Linear
Jettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start? (Main Forum)
by Brian Coyne 
, LINDEN, NSW, Thursday, August 30, 2012, 14:56 (262 days ago)
![[image]](../gc0/images_email/StartingAgain_an_640x166.gif)
I'm not doing the layout for a new commentary today but instead would like to pick up on the theme running through the commentaries of Graham English and Brian Pitts in the last couple of days. I know in my own case there are many beliefs I have now jettisoned. I have often wondered though how one might begin the process of organising the things I continue to believe in some sort of logical form?
I suspect it applies to all of us. If we were honest about it our brains become a bit jumbled like the garage and storage rooms in our houses where we store all those things we are going to attend to on a rainy day – and never get around to doing.
What I am suggesting here is not some clean-up of the usual sort of issues that people complain about, such as the clerical abuse scandal, or the position of women in the church, the crisis in vocations, and the fiddling around with the liturgy. I'm thinking of deeper questions that ultimately underpin why those sort of topics are so often front page news. How would we go about re-vamping the theology behind all those issues in a systematic way? Brian Pitts points the way in going back to the original scriptural sources. I wonder where the best starting point is in that: is it with the Yeshua-Jesus story, or might it be back a lot further in the foundational stories of belief found in places like Genesis?
Vatican II, I continue to sense, was a Spirit-led endeavour to begin such a process but none of us appreciated the psychological needs of the small minority who have scuttled the broad, forward-looking thrust of Vatican II attempting to re-ignite the Jesus story for the present day. Perhaps it might be the documents of Vatican II that could serve as the starting point?
Part of the problem I am sure is that the task is so gargantuan that it becomes a little like cleaning up the spare room or garage in our houses. We continually put it off for another day.
I'm honestly not sure if a group of pretty diverse lay people via an internet forum might be capable of engaging in the sustained month-in/month-out, year-in/year-out sort of systematic analysis that went on at the Second Vatican Council. Our attention spans are short. We'd also need someone to coordinate such an effort and keep it "on track". That requires a person with a pretty broad knowledge and understanding of the history as to how our beliefs have developed to this point and how all the "junk" started to become attached to it.
My question today is a simple one: where would you start? Personally I'm not sure. The examples I've cited above are all good starting points in my estimation but I am sure there are other starting points. For example one might start in a similar place to where Graham English was writing about on Tuesday: what are our needs for the journey ahead? (As opposed to focusing on the pile of accumulated ideas in our minds.)
Can you contribute to this conversation? Keep the focus at this stage on the simple question: where would you start? Explain why and if you think this exercise would be a good idea but at this stage don't get too heavily involved in discussion of what you would jettison and what you might keep. For the more ambitious you might come up with a schema — something like the chapter outline of a book or a course of study — as to where you might start and in block point form outline how you would tackle the clean-up.
![[image]](http://catholica.com.au/images/CatholicaICO_30x30.jpg)
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedIn the year 2058
Being the eldest child of a mother whose default position was extreme anxiety I am sometimes given to temporary and usually short-lived insanities. I had one at three this morning.
I woke anxious about the state of Catholicism in Sydney in forty year’s time.
Now I will be either 108 or dead in 2052 and will not be at all interested in the state of Catholicism anywhere so the saner part of me quickly said, “Stay in the present and go back to sleep.” So I did.
What prompted my temporary insanity was a conversation with a friend who still works for Holy Mother Church in Sydney and she was telling me that under the present leadership in the diocese conservative priests, nuns and other religious are taking over roles where they can influence the young and so influence the direction the Church will go.
These good people wear old fashioned religious habits, practise pre-Vatican II devotions and teach pre-Vatican II theology and expect the young to do likewise. At the seminary the young men wear cassocks even in year one practising for when they are priests. "There's no need to be formal. Just call me Father".
My midnight madness was also influenced by a sermon I heard lately at a funeral where the dopey priest (among several other dopey things he did and said) gave a talk on the levels of glory in heaven and quoted as his source the visions of St Faustina.
I have no argument with nuns, priests or brothers wearing habits unless they use them to lord it over us or set themselves apart or use them as a sign of their orthodoxy compared to everyone else. I have a dear friend who is a Buddhist monk and he wears his saffron robes and sandals everywhere. In the right context habits and robes are okay. They do sometimes seem a bit camp of course, though some clergy could make a boiler suit seem camp. You know as in,”He joined the Franciscans because they wear such cute sandals.” Or, “I think I’ll become a Dominican because black and white really suit my complexion (and my views!)”.
Since I woke though I have been wondering, sanely this time I hope, what the results of this ‘New Enculturation’ as opposed to ‘New Evangelisation’ will be. Will those people who remain Catholic or become Catholic in the future become conservative in the way the Pellites are conservative or will it be different?
Will Vatican II survive?
I don’t know and I make a lousy futurologist but my hunch is that if these people win Catholicism in 2058 Sydney will be like Sydney Anglicanism is now. There will be mostly empty or sold off churches and church buildings. They will vote Liberal and have nothing to say to the rest of the people whom they consider lost souls.Like Sydney Anglicanism the insiders will be self congratulatory claiming that they are the only true followers.
Maybe there will be a parallel Catholic Church, the Vatican II diehards which is labelled schismatic by the St Faustina Guild of True Believers.
We, well they will just have to wait and see.
lockedIn the year 2058
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Thursday, August 30, 2012, 15:10 (262 days ago) @ Enda
Thanks, Enda, I might move this string up into the lead question I have posed for today. Similarly for Vince's which seems roughly on a similar theme — dreaming up a new Catechism for the children of the future.
The question intrigues me because I now have adult children and the beginning of a generation to follow them as well. I'm simply curious about the paradigm in which they might be doing their thinking in another half century's time after I am gone more so than wanting to impose on them my beliefs or "the faith of our fathers".
My own gut sense is that all this "back to the past" Catholicism is going to end up in enormous tragedy — the "smaller, purer Church" Benedict dreams of. In another half century or a century there will still be a few of these people singin' their hymns and parading around in their costumes in a few metropolitan and regional cathedrals — performing mainly for the busloads of Asian tourists interested in the last remnants of Christian and Western Civilisation — but it will be all about as relevant to the ordinary citizens of a country like Australia as the ancient temples and pyramids of Greece or Egypt are to the people of those countries today.
The gzillion dollar questions, in my mind, are: What will the rest of the people end up doing, or believing? What will my own offspring end up doing, or believing?
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedIn the year 2058
This is a great discussion! After I read your post and several others, I went back to reread The American Catholic Council Declaration for Reform and Renewal,
http://americancatholiccouncil.org/more-about-acc/early-founding-of-the/declaration/
I think it has a lot of good material that we can build on. After identifying a number of "signs of the times" that precipitated the declaration, they go on to acknowledge co-responsibility for the conditions and then list the reforms that they would like to see made in the church. They end by making a good case for collegiality.
I think it's worth considering.
lockedIn the year 2058
by curlie que , Thursday, August 30, 2012, 16:09 (262 days ago) @ Enda
My goodness - didn't all that go out in the sixties - don't they believe in moving forward. The more things change the more they say the same. I must admit my older brother tends to think like that
- he is ultra conservative and I tend to go the other way.
locked
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BELIEF SYSTEM CALLED CHRISTIANITY
by Vince , Mackay - North Queensland, Thursday, August 30, 2012, 14:33 (262 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
This is a short catechism to be taught to children.
From the very beginning it has been natural for mankind to have belief in some form of external or supernatural source for an understanding of life, such mankind's origin and the natural events that take place.
Normally these beliefs do not have a long life. However, often due to complex phenomena, there have been outstanding exceptions for example – Hinduism for 5,000 years, Judaism 4,000 years, the Egyptian Gods for 3,000 years until they were taken over by Islam and Christianity 2,000 years.
The Christian belief system commenced with a Jew called Jesus, who was a charismatic figure, born in a small Palestinian village called Nazareth. At the age of about 30, after the execution of the cousin he followed, called John the Baptist, he took on the role of preaching a way of life that called for love of one another and non-violence.
In the relentlessly cruel world of the Roman Empire this way of life had great appeal to the downtrodden masses. However, it clashed with the establishment and led to his execution.
Everything would have stopped there except for the emergence of a great number of myths among his followers. They were all Jews and believed in what we now easily see as the absolute mythological and superstitious rubbish of the old Jewish writings. His followers applied many of these as well as Greek myths, to Jesus, calling him the Son of God, believing that he had risen from the dead etc.
The followers came to be known as Christians. They were persecuted by both the Jews and the Romans. However, they set out to spread these myths across the Mediterranean world.
At first this belief system was only held by a minority of peoples, however an unexpected event, the recognition of the belief system by the Roman Emperor Constantine catapulted it into prominence in the 4th. Century.
From then on the belief system developed into an hierarchical Institution, the Catholic Church, that grew in wealth and power as the centuries progressed. All of this despite horrific behaviour by many of its leaders.
In the 16th. Century The Catholic Church started to disintegrate. Under an attack by a monk called Martin Luther the Church in Europe split. Gradually over 30,000 different groups of Christian belief systems developed throughout the world.
