Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Monday, November 17, 2014

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 2


The Last Judgment (Garden), Bosch

Fall, or Folly? (2): A Wisdom Story
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/52433

by Chaplain Mike
November 11, 2014

St. Irenaeus (2nd century) described Adam and Eve as “adolescents.” They were not “perfect” in the sense of “complete.” They represent a beginning and an intention – but something that not only remained unfulfilled – but even something that had deviated from its intended path. From “mud commanded to become Gods,” they became beings unable to be truly human. Death and corruption mark their existence. The stories in Genesis include fratricide among their children. The early chapters of Genesis are not the record of a promising start – they are the record of the start of promises.

Fr. Stephen Freeman, “From Mud to Light – the Saving Work of Christ”

The Last Judgment (Serpent and Tree), Bosch

---

We do not normally think of the Book of Proverbs as a work of deep theological content. We think of it as a collection of sayings, practical in nature, giving sound advice for living. But portions of the book go far beyond that.

Take Proverbs 1-9 for instance, which form an extended meditation on the nature and blessings of divine Wisdom (personified), urging the young in particular to open their ears and hearts to receive her teachings so that they will “fear the Lord,” become wise in their lives and dealings, and find the reward of “life.”

Proverbs teaches “the simple” (the young, morally unformed, susceptible to temptation) to listen to and follow “wisdom” (fear the Lord and follow his instructions), because listening to wisdom is the path to “life” and failing to do so leads to “death.”

One characteristic of wisdom literature is that its teachings are rooted in creation more than in covenant. That is, they reflect on the world and life and the characteristics of people and how they relate to each other. Its counsels derive from observation, not from special revelation. To put it simply, wisdom posits that God designed creation and life to work in certain ways. The wise person trusts God and seeks to order his or her life according to those ways. He or she “trusts in the Lord with a whole heart.” The foolish person disregards God and seeks to live “leaning on his or her own understanding.”

I suggested in the previous post that the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis is a wisdom story. Those who composed and edited the Hebrew Bible in its final form were concerned that the post-exilic community learn wisdom about their past, present, and future. So they told the first stories about people in the Bible using wisdom terms and metaphors to make their message clear from the start.

This same language and imagery is prevalent in other wisdom literature, like Proverbs. Here are a few examples:


The story of Adam and Eve has been often portrayed as the story of two perfect people in perfect conditions who “fell” into a state of corruption and mortality and plunged all creation into such a condition because of rebellion. But “fall” is not really the best description, or at least the most accurate description of what this story teaches.

Instead, Genesis 3 tells how God set boundaries for two children (or adolescents, as Irenaeus suggested) who are “simple” — youthful, naïve, inexperienced, morally unformed, and susceptible to temptation.
  • Look at them: “naked and not ashamed,” like children who don’t even know enough to be embarrassed as they frolic about without clothing.
  • Look at them: enticed by a treat that looks good, that promises to taste good, something that engages a childlike curiosity which knows no caution.
  • Look at them: easily distracted from their parent’s warning by a cleverer, wiser tempter.
  • Look at them: persuaded into transgressing the boundaries set for them without even thinking.
This is not the “fall” of the perfect. This is Pinocchio, led astray by Lampwick at Pleasure Island!

---


[T]he Adam story is not about a fall down from perfection, but a failure to grow up to godly wisdom and maturity. Adam and Eve weren’t like perfect super humans. They were like young, naïve children, who were meant to grow into obedience, but were tricked into following a different path.

...The serpent tricked Adam and Eve into gaining wisdom too soon, apart from God’s way. They were naïve children who did not have the shrewdness to withstand the serpent’s craftiness. They should have just trusted their maker. The knowledge of good and evil isn’t wrong, but getting it free from God’s direction is death. Without the maturity that comes from obeying God, Adam and Eve can’t handle the truth (said in our best Jack Nicholson voice).

This is the point of this story: the choice put before Adam and Eve is the same choice put before Israel every day: learn to listen to God and follow in his ways and then— only then— you will live. The story of Adam and Eve makes this point in the form of a story; Proverbs makes it in the form of wisdom literature; Israel’s long story in the Old Testament makes it in the form of history writingByas and Enns, Genesis for Normal People

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This story was intended first for Israel, who throughout their history followed the same patterns set by Adam and Eve and then by their children Cain and Abel and were likewise sent off into exile from God’s good land.

But one effect of reading this as a wisdom story is that it tends to universalize its message. Jew and Gentile alike, we recognize ourselves in the stories of Adam and Eve and their children. As one of our commenters said in yesterday’s thread - "Adam is everyman. And Eve is everywoman. These stories reveal the universal human susceptibility to temptation. We all show ourselves to be simpletons, in need of divine wisdom."

As Pinocchio found out, no one becomes a “real boy” without first realizing he’s made a jackass of himself at Pleasure Island.

We all need to learn: “Trust in the Lord with a whole heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Prov. 3:5).

