Home September 2021 - The Raven Foundation

You're invited to an unRival Film Premiere Event

Suzanne Ross

You’re Invited: unRival Film Premiere Event

Suzanne Ross invites you to an unRival Film Premiere event introducing Artists of Peace, a new peacebuilding initiative, and our partner organization, the unRival Network.

Adam Ericksen

Is the Bible Anti-Women?

Adam Ericksen reveals a few of the extraordinary women in scripture, demonstrating the Bible is NOT anti-women.

Lindsey Paris-Lopez

Five Women In The Bible Who Smash The Patriarchy

Lindsey Paris-Lopez details the actions of five women in the Bible who smash the patriarchy defying restrictive gender roles.

Why Christians Should Stop Believing in Jesus

Adam Ericksen

Why Christians Should Stop Believing in Jesus

Adam Ericksen explains why Christians should stop believing in Jesus and start doing what he asked by following him.

whitewashing of Martin Luther King Jr

Adam Ericksen

The Whitewashing of Martin Luther King, Jr. Revisited

Pastor Adam Ericksen examines the misportrayal of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s approach to nonviolence and invites us to confront our own participation in systems of injustice.

Blogs

Abram's Blessing and the Subversion of Scapegoating

Healing Stories of the Bible Raven ReView Religion

Abram’s Blessing and the Subversion of Scapegoating (Genesis 12-13; 20)

Lindsey Paris-Lopez delves into how Abram's blessing from God began with the subversion of scapegoating and rivalry.

Scattered From Sacrifice The Tower of Babel

Healing Stories of the Bible Raven ReView Religion

Scattered From Sacrifice: The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11)

The destruction of the Tower of Babel was not an act of rivalry by God, but a scattering from ritual sacrifice explains Lindsey Paris-Lopez.

A Flood of Violence

Healing Stories of the Bible Raven ReView Religion

A Flood of Violence (Genesis 5-9)

God's destruction of the world by flood is not a tale of God's vengeance explains Lindsey Paris-Lopez, but a flood of human violence.

blame jealousy murder

Healing Stories of the Bible Raven ReView Religion

Blame, Jealousy, Murder… Oh My! (Genesis 3-4)

In Genesis 3 and 4, the world created as good experiences blame, jealousy, and murder, "Oh, my!" Lindsey Paris-Lopez exclaims then explains.

Podcasts

Is God All Powerful? A Theology of Consent (with Jonathan Foster)

One Question with Pastor Adam Raven Radio Religion

Is God All Powerful? A Theology of Consent (with Jonathan Foster)

Reverend Doctor Jonathan Foster deconstructs the classic theology of an all-powerful God in his book "Theology of Consent".

Where True Love Is (With Suzanne and Declan)

One Question with Pastor Adam Raven Radio Religion

Where True Love Is (With Suzanne and Declan)

Declan and Suzanne De Witt Hall, Where True Love Is movement founders, offer a Bible based connection of LGBTQIA+ and Christian faith.

ravenfoundation

What are we saved FROM? This is the first question

What are we saved FROM?
This is the first question that inevitably comes to mind when I think about salvation.

Throughout history, the Church has abused the concept of salvation to wield fear to control, colonize, exploit, and brutalize. It has rationalized the demonization of nonbelievers based on a merciless understanding of what God will do to the "unsaved."

God save the world from violent Christianity!

And God save us all from our own worship of violence.

To understand salvation, we must recognize the way the world has been organized by violence from the dawn of humanity.

"The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart," Alessandro Solzhenitsyn writes. Even as love and compassion swell within us, our capacity for envy, accusation, and greed has drowned the world in violence and oppression.

Wars rage, exploitation and apathy ravage the poor, and the long-suffering world groans in agony. Human violence reaps this devastation, often in the name of "God" or what we deem a "greater good."

Faith in violence is idolatry. The idea that war can be a solution rather than the ultimate problem is the delusion from which we need deliverance.

Fear of a violent God comes from making a god of violence.

Wrath, condemnation, and hell are human-made and human-wielded. God doesn't inflict these on us, but brings us out of the condition by which we inflict these on each other.

As Love enfleshed, Jesus reveals not that unbelievers are damned by a violent God, but that we are ALL ultimately saved from our own deification of violence by the fact that God is Love.

The weaponization of salvation itself reveals how entrenched in violence we are. But Love is working on us, opening our eyes to the irrevocable dignity of every person, turning us from violence to cooperation and community. Ultimately, we ALL will be delivered from the lie of violence.

