Religion

By Dr. Linda Seger
Author of Jesus Rode a Donkey:
Why the Republicans Don’t Have a Corner on Christ

Some Conservative Christians are very concerned because Liberal and Progressive Christians would like to help the poor and the needy, individually, through charity, as well as through government programs when the need is beyond what any one individual or charity can do. But some Conservatives don’t believe in this and find Progressives anti-God, anti-Biblical, and believe they should be severely reprimanded. It makes me wonder what would happen if the Good Samaritan had to check out a few things before helping. Here’s my take on that story.

Sex and The Sacred: Gay Identity and Spiritual Growth, by Daniel A. Helminiak (Binghamton: Harrington Park Press, 2006), 235pp. (Review by Scott D. Pomfret, www.sincemylastconfession.com.)

Daniel Helminiak’s project in his 2006 collection of previously published essays, Sex and the Sacred: Gay Identity and Spiritual Growth, is a naked act of reclamation. Helminiak, a Catholic priest, professor of psychology and longtime member of the gay Catholic group Dignity, sets his sights on terms like “spirituality”, “Christianity”, and “natural law,” and wrests them from those who would use them to oppress gay people. He provides a cogent re-description of these and related terms in an effort to draw gays and lesbians back to the Eucharistic table. Helminiak’s manner is gentle and affirming: he knows that he is preaching to a GLBT audience of the wounded, who regard religious concepts with wariness at best and an understandable outright hostility in many cases. Heroically, he barely acknowledge Sisyphusian nature of his project; he says one thing that brings GLBT spiritual beings close; religious authorities say something new and hurtful that drives them away all over again.

It hasn't been me out of town, disconnected, out of pocket this time... but the end result has been almost the same. I've been half here the last few weeks, but oh! the stories I can tell!!

A few weeks ago, the Texas Bar Association put out a plea for anyone who could pick up a pro bono case or three to please consider representing either children (as guardian ad litem) removed from the Fundamental Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) ranch in west Texas, or to represent one of the mothers trying to get back their children from state protective custody. My own personal live-in lawyer (daughter Lisa) ended up going out there to represent a few of the mothers.

By going "out there" I do mean Out There. You can look it up on the map, but trust me, while it's not out in the middle of nowhere, you CAN see it from there. Let's just say I didn't worry about her enjoying the night life too much on this trip. And she ended up with two clients, both women close to thirty (one on either side of it) and both women worried sick about their children who had never been away from home before.

I was glancing through my library today and rediscovered an excellent book. James Newton Poling is the Professor of Pastoral Theology and Counseling at Colgate Rochester Divinity School/Bexley Hall/Crozer Theological Seminary. His Deliver Us From Evil: Resisting Racial and Gender Oppression addresses the nature of evil and emphasizes the need for communities of resistance. It has been years since I've read this.  It's time to read it again with a fresh set of eyes.

Here's an excerpt:

As our resident intellectual supreme Frank Cocozelli has written the deplorable state in which this nation now finds itself, is a direct result of the creation some 4 decades ago of An Unholy Alliance between several leading neo-cons and theo-cons. This allowed the far right to capture meaningful control of Christianity in this nation by people with less than democratic ideals, to subvert the democratic process by people motivated simply by greed. I'll let Frank, or anyone else so informed, expand on this bit of history.

My desire here is for this community of progressive Christians to be the vanguard of a new movement, creation of a truly holy alliance, one devoted to funding a progressive Christian social gospel agenda. Recently 3 members of the Board of The Institute for Progessive Chrsitianity, CrossLeft's sister organization, sent letters of introduction to members of the Democracy Alliance, the progressive political organization funded by such notables as George Soros.

Our challenge is to attract the attention of heavy weights in the liberal/progressive community with the intent to develop funding for our agenda. Underlying this challenge is the general reluctance to speak publically about their religious views, by not only them but Democratic Party candidates in general. Sen. Obama's recent problems with remarks about his pastor have not helped.

The purpose of religion, ritual and symbolism is to give meaning to life beyond the ego-dominated world. As the mind explores these things it is led to thoughts that lie beyond the grasp of the ego and reason. If these practices are done in a meaningless way, that person is wasting his time because the person who knows the significance of what he is doing can overcome the ego's tendencies and make real the Christian purpose of life. Regardless of the suffering we have experienced we are able to achieve a new state of mind and are born again, when we change our focus from the lower layers of the mind to the higher ones. This new state of mind is living in the present and is a projection of living in eternity. The ego has pride in the past and fear for the future so letting go of the future and the past lets the ego drop away too. In reality it is impossible to live outside the present and to put God in the future because this implies that God is not eternal and present. The proof is in our experience by experiment and not theory. When one concentrates only on what is happening in the present, the moment is pure awareness without any desire. To live in the past or for the future invokes memory, anticipation and causes anxiety because these are forms of desires, dreams and fantasies.

God is a God of order, and chaos is the enemy. It’s often taught in churches. The primary referent often used is the beginning of Genesis, where God is seen as overcoming the power of chaos by stepping in and establishing boundaries. The stories are those that portray an ancient culture trying to find stability in life amidst the uncontrollable power of nature. The boundaries are divine, and the antagonist is thusly controlled. And so it is, by the ordering power of God, that the darker side of creation (namely chaos) is subject to the enlightening structure of the Word.

I’m not fond of that theology. When I look at life, I see the divine in both order and chaos. In my mind, order is the power of stability and meaning. We talk about tradition as that which anchors us. We talk about our “stories” as those things which give us our identities. There is a solidification that comes with order. Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes we need a certain amount of grounding. But sometimes it’s bad. Order gone awry leads to a status quo of oppression, exclusivism, rigidity, and ultimately a form of “death.”

John Lennon would have turned 67 on October 9, 2007. Although he hasn't spoken in 27 years, he has not been silenced.

At the age of 12, in the summer of 1966, inspired by John Lennon’s honesty, I tuned out the Catholic Church.

Up until I was about six years old, every Sunday morning was spent in a glass-encased room at St. Bernard’s one holy Roman Catholic Church, in Levittown, Long Island. The glass-encased room was called, and literally was, the Cry Room. Growing up with television, it was natural for me to stand up close against the soundproof glass and watch the 'show' on the other side. Every so often, I’d hear the priest’s voice filter through the loudspeaker above my head. But it was all Latin to me: and back then, it really was!

I took the title from S. Mark Heim's book, Salvation(s)? As Christians asking about the future of Christianity, we have to ask about the message we are presenting. And that message in traditional terms is the promise of "salvation." But what is that? If we are called to be agents of salvation, then what about other religions? Are they agents of salvation too? And if so, are they agents of the same kind of salvation we proclaim, or are they agents of their own vision of salvation? If all religions are the same, then how do we explain (away?) the differences?