From the Newsletter of the St Lucia Spirituality Group
Greetings
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language,
and next year’s words await another voice.”
TS Eliot, “Little Gidding”
Our July meeting on Zoom examined the notion of Atonement Theory and we were able to welcome several new participants. The topic aroused much interest.
Atonement theory is a big deal, deeply embedded in our Christian theology and worship. But is it valid when it relies on a questionable doctrine of original sin, an idea conceived in the fifth century? A theory that portrays a vengeful God requiring a victim as sacrifice, transaction oriented, hardly a God of unconditional love. And we complain that our congregations are leaving our churches. Why would they stay to be told they are worthless sinners?
Richard Rohr writes about the Great Comma in the Apostles Creed, that comma that separates the beginning of Jesus’s life from the end (…born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate…). What about everything in between? The great comma that reveals nothing of his life and how he lived. Isn’t the how and why he lived important?
Marcus Borg writes that Jesus’s own self-understanding did not include thinking and speaking of himself as the Son of God, whose historical intention or purpose was to die for the sins of the world. Jesus did live to proclaim and exemplify the kingdom of God, a phrase that unfortunately has overtones of monarchical rule, patriarchy, and an afterlife. Redefined as a Field of Compassion by Judy Cannato and a Companionship of Empowerment by Diarmuid O’Murchu, these phrases connote a life of mercy, compassion, and justice for all. Not at some time in the future but here now.
Jesus sought to bring about a new way of living. As John Shelby Spong comments, he was denied and he responded by loving his deniers, he was betrayed and he responded by loving his betrayers, he was abandoned and he responded by loving those who abandoned him, he was tortured and he responded by loving those who tortured him, and he was killed and he responded by loving his murderers. Jesus made God visible in a radically different way. Jesus was not a victim but someone who chose to give his life away.
Consequently, looking to the example set by Jesus, Spong reframes the Christian message, that there is nothing that we can ever do or ever be that will separate us from the love of God. Jesus’s message is about love, enhancing humanity, not dragging us down, denigrating us. God is not a noun but a verb that must be lived. If God is the source of life, then we must live fully, love wastefully, extravagantly, and be all that we are capable of being and help others to do the same.
Embracing this understanding must lead to changes in our behaviour, the language of our worship and our expectations of our religious institutions. Our language and outlook should be more joyful and life affirming.
Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (ACCCR)
In recent times the ACCCR has begun distributing emails promoting discussion on various subjects and we have passed some of these on to our own list of subscribers. It is interesting to note that its latest email coincidentally reproduced the text of the John Shelby Spong video that formed a part of our discussion this month.
Coffee anyone?
Our objective for this group is to promote the discussion of ideas, building a community of seekers. Is there anyone in your local area you could meet for coffee or breakfast as part of your journey? John and Robert meet with a few others for breakfast each month but their group started with the two of them meeting for coffee and chatting. Who could you invite?
Butterfly Series – Next Meeting
Are the parables easy to understand stories for children or do they represent koans or riddles to challenge the adult mind? Continuing on the theme of challenging our own accepted wisdom, we are undertaking an examination of the parables based on Diarmuid O’Murchu’s video “The Wisdom of the Parables”, and his book When the Disciple Comes of Age. We shall consider a paper “Understanding the Parables.” This pre-meeting paper is available by email and on our Facebook page to give you time to read and reflect before the meeting.
Our Episode 21 meeting will be held on Zoom at 6:00pm AEST on Tuesday 15 August 2023. Come early to meet the others there. Use this link to join the meeting. The zoom meeting will open at 5:45pm.
To register your attendance, please email John at jscoble@hradvantage.com.au.
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Go well…
John Scoble & Robert van Mourik
oOo
I was thinking last night that, as well as dealing with misleading doctrine, we need to rewrite the Bible. (Just joking, but… one thing at a time).
Atonement. ‘At one ment’. Don’t we all fundamentally want such a wonderful state of affairs. The mistakes we made talking to our children (or not). The bursts of anger or passion. The ‘sins’ of the flesh. If aliens visited, I’m sure they would say, ‘What extremely poor specimens these humans are. Let’s look elsewhere.’
I’m not surprised theologians invented the idea of ‘original sin’. Before we understood Darwin’s concept of the origin of species, that may have seemed obvious. We did seem a bit lacking. And
it’s a pity ‘religion’ (at least the Christian version) more or less decided not to accept Darwin’s discovery. It fundamentally turned the equation upside down. We, humanity, hasn’t ‘fallen’. We are in the process of ‘rising’… while still an unfinished work (hence the poor choices we make).
Darwin’s discovery hasn’t been the only ‘upset’ to doctrine. Another fundamental discovery was made when Freud and Jung explored the ‘unconscious’. Jung suggests there is a ‘God image’ in the human unconscious that we can potentially access in order to become our best selves… ‘at one’ with ourselves and the world.
What does ‘religion’ make of this? Very little. I’ve not heard a sermon where ‘evolution’ or the ‘unconscious’ mattered, but it does. It changes just about every thing. Sadly, ‘Religion’ has dealt itself out of the game. It is in danger of becoming past history because it’s allowed secular society to forge ahead.
On the Atonement… Get a copy of The Fourth R 36, 4, July-August 2023 – from the Westar Institute. An excellent article… ‘Saving Paradise: How Christianity traded Love of this World for Crucifixion and Empire’. An Interview with Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. The opening line of the book: “It took Jesus a thousand years to die”, shaped by a study of visual art and iconography. Shows how false atonement really is.