None of these systems has kept abreast of the fast developing knowledge of the educated and scientifically developing modern world, with the result that all of them are now dying out.
lockedTHE RISE AND FALL OF THE BELIEF SYSTEM CALLED CHRISTIANITY
by PeterR , Thursday, August 30, 2012, 15:19 (262 days ago) @ Vince
Vince,
The following passage from Karen Armstrong's "A SHORT HISTORY OF MYTH" spoke to my experience:
(I apologise for responding to your post again with a quote. I have suffered brain damage, the consequences of which I have yet to understand fully. However, I know that my memory has been affected adversely: tomorrow I may find errors in what I might compose today.)
We are meaning-seeking creatures. Dogs, as far as
we know, do not agonise about the canine condition,
worry about the plight of dogs in other parts of the
world, or try to see their lives from a different
perspective. But human beings fall easily into despair,
and from the very beginning we invented stories that
enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that
revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense
that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence
to the contrary, life had meaning and value.
Another peculiar characteristic of the human
mind is its ability to have ideas and experiences that
we cannot explain rationally. We have imagination, a
faculty that enables us to think of something that is
not immediately present, and that, when we first
conceive it, has no objective existence. The imagin-
ation is the faculty that produces religion and
mythology. Today mythical thinking has fallen into
disrepute; we often dismiss it as irrational and self-
indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty
that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge
to light and to invent technology that has made us
immeasurably more effective. The imagination of
scientists has enabled us to travel through outer
space and walk on the moon, feats that were once
only possible in the realm of myth. Mythology and
science both extend the scope of human beings. Like
science and technology, mythology, as we shall see,
is not about opting out of this world, but about
enabling us to live more intensely within it.
I found the entire book helpful.
Peter
lockedIs it even about "belief" any more?
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Thursday, August 30, 2012, 15:50 (262 days ago) @ PeterR
One major way in which my own spirituality has changed over the past decade or so is that I honestly no longer see it as being primarily grounded in creeds and rules. How I interpret Jesus today is that he was not primarily into "creeds" and "rules" and "laws". He was primarily offering a "way" of looking at, or processing, life. Creeds and rules and laws still have some place in this schema, and they are important. He was not offering some anarchist or nihilist agenda but he was moving the focus away from worshiping the "creeds" and "rules" and "laws" in some idolatrous manner. What is far more important is "the attitude of mind" that we bring to the process of using "creeds" and "rules" and "laws".
Perhaps a couple of other starting points might be:
- This one of analysing the "Way of Jesus". What is it exactly?
- Another starting point might be the schema of the Catechism itself? What are the parts of the Catechism that no longer sit comfortably with our interpretations of what Jesus was all on about today?
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedIs it even about "belief" any more?
by PeterR , Thursday, August 30, 2012, 16:02 (262 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
edited by PeterR, Thursday, August 30, 2012, 16:21
Faith-life!
Faith is a quality of life, experienced in a community of people, who are conscious of the life of God they share in, with and for one another.
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
"I am" = Yahweh, the Great I am.
Vatican II gave us a great vision of Church as the Pilgrim People of God. Where is that vision today?
http://catholic-resources.org/John/Themes-IAM.htm
Peter
lockedIs it even about "belief" any more?
by Helen , The other side of Australia, Thursday, August 30, 2012, 17:24 (262 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
Another starting point might be the schema of the Catechism itself? What are the parts of the Catechism that no longer sit comfortably with our interpretations of what Jesus was all on about today?
Brian, if only you had posted this yesterday! I was clearing out my bookshelf and came across the Catechism (I had erroneously posted last week that I had thrown it out - I thought I had but I hadn't - and I am sure there will be those who will remember that
). I looked at it briefly and all I could see were page after page of text and pictures more suitable for Grade 3's than for adults.
I did throw it out this time - but not into the bin - I took it to the tip shop. You can read into that whatever you like!!
Plus, I was thinking today - do we as mature adults need to have catechisms, instructions from bishops etc. in order to have belief? Whilst there is appeal in the conservative aspect to the young because of the 'one true Church' approach which gives some people comfort, and of course they need to have some religious instruction in order to have a belief - once they have have 'grown up through life experience, do they still need to be told how to pray and what to pray for?
Why can't we choose our own way of religious expression? Whether it is an occasional trip to Mass - to another Church or not attending any formal way of worship but following ones own belief system - isn't that enough for adults?
I don't know - I am just letting my brain do the talking here (fingers just do as they are told, I like to have an obedient following
) so this may sound rubbish - but I know what I mean and if you do, welcome to my mind!!
Let us light a candle and say to the dark, we beg to differ
lockedAnother starting point...
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Thursday, August 30, 2012, 20:27 (262 days ago) @ Helen
Thanks, Helen. I'm not sure where this might lead. For a long time I have mused on the possibility of getting a group of people together, perhaps in cyberspace, and trying to make some coherent sense of what we believe today. I think in a sense we have all become "cafeteria Catholics" today — even the FTTMs even though they would hotly deny it. They're as big into choosing what bits they believe and what bits they discard as much as anyone else. (Don't tell them that because it upsets them when truths like that are pointed out. 
)
Part of the problem, I sense, is that the scope of such an exercise is really vast. To take one approach it would be to go methodically through the 800+ page version of the Catechism and analyze what we still agree with. Personally I think there is still much deep wisdom in that book — but there is a proportion that today I'd nuance quite differently to even how it was written in the early 1990s when it was produced. There are also sections that I would really query outright altogether.
One of them is this question that occurred to me a little earlier this afternoon when reading a little further in Eugene Stockton's and John Merriman's book, "Blue Mountains Dreaming: The Aboriginal Heritage". I'll quote this small section from an essay by Jim Smith on the traditional indigenous beliefs about death. I quote it to demonstrate how deeply embedded in the human experience and belief system is a belief in an afterlife. I suspect human attitudes amongst the educated have been shifting enormously in recent times on this question of an afterlife and what happens when we die. As (I think it was) Enda wrote a few days ago, "nobody knows what happens when we die". I think he is correct but I would suggest that once there was perhaps a much greater belief in an afterlife and the big reunion in the sky with all the pre-deceased relatives and the "communion of saints". What I pick up through general conversation and such things as the media and books is that those sort of beliefs have dropped off — as has the fear of some "final judgment" and the possibility of spending an eternity in the "everlasting fires of hell". People may well say "I don't know what comes after death" rather than having some alternative picture to the one painted by the likes of Michalangelo, Milton, Dante and so on. What I am suggesting here is that they have been slowly rejecting something that would have been once believed virtually dogmatically — e.g. it kept a lot of people fronting up to church on Sunday for an awfully long time — but they don't necessarily have some alternative picture to replace it with. They are simply content to say, or think, "I do not know".
Here's the interesting quote from Jim Smith about indigenous beliefs about an afterlife:
Death
Gundungurra mourning and burial rituals were observed several times. They shared a custom with the Wiradjuri and other western and northern Aboriginal people of making elaborate carvings on a group of trees around the burial places of important men. A major burial area was around the junction of the Cox and Nattai Rivers. Curves, chevrons, diamonds and sets of parallel lines are common motifs but nothing was recorded of their meaning. Gundungurra men were buried with their possessions in an upright position. Billy Lynch received the last recorded traditional Gundungurra burial (after his Catholic service) beside Megalong Creek in 1913.
Death was rarely attributed to "natural" causes. An elaborate ritual was performed to discover clues to the identity of the human perpetrators of a Gundungurra death. When identification was made, the Pirrimbir ritual was carried out. Part of this ritual, for Burragorang Valley Aboriginal men, was to bathe in the Mullindi waterhole (one of Gurangatch's resting places) on the Wollondilly. This gave them the strength to carry out their dangerous task. Another part of the revenge expedition involved marking trees on the way to the enemy group. These markings look similar to those on burial trees and possibly represented the personal markings identifying the person being avenged. After killing the person they believed responsible for the Gundungurra death, the men would return to their own country and would usually be visited in their turn by their enemies seeking their own revenge.
Virtually nothing was recorded of Gundungurra beliefs about the afterlife. Only the settler Martin Feld made a few remarks on the subject.
Their god, whom they called Bull-an, lived across the sea, in the aborigines' heaven. After death their spirits cross the sea, and on arrival at the other side they find a bridge, which they cross and then dive down through a tunnel, at the end of which is a fiery mountain, they pass over this and then meet their friends in heaven, where they are all happy together. They believe there is one heaven for the white man and another for the black man.
Jim Smith, "Seeing Gundungurra Country" from "Blue Mountains Dreaming: The Aboriginal Heritage", Blue Mountain Education & Research Trust (2nd Edition 2009) p154-155
![[image]](../marketplace/bmert/images/BurialTreeCarving_560x228.jpg)
![[image]](../marketplace/bmert/images/BurialMarks_560x135.jpg)
I quote all of that for this insight into indigenous beliefs, and my earlier comments, from the point of view that an investigation of our beliefs about death and an afterlife might be another useful starting point for what people generally believe about a lot of other things today.