Love, not violence, is the Ultimate Reality. As Love guides us into the recognition of our kinship with humanity and creation, we come out of our violence and live into the Love in which we are made.

Lots of love,

Lindsey Paris-Lopez
Theologian In Residence

Is "saved" even the best word? The notion of salv

Is "saved" even the best word?

The notion of salvation for "believers" cast a shadow of fear over my childhood. Faith was a struggle as I tried to reconcile a loving God with the violence attributed to God in scripture and the need for a death on a cross in order to be "saved."

Was I saved, even when I didn't know what or how to believe? What about my non-Christian loved ones?

Anxiety haunted me as I tried to twist my understanding into something acceptable to a God I couldn't even be sure existed to ensure my "salvation."

And salvation from what? From doubt? From hell? From God — who loved me but would "have" to punish me if I got things wrong?

It was a relief to finally recognize that I wasn't alone in my doubts.

If you have anxiety surrounding the notion of "salvation," you're not alone either. And you have my empathy, support, and reassurance that all will be well.

It was in recognizing that I am loved THROUGH, not in spite of, my doubts that I came to feel "saved" out of my own fear of getting salvation "right!"

My understanding now that God is Love frames the notion of "salvation" in a new light.

Salvation is universal and unconditional. We are living images of Love, eternally beloved. Love carries us through pain, shame, and death into abundant life.

I've come to de-center the notion of "salvation," since it implies being rescued from danger rather than enfolded in Love. Salvation isn't a question; it's a guarantee.

The center of faith isn't salvation, but Love.

We are saved because, first and foremost, we are loved.

And yet, "salvation" is a fitting word for coming out of exclusive interpretations of faith that limit God's love and set people up to live over and against rather than with and for others.

In a judgmental world, it's a relief to be saved from limited notions of salvation!

I'll continue to explore salvation over the next few weeks. For now, I want to ask a related question that shifts the center of faith away from fear and relief toward affirmation and responsibility. Knowing we are "saved," how do we live into the Love in which we are made?

Lots of love,

Lindsey Paris-Lopez
Theologian In Residence

Repost via @adamericksen “I pray my Christiani

Repost via @adamericksen

“I pray my Christianity never prevents me from being Christlike.” - Stephen Mattson

#christianity #progressivechristianity #godislove #godislove❤️ #quoteoftheday #qotd #wordstoliveby

At the Last Supper, Jesus gives a final teaching t

At the Last Supper, Jesus gives a final teaching to his disciples before his crucifixion. Jesus reiterates his unity with God, that is, with Love. He explains and embodies Love — humble, intimate, active Love — by washing his disciples' feet. He then tells the disciples that if they love him, they will abide in his love and obey his commandment to love one another as he loves them.

"Commandment" and "obedience" are concepts that the Church has often abused to make it seem like we must earn our salvation through beliefs and behavior.

Jesus is not saying we must earn or prove Love. God's Love is universal and unconditional. Our salvation — the gift of being healed and held in Love for eternity — is assured.

But when we embrace Love, it becomes our guiding principle. To abide in God's love is to see God's image in all humanity and all creation, and to cherish it as God cherishes it.

"If my life of Love has penetrated your heart, Love will guide you to love everyone just as I love you," Jesus says.
Loving everyone with active, compassionate love is risky. In a world of exclusion and exploitation, befriending, loving, and proclaiming God's love for the marginalized could even come at the cost of one's own life.

But Love ultimately breaks down the forces of exclusion, exploitation, shame, and death itself. With the resurrection, Jesus empowers us to believe in and embody the love that gives and endures all things for others. To "lay down one's life" in love is not to lose one's self, but to live into one's fullest self. We're living images of Love, and the powers of violence and death cannot overcome that.

"If the world hates you, it hated me first," Jesus says. But he goes on to say that he has transformed the world.

A world order of violence and greed will despise and persecute those who live by Love. Jesus calls us out of the violent world order, that we may embody Love and help restore the world to the goodness in which it was created, crowning Love as the structuring principle on Earth as in Heaven.

Lots of love,

Lindsey Paris-Lopez
Theologian In Residence

#godislove #unlearnthebible #progressivechristianity #christianity #lastsupper #holyweek

Answer: Can suffering be redemptive? This is a de

Answer: Can suffering be redemptive?

This is a delicate question. To say yes is to risk glorifying and perpetuating suffering. To say no is to render suffering meaningless, as if it were all for nothing.

