Jimmy Carter - Standing Up for the Equality of Women

Illustration: Dyson

Losing my religion for equality

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/losing-my-religion-for-equality-20090714-dk0v.html?stb=fb

by President Jimmy Carter

July 15, 2009

Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long

in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.

I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon [in my church] and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.

It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices - as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy - and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares:

"The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion

or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."

We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasize the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world's major faiths share.

The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn't until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God.

It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.

- President Jimmy Carter

*Jimmy Carter was president of the United States

from 1977 to 1981.

Nietzsche Understood Regret as a Good Thing vs. the "Feel Good" YOLO industry of Avoiding Reflective Action

Miley Cyrus, circa 2013; Friedrich Nietzsche, circa 1887. (Photos: Debby Wong/Everett Historical/Shutterstock/Pacific Standard)

The Psychology (and Philosophy) of ‘No Regrets’

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/its-our-party-we-can-do-what-we-want-until-we-die-so-lead-a-meaningful-life-okay

by Jared Keller

April 17, 2015

A clinical psychologist argues that Nietzsche is better than any pop self-health book.

From 2012 to 2014, it seemed America’s mantra had nothing to do with any sort of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” mumbo jumbo, or even “liberty and justice for all.” For two years, American stood for something simpler: YOLO. Born around 2004 and short for “you only live once,” YOLO is the late capitalist predecessor of carpe diem, the rallying cry of a Millennial culture tired and frustrated with burdens of the economic crisis and the constant nagging of doddering New York Times op-ed columns.

While the sentiment may be admirable, the term has been misused and overwrought. YOLO has essentially become the over-used watchword for every toxic manifestation of masculinity looking to throw off the crushing yoke of personal responsibility. But, at its core, YOLO is also the current manifestation of a fundamental human sentiment: I want to live my life without regret.

Psychologically, humans have been struggling with the experience of regret for as long as anyone can remember. Regret appeared as an essential question of the human condition as early as two thousand years ago, in the dogma of Epicureanism. But our modern American culture has a complicated relationship with regret. Namely, regret has become a stigma of sorts. “It’s regarded as self-indulgent and irrational—a ‘useless’ feeling,” explains Carina Chocano in Aeon:

We prefer utilitarian emotions, those we can use as vehicles for transformation, and closure.... Regret is so counter to the pioneer spirit—with its belief in blinkered perseverance, and dogged forward motion—it’s practically un-American. In the US, you keep your squint firmly planted on the horizon and put one foot in front of the other.

The twin forces of American industriousness and modern YOLO culture have bred a society that abandons regret at every turn. But for psychologist Edward Chang, there’s a path forward: Americans need to drop the siren song of Kesha and Miley Cyrus and bone up on their Friedrich Nietzsche. A clinical psychologist with a philosophical streak, Chang heads up the Perfectionism and Optimism-Pessimism Lab at the University of Michigan, where he leads a team of researchers in a quest to understand how intangible emotional orientations like optimism, pessimism, and loneliness interact with different cultures across the world. Pacific Standard spoke to Chang about the nature of regret and what our modern culture could learn from Nietzsche about living with our mistakes.

How exactly do you define regret?

I have to break down the idea of regret into two parcels: the psychological, and more of the philosophical and cultural. There’s a general consensus on a definition for regret that most people won’t find controversial: a negative emotional reaction to a moment when we feel like we could have chosen otherwise, and that other choice would have been more beneficial to us.

A lot of researchers in psychology have defined the experience of regret in more nuanced ways, but they all tend to show a fairly common pattern. If you experience these pangs of regret, that experience is often associated with a host and range of negative psychological outcomes, from greater anxiety to depression to suicidal ideation in some extreme cases. This is what forms the foundation of the psychology of regret: If you’re the sort of person who has a great deal of regret in your life, and you’ve accumulated this grief as you’re growing older, you’re likely to be at high risk for maladjustment or depression.

This seems pretty straightforward. Is there anything new about the current philosophy of no regrets?

I have a young daughter who listens to music, and there’s a song out there by Kesha called “Die Young.” It’s about teenagers and living the night like it’s the last night of their lives. We find this theme everywhere in our history and culture. Think of Dead Poets Society, with its emphasis on the notion of carpe diem. There’s a tendency in human civilization to put an emphasis on living for that day, to its fullest. It extends back to ancient Greece, where citizens never had a notion of “human beings,” but of “mortals” and “immortals.” If you read any text from the ancient world, they all center on how a human being can live like the gods, forever. It’s this notion of mortality, embedded in us by religion, that drives not just aspiration, but also fuels a cycle of regret—a sense that no matter how hard you try, you’ll fail to live like the gods.

It was Nietzsche who really wanted to develop a coherent philosophy of “no regrets.” This starts, really, with Nietzsche’s “formula” for human greatness and the principle of amor fati, or “love of [one’s] fate.” Nietzsche wrote that

“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing

to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear

what  is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the

face of what is necessary—but love it.”

