansas City, I learned, has dedicated great energy particularly  
> since the 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the  
> Pentagon, to foster an atmosphere of respect and tolerance among the  
> diverse religious communities of that city.  It had been done not  
> with a guilt message or with repression, but by educating its  
> citizens to enable them to recognize the beauty and integrity found  
> in every religious tradition.  I was deeply moved by the commitment  
> of this city in the heartland of America to this cause and I  
> immediately revised my own assessment of the status of both religion  
> and sensitivity in the Midwest.
> The world is changing.  A Baptist Church in downtown Birmingham  
> hosts an event that pushes the edges of Christianity; the people of  
> Mississippi defeat a right wing attempt to trample on the rights of  
> women’s freedom to make decisions for themselves without political  
> interference, and 500 people, including some of the movers and  
> shakers in Kansas City, gather to extol the beauty of interfaith  
> respect and to proclaim themselves a city of welcome to all.  This  
> country is coming to a new consciousness.  For many the pace seems  
> pitifully slow, but the reality is that it is coming and heightened  
> consciousness always moves inexorably in a single forward  
> direction.  The monolithic behavior of the past is not nearly as  
> monolithic as I once thought.
> ~John Shelby Spong
> Read the essay online here.
>
>
> Register by Monday, January 9, for early bird discount!
>
> Westar Institute
>
> Spring Meeting
> March 21–24, 2012
> Salem, Oregon	Register for the Religious Literacy Seminar
>
> All in the Family
> A Conversation about Marriage, Family, and Sexuality
>
> Featuring
> 	John Shelby Spong, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark emeritus
>
> Workshop- Thursday, March 22
> Shifting the Christian Paradigm from Salvation and Atonement to Life  
> and Wholeness
>
> Interview - Friday evening, March 23
> A Conversation with Jack Spong about Marriage, Family, Sexuality
>
> Panel - Saturday morning, March 24
> Westar Fellows on the Legacy of John Shelby Spong
>
> Question & Answer
> Stephen, via the Internet, writes:
> Question:
> I am often disheartened by the mind set of some Christians—the  
> mentality of which I used to be part—that they alone seem to possess  
> the truth.  It becomes impossible then to discuss Christianity or  
> have any sort of theological discussion “beyond theism.”  With all  
> of the variations of Christianity telling them that believing these  
> doctrines – the Virgin Birth, the resurrection, etc, is a  
> prerequisite to being a disciple, how does one go about asking  
> questions about God without offending or frightening the “truth  
> bearers?”
> Answer:
> Dear Stephen,
> Anyone who believes that he or she possesses in some creed, in the  
> Bible or in the doctrinal and dogmatic teaching of a particular  
> Church the ultimate truth of God reveals himself or herself to be  
> little more than a frightened, insecure, uninformed person.  One  
> cannot engage such a person in serious dialogue for there is nothing  
> to be gained by the endeavor.  It is therefore a waste of time. One  
> does not argue rationally against the irrational claims of biblical  
> inerrancy or papal infallibility!!
> The idea that any person, any church or any religious tradition  
> could ever embody the ultimate mystery of God is little more that  
> hysterical idolatry.  Those who hold that point of view have to  
> defend it at all times and against all comers or else seek to  
> validate it by imposing it on others.  Much of our conversion and  
> missionary activity is little more than the product of an attitude  
> that leads to bigotry, religious persecution, inquisitions and  
> religious wars.  If the biblical axiom that one judges behavior by  
> the fruit it produces is accurate, then this religious attitude can  
> hardly be anything other than evil.  Because claims of absolute  
> certainty are normally wrapped up in religious language does not  
> make them virtues.  Religious imperialism is no more virtuous that  
> political imperialism.
> So you need to broaden your experience of religious people from  
> those who possess the truth to those who seek the truth.  This means  
> that you seek the company of those who know that the holy God cannot  
> be reduced to a set of human words and those who understand that  
> “graven images” can be created not only out of gold and silver, but  
> also out of nothing less than human words.
> ~John Shelby Spong
>
>
> Register by Monday, January 9, for early bird discount!
>
> Westar Institute
>
> Spring Meeting
> March 21–24, 2012
> Salem, Oregon	Register for the Religious Literacy Seminar
>
> All in the Family
> A Conversation about Marriage, Family, and Sexuality
>
> Featuring
> 	John Shelby Spong, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark emeritus
>
> Workshop- Thursday, March 22
> Shifting the Christian Paradigm from Salvation and Atonement to Life  
> and Wholeness
>
> Interview - Friday evening, March 23
> A Conversation with Jack Spong about Marriage, Family, Sexuality
>
> Panel - Saturday morning, March 24
> Westar Fellows on the Legacy of John Shelby Spong
>
> Announcements
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