I wanted to point out an interesting article in the New York Times about a new book that might be of interest to some of you. The book is called The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life. From some of the conversations we've been having about postmodernism and the rise of religion and spirituality, we thought you might enjoy the article. Perhaps you might even pick up the book. Notably, Fr. Richard Neuhaus offers his perspective on the book and while disagreeing with the author of the book on almost all hot-button issues, does agree with him that secular liberals have for too long sought to make morality a private matter when they, too, make moral arguments. They have simply refused to admit that this is what they are doing. Fr. Neuhaus is a brilliant scholar and publisher of "First Things," which is a great periodical for any of you interested in the role of religion in public life.
The link to the article is below. You can find Fr. Neuhaus on the web. You might want to read his article on why he is a catholic (I think that is the title). It is a great follow up to our discussions on catholicism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/us/24beliefs.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=perceiving+2+fallacies&st=nyt&oref=slogin
Blessings to you all!
Bryan
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Happy Memorial Day Weekend!
Greetings everyone,
First off, we want to say thank you to everyone who attended class on Sunday. Liberation theology was a huge undertaking for all of us, and we thought that the class went better than we could have imagined. Already, our group is demonstrating that we are more than up to taking on difficult topics and discussing them with both passion and respect for others. This is exactly what we were hoping for out of the Christians in Conversation class.
For those of you who were unable to stay for the end of the class, we ended with some really good points. We talked about scripture, including the Exodus story, and the ways experience influence our theology. We recognized that poverty and hunger play a role in shaping the theology of the oppressed. One class member closed by remarking that we need to remember the importance of the Holy Spirit, and being led and directed by Him in our daily lives. We could not agree more with this comment - we all need to be sensitive to the movement of the Holy Spirit both in our individual lives and in the life of the body of Christ. Truly, the Holy Spirit moves in mysterious ways. We pondered the need for each of us to be a voice for the voiceless in this world.
We ended class by watching Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. A few of us stayed for the entire speech, and we were touched both by his speech and the comments of a few who stayed to talk about their own experiences. It amazes us how much we have to learn from one another. Thank you to those who stayed and who shared out of their own pain and their own experiences. It meant so very much.
As we were thinking of the next direction to go, we felt pulled to talk about the growing focus in our culture on spirituality, and how we as Methodists and as Christians might think about the increasing focus on spirituality. Some think that spirituality can exist apart from institutionalized religion. This is actually a postmodern trend discussed in the following article which is heavy on philosophy:
http://www.integralworld.net/benedikter1a.html You may have to cut and paste this link into your browser if it doesn't automatically take you there.
As for next Sunday, our focus is not going to be quite so technical. We will start a discussion about spiritual growth. What do you think of when you hear the term "spiritual growth?" What is it that we hope to grow toward? What are the practices which might help us to grow spiritually? We hope that this might be the beginning of a discussion about spirtual practices (prayer, worship, fasting, service, scripture reading) that can be meaningful to us today. How can the traditions of the church root us in our current era of spirituality that sometimes overlooks church tradition? For those of you who are interested in the Wesleyan tradition of spiritual growth through the "means of grace," you might take a look at the following:
http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/covenant/means.htm
Join us on Sunday for the conversation!
Until then, peace be with you,
Deb and Bryan
First off, we want to say thank you to everyone who attended class on Sunday. Liberation theology was a huge undertaking for all of us, and we thought that the class went better than we could have imagined. Already, our group is demonstrating that we are more than up to taking on difficult topics and discussing them with both passion and respect for others. This is exactly what we were hoping for out of the Christians in Conversation class.
For those of you who were unable to stay for the end of the class, we ended with some really good points. We talked about scripture, including the Exodus story, and the ways experience influence our theology. We recognized that poverty and hunger play a role in shaping the theology of the oppressed. One class member closed by remarking that we need to remember the importance of the Holy Spirit, and being led and directed by Him in our daily lives. We could not agree more with this comment - we all need to be sensitive to the movement of the Holy Spirit both in our individual lives and in the life of the body of Christ. Truly, the Holy Spirit moves in mysterious ways. We pondered the need for each of us to be a voice for the voiceless in this world.