Nietzsche was struggling with the question, driven by the specter of mortality, with how humans should live a good life. He had two extreme positions in front of him:

• the ancient ascetic position (stoicism), which dictates that to live a good life you must forgo human desire,

and

• the more hedonistic carpe diem philosophy ["live for the day"] that we see crop up in pop culture.

But really, Nietzsche wasn’t arguing for either position. When he talks about amor fati, there’s a higher level of uber-morality going on there, that goes beyond carpe diem or asceticism, that’s really asking us to embrace our mortality rather than shy from it with regret.

So I guess Nietzsche was the originator of YOLO, then?

Sort of. In a way, amor fati and the “will to power” aren’t just abstract philosophy; I’d argue that Nietzsche is actually one of the first and most powerful psychologists. Nietzsche asks:

"How am I going to get people to wake up from their day-to-day habits,

the iron cage of daily life that makes us creatures of comfortable habit,

and how should we be truly living our lives?"

The vehicle for people to wake themselves up and change their lives, Nietzsche says, is regret. In reality, the YOLO and carpe diem culture is a misinterpretation of the “will to power” that made him famous. I’ve seen so many pop psychology books that suggest abandoning regret to live a good life; purging regret from your thought process. But none of these books have the backbone that Nietzsche did, to advocate that we face our mortality and the certainty of regret as a motivation for changing your life.

Nietzsche has laid out a two-pronged attack against regret:

1 - If you choose wrong, forget about it, just accept it and love it.

2 - From this point on, live with constant awareness of your mortality.

So instead of living without regret, we should be embracing it?

The problem is that we don’t always realize this until we’re truly faced with our own mortality, like an acute or chronic health condition. And even when we try to achieve a good life and fail, it’s a question of embracing that failure, and reassuring yourself that you’re living intentionally and with purpose. Psychologically, that’s a smart and healthy way to process regret. It’s by embracing it that you learn to live a life without it.

Even more frustrating, American society doesn’t necessarily support this idea of embracing regret. From an early age, we have these great ambitions, but we tell ourselves that we’ll live that life 30 or 40 years from now. But by the time we’ve reached that point, that life isn’t available to us: We’re tired, we’re old, and we’re laden with regret that is immutable. We live in a society built around the idea of delayed gratification, and we’ve lost our ability to really use regret to bootstrap ourselves out of this manufactured comfort zone.

What are the big cultural differences in how we experience regret?

The perceived lack of control over your life is one major force underpinning our experience of regret: It’s premised on the assumption that we actually have the power to choose otherwise [sic, pessimism]. I’m not sure if psychological research has captured that. [Editor's note: Research comparing regret across different cultures show varying differences in the subjective experience of the emotional reaction.] My sense is that you’ll find higher instances of regret in cultures where there’s a presumption that people actually have more control over their lives. In some cultures, say, India, where the caste system remains deeply embedded in day-to-day life, notions of regret aren’t as salient in shaping psychological well-being.

There are pluses and minuses to this. You don’t necessarily have a culture of people trying to transform their lives outside of these rigid classes, so there’s less broader social improvement driven by an individual desire for self-improvement. Even in totalitarian countries, as long as people believe they have some sense of control over their lives, I’m sure we’d see significant levels of regret.

But universally, it seems like mortality is the key here. Our culture is full of anecdotes about those who dodged death turning over a new leaf.

So many times we hear of someone developing late-stage cancer or some other sickness and saying “Oh my goodness, the things I wanted to do, or should have done!” Why wait that long? The effort for Nietzsche is to give everyone a dose of what it means to be mortal, and regret is the vehicle by which we confront our own mortality—and move past it.

This is Nietzsche’s prescription on how to live a life of no regrets, but keep in mind that it’s not hedonistic; this is a significantly more sophisticated question than just extreme pleasure. They’re all existential, philosophical questions about what it means to be a human being, to have a good and moral existence, not just the biological impulses to mate and procreate. It’s the search, the hunger, that Nietzsche is trying to answer.

A lot of psychological research in therapy suggests that it’s really mindfulness that helps deal with depression, suicide, and other negative ideation. Isn’t that interesting?

Nietzsche would probably have predicted that anything that got people to stop and take stock of their lives would have some inherent psychological value. Indeed, were finding in scientific literature that mindfulness can get people to accept their flaws and mistakes and move past regret, but also be more lucid about the world they live in and how they build that world with others. It’s interesting that the therapies that work now are really made up of ingredients of Nietzsche would have proposed in his formula had be been a modern-day psychologist.

It feels like there’s two competing methods of dealing with regret here: The guided clinical version, which you’ve described, and the YOLO/die young mentality. What’s the relationship between the two?

