Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2016 http://colleagueslist.blogspot.ca/

Friday 23 November 2018

Colleagues List, November 25th, 2018

Vol. XIV No. 20

GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

 
Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address:
wholst@telus.net

This email is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.
If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
write to me personally - waholst@telus.net

Dear Friends:
 
This issue of Colleagues List is rich and varied.
 
My introduction of the new book "Jon Sobrino - Spiritual
Writings" helps us to come to a more respectful appreciation
of a key founder of liberation theology. It is a movement I
have followed for half a century.
 
Gretta Vosper, restored United Church minister (see the
item of Colleagues List where the news first appeared on
November 11th) - https://tinyurl.com/yadhdptg -
has prompted commentary from colleagues Lorna Dueck
and John Stackhouse Jr. (spokespersons from Canada's
evangelical Christian community).

Lorna is typically diplomatic, while John is charactistically blunt. But both help to provide some good non-United Church of Canada perspective on this development.

As usual, there is much more here to enjoy. Welcome!

Wayne

*****

SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice -

JON SOBRINO
Spiritual Writings
Selected with an Introduction
by Robert Lassalle-Klein

Spiritual Masters Series
Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 10545
Paperback. 203 pages, $31.00 CAD.
ISBN #978-1-62698-300-7.

Publisher's Promo:

A new volume in the popular Modern Spiritual Masters series, this work focuses on the spiritual writings of Jesuit Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, one of the original voices of liberation theology and one of the most significant theologians in the church today

You ask, ‘Who are you?’ . . . It would be better to ask the crucified people. They know who we are, who I am—an answer that is not far from another traditional reply: God knows us better than we know ourselves.”

Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit priest in El Salvador, is one of the original voices of liberation theology and among the most influential and prophetic theologians in the church to­day. After studies in Germany, he returned to El Salvador, where his immersion in the world of the suffering poor transformed his theology. It was like “awakening from the sleep of inhu­manity.” From this perspective came a new understanding of Jesus’s life, death, and resur­rection, and their meaning for the “crucified peoples” of the planet.

Sobrino’s work was further shaped by his rela­tionship to Archbishop Romero and the other martyrs of El Salvador, particularly his own Jesuit community, who were massacred in 1989. This collection of his “spiritual writings,” including many texts translated here for the first time, conveys a powerful understanding of the meaning of discipleship in terms of soli­darity with the poor and rejected people of our world.

Editor's Bio:

Robert Lassalle-Klein is professor of religious studies and philosophy at Holy Names University in Oakland, CA. He is the author of Blood and Ink: Ignacio Ellacuría, Jon Sobrino, and the Jesuit Martyrs of the University of Central America (Orbis 2014), and co-editor of Love That Produces Hope: The Thought of Ignacio Ellacuría (Liturgical Press).

--
 
Sobrino Comments:

I am surprised and grateful for the interest in a collection of my spiritual writings. At the same time, I rejoice in this book because I believe that the topics addressed here will do some good: concerning God, Jesus of Nazareth, the martyrs, and the victims... I also believe that the topics, though weighty, generate hope... I desire that making these texts of mine widely available will bring inspiration and hope to everyone who reads them.

- from the foreword
  Jon Sobrino, Romero Centre, San Salvador

--

Sobrino Wikipedia Bio:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Sobrino

--

Editorial Remarks and Wayne's Comments:

Both new and experienced readers of Jon Sobrino will find
fresh questions and insights in the spiritual writings collected
here, some of them appearing for the first time. Several go to
the heart of what it means to be human in an often inhumane
world. Others take the reader inside remarkable friendships,
profound joys, and real suffering.


Jon Sobrino is perhaps the leading witness and interpreter of
the epoch-changing religious and political events that rocked
Latin America and the Catholic Church in the decades after
World War II.


(As a result of political and religious developments in Latin
America) many people there and around the world were
called to respond to the signs of the times in light of the
Gospel.


Their prayerful conclusion was that God was calling the
Latin American church to claim a "preferential option for
the poor" in support of the aspirations of the continent's
poor majorities for liberation and development.


(A long-standing friendship existed between Sobrino
and Archbishop Oscar Romero but Rome responded to
the theology of men like Sobrino by declaring that it gave
the "impression of errors". Sobrino responded with a blunt
and painful recitation of injustices against him and the
people he served. While he was never officially prevented

from writing, Rome had issued a "warning" against it.)

(After many years, however, the pendulum has reversed
direction. Recently, another progressive Latin American,
pope - Francis, has encouraged Sobrino to keep writing
and has reversed the negative Roman reaction by
declaring Romero a saint).


At long last, many personal letters sent by Sobrino to
his friends and to authorities in Rome appear for the
first time. Much pathos is recorded here as he tries to
be both faithful to his church authorities and to the
people he felt truly called to serve.


