Greetings, WesleyNexus Colleagues:
The Wesleyan tradition since inception with John Wesley in England has always encouraged faith-filled critical thinking and education. This month WesleyNexus highlights a number of brain-stretching educational opportunities and articles. All day and multi-day seminars are available for online and in-person engagement. Post-event viewing on-line is an option as defined by each event. We also hope you will read the three thought pieces included in this issue.
Contents:
IRAS Webinar: Weaving a Web of Meaning: How Recognizing Our Deep Interrelatedness Lays a Path to Sustainable Flourishing with Jeremy Lent
Online International Open and Relational Theology Conference
IRAS Webinar Series
What is Process Theology? A one-day Introduction to Process Philosophy & Theology
Book Review : “The Ecology of Freedom: the emergence and dissolution of hierarchy” by Murray Bookchin By Daniel E. Valentín-Morales
That TheyAll May Be One: Experiencing the Breadth of Christian Traditions by Tucker McDonald
Meditation adapted from the opening editorial in The Christian Century, February 2023 written by Peter W. Marty by Maynard Moore
Thanks continue to go out to our generous contributors. We encourage you to share comments, articles and insights that will help us all weather these difficult times.
Blessings,
Rick Barr and the rest of the WesleyNexus team
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February 9, 2023 Webinar
Weaving a Web of Meaning: How Recognizing Our Deep Interrelatedness Lays a Path to Sustainable Flourishing with Jeremy Lent
On February 9, 2023 5:00 Eastern, 4:00 Central
Presentation Overview:
Our dominant worldview tells us we’re split between mind and body, separate from each other, and at odds with the natural world. This worldview has passed its expiration date: it’s based on a series of flawed assumptions that have been superseded by modern scientific findings. In this talk, based on themes from his recent book, The Web of Meaning, author Jeremy Lent will discuss how another worldview is possible—recognizing our deep interrelatedness with all of life.
Showing how modern scientific knowledge echoes the ancient wisdom of earlier cultures, the talk weaves together findings from modern systems thinking, evolutionary biology, and cognitive neuroscience with insights from Buddhism, Taoism, and Indigenous wisdom.
About the February 9th presenter:
Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. His award-winning books, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, and The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, trace the historical underpinnings and flaws of the dominant worldview, and offer a foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a flourishing future. He has written extensively about the vision of, and pathways toward, an ecological civilization and is founder of the Deep Transformation Network.
Respondent: Rev. “Twinkle” Marie Manning is the senior minister for The Church of Kineo in Rockwood and the contract minister for the Universalist Church of Waterville, Maine. She is an interfaith minister, poet, author, artist and an award-winning television producer. She is the creator and executive producer of TV for Your Soul and leads the Empowering Women TV Project. She curates the Women of Spirit and Reflection & Blessing Books series by Matrika Press. Her first poetry book, Accompanied, was published in 2021. Twinkle leads retreats and workshops, and is in demand as a speaker for groups, organizations and churches. Her personal theology, motto and mantra is Living Life as a Prayer. Twinkle resides with her family on majestic Moosehead Lake in Maine.
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eXxzwbRDQPuOTzfqgmRikA
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Online International Open and Relational Theology Conference
Date and time: Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 8:00 AM – Sat, Feb 11, 2023, 5:00 PM MS
Online
This two-day online zoom conference features authors recently published in the field of open and relational theology. Authors confirmed to date include Gabriel Atchison, Chad Bahl, Michael Berra, Joseph Bracken, John Buchanon, Anna Case-Winters, Ilia Delio, Bruce Epperly, Jonathan Foster, Greg Hoover, Michael Lodahl, Brian McLaren, Thomas Jay Oord, Russell Pregeant, Ian Todd, Keith Ward, and Randy Woodley.
Get in early on the price!
We realize conference attendees may not be able to participate every hour of the conference. So audio recordings will be available to conference registrants to download for 90 days after the conference.
Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord, Jonathan Foster, and Brian Felushko. Emails will be added to respective newsletters. You, of course, will be welcome to unsubscribe if you need.
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The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS)
IRAS is an international society of learners and thinkers, natural and social scientists, philosophers, theologians and people from many other backgrounds and professions. IRAS cultivates a community of informed and respectful inquiry and dialogue at the intersections of science with religion, spirituality and philosophy in service of global, societal and personal well-being.