In some ways, the pop culture that’s funneling notions of “let’s die young, let’s live it up tonight”—Nietzsche might say that this is an excuse. It’s definitely a mental gain, a hyped-up alternative to dwelling on past (or future) mistakes, and that’s fine if it gives people the motivation to pull the trigger. But with this sort of mantra, there’s a high chance you’ll actually end up doing something you regret—and that’s kind of going in the exact opposite direction, isn’t it? Even if you come to embrace “living fast and leaving a beautiful corpse,” that’s veering more into the world of nihilism than it is intentional, thoughtful, deliberate living.

What would you tell people about how to live with regret?

If I were to provide guidelines to pursue amor fati, it would be for people to realize and accept that there are some things we lack ultimate control over. There is a fine balance between teaching children the difference between having and not having control. We tell kids they can be president or an astronaut, but at the same time they live under the complete control of their parents, and it creates a very odd, strange equilibrium with regards to how kids develop a sense of agency and, in turn, how they experience regret.

On an adult level, how do we want to embolden children to feel a sense of control, but also develop this meta-cognitive awareness? There are cases when people are diagnosed with a fatal disease and come to terms with their mortality, but it’s tough to expose the average person to; they’ll simply retreat into their comfortable world. This fast-paced world is built on connection, on business, on the go-go-go, where we’re constantly trying to produce more innovation and succeed. When does anyone ever have a moment to reflect on their own mortality, to come to terms with the life they live?

Are Americans hungry enough for this? Are we reaching a psychological breaking point?

Anthropologist Lionel Tiger, currently at Rutgers, has this theory that he calls the “manufacture of evil,” where he gets at the idea that society is in “a terrible tangle of moral, ethical, and social confusion,” and that we’re creating the means of our own social chaos. Technology is out of control, changes in the economy are out of control, and we’re acclimating as best we can, but often that’s not enough.

There’s a hunger for getting this information. How can we cultivate an American culture that keeps our ingenuity and our innovation but allows us to pursue these questions? Maybe it’s a question of education. Perhaps early on, we talk to young adults and cultivate a sense of what it means to live a good life in the social context. We don’t have anything like that—it doesn’t add to GDP, so why would we? People should be able to say, at that last moment, that “yes, I did it, and I’m OK with what I’ve done.”

The problem is that there is a desire for that time to live thoughtfully and deliberately. Perhaps this is why we see questions of vacation coming up as a major labor issue. But in the bigger picture, even if there is a need or a want, there’s an entire industry to package and reframe regret as part of our national growth machine.

The YOLO industry is part of this. It’s selling a way of handling regret without inducing the introspection and reflection that can actually put us on the path for a better life.

Perhaps we’re in a psychological bubble. We’re going to reach a point where it’ll pop. But at that point will we actually realize a greater connection to humanity?

Disney Delusions and Regrets:

"Frozen - A Musical feat. Disney Princesses"
(may stop at marker 2:15 to skip production promotion)

Relevant Magazine - 5 Things Great Leaders Do

5 Things Great Leaders Do (That Most People Don’t)

There’s a reason why great leaders are where they are.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/maker/5-things-great-leaders-do-most-people-dont

by Aaron Loy

April 16, 2015

Aaron is a husband, dad, church planter, coffee addict, insatiable learner and chronic dreamer. He's the founding pastor of Mosaic Lincoln. You can find more of his writing on his blog or on Twitter.

As the pastor of a young church, I get to interact with a lot of young people, many of whom dream of doing something significant with their lives. To quote the late Steve Jobs, they long to make a dent in the universe. They want their life to matter. I love getting to spend time with young people who aren’t content to settle for the status quo and who long to make a difference. That said, there are some things I’ve noticed that are common to aspiring young leaders that often get in the way of them actually seeing those dreams realized.

So here are a few pieces of advice I have for aspiring young leaders:

1. Learn to Follow First

Leaders tend to want to lead, and that isn’t always a bad thing. After all, the Apostle Paul did say whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task (1 Timothy 3:1). But Paul also gave us a great picture of what that leadership is supposed to look like: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).

In other words, Christian leaders are primarily in the following business. This is so important for aspiring leaders to get because the idea of leading can sound pretty appealing. Aspiring to lead can naturally play to our pride, but following develops in us humility.

Learning how to follow is an important part of becoming a leader worth following.

For this reason, it is vitally important that young leaders learn how to follow first. This means not only learning how to follow Jesus, but also learning how to follow those He has placed above us. Until you can do that joyfully, you’re not ready to lead yet. Learning how to follow is an important part of becoming a leader worth following.

2. Find a Mentor

Great leaders never stop learning. Many of the very best continue to have coaches and mentors even as they sit at the highest levels of leadership in their company or organization.

The truth is, it’s never too late or too early to find a mentor. So find one (or three) and starting asking questions. Listen well to what they have to say. Give them permission to speak hard truths into your life. And take really good notes. Not only will this allow you to draw from their wealth of knowledge and experience, but it’ll help you avoid having to learn what they have the hard way.