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by georgeh , Thursday, August 30, 2012, 16:32 (262 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
I was taught the faith pre V2.But then I was re-evangalised with most by V2.Hence I tend to discern most theological baggage in the light of what I understand V2 was about?!
Don't know if that makes sense?!
georgeh
lockedI forget the source of this quote from my file: "Passages to ponder".
by PeterR , Thursday, August 30, 2012, 17:23 (262 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
modern scholarship versus traditional dogma
The findings of three hundred years of modern biblical criticism have impelled some theologians to call for a radical reinterpretation or abandonment of dogmas that were once regarded as indispensable and unassailable by Christians. To illustrate this call, I shall now discuss modern biblical scholarship in relation to dogmas concerning sacraments, papal authority and the birth of Jesus Christ from a virginal mother.
Hans Kung illustrates very well a difficulty that modern biblical studies can present to theologians. As a Catholic theologian, he is fully aware that according
to a binding dogmatic tradition his Church has solemnly taught that there are seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, penance, the Eucharist, marriage, holy
orders, and the anointing of the sick. Kung is also entirely cognizant that many biblical scholars deny that the Bible teaches that there are seven sacraments.
The Catholic church today still teaches that Jesus Christ instituted the seven sacraments, and it does so in continuity with three councils of bishops meeting
respectively in Lyon, 1274; Florence, 1439; and Trent, 1547.38 In view of which, Kung and his Catholic colleagues are faced with a decision: either they ignore the conclusions of higher biblical criticism, and continue to teach that Jesus began the practice of celebrating seven sacraments, or they challenge the position of Trent and conclude that modern research tends to indicate that there is no basis in the Bible for regarding all seven rituals as sacraments. Kung follows the latter path. He accepts that baptism and the Eucharist are evident as independent sacramental actions in the Bible, but goes on to conclude that:
There is no indication of any independent sacrament of confirmation, as can be shown precisely from Acts 8.14ff and 19:1ff
There is no basis for Christ's having personally instituted an anointing of the sick on the strength of James 5:14ff (even though a connection is made to Mark 6:13 and 16:17-18).
There are no adequate references to a sacrament of 'holy orders,' serving as a condition for and investiture in the functions of church leadership (cf I Tim 4:14,
5:12; and 2 Tim 1:6,2:2).
And least of all is there any reference to a sacrament of matrimony, much as Eph 5:21-33 speaks of the great mystery (sacramentum in the Vulgate), and although
Jesus, according to Mark 10:2-12, forbids divorce."
Another major Catholic dogma that is challenged by higher biblical criticism is the idea that the papacy stems from Jesus. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that
The Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved. Before all else is the choice of the Twelve with Peter as their head. Representing the Twelve tribes of Israel, they are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem. The Twelve and the other disciples share in Christ's mission and his power, but also in his lot. By all his actions, Christ prepares his Church."
For the leaders and many believers of the Catholic Church today, the Pope, or Bishop of Rome, has inherited the mantle of authority bequeathed to him by Jesus Christ. In their view, the entire edifice of the Catholic Church, including the office of the papacy, stems from the will of Jesus Christ. It may well be the
case, though, that the Catholic Church's teachings regarding its origins constitute a 'foundation myth'. That is, they may well convey a traditional wisdom, but
they are not literally descriptive of the Church's actual historical genesis. For the Catholic theologian James P. Mackey, 'neither Jesus nor his earliest followers can be literally credited with the "foundation myth" currently taught by the Catholic Church."!
lockedTwo incompatible base assumptions...
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Thursday, August 30, 2012, 19:57 (262 days ago) @ PeterR
Thanks for that Peter. It reinforces to me that part of the contemporary problem is that we have two utterly incompatible base assumptions from which our institutional leaders, beginning with Benedict himself, approach their role. One view is summed up by this 1979 quote from Benedict (a year after JPII assumed the Papal Throne):
"The Christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of these little people against the power of intellectuals." [The quote is from page 130 of John Allen's book, Benedict XVI, LINK]
It literally does see the ordinary person as something about one step above an imbecile whose insecurities and superstitions need to be appeased and stroked. I am increasingly convinced that attitude is general at high levels in the institution. They literally do still believe that and it explains much of the policy direction that has been undertaken in recent decades. I wonder if they ever even spend a nano-second reflecting on what the Almighty in the Sky might think of their behaviour and their methodology of catechesis and stewardship?
The alternative to that see the average Catholic, particularly today, as increasingly well educated and questioning and hungry for more intelligent responses than superstition and beliefs that might have been perfectly logical and sensible to what might have been described as "the little people" and "the simple people" when the vast majority of Catholics were uneducated and illiterate and almost entirely dependent on the priestly class for their knowledge.
The trouble today is that the vast majority of leaders who might challenge Benedict's thinking have been kicked out or have "seen the light" and pulled their heads below the parapets or got out.
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedTwo incompatible base assumptions...
This is a great discussion! After I read your post and several others, I went back to reread The American Catholic Council Declaration for Reform and Renewal,
http://americancatholiccouncil.org/more-about-acc/early-founding-of-the/declaration/
I think it has a lot of good material that we can build on. After identifying a number of "signs of the times" that precipitated the declaration, they go on to acknowledge co-responsibility for the conditions and then list the reforms that they would like to see made in the church. They end by making a good case for collegiality.
I think it's worth considering.
lockedTwo incompatible base assumptions...
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Friday, August 31, 2012, 14:26 (261 days ago) @ Arizona Don
I agree with the thrust of what you are suggesting, Don. The place where I have a difference in outlook is to do with any confidence that the re-examination can take place within the present institutional structure. Just think back to when the American Catholic Council was held and the published attitudes of the local archbishop, the Most Rev. Allen H. Vigneron, to what was taking place in a large secular convention centre in his city! I am sure he would have preferred that it was all taking place in some other hierarch's city.
There was a mountain of good stuff discussed at the American Catholic Council in the keynotes, and in the workshops, and in the social chat in the refreshment places around the city where people adjourned after the formal sessions. The question is: where will all that energy eventually manifest itself? In reform of the present structure? Or will it eventually manifest itself in other places outside the structure we have known that may eventually surprise us?
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedTwo incompatible base assumptions...
Brian,
I share your disappointment with ACC’s results up to this point, but I think they accomplished quite a lot in providing a structure for change, and the Conference in Detroit. I guess I hoped ACC could create a movement like the Tea Party in American politics, which managed to motivate millions of followers in a short period of time and has had an inordinate impact on the 2010 and the current elections in the US. But I haven’t written ACC or other reform groups off. My hope reminded me of verse in one of my boyhood’s favorite poems, Casey at the Bat as the Mudville fans began to lose hope. Unfortunately at the end, Casey didn’t meet their expectations. And perhaps we will never live to see the changes that we hope for, but I believe it’s worth our continued hope and energy.
The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that -
We'd put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.
I guess I’m one of those who clings to “…that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;”
I still have hope for ACC and other reform movements, even though it wanes from day to day. It was renewed a couple of days ago when I read a blog from Dr. Anthony Massimini entitled Moving from Vision to Reality, on his website, The 21st Century American Catholic. Here is the posting. http://the21stcenturyamericancatholic.blogspot.com/2012/08/moving-from-vision-to-realit...
It’s the first one in series which you and your readers might find useful. He starts the series by stating, “…in obedience to God in the Spirit of Christ, we will not relate to the church on the following terms:
1) Organizational Corruption; 2) Theological Stagnation; 3) ; and Spiritual Anemia. He goes on to explain what each of the three categories propose.
Dr. Massimini is a theologian, a married priest, who was involved as young priest in Vatican II, and a committed blogger, along with being a published author.
One more thing, I read your posting on August 16, The Impossibility of Reform in the Present Climate and your reference to Helen’s post with the article by Jamie Manson, Leaving the Church is a Luxury the World Cannot Afford. Again you raise a number of good points. I’m finishing a blog entitled The Hierarchy and the Lowerarchy, that I think “hopefully” has suggestions to some of your concerns.
lockedTwo incompatible base assumptions...
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 08:50 (260 days ago) @ Arizona Don
Thanks, Don. I think somewhere in our national culture we have a similar poem to the tale of Casey at the Bat. Perhaps one of our scholars might remember it. It was from Henry Lawson, Banjo Patterson or one of those iconic poets and it expresses the same sense of "having hope when all seems lost".
I agree with you. I think there is much cause for hope. I am energized listening to young people today even if half the time I find I'm even falling behind in understanding their language. (My daughter posted a response earlier today to a longish message I posted to her on Facebook. I had to read it a couple of times to be able to fully decipher it such are the shortcuts they use in grammar and expression today.) I suspect we might be long dead before the spiritual spring emerges again. I don't have any sense God is dead, spirituality is dead, or the search for answers has been abandoned even if I might believe that Ottaviani-Wojtyla-Ratzinger and this "curious coalition of effeminate hierarchs and bully boys" have done a bloody good job of killing the Catholic Church.
