795 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/02193b15996638dca4f54641014c4a45.pdf 48e01c0e042174c36304a15fa3bd1510 PDF Text Text Advent Prayer Richard A. Rhem Advent, 2004   Let  us  become  fully  conscious  in  these  moments  of  prayer  –   with  eyes  wide  open   taking  in  the  beauty  of  this  setting,   or  with  eyes  gently  closed,   the  better  to  bring  focus  to  our  consciousness,  –   in  awareness  of  that  Holy  Presence     that  surrounds  us,  pervades  our  consciousness,   provides  the  ground  of  our  existence.     In  the  presence  of  the  Face  of  Mystery,   we  contemplate  our  world.   It  is  so  difficult  to  carve  out  a  space  simply  to  be;   caught  up  in  culture’s  grip,   we  are  brainwashed  –   saturated  with  statistics  of  retail  sales,   as  though  our  salvation  lie  in  conspicuous  consumption;   saddened,  indeed  horrified,  at  evidences  of  alienation  and  brokenness   that  are  called  daily  to  our  attention,   that  rage  and  hate  explode  in  violence  and  death.   Expectant,  not  of  the  coming  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,   but  of  further  evidence  of  the  folly  of  war   and  the  tragedy  it  brings.     Advent  –  Coming  –   What  is  coming?   Who  is  coming?   Where  is  it  all  leading?  Where  are  we  going?   What  in  the  world  is  happening?     O  God,  we  feel  with  the  poet  –   Nothing  can  save  us  that  is  possible,   We  who  must  die  demand  a  miracle.     A  miracle  –   not  halting  the  planet  in  its  orbit,   not  casting  a  mountain  into  the  sea.   No,  a  miracle  of  love  and  grace,   © Grand Valley State University   �Advent 2004 Prayer Richard A. Rhem Page 2   a  miracle  of  human  transformation,   a  miracle  of  faith  and  hope  and  love,  enabling  us  to  believe,   to  believe  the  darkness  will  never  overcome  the  light,   to  believe  blind  power  cannot  finally  prevail,   to  believe  truth  and  goodness  and  beauty  will  never  be  finally  defeated.     A  miracle–   a  miracle  of  transformation  of  consciousness,   not  waiting  for  some  divine  intervention  to  make  things  right   as  we  stand  passively  by.     O  God,   let  the  miracle  be  our  recognition  that   we  are  the  Body  of  Christ,   we  are  the  embodiment  of  love,   we  are  the  agency  of  Grace.     It  is  in  our  face  that  another  way  of  being  must  be  mirrored  –   our  flesh  must  reflect  the  Divine  Intention.     Once  upon  a  time  it  happened  –   the  Word  became  flesh,   the  Word  became  human.   Encountering  that  one,  the  people  cried,  O  God!     We  come  now  to  this  table  –  bread  and  cup.     body  and  blood  –  separated,   for  it  came  to  pass  that  that  one  was  killed.   But,  what  he  embodied  could  not  be  killed.   Tonight  we  remember  –   we  remember  him  and  we  take  bread  and  cup  in  order,   in  solidarity  with  him,  to  be  as  he  was,     to  be  God  in  our  human  being,   to  be  Your  presence  to  one  another,     to  all  we  meet,     to  this  world,     so  perilous,  so  fascinating,  so  wonderful,  so  frightening,  so  beautiful.     Ah,  dear  God,  Mystery  beyond  our  fathoming  –   feed  us  that  our  touch  may  be  the  touch  of  your  love,   our  visage,  the  mirror  of  your  grace,   our  presence  your  presence  here  and  now.     Oh  God,  hear  our  prayer,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.   © Grand Valley State University �Advent 2004 Prayer Richard A. Rhem Page two © Grand Valley State University Page 3   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Advent Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20041202 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Advent 2004 Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 2, 2004 entitled "Advent 2004 Prayer", on the occasion of Advent. Tags: Advent Prayer, Embodying Grace. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-12-02 Advent Prayer Embodying Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/03dfdf48a353518df10d65e6dbb1be53.pdf 0c367225dc61e54ff013f768518c76a2 PDF Text Text Spring Prayer Offered at a Sunday Potluck Gathering Richard A. Rhem May 4, 2008 Prepared text of the prayer Let us be consciously in the Presence of that Holy Mystery in which we live and move and have our being. Source, Guide, and Goal of all that is, Spirit enlivening the whole of the cosmic drama in a gracious embrace, we pause in these moments, conscious that our lives are gift, recognizing we are not the authors of the amazing reality into which our lives are woven, a tapestry of light and shadow, of moving tenderness and unspeakable brutality. In these uneven days of May– storm and sun, chill and balmy breeze – spring’s beauty will not be denied; The delicate dogwood of cascading whiteness; Fruit trees a burst of blossom; The brilliant splash of yellow from sundrenched forsythia; Dancing daffodils unfazed by evening chill or morning frost; The budding green of trees, so lately but a network of black, bony branches reaching heavenward, pleading to be clothed. We live with wonder before it all. We think to ourselves – What a wonderful world! Gratitude fills our being as we contemplate it all – The mystery of life The adventure of being, The challenge of engaging in the creative process, The joy of discovery, the thrill of awareness – and a sense of a Presence, present to us in the presence of another with human face; Gratitude and joy well up within us. © Grand Valley State University   �Spring Picnic Prayer Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Wonder, Mystery, all about us if we have eyes to see, ears to hear; if for a moment we pause, fully conscious, fully aware, attentive to the Reality into which our lives are woven, a marvel we can never fully take in. Yet, now and then, O God, we get a glimpse of the grandeur of it all and know ourselves to be a living part of the Whole, bringing to the emerging wonder a consciousness – self-consciousness, consciousness of the other, the dawning of communion, the foundation of community. And still the mystery deepens; in the consciousness of ourselves and of the other, we find ourselves in the presence of Mystery – indeed, in Your Presence, O God, Mystery of Being, mystery of our being, of our being together. Eternal God, gathered as we are today, we experience such a kaleidoscope of emotions: the joy of being with friends with whom we have gathered on the first day of the week for so many years; the joy of experiencing for these moments community as we have known it in days gone by; and then, to be honest, a certain sadness because we become acutely aware that, gathered as we are, we yet sense we are misplaced persons. As lovely as is this space, It is not the sacred space we grew to love over all those years, replete with cross and font and pulpit, adorned with banner and hangings, telling us the time on the calendar of sacred time. Nonetheless, we are gathered and where your people gather, there you are in the midst of them and we know your Presence in the presence of one another. Deep Source of our lives and mystery of our being, gathered as we are, heal our hurt, assuage our grief, and fill us with grace – grace to bless and affirm and wish well that community of which we were once a part; a community to which some here still belong, a community of some with whom we gathered over long years, a community growing with many whose names and faces © Grand Valley State University �Spring Picnic Prayer Richard A. Rhem Page 3   are unfamiliar to us – Continue to make Christ Community a place of integrity, freedom, courage and spiritual adventure. Bless those who lead in their respective roles; make them instruments of your peace and prosper them in their ongoing journey. And for ourselves we pray – grateful for the richness of experience of the community we have shared, we celebrate all we have known together; we celebrate your abundant Grace that together we have tasted – And now, Liberating God, free us from all negativity, any remaining remnant of anger, all holding on to what is no more – Grace us, O good and gracious God – With fresh experience, hope reborn and love abounding. We know afresh, we believe anew – All will be well All will be well All manner of things will be well – O Lord, hear our prayer In the name of the One who taught us to pray…. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Sunday Social Gathering Location The location of the interview Grand Haven Community Center Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20080504 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 4, 2008 entitled "Prayer", on the occasion of Sunday Social Gathering, at Grand Haven Community Center. Tags: Gratitude, Community. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-05-04 Community Gratitude https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0bfd7a47cd7327de5d45d7858afbe97c.pdf b697ce142129478a0e84b01defcf54a9 PDF Text Text Prayer for Picnic Gathering At Pottawattomie Park Richard A. Rhem July 23, 2008 Prepared text of prayer Let us be in the spirit of prayer. Eternal Spirit, in these moments we would be attentive – attentive to that recognition that there is so much more to life than meets the eye. In this information saturated world there is more than all the pieces of information we pick up in a day or a week. We value knowledge; yet there is more than knowledge – There is – the intuitive sense that life is more than a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury – There is – the wisdom of the heart that moves us beneath the surface of life, beyond mere happenings and events to the creative center of being from whence stream Nature’s prodigal profusion of emerging structures and of life, of consciousness and awareness, so much more than simply the overload of data. There is – meaning which we discover and create – the Grace that affirms and frees us… the Love that frees us from self preoccupation and self absorption… the Care that bonds us in community. Let us be mindful of the grace of life that has come to us, for this place of natural beauty © Grand Valley State University   �Picnic Prayer Richard A. Rhem let us be grateful… O God, receive our thanksgiving – for leisure time in which to relax, to enjoy sun and surf and sand and solitude; for family reunions that bring back memories of childhood and youth, of grandparents and cousins and uncles and aunts; for a sense of roots and rootedness, places to revisit and times to remember; for the interruptions of our well-laid plans that have led to experiences we would not have dared to dream; and for the detours along life’s way that have led us into byways of beauty we would never have known; for hope that rises in the wake of every setback giving us courage to go on in the confidence that there is always something more; for that strange peace that no storm can shake, no raging billow wash away, a peace that passes all human understanding; for the grace of life and all good gifts, we are truly grateful. Let us be mindful of our world – Our world is smoldering; fires burn in streets; anger seethes in the cauldron of human hearts, disaffected, alienated, disillusioned. What pain drives to anarchy, dissipating youthful idealism and hope? Before the world’s chaos, pain and anguish, Give us the wisdom to be silent before we speak; to identify with and immerse ourselves before we offer remedies too easy, too facile, too self-serving. Give us insight and sensitivity to discern © Grand Valley State University Page 2   �Picnic Prayer Richard A. Rhem that ominous thunder of the shaking of the foundations; to recognize the recurrent corruptions of power that we see all around us. Enable us to see beneath the skin of the world its heaving passion, its loveliness and its horror – a world that is a ridiculous mixture of good and evil, of beautiful tenderness and unspeakable brutality; a world where flowers bloom on manure heaps, and deadly cancer grows on a beautiful, young body; a world under the dominion of death, natural, yet often so unexpected, so violent, so absurd! O God, This is the real world, the only world we have with its dreams of Eden and its portents of Armageddon. Renew our vision, give us courage, restore hope, heal our world with us, who are the highly favored, leading the way to peace, justice and compassion, to realize the vision of the one we follow, Jesus, our Lord – O Lord, hear our prayer. © Grand Valley State University Page 3   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Sunday Potluck Picnic Location The location of the interview Pottawattomie Park Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20080723 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Picnic Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 23, 2008 entitled "Picnic Prayer", on the occasion of Sunday Potluck Picnic, at Pottawattomie Park . Tags: 2008, prayer. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-07-23 2008 Prayer https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d7ab9b88ffd73d5f605226852b474774.pdf ba1288a3b4fe922a64fdf81b36903e67 PDF Text Text Rotary Prayer Richard A. Rhem Rotary Club Spring Lake, Michigan July 28, 2008 Prepared text of the prayer O God, Infinite Mystery of our lives, called by many names as the human family bows in awe and wonder before the beauty and terror of creation, the miracle of the human being, and the possibilities of human community – We seek your Spirit’s grace upon us as we celebