Living the Questions (LTQ) 2.0: Adult Education for the Journey

Posted on by Lisa Bell

An Invitation to Journey: Beginning on Sept. 23, we will begin our DVD and discussion gatherings at 9 a.m. in the Conference Room.

Each Sunday morning we will watch a DVD and discuss issues and concepts that may challenge many people’s worldview and understanding of the Divine.  It may, for some, be radically new information.  For others, it will be an affirmation of what they’ve known deep down for a long time.

The intention of this information and discussion is not to provide answers but to expose people to ideas and concepts that may take a while to process.

Sept. 23 — An Invitation to Journey

  • Focus: Faith is not a destination, but a journey

Sept. 30 — Taking the Bible Seriously

  • Focus: The authority one places in the Bible plays a critical role in one’s worldview and understanding of the Christian life.

Oct. 7 — Thinking Theologically

  • Focus:   While family, education, social class, and geography all contribute to how we think about God, our experiences and perceptions along life’s journey also shape our thinking. Being comfortable with ambiguity, metaphor, and uncertainty help us get the Divine “out of the box” and rethink theological ideas that have become barriers to our further spiritual growth.

Oct. 14 — Stories of Creation

  • Focus: How one perceives the creation stories is not only critical to the way one looks at the Bible, but how one understands the purpose of creation, the essence of human nature, and the attitude one takes toward the environment in which we live.

Oct. 21 — Lives of Jesus

  • Focus: From divergent opinions on Jesus’ “program” to the reasons for his having been killed, the many portrayals of Jesus in the gospels, in various traditions, theologies, and the arts, amount to a Jesus who lived many different lives—each of which helps us in teasing out what it means to be a disciple of this mysterious and profoundly significant phenomenon called Jesus of Nazareth.

Oct. 28 — A Passion for Christ: Paul the Apostle

  • Focus: Little of what most people think of as Christianity has been untouched by the legacy of Paul’s writing and influence. The many understandings of his interpretation of Christianity continue to be re-examined in the 21st century.

Nov. 4 — Out into the World: Challenges Facing Progressive Christians

  • Focus: There is a reformation afoot in Christianity—a re-visioning of the traditional understandings of Jesus, the virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, and the Christian life as a whole. Long held ideas of divinity and of faith are changing and evolving to reflect 21st century thought and spirituality. Inspired by these fresh insights, progressive Christians can claim a distinctive voice by being in solidarity with the poor, countering the idolatry of wealth, practicing non-violence, and by seeking justice and inclusivity in a culture dominated by fear.

Nov. 11 — Restoring Relationships

  • Focus: There are three Biblical “macro-stories” that shape the whole of the Biblical narrative: Bondage and Liberation, Exile and Return, Sin and Forgiveness. Each representing a different facet of the human condition, they demonstrate what is necessary for the restoration of relationships on a variety of levels.

Nov. 18 — The Prophetic Jesus

  • Focus: Jesus was a troublemaker. He said and did things that were upsetting to agents of the political and religious domination systems that oppressed the weak and downtrodden. In this way, Jesus stood firmly in the tradition of the prophets of Hebrew Scripture—those who offered a clear and challenging “alternative script” to the status quo.

Nov. 25 — NO LTQ (Thanksgiving Weekend)

Dec. 2 — NO LTQ (Hanging of the Greens)

Dec. 9 — Evil, Suffering & A God of Love

  • Focus: If God is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-good, how do you explain and respond to the existence of so much suffering and evil in the world?

Dec. 16 — The Myth of Redemptive Violence

  • Focus: The most potent religion in Western culture is not Christianity, but a belief in the redemptive power of violence. Although Jesus inaugurated a new order based on partnership, equality, compassion and non-violence, his example and teachings have been eclipsed by an emphasis on a human unworthiness that demands and defends the need for Jesus’ violent, suffering, atoning death.

Dec. 23 — NO LTQ

Dec. 30 — NO LTQ

Jan. 6 — NO LTQ

Jan. 13 — Practicing Resurrection

  • Focus: While much has been made of Jesus’ literal and physical resurrection being the core historical event of Christianity, the Biblical texts themselves present conflicting evidence. For many today, the resuscitation of Jesus’ body is less important than the idea of resurrection as a credible and meaningful principle for living.

DVD speakers include Marcus Borg, Rita Nakashima Brock, Walter Brueggemann, John Dominic Crossan, Yvette Flunder, Amy-Jill Levine, Helen Prejean, John Shelby Spong, just to name of few.

Come and join us on this journey of exploration.

New ‘Living the Questions’ series starts Nov. 5: The Fatwa Jesus

Posted on by rubenmarkcomcastnet
Living the Questions -- The Fatwa Jesus

Living the Question returns on Nov. 5 for five weeks, at 9:15 a.m. in the CUCC Conference Room.

Session  1: Islam 101 —  In Which We Tell You Some of What  You Need to  Know  About Islam.

In this session, we look the basic tenants of Islam. We live in an era in which much of what passes as information about Islam is weed-like disinformation rooted in stereotype and watered by fear.

We decided to weed out the tares of ignorance by doing what, for Christians, apparently is radical: We spoke to some actual Muslims and to Christian scholars whose intellectual garden-sheds are filled with the tools of fact-based knowledge. The product of these conversations is a harvest of reliable information about what your Muslim neighbors and coworkers believe and about how they live out their faith.

Session 2: “Misconceptions about Islam — In Which We Help You Adjust Your Malarky Filter.”

Again, we took the radical step of getting to know actual Muslims, and in our conversations, we asked them to tell us about how American public discourse tends to misrepresent Islam. We are confident that you will like the people you meet as you join in this conversation.

Session 3: “Islam in America — In Which We Introduce You to People Who Love America and Pray Toward Mecca.”

Chief among the popular anti-Muslim stereotypes is the idea that Muslims are plotting to overthrow American society. In fact, most Muslims love the United States. This is true of Muslims living in countries where Islam is the predominant religion, and it is especially is true in the United States, where Muslims, as a demographic, are among the most patriotic American citizens.

Session 4: “Making Connections, Part  1 — We asked Non-Muslims and Muslims to talk to us about building relationships across the lines of faith, and while the answers were compatible-and even complementary-it was interesting to observe the ways in which Muslims and Christians spoke differently about interfaith cooperation. Christians tended to take an intellectual approach starting with the mind; Muslims were more likely to approach the issue relationally, starting with the heart.

Session 5: “Making Connections, Part  2: Continued — The Participant Reader was written by Rev. Ben Daniel, author of The Search for Truth about Islam: A Christian Pastor Separates Fact from Fiction.

The Jesus Fatwah was conceived and produced by Rev. David Felten and Rev. Jeff Procter-Murphy, authors and co-creators of Living the Questions.

Living the Questions — Painting the Stars

Posted on by Lisa Bell
Image for Living the Questions -- Painting the Stars

“Living the Questions — Painting the Stars: Science, Religion, and an Evolving Faith” will begin at 9:15 a.m. on Kick-off Sunday, Sept. 10 in the Conference Room. Patrick Furlong will facilitate.

“Living the Questions“ is a source of curriculum and media for both seekers and “church alumni/ae” convinced that Christianity still has relevance in the 21st century. “Living the Questions” can help people explore the future of Christianity and what a meaningful faith can look like in today’s world.

Topic for Sept. 10 – Toward Healing the Rift

“The overlapping domains of science, religion, and philosophy should be regarded as virtual rain forests of cross-pollinating ideas-precious reserves of endless fecund memes that are the raw ingredients of consciousness itself in all its diverse manifestations.  The mess science/religion/philosophy interface should be treasured as an incredibly fruitful cornucopia of creative ideas–a constantly coevolving cultural triple helix of interacting ideas and beliefs that is, by far, the most precious of all the Questions treasures yielded by our history of cultural evolution on Earth.”  –James Gardner

Upcoming Weekly DVD/Discussions for Painting the Stars

  • A Renaissance of Wonders
  • Getting Genesis Wrong
  • An Evolving Faith
  • Evolutionary Christianity
  • Imagining a Future
  • An Evolving Spirituality: Mysticism