And specifically, we must put off the old foolish Adam who leads us to death and put on the new man, Christ, “who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption“ (1Cor 1:30). He is our Tree of Life.



continue to -










The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 1


The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), Bosch

Fall, or Folly? (1)
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/52382

by Chaplain Mike
with comments by r.e. slater
November 10, 2014

Whatever else one might say about Genesis 2-3 (the text actually goes from 2:4-4:26 and includes Cain’s story) and the account of Adam and Eve and the “fall,” it should be noted that, in its final form, this is a wisdom story. It is the first in a series of narratives that encourage the [Israel's] post-exilic community to reflect upon their history by showing them, in nascent form, the folly of their own ways which had led them into exile in Babylon. (sic, Genesis 2.4-4.26 was not written until 500 BC or thereabouts - re slater].

This week, we will consider Adam and Eve and their story in Genesis 2-3 and what it teaches about the human condition. We start with an overview of its context and general characteristics.

Adam and Eve, Cranach
Genesis 1-11 forms a preamble to the Hebrew Bible, and its focus is two-fold:

(1) it distinguishes Israel and her beginnings as set apart from the nations, particularly Babylon, and

(2) it shows that Israel was nevertheless just as foolish and sinful as the nations, even though chosen by God.

This section ends with the nations gathering at Babylon [the Great, sic Revelation in the NT - re slater] to found the city and build their great tower to the heavens. God comes down and scatters them abroad, paving the way for Abram’s call and the time of the patriarchs, when Israel as a people is formed in the midst of the nations. The stories that make up Genesis 1-11 set the stage by introducing us to several characters who represent Israel in both her chosen and foolish condition.

We read about Adam and Eve in the garden and exiled from the garden. Then we learn of Cain and Abel and God’s provision of both justice and mercy in the aftermath of the first murder. A list of Seth’s family line emphasizes both the greatness and mortality of the faithful ancestors. Noah and his family, like Israel in days to come, are saved through the waters from God’s judgment. The resulting “new creation” is soon spoiled again, however, in another garden and by another sinning son. The narrative then fast forwards, through genealogies, to a portrayal of the nations founding Babylon, the ultimate opponent of God’s people in the world.

---

Genesis 1-11 shows an ongoing pattern of God’s blessing, human folly and sin, divine judgment, salvation and new creation. The first story — of Adam and Eve — has been understood by many as depicting a unique, cosmos-changing event — a “fall” from paradisal perfection to a state of depravity, introducing corruption and death into the world.

Many Christians are taught to read the Adam and Eve story something like this: Adam
and Eve are fresh-off-the-assembly line, shiny, new, perfect, first human beings — sort
of super humans. God tested these flawless creatures with this command not to eat of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, just to see if they meant business and would obey
him. But they failed the test, rebelled against God, and lost not only their own perfection
but also that of every other human being born since.

- Byas and Enns, Genesis for Normal People

But can the story bear the weight of this interpretation?

First, the early chapters of Genesis show that Adam and Eve were not the only human beings in the world at that time. There is more than one use of the word “adam” in Genesis 1-2. 1:26-27 describes the creation of “humankind” (adam), encompassing both male and female, as the crown of God’s creation, made in God’s image. On the other hand, the first human we meet, designated as a specific male individual (adam), is created alone in chapter 2, a much different process is envisioned, and the female is created out of him later. This suggests, in the logic of the joint narratives, that humans are created by God in the beginning and already in the world when God later deals with this particular couple. We also have the story of Cain, which portrays other people in the world at the time he is set wandering. Other human beings are living outside the garden; Adam and Eve are special because they are “first” in other ways, [but] not as the lone humans on earth.

Second, the story suggests that these first humans were already subject to death. Their mortality is assumed by the presence of the Tree of Life, from which they must eat in order not to die. Immortality is available to them; it is not their possession. Nor is death portrayed as the immediate consequence of their “fall.” Adam and Eve do not die after their transgression and, although physical death is described as their inevitable fate, it is not presented as part of the “curse” as such. As creatures made from dust they will return to dust. The couple’s expulsion from the Garden is for the specific purpose of denying them immortality through eating from the Tree of Life. All this fortifies Bouteneff’s conclusion:“Humankind does not begin as immortal and then become mortal as a result of the transgression” (p. 6).

Third, the story suggests that the first humans were not perfect before the transgression. Two sharply differentiated human natures pre- and post-transgression are not portrayed. The fact that God issues a prohibition to Adam and Eve implies not only that they are in communion with God, but also that they are capable of doing something of which God does not approve. Boundaries need not be set for perfect people. Furthermore, something within them makes them vulnerable to the serpent’s temptation, and their subsequent disobedience is not the behavior of pristine individuals.

Fourth, as mentioned above, in context the Garden narrative is one part of a whole decline narrative, the first in a series of “falls.” The Bible first mentions “sin” not in the garden, but with regard to Cain’s much more depraved act of murder. This observation led many Jewish and early Christian interpreters to emphasize the corruptive nature of this account more than the Adam and Eve story. And if we are looking for an account of a truly transformative “fall” leading to pervasive sin, death and destruction, then Genesis 6 fits the bill much better, when “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth [land], and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually”(Gen. 6:5). Bouteneff concludes: “Genesis 1-11 narrates a whole series of cycles or ages of human decline. . . .”