Sobrino speaks of the profound mystery living amid
this dichotomy presented to him. Out of these struggles,
he developed a theology "grounded in the poor and the
rejected of this world".


This resulting book leads readers through a developing
spirituality that was hard won but profoundly meaningful
and significant. It is a true grace to be able to participate
in the evolution of this spirituality. It is also proof that
"the arc of history does indeed tend toward justice".


- adapted from The Introduction

--

My Thoughts:

I first encountered the early writings of Jon Sobrino and
his nascent liberation theology while serving as a missionary
in Trinidad WI during the late 1960's - fifty years ago.

Little did I realize the impact of this movement and its
theological antecedents at the time, but I have since come to
discover just how important and far-reaching it was.

I was able to include themes learned in the 1960s with thesis
writing for my doctoral dissertation written during the 1980s.

We have also come to see the "spill-over" effect of liberation
theology in such movements as those promoting race, creed
and gender (even #me-too) equality into modern times. Who
knows what future implications remain to appear?

Another important shift resulting from liberation theology was
the evolution of theology from theory to practice. The good
theology I was first exposed to in the 1960s has developed
dramatically from "belief" to "praxis" for me. Theology that
cannot influence my behaviour is really not good theology
at all.

I continue to be grateful to the people at Orbis Books,
Maryknoll NY, and particularly colleague Robert Ellsberg
for continuing to publish new titles in the Spiritual Masters
Series, now numbering at least 70.
 
If you lived through the era when liberation theology first
appeared on the scene, or if you would like to be taken on
a guided tour of how it was formed in the writing of Jon
Sobrino, I encourage you to secure this book.
 
The witness of Jon Sobrino and his friend Oscar Romero are
now indelibly ingrained into Christian history, theology and
spirituality.
 
*****

Buy the book from Amazon.ca:
https://tinyurl.com/ycaf8jo3 

Buy the book from Orbis:
https://tinyurl.com/y8n3z322

*****
 
COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
 
John Stackhouse, Jr.
Moncton, NB
 
Personal Website,
November 19th, 2018
 
"Gretta Vosper and the
  United Church of Canada -
  What's Going ON?"
  https://tinyurl.com/ycolc5a7

--

Lorna Dueck,
Toronto, ON

Context Video Presentation
November 19th, 2018

"Canadian Christianity Under Construction? -
  An Interview with the Moderator of the United
  Church of Canada concerning Gretta Vosper, and
  other contemporary Canadian church issues"
  
https://tinyurl.com/y9kprjmy

--

Tom Ryan,
Boston, MA

Paulist Fathers Website,
November 19th, 2018

"Multi-Denominational Congregations
  in the USA and Canada"
  
https://tinyurl.com/yatbabum

--

Jim Taylor
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Log
November21st, 2018

"Confirmation -
  the old systems don't work anymore"
  
https://tinyurl.com/y73shbpw

--

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
November 19th, 2018

"Our Lack of Welcome"
  
https://tinyurl.com/y8f8vhhr

*****

NET NOTES
 
FAITH TO BE FOUND IN THE
CANADIAN PUBLIC SQUARE
It's There, But Maybe Not
Where You Might Expect It

Angus Reid Institute
Vancouver, BC

November 23rd, 2018
https://tinyurl.com/y9u5pzs8
 
--

SATISFACTION IN THE AGE OF GREED
Countering the Societal Need for More

Christian Century,
November 13th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/ydf8mow9

--

DOROTHY DAY - COLLEGE DROPOUT
She Became Famous Social Justice Advocate

America Magazine,
September 21st, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yawuwkeh

--

IS AMERICAN RELIGION EXCEPTIONAL?
Maybe - But Maybe Not

Religion News Service,
November 19th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/ybyd333p

--

WHEN CHRISTIAN PRACTICES HURT OTHER PEOPLE
Baptism, prayer, and Communion can all go “wayward,”
says Lauren Winner in her new book

Christianity Today,
November 15th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yazxez8n

--

CANADIAN CHURCH SAVED FROM THE SCRAP HEAP
Group to repair, create tourist attraction at
historic church in Cape Breton

La Croix International
November 21st, 2018
https://tinyurl.com/yczcf7ut

--

LOUIS RIEL LEGACY BRINGS PRIDE
TO METIS PEOPLE OF REGINA
"Rebel" Becomes Canadian "Hero"

Catholic Register,
November 15th, 2018
https://tinyurl.com/yawfumdy

--

ST. MARKS AND VST TO COLLABORATE IN
WEST COAST THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION
RC and Protestant Schools Follow National Trends

Vancouver School of Theology Website
November 22nd, 2018
https://tinyurl.com/yafq5dk2

--

MOST CANADIANS SEE IMMIGRATION
AS A POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Alternative to American Nativism

CBC News,
November 20th, 2018
https://tinyurl.com/ycs93oql

--

CHINA FANS FLAMES OF DISCONTENT
AS TIBETANS BURN
Many die by self-immolation, protesting
'colonial rule' against Tibetan culture

La Croix International
November 22nd, 2018
https://tinyurl.com/y89auskz

*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK

From Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:

I implore each of you to not give in to that anger or apathy
but instead turn to action. Because the antidote to injustice
is progress.