We ended class by watching Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. A few of us stayed for the entire speech, and we were touched both by his speech and the comments of a few who stayed to talk about their own experiences. It amazes us how much we have to learn from one another. Thank you to those who stayed and who shared out of their own pain and their own experiences. It meant so very much.
As we were thinking of the next direction to go, we felt pulled to talk about the growing focus in our culture on spirituality, and how we as Methodists and as Christians might think about the increasing focus on spirituality. Some think that spirituality can exist apart from institutionalized religion. This is actually a postmodern trend discussed in the following article which is heavy on philosophy:
http://www.integralworld.net/benedikter1a.html You may have to cut and paste this link into your browser if it doesn't automatically take you there.
As for next Sunday, our focus is not going to be quite so technical. We will start a discussion about spiritual growth. What do you think of when you hear the term "spiritual growth?" What is it that we hope to grow toward? What are the practices which might help us to grow spiritually? We hope that this might be the beginning of a discussion about spirtual practices (prayer, worship, fasting, service, scripture reading) that can be meaningful to us today. How can the traditions of the church root us in our current era of spirituality that sometimes overlooks church tradition? For those of you who are interested in the Wesleyan tradition of spiritual growth through the "means of grace," you might take a look at the following:
http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/covenant/means.htm
Join us on Sunday for the conversation!
Until then, peace be with you,
Deb and Bryan
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Memorial Day
Thanks for a great conversation again last week. Our good talks have created a good problem, we have not yet moved through all of the material we had planned for the first five weeks of class. Luckily we are not on a schedule, so this week we will move forward with our discussion of liberation theology and take some time to talk about the articles posted earlier and again here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/americas/07theology.html?scp=1&sq=black+liberation+theology&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/weekinreview/04powell.html?scp=1&sq=black+liberation+theology&st=nyt
We'll use some of our new "quadrilateral" skills to address the issues: scripture (take a look at the Exodus story if you have some time this week, Chapters 1-15 are sometimes called the "liberation narrative," with the poem of Chapter 15 serving as the "grand finale" if you only have time for one chapter), tradition, experience and reason. We hope this conversation will flow out of last week's talk about why we choose to be Methodists and what that means to each of us.
Until Sunday, enjoy the sunshine and be sure to let us know if you have any special prayer requests or questions for class.
Shalom,
Bryan and Deb
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/americas/07theology.html?scp=1&sq=black+liberation+theology&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/weekinreview/04powell.html?scp=1&sq=black+liberation+theology&st=nyt
We'll use some of our new "quadrilateral" skills to address the issues: scripture (take a look at the Exodus story if you have some time this week, Chapters 1-15 are sometimes called the "liberation narrative," with the poem of Chapter 15 serving as the "grand finale" if you only have time for one chapter), tradition, experience and reason. We hope this conversation will flow out of last week's talk about why we choose to be Methodists and what that means to each of us.
Until Sunday, enjoy the sunshine and be sure to let us know if you have any special prayer requests or questions for class.
Shalom,
Bryan and Deb
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Interesting Editorial on Evangelicals
Yesterday I was reading the St. Louis Post and read an interesting editorial on Evangelicals. At some point, we should probably discuss what an Evangelical is and what it isn't. But that is for another class and another post. The link to the editorial is here:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/43F83F26D95353EC8625744400822750?OpenDocument
I thought the editorial might open up some thoughts on how Christians are often stereotyped and placed into a liberal or conservative box. For those of us subscribing to the blog and attending the CIC class, I think we should resist being categorized in such a narrow way. The fact is, our ethics should be guided by the principles of Christ. That means that we will often be difficult to categorize. We should consistently be the voice of the voiceless. We should be focused on poverty and its eradication. But we will also have strong feelings on moral issues. Some will feel that their opinions are not well-represented by either party.