3. Finish What They Start

One of the best pieces of advice I was given as an aspiring young leader was, “Do everything you can to finish what you start.” That was not my track record up until that time, but I took the advice and it changed my life.

I meet a lot of passionate young people who jump from one thing to the next without finishing many of the things they’ve started. As my mentor pointed out to me in my early twenties, this is a character issue. It’s a sign of immaturity and selfishness as we what we want or feel right now is given complete precedence. It breaks trust with others as they come to realize we can’t be counted on to follow through on what we’ve said. It develops a really bad habit that will not serve you well as you grow older. And it shortcuts the character development that happens in the hard work of persevering (Romans 5:3-4), a necessary quality for every leader.

So finish what you start. No matter how badly you want to quit, no matter how hard it gets, finish and finish well.

4. Decide Who They Want To Be and Act Accordingly

This might sound obvious, but it’s important to realize you’re not just going to roll out of bed one day and be who you want to be. You won’t just stumble into your dream job. You won’t be an overnight success (there’s no such thing). You won’t accidentally become more wise, more talented, more connected, more faithful, more spiritual, more mature, more disciplined, more developed, more successful, more ___________.

You will be who you have decided to be, whether actively or passively.

You will be who you have decided to be, whether actively or passively. Your person and as a result, your life, will be a reflection of the decisions you make over time. So you need to decide now who you want to be and what kind of life you want to live and begin practicing the habits that will get you there today.

5. Don’t Wait for Permission

I meet a lot of young people who plan to do something someday, but are doing little to move that direction right now.

But here’s the thing: You can start doing some of the things you want to do someday today. And doing it today is the best way to figure out whether you actually want to do it someday.

You want to start a business? Awesome. Start one. Even if it fails in six months and you don’t net a single dollar, you will have learned more trying and failing than you will sitting around reading Fast Company for the next five years. The same goes for most anything else. You want to go into ministry? Great. Start doing ministry today. Take responsibility for spiritually investing in those in your relational circles now. Then pay attention to what happens. If you see fruit, that’s a really good sign. If not, at least you’ve got some experience to process with your mentor before you invest a whole lot of years and money in a ministry education you may never use.

The point is you can start right where you are, right now. Don’t wait for permission.

*This article was originally posted on aarongloy.com

Exploring Evolution Series - If Earth Never Had Life, Continents Would Be Smaller

If Earth never had life, continents would be smaller

source link

by Christina Reed

April 16, 2015

Comments

VIENNA—It may seem counterintuitive, but life on Earth, even with all the messy erosion it creates, keeps continents growing. Presenting here this week at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union, researchers say it's the erosion itself that makes the difference in continental size. Plant life, for example, can root its way through rock, breaking rocks into sediment. The sediments, like milk-dunked cookies, carry liquid water in their pores, which allows more water to be recycled back into Earth’s mantle. If not enough water is present in the mantle about 100 to 200 km deep to keep things flowing, continental production decreases. The authors built a planetary evolution model to show how these processes relate and found that if continental weathering and erosion rates decreased, at first the continents would remain large. But over time, if life never evolved on Earth, not enough water would make its way to the mantle to help produce more continental crust, and whatever continents there were would then shrink. Now, continents cover 40% of the planet. Without life, that coverage would shrink to 30%. In a more extreme case, if life never existed, the continents might only cover 10% of Earth. When it comes to a habitable planet, life even plays a role in building the habitats.

* * * * * * * * * *

Geophysical Research Abstracts

Vol. 17, EGU2015-13398, 2015

EGU General Assembly 2015

© Author(s) 2015 CC Attribution 3.0 License

Feedback cycles in planetary evolution including continental growth and mantle hydration, and the impact of life

Dennis Höning and Tilman Spohn

German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, Germany (Dennis.Hoening@dlr.de)

"The Earth’s evolution is significantly affected by several intertwined feedback cycles. One of these feedback loops describes the production and erosion of continental crust. Continents are produced in subduction zones, whose total length in turn is determined by the fraction of continental crust. Furthermore, the fraction of continental crust determines the amount of eroded sediments. These sediments eventually enter subduction zones and affect the water transport into the mantle. As the biosphere enhances weathering and erosion of continental crust, we show how life on Earth can enter this feedback cycle and stabilize the present day state of the Earth. A second feedback loop – coupled to the first one – includes the mantle water cycle. Water in the Earth’s mantle reduces its viscosity, and therefore increases the speed of mantle convection and plate subduction.

Here, we present a thermal evolution model of the Earth which reproduces the present day observations. We investigate the influence of the biosphere during the Earth’s evolution on continental growth and mantle hydration. Finally, we discuss implications on the evolution of plate-tectonics planets beyond our solar system."

The Roots of Social / Progressive Evangelicalism and Movement Towards Radical Christianity

Introduction

I have reached a milestone in my life this week. It is the week where I turn sixty and leave behind the last vestiges of my once youthful body. Though I am good health I am beginning to notice a tiredness I had never felt before. And a willingness of my youthful spirit that is not quite matched by my body once so eager for sports and athleticism, adventure and competition.

