Weekend Event—Rita Nakashima Brock
September 24-25, 2010
Fri. 7:30-9pm - Sat. 9 am-2:30pm
Saving Paradise:
How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire
Upcoming Weekend Events
Friday & Saturday, 10/22/10 & 10/23/10 - BISHOP JOHN SPONG, Retired Episcopal Bishop
Friday & Saturday, 2/25/11 & 2/26/11 - JOHN DOMINIC CROSSAN, Professor, Speaker, Author
Friday & Saturday, 4/15/11 & 4/16/11 - PAUL KNITTER, Professor, Speaker, Author
Listed below is information about our Fall 2010 Luncheon Lectures, next weekend event with Rita Nakashima Brock, the following weekend events – Spong, Crossan and Knitter, and the ongoing Foundation Gathering Groups.
Click on an event title below for more information.
LUNCHEON LECTURE SERIES – FALL 2010
Luncheons are held the second Wednesday of each month at The Forest Club, 9950 Memorial Drive, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Cost is $25.00 per Event.
“Death and Resurrection in East Texas”
The incomprehensible happened in the town of Jasper, Texas, with the lynching-by-dragging death of James Byrd, Jr., in June 1998. What was equally unforeseen was the response of the community to the calamity, led by churches. Dr. Neff was the Minister of First Methodist Church at the time of the tragedy.
“Late Age and Ethical Imperatives”
What are the ethical imperatives that emerge if you take a theological perspective on late age with the physical disintegrations that generally occur? How should individuals and the community respond? Dr. Montgomery is an Ordained Unitarian Universalist minister. This was her doctoral topic at Rice University.
“On Seeing the Light: Mysticism in the Confessions of Augustine”
This talk will focus on Augustine’s pivotal visions of God in Books 7 and 9 of the Confessions. After a textual overview of the passages read in context, we will sift through various psychological and theological interpretations, bringing the conclusion to bear on a modern understanding of the spiritual life. Dr. Parsons is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University.
“Speaking Peace by Connecting with the Divine Energy within Each of Us”
Communicating with others individually and in groups is an essential and pervasive human activity. A practical process of communication known around the world as Nonviolent Communication was first articulated by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg in the 1960’s. Bren is a CNVC certified facilitator and co-founder of The Decade of Nonviolence—Houston.
Friday, September 24 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, September 25 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
At St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, Fondren Hall, 5501 Main Street, Houston, TX 77004
Rita Nakashima Brock, Visiting Scholar at the Starr King School for the Ministry, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, and Founder of Faith Voices for the Common Good
“Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of God’s Creation for Crucifixion and How We Can Learn to Love the Paradise in This World”
It took Jesus a thousand years to die, for images of his corpse did not appear in churches until the tenth century. Prior to that, images in churches depicted views of Paradise, for the living as well as the dead. In the early centuries, Christians looked to Jesus as the one who brought paradise on earth in a loving community. Images of Christ’s passion and death invaded Christian art when the Church used a theology of otherworldly salvation to recruit the forces necessary to build a Christian empire. Also at this time the idea that Jesus took our place to satisfy God’s wrath arose. This truly revolutionary view led Dr. James Forbes, Senior Minister emeritus of Riverside Church in NYC to say, “This may mark a paradigm shift in contemporary Christian understanding and interfaith dialogue”.
The Lectures
Friday evening, 24 Sep 7:30–9:00pm
In the Beginning: A Life-Affirming Christianity of Justice, Joy, and Love of Beauty, Hidden in Plain Sight
No images of the dead body of Jesus existed in Christian church art for a millennium. Instead, churches filled their spaces with images of paradise as this world, and of the risen Christ who hosted the Eucharist feast of abundant life. This lecture explores the implications of these images for Christian worship and understandings of Jesus Christ and the presence of God in the world as inspiration for ministries of feeding the hungry, healing the sick and broken-hearted, teaching the ignorant, resisting Roman violence and oppression, loving each other and beauty, and caring for creation.
Saturday morning, 25 Sep 9:00–10:20am
God Planted a Garden: Paradise in the Bible
Paradise frames the entire biblical story. John and Luke, especially, emphasize paradise themes, as do many of the Psalms, Amos, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. The story begins with Genesis 1-2, echoes in the Song of Songs, and ends with the book of Revelation with a renewed city. In reading the story of the Bible as the struggle for paradise in this world, we can uncover a different, life-affirming understanding of Christian faith. Bring your Bibles!
Saturday morning, 25 Sep 10:40am–12:00noon
What Went Wrong? The Crusades, Sacred Violence, Conquest, and Colonization
Beginning in the ninth to twelfth centuries, Western Christians shifted from salvation as baptism into paradise in this world to salvation in the afterlife through crucifixion. Then they started exporting this faith via conquest, colonization, and enslavement of indigenous people. In the U.S. this faith grounds what American historian Richard Slotkin calls “the myth of regeneration through violence”. This lecture explores the imperial pressures of violence that caused this shift and how it shaped the kind of Christianity that arrived on the shores of North America.
Saturday afternoon, 25 Dec 1:00–2:30pm
An Earth-Embracing, Beauty-Loving, Justice-Seeking Christianity, for Today
In the wake of the collapse of medieval Christianity and the development of science and Enlightenment humanism, new Christian social justice movements in the 19th and 20th centuries sought to retrieve this-worldly forms of faith and create the kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven”. They echo early Christian sensibilities about this earth and this life as blessing, reject much about medieval Christianity that worships death and suffering, and seek to restore a this-worldly Christianity. This final lecture examines these movements and their possibilities for an earth-loving Christianity for this new century.
Schedule of events
Friday, September 24
7:00–7:30 p.m. — Registration (payment can be made with cash, check or credit card)
7:30–9:00 p.m. — Welcome, Introductions — Lecture I: “In the Beginning: A Life-Affirming Christianity of Justice, Joy and Love of Beauty, Hidden in Plain Sight”
Saturday, September 25
8:30–9:00 a.m. — Registration
9:00–10:20 a.m. — Lecture II: “God Planted a Garden: Paradise in the Bible”
10:20–10:40 a.m. — Break
10:40–12:00 noon — Lecture III: “What Went Wrong? The Crusades, Sacred Violence, Conquest and Colonization”
12:00–1:00 p.m. &mdash Box Lunch (included with registration)
1:00–2:30 p.m. — Lecture IV: “An Earth-Embracing, Beauty-Loving, Justice-Seeking Christianity, for Today”
“Eternal Life: A New Vision – Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell”
Biblical scholar, author and lecturer; authority on the historical Jesus and First Century Christianity
Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture
Members of our weekly Gathering groups continue to help us on our journeys by studying our scholars, presenting new ideas and sharing insights gleaned from their own journeys. They are a safe place to share probings through inquiry, doubting and wondering, which are an essential part of what the Foundation offers. Information is listed below. Call 713-668-2345 for more information on the basis of study.
Click here for more information about these discussion groups.
