Congregational Life Centre
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A New Take on an Ancient Story
Reader Comments | Contents | Forward | Chapter 1 Sample | Review | Ordering
Here
is a Christianity that is clear and bright. The author sheds the claptrap
and baggage accumulated by the church over the years, allowing Jesus of
Nazareth to emerge as the spiritual giant he is. The book communicates a
deep faith in the mystery known by Jesus as "abba", the God who
is our loving, forgiving, caring and challenging companion.
Use this book ...
* with your confirmation class.
* in a study with adults who want a clear introduction to progressive Christianity.
* as a gift to your teen age grandchildren.
Clair Woodbury is an author, church consultant, and an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada.
What readers have said:
It is simple and wonderful. It helped me understand religion a little
better, and I loved that you didn't just talk about Christianity, you
expanded on other religions as well.
Paige Woodbury, granddaughter
I've studied the Bible all my life and even I have learned things I
didn't know. It's informative for young people, for sure, but it's
great reading for anyone.
Chris Standring, retired Lifestyle editor,
The Edmonton Journal
Sometimes in these words we can hear a grandfather talking to his
grandchild on his knee. At other times it's like he's "texting"
you,
clearly and straight-forwardly, about things that matter and with-
out the clutter of conventional God-talk.
Alan Richards, Camrose United Church
Thank you for such an amazing book of faith. I can see using this for new
seekers and confirmation.
Rev. Kim C. Wright
Wesley United Church, Welland, Ontario
I bought a copy for our church library. I have just finished reading it,
and have indeed valued your thinking and the way you have put this into
words. Thank you very much for this labour of love and wisdom.
Arnold Ranneris, Librarian
Oak Bay United Church, Victoria
Contents1. My Journey |
Hear the Author Check out the author Clair Woodbury's 20 minute sermon summarizing the message of A New Take on an Ancient Story on the St. Andrew's United Church, Edmonton, website. To access just click HERE.
|
Forward
By Joyce Madsen
Over the years that we have worked together as Congregational Life Centre staff, Clair and I have explored every aspect of the theological scene. Travelling in the car has provided great opportunities for discussion. We have often talked about the difference between what we in the church believe and what the community outside thinks we believe. We are convinced this gap is one of the major barriers to people connecting with a congregation.
The old stories are very hard for educated young people to believe. Science today is clear about birth and death, the workings of the human body, and the evolution of the universe. As a result our theology in the main-line church has changed, but we have been reluctant to promote our deeper understanding of God for fear that some people would be offended.
As a more realistic image of God has evolved, I have had to re-examine what I was taught in Sunday School. I have had to decide for myself about the virgin birth, heaven and hell, the divinity of Jesus and just how God works in our world. It has been scary, because you never know when you question a cherished belief whether you could lose your faith in the process.
My experience is that the faith I have today is more authentic and stronger
than ever. I have a clearer understanding of what I do and do not believe.
I don't feel I have to justify my take on Christianity to anyone, nor do
I have to convert anyone to what I believe. It is a place of peace.
I tell people that I have had my own private theology professor to discuss
things with over the years. I am very grateful for that. This book shares
the discussions that Clair and I have had and that many progressive Christians
are having. It is just that until now few have been brave enough to write
it all down.
This is a book that should challenge your thinking. It's not about agreeing - it's about asking the important questions and finding your own answers.
Joyce Madsen
Congregational Life Centre Staff
A Sample from Chapter 1 of the book
I'm 75 years old and life has been an incredible journey. I have lived
through a time that has seen more change than any other era in human history.
When
I was young, high tech for note taking was a coil bound steno pad. Now we
have the iPad - which I don't own yet but am thinking about it.
On the farm we were on a party line with 16 other people and had one of
those phones mounted on the wall with a handle to crank when you wanted
to call someone. Our ring was two longs and a short. Then came the dial
phone - anybody under 25 probably has never seen one of those - followed
by the touch phone which is being replaced by the cell phone which is being
replaced by the smart phone. I do have one of those.