Years ago I had reached another milestone. A life event marker that put me into a place of lament for about six years as I approached the age of thirty. I knew then that what I once could do as a youth I could do no longer. And yet, what a surprise I found in all the things I could do that I hadn't considered in my earlier youth. But unlike that lengthy time of despondency I now consider my end years to bear good surprises of expectation and endeavor I would not have expected but a few, spare years ago.

And so, I will take this week in stride and own up to the Lord's grace and blessing in granting to me the many years I might yet give back to Him as I move beyond this next age-based plateau. To consider it a blessing and triumph and not a place for dread and fear. Five or six years ago I would not have guessed the extent of my life's dramatic turn-around in its later years - but perhaps this is a part of wisdom that my former self as a younger, practical man of thirty could not have meditated on. Even so, I wish to contemplate on it now for the days ahead.

A Time of Examination

Not long ago I had been self-employed for some 27 years and found myself beginning to tire of my occupation and wishing to step away from the business world where I had provided IT consulting and technology services. It wasn't the big-money business then as it is now, but even so, I was allowed to invent processes, explore innovation, and even produce one or two successful entrepreneurial projects against several other losses of opportunity.

About five years ago I thought I might try to write poetry - something I had wanted to do for a very long time and never did. And so I did, producing quite a quantity (unpublished) over two to three years as I laboured from dawn-to-dusk to the task I had assigned myself. Eventually I began to burn out and knew I needed to find a new philosophical foundation for my poetry if I were to continue.

A foundation which required me to explore my beliefs and background. A foundation which ultimately I had to break apart and glue back together again on my own since there were none to travel my tormented road with me. A road that took my conservative Christian beliefs and demanded its reconfiguration, restitution, and renewal. A road that was very hard for awhile before it became easier and less burdensome. But a burden that has stayed with me until now.

And so I did. I laid down the poetry pen to take up the task of writing of an expanded faith and renewed theology deeply in need of repentance and resurrection. It was not an easy task but one that I was thankful to employ under the driving burden of the Spirit of God. One which has birthed this website here for others to explore and consider.

Then, about two years ago, as I was heavy into writing of a new radical Christianity, I felt I needed to push away from the desk a bit and get out into the fields and meadows of this good earth. Mostly because I needed someplace to be other than at the desk all the time, and also because I needed a new source of friendships. Friendships more at ease with the world that might provide a renewing outlet of vision and care for society.

And so, sometime during that Fall I read of an opportunity to study and become certified as a Master Naturalist through Michigan State University and enrolled for next year's workshops and field studies. I quickly became involved with a new society of care-givers dedicated to exploring, protecting, and preserving the fields and streams, meadows and forests, of the lands around us. It became a healthy experience and provided a place to become absorbed within where men and women of all ages were dedicated to restoring nature into a more positive balance with humanity. It was fun and I found myself willing to try new things through the early winter snows of Michigan to its late fall blooms along its coastal waters.

New Horizons, New Burdens

A year and a half later as I was finishing my certification in its required community service hours I began to wonder what I might do with it. I still was writing a lot and had not begun to slow down until this past winter. But I had also used that time to work with as many "nature organizations" in my area as I could, thus building up a practical base of knowledge of my area's capacities.

One day, as I was attending a coastal dunes field study class I began to wonder how I might help this dedicated core of conservationists. Soon after, the Lord placed upon my heart a clear-sighted passion that would not let go of me. I had considered a variety of projects - from counting butterflies to cleaning up riverbeds to purchasing conservation areas to preserve and restore. And then it dawned up me, "What if I became involved in public policy?" It was simple and direct and might afford the maximum amount of help to the greatest number of people.

In preparation for this attitude the Lord had placed me into local city government and now was pushing me into county government to think through our region's agricultural policies. I then interviewed for the vacant position and was later accepted over several dozen applicants. Next, I joined a regional environmental group that I once was a part of decades ago when it first formed to bring technology to the public and non-profit sector. By this time this public transit authority had added an environmental group focused on restoring the watershed in our West Michigan region.

To prepare, I joined a three day river expedition composed of trout enthusiasts, river restorationists, several scientists and professors, and a general cadre of nature enthusiasts. This group of 65 environmentalists composed the base elements of three river sections that ran nearly the entire width of the state of Michigan. It was the ideal group to be a part of as we paddled and kayaked flood stage river waters at the height of its torment amid a wet, cold rain plunging down upon us for the first two of those three days. I felt as if I was more water bug than human but in the late afternoons we would camp along the surging river's edge to dry out and explore our evening's habitats, watch the night sky by a warming fire, and share story after story.

I soon became one of the board of directors of the Lower Grand River last year and have since found the doors flung open to me across agriculture, conservation, water, and open lands policy from a local, to a regional, to a state level. I am simply amazed at the opportunities being presented to me by so many governmental agencies and organizations. Opportunities that will help the many groups I have met towards better earth-care and land management. Opportunities that I feel passionate about as an advocate/consultant for urban-environmentalism and green infrastructure planning and development.