The transgression . . . is an ongoing reality or activity; Scripture does not present the fall
as an event but as humanity gone awry, though this sense is not properly (for Israel, at
any rate) identified with the tree in Eden. Scripture points beyond paradise, beyond Genesis
1-11, to existential life. “It is the ongoing sin of the human that returns the earth to chaos”
[quote: Ricoeur and LaCocque]. As we might deduce from Jeremiah 4:22-25 and Hosea
4:1b-3, it is not because Adam sinned that everything is askew; it is because everyone is
sinning. (p. 8)

Adam and Eve’s transgression is the first. In that sense it is unique. Their story is also singular in that it portrays Adam and Eve being banished from the garden and losing access to the Tree of Life.

These are important characteristics of the story, and we will explore them further tomorrow and see how they are designed to teach wisdom to Israel in exile.



Peter Bouteneff gives several reasons why the traditional Augustinian view of “the fall”
does not fit the particulars of the garden story as it is presented in the Hebrew Bible.


Saturday, November 15, 2014

Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?


by Roger Olson
November 11, 2014

I’m not an expert on Islam; very few non-Muslims are. However, many years ago, while a graduate student in Religious Studies at Rice University (a national, “tier one” research university), I taught an undergraduate “mini-course” on Islam. (A “mini-course” was a graduate student-led unit of Religion 101.) I went out of my way to learn as much as I possibly could about Islam: its history, theology, and varieties. I visited a mosque, engaged in conversations with knowledgeable Muslims, invited knowledgeable Muslims from the U.S. and other countries to speak in my class, read voraciously everything I could get my hands on about Islam, and lectured about Islam. Since then I have kept up as lively an interest in Islam as possible given my focus on Christian theology. Again, I do not claim to be an expert on Islam but, aside from those who are true experts, I think I know more about it than most people.

Before I discuss the question “Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God,” a very lively question being debated by contemporary Christian theologians, let me say that I have no special disdain for Islam. I do not hate or fear Muslims. I believe that, in our pluralist society, Muslims should be free to believe and worship and practice their religion without hindrance or suspicion. I do not consider all Muslims “potential terrorists.”

Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? It’s not as simple a question as it appears and therefore no simple, straightforward answer should be given. The question itself begs analysis—before any answer can be given. I worry that people who jump to answer “yes” may be motivated more by political correctness and/or fear of persecution (of Muslims) than by clear thinking about the theological differences between Islam and Christianity. I also worry that people who jump to answer “no” may be motivated more by Christian fundamentalism and/or fear of terrorists than by clear thinking about the historical-theological roots of Islam in Jewish and Christian monotheism.

So, let’s analyze the question “Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?”

First, both Christianity and Islam are diverse religions. Do all Christians worship the same God? What all is being included in “Christians” in the question? What all is being included in “Muslims” in the question? Which Muslims? Which Christians? I know enough about the diversity of Islam to wonder if they all worship the same God. And I seriously doubt that all who claim to be Christians worship the same God. Does a liberal Christian who denies the deity of Jesus Christ and the Trinity worship the same God as an orthodox Christian who affirms them?

Second, the question could be interpreted as asking whether Muslims and Christians are thinking of God sufficiently alike to be worshiping the same God. Then my answer would tend to be “no”—they are not worshiping the same God. For orthodox Christianity “God” includes Jesus which is heresy if not blasphemy to most orthodox Muslims.

Third, the question could be interpreted as asking whether God accepts sincere Muslim worship of Allah as worship of himself. That is a very different question from whether Muslims and Christians are thinking sufficiently alike about God to be worshiping the same God. That latter question (discussed in the paragraph above) is an epistemological question with a more or less empirically (or at least sociologically and philosophically) determined answer. That is not to say equally astute scholars won’t disagree; it is only to say it can be researched. The question whether God accepts Muslim worship of Allah as worship of himself is very different and much more difficult to answer because answering it presumes knowing the mind of God.

Of course, some Christians will answer “no”—God does not accept worship of Allah as worship of himself—based on Jesus’s saying in John 14:6 that no one comes to the Father except through him. But, a problem with that, as I have pointed out before here, is that most of the same people who quote that verse to claim that God never accepts non-Christian worship as worship of himself admit that even when Jesus said it (sometime around 33 AD) there were Jews whose worship of God without Jesus was accepted by God as true worship of him. The question then becomes when God “cut off” all worship not centered around Jesus? When Jesus died on the cross? Then did the cross “unsave” thousands, if not millions, of Jews and God-fearing gentiles? Did God suddenly turn a deaf ear to them just because they did not know of Jesus? (Most Jews and gentile God-fearers lived outside of Palestine during Jesus’s earthly life, death and resurrection.) To say that God “grandfathered them in,” as one fundamentalist pastor said, is absurd. What about their sons and daughters who also never heard of Jesus before dying? When did God stop accepting worship by people with Abrahamic faith in God’s promises? So simply quoting John 14:6 does not settle the question whether God has ever accepted worship that does not include faith in Jesus Christ as worship of himself.