My father was a music teacher and church organist. We attended the United Church in Arcola and Caron, Saskatchewan. When we moved to Leamington in Ontario Dad got a job at the Baptist church. That meant Sunday School and church there on Sunday morning and the Christian Science Sunday School in the afternoon because dad also played there. My Anglican phase happened because we moved to London and the local Anglican church had a great youth group with girls. Our move to a farm south of London brought me full circle back to the local United Church.
Each one of those churches thought they knew more about God than anyone
else. It made me wonder just who was right. The approach I adopted - which
I have maintained my whole life - is to keep an open mind. That conviction
was reinforced reading a book by the English writer J.B. Philips called
Your God is Too Small. Each of us tends to develop a picture of God that
is small enough for us to get our minds around. God, however, is bigger
than any of us can imagine.
As
a teenager I was pretty much of a geek. Top marks yes, but absolutely unconscious
about what anyone was wearing. I was interested in radios, astronomy, and
in physics. Not great conversation starters when you are trying to impress
a girl at the high school dance. I was definitely not one of the in-crowd.
I was 18 when I had an experience at a United Church Young People's camp
that turned my life around. The speaker talked about how God accepted us
all, just as we are, no strings attached. I truly felt that acceptance and
experienced a feeling of being accepted by God and truly welcome in the
universe. That sense of acceptance has only been reinforced over the years.
My years as a cadet at Royal Military College taught me to dress in an acceptable
way. I'm still a geek of sorts, but I think I hide it well.
In my second year of Military College our physics professor announced he
was leading a bible study group and if anyone was interested they could
contact him. That led to five years of studying what Jesus had to say in
Matthew, Mark and Luke's gospel - three with Doug Rogers and two where I
led a group. The method was simple. We had the three gospels printed out
with passages that were similar side by side. There is a lot of duplication.
More about that later. There were no answers, only a book of questions.
The idea was that these were human beings something like us, only living
in a different time under different conditions. If we used our imagination,
we could see ourselves in their place and understand what was happening.
It was a time for me when Jesus moved from being some magical god-on-earth
to being a truly human spiritual giant with incredible insight.
It became obvious that even his closest followers with the best intentions
put words in Jesus' mouth when they told stories about the time he was with
them. We have been doing that ever since. The challenge is to work one's
way through all those added layers and clear the decks so we can hear what
Jesus himself had to say. The thing to remember is that Jesus was born,
lived and died a devoted member of the Jewish faith. Christianity as separate
from Judaism was something invented after his death.
I teach church history and am well aware of the many terrible things that
have been done in the name of Christianity. People have been tortured and
burned to death. Whole communities have been massacred. Adults and sometimes
children have been sent on Crusades to free the Holy Land, only to die by
the thousands of hunger and disease. Greedy kings have used religion as
an excuse for launching wars of aggression against neighbouring countries.
Today it seems terrorists of every persuasion are using their religion as
an excuse for suicide bombings and senseless killing.
All this for me means it is incredibly important to distinguish good religion
from bad religion. What that means is that there are good Christians and
bad Christians. We are becoming aware just by reading the newspapers that
there are good Muslims and bad Muslims, good Hindus and bad Hindus, good
Buddhists and bad Buddhists.
What is the difference? For me good religion connects people. Bad religion
divides. Paul Tillich, a theologian I admire, says many of us are separated
"from the mystery, the depth, and the greatness of our existence."
We are separated from the mystery - God or Allah or Buddha or the Other
- whatever name we use. We are separated from who we are at the core of
our being. And we are separated from those who we love. Good religion reconnects
us with the mystery, it allows us to love ourselves, and it builds bridges
between us and our fellow human beings by creating community.
That's where I am coming from. Now it is time to introduce you to the players
in this historical drama we call the birth of Christianity.
Retired minister's book brings a fresh take on 'God talk'
Language of Christianity often the biggest barrier for young people
By Chris Standring, Edmonton Journal March 12, 2011
It sounded simple enough, at first, to compose a brief summary of what Christianity is about.