I also agree with you that the work of initiatives like the ACC was not wasted or in vain — and one could mention all of the reform movements that came together to sponsor the American Catholic Council. All I am trying to say is that I don't think it is going to manifest itself in some kind of Vatican III to continue the forward-oriented agenda of Vatican II. My sense is that it is now "laying the ground-work" for whatever might emerge after the "smaller, purer" de-evangelized carcass left in the wake of Benedict and JPII the Grate. Who yet knows when the phoenix might emerge from its shell?
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedI keep reminding myself ...
by PeterR , Saturday, September 01, 2012, 11:13 (260 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
edited by PeterR, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 11:43
... that Jesus of Nazareth was not a roaring success as measured by industry standards: He died a failure as measured by those industry standards.
Vatican II was faithful to Jesus of Nazareth in Spirit and in Truth. Those who accept Vatican II in Spirit and in Truth must expect to be rejected by the catholic industry officials and their followers.
Peter
lockedI keep reminding myself ...
by dmf , Monday, September 03, 2012, 09:40 (258 days ago) @ PeterR
Thanks for this reminder, Peter.
It is particularly pertinent to the situation in my parish at present, so is timely for me.
Dorothy
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
I'd start with those who have already done the work you refer to. The likes of John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg and Michael Morwood come to mind immediately.
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by Helen , The other side of Australia, Friday, August 31, 2012, 01:04 (262 days ago) @ Richard
> I'd start with those who have already done the work you refer to. The likes of John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg and Michael Morwood come to mind immediately.
Hi Richard, I notice you are from Zambia - a big g'day from me
I agree with your comments and want to add The Jesus Seminar which included a lot of progressive Christian thinkers, plus Sandra Schneiders, Joan Chittister and Elizabeth Johnson as those who have done a heap of work on this subject.
Let us light a candle and say to the dark, we beg to differ
lockedWhere would one start?
Thanks to all of you so far. This is a great and very timely topic. It is good to see that one is not alone in the life-long quest for truth, justification, love, acceptance, and wonderment (not necessarily in that order).
Over the past 12 months I have been specifically pondering both the questions and the answers to this crucial aspect of one's life; I guess my life in particular. After going in circles for what seemed eternity, I realized that I had to start with the question, Do I still believe in God?
I read all sorts, catholica.com.au was significant; listened to all sorts; experienced the wonderment of the universe and all that was in it; reflected on my experiences and the minute bit of religious education that I've acquired; and various other bits and pieces one's body collects along the way after 62 years. I came to decide that, Yes, I did believe in God although unsure of Who or What that looked like. I definitely assume, however, that it was not some old, white-bearded male guru with, as Brian describes, a hairy arm that reaches down to stir and/or season our pot from time to time.
In gingerly creeping to step 1.1, I asked myself: “How would I communicate this belief to another? and where would I start? and how would I describe it all?”
Being of Christian background; trying to be ever attentive to the wisdom of others (enough to drive one to and off the 'deep end'); recalling those few words of Bishop Geoffrey James Robinson (he questioningly pondered: perhaps the Creation Story would/could be a good place to start); and recalling my own experiences; I seemed to have this aha moment that: 'Of course, one has to start at The Beginning.' One very handy aide to this quest was/is the book of Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.
As I reflect on, and on and . . . , recalling teachings of a former, very passionate and loving, bishop of mine, I can still see him standing there, he describes: From The Beginning, God has been in relationship with us, with all of Creation, and, thus, We are in relationship with God, and, by default, We are in relationship with Each Other. Life, and thus, religion/faith/whatever, is about Relationship.
To further; to promote; and to better understand this relationship, we have the Christ event; the teachings of Christ. Perhaps if one 'pulls out' or 're-sees' or 're-examines' the Christ event in this relationship-light, then some things make more sense. An example would be some of what was recorded in the Good Book: the following biblical quote from the NRSV falls under a section entitled: The Judgement of the Nations
. . . for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of My family, you did it to Me.’
(Matthew 25:35-40)
So, in Conclusion, in Summary, in the Beginning, I would start with being in Relationship. All else flows from that. I suppose we would need to:
- Understand our past: Re-interpret the Bible as a record of People in Relationship with God and each other. Written by people; about people; as an attempt to understand life.
- Listen to each other: Where is the individual on their road-of-life?
- Communicate the belief system: the Catechism is a good place to start - why re-invent the wheel. First of all; re-write it using inclusive language including all references to God. Even #370 justifies that step. Once re-written, prune out all the stuff that we do not know for sure. The Sacraments come to mind. (Heck, we don't even know what to do with Confirmation).
- Continue to:
- Celebrate with each other:
- Give thanks to Each Other and to God for what we have: (notice the reversal, after all God is in each of us)
- Celebrate with each other:
lockedWhere would one start?
"So, in Conclusion, in Summary, in the Beginning, I would start with being in Relationship. All else flows from that. I suppose we would need to:
Understand our past: Re-interpret the Bible as a record of People in Relationship with God and each other. Written by people; about people; as an attempt to understand life.
Listen to each other: Where is the individual on their road-of-life?
Communicate the belief system: the Catechism is a good place to start - why re-invent the wheel. First of all; re-write it using inclusive language including all references to God. Even #370 justifies that step. Once re-written, prune out all the stuff that we do not know for sure. The Sacraments come to mind. (Heck, we don't even know what to do with Confirmation).
Continue to: Celebrate with each other:
Give thanks to Each Other and to God for what we have: (notice the reversal, after all God is in each of us)"
Thanks Paul J
Wonderful stuff
Maitland
lockedWhere would one start?
by PeterR , Friday, August 31, 2012, 15:09 (261 days ago) @ PaulJ
Thanks PaulJ.
May I reiterate one of my earlier posts of some time back:
I describe a human being as a person-in-relation-to-others.
Hence, I describe a Christian human being as a person-in-a-death/resurrection-relation-to-others.
Christians live a quality of life that incorporates dying to self to live for others in Christ. We live the Paschal Mystery.
That growth in Christ, day by day, week by week ... is what we celebrate in union with Christ in His Death/Resurrection/Ascension/Sending of the Spirit throughout our lives.
Liturgy is the celebration of the Paschal Mystery: our incorporation into and growth in the Paschal Mystery of Christ. To live is Christ.
"Others" is both God and each of God's creatures. Hence, it incorporates every relationship a person has with God (liturgy is the primary and indispensable source of the true Christian Spirit), persons, animals and things. The mind immediately suggests education, social justice, rearing of animals, plant life, environmentalism .. everything.
What is the Christian quality of each such relationship? Death and Resurrection: Death to what is of sin, fullness of life incorporating love and justice and every other virtue.
This simple statement can be expanded to cover every element of sound theology ever uttered - all in Christ, guided by the Spirit to the glory of God the Father.
Peter
lockedWhere would one start?
Hi Paul,What a wonderful approch to the Bible,God and life:Understand our past:Re-interpret the Bible as a record of people in Relationship with God and each other,Written by people,about people;as as an attempt to understand life.Thank you very much.
lockedWhere would one start?
by Helen , The other side of Australia, Friday, August 31, 2012, 16:23 (261 days ago) @ Alphonse
Alphonse, great to see you posting again - hope all is well with you now.
Helen
Let us light a candle and say to the dark, we beg to differ
lockedWhere would one start?
by PeterR , Saturday, September 01, 2012, 11:24 (260 days ago) @ PaulJ
Scripture is the interpretative norm of our human experience.
"God is not far from any of us since it is in him that we live, and move, and exist." Acts 17:28
It's a prayerful matter of finding Him in our human experience and responding to Him in faith.
How many US folk are approaching their election in these faith terms? Just wondering.
Peter
lockedWhere would one start?
Thank you, Maitland, PeterR, Alphose and to Brian who keeps challenging us.
I think we need to keep our hand steady on our rudder and, knowing friends are at our side, move ahead one inch at a time.
PaulJ
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
Brian, you have posed a great question. It is one that I began thinking about ten years ago when I discoved the theologians knew little more than I did about the reality of the Divine.
The first thing I did was to rewrite a creed that made sense for me:
"The Divine is the everywhere Presence.
The Spirit is the Movement of the Presence.
Divine Awareness is in creation and silence.
Jesus is the unique human expression of the Divine.
Jesus taught us how to live:
Love the Divine.
Love one another.
Share the bread and cup in remembrance."
Now I live this creed by loving, trusting, and surrendering to the Presence. All else got jettisoned because it was only words written by men who have no greater understanding of the thing we call God and its relationship to the universe than I do. So now, at 73, I read and write about my spiritual connectedness to the Divine. Those things that add to that connectedness I retain and the many that don't I reject. I seek out and enjoy the company of those that have finally come to this simple realisation as many of the contributors of Catholica have done.
The ten years of struggling to this realisation have at times been very painfully riddled with guilt and the feeling that I was abandoning all that I had ever been taught by the very holy authorities above me. Now, I know that was not true. Now, I know that I am free to live in the Presence and continue to practice contemplative mysticism.
Love to all,
Richard
Richard
lockedYou all think too much!