- Stacey Abrams

--

There is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy.

- Bryan Stevenson

--

Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes
for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.

- Blaise Pascal

--

Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we
are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today?

How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one
person’s seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do
what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be
shown what to do next.

- Elisabeth Elliot

--

The endless, useless urge to look on life comprehensively, to
take a bird’s-eye view of ourselves and judge the dimensions
of what we have or have not done: this is life as landscape, or
life as a résumé. But life is incremental, and though a worthwhile life is a gathering together of all that one is, good and bad, successful and not, the paradox is that we can never really see this one thing that all of our increments (and decrements, I suppose) add up to. “Early we receive a call,” writes Czeslaw Milosz, “yet it remains incomprehensible, and only late do we discover how obedient we were.”

- Christian Wiman

--

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center
of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the
realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine
and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even
though we were total strangers.… I suddenly saw the secret
beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither
sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their
reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they
could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could
see each other that way all the time. There would be no more
war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed.

- Thomas Merton


--

For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption
always improves people even here and now and will, in the end,

improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became
man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better
men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not
like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning
a horse into a winged creature. Of course, once it has got its
wings, it will soar over fences which could never have been
jumped and thus beat the natural horse at its own game.


But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning
to grow, when it cannot do so: and at that stage the lumps on
the shoulder - no one could tell by looking at them that they
are going to be wing - may even give it an awkward appearance.

 
- C. S. Lewis

(end)

***** 

For those interested:

ACTS ADVENT-CHRISTMAS BOOK SALE

Sundays, November 25th and December 2nd, 2018

Come to the book table in the church lobby...
Before or after the service, Sunday mornings...
We have many books to choose from...
Make your choices and pay in advance...
Your books should arrive the following week...
This system keeps your costs down...
A complete set of sale books is donated to our church library.

***
 
ST. DAVID'S ACTS MONDAY NIGHT FALL BOOK STUDY

A Ten Week Series September 17th - November 26th, 2018
Monday Evenings, TM Room 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

"THE BOOK OF JOY"
  Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

Authors: Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu

Registration/Hospitality and Book: $60.00.
Book only: $25.00
 
Registration and Book Sale began Sunday, August 26th
45 copies of the book were available for sale.
All are now sold. Total on-site registrations: 42
(plus 3 on-line participants). Grand Total: 45

Hardcover edition - https://tinyurl.com/yd849r6g
 
Background information on the study book will be
provided here during the weeks of the course.

https://tinyurl.com/ycz5wf72
 
--

Some annual stats:

During the 2017-2018 fall/winter two term series -
Total class registrations: 70
Total books sold: 84

Our best year ever, since we started in 1998!

***

ST. DAVID'S SPIRITUAL TRAVELERS TOUR, 2019
East Europe and Russia were chosen as our destinations!


This will be our fifth Spiritual Travelers Tour, with a
group emerging from St. David's but very open to others.
 
The Tour is entitled: "From Vienna to Moscow"

We plan a twenty-day tour that combines a focus
on spirituality, culture and the relationship between
religion and politics. The tour will run from April 26th
through May 16th, 2019.

https://tinyurl.com/y834742f

A beautiful brochure with trip cost, itinerary, and
many helpful travel hints has been published.


https://tinyurl.com/y7j55gym

Our trip sale has just reached an important milestone
as 38 persons have registered, helping us to surpass our
optimal goal of 30 passengers (all have earned early bird
registration benefits). A waiting list has been set up to
continue receiving applicants to replace any drop-outs
from the core group of passengers.

Our Canadian tour company is Rostad Tours, Calgary.
Contact Rostad Tours: http://www.rostad.com/

Phone 1-800-361-8687 or 403-238-4090.

Follow these notices for weekly updates.

***


ST. DAVID'S ACTS THURSDAY MORNING BIBLE STUDY
 
Our theme this autumn: Hebrew Wisdom Literature -
 
"A Study of Proverbs and the Song of Solomon" -
 
Eleven Sessions - September 20th-November 29th, 2018

Gathering at 9:30 AM in the St. David's TM Room
and meeting 10:00 - 11:00 AM.

No charge

Study resource -

"The DK Complete Bible Handbook"
  Edited by John Bowker


http://tinyurl.com/odxlv7q

*****


 

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