IRAS Webinar Series
For 65 years, The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) has held summer Conferences on Star Island, off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Due to the pandemic, we had to postpone our 2020 Star Island conference until the summer of 2021. In order to continue to engage with IRAS themes and the IRAS community, with Star Island’s generous support, we launched a live webinar series: Science, Religion, & Society.
https://www.iras.org/webinar-series.html
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What is Process Theology? A one-day Introduction to Process Philosophy & Theology
February 14, 2023, Claremont, CA and online
With Dr. C. Robert Mesle, Session Starts @10 PST / @1 EST
Dr. Mesle is the author of Process Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead and Process Theology: A Basic Introduction. Dr. Mesle has worked extensively in China with the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China, giving keynote addresses and teaching classes at many universities, on applications of Whitehead’s process relational philosophy. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy & Religion at Graceland University. He and his wife, Prof. Emeritus Barbara Hiles Mesle, are retired and live in Chicago.
With Dr. Mary Elizabeth Moore Session Starts @1 PST / @4 EST
Dr. Moore is Professor Emerita of Theology and Education and Dean Emerita of the School of Theology, Boston University. Her passion is to journey with others to build compassionate and prophetic communities, and a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world. Her books include: Teaching as a Sacramental Act, Ministering with the Earth, Teaching from the Heart: Theology and Educational Method; and Education for Continuity and Change. She has engaged actively in justice work in the church and in intercultural, interreligious relationship-building in local, professional, and academic settings.
Be introduced to the Process vision by some of the best communicators during this one-day teach-in. You can join online or in person and watch the sessions live or on your schedule. This event is donation based (including 0), so join the nerdy fun and tell your friends!
https://theonlygodordainedsurvey.com/adayofpp/
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Book Review
“The Ecology of Freedom: the emergence and dissolution of hierarchy” by Murray Bookchin By Daniel E. Valentín-Morales
“The very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human.”(65) With this phrase Murray Bookchin gives us the building block upon which his seminal work, “The Ecology of Freedom: the emergence and dissolution of hierarchy” is built. Influenced by the methods of Peter Kropotkin, Hans Jonas, Theodor Adorno, Karl Marx and Max Weber, Bookchin embarks on the daunting task of tracing, and making sense of, the broader issue behind the ecological crises we are faced with today. Namely: the emergence of a culture of domination that has poisoned our relationship with one another and by extension the rest of the natural world.
He begins with an explanation of ‘social ecology’, a method for understanding ecosystems that views nature as something intrinsically tied to human reality, not merely raw organic material. Ecology “deals with the dynamic balance of nature, with the interdependence of living and non-living things” as opposed to environmentalism which Bookchin describes uses a “mechanistic… outlook that sees nature as a passive habitat composed of ‘objects’… that must merely be rendered more serviceable for human use.”(85-86) Since humanity is part of nature, a consistent ecology must also take human activity into account when considering how to maintain or interact with a local ecosystem. In other words, social ecology can help us take a holistic look at the relationship between humanity and the natural world, just as we read in many modern eco-theologies as well as the writings of past creation-centered theologians.
For Bookchin early human communities that developed out of a common experience tied to a specific ecological reality, “organic communities” as he calls them, had a better understanding of the necessary complexity and interdependence of nature. The natural world should not be viewed as separate from humanity and all our institutions but rather as a necessary precondition for all we create. Without the complexity of that precondition humanity itself could not survive. Humanity is not simply another animal on the planet but rather “the very ‘knowingness’ of nature, the embodiment of nature’s evolution into intellect, mind and self-reflexivity” (104). The outlook of organic communities, albeit more ‘mystified’ or superstitious, helped them interact in a more ecologically minded way with all that was around them. In contrast, our modern one, with its technology and social institutions influenced by an ethos of domination, individuation, and simplification, is disassembling a biotic diversity that took eons to develop and which allowed humanity, an incredibly complex life-form in and of itself, to exist.
According to Bookchin, the question is then: how can we, in a modern world that has tried to unravel this primordial ‘interface’ with nature through a process of alienation and objectification grounded in domination, begin to re-establish said interface in a more liberatory manner? Can we untether our technology and our social institutions from the culture of domination that has exponentially accelerated and become hegemonic in the last 500 years of human history? How can we undo the ‘despiritualization’ of God’s creation, or what Bookchin simply describes as the simplification and objectification (domination) of nature which was preceded by the simplification and objectification (domination) of humanity?
In this eye-opening work Bookchin manages to outline, in as concise a presentation as possible, the effect domination and hierarchy had on the historical development of ‘organic communities’; the continuing role that domination plays in our modern society as it was entrenched in western notions of ‘justice’; how Christianity both helped and hindered that development in Western society; and how our socio-economic techniques have been influenced by said culture of domination.
An ecology of freedom is therefore only feasible when we try to be as holistic as possible in our approach to solving social and environmental issues: by dealing with the root of the problem, domination. It is an approach that understands how modern techniques -from agriculture and urban planning to community and economic development – when used in an ecologically minded and liberatory fashion can re-establish a healthy ‘interface’ between humanity and the natural world. It is an outlook that genuinely recognizes Jesus’ words “truly I tell you: anything you did for one of my brothers here, however insignificant, you did for me” as a serious maxim. Be the ‘insignificant’ human, animal, or plant life. Those of us trying to live a more ecologically minded life should give this book a read.
