Clergychikita:

Thank you for your thoughtful post. The conversation got confusing there for a while, I agree, but I am hopeful that we are back on track now.

"I agree with you, but I think that there is some inconsistency in the book. More than a "gentle nudge" is being advocated in some places. I am thinking of the statement about casting us into the waters of dis-belief, and so on."

I have noticed what seems to be some inconsistency with the perceived audience of the book, perhaps most bluntly at the beginning. Vosper writes about the church as a whole and the perceived problems for its continued relevancy, and yet states unequivocally that the book is written for the un-churched (I'm casting a wide net here). I was tempted to instead write "drag kicking and screaming" in the place of "gentle nudge" but I figured this was an exaggeration.

Language is important - Nighthawk shows that pantheism and panentheism are different views of theism and are not the same. Panentheism is not a self creative universe but a way to speak of an ontological reality that is related to the world and has its own agency - which has an interest in the becoming of all that is and influences that becoming process.

I have worried over this question for a long time and I find neither the progressive nor the traditionalists to be helpful. Both traditions share the modern world view that all we have is language and the language has no external reality. We are offered a supernatural answer or deistic or god as projection perspectives and they do not do justice to our need to worship a God to whom we can give our loyalty.

My answer is a Process Theological stance, a panentheistic understanding of God. There issues of prayer and providentially are given a grounding that reflects our issues of truth that have been raised by modern science. William James offered what is called "˜deep empiricism' to overcome a limited view that only that which we experience through the five senses is real. Panentheism offers a world-view that suggest God operates in our world without being a threat to autonomous reality of and the integrity of science.

God and nature are entwined in the same way mind and body are linked. Think of this way, we can jump but only so high, we are autonomous yet connect to other things that influence us, both physically and emotionally. We have to make sense of this. In an similar way God can influence creation through lures that God intends for the common good. This process is continuous and not breaking the natural order of how things become, but is the chief example of it. Eternally God persuasively offers to each entity that which is the best for this moment. And each entity has freedom to accept or reject that lure.

Religion can then be seen as the human response to this ongoing natural process, becoming into being. This helps us flesh out a sacramental view of the world. Every creature has an intrinsic value and value to the world, and so in panentheism the well-being of the natural world matters not only to creation as a whole but also to God. All of life is full of the sacred.

We know that creation is an ongoing process. It begins in potential - becoming- and becomes actualized in space/time having finite being. Yet that being is continuously perishing- finite. A panentheistic view builds on this, and offers the idea of God as eternally concerned with the overcoming of the perishing. "God works with the world as it is to lure it to what it could be," as Marjorie Suchocki so beautifully put. God is not the only real cause of what is, and can be offered as important cause of what becomes, but not the only cause. God's lure is towards more beauty. God is a continuous creator and source and power of life and in the universe. With this view as a revised naturalism this can added to scientific materialistic naturalism. to created a re-enchantment reality. This is something we intuitive know to be so, for we experience more as a reality - not all of our experience is materialistic in the narrow sense - this, then, suggests that a projection view is not a full explanation of what is - there is an reality that informs prior to our making language about the reality.

So a panentheistic view sees God as an agent in the world events. This agency is one of continuously offering love to each moment and person and life form. Yet God is not the only agent for each entity has freedom to influence what becomes. Thus God needs us to achieve God;s dream. However, we are not left alone to do it all on our own. God works through us and others to achieve this dream, Thus the community of faith is a crucial addition to how the world becomes, how the dream is achieved. And God is in the redeeming business, thus takes our contributions and redeems the good out of them , to offer them back to the next moment in the creative process. Here is a God to whom prayer matters and is affected by, who needs the world to be God's feet, and who eternally is there holding altogether as potential for the next moment. A God who is personal and works with what is to achieve more for the individual, if the individual wants it.

As Nighthawk points out belief and action go together- it is artificial to split them. The question for me is what does it mean to be non-theistic and yet claim to be within the christian trajectory? Again to draw the line is not to demean the other but to take them seriously by debating the issue of limits of language and what a word actually means.

When a tradition like christianity is non theistic from a language perspective it no longer is within the tradition. As others point out Buddhism is a non theistic religion and has important insights we can learn for, but we must honor its world-view for what it is not for what we want it to mean.