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Friday, August 31, 2012, 12:57 (261 days ago) @ RLWalters
Richard and all,
Thanks so much for the contributions you've been making to this string. Some of the comments have led me to re-visiting the question of why it has become effectively impossible for such a review of what we believe to take place within the institutional structure? Why is it effectively impossible now for the progressive, forward oriented vision discerned at Vatican II to re-assert itself? I honestly do think it is now impossible. Whatever emerges in the future is going to have to occur outside the structure all of us have known.
There are some who still believe the institution is capable of being reformed. Arizona Don, further up this string mentions the American Catholic Council [LINK]. While I was impressed with the enthusiasm that was evident at the American Catholic Council I honestly am not convinced that that enthusiasm is capable of overcoming the deep and powerful psychological forces that today essentially drive the institutional agenda. Perhaps surprisingly, I don't think the major impediment are what I have labelled the Catholic Taliban in the lay ranks or what I have labelled the "mummies' boys" in the hierarchical ranks. The chief impediment is the bureaucracy — the Curia (both in Rome and locally) — who have this attitude to people like us "your trouble is 'you think too much'!". They are not particularly fans of the Catholic Taliban, nor the effeminate bishops who believe the re-evangelisation and return to the pews is going to be achieved by costumes and jiggery-pockery with the language and music of the liturgy, and re-vamping things like perpetual adoration and indulgences, carting the bodies and relics of dead saints around the world, etc., but they are masters-without-equal to "looking after Number One" (themselves).
Chris Geraghty summed up the personality types so well in this passage from his book, "Dancing with the Devil", that I've been quoting a lot lately:
![[image]](../marketplace/fpau/prod_images/9780867861723_210x311.jpg)
They all presumed they had been blessed with the common touch and that they had their fingers on the pulse. They had the answers (all supplied years before in the seminary). But only a handful of their parishioners were asking the dusty questions for which they had the formula. Their clerical life had isolated them. The sweet, fawning talk of a coterie of their special parishioners had spoilt them. Ordinary people communicated with them in ritualistic jargon. The collar, the cassock and the pedestal, had removed these black-coated men from the grubby, complicated realities of life. There was no table at which they sat, where people could look them in the face and tell them "the God's honest truth". They saved up their personal lives for Monday's at St Michael's Golf Course, or the local squash court, or Lewisham tennis courts where Abo and his episcopal mate, Bill Murray, and others played together. For the remainder of the week they were clerics on duty, stiff agents of the Roman Catholic Church which was centred in the Eternal City and which was, in turn, the spokesman for God himself.
Quote from:
Dancing with the Devil, Chris Geraghty, Spectrum Publications (2012), p152
For such people ultimately it IS all about POWER. They care not who they hurt, nor who anyone else hurts, in their quest to obtain power or retain power. After being exposed to these recent revelations of what is happening in the Vatican I suspect there are many more of them in the highest corridors of power in the Vatican than I previously might have imagined. They pay lip-service to theology, beliefs, canon law, justice, preferential options for the poor, ritual, liturgy, everything that is supposed to be "central" to Catholic religious belief but they are absolute masters at exploiting all of those things in the most utterly cynical of ways to feather their own nests in the temporal affairs of life.
![[image]](../misc/images2012/BoysOfStVincent_210x265.jpg)
I also highly recommend part 2 of the 1992 National Film Board of Canada docu-drama, "The Boys of St Vincent", which contains a couple of powerful psychological studies of the sort of individuals who I am talking about — for example, the departmental head/bureaucrat who confronted the detective undertaking the initial investigation and got it stopped. Later in the movie we see his boss — the government minister — confronted at the Royal Commission and he denies he had knowledge of the investigation being stopped. From my experience that is altogether plausible. Often the damage is done by "lower level functionaries" who are trying to "second guess the boss" but do not actually communicate to the boss what they have done. There is a heck of a lot of that goes on in any bureaucracy and I suspect it has become a massive problem in the Roman Catholic bureaucracy to the point where it is now close to rendering this entire institution into a societal and global irrelevance. With the recent prosecution of Mgr William Lynn in Philadelphia, and a string of police investigations here in Australia, we might be beginning to see this "bureaucratic—'I was only following orders'—element" beginning to get their come-uppance.
The "bottom line" in all of this is that right across the more educated, reflective parts of the globe nearly 90% of the core constituency of the Church has simply "stopped listening and stopped participating". In the US they are partly sheltered from this where for various cultural and historical reasons the fall-off is not quite as sharp as in Europe or countries like our own. But even there the overall "trend-line" is the same as in Europe and Australia.
I honestly believe today that we are "largely on our own" today if we want to try and make sense of our beliefs – if we want to find a spirituality and belief framework that makes sense in the lived experiences of our lives. There is going to be no help coming from the highest levels of the Vatican bureaucracy, nor even who is likely to be the next pope for at least three or four popes down the line. The entire "card pack" has been stacked — stacked against any re-evangelisation or re-invigoration of the institutional culture that was once such a central feature in the lives of so many. Trying to drill through the skulls of either the Catholic Taliban element who elevate the search for certitude over the search for truth, or the bureaucracy who believe everyone "thinks too much", is like trying to jack-hammer through solid granite!
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedA powerful commentary from Tom McMahon that takes this further...
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Friday, August 31, 2012, 13:08 (261 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
![[image]](../gc1/tm5/images/EmpireStrikesBack_an_325x84.gif)
Coming up in a short while as our lead commentary today is a powerful commentary from Tom McMahon which, without naming it, looks at this a whole lot further. In fact the commentary is now online at: http://www.catholica.com.au/gc1/tm5/246_tm_310812.php
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedYou all think too much!
Brian, thank God that I went off on my own and found the Divine as we are all truly on our own if we seek a greater connectedness beyond the words and rituals. Frist, I read all the works of Rohr, Keating, Morwood, Merton, Laird, Menninger, and many others. Then I went into my inner room as instructed and there "it" was. It was just that simple and the members of Catholic Taliban, Temple Police, Holyness Inquisitors, and the entire hierarchy are not allowed in my inner room. What are they going to do, excommunicate me? From what? I still attend mass but not for the nonsensical words and mundane rituals. What I see around me is the family within the Divine Presence partaking in a remembrance of a man that taught us how to live in the Presence of God.
Blessings to all,
Richard
Richard
lockedAnd then we come to the challenge of liturgy and ritual...
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Friday, August 31, 2012, 14:09 (261 days ago) @ RLWalters
Thanks, Richard. Quite apart from the central focus of the question I asked — the question of what we actually believe today — a separate question is the place of ritual, rubric and liturgy in our lives; how belief is expressed. My sense is that there is still a very deep passion or need in the human person for ritual, rubric and liturgy. At its essence though it is not something that can be imposed. Ultimately it has to "come from, and speak to" the heart of the individuals who are to be engaged by ritual, rubric and liturgy.
I think we can see so many places in modern culture where, following the exit of institutional religion from providing meanignful liturgies that "'come from, and speak to' the heart of the individuals who are to be engaged by ritual, rubric and liturgy" the people are turning to all sorts of what I call "secular liturgies". I don't have a sense that "ritual, rubric and liturgy" is dead at all. People are simply turning away from such things when some people try to impose them on a society and they have become a long, long way divorced from the lived experiences and real aspirations of the people.
It's a difficult question. The reality is that the average person is not skilled in writing liturgy and ritual. That is the particular skill or talent of people like artists, musicians, writers, film and stage directors, etc.. And the "particular skill" of those specialists, if they are to be successful in their roles, is the ability to discern those deep yearnings, anxieties, dreams and hopes of a people.
Sadly in the Church today many of the hierarchs have come to believe they are the "creative ones" capable of discerning what is in the heart of the people they are meant to be serving. (See again, Chris Geraghty's quote: "They all presumed they had been blessed with the common touch and that they had their fingers on the pulse. They had the answers (all supplied years before in the seminary). But only a handful of their parishioners were asking the dusty questions for which they had the formula. Their clerical life had isolated them. The sweet, fawning talk of a coterie of their special parishioners had spoilt them. Ordinary people communicated with them in ritualistic jargon. The collar, the cassock and the pedestal, had removed these black-coated men from the grubby, complicated realities of life. There was no table at which they sat, where people could look them in the face and tell them 'the God's honest truth'.") The result has been that they serve up liturgies that the vast majority of people in the thinking world are no longer interested in participating in.
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
locked
You all think too much!
by Francis , Kingsgrove, NSW, Friday, August 31, 2012, 14:19 (261 days ago) @ RLWalters
I posted below something that could very well be posted here. http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=111602
I would add to that I believe in heaven and that there are many rooms because we all make our heaven here. Heaven will be as we have lived out our lives here. Tha tis whay it is important to live life to the full.
Francis
My purpose is to remember the love that created me in God one with my brothers and sisters and with all life. My function is to extend that love and unity each moment to all.
lockedYou all think too much!
Francis,
Thanks for sharing. At some point I gave up trying to appease the Temple Police. I no longer have anthing in common with their fundamentalisn and their ridgid adherence to ancient rituals that no longer have meaning for me. Once one experiences the Divine all else has little meaning as my world has found clarity and purpose beyond words and rituals.
