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The Staff of Realistic Living recommends these three options
for education in the practice of a Next Christianity:
1. Some of us can come to your location and teach a course.
Please contact us by phone (903-583-8252) or e-mail
(jgmarshall@cableone.net) to discuss with us the tailoring of a course
that fits your needs.
2. You can come to our Leadership Training School held in the Dallas,
Texas area each August. You can also stay on for our Research
Symposium on improving the practices of a Next Christianity.
E-mail us for information on these events.
3. You and others in your group can lead the study of one of our
courses. Below are outlines for two of the courses we count
primary in our basic curriculum for a Next Christianity. Click on
the titles to download the study papers for each session of these two
10-session courses.
See COURSES to examine other course suggestions, outlines, and downloads.
The Mathematics of Divinity
simple discourses on profound topics
by Gene Marshall 2010
Table of Contents
These ten discourses comprise a ten-session course on topics
like: What do we point to with the word “God” when we live on
this side of the demise of both literal and metaphorical talk
about gods and goddesses, One God and angels, Satan and demons – who
live in an upper deck (or lower deck) beyond the natural cosmos?
Also how do we honor the writers of the Bible who quite naturally used
this double-deck metaphor and other images of transcendence to talk
about the most profound matters of their lives? Indeed, how do we
translate the messages they wrote into language that we can use to
speak about the most important matters of our lives today? Such a
recovery of the Bible is important not only for Christians and Jews and
Muslims who use these scriptures devotionally, but for all interested
investigators of Western religions, whatever be their religious
practice or philosophical leanings.
By “mathematics” I do not mean something complicated. The
“mathematics” in these discourses is a sort of gimmick algebra used for
solving Scripture passages for their most likely human meanings, as
well as some triangular geometry for noting the relationships between
aspects of “Divine” experience held with words like “Almighty,”
“Christ,” and “Holy Spirit,” – and subtopics of these basic
aspects held by words like: “sin” “grace,” “trust,” “love,” “freedom,”
“peace,” “rest,” “joy” and more. I am intrigued with
Christianity’s emphasis on the number three and how the three aspects
or faces of Divinity are related to each other and protect each other
from perversion.
In a word, these ten discourses are attempts to point to the profound
matters of Christian heritage in an elementary way. Nevertheless,
this will entail a paradigm shift for most people. We consider
this a core piece of curriculum for the Next Christianity.
The Next Christianity
An Ongoing Action in Religious Invention
(The October 2010 edition)
The ten essays for this course have been freshly rewritten by
Gene Marshall with much editing, critique, and rewriting assistance from
Joyce Marshall and Alan Richard. Also contributing significant help were
Marsha Buck, John Howell, Paula Brennecke, Nate Custer, and others.
Essay Titles
Acknowledgments
This course owes a huge debt of gratitude to the creativity of Joseph
Wesley Mathews whom I count as my mentor from 1953 until his death in
1977. I also owe much thanks to the Order:Ecumenical, a family
order in whose practices I participated from 1962 to 1976. These
methods and contexts for Christian communal life were further refined
in the last 35 years through the explorations into Christian communal
experiences with my marriage partner Joyce and our colleagues in the
work of Realistic Living, The Symposium on Christian Resurgence,
and the Bonham Christian Resurgence Circle.
Gene Marshall
A Useful Teaching Process for Teaching These Courses:
Plan an opening remark that places the study in context for the
group. If appropriate, ask each person to say what struck
them about this study document.
Have a chart of the paper already on the white board (or other visible device).
Explain what the chart means and how you came to decide upon the divisions.
(A full explanation of the charting method is available from Realistic Living.)
Point out the places you want to ground with experiences from the lives of the group.
Ask for other points that it would be good to ground.
Use these grounding steps:
1. Clarify the point to be grounded either by
a. asking for someone to clarify what it is
b. giving your own clarification
c. reading or having someone read a portion from the paper.
2. Plan a grounding question that gets at this point and is useful
to enable people to mix their life experience with that point.
3. Invent additional “push” questions as needed on each occasion.
Plan how to allocate the time spent on each section to fit within a 50 minute session.
Plan a way of ending the teaching session. Do one of the following:
1. Ask a concluding go-round question. (Time has to be planned for this.)
2. Read a bit of the paper that is poetic in nature and summarizes the study.
3. Give a brief closing remark on the topic.
Rational and Existential Aims
The selection of appropriate points for grounding (as well as the
quality of the grounding process) is greatly enhanced by some clear
thinking about aims. There are two types of aims that guide the teacher.
Rational Aims are summaries of the content that the teacher wants to
communicate and clarify with this study. For example, in
session one a rational aim might be: to make plain that religion is a
finite social process and Spirit is an Eternal Reality that religion
may, in the best case scenario, call to our attention.
Existential Aims are insights into the inner changes within the lives
of the participants that might be assisted by this study. For
example, in session one an existential aim might be: to loosen the hold
of “old-time” religion and create space for the awesome challenge of
creating religion anew.
See COURSES to examine other course suggestions, outlines, and downloads.
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