The quote from the book illustrates a confusion - either something is actual or it is only ( ONLY) a projection. Now one can have a human shaped view of our constructions and still affirm there is an external reality we are responding to. We use abstractions to help us share those feelings of a transcendence, and our abstractions are just that, not the the thing in itself. But they are not mere abstractions or projections.

One cannot have it both ways - either it is all projection or our projections are in response to a external reality. This for me is the basic intellectual problem with the book.

Panentheism: Thanks for your many contributions to the discussion about WWG. I have enjoyed learning about your theological stance very much.

You wrote:

{ As Nighthawk points out belief and action go together- it is artificial to split them. }

Amen to that. The premise of the book as indicated by the subtitle seems more than a little flawed to me. In a sense we can agree that how we live trumps what we believe. The Unitarians say that the supreme witness of faith is ethical living. But what we believe drives how we live, and I just don't see any getting around that. It is pretty much a continuous loop.

You wrote: { The question for me is what does it mean to be non-theistic and yet claim to be within the christian trajectory? }

How are we going to be able to talk about this meaningfully in the United Church? I believe it is something that needs to be debated, but I am not sure where. Is the person-to-person approach the best way? Study groups in our congregations? I just don't know.

Panentheism:

You wrote: { One cannot have it both ways - either it is all projection or our projections are in response to a external reality. This for me is the basic intellectual problem with the book. }

Some of the other problems include the argument about modern scholarship and how it is not shared within congregations; the assertion that many clergy do not preach openly about their beliefs; the premise of the subtitle as discussed above; Gretta's interpretation of Fowler's six stages; and the argument that non-theistic language is fully inclusive.

All these points have been discussed already at some length. I am not attempting to revisit them, just summing up for myself.

Throughout WWG, Gretta presents "all or nothing" thinking about theism. We use this term in mental health practice, and I understand it also represents an informal fallacy in logic. Gretta really only offers two alternatives: classic supernatural theism (which she rejects) and non-theism.

Thanks par3 - another way we can look at the question of belief and actions is that or actions reveal what we actually believe. This is why some reject the church - our actions do not exhibit what we say we believe. It is a dialectic.

About the debate - it is within a congregation - they need to know what their basic values are - now within an institution Presbytery can see whether there is basic and essential agreement - in the process of becoming a theologian one can identify where one stands within the traditions and find a home - this is the function of education - and if one becomes a order person than presbytery can debate in the process whether one is in essential agreement. And the church qua church can define what essential means and what is within or without the tradition - for example one can have a low trinitarian view but when it no longer functions even as a metaphor or heuristic device than one is now a unitarian and belong there - it is a good tradition too and even there within its openness one can go beyond the boundaries - like to say religion is always negative would cause one to move on-

Tradition is always living and expanding but it is within a trajectory - and the UCC is such a church of expanding meaning out of a primary doctrine which I think is: there is a reality that is transcendent and then we find language to say that and there is a width here. When one rejects the idea of a transcendent reality - God is more than projection - and says it is only projection, then this is a question for the person to see if they actually belong to this family - we can raise questions to help clarify but in the end it is one for the person to decide.

In another sense if a congregation is happy with its leadership than there is not much presbytery can do - unless it moves beyond what is considered essential to be identified as a UCC congregation - Under our polity the presbytery can disband a congregation but that is extreme and NO ONE is saying that should be done to Gretta's congregation.

paradox3: Buddhism is not really non-theistic; it is non-theistic only if one regards God as an entity separate from the universe it created.

Buddhism, and other Eastern religions, believe in a spiritual universe. Such a universe would, by necessity, be self-creative or "self-theistic," not non-theistic. In the recently published Gospel of Judas, Judas is said to have knwon Jesus the best. Most remarkably, Judas speaks of the "Great Self-Generative Spirit" as having created the universe out of its own substance, thereby coming close to the unitive, non-dualistic Buddhist view.

To be entirely non-theistic, one would have to deny any spiritual dimension. This would be non-spiritual.

Arminius: It might be interesting to start a thread about Buddhist philosophy at some point. I don't know much about it, but I know there are different strands of Buddhist thinking.

