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| TCPC NEWS |
Acting Up for Peace: Activists and Actors
Challenge War and WorldwideMilitarism
Prominent actors honored the legacy of priest
and peace leader Daniel Berrigan and fellow Catholic activists with a benefit
performance of his play "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" Saturday
in Los Angeles. The play's focus on a renowned protest against the Vietnam War
in 1968 parallels current concerns about the morality of the war in Iraq.
Acting
Up for Peace
Mass March on Washington to
End Iraq
War
A Mass March on Washington to end the Iraq war is planned for September 15th, 2007. Will you stand up for peace and join the
march?
March
for PEACE
Over 1000 People Participate in the
Progressive Religion Conference in Sydney, Australia!
Fred Plumer, President of TCPC, spoke at the conference: Common Dreams: Progressive Religion as a Transforming Agent
in Sydney, Australia: this week, where
nearly 1,500 religious progressives gathered to affirm the contribution of reasonable and
tolerant religion to public discourse in our society.
A Grand Event
Progressive Christian Group
Emphasizes Fighting Poverty
What would Jesus do about growing poverty in America? That's the question about 1,000 national
religious leaders will try to answer today as they meet in Washington to focus
public attention on what they call the greatest moral issue facing the nation.
Fighting
Poverty
To READ MORE NEWS, Click here:TCPC NEWS |
| TCPC EVENTS |
Marcus J. Borg to Speak at First Presbyterian Church, Ithaca
Oct 12, 2007: First Presbyterian Church
Ithaca, NY
MORE
The Living Spiritual Elders Project: Growing Elder, Not Older!
Oct 13, 2007
Toronto, Canada
MORE
Marcus J. Borg to Lecture at the Congregational Church of Middlebury, VT
Oct 19, 2007: The Congregational Church of Middlebury
Middlebury, VT
MORE
Fred Plumer to Lead: First Regional Gathering of TCPC for Southern Connecticut & New York
Oct 27, 2007: First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan CT
New Canaan, CT
MORE
The Interfaith Call to Justice: LA 2007
Nov 11, 2007: Temple Isaiah
Los Angeles, CA
MORE
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Quote of the Month:
"I have ARRIVED, I am HOME, in the HERE, in the NOW. I am SOLID, I am FREE. In the ultimate I dwell."
~Thich Nhat Hanh
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A Grand Event |
President's Note
by Fred Plumer
It was
good that I have had a little over a week to reflect on my experiences at the
Common Dreams conference in Sydney Australia because I realized flying home a
week ago, that there were too many
things flashing through my mind to have been cohesive in my thinking and
therefore my writing. There were so many things that struck me, inspired me,
informed me and yes, touched me during those four days, I knew that I would
never be able to do justice to all of them. Let me share a few feelings that
are still with me about the grand event. To Read this article, click here: A Grand Event Quote from conference attendee, Jenny Te Paa: "(it) was without doubt in my mind quite the most
extraordinarily well managed, superbly facilitated, most gently led, most
lovingly presented, sensitively choreographed gathering of God's people I have
ever been privileged to attend! Truly, truly it was off the scale in comparison
to all I have ever attended"
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| Common Dreams Draws a Crowd! |
Almost 1,500 people
participated in the COMMON DREAMS conference in Sydney, 16-19 August 2007.
Religious progressives from
around Australia gathered with others from Aotearoa New
Zealand, Canada, Iran, Palestine and the USA. Christians from Anglican, Assembly of
God, Baptist, Churches of Christ, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic and Uniting Church traditions were joined by people from
various other faiths and those of no religious faith.
The gathering extended over 4
days, and the large numbers attending surprised both the organizers and the
media. Numbers would have been even higher but registrations were capped to fit
the capacity of the Pitt St Uniting Church which served as a venue for the
major sessions. To Read More about this amazing conference, click here: Common Dreams
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God and Progressive Christianity
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 Written by: Gene
W. Marshall
Progressive
Christians are achieving great clarity about the historical development of the
Bible and about viewing biblical passages in a metaphorical rather than a
literal way. Using the word "God,"
however, continues to be an area of unclarity and outright confusion.