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That They All May Be One: Experiencing the Breadth of Christian Traditions by Tucker McDonald
This article by Tucker McDonald, a missionary with the United Methodist Church currently serving in Tanzania, emphasizes the importance of unity within the Christian church while recognizing at the same time the various “streams” that have flown through the church over the centuries. He emphasizes five areas of growth needed when engaging with other denominations. These five areas should be applied beyond the Christian church as a guide to engaging with others, both within faith communities and outside them. The challenges of faith and science provide an opportunity to grow in all five areas.
Tucker begins his article by recognizing six streams by pointing to Richard Foster’s “Streams of Living Waters”.
“In Richard J. Foster’s Streams of Living Water, he demonstrates that there are six different streams of Christian tradition that all flow from Christ’s Spirit like a rushing river flows from its source. The six streams he identifies are Evangelical, Incarnational, Contemplative, Holiness, Social Justice, and Charismatic. All these aspects of the faith embodied in these traditions are perfected in the person of Jesus Christ, but as the Church moved through history these streams diverged and have never fully reconciled. We could spend our entire lives in one stream and never once wade over to another riverbank to be refreshed by the same life-giving Spirit. But we should make every effort to see our brothers and sisters in the faith who are truly redeemed as an expression of Christ’s varied Spirit.”
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Meditation adapted from the opening editorial in The Christian Century, February 2023 written by Peter W. Marty by Maynard Moore
Richard Hofstadter’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book Anti-intellectualism in American Life was published 60 years ago this month. In it, Hofstadter suggests that American culture has recast the role of the intellect as a vice instead of a virtue, diminishing expertise while glorifying the plain sense of the common person. Anti-intellectualism, he writes, is “a resentment .. . of the life of the mind and of those who are considered to represent it; and a disposition constantly to minimize the value of that life.” Hofstadter saw political, business, educational, and religious leaders prioritizing practical success over the life of the mind.
Meanwhile, in contemporary life, anti-intellectualism has metastasized across large swaths of American culture. Many Americans today—including many Christians—are decidedly hostile to scientific discovery, just as they’re enamored with conspiratorial thinking. Contempt for learned authority is on the rise, matched only by a growing willingness to dismiss truth and embrace disinformation. Widespread derision of factual knowledge is commonplace. Most disturbingly, ideologically-driven book-banning efforts seek to close the minds of our youngest generation.
Hofstadter saw American evangelicalism as a chief culprit in America’s lack of intellectual rigor. Theologian and church historian Mark Noll pondered similar issues 30 years later in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Noll researches the history of evangelicalism and explores why so many evangelicals fail to sustain a serious intellectual life. Noll points out in the preface of a new edition to his book, “white evangelicals appear as the group most easily captive to conspiratorial nonsense, in greatest panic about their political opponents, or as most aggressively anti-intellectual.”
As much as this resonates with many of us, mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics are hardly exempt from treating the life of the mind lightly in their own pulpits and pieties. So there is a danger and a healthy dose of snobbery in a blanket condemnation of the evangelical movement. Evangelical leaders are in the forefront of serious and strong strategies to correct these tendencies. Dr. Walter Kim, President of the National Association of Evangelicals is a prime example of this effort, and Dr. Jessica Moerman, herself a geologist by vocation, is Vice President for Science & Policy of the Evangelical Environmental Network. Dr. Francis Collins founded Biologos, now headed by astronomer Dr. Deborah Haarsma, emeritus professor at Calvin University. There are eminent evangelicals heading serious projects internationally, notably Dr. Dennis R. Alexander, a molecular biologist and Emeritus Director of The Faraday Institute at Cambridge, UK. There are many more in the U.S. and Canada, members of the 80-year old American Scientific Affiliation (asa@asa3,org), Christian Women in Science, and other evangelical organizations.
Former senator John Danforth said, reflecting on the words, “love the Lord your God with all. . . your mind” in Matthew 22:37. “Doing God’s work requires more than a big beating heart.” Thorough reasoning that’s disciplined, analytical, curious, and hungry for truth is indispensable to loving God.
Peter Marty says, someone asked me recently what I think Christianity’s biggest challenge is in the coming decades. I told her that thinking Christians have to get to work. We need to reclaim Christianity from the politicized moorings of a mindless caricature of faith that bears little resemblance to the Jesus of the Gospels. So long as Jesus functions mostly as a hood ornament for many Christians— we can expect growing disillusionment among those who thought faith meant being transformed by the renewal of our minds, not being conformed to the flood of disinformation sweeping our world today. This challenge will grow ever more acute in the months ahead, and the thinking Christian will have no excuses to sit idly by while disinformation captivates the gullible.