Arminius my wife was a TA for a class in Buddhism - I have studied it - been at conferences with buddhist - there is within Buddhist circles debate among 'pure-land' and 'Theravada' about the nature of enlightened experience. It is better to class Buddhism as non theistic.

from a process point of view one can speak of perpetual perishing reinforces the Buddhist teach of impermanence and that has influence for a psychology of the self - and non attachment to that which perishes - the world.

However pure-land has some sense of Amida and that may have some connection to God as an actual entity. However, many within the buddhist school feel that pure-land is too much a product of conversation with western theology. Non existence is a core teaching so there cannot be an eternal actual entity - God.

What I am saying is your read of Buddhism is generous because we have much to learn from it, however, it does a disservice to the insights of buddhism when you make its non theism into self creating universe - for there is no enduring reality in the end. (Cf John Shunji Yokata teaches in Japan in the field of inter-religious studies)

paradox3 and Pan: My brand of Buddhism probably is westernized California-type Zen Buddhism, which could almost be regarded a separate type of Buddhism.

Pure Zen, of course, abstains from teaching. Zen is meditative practice. Zen philosophy is not Zen, and is not taught at Zen monasteries. Zen philosophy is taught at some Japanase universities, and we Westerners have put our own philosophical spin on Zen enlightenment.

I have practiced Zen meditation for years, and with particular intensity for one winter. The enlightenment experience, or Satori, at the end of that winter was an experience of total, cosmic unity. I experienced the cosmos as a unified whole in a state of synthesis. An experience of non-duality, or synthesis, is a typical Zen Satori experience, and ever-after one experiences the universe as a unfied whole. And, after having attained the experience, one is supposed to act intuitively, right from the depth of that experience.

The philosophy of Zen is, of course, non-duailty. Little need be said about it; the Oneness of All is something to be experienced rather than talked about.

In Cosmic Unity,

Arminius

Panentheism:

You wrote: { In another sense if a congregation is happy with its leadership than there is not much presbytery can do - unless it moves beyond what is considered essential to be identified as a UCC congregation }

Do we have a statement of what is "essential to be defined as a UCC congregation"? I have heard about "essential agreement" for clergy, but not for congregations.

The point of zen, is as you say, can be a way of meditating - I was being more technical about what Buddhist teachers say about how buddhism is understood from within itself. Yes, we can use techniques of other groups but we should also honor their world view when we are making comparisons about belief systems.

P3 It is implied, about essential agreement, because of how we have and do create congregations - unlike some other churches, and like mainline churches, new churches are created by the denomination ( presbytery) deciding to buy land, survey to see if there is an interest, and then placing a church starter. Note it is a top down move and it is an outreach of the church. Thus it is assumed it reflects the basic theology of the church - thus in the statement of faith we begin with - we believe in God - as a denomination. Of course there is a debate on the model of God we mean, but it is assumed that there is a transcendent reality that seeks to be known - is an ontological reality. How that is described comes in the many theistic models we have formed over time.

My point is that it is not a projectionist belief that informs the UCC - that is a theological construct that reduces the transcendence to human construction and thus projection. One can hold this - like many have - but to hold it ought to make the person holding it to ask am I out of essential agreement.

Another way to put this is I reject the language of the basis of union as it is written by I am in essential agreement because of my panentheism.

By the way I reread Gretta's post on the letter James sent about the review. She makes the exact point James does, the Observer failed in who it asked to review the book - it demands a theologian and because of its importance and to respect the book, that is who should have reviewed it. James blames the observer and by implication set the reveiwer up.

Panentheism,

You wrote:

{ My point is that it is not a projectionist belief that informs the UCC - that is a theological construct that reduces the transcendence to human construction and thus projection. One can hold this - like many have - but to hold it ought to make the person holding it to ask am I out of essential agreement. }

When it comes to the question of "essential agreement", I am guessing that Gretta would argue that her agreement is with the core values of Christianity.

In real life, I have heard Rev Vosper talk about eliminating the boundaries between religious traditions. This has led some individuals to suggest that the CCPC would be better named the "Canadian Center for Progressive Spirituality".