I do not think we can answer the question of what worship God accepts as worship of himself with any degree of certainty. To be sure, there are some “worships” that we can say with certainty God does not accept as worship of himself (such as worship of Satan). I admit that I am uncomfortable even with C. S. Lewis’s scenario of God accepting Emeth’s worship of Tash as worship of himself in The Chronicles of Narnia. That’s partly, however, because of the way Tash is described in the stories. Still, and nevertheless, I do not think we can say with assurance that God does not accept any Muslim’s worship of Allah as worship of himself.

On the other hand, I tend to think the theological differences between Allah in orthodox Islam (both Shia and Sunni versions to say nothing of Amadiyyah) and orthodox Christianity (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant) are strong enough to doubt that, in most cases, Muslims and Christians are thinking of the same God when they worship Yahweh and Allah.

Having said that, however, let me also say that, as a Christian theologian, my main concern is whether all Christians are thinking of the same God when they worship. But that’s a subject for another post.


Thursday, November 13, 2014

Creating a Space of Safety and Refuge for Today's Homeless Youth




https://www.facebook.com/HQGrandRapids?pnref=story


HQ contains open welcoming spaces, food, showers, laundry, computer labs, conference and consulting areas to introduce street kids from as young as 7 and 8 to early 20s to area youth resources and help facilities for runaway and homeless youth. HQ's drop-in center is located on the NE corner behind St. Mary's Hospital (kiddy-korner across the intersection) and east of the Cherry Street Medical offices. Initial hours of operation will be from 3-6 pm as HQ ramps up with staff and volunteer helpers. Intentions will be to provide temporary bedding, education, and placement services with area social agencies.


"Since no one wants these kids, we do.... These are our kids now."
                                                                   - HQ Motto


Mars Hill | HQ Runaway and Homeless Youth Drop-in Center
Grand Rapids, MI
http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2014/11/new_drop-in_center_for_runaway.html

on November 10, 2014 at 6:30 AM, updated November 10, 2014 at 1:56 PM

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Shandra Steininger isn’t sure how many teenagers and young people will use HQ, the area’s first drop-in center for runaway and homeless youth between downtown and the Heritage Hill neighborhood.

But the director of the new program at 320 State St. SE is confident they will be busy when the doors open later this month. About 40 percent of all homeless persons are minors under age 18, Steininger said.

“We want this to be a safe place where kids want to be and can truly be who they are,” Steininger said Friday, Nov. 7, as carpenters completed their work and movers installed furniture in the 93-year-old brick building on the eastern edge of downtown.

Before they open the doors, the sponsors of HQ are planning an open house for the community and its neighbors from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov 14. A ribbon cutting ceremony with representatives from the Chamber of Commerce will be at 1 p.m.

HQ was created by Mars Hill Bible Church in partnership with Arbor Circle, a social service agency that operates The Bridge, a shelter for kids and teenagers aged 10-17. The new drop-in center will be open from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on weekdays.

The new center, which will operate independently as its own nonprofit agency, is aimed at serving an estimated 2,000 teenagers and young persons who experience homelessness in the Grand Rapids area each year.

“Every night in Grand Rapids, 200 youth don’t have a safe place to sleep,” said Andy Soper, Director of Mobilization at Mars Hill Bible Church and Founder of the Manasseh Project, a shelter for minor victims of human trafficking.

“Right now, we know these kids are slipping through the cracks,” Soper said in a statement. “HQ will provide a transformative space and connect these youth who are experiencing the crisis of homelessness to the services they need.”

Although the center was created with more than $600,000 in gifts from Mars Hill Bible Church, Steininger said visitors will not be required to attend worship services nor will they be proselytized.

After checking in, visitors will have an opportunity to make a sandwich, charge up their cell phones, do laundry and take a shower. The center also includes rooms for counseling, computer access and job-finding tools.

Steininger said the staff will attempt to plug its visitors into existing services rather than develop new programs. Hence, Arbor Circle will have staff on hand to offer help if it requested.

Which services, if any, the kids use will be up to them, Steininger said. “We’re going to help them move from a state of crisis. We’re going to meet them where they’re at.”

Some teenagers who have been victims of abuse may be distrustful, Steininger said. “I imagine some people will walk in and won’t trust us – and that’s a healthy response.” She also expects to welcome LGBT teens who make up about 40 percent of all homeless youth.

"HQ's unique philosophy of empowering youth as the experts in their own lives creates a space where they want to be connected and where the entire community can truly come together to support them in their struggles, successes and everything in between,” she said.

HQ was intentionally located several blocks away from other missions and shelters that serve older adults, where young people don't feel as safe, Steininger said. But it is near several bus lines so that kids from suburban communities can use the facility, too.

The single-story brick and cement block building was last used as a call center by Mercy Health Saint Mary's. It was originally built in 1921 by Paul Nissen Corp., a distributor of automotive shock absorbers. The building served as the home of Central Auto Glass and Mirror Co. in the 1960s.





Contact Link -
https://www.facebook.com/HQGrandRapids?pnref=story

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

A Lesson on Civics: "How Not to Tear Your Country in Two"

If communities can no longer live in peace with one another than
sadly its time to move away and begin again. - R.E. Slater

As an introduction to today's article I would like to express the deep responsibility we should feel in helping our Muslim neighbors to resolve their religious differences rather than compounding their misery, loss, and discord by heaping our dark satisfactions to their civil wars with one another.