Here's what I believe:

There's nothing redemptive about inflicting suffering. There's nothing redemptive about inflicting punishment or vengeance. Consequences are inevitable and can be necessary, but there is nothing redemptive about returning pain for pain.

Neither is there anything redemptive about self-flagellation. Remorse and repentance when we do something wrong is appropriate, but self-shaming does nothing for God or the world.

But there is something redemptive about shouldering the suffering of others.

We should change the phrase "redemptive suffering" to "redemptive compassion."

In a broken and aching world, the only way to ease the burden of suffering is to take on a small portion ourselves. Giving of our talents and resources and time, though it costs us. Seeing the image of God in our enemies, even when it hurts our pride. Seeking justice, even when it means telling on ourselves and admitting our faults.

As we are called to support others, we are also called to trust that others will be there to support us. That's what building community out of conflict and struggle is all about.

It's also worth noting that Jesus' suffering is overly glorified by the Church. Jesus' suffering should move us. Our hearts should break open to recognize that we crucify God not only in Jesus, but in every victim of violence, apathy, and greed. But we've confused the truth that our violence makes God suffer with the idea that suffering honors God.

What honors God is not suffering, but compassion – which can be humble but can also be subversive. Jesus was undeniably subversive. To thwart systems of injustice is to invite suffering, but it's also to exercise radical courage in the face of the Powers that Be.

And there's plenty of redemption for a violent world in that.

Lots of love,

Lindsey Paris-Lopez
Theologian In Residence

#godislove #unlearnthebible #progressivechristianity #christianity #spirituality #faithjourney

“Different faiths help us realize the immensity

“Different faiths help us realize the immensity of God.” - Desmond Tutu

via @adamericksen 🕊

#progressivechristianity #christianity #wordstoliveby #desmondtutu

Answer: In the midst of suffering, we often ask: "

Answer: In the midst of suffering, we often ask: "Where is God in all of this? HOW is suffering possible if God is all-powerful and all-loving?"

I think this question comes from a belief that God is invincible. God Almighty sits enthroned on high, impervious to our suffering, sovereign and unchanging as our toils and tears and torments rage below.

But this isn't at all the God we find in Jesus.

Jesus reveals that God has been in the midst of our suffering from the dawn of human existence, suffering WITH us.

God is Love, and Love suffers when the beloved suffers.

God poured out all creation in love and made us in God's image because the nature of Love is to create and give and share. God made all creation interconnected and interdependent so that we could learn and serve and love each other. Sometimes suffering comes from not knowing how to care for the world and each other. It's not that we're fallen, but that we still have so much learning to do.

From the beginning, humans saw their needs and imagined the divine powers to be above such weakness. There was greed and rivalry for the sake of self-preservation. People imagined God on the side of the winners. But what if God was in the heart of every victim, and even every victor, urging us to live not against but for each other?

What if God felt every blow of violence, every pang of hunger, every heartbreak of neglect?

Jesus reveals that the Almighty is the All Vulnerable. God was already in the midst of our suffering when God became enfleshed to show us that what we do to each other, we do to God. Jesus shows us how to use our humanity to love each other and live into our divine image. Following Jesus, we move through the suffering of discord into the harmony of Beloved Community.

God created us knowing not only that we would suffer, but God would suffer too. Because Love takes that risk, knowing that suffering doesn't have the last word. Love pulls us through suffering into understanding, harmony, and joy.

Lots of love,

Lindsey Paris-Lopez
Theologian In Residence

#godislove #unlearnthebible #progressivechristianity #christianity #spirituality #faithjourney

Answer: The fact that you are reaching out on beha

Answer: The fact that you are reaching out on behalf of loved ones and strangers who are suffering shows that you have a deeply compassionate soul. Compassion means suffering with others. The world couldn't endure without it.

Suffering sucks. When you feel it so heavily, when your loved ones are going through it and answers seem inadequate or just don't come at all… it is so hard.

But often the answer to suffering is that there is no answer. Just a hard, messy, human process that compassionate people help one another to bear. Reaching out in friendship, offering an ear or a shoulder or a loving presence, even when it must be through a phone or computer, can mean so much in the bleakest or dreariest of times.

At the end of the day, we are here on this planet primarily to be here for one another. We are here to love and take care of each other. Being with our loved ones in the midst of their suffering, and letting them be with us in the midst of ours, is what being human is all about.

We are all interconnected, bound in "a single garment of destiny," as Martin Luther King put it. Our interconnection can be a source of suffering: heartbreak, jealousy, misunderstanding, anger, fear. We can't help but be affected by each other, and we can't isolate ourselves to escape pain or grief. Being interconnected makes suffering inevitable.