The request was from an adult son to his father, to provide the son's teenage daughters with a description of the one faith that wasn't covered in their high school studies of world religions. It seems that Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam were all addressed in their private school curriculum, but not Christianity.
Given that the grandfather was an ordained minister and a man of words, with eight books published under his name, it seemed like a reasonable thing to ask and to undertake.
But when Clair Woodbury sat down one afternoon to "knock something off," he realized it wasn't going to be that easy. What resulted some 18 months later was an 80-page book called A New Take on an Ancient Story/A Young Person's Guide to Christianity.
The book is dedicated to Woodbury's eight grandchildren, but he wanted it to resonate with a larger audience, including young people with no formal teaching of the Bible and even adults who want to understand where Christianity is today.
So the challenge was to write it without "the baggage" of church language. "God talk," as Woodbury describes it . words like "narthex and canon" and phrases like "the kingdom of God" that can be alienating to novices and get in the way of their understanding.
At 75, Woodbury is now retired from church ministry, but works part time with partner Joyce Madsen running the Congregational Life Centre, a consulting service that helps congregations become more effective in their ministries.
He says that on the wish list of almost every church he hears from is the desire to attract more young people.
"But have you taken down the barriers that exclude them?" is his standard response.
Barriers such as language and the concepts they reflect, some of which are incongruous with today's scientific world.
"A lot of the language that (mainline churches) have comes from creeds and historic statements that are questionable," says Woodbury. "The notions of a virgin birth and bodily resurrection, for example, are difficult to process, for somebody who's immersed in modern thought patterns.
"I'm not saying we do away with these, because they are metaphors that say our church is rooted in history."
Woodbury says it is important to distinguish between what is religious and what is spiritual.
To experience spirituality, he says, is to experience what is outside oneself, what summons "a sense of awe and wonder."
Religion was invented to try to make sense of those deep experiences, to make them meaningful, he explains.
Without discounting other religions, Woodbury prefers to distinguish between good and bad religion of all faiths.
"Good religion connects people; bad religion divides," he says. In the book he refers to the many injustices that have been carried out in the name of bad religion, including those of Christianity.
"What I tried to do here was to focus on what was spiritually very deep, such as the experience of God."
A lot of young people have had these experiences, he says, "perhaps when coming across a scientific formula that invokes a sense of beauty in the orderliness of the universe."
It's finding what to do when that happens, says Woodbury.
To understand how Christianity gives meaning to these experiences, we have to go back to where it started, says Woodbury, mainly with Jesus and his teaching.
The book puts a real emphasis on exploring the earliest writings about Jesus, starting with the Q document, which scholars say was the source of the Lord's Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount as well as a number of the parables.
Here, says Woodbury, is where we find what Jesus has to say about integrity versus piety and about treating our fellow human beings with fairness, compassion, forgiveness and love.
Each chapter concludes with a list of reading materials from the Bible and tools to help navigate and make sense of the Bible.
The book goes on to explore Jesus's teachings in the gospels (the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).
But, to fully understand Christianity, you also have to look to the writings that Jesus himself drew on for inspiration, says Woodbury.
Since Jesus was a Jew, that means he studied the books of the Old Testament, which Woodbury refers to as the Hebrew scriptures.
What emerges is an understanding of Jesus as a "spiritual giant," whose vision for God's new community challenges us to become partners with God in creating a world where all, including the poor and the weak, are cared for, where God is not a stern and judging father figure but a "loving, forgiving and challenging companion."
Everyone has to decide whether "I am the centre of the universe or am I here to make a difference for others."
Christianity, says Woodbury, can make sense of that transition.
Chris Standring is a former religion and lifestyle editor at The Journal. Now retired, she is an occasional freelance writer.
Order from the Congregational Life Centre, #11, 2020 - 105 Street, Edmonton, AB T5K 0A2
ISBN: 978-0-9688358-7-6
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