America was founded as a country searching for religious tolerance and the freedom to worship as an individual or community saw fit. The toll this mere idea took upon the centuries and generations of Christianity was infinitely sad as parish fought against parish for its ideals and principles.

No less are the Sunnis and Shias doing to one another as we had done earlier as Protestants and Catholics (or even as Protestants to other Protestants). Factually, it may be better for whole communities in the Mid-East to remove themselves from one another in an attempt to live in regional enclaves more conducive to the majority's sentiments and passions.

Perhaps a time of amnesty and moratorium be set aside so that the lives and possessions of families might re-constitute themselves across sectarian borders over a space of six to 12 months. And in the re-settling process determine to live in toleration with one another's Muslim brother or sister's religious differences regardless of persuasion.

If communities can no longer live in peace with one another than sadly its time to move away and begin again.

Here in America we have blindly traded our religious pride for civil nationalism, which is an order of factor higher in horror and effort than sectarian warfare can provide in terms of human bodies, effort, and financing. Instead of the might and power of a regional parish to inflict personal harm and injustice upon others, now an entire nation's efforts is pitted against a region of dislike, disinterest, and fostered stereotypes. Which, in this case, is America's view of the Muslim Mid-East, even as it is the Mid-East's view of Christian America.

This is no way to live. Life is precious and the differences amongst us is an important difference to maintain. If we all thought alike, ate alike, prayed alike, and worked alike, there would be a life of continual blandness and unending emptiness (existentially speaking).

To love and appreciate the differences that divide us is to love our fellow man and share in the larger idea of community that I think our Lord and our God had in mind for us. It is the crookedness of the devil who has set us against ourselves and it is the devil we fight, not ourselves. It is not enough to sit back and wait for the killing and injustice to end. It is important that we learn to become peacemakers in a world set aflame on the sins of our own vengeance and hatred.

Peace,

R.E. Slater
November 12, 2014

* * * * * * * * * * *


How Will the Mideast War End?
Christian History May Provide a Clue
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jack-miles/mideast-war-christian-history_b_6091160.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051&ir=Religion

Jack MilesGeneral Editor, The Norton Anthology of World Religions
Posted: 11/10/2014 11:34 am EST Updated: 11/11/2014 12:59 am EST

A war within Islam, among radical Islamists and Muslim sects Sunni and Shia, isleaving thousands dead and millions displaced.

The spectacle of so many Muslims prepared to make bloody, protracted war over their slight religious differences strikes Americans as not merely horrifying but also simply baffling. Why do they do that?, we find ourselves asking, and, perhaps more urgently,Where will this end?

One good way to engage these questions is to ask why we don't do that. That we do not ought rightfully to surprise us because as a people we care intensely about religion, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, we do not in the least shrink from violence. The U.S. is both the most religious of highly developed states, given our high rate of religious affiliation and participation, and the most violent, given our astronomicallyhigh rate of death by armed violence. Why is it then that we, who are statistically so ready to gun each other down for other reasons, do not do so for religious reasons?

THEN: CATHOLIC VS. PROTESTANT. NOW: SUNNI VS. SHIA

The answer is rooted in our origin as a state descended from a group of Christian colonies founded when the Protestants and Catholics of Western Europe, emphatically including the British Isles, were tearing themselves apart over religion and wrecking the infrastructures of their own countries in the process, just as the Sunni and Shia are doing in Iraq and Syria today.

We are appalled at the spectacle of a beheaded American reporter. Imagine how appalled we would be at the spectacle of a beheaded American president. But just that was the spectacle that the Calvinists (Puritans) of Britain mounted for the edification of their country when they beheaded the Anglican King Charles I in 1649. That execution came midway in a religious civil war that lasted fully nine years (1642-1651) and cost Ireland (which suffered a reign of terror comparable to that of ISIS) and Britain more lives, proportionately, than the two islands would lose in World War I.

Devastating as the English Civil War was, its violence is dwarfed by that of the contemporary Thirty Years War (1618-1648) on the European continent. That war began as a regional struggle in Bohemia, quite like the localized Sunni-Alawite conflict in Syria, but it ended with Europe in flames from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean. If Turkey and Iran are both drawn into the current Middle East conflict, that conflict will have spread similarly from the Aegean Sea to the Persian Gulf. The near-total collapse of civil society in the worst-affected parts of Europe during the early seventeenth century led to plague as well as famine, just as the spreading conflict in the Middle East and Pakistan has brought about a recurrence of polio.

"Just as Catholics and Protestants concluded in their Wars of Religion,
Sunni and Shia have to exhaust one another before concluding that
neither side can determine what their religion is to be."

Today, the confusing official and unofficial Sunni and Shia alliances of the U.S. leave many in the Middle East asking, "Which side are you on?"

