[lbo-talk] More on atheists in church

[Alan Rudy]

I learned a great deal about the Anglican church in 1984, riding my bicycle
around Scotland.
During a week of day-trips using Oban as a hub, and while staying (with a
newly-met woman from Mill Valley) in the cheapest B&B in the country, I met
a gay Anglican priest, also staying at the B&B, who worked at the Abbey on
Iona during the summer and with the poor in Glasgow in the winter.  I've met
a raft of humane, critical, class-conscious and activist folks in my day but
few as truly and deeply human as that man... in retrospect, the kind of
person and life Spong advocates for in Jesus for the Non-religious.  While
I'm told the Episcopal Church in the US is a low church relative to the
Angilican high, perhaps the accidental "three-for-the-price-of-two" baptism
that happened when my parents visited my aunt, then-uncle and cousins on
Cape Cod in '63 isn't as truly odd as I thought it was (esp., given my dad's
historical preaching athiesm.)

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 7:48 AM, farmelantj at juno.com <farmelantj at juno.com>wrote:


>
>
> There is a tradition of radical
> theology that has existed in the
> Anglican and Episcopal churches
> for quite some time now, dating
> back to Bishop John A.T. Robinson,
> who back in the 1960s wrote the
> bestselling book, "Honest to God."
> This tradition has continued with
> people like the Anglican theologian
> Don Cupitt and the retired Episcopal
> bishop John Shelby Spong.  All of
> these people, in turn, drew upon the
> work of theologians like Paul Tillich,
> Rudolf Bultmann, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
>
> Someone who was good on this was that
> old social democrat Michael Harringtin
> in his book, "The Politics at God's
> Funeral." Mark Lindley and I wrote
> about Harrington, amongst others,
> in our essay, "Six Prominent American
> Freethinkers."  See:
> www.mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/fl161208.html
>
>
>
> Jim Farmelant
> http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
>
> ---------- Original Message ----------
> From: Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com>
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: [lbo-talk] More on atheists in church
> Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 00:15:59 -0400
>
> Those who read the previous thread on non-believing clergy might find
> this interview with Robert Jensen's pastor interesting.
>
>
> http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/a_radical_christianity
>
> Here Jensen explains his reasons for affiliating with the Presbyterian
> Church, USA.
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen09282006.html
>
> Not that this sort of thing is particularly rare; I was only mildly
> surprised to recently learn that a longtime community activist, who's
> as outspoken in his nonbelief as his position allows, is a member in
> good standing of a mainstream Lutheran church in Midtown. Still, it's
> interesting to see someone articulate the reasons behind such a
> choice.
>
> --
> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure
> mægen lytlað."
>
>
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-- 
*********************************************************
Alan P. Rudy
Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
124 Anspach Hall
Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
517-881-6319