And as of last week, I am now presented yet another opportunity to become involved in translating my passion for green infrastructure projects into the area's school districts themselves. For myself, as for many others, it is important to have a vision of the future through the eyes of the next generation of youthful millennials who might carry on the burden of earth-care through all the many opportunities that technology may now offer us. Opportunities to refashion costly, crumbling grey infrastructures into organic, living, natural spaces utilizing water, earth, light, and air, into the public and private spaces of human communities. Today's youth are the seeds to tomorrow's future.

The Need for Re-Visioning

And so, as you can tell, I have drifted a bit from formally writing poetry and theology as rigorously as I once was doing. But now I have found the foundations I required to continue my writing. Examples abound of earth-advocate poets like Wendell Berry who never ceased from writing poetry even as he engaged public policy. Nor did the statesman Benjamin Franklin cease from his "common man's homilies" even as he became engaged in fashioning the 13 Colonies of America into the United States of America. It would be unwise to stop writing. To stop, would negate the sense of purpose that could be granted a society of people searching for vision and justice - both in the human realm as in the natural.

Nonetheless, I do wish to also pursue the idea of what a Millennial Christianity might look like for this 21st Century so tormented with oppression, hatred, and greed. It is a vision which I have been exploring since beginning this blog site. A vision that would provide a newer philosophical foundation to the one I grew up with. A foundation that might engage a form of postmodern Continentalism rather than Western Secular Enlightenment. A foundation onto which a vision of a Radical Christianity might be created which I have before described as Emergent, Post-Conservative, Progressive, or even Postmodern, in the highest and best senses of the word which keeps Jesus at its core and God's love and grace as its guide.

Perhaps this is what it means to experience a mid-life crisis. If so, praise God. This time of sanctuary has indeed been rich and fulfilling. And praise the Lord for His goodness during the hard times of existential crisis when the very foundations of my life had been torn to shreds both personally, in my family, in my worship, and finally in my professional life. The late fifties had not been an easy time for me much like my late twenties once had been. But life after the mid-seasons of traumatic events have shown that if you can push through them in some semblance of survival and disorder than eventually a peace will be found accompanied by personal direction and satisfaction.

Of late, my children have grown up. Each has graduated from college or graduate school in the past year. Each has married since last fall within three months of the other. And my wife and I find ourselves learning to become reacquainted back to the happy days of our first espousal, discovering the love we once had before becoming encumbered with obligations and responsibilities. A grown-up love that is clear-eyed with one another and with what we wish to complete in our lives before this good life ends.

For me, the idea of "balance and symmetry" might be appropriately applied here through the dangling threads of a life requiring a final act or ending to be applied into the lives of those coming after me. And if so, and if granted the days and years ahead to do this, then in God's wisdom and grace I hope to move into those complicating spaces by moving past myself into unknown mysteries yet awaiting discovery as best I can using the ready tools of bare word and thought, argument and instruction. To create a new syntax of speech that might create a new language for imagining grace-filled worlds of justice and solidarity amongst the nations. A new world order whose utopia might grant peace to a weary world sowing division and strife. Perhaps a new world order that could affect religion itself so firm in its resolve to hold stedfast to lesser visions for humanity and self.

A New World Order of Political and Theological Activism

And so, today, I wish to reflect again on the belated process I had come to so late in life in displacing the "faith of my youth" with a "grown-up faith" that has become more clear-eyed with the passage of time and distance. For now, I have come to embrace in the past dozen years or so what could be called a progressive evangelicalism which has caused for me a deep departure from my then-current conservative evangelical past.

I no longer shy away from words like social or political activism and theology as I once had when seeing so many militant strands of religious world oppression and tyranny upon the innocents of society. If I am to be militant than it is to be in God's love towards others and not by my own selfish self-love of fear and discrimination that has lately been framed into my conservative faith over the past decades by self-appointed religious mullahs to my once practical orthodoxy.

Nay, this kind of unjust, unequal, anti-intellectual Christian faith must be put to death finally and firmly if I am to get on with the task of living in the will of the Lord. I must have a personal faith that is renewing and resurrecting against the evil turmoils I see gripping the wicked of this world. I must help to promote and develop a Christian faith that does the same and knows why it wishes to proceed in this fashion against the strong dogmas of yesteryear's church striving for ascendancy but losing in its grasp the very thing it has come to idolized. An idol which has produced a misdirected sense of conservative doctrine as opposed to a radicalizing doctrine of humilty, forgiveness, mercy, and grace by our Lord Jesus Christ. To be a true Christian militant is to struggle not for dogma but for faith's first fruits of peace and trust in God's sovereignty whose rule shall move the nations by His incarnate Spirit not as man would do. But as a sovereign God will do in its paradoxical complexity and mysterious fashioning using the weak things of this world to confound the wise, the mighty, the strong.