Enjoy the article. May each of you have a blessed day.
Bryan
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/43F83F26D95353EC8625744400822750?OpenDocument
I thought the editorial might open up some thoughts on how Christians are often stereotyped and placed into a liberal or conservative box. For those of us subscribing to the blog and attending the CIC class, I think we should resist being categorized in such a narrow way. The fact is, our ethics should be guided by the principles of Christ. That means that we will often be difficult to categorize. We should consistently be the voice of the voiceless. We should be focused on poverty and its eradication. But we will also have strong feelings on moral issues. Some will feel that their opinions are not well-represented by either party.
Enjoy the article. May each of you have a blessed day.
Bryan
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Happy Mother's Day!
Greetings to you all,
We enjoyed our class so much today. We had great discussion and several new people who joined us. Welcome to you.
Today we covered postmodernism in a very general way. We traced the origination of postmodernism to the events at the beginning of the century (World War I, the Holocaust and the failure of Germany's churches to rise and oppose it, etc.), and grappled with how we as believers live in a postmodern era. The characteristics of postmodernism (emphasis on tolerance, willingness to question authority, belief that there is no Truth (capital T), but many truths that are personal and individual, focus on personal experience and story, etc.) create both opportunity and tension for Christians today. There is opportunity because we as Christians can enter society's dialogue about important things, and we can declare that our perspective deserves to be listened to just as others should be heard. There is tension because we struggle when society is hypocritical about tolerance. On the one hand, we have listened to many who preach the need for others to tolerate all worldviews. On the other, we've heard them condemn those who disagree with the way some choose to live their lives. In other words, postmodernism's version of tolerance is often such that society tolerates only tolerant people.
As one person in our class said today, postmodernism is no way to run a country, and some ideas are better than others. That said, postmodernism offers us something -- it calls to mind the way Christ treated people when he interacted with those who lived their lives in a way that was inconsistent with Christ's call for us to love God, each other and ourselves. We should listen earnestly to people. We should not judge (as another member of our class reminded us), but should begin a conversation with all because while the church's version of tolerance is not necessarily going to be the same as someone who believes all lifestyles and all choices are equally viable, the church must continue to be Christ in this world and open its doors to everyone with a loving call to be in relationship with the world and with Christ.
Next week, we will continue our journey through postmodernism, but will also discuss Methodism and the quadrilateral (scripture, reason, tradition and experience). We believe this is an important component of our class in general because the quadrilateral is crucial to understanding who we are as Methodists and Christians in Conversation.
Finally, we still intend on discussing liberation theology and the Rev. Wright/Barack Obama debate. I found a great article about former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan's perspective on the issue, and thought you might like it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kerry-trueman/sunday-morning-segregatio_b_93029.html
Here is Peggy's article on the issue that I thought was enlightening.
http://www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=417
I hope you all are enjoying the class and the blog. Please e-mail us with comments or questions about the class. The link to this website is www.christiansinconversation.blogspot.com. We look forward to seeing you next Sunday.
Bryan and Deb
We enjoyed our class so much today. We had great discussion and several new people who joined us. Welcome to you.
Today we covered postmodernism in a very general way. We traced the origination of postmodernism to the events at the beginning of the century (World War I, the Holocaust and the failure of Germany's churches to rise and oppose it, etc.), and grappled with how we as believers live in a postmodern era. The characteristics of postmodernism (emphasis on tolerance, willingness to question authority, belief that there is no Truth (capital T), but many truths that are personal and individual, focus on personal experience and story, etc.) create both opportunity and tension for Christians today. There is opportunity because we as Christians can enter society's dialogue about important things, and we can declare that our perspective deserves to be listened to just as others should be heard. There is tension because we struggle when society is hypocritical about tolerance. On the one hand, we have listened to many who preach the need for others to tolerate all worldviews. On the other, we've heard them condemn those who disagree with the way some choose to live their lives. In other words, postmodernism's version of tolerance is often such that society tolerates only tolerant people.