Blessings,
Richard
Richard
lockedYou all think too much!
by Helen , The other side of Australia, Friday, August 31, 2012, 15:23 (261 days ago) @ RLWalters
Thanks for this Richard. Yes, we do think too much - over think in actual fact.
Today was a day for the Southern Right Whales to come into the Princess Royal Harbor - George Vancouver named the harbour after Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte Augusta Matilda; who was born when he sailed into the waters in September 1791. Thought you would like to know
I and my husband went along to look. There they were blowing away - they make a lot of noise - and there were people standing watching and sharing the directions of where to look. I pondered why we want to watch whales - and do the whales watch us?
And I thought that whales do what whales do - they don't think about it they just do it - and God created them the same as God created us. So why do we have to turn the belief in God into a tongue twisting, stomach churning series of beliefs that if you don't believe in what I believe in your are going to hell?
This applies to all religions of the Book - I can't say how other religions deal with their adherents so I wont speculate on that one.
Let us light a candle and say to the dark, we beg to differ
lockedYou all think too much!
Helen, in watching the whales today you probably know as much about the Divine as any theologian. Our deepest experience of the Divine comes from the creation that surrounds us the the silence of your inner room. It seems to me that the hierarchy and the fundamentalist have perpetuated themselves and the myths of the Church for centuries while some members of the laity and the monastics have savored and nourished the catholic church. Jesus brought us a way of living in the reign of God, here and now, in every breath we breathe. So continue to watch the whales and experience your place in the Presence.
Blessings,
Richard
Richard
lockedWell said, Richard. N/T
by Francis , Kingsgrove, NSW, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 14:48 (260 days ago) @ RLWalters
Well said, Richard. N/T
Francis
My purpose is to remember the love that created me in God one with my brothers and sisters and with all life. My function is to extend that love and unity each moment to all.
lockedYou all think too much!
Helen, today was a "moment of grace" for us when we experienced Creation's wonders again. My husband had knee surgery this week and is recuperating, which gives us more time to sit on the back patio and watch the world. It rained, just a little, last night and the air was fresher after a week of bushfire smoke and haze.
We were greeted, as usual, by Twerp, my fat wagtail who comes to say "Hello" a few times a day, and Muddy and his magpie mates to eat out of John's hand. Then 6 pink and white galahs decided to scramble around in the long grass and "discuss the day" among themselves. The horses and their accompanying egrets wandered past, then the Zebu cattle lay down in the Long paddock for an hour or so, and, best of all, in the late afternoon, the kangaroos came for a visit. We see them about once a week and can't predict when they will come, so each visit is a joy.
Why bother with rituals etc when God speaks so clearly to us in His Creation? It almost makes up for the banality of the new Mess translation, which I just ignore and take what part I can in the Mass now.
J A Holznagel
lockedYou all think too much!
by Helen , The other side of Australia, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 01:10 (261 days ago) @ judith
Why bother with rituals etc when God speaks so clearly to us in His Creation? It almost makes up for the banality of the new Mess translation, which I just ignore and take what part I can in the Mass now.
Oh yes, yes. The creation that is all around us simply shouts out that the Creator God is with us in every slither of the goanna and every waddle of the duck - although flies are still a mystery!
Let us light a candle and say to the dark, we beg to differ
lockedYou all think too much!
by Nick , dianella, west australia, Friday, August 31, 2012, 21:01 (261 days ago) @ Helen
Three hearty British CHEERS, Helen.
Our conscience tells us that we are God's creation and Temples of the Holy Spirit - that is all we need to know and that is all the codes we have to follow. The Gospels, whenever and whoever and however they were written hold the key to all this.
The rest is just simple debate that we, as humans, love to engage in.
Who determines just, as I have asked before, what is "orthodox" and what is "heresy". Our consciences tells us, even though there are many times that we do listen to that "voice"!
lockedYou all think too much!
by Helen , The other side of Australia, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 01:16 (261 days ago) @ Nick
Who determines just, as I have asked before, what is "orthodox" and what is "heresy". Our consciences tells us, even though there are many times that we do listen to that "voice"!
Gosh Nick, this is the nuts and bolts of the whole argument isn't it? Who has the monopoly on what we believe in and how we believe it and who can be the executives of this belief. Sounds like we should join a Trade Union to protect our rights when you think of it!!
Let us light a candle and say to the dark, we beg to differ
lockedYou all think too much!
by Nick , dianella, west australia, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 02:24 (261 days ago) @ Helen
No - the decision is our own and nothing can touch that.
They may think that they have the "monopoly" but it is only a fantasy that they create for themselves.
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by Francis , Kingsgrove, NSW, Friday, August 31, 2012, 14:32 (261 days ago) @ RLWalters
"The Divine is the everywhere Presence.
The Spirit is the Movement of the Presence.
Divine Awareness is in creation and silence.
Jesus is the unique human expression of the Divine.
Jesus taught us how to live:
Love the Divine.
Love one another.
Share the bread and cup in remembrance."
Thanks for that. You echo a lot of what makes my life worth living.
Francis
My purpose is to remember the love that created me in God one with my brothers and sisters and with all life. My function is to extend that love and unity each moment to all.
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
Hi,Brian.I think,we need to start with ourselves.We are looking for meaning in life outside there.Where as meaning are hidden in ourselves.Our attitude towards God,Jesus and the Bible will determine our action and will lead us to seek the truth that we are thirsty for.
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by georgeh , Friday, August 31, 2012, 17:31 (261 days ago) @ Alphonse
Thanks Alphonse.
It all sounds like good theology to me?!
georgeh
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
As a woman, I first realised that "The Church" had jettisoned me. At first it felt uncomfortable. I was an active Catholic who often attended Mass other than on Sundays, sang at all Easter ceremonies and all Christmas masses and took an active role in other works of "The Church". Although there were strong messages coming across from the hierarchy that my type of Christianity (personal, inclusive and loving, not based on superstition and magic) was not welcome, I had a congregation and community of wonderful people and a truly Christian priest that I couldn't leave.
Then a right-wing appointment was made and we moved to no roles for women in the church, the priest in coloured frocks and an emphasis on medieval theology (including indulgences etc).
I have jettisoned the lot. Now I am building from the ground up. I love Catholica for all your revelations about the way things really are.
So my "theological baggage" that has been jettisoned is "The Church". I would like, once again, to be part of a truly Christian community. But, I fear, it won't be in "The Church".
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by clommer , United States, Friday, August 31, 2012, 23:32 (261 days ago) @ Jules
Jules - How does this compare to the theological baggage that you jettisoned? It is almost unbelievable but the temple police have to have a base somewhere.
http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/heresy_of_antipopes_john_paul_ii_and_benedict_xv...
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by Helen , The other side of Australia, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 01:24 (261 days ago) @ clommer
My eyes were watering too much to go much further than the heading, although I did notice the DVD on death and journey into hell and the donation page to 'save souls'.
But this is a cult using the Catholic Church as their base - it is a wonder that they haven't been closed down by the diocese in which they exist.
Let us light a candle and say to the dark, we beg to differ
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by clommer , United States, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 03:26 (261 days ago) @ Helen
These are wackos who think that every Pope since John XXIII are heretics and without jurisdiction of any kind. It is impossible for a diocese or anyone to shut them down. This is more of the LeFerbre stripe that may some day appeal to the smaller but purer church. They revel in the era prior to Vatican II.
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
There are other whackos who believe that all Popes since Pius X are frauds. Where does that leave the people in terms of what they must believe and obey?
If the last group were frauds, does this make Humanae Vitae more or less correct teaching? If they were so,where does that leave the whole theology of the Church today?
What happens to the validity of the ordinations done by these "frauds"? Would that empty most of the Churches of the whole world as there can't be too many still around who were ordained in the era of Pius XII or earlier?
Oh dear! I am SOOOOO confused.
J A Holznagel
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by georgeh , Saturday, September 01, 2012, 13:31 (260 days ago) @ judith
Good one judith.
But don't let the "confused" confuse you?!
georgeh
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by Helen , The other side of Australia, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 01:07 (261 days ago) @ Jules
Join the clube Jules, you know you are not alone here!
Let us light a candle and say to the dark, we beg to differ
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by georgeh , Saturday, September 01, 2012, 07:33 (260 days ago) @ Jules
So my "theological baggage" that has been jettisoned is "The Church". I would like, once again, to be part of a truly Christian community. But, I fear, it won't be in "The Church".
To somethat may sound fair enough, Jules?!
But then it depends on what we mean by the church and can a christian community claim to exist outside it?!
Even the RC Church (as bad as some may claim it to be) would/could be part of that wider church, or the body of Christ?!And can there be a "sinless" church/community?!
Just wondering?!
georgeh
lockedBack to the original question — some sort of summation — what do we do with all this info?
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 07:56 (260 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
Thanks for all the responses in this string. I know I no longer fully know what I actually believe today. I suspect the same applies to many in the world today.