It is, I
believe, helpful to begin with H. Richard Niebuhr's insight that the word "God"
is a devotional word, much like the word "sweetheart." "Sweetheart" points to a
particular person, but it also expresses a quality of relationship. Similarly,
the word "God" includes the meanings of loyalty, commitment, trust, friendship,
and passionate devotion. At the same time, "God," as used in the Bible, points
to an actual experience, an actual encounter with, how shall we say it, the
Ground of our Being; the Mystery, Depth, and Greatness of our lives; Final
Reality; Reality as a Whole; the Mystery that will not go away.
Marcus
Borg recently stated that Paul Tillich's "You are Accepted" essay in The Shaking of the Foundations is the finest description in print about sin and grace.
I agree. For 45 years I have used this essay to help inquiring Christians
acquire an understanding of the meaning of grace in their own lives. Yet our
clarity about Tillich's description of sin and grace is muddled unless we grasp
what Tillich was referring to with the "Ground of our Being," the "Mystery,
Depth, and Greatness" of our lives. Tillich used the word "God" sparingly
because he realized how many misunderstandings circle around this word. Tillich
says that God is not a thing among other things or a person but the Ground of
Being that is beyond all beings, beyond all persons. This Ground of Being is an
inescapable Overallness with which we have a relationship, whether we relate to
this Ground as our God or not. To Finish reading this article, click here: God and Progressive Christianity
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Build and Sustain Faith Communities by
Feeding the Hungry
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 By: Fred Plumer, presented at the Common Dreams Conference
Friends, I
believe it is time for us to rethink how we build churches or progressive faith
communities these days. Before I get too far into my comments I want to be upfront
with you. Although I head up an organization that is committed to helping
congregations find ways to enter into the 21st century,
theologically, spiritually and socially, by providing worship materials, sermon
suggestions, reading lists, book reviews, original articles and the opportunity
for churches to market themselves on our extremely active website, I wonder if
we are simply rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic and still
arguing over what music we want the band to play. I am not certain what the future of the
church really is, at least as we know it,
regardless of how we might change
the worship format, become more open and affirming, more liberal, more
pluralistic, or even more entertaining.
To Read this Inspiring Presentation,
click here: Build and Sustain
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| Jesus for the Non-Religious, a Review |
 Author:
John Shelby Spong
Review by: Jim Burklo
With
a coroner's scalpel of scholarship, John Shelby Spong autopsies the corpse of
doctrinal Christianity. In Jesus for the Non-Religious, he cuts away at
the miracle stories and dissects the myths and the theological constructs that
were written into the texts of the gospels. His quest is to reveal the
Jesus of history.
Spong reveals a Jesus who crosses the borders between insiders and outsiders,
Jews and gentiles, male and female, clean and unclean, sacred and profane, and
leads us through to the other side of chauvinism. This Jesus reveals, by
his own action and example, the way that divinity can be found in
humanity. This Jesus was so present, so whole, so free, so devoted to
justice and compassion, that he filled his followers with remarkable hope and
courage even after his crucifixion by the Romans. This Jesus inspires
John Shelby Spong so deeply that he holds hope for a Christianity devoid of
many of its most commonly-cherished beliefs.
To Finish reading this review click here: Review
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Take This Bread, A Review
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Book: Take This Bread, A Radical Conversion, 2007
Author: Sara Miles
Review by: Richard Wheatcroft The day after I b ought this book and had read about half
of it, I experienced myself being fed with bread by this memoir. I wanted
everyone to know this astonishing story even before I wrote this review, so I
sought the author on the Internet, found an announcement of her book, and
forwarded it to everyone on my e-mail list. In Sara Miles' memoir, which spans
over thirty years and several countries, you will find bread for yourself and experience
what is involved in being bread for others. To Read this Review and visit our Library, click here: Take This Bread
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