But our interconnection is also the source of our relief from suffering. In our interconnection we bear one another's burdens, lift each other up, and bring each other joy.

Lent is a season to remember that, even in the loneliest times, we do not suffer alone. God doesn't sit above our suffering but enters into it, empowering us to walk with each other in our suffering and ease each other's burdens.

I'll continue to explore where God is in the midst of suffering next time. For now, I hope to leave you in peace. You are not alone in your suffering, and your presence to the suffering of others is more comforting than you know.

Lots of love,

Lindsey Paris-Lopez
Theologian In Residence

#godislove #unlearnthebible #progressivechristianity #christianity #spirituality #faithjourney

Repost via @adamericksen God is she who gave you

Repost via @adamericksen

God is she who gave you birth. (Deuteronomy 32:18)

#womenshistorymonth #progressivechristianity #unlearn #unlearnandrelearn #godislove

Answer: Faith is a constant process of learning an

Answer: Faith is a constant process of learning and unlearning. Religions are human constructs that should always be open to improvement as we grow in understanding and empathy for one another, because learning to love each other is how we learn to love God.

If you worry that "unlearning" or finding non-toxic ways to understand God and salvation is listening to "the world," if you worry that progressive interpretations of scripture that preach a more loving and less judgmental God are too good to be true… I hope I can ease your anxiety.

The Bible is the story of people gradually coming to recognize that the power of God is not violence and destruction, but mercy and love. It's all about unlearning, and we're all still on that journey.

The Hebrew people may have thought of themselves as forsaken and condemned when they were enslaved in Egypt. But then they realized that God desired their freedom and wellbeing.

Then they may have thought that God's love for them came at the expense of others. But then came the law that "you must love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt."

Finally, Jesus expands God's love even to enemies and leads his followers to do the same.

It's all about expanding God's love until nothing and nobody is excluded.

In fact, when Jesus talks about "the world" negatively, he's talking about the human misunderstandings that confuse God with violence and order society by exclusion and exploitation. But "the world " is also God's beloved creation, where God's spirit guides us to unlearn violence and replace it with compassion.

As "the world" moves toward greater inclusion for all, beyond racism, hatred, and homophobia, it moves closer to God, in the direction of Love. As we learn that damnation is what humans do to each other and redemption and life is where God leads us all, we move toward Love.

Unlearning violent religion is how God's will is done in "the world" as in Heaven. It's how Heaven and earth become one and the same.

Lots of love,

Lindsey Paris-Lopez
Theologian In Residence

#godislove #unlearning #progressivechristianity #christianity #spirituality #faithjourney

Answer: We spend all our time immersed in God's lo

Answer: We spend all our time immersed in God's love, and that's what spending time in the Word of God really means. You, along with everyone else, are perfectly and unconditionally loved.

If you mean that you aren't reading or meditating on scripture, that's okay. The Bible is not the Word of God. The Greek for "Word" is Logos, and a better translation of it is "the structuring principle of creation." That principle, that core value through which everything is made, is Love.
Love is the essence and language of God. Love is the raw material of the universe, Love became flesh in Jesus, and Love rushes through the world and inspires and invigorates us as the Holy Spirit.

Love always embraces you, so in a way, you don't have to do anything to spend time in Love. But whenever you act in love, you magnify Love to the world. That's what being made in God's image means.

Any time you help a friend or brighten a day with a smile, you are "spending time in the Word;" that is, living in Love. Every time you enjoy and feel awed by nature you are living in Love. Every time you raise your voice for justice, equity, compassion, and peace, you are living in Love.
The Bible is a human library that shows God working through human misunderstanding to reveal God's self as Love. Reading it can be wonderful. But some interpretations make people more judgmental and less loving. In that case, it's better not to read it at all.

Whatever inspires compassion, whatever motivates you to listen to different perspectives, whatever brings you closer to your friends and dissolves hostility with your adversaries, that's how Love works in you. Sometimes, the Bible helps some people with that. But it's not the only guide to love.

Follow your passions, hone your gifts for the good of the world, build your relationships, and know you are loved. That's all it means to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

Lots of love,

Lindsey Paris-Lopez
Theologian In Residence

#godislove #unlearnthebible #progressivechristianity #christianity #spirituality#faithjourney

Repost via @adamericksen “May God save us from v

Repost via @adamericksen “May God save us from violent Christian theology.”

#christianity #progressivechristianity #unlearning #unlearnandrelearn #unlearnchristianity #toxicchristianity

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