Watching that documentary the other day "The Boys of St Vincents" I was struck by (a) the "learned by rote Catechism answers" the boys in that cold orphanage in Newfoundland recited like parrots on cue, around the other side of the world from where I was brought up in the hot, dusty, parched Murchison goldfields of Western Australia, and how all the words (and beliefs) were exactly the same. (b) I was struck by how "simple and comfortable" it all was when we were given "ALL THE ANSWERS" in such a neatly packaged form: "just remember all these rules, son (or girlie), say your rosary each day and attend church on Sunday's and you'll get to heaven!" Is it any wonder that Catholicism has ended up in such a hypocritical pile of pooh where close to 90% of the baptized around the educated world have simply given up and stopped listening and participating?
I'm still half-tempted to attempt some kind of systematic examination of our collective beliefs today — say, by setting up a dedicated forum for people who might be interested, or perhaps seeing if someone might be interested in preparing a lengthy and dedicated series that we might run on a particular day each week. I fear though we'd all soon tire. (Some of you may have forgotten Tom Lee's effort, which we published HERE, where he spent 25 years researching the foundational First 500 Years of Christian Belief.) Our attention spans are short. The beliefs all of us hold were not simply acquired overnight, or even in the twelve or how ever many years we spent at school. They have been gradually acquired over centuries. What this string has brought out to me is the diversity of starting points one could take to begin such a re-examination.
In various ways I sense all of us are engaged in the sort of re-examination that Graham English and Brian Pitts were writing about. We each tackle it though from a different starting point that is triggered by our own individual life experiences — such as downsizing our place of abode and having to discard a lot of stuff that has accumulated in the shed, the spare room, the study, the sewing room, or the garage; or the sort of experience Graham had in "travelling light" for a pilgrimage. In my case, now that I think back about it, it was the "Gesthemane moment" when my entire life caved in around me and those I cared for most back in the early 1990s. I have been surprised at the level of support that we attract here at Catholica from religious and former religious. I didn't expect that when we started. As I think about it, it stands to reason. More than most lay people they perhaps make the biggest investment of their lives in pursuing a creed or a set of beliefs. Wouldn't you expect them, if anyone is to come to a point of questioning their beliefs and life choices, to be the ones most interested in these sort of questions?
I have a sense of needing to mull on all this a lot more and perhaps over coming months something might emerge so that we might tackle this in some kind of systematic way. At present I'll frankly admit I'm not even sure what we're searching for — is it a new "catechism", or something different to that? Personally, I don't sense it is yet another "catechism". That's perhaps what got us into trouble in the first place in that, as I suggested elsewhere, Jesus wasn't into catechisms and creeds and rules. He was, it seems to me, offering a "way" of thinking about and processing life. He didn't "come into the world" to give us some catechism and then have us all standing about like little children in a primary school or orphanage "reciting the rules" and "promising 'cross my heart and hope to die' I'd never disobey any of these rules". He came to show us how to love one another; how to get along with one another. It was not some kindergarten-level game of trying to prove "my God is bigger 'n your God" — or "I am God's favourite pet, not you, nerny, nerny"! The invitation was for the entire human family to "love one another" ... and also to love (have respect for) our own selves. So much emphasis is placed on the line of Jesus about "suffer the little children" to the point where we have been blinded to his larger message which simply said "grow up"!
Let's keep mulling on these questions for a while longer. If any of you have suggestions about engaging with the issues in a more formal way please do not hesitate to put them forward.
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedFor what it's worth!
Thanks Brian. Like you said, there is a lot of good stuff under this heading and elsewhere on this site; and so much of it is constructive, collaborative and faith-building!
As a recent Catholica.au Convert, I am discovering that a lot of viewers and contributors have justifiably slammed shut the church door on their way out. The community suffers significantly; you all have so much to offer, but, as has been said many times, the Institution abandoned us; abuses us. Many of its leaders don't have a clue, aren't listening, or are too busy elsewhere. It's all a mess and a damned shame.
It's a huge problem to tackle, and I sure don't have a real clue as to which direction one should shoot for. Part of me somehow thinks that we have to be persistent in letting the Institution know that we are watching and that darn it, we are God's People too!
Perhaps one thing we could do to focus our efforts a bit, if people would be willing, would be to pool names together by country or location. Of course, there is a huge number from Australia, and that's great. I am from Canada and I would sure like to know who else on this site is from Canada because it might give us strength and strategy to tackle specifics in this country as you do in Australia. For example, I love your idea of gathering in the Blue Mountains, but, sorry, there is no way I can make that trip on my budget! I will just have to read about it on the site.
Anyway, for what it's worth.
PaulJ
lockedFor what it's worth!
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 23:39 (260 days ago) @ PaulJ
Paul, welcome, and thanks for all the comments you've contributed to this string. My father used to end his rosaries asking for a peaceful death. I don't know if the rosaries worked. I do know that his passing was peaceful as I was resting on the other bed in the two bed hospital ward when he breathed his last and I instantly knew it even though I had been listening to the gentle rise and fall of his breath for some considerable time beforehand. It wasn't that I was alerted so much because there were no further sounds that followed the last breath but that the last breath had a different and definitive tone to it. I had tried to ensure the last years of his life were peace-filled and that he parted with a sense of satisfaction in his accomplishments despite all the disappointments.
I honestly don't know about an "afterlife". I believe it in the sense that all energy and knowledge is somehow conserved in Creation as per the laws of science. Nothing is ever lost entirely. I don't look on it though as some continuation of this life — the big party in the sky with our dead relatives and dead saints. What I think is desirable to aim for, and I do sense it is accessible, is a peaceful death as my own father desired for so long. I think we all deserve, whatever responsibilities we've been called to in this life, a final sense of satisfaction for how we have spent our lives. I don't see the word "happiness" as so much characteristic of what we all yearn for — as our American brothers and sisters have enshrined in their Declaration of Independence. My own sense is the word "fulfillment" is more appropriate. When we reach the end of the road I suspect there is a universal hope in the human heart that we can look back on our lives without any sense of guilt and with a sense of fulfillment that we have used our talents to be best of our abilities — whether many spend time thinking much about it is another matter as I'll discuss further below. We also have no fear of the future beyond our last breath whatever that mystery might turn out to be.
One thing I did observe in both my mother and father in their final years was an almost genetically-driven desire to jettison "all the excess baggage". Mum died relatively suddenly and unexpectedly so it wasn't quite as evident with her but the pattern certainly had been established. Dad lived on for another seven years and in the end he was driving me quite spare by "giving stuff away" to various relatives and even strangers — photographs, pieces of furniture etc.. — that I thought might one day be better appreciated by his grandchildren. In the end I'm positive it wasn't driven so much by a desire to be generous to various people, it really was driven by some deep desire to empty his life of "stuff" that he no longer felt important. One of the things I most miss are his diaries. He was a meticulous diarist for as long as I can remember. In the end I don't think he gave those away but instead he probably burned them or put them in the rubbish. I never found out what he had done with them but I am sure they would have contained a wealth of information that might have been valuable centuries from now in the hands of some offspring interested in knowing something of their forebears.
I mention all this because I have been wondering in my own case if this "final state of being" we yearn for might be the starting point for some analysis of the totality of our beliefs? I am sure, just through observation, that there are many people who probably don't give a micro-second's thought in their entire lives to what "state" they'd like to see their lives end on. Others, particularly those who have experienced significant access to power or money, might spend a lot of time trying to engineer how they might be remembered in the history books but I honestly wonder if any person has even a scintilla of control over what the long sweep of history might make of our lives. I have witnessed, at fairly close quarters a number of people who tried to "engineer" certain outcomes via their wills and in virtually all cases the outcomes were almost the complete opposite of what they endeavoured to engineer. As a consequence I'm not a great fan of anybody trying to do any post-death engineering for their families, offspring or the history books. What we do have control over, I sense, is some scope to "engineer" a happy and peaceful death — one where, to borrow a very "Catholic" term — we end in a "state of grace"; a state of satisfaction that we tried our best, where we are at peace with the world around us and all those who trespassed against us; and we carry some sort of satisfaction or fulfillment that we used "the talents" given to us wisely. It's not about how much power we acquired in life; how much loot we're leaving to our offspring; it's about whether we used the various gifts given to us wisely and whether or not we can leave this life without guilt, without carrying any piles of shit and anger in our saddle bags, and in complete peace?
Regarding your question about an exchange of names or some indication of where people are located in the world:
I'm not completely sure of the breakdown of our subscribers or members. I intend to do that analysis soon. What I can share with you without giving too many secrets away is the traffic that visited Catholica yesterday, and for the whole of August, and you'll see that Canada registers the third or fourth highest number of hits in each sample. Unfortunately those stats don't tell us much about how many discrete individuals are sitting behind screens actually reading our site. I'll try and make some evaluation of that over the coming weeks as this is something I've been meaning to do for some time.
![[image]](../stats/images/CountryList_01Sep2012_600x200.gif)
![[image]](../stats/images/CountryList_Aug2012_600x200.gif)
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedFor what it's worth!