Because Shia Iraq supports semi-Shia Syria, which the U.S. opposes, many Iraqi Shia believe that the U.S. has created the Sunni "Islamic State" (ISIS) so as to undo semi-Shia rule in Syria, even at the price of undermining Shia dominance in Iraq. Meanwhile, many Sunni -- observing that in Iraq the U.S. has installed and still supports the first Shia Arab regime in centuries and has been actively seeking to improve relations with Shia Iran -- conclude that the Americans have declared war on "Islam" itself inasmuch as the only true Islam for them is the Sunni version. At cross-purposes like these, the U.S. is, to say the least, ill positioned to rally a nonsectarian, Sunni-Shia coalition against ISIS. And yet President Obama's core assumption -- that only Sunni and Shia can resolve their own war with one another -- is surely correct.

But will they? Intra-Christian violence was no less bewildering than intra-Muslim violence is today. Catholic monarchs sometimes ended up supporting Protestants against other Catholics, and vice versa, as the originating religious issues disappeared in the melee of attack and counter-attack and the standard agendas of power politics surged to the fore. When Catholic France turned against Catholic Austria, the tie-breaking outsider -- corresponding to the tie-breaking U.S. in the Mideast conflict -- was the Ottoman Empire.

Perhaps most important, just as Sunni and Shia today refuse to recognize one another as equally Muslim, so Protestants and Catholics back then refused to honor one another as equally Christian. Then as now, polemical rhetoric was blood curdling, and public executions were a theatrical part of the mutually intimidating propaganda. Then as now, each side saw its own killers as saints, and its own casualties as martyrs, while denying any such dignity to the pagans or heretics of the other side. Just as Sunni flee Shia-held areas in today's Iraq and Syria while Shia flee Sunni-held areas, so did Catholics and Protestant civilians flee one another en masse during (and after) the Thirty Years War.

Before it was all over, the population of Greater Germany -- then a central European region substantially larger than the relatively compact Germany of today -- had declined by more than one third. Other regions suffered only somewhat smaller losses. Not until the twentieth century would Western Europe experience violence greater than that inflicted by what later historians have called Europe's Wars of Religion.

HOW EUROPE'S WARS OF RELIGION ENDED

How did it all end? It ended when the major European powers realized that their conflicting dreams of an all-Protestant or an all-Catholic Europe had merged into a single nightmare from which the continent had either to awaken or die. The awakening began with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia whose famous formula for religious peace in Europe was, in Latin, Cuius regio, eius religio: "Whose the rule, his the religion." The sovereign in any state, whether the sovereign was a king or a parliament, would have the right to determine the religion of that country, and he or it would not have the right to determine the religion of any other country.

The formula of the Peace of Westphalia was by no means a proclamation of full, individual religious freedom. The subjects or citizens of any given state were religiously under the authority of that state's government, and it was assumed that no state would fail to establish a state religion. By no means did each subject or citizen have the right to his (much less her) own religion. Yet limited as it was, the Peace of Westphalia did mark the end of religious warfare in Europe. Moreover, it brought into existence what political scientists still call the "Westphalian System" by which states -- and even alliances or entities like the United Nations -- generally abstain from intervening in any of the internal affairs of a duly recognized fellow state. On that occasion, an argument about religion had massive and long-lasting consequences.

"The Peace of Westphalia" re-drew parts of the map of Europe. Peace in the Middle East may yet do the same."

The profoundly cautionary experience of the Christian Wars of Religion and the instructive example of the Peace of Westphalia deeply marked Britain's American colonies, some of which were founded in explicit fealty to some form of Christianity, yet none of which ever attempted to impose its form on a neighboring colony by military force. When the colonies declared and successively defended their independence from Britain, the framers of the Constitution dealt with religion in a manner closely analogous to that of the drafters of the Peace of Westphalia.

Just as the Peace of Westphalia did not seek religious peace in Europe by imposing some sort of compromise generic Christianity upon the continent, the U.S. Constitution framers did not establish a state religion. Instead, they allowed states to continue their respective religious establishments if they had them and so chose. Over time, the states progressively disestablished their established forms of Christianity, and thus the once-unprecedented phenomenon of a Western, culturally European state without an established state religion came into being in the U.S.

This happened in part because of the prestige of the Constitution but in part because, as a mood of "never again" took hold in Europe and the dawning Enlightenment explicitly fostered religious toleration, nationalism began to replace religion as that for which one might still sacrifice life itself. The patriot began to replace the saint. Dying for one's country began to replace dying for one's religion. Killing for one's country began to become excusable, even virtuous, just as killing for one's religion had been.

And it may be at just this point that Americans can begin to answer the question, Why do they do it? Americans have been appalled at the matter-of-fact manner in which ISIS beheadings have been conducted, and at the lighthearted manner observed online among ISIS bystanders. But we are accustomed to hear our armed forces characterize even their most violent war making in matter-of-fact statements like, "We had a job to do, and we did it." Humor or light-heartedness is, you might say, as American as M.A.S.H.

This is not, I hasten to add, to make any simple equation of ISIS with the American armed forces. Far from it! But it is to note that violence and Muslim piety are linked in ISIS the way that violence and American patriotism are linked in the U.S.

And, finally, it is to note -- very sadly indeed -- that an intra-Muslim conflict with roots in the seventh century may have come to a belated climax and may have to run its course slowly and brutally. Between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean, Sunni and Shia numbers are so nearly equal that neither is in a position to establish a quick, clear total victory over the other. Just as Protestants and Catholics concluded in their Wars of Religion, Sunni and Shia have to exhaust one another before concluding that neither side can determine what their religion is to be in the future. And they must come to this conclusion on their own -- not through any American intervention or clever coalition-formation.