As one person in our class said today, postmodernism is no way to run a country, and some ideas are better than others. That said, postmodernism offers us something -- it calls to mind the way Christ treated people when he interacted with those who lived their lives in a way that was inconsistent with Christ's call for us to love God, each other and ourselves. We should listen earnestly to people. We should not judge (as another member of our class reminded us), but should begin a conversation with all because while the church's version of tolerance is not necessarily going to be the same as someone who believes all lifestyles and all choices are equally viable, the church must continue to be Christ in this world and open its doors to everyone with a loving call to be in relationship with the world and with Christ.
Next week, we will continue our journey through postmodernism, but will also discuss Methodism and the quadrilateral (scripture, reason, tradition and experience). We believe this is an important component of our class in general because the quadrilateral is crucial to understanding who we are as Methodists and Christians in Conversation.
Finally, we still intend on discussing liberation theology and the Rev. Wright/Barack Obama debate. I found a great article about former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan's perspective on the issue, and thought you might like it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kerry-trueman/sunday-morning-segregatio_b_93029.html
Here is Peggy's article on the issue that I thought was enlightening.
http://www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=417
I hope you all are enjoying the class and the blog. Please e-mail us with comments or questions about the class. The link to this website is www.christiansinconversation.blogspot.com. We look forward to seeing you next Sunday.
Bryan and Deb
Monday, May 5, 2008
Preparing for May 11
We enjoyed our discussion of Catholicism (and catholicism) with you all this week and look forward to continuing next Sunday, May 11 (Happy Mother's Day!). We began our discussion this week by discussing a few different quotes from the Pope. We then moved on to discuss Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Our take away from the discussion is that there are strong opinions on this issue, but that we already have a class that is committed to listening to one another and learning from one another.
We then moved on to begin to discuss postmodernism. For those of you who were not able to join us the link to the video on postmodernism and Judaism is below. Keep in mind that we just watched the first segment but the link will give you the entire piece. If you just want to see what we discussed, you can cut it off after the first couple minutes.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=97ekq9v8cak&feature=related
We will continue our discussion of postmodernism this week. We will emphasize the way Methodists have been taught to think about tough issues by using the Wesleyan Quadrilateral of scripture, tradition, reason and experience. We'll consider whether Wesley was a postmodernist ahead of his time. The article we posted last week on the topic will be helpful in this discussion. We'll also take some time to talk about future discussion topics (watch for a discussion of Mary in a few weeks after we do some research) and to lift up any prayer concerns we may have so that we may be in prayer for one another during the week to come.
Since liberation theology has been at the forefront of election coverage here for the past month or so, we thought this might make an interesting topic for May 18. While we have heard the term in election coverage in this part of the world lately, it has also been a significant influence in Catholic theology in places like Brazil. The following articles will illustrate the way this theology has been addressed by both Pope Benedict and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/americas/07theology.html?scp=1&sq=black+liberation+theology&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/weekinreview/04powell.html?scp=1&sq=black+liberation+theology&st=nyt
For those of you joining us for the first time, we are meeting in the fellowship hall under the sanctuary. If you need to leave early for choir or other obligations we understand, please don't let that stop you from joining us. And for those of you that travel, join us when you can and stay in touch via the internet when you can't. We are glad to be in conversation with all of you!
Peace be with you until Sunday,
Deb and Bryan
We then moved on to begin to discuss postmodernism. For those of you who were not able to join us the link to the video on postmodernism and Judaism is below. Keep in mind that we just watched the first segment but the link will give you the entire piece. If you just want to see what we discussed, you can cut it off after the first couple minutes.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=97ekq9v8cak&feature=related
We will continue our discussion of postmodernism this week. We will emphasize the way Methodists have been taught to think about tough issues by using the Wesleyan Quadrilateral of scripture, tradition, reason and experience. We'll consider whether Wesley was a postmodernist ahead of his time. The article we posted last week on the topic will be helpful in this discussion. We'll also take some time to talk about future discussion topics (watch for a discussion of Mary in a few weeks after we do some research) and to lift up any prayer concerns we may have so that we may be in prayer for one another during the week to come.
