The Burkhart Center

The Burkhart Center Presents:

Father Gregory Boyle

on Zoom

Recorded & Live Event

April 23

7-8:30 pm

Save Friday, April, 23, 7-8:30 pm EST to hear the powerful message and voice of Father Gregory Boyle and his work with ex-gang members through Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles.

We have asked Father Boyle to prepare and record a keynote talk just for us this evening, which will be followed by a live question-and-answer period with Father Boyle virtually on Zoom & YouTube. Participants will be able to ask questions of this foremost teacher on the power of boundless compassion and the power of radical kinship, the subtitles of his two books, Tattoos on the Heart and Barking to the Choir.

Registration will be required for this donation-only event, so watch for further details in a future email, and at www.theburkhartcenter.org or www.fcchurch.com.

Also in this issue:

Two-Part Father Boyle Book Discussion
The Burkhart Center Weekly/Monthly Offerings
My Spiritual Heritage by Rev. David Hett
The Role of Authoritarianism by Christy Caine
Outside Partner Recommended Resources

Father Boyle Book Discussion - Two Part Event

Part One:

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

Date: March 11

Time: 7 pm - 8:30 pm

Part Two:

Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

Date: March 25

Time: 7 pm - 8:30 pm

Father Boyle Book Discussion Registration

Whether or not you've read both of Father Gregory Boyle's books or are just now getting acquainted with his ministry, Homeboy Industries, which works with ex-gang members in Los Angeles, we invite you to join us as we share excerpts and explore topics from the many rich stories in his first book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion on March 11. Part two will be offered on March 25th and will explore Father Boyle's second book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship.

The Burkhart Center will be hosting Father Boyle for a free, virtual spiritual searcher event on April 23 so this is the perfect way to learn more about his work before he joins us via Zoom in April!

Kate Hauk is our guide for both evenings (some of you may remember her as Kathy Jerencsik from camping/counseling days at Akita). A member of the Spiritual Searcher team of The Burkhart Center, Kate has an M.Div. from The Methodist Theological School in Ohio, and was ordained in the United Church of Christ. Serving in a variety of multi-faith and interdenominational settings over the years, she's been a hospice chaplain and has also worked in addiction recovery communities.

Tuesday Morning Study Group

Tuesdays,

9:30-10:45 am

March Theme:

Social Justice

in Faith & Action

March 2

"Social Justice:

Realizing God's Vision"

Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Sister Helen Prejean and others in video clips discussing questions that deal with the Biblical and theological roots of social justice action.

March 9, 16 & More

"Learning and Living Out Jesus' Prophetic Vision"

Dan Clark, Ohio Director of Faith and Public Life joins with his team to discuss their work in racial justice and harm reduction on these Tuesdays, as the group continues to study the prophetic aspect of Jesus' path, and ways to bring those understandings into the world through action.

Tuesday Mornings Registration

Women Living the Questions

Wednesdays

9:30 -11 am

March 3

As the group’s title implies, women interested in exploring personal and communal spirituality are invited to attend weekly Zoom meetings.

This group of women interested in the spiritual path invites Rev. David Hett, Dean of The Burkhart Center, to host their gathering the first Wednesday of each month. On March 3 at 9:30 am they will continue to view the teachings of contemplative and psychotherapist James Finley—teachings he gave when he was a Spiritual Searcher here at First Community. We watch part of the teaching and then open up for group discussion.

The other Wednesdays of the month, the group is studying James Finley’s The Contemplative Heart, in which he develops themes he has taught here and elsewhere on “The Contemplative Vision” and on “Finding Your Practice,” “Finding Your Community,” and “Finding Your Path, or Teaching.”

Register to receive the Zoom link for the first Wednesday WLTQ with David Hett, and to receive an email from group coordinator, Linda Baldeck, regarding future Wednesdays.

WLTQ Registration

Contemplative Way Group

Thursdays

11:45 am – 1 pm

The Burkhart Center’s Contemplative Way Group gathers on Zoom around 11:40 am each Thursday for a time of discursive meditation based on Richard Rohr’s daily meditations (cac.org). This group provides a grounding for our spiritual lives.

Hosted by Rev. David Hett.

Contemplative Way Registration

Winter Thursday Nights with The Burkhart Center:

Glennon Doyle's Untamed, Part II

Thursday, March 4

6 to 8 pm

via Zoom

Burkhart Center facilitators Abbey Jo Griffith, Jaron Terry, and Connie Hieatt, continue to guide participants in discussing the second half of Glennon Doyle’s most recent #1 New York Times bestseller, Untamed. If you couldn’t attend last week’s part 1 (the first 31 chapters of the book), please feel free to join part 2 discussions with an engaging group. Our second session will also include some short videos. As you know, each chapter of the book is short and packed with discussion material, so we know we'll have plenty to unpack together!