SHIA-SUNNI SORTING MAY BE NECESSARY

The past fifty years have been a period of enormous demographic diversification in the West. A Pakistan-born Muslim friend of mine recently noted happily that in 1970, there were just 35,000 Muslims in Canada and one mosque in Toronto, while today there are over one million Muslims in Canada and 35 mosques in Toronto. Yet in the Middle East, this half-century (and earlier) has been one of progressive demographic simplification. Before World War I, Jews accounted for one third of the population of Baghdad, and as late as 1948 there were still 150,000 Jews in Iraq. Today, there are effectively none.

True, the founding of the State of Israel led to a vast evacuation/expulsion of Jews from all the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East. But no such single crisis explains the fact that at the start of the twentieth century, Christians constituted twenty percent of the population of the region, while today they constitute just four percent, and emigration is steadily accelerating. The Copts are leaving Egypt. The Greeks and Armenians are gone from Turkey. Christianity may soon be virtually extinct even in Bethlehem. Demographic simplification in the Middle East is undeniable.

"Traumatic mass migration seems already under way and may be
the only practically available formula for peace."

But there is no guarantee that this process of religious and ethnic simplification should stop at Jews and Christians and not engulf Shia and Sunni as well. The Peace of Westphalia re-drew parts of the map of Europe. Peace in the Middle East may yet do the same. After the Peace of Westphalia, continuing intra-Christian religious discrimination within states where either Protestantism or Catholicism was established led to the expulsion or motivated migration of thousands of Catholics and Protestants to states where their respective forms of Christianity suffered no discrimination. The result was a Europe divided into virtually homogeneous religious enclaves, some large, others quite small. Division of the Mideast into religiously and ethnically homogeneous states would be impossible without traumatic mass migration -- but it seems already under way and may be the only practically available formula for peace.

ISIS has slaughtered or expelled Shia and Christians from Mosul, but official Iraq has countenanced a progressive, often violent expulsion of Sunni from much larger Baghdad. A process of mutual expulsion thus begun may have to continue until combustible human elements are almost entirely separated and the fire finally goes out. Partition has been a last-resort path to peace before (consider India and Pakistan). It may be so again.

If the European model offers any clue, diversity and tolerance may slowly return to the religiously and ethnically "purified" states that emerge -- but slowly may mean very slowly indeed. Sweden, to name one signatory to the Peace of Westphalia, did not finally disestablish the Lutheran Church as the state religion of Sweden until the year 2000.

"If the European model offers any clue, diversity and tolerance may slowly
return to the religiously and ethnically 'purified' states that emerge."

Terrorism expert Jessica Matthews recently envisioned a peace plan in which the Bashar al-Assad regime (plus backer Iran) and the non-ISIS Sunni opposition (plus backer Saudi Arabia) join forces to defeat ISIS. Perhaps some such revised coalition recipe might work. A rapprochement between the major Sunni and the major Shia power in the Middle East (counting Turkey, for the moment, as a secular power) might even portend a Middle East version of the Peace of Westphalia. I submit, however, that such a rapprochement can only succeed if those two powers and their clients truly impose this rapprochement upon themselves and do not merely temporize with an American diplomatic effort to make them do it for American reasons.

Lasting peace will ultimately follow on the defeat of ISIS only if that defeat proves the prelude to something much deeper -- a peace between Sunni and Shia whose true implementation might not be possible without something like the painful sorting of populations that seems already to be under way. Meanwhile, a chastened American diplomacy must finally recognize that there are conflicts for which, with even the best of intentions, there is no American solution.


* * * * * * * * * * *


Jack Miles is general editor of the just-published The Norton Anthology of World Religions, a magisterial reference work of seven years of work by a team of seven internationally-recognized scholars. Miles won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for his bookGod: A Biography and is a former MacArthur "Genius" Fellow (2003-2007).






Saturday, November 8, 2014

Huff Post - 10 Ways Introverts Interact Differently With The World



10 Ways Introverts Interact Differently With The World
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/physical-behavior-of-introverts_n_6069438.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051&ir=Religion

The Huffington Post | By Alena Hall
Posted: 11/07/2014 8:06 am EST Updated: 11/07/2014 11:59 am EST

Introverts and extraverts may seem the same on the surface, but if you look at the way they respond to life's everyday occurrences, differences begin to emerge.

Last month, for example, Science of Us writer Melissa Dahl reported on findings from psychologist Brian Little's latest book on personality science, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being, which showed that introverts are better off avoiding caffeine before a big meeting or important event.

Little cites the theory of extraversion by Hans Eysenck and research by William Revelle of Northwestern University, explaining that introverts and extraverts naturally differ when it comes to their alertness and responsiveness to a given environment. A substance or scene that overstimulates the central nervous system of an introvert (which doesn't take much) might cause him or her to feel overwhelmed and exhausted, rather than excited and engaged.

In her 2012 TED Talk titled "The Power of Introverts," author Susan Cain reiterated this point in her definition of introversion, explaining that the trait is "different from being shy."

