Like Robinson, Butler Bass asking the big Questions

[Stephen Fox]

http://religiondispatches.org/were-not- ... he-planet/

Butler Bass raises the ante on the legacy of Criswell and Adrian Rogers.

And like Pulitzer's Marilynne Robinson in recent interview with President Obama has bigger world view than the politics of the SBC, Jack Graham, Ted Cruz and Donnie Trump

[KeithE]

Her book looks good - good reviews so far. Just ordered it - Kindle version.



Subject matter seems to be that God is in every material thing and every mind. It is really panentheism (as I understand the term) dressed in spirituality (according to the reviewers).

Here is what the late and great Phyllis Tickle said about it: “Grounded is a wise and beautiful book. It is, in fact and in places, almost an anthem to the sacred unity of the physical and the spiritual in the formation of human faith and in the maturation of the human soul.” (Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence)

I may get around to reading it this year, take more walks in the woods, and will comment here (not that my review will be better than those big name book reviewers or Amazon reviewers)

Thanks Stephen.

[KeithE]

I read the first chapter and it is both thought provoking and emotional for me.

Bass says we have been stuck in a three-tier universe too long. God up there with awards to come, evil and punishment below us and us humans in between. God is transcendent in most religious people’s thinking and not truly Immanuel (God-with-us) in the soil, the air and the water and one with our thoughts. The revolution attracting many of the “nones” and most of the “dones”, see churches as not being “grounded” in something real and tangible. Human history is fraught with undeniable evils; and church/religions are on the defensive of their scriptures, dogma (e.g. all the omni’s) and practices. But a sense of God being with us is strong if not stronger than ever among over half of humanity (she claims). That is a silent revolution. We should think of God as “fluid” that oozes through all matter and mind and she points out that several Hebrew scholars do make that point. I don’t think I can do justice to all she has said but it is both profound and well written.

On the emotional side, I recognized her leadoff location, the Santa Barbara hills where my sister lived through a fire at Westmont College in the late 60’s. She brings up Mt. Caramel Convent fire in 2006 (?) which sent the convent off the Santa Barbara hills to the city below which “grounded it” and made is more useful in society. I also thought of my mother who died fairly young (58) who was a John Bircher and angry at our church for not joining in the Anti-Communist chorus. At her funeral, the pastor described how she was encouraged by red birds who came next to her bedroom window - I remembered those birds but to no real encouragement on my part. Perhaps that was her “grounding”.

She makes much of “God being with us” (or Immanuel) and recognized as such by the the spiritually attuned (churched or otherwise). My middle name is Emanuel - I’ve always thought my parents spelled it wrong with an “E” not a “I” and with 1 m, not 2 (Greek renderings have 2 m’s); but in the Immanuel does not have any repeated letters and of course there are no vowels. So maybe they were right after all.

I have not found direct reference to Criswell, Rogers, the SBC, Jack Graham, Ted Cruz, or “Donnie” Trump, but I agree that her view certainly is “bigger” than any of these.

[KeithE]

I’m moving this to the BF&M Forum since it is not particularly “political”. I take the BF&M forum as the place for general religious talk - not just the Baptist Creed (err guideline)

[Haruo]