Glennon Doyle Part 2 Registration

Progressing Spirit

SPECIAL MONDAY NIGHT VERSION ON MARCH 15

7 - 9 pm on Zoom

Due to weekend conflicts, our March Progressing Spirit discussion group will have a Monday evening only session. This month's discussion articles include one by past Burkhart Center Spiritual Searcher, Drs. Robin Meyers' "Saving God from Religion;" another past Searcher, Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox on "What is Patriarchy Anyway?;" and a new progressive voice, Rev. Aurelia Davila Pratt, calling the church to be "Spacemakers." Facilitator Rev. David Hett often sends out other articles to serve as discussion starters for this monthly Burkhart Center Zoom group.

Participants are asked to subscribe to progressingspirit.com for $40 per year to receive the articles directly and support their work. Contact Rev. Hett if there are financial considerations that prevent subscription.

Progressing Spirit Registration

Much Matters Book Discussion

White Too Long

March 18

6 -8 pm

Zoom

This month’s Much Matters book group, open to all, is a recent study on White Supremacy within the American Christian Church, an important topic for people of all religious traditions, or none at all, as it reflects on the work of antiracism in the larger institutional church and congregations. Burkhart Center Steering Committee member Jim Hutchins facilitates this month’s discussion, along with Much Matters coordinator, Dr. Shah Hasan.

Much Matters Registration

Parent Conversation Group

Monday, March 15

8 pm via Zoom

Parenting Connection

and Growth

Please join us for our next gathering when we will discuss the very important, and likely uncomfortable topic: talking to you kids about sex. Talking about sex is an ongoing process that can protect your kids and help lead them to healthy, consensual relationships.

We will use two podcasts from NPR Life Kit: Parenting, that are included below if you would like to listen ahead of time.

The group will meet at 8 pm the third Monday evening of each month, now through May.

This event is sponsored by the K-12 program in conjunction with The Burkhart Center. Questions? Contact Julie Richards, Director of K-5 Ministry

Click the button below for more information and to register to receive the Zoom link.

Parenting Growth Registration

My Spiritual Heritage

Rev. David Hett, Dean, The Burkhart Center

Christy Caine is starting a new column this month on “Understanding Fundamentalism,” arising out of so much interest in her two-part Burkhart Center series.

Christy, past director of The Burkhart Center, is uniquely qualified to help us understand this phenomenon from the inside, as it were. She was raised in a Christian fundamentalist home, and she’s spent many years both moving away from fundamentalism into a new understanding of Christian, and religious, faith in line with the theologically open and Interspiritual orientation of The Burkhart Center. She has also done extensive research and writing in this arena.

I did not have that kind of background, so I’ve relied on Christy to help me understand the fundamentalist phenomena. I did not have to make the same theological leap from what Christy describes as the highly authoritarian and anti-intellectual, anti-questioning nature of fundamentalist religion. My mother was raised in the more theologically liberal, democratically organized Congregational Church in northern Wisconsin (part of what became the UCC, The United Church of Christ) and my father, from an even smaller northern Wisconsin town than my mother, grew up in the theologically traditional and decidedly German denomination, the Evangelical United Brethren Church. And although my mom was the more religiously devout of my parents, not surprisingly for that time, my brothers and I were raised in the EUB church in Aurora, Illinois, a large urban city west of Chicago. The year I graduated high school, the EUB Church merged with the Methodist Church to become the “United” part of The United Methodist Church, a moderate location between the UCC and the EUB.

I attribute my spiritual heritage to both the mystical path that was German Pietism and the American Transcendentalist movement growing concurrently with congregationalism out of the same northeast United States. Finally, I trace my spiritual lineage also in Celtic mysticism which is entirely consonant with the nature-based mysticism of our First Peoples, deeper than that even of the Transcendentalists. Our Native spirituality is the grounding that all of us immigrants to America have of the indigenous spiritual tradition that sprouts within us through the sacred earth known by our First Peoples, whose sacred land and spirit traverse every part of this country.

My major struggles on the journey have not been theological ones—my learnings and experience along my life—religious, secular, philosophical—have led to a kind of “natural” welcoming of continued investigation, reevaluation and realignment of my faith to prioritize the love of truth over dogma, justice over conformity, along with an experience-based rationality. Where I struggle is in bringing liberation to the psychological dimensions of my soul that would integrate the outer focus of search for truth and justice and awareness of experience with the inner dynamics of psyche. The true meaning of “psyche” is “soul” or “spirit” and we still have only a little more than 100 years of depth psychological understanding with which to contend and then to integrate in the maturation of our souls.