"Shyness is about fear of social judgment," Cain said. "Introversion is more about how do you respond to stimulation, including social stimulation. So extraverts really crave large amounts of stimulation, whereas introverts feel at their most alive - and their most switched on - and their most capable - when they are in quieter, more low-key environments."

Now it goes without saying that most of our societal constructs cater to the former -- from open office spaces to loud bars to the structure of our educational system -- despite the fact that anywhere from one-third to half of the population has an introverted temperament.

While a person's introverted or extraverted tendencies fall within a spectrum -- there is no such thing as a pure introvert or pure extravert, according to famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung -- an introvert is most obvious and vulnerable when he or she is in an overstimulating environment.

Coffee jitters aside, here are 10 ways introverts physically interact with the world around them differently than extraverts.


They withdraw in crowds.


"We hit the 20th century and we entered a new culture that historians call the culture of personality," said Cain in her TED Talk. "We had evolved from an agricultural economy to a world of big business, and so suddenly people are moving from small towns to the cities, and instead of working alongside people they've known all their lives, now they are having to prove themselves in a crowd of strangers."

The resulting crowd, which is often loud, noisy and congested, easily overstimulates introverts and drains them of their physical energy. They end up feeling more physically isolated than supported by their surroundings, and would rather be anywhere but that sea of people.


Small talk stresses them out, while deeper conversations make them feel alive.

While most extraverts are energized by such interactions, introverts often feel intimidated, bored or exhausted by them. It's not uncommon in large conversations for introverts to take on the role of the quiet listener and then take time alone once it's complete.

As Sophia Dembling, the author of The Introvert's Way: Living A Quiet Life In A Noisy World, explains in her book, it ultimately comes down to how a person receives (or doesn't receive) energy from his or her surroundings. Instead, introverts prefer deeper conversations, oftentimes about philosophical ideas.


They succeed on stage -- just not in the chit-chat afterwards.


“At least half of people who speak for a living are introverted in nature,” according to Jennifer B. Kahnweiler, Ph.D, a certified speaking professional, executive coach and author of Quiet Influence: The Introvert’s Guide to Making a Difference. They simply play to their strengths, and prepare extensively. In fact, some of the most successful performers are introverts. Remaining on a stage, removed from a massive audience, proves far easier than the small talk-filled conversations that follow.


They get distracted easily, but rarely feel bored.

If you're looking to destroy an introverted person's attention span, just put them in a situation where they feel overstimulated. Due to increased sensitivity to their surroundings, introverts struggle with feeling distracted and sometimes overwhelmed in large crowds and open office spaces.

However, when they are in peace and quiet, they have no issue tending to a favorite hobby or delving into a new book for hours. Having that time to take care of their inner selves helps them recharge while enjoying an activity they already enjoy.


They are naturally drawn to more creative, detail-oriented and solitary careers.


Introverts naturally prefer spending time alone or in a small group, delving deeply into one task at a time and taking their time when it comes to making decisions and solving problems. Therefore, they fare better in work environments that allow them to do all of these things. Certain professions -- including writers, in-the-field natural scientists and behind-the-scenes tech workers -- can give introverts the intellectual stimulation they crave without the distracting environment they dislike.


When surrounded by people, they locate themselves close to an exit.

Introverts not only feel physically uncomfortable in crowded places, but also do their best to mediate that discomfort by hanging as close to the periphery as possible. Whether it be by an exit, at the back of a concert hall, or an aisle row on an airplane, they avoid being surrounded by people on all sides, according to Dembling.

"We're likely to sit in places where we can get away when we're ready to -- easily," Dembling previously told HuffPost.


They think before they speak.


This habit of introverts is often what earns them their reputations as listeners. It is second nature to them to take their time before opening their mouths, reflecting internally, instead of thinking out loud (which is more common among extraverts). They may seem more quiet and shy because of this behavior, but it just means that when they do speak, the words they share have that much more thought -- and sometimes power -- behind them.


They don't take on the mood of their environment like extraverts do.

A 2013 study published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that extraverts and introverts process experiences through the brain's "reward" centers quite differently. While extraverts often sense a feel-good rush of dopamine related to their surroundings, introverts tend to not experience such a shift. In fact, people who are naturally introverted do not process rewards from external factors as strongly as extraverts do.


They physically can't stand talking on the phone.


Most introverts screen their phone calls -- even from their friends -- for several reasons. The intrusive ringing forces them to abandon focus on a current project or thought and reassign it to something unexpected. Plus, most phone conversations require a certain level of small talk that introverts avoid. Instead, introverts may let calls go to voicemail so they can return them when they have the proper energy and attention to dedicate to the conversation.


They literally shut down when it's time to be alone.

"Solitude matters, and for some people, it is the air that they breathe." - Susan Cain

Every introvert has a limit when it comes to stimulation. HuffPost blogger Kate Bartolotta explains it well when she writes, "Think of each of us as having a cup of energy available. For introverts, most social interactions take a little out of that cup instead of filling it the way it does for extroverts. Most of us like it. We're happy to give, and love to see you. When the cup is empty though, we need some time to refuel."