Gretta does not really expand on this aspect of her thinking in WWG, but there are hints of it in chapters 2 and 7. She offers us this in the final chapter:

"Believing as I do that all religious, philosophical and ideological understandings must be challenged by their adherents so that we all might move into a place where foundational beliefs are shared and held in common, reviewed and revised as necessary, challenged and changed when appropriate, I extend the confrontation that is this book. May it irritate us into the growth we so disturbingly need." (Page 316)

Over on her personal website, Gretta refers to WWG as her "first book". Maybe we will hear more about this aspect of her theology when she writes her second book.

In real life, I have heard Rev Vosper talk about eliminating the boundaries between religious traditions. This has led some individuals to suggest that the CCPC would be better named the "Canadian Center for Progressive Spirituality".

I think such a stance indicates that one does not understand the way the other religious groups have a self understanding. Dialogue is crucial but to reduce the other to what I see is the core is an imperialistic reading of other religions. Each trajectory has its own unique understanding, and while we share a concern for spirituality we may actually have radical different world views -

One can create a new religious tradition by borrowing but it is now the tradition of those who have borrowed and their ability to convince others of this new understanding - the point is while coming out of one perspective it has left its roots and created a new trajectory.

In the field of inter-religious discussion one begins with the uniqueness of the other and than share - one goal is to transform the tradition - I could use the term that I am a christian informed by buddhist insights - but I am not necessarily saying the same thing about reality that a buddhist would.

Paradox wrote:

How are we going to be able to talk about this meaningfully in the United Church? I believe it is something that needs to be debated, but I am not sure where. Is the person-to-person approach the best way? Study groups in our congregations? I just don't know.

This is definitely the question, Paradox, when we can't even get our congregations to have meaningful conversations about "affirming congregations", " emerging spirit initiatives " and other progressive thoughts.

Paradox3: So Gretta is already thinking about writing a second book? Just as I thought! She didn't explain herself well in WWG; I trust that she will make her thinking clearer in her second book.

____________________________________

crazyheart: I am thinking of making Bruce Sanguin's "The emerging Church" the subject of a book study group in our congregation. I am enthusiastic about this book, and a great fan of Bruce Sanguin.

______________________________________

Pan: Yes, if we take aspects from other religions, and start a "hybridized religion," like "California Buddhism," then we are not really talking about traditional Buddhism any more. Then we are leaving the trajectory of the old religion behind, and start a new one.

The New Age has done a lot of this borrowing, picking and choosing from other traditions. One ends up with a hodgepodge, but maybe this is the way of the future. Everyone creating their unqiuely own religion.

Hasn't it alawys been that way, to some extent? After all, every one us experiences the universe uniquely, and everyone interprets the traditional teachings, theologies and philosophies uniquely. Imitation AND creation.

The big issue is about subjectivism and reformed subjectivism - subjectivism leads to this is "my religion or spirituality' and so what if it is chosen out of a lot of different traditions - it is real because I say it so.

The problem with pure subjectivism is does not deal with the fact that there is objective reality - we choose out of givens. Now the question is,is there a reference that the givens refer to, or is all subjective all the way down. When it is pure subjectivism than, in the end, there is nothing but our creation and it is highly personal and difficult to share and create community and also it is difficult to use the subjective experience as a critique of society and to reform society.

Things like the free market get left out because those theorists say it is objective.

Reformed subjectivism ( Process thought) suggest yes we experience the world subjectively but those human shaped reactions do have an external and objective source. Our taking into consciousness does shape it. Thus we want to see how theories actually are critical realism - we can judge the subjective experience and something cannot be what ever we want it to be. In such a view one cannot create a new trajectory but that each trajectory can be revised because it is a living organism.... and it is revised internally and in dialogue with other ideas. And when it is a new creations by using bits and parts of others it can do a disservice to the original material.

Arminius:

You wrote:

{ The New Age has done a lot of this borrowing, picking and choosing from other traditions. One ends up with a hodgepodge, but maybe this is the way of the future. Everyone creating their unqiuely own religion. }

This could be a description of Unitarian Universalism, too :)

Pan: Hmm--I tend to agree.

Process thought is like natural evolution: it does not discard the old, but create something new around the old, thus doing both, keeping the old AND creating something new. Advancing the old trajectory creatively rather than discarding the old and creating something entirely new, as Gretta seems to have suggested in her book.

I say "seems," because I'm not sure that this was the point of her book. She may be as confused as I, and a lot of other people, on the topic. Let's wait for her second book and see what she really wants to say.

Panentheism,

You wrote:

{ Reformed subjectivism ( Process thought) suggest yes we experience the world subjectively but those human shaped reactions do have an external and objective source. }

By "external and objective source", do you mean the reality of God?

It sounds like this statement reflects a Christian worldview. Am I understanding this correctly?

Within process thought, how do you make sense of other theistic traditions like Islam or Hinduism?

paradox3: Yes, that's Unitarian Universalism.

I prefer the United Church: keeping the old while creating something new around and beyond the old. Tradition AND progressiveness--they are NOT mutually exclusive, but complement each other. One alone would be unhealthy one-sidedness. Tradition alone leads to rigid conservatism; progressiveness alone to directionless liberalism. I think the United Church attempts to strike a balance between the two, and that's why I chose her.

And I am delighted that she accepted and embraced a heretic like me :-)

United We Stand!

-Arminius

Yes you capture the idea of reformed subjectivism.

As far as Islam or hinduism there are those who take part in a dialogue- the metaphysical problem is that within Islam there has not be a lot of discussion outside and inside about foundational meanings of theism - it tends to be a form of supernaturalism - there is a new generation of scholars who are reconstructing.

There are several Jewish theologians who are pantheists and process influenced.

Remember it is based on Process Philosophy which has several different interests - like the influence of such a philosophy to design an education theory or scientific theory or political and economic theories - It asks the foundational metaphysical questions - the nature of reality and offers an organic view based on Whitehead and revised over time.

As far as hinduism - it has different world view thus its questions are different and to make a simplistic statement - tends to pantheism.

Panentheism,

Thanks for the clarification.

In Hindu thought, I have read, all world faiths can be considered love affairs with different aspects of the divine. I saw this once in a column in the Toronto Star, and I believe that the writer was Hindu.

I really, really like this notion, and it makes sense to me. It gives me a way of understanding my Christian faith alongside other world faiths, and takes nothing away from any of us.

To some extent, I can appreciate Gretta's wish for different faith traditions to come together and agree on common values. However, when it comes to "non-theistic gatherings" and "spiritually inclusive language", Gretta and I have taken different paths.

Thanks for all your insights on these threads, Panentheism. It seems to be pretty much you and I and Arminius left talking at this point :)

Once again, my thanks to everyone who has contributed to the WWG threads over the last two months or so. It has been a wonderful discussion, and I have certainly learned a great deal from all of you.

paradox3: This has been one of the most successful threads in wondercafe history--thanks to you!

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To all wondercafe patrons:

I joined wondercafe in August of last year as a basically intelligent but formally uneducated person, a backwoods mystic unschooled in philosophy and theology. Thanks to all of you who contribute to wondercafe, and particularly the theologians and scholars among you, I have learned a lot!

Hi. I've been busy with other things, and my, but lots has been going on here.
My 'warm and caring' comment was not meant as an attack against Gretta Vosper. It is a concern I feel the UCC has bought into. I recently helped a congregation with their JNAC. They called themselves "Warm, friendly and inclusive." I pointed out that they were on record as refusing to perform same-sex marriages or welcome openly gay members, and they didn't like inclusive language. Friendly to whom? We have elevated 'warm and friendly' to be our gospel message, but most congregations cannot state what their mission or ministry really is. To their credit West Hill does have a unique answer for this question. I just wish more congregations dared to take a stand, instead of hiding behind the bland warm fuzzies of being 'welcoming'. If you don't stand for something, being welcoming won't save you.

As far as my letter to the Observer- the magazine has had an anti-intellectual, clergy-bashing bias for many years. To send a first year student to review this book does not favour to the reviewer, the author or the reader. This book deserves a serious reading by a reviewer who can give an informed opinion. I would rather have seen the book be reviewed and round table discussed by four voices who each bring a diversity of theological opinions.

My concerns with this book are purely theological. I do not question Vosper's right to say what she says, or how she is working with her congregation. She is pushing a particular point of view, which I disagree with, for the reasons I have mentioned above. The list of books I offered earlier shows I am passionately concerned about the progressive endeavor. If we can't have a good discussion, then there's no hope for any of us to grow, to learn and to develop.

As far as the 'the boys' comment, I've been called a lot worse.
Well, back to packing my boxes for the mover.