Since liberation theology has been at the forefront of election coverage here for the past month or so, we thought this might make an interesting topic for May 18. While we have heard the term in election coverage in this part of the world lately, it has also been a significant influence in Catholic theology in places like Brazil. The following articles will illustrate the way this theology has been addressed by both Pope Benedict and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/americas/07theology.html?scp=1&sq=black+liberation+theology&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/weekinreview/04powell.html?scp=1&sq=black+liberation+theology&st=nyt
For those of you joining us for the first time, we are meeting in the fellowship hall under the sanctuary. If you need to leave early for choir or other obligations we understand, please don't let that stop you from joining us. And for those of you that travel, join us when you can and stay in touch via the internet when you can't. We are glad to be in conversation with all of you!
Peace be with you until Sunday,
Deb and Bryan
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Preparing for Sunday May 4
Good morning everyone,
I hope you are enjoying the sunshine this week. We watched our youngest hit golf balls yesterday, so it is officially spring at our house. I wanted to give you a quick update about what we will discuss on Sunday. I stress the word "discuss" because Bryan and I are ready to talk less and listen more this week! For those of us (me, especially) who don't have degrees in philosophy we will have a very short outline of the ways we think differently in the age of "postmodernism" than we did in the "modern" era. One Methodist professor recently noted that this just means we are less confident that technology will lead to a perfect world, more willing to listen to other points of view about issues of ultimate truth and religion, and more committed to community than in the past. A lot of this is not new to Methodists who have long believed that as Christians we are called to think for ourselves (relying on scripture, tradition, reason and experience to guide us).
Her article can be found at: http://www.gbod.org/smallgroup/covenant/spring03/foursome.html
We are going to utilize Joe's suggested discussion topic: What do Methodist's think about the Pope and why don't we talk about him very often? Another interesting question is what the Pope thinks of Americans. If you have time this week, glance at some of his speeches online or check out the April 14 Time magazine article on "Why the Pope loves America."
The link is: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1727724-3,00.html
We'll count on the many former Catholics in the group to help us. We'll also spend some time tossing out ideas for future issues to discuss so come with some ideas you would like to share. Until then, please let me know if you have questions or prayer requests. We are grateful for the chance to be in conversation with you all.
Peace,
Deb
PS: for those of you who would like to watch the video of Frederick Buechner introducing himself that we listened to last week the link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erAbpkQhuvM
I hope you are enjoying the sunshine this week. We watched our youngest hit golf balls yesterday, so it is officially spring at our house. I wanted to give you a quick update about what we will discuss on Sunday. I stress the word "discuss" because Bryan and I are ready to talk less and listen more this week! For those of us (me, especially) who don't have degrees in philosophy we will have a very short outline of the ways we think differently in the age of "postmodernism" than we did in the "modern" era. One Methodist professor recently noted that this just means we are less confident that technology will lead to a perfect world, more willing to listen to other points of view about issues of ultimate truth and religion, and more committed to community than in the past. A lot of this is not new to Methodists who have long believed that as Christians we are called to think for ourselves (relying on scripture, tradition, reason and experience to guide us).
Her article can be found at: http://www.gbod.org/smallgroup/covenant/spring03/foursome.html
We are going to utilize Joe's suggested discussion topic: What do Methodist's think about the Pope and why don't we talk about him very often? Another interesting question is what the Pope thinks of Americans. If you have time this week, glance at some of his speeches online or check out the April 14 Time magazine article on "Why the Pope loves America."
The link is: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1727724-3,00.html
We'll count on the many former Catholics in the group to help us. We'll also spend some time tossing out ideas for future issues to discuss so come with some ideas you would like to share. Until then, please let me know if you have questions or prayer requests. We are grateful for the chance to be in conversation with you all.
Peace,
Deb
PS: for those of you who would like to watch the video of Frederick Buechner introducing himself that we listened to last week the link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erAbpkQhuvM
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