Consequently I created Relevancy22 where I might speak my mind - while hosting many other minds and souls wishing to do the same - so that a perusing reader might come to understand that there are many voices speaking of this same radicalizing, resurrected faith. The same radicalizing faith found in Jesus who demanded a new allegiance, a new voice, and new missional fields filling with passionate labourers denouncing the many religious false prophets of our times abounding all a'glimmer with their own false foretellings, pejorative speeches, and "Thus saith God" pontifications.

Hence Relevancy22 - along with many other writers we follow here - is committed to investigating biblical doctrines on an elemental level so that a new contemporary Christian orthodoxy might be presently founded on better hermeneutics, speech, and labor, beyond the current narrowness I have more recently found employed in my once conservative faith. Like so many ghosts echoing from my past I must confront those ghosts and put them away and will require the audience of many hands and feet that we labor together to regain sight of the Christ of Calvary who modeled for us the truth of God's grace and forgiveness.

Mostly I write and edit for those like myself needing new handles and a broader reach of theology than can be found within the Reformed halls of dogma and dictum. But as well, I write for the next generation of younger Christians who need a stronger vision of Jesus and theology that might persist into this post-modern, post-Christian, secular world. A world which has evolved on the doorstop of the failure of Secular Modernity. A new world unlike the old world I have lived through these past sixty years but am all-the-more-willing to embrace for the love of God, and the heart of Jesus, despite the personal distresses of leaving familiar grounds for foreign lands. Not unlike hesitant Father Abraham do we travel this unknown path of God to discover a City unmade with human hands. A City bearing a new earth and a new society. A City that truly is founded upon the renewing, healing God of creation who is our light and life.

For myself, as for some of you here, the 1960s and 70s became the launching site for dissettlement with religious conservatism after seeing its secular fruition carried through into the 1980s and 90s by its unending wars and recessions, political storms and turmoil. Obviously it took decades of living through these events before understanding how my hallowed faith had become fundamentally altered and changed from the biblical forums I had once adhered to. But now, after doing the hard work of deconstructing my faith by the Spirit of the Lord - and then by reconstructing it into a more living, vibrant form - I can now breathe more easily in the Spirit in missional outreach, love, and care for society and this good earth.

Below will be found Dr. Roger Olson's kind review of progressive Christianity. And if, like myself, the reader wishes a little historical background to his or her's present Christian faith, than I think this very short review will be most helpful. Especially within the social-progressive-activist context that we see abounding around us today in so many directions and endeavors. I am tempted to say I would wish to somehow go beyond this form of social / progressive Christianity to expound a new kind of "radical Christianity" if I could use this phrase in its highest and best sense of our Christian faith. One that doesn't confuse it with the fears of my former tribe nor the Christless-core of its liberal disbelievers. If I could, then there is much to be done both on the doctrinal level as well as on the social-political level in Kingdom theology requiring a new critical base for reflection, fellowship, and worship.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

April 19, 2015
edited April 24, 2015

“Progressive Evangelicals”:

Where Are They Now?

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by Roger Olson

April 18, 2015

Comments

Recently I received two relatively new, very similar books (complimentary copies provided by publishers). Their similarity lies in the subject they both cover: “progressive evangelicals.” They focus on progressive (some would say “liberal”) evangelical social and political beliefs especially among younger evangelicals in the 1960s and 1970s (some before, some after).

The two books are: The Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism by David R. Swartz (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) and Progressive Evangelicals and the Pursuit of Social Justice by Brantley W. Gasaway (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). I would say there is an overlap of these books of about sixty percent. They are about the same length (300 plus pages). Swartz’s book is a bit more scholarly while Gasaway’s is a bit more popularly written. (By no means do I intend that as a value judgment on either book or either author! It is only meant to indicate ease of reading and depth and detail of treatment of the subject.)

Reading these two books is like reading about my own journey in evangelicalism. I grew up in an extremely conservative evangelical context where many people sympathized with the John Birch Society, despised John F. Kennedy and Humbert H. Humphrey, grieved over Barry Goldwater’s loss to Johnson (1964) and hailed Richard Nixon as a fellow evangelical and near political messiah. I will never forget the day Nixon’s motorcade drove from the airport to downtown in front of the fundamentalist Bible college I attended. Many of the students, faculty and staff (I among them) stood for about an hour next to the street with a huge banner that read “God Bless You, President Nixon!” We were “blessed” that he rolled down the window of his limousine and smiled and waved at us.