Brian, thanks for sharing that part of your life's experiences re: your parents. These are always significant events for sure! We keep them close to our hearts and souls! We pray they are at peace in their rest!
Thanks also for your incredible, diverse insights and for the hours that your labour-of-love dedicates to this site.
There is a 17 hour monumental time difference between your place and mine that can play havoc in the threads of conversation.
I'm thinking that, as you mentioned, “this final state of being”, as a thread below also eludes to, is similar to the state that we enter into life: knowing nothing, having nothing. Well, perhaps we do know a little at the end. If nothing else, the Church has taught, maybe that should read, forced us to keep glancing over our shoulder to observe if our life's-scale tips in our favour. I sure hope I figure out which end is which before long!
Thanks also for sharing the website statistics; I had no idea of the breakdown of visitors/contributors. I mentioned it because our countries/areas do have distinct idiosyncrasies in culture, beliefs, Faith and Church.
For example, currently, I have this small project of trying to get a diocesan policy revised/re-written. It's regarding protection against abuse. In my mind-set, the framework for policies of this universal category should have come from Rome, but each diocese, in Canada anyway, have to invent their own wheel. I am more than a little ticked about this! Heck, they, those elite Romans (that's ironic isn't it) had no problems deciding the New English Translation! In scratching around, I found that overall there is a dart-throwing pattern of results: all over the board. Polices range from a mere dozen pages to over 200; from covering a single type of abuse to multiple forms of abuse; from multiple risk categories to one category. After a whole year of letter writing, and keeping feet-to-fire, the local process got under way last week. But the irritation from my scratching uncovered many diocese have just thrown together something to get by. Anyway, there is a lot more work to do and it would be good to have Canadian help/guidance doing it. It would be good to celebrate together! But I digress.
I think the recent experience solidifies my belief that the current Institution is too massive to handle as it exists today. In one way, by inherent design, there is no one in control: each diocese has its own autonomy; is its own empire; and can have its own Darth Vader. At present, it becomes all too easy to pass the buck, dismiss and/or trample the individual; play the he-said-she-said game (not exactly a 'she', but that's a whole other lifetime of struggle, but I must say that I am sure pushing for all I'm worth!). There are so many differences from country to country; there are many staff shortages; there are inadequate funds; there are so many good people just biding time; so many praying; so many wanting to be heard. The list goes on. Besides, at the end of the day, the whole darn thing is about living in Relationship and getting the sustenance and maintenance we all need as we wander down the road together. Who really gives a darn about what colour the vestments are or even which side of the bed one falls out of. It's all about the journey and it's oh so wonderful to see you all there beside me!(We're on the right road aren't we? 'cause it's not on the map! and who in Hell can we ask?)
PaulJ
lockedThere is a "spirit" in Creation that guides these things...
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Sunday, September 02, 2012, 03:27 (260 days ago) @ PaulJ
I got out of bed because I heard the BBC report of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini's last interview and felt many readers of Catholica would like to be aware of that [LINK].
Regarding your comments, Paul, I sense there is a "Spirit" in Creation — whether it is the "Holy Ghost"-type spirit we were brought up to believe in or whether it is some other Mysterious Manifestation of the Divine I do not know. My sense is that it was that "Spirit" that so unexpectedly guided what was essentially a pretty conservative and reactionary bunch of around two and a half thousand individuals who crafted the forward-looking documents of the Second Vatican Council. It was an attempt by the institution to reclaim a position of leadership in human affairs. Little did anyone appreciate the emotional forces in the psyches of the minority of individuals like Alfredo Ottaviani who weren't buying a bar of it. My sense today is that this "Spirit" has given up on the institution and moved its attention to a much wider canvas in society. Ottaviani's successors WILL construct the "smaller, purer Church" that is basically irrelevant in human affairs and only capable of catering to the needs of a particular minority subset of the human population.
In the short term the religious and political fundamentalists might experience a small resurgence basically because of the uncertainties created by climate change and the enormous changes going in society economically and through technological change. In the really long picture though their influence will be a small blip on the curve that charts the Ascent of Humankind or the Coming of the Kingdom discerned so long ago by Jesus the Christ. Religion and spirituality to these people who captured control of institutional Catholicism is either some emotional game or, for the bullies and main chancers, it is all about temporal power, frequent flyer points, and attempting to lord it over everybody else. They're like the monarchs of the Ancien Regime — on the way out! Our challenge is to maintain our optimism and faith as they wield their wrecking ball. Who yet knows what might emerge from all of this? I am optimistic though from looking at the long curve of human social development. There are still many deeply insightful intuitions in Catholicism. The idea of the kingdom outlined by Jesus Christ is one of them and humankind, despite what the troglodytes and neanderthals in Christianity attempt to do, in the big, big picture the kingdom will come!
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
locked"Shedding Things" – a 1998 column from Ron Rolheiser...
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Saturday, September 01, 2012, 22:27 (260 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
One of our readers — who himself is in the midst of a transition right at the moment and engaged in a bit "shedding" — sent through to me this 1998 reflection by Ron Rolheiser which fits well with all we've been discussing in this string:
Here's the start of the reflection and if you find it worth exploring more follow the link at the end. It is not a lengthy article:
Shedding Things
23 July 1998
It is never easy to move, especially if we have lived in one place for a while. We accumulate too many things and it is only when we set about the business of moving that we realize how much stuff we have collected, without really realizing it.
Every drawer is stuffed with things, every cupboard is overfull, and every shelf is stacked to the top. In our closets we find racks of clothing that we not worn for years - clothing that was given to us but which we never wanted, clothing that no longer fits us, and clothing we bought but never liked in the first place. And all around the house there are stacks of books, old letters, photographs, music tapes, records, videos, magazines, bric-a-brac, and memorabilia. Then there is still all the furniture, the appliances, the dishes, the tools in the shop, and the puzzles, stereo and video equipment, and a variety of puzzles and games. We blink in unbelief. Where did all this stuff come from? How could we have accumulated so many things?
I remember leaving home to enter the seminary at age seventeen. Everything I owned in the world fit into one medium-sized suitcase (and it wasn't full). Now I can't go for even a week carrying so little. From a certain point onward in our lives we begin to accumulate things, often without really realizing it.
But what we really become attached to and begin unhealthily to store is not so much the material stuff. Almost imperceptibly, just as is the case with all the things that slowly stack up in our drawers, cupboards, and basements, we also begin to store other baggage. This kind of baggage, much more so than the material things we accumulate, makes it hard for us to move, especially to move gracefully into final chapter of our lives. What, imperceptibly, begins to stack up inside of us?
All the things that we become attached to and draw life from, namely, our grandiosity, our wounds, our sexual fantasies, our creature comforts, our distractions, and our even our health and our physical life itself.
Continued at:
http://www.ronrolheiser.com/columnarchive/?id=1107
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
locked"Shedding Things" – a 1998 column from Ron Rolheiser...
Brian,
This whole conversation has been a fresh breath of air. It must be the Spirit blowing as it wishes, above, below, around and through our hearts and minds. It comforts, challenges and gently moves us forward to new insights.
I read the Ron Rohlheiser commentary you quoted. I find his last paragraph on Julian of Norwich and Richard Rohr's thoughts sums it up nicely:
Julian of Norwich states that we will cling to God only when we no longer cling to everything else. Richard Rohr agrees with that, but expresses it this way: As we get older, he submits, the real task of life, both in terms of human growth and life in God, is to begin to shed things, to carry less and less baggage, to slimdown spiritually and psychologically to match the meagerness of the possessions we had when we were seventeen years old and could still put all we own into one little suitcase.
"Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I go back again. The Lord gives and the Lord takes. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
Adulthood is contingent upon appropriating that.
How many individuals truly achieve Spiritual Adulthood?
Could this be what God envisions for all of us to achieve in this life?
locked"Shedding Things" – a 1998 column from Ron Rolheiser -Wonderful !! (n t)...
Maitland
lockedJettisoning our excess "theological" baggage: where would you start?
by AsOne , Sunday, September 02, 2012, 00:12 (260 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
By way of illustration of how deeply attached we become to apparent truth, let us switch to science not religion for a moment.
It is by now known that Olinto de Pretto published the correct formula for mass being converted into energy some eighteen months before Albert Einstein did and in a reputable scientific journal.
Yet 109 years later nearly everyone sticks to the received "truth", that is that Einstein discovered e=mc2.
The same thing with the big bang theory of creation of the universe.
At the moment it is the received "truth", probably partly because in some circles it fits with the idea of a creator.
The theory has the rest of the universe accelerating away from earth, a very small planet about 30000 light years from the centre of it's galaxy, and that is one of reportedly billions of galaxies.
However it may well be that the universe is in a state of continuous creation and destruction, and that empty space is not really empty, but contains what we at present can't detect.
So by all means let us be selective about what we read in the scriptures, asking is it always useful to teach modern concepts of morality by reference to examples of the opposite? which parts are pure myth? which parts were primarily written to reinforce the concept of a Jewish nation with earthly rights which trumped those of others? what parts are public health? which parts are erotic poetry?
And so on...
locked