Therefore, I am curious to investigate the psychological-spiritual dimensions of Christianity and other religious traditions and humanistic paths. Lately, for instance, I’ve allowed my energy to re-engage the depth psychology of Carl Jung, reading for the first time his classic Answer to Job, of post-Jungians like James Hillman, while also reclaiming a grounding in Neoplatonism, rediscovering the spiritual power that lies within both newer and more ancient traditions. More than many of the early depth psychologists, Jung grasped the transcendent side, and meaning of the unconscious, the reality of which, in itself, was a major contribution of Freud. Maybe because Jung was a preacher’s kid and steeped in Lutheran Protestantism, he was more steeped in looking to the spiritual dimensions of soul.

This psychological-spiritual dimension of faith and soul is what drew me to the Diamond Approach, which has become my primary path, practice, and teaching, as a mystical path having great compatibility with the way of Jesus. In past years, I’ve begun taking up the Catholic reference to Jesus as “The Sacred Heart” as a summation of this full embracing of our humanity and our own hearts in order to express more completely in the world the compassionate way Jesus asks us to follow.

Everyone has their own unique resonances with how they’ve moved along in their spiritual journey.

Understanding Fundamentalism

The Role of Authoritarianism

by Christy Caine

“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” - Muhammad Ali

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” - 1 Corinthians 13:11 NRSV

I recently led a two-part series on understanding fundamentalism for The Burkhart Center. We offered the discussion as a way to try to help others better understand a movement which tends to cause confusion and frustration for many. Having grown up in religious fundamentalism, and grown out of it, I’ve spent the last 20 years unraveling the beliefs of my youth. During this extended period of reflection, I applied the assessment skills I learned as a healthcare clinician to research, listen, observe, and evaluate these beliefs with an intention to be as objective as possible, and, through this process, along with countless conversations with others, I’ve recognized patterns that help provide some clarity for what so often seems to be confounding. As a result of this effort, I am able to offer a unique perspective by integrating elements of theology, psychology and sociology in order to bridge the gap for outside observers. My hope is that by sharing these insights some of the mystery of fundamentalism will be lifted and people will gain an understanding which might lead to more light than heat as we try to navigate our current religious and political divides. David Hett has invited me to share these insights in a new ongoing column featured here in The Burkhart Center newsletter. This is the first in this ongoing series.

One of the foundational keys to understanding fundamentalism is recognizing that its organizational structure is authoritarian. This necessarily means that it is hierarchical in nature, not egalitarian, and accounts for why it is patriarchal. Authoritarian organizations tend to concentrate power among the few or one leader and tend to focus on subordinates’ submission to authority as well as obedience to rules and regulations. Maintaining control is an important element; to that end, so is stifling dissent. People who tend to favor authoritarianism tend to desire order and fear outsiders, and, when they feel threatened, tend to turn to a strong leader who promises to maintain control and prevent changes they find threatening (Taub, 2016).

While many believe a fundamentalist is merely one who ascribes to the fundamentals of the faith as defined by the late 19th century movement to distill the Christian faith down to its most essential, non-negotiable tenets, religious historian Karen Armstrong defines religious fundamentalism as a militant religiosity pushing back against modernity. Note that in this way fundamentalism is not uniquely Christian nor American nor even necessarily religious. In the scientific method, for a theory to be valid it must be universal. The utility of this definition of fundamentalism is that it transcends time and place making it universal in its application. Religious historians and observers have found that there are common characteristics to fundamentalism that transcend faith or sect. These traits include: authoritarian patriarchal structure, literal interpretation of holy texts, inerrancy of scriptures, a binary, all-or-nothing worldview, tribalist tendencies, opposition to ecumenical and interfaith work, xenophobia, separation from the secular world, anti-intellectualism, opposition to science, separate religious education of children, strict gender roles, oppressive to women, modesty rules for women’s dress, anti-LGBTQIA, view God as the stern judge, favor retributive justice, pro corporal and capital punishment, pro war, Manichaen worldview, and hold that their understanding of their faith is uniquely the one true religion. Understanding the interrelatedness of these common traits gives shape to the fundamentalist mindset. To be clear, a group need not display all of these traits in order to be fundamentalist, and there are groups who are not fundamentalist who might also display some of these traits. For the purposes of this discussion, I will be limiting the scope of fundamentalism to the movement within Protestant Christianity in the United States.

As you reflect on these characteristics do you recognize any patterns? Have you noticed these traits within fundamentalism? Do you see how they are interconnected? Does framing Fundamentalism as authoritarian help provide clarity? In what ways does a hierarchical social structure and belief system impact issues of equality? Having laid the groundwork of what is meant by fundamentalism, its common traits and organizational structure, we can begin exploring more in-depth how these elements are interrelated and how they influence beliefs and behavior.