Then came Watergate, the disaster of America’s increasing involvement in Vietnam, “Kent State,” and revelations / dawning awareness (at least in my mind) of government corruption, enduring racism in America, atrocities committed by Americans in Vietnam. As I began to question the fundamentalism of my upbringing I began also to question the political and social views of my spiritual mentors. Sometime toward the end of my Bible college student career I learned about what has been called “The Great Reversal” of evangelical social activism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I stumbled on it on my own; it wasn’t taught by my college professors. “The Great Reversal” was, of course, the change from social progressivism among evangelicals to disengagement from political-social activism to conservatism. Both of the books mentioned above and under consideration here mention this as a factor in the rise of young evangelical progressivism in the 1960s and 1970s. Books by evangelical scholars such as Timothy Smith, David Moberg and Donald Dayton revealed that throughout much of the nineteenth century our own evangelical ancestors had been in the forefront of abolition of slavery, movements for equality of women with men, and even redistribution of wealth. I began to ask myself what happened to that evangelical heritage?

During seminary (mid-1970s) I began to read a magazine both books credit with being a major factor in the rise of “the evangelical left” in the 1970s: The Post-American (which eventually evolved into Sojourners). I remember that I somehow obtained and read every issue. At one time I owned every issue of The Post-American. I also came into contact, at a distance, with the World Christian Liberation Front—reading some of their literature which I found in the seminary’s library. Some of my seminary professors pointed me to Mark Hatfield as an example of a theologically conservative and evangelical politician who was also socially and politically progressive. I learned about Tom Skinner and Samuel Escobar, evangelicals critically sympathetic with Black Theology and Latin American Liberation Theology. I took a course on Liberation Theology at a Lutheran Seminary’s extension on the campus of a Lutheran College near my seminary. Gradually my mind began to change; I began to identify myself socially and politically with this “evangelical left” movement while maintaining my basically conservative and evangelical theological beliefs and spirituality.

Reading these two books is for me like the proverbial trip down memory lane. I learned some details from them, but for the most part they merely remind me of people, publications, events, organizations, ideas that I imbibed and mostly agreed with in the 1970s. Both books raise the fascinating question of how “evangelical” came to be a synonym for “political conservatism” in the 1980s and beyond and point to Jerry Falwell and other fundamentalists like him who hijacked the label “evangelical” and convinced the media to identify it with their hyper-conservative theologies and social-political views. Both books tend to “hype” Jim Wallis (wikipedia link / amazon books) as the key figure in the evangelical left—especially over the “long haul.” He was, perhaps, the organizing genius of the movement, but I personally found Ron Sider (wikipedia / amazon books) to be the more attractive thinker within the movement. That’s not to pit them against each other; they were and always have been co-leaders in progressive evangelicalism. I think my favoritism toward Sider comes from my gradual turn toward an Anabaptist vision of prophetic Christian social concern for peace and justice.

I would say that one of the greatest disappointments in my life as an evangelical theologian has been the popular misconception of all evangelicals as socially and politically conservative. I have friends who simply cannot understand or accept that an evangelical Christian can be progressive. Even after I mention Mark Hatfield to them (and they are old enough to remember him or at least know about him) they turn right around and use “evangelical” as a label for “Religious Right” attitudes and activism in the public square.

My hope is that somehow these two books will begin a shift in public perception of evangelical Christianity that distinguishes it from any one particular political party or platform and that honors its rich diversity.

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What Is Progressive Christianity?

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 - Wikipedia

Progressive Christianity is a form of Christianity which is characterized by a willingness to question tradition, acceptance of human diversity, a strong emphasis on social justice and care for the poor and the oppressed, and environmental stewardship of the Earth. Progressive Christians have a deep belief in the centrality of the instruction to "love one another" (John 15:17) within the teaching of Jesus Christ.[1] This leads to a focus on promoting values such as compassion, justice, mercy, tolerance, often through political activism. Though prominent, the movement is by no means the only significant movement of progressive thought among Christians (see the 'See also' links below).

Progressive Christianity draws on the insights of multiple theological streams including evangelicalism, liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, pragmatism, postmodernism, Progressive Reconstructionism, and liberation theology.[2]

Though the terms Progressive Christianity and Liberal Christianity are often used synonymously, the two movements are distinct, despite sharing many similarities.[3]

The characteristics of Progressive Christianity can be summarized as:

• A spiritual vitality and expressiveness, including participatory, arts-infused, and lively worship as well as a variety of spiritual rituals and practices such as meditation

• Intellectual integrity including a willingness to question; distrust of dogma

• Understanding of spirituality as a real psychological or neural state (see Neurotheology)

• Liberal interpretation of the bible as a record of historical human spiritual experiences and ideas rather than of historical or physical facts. Acceptance of modern Biblical criticism.

• Acceptance of multiple understandings of the concept of "God", including God as Nature, as the Universe, as a shared psychological construct, and/or as community.

• Understanding of communion as a symbol of the church community as the body of Christ

• An affirmation of the Christian faith with a simultaneous sincere respect for other faiths

• An affirmation of human diversity

• Strong ecological concerns and commitments

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Follow up Articles -

Steampunking a Generation of Theology with New Music and Airs

"A City on a Hill," by Governor John Winthrop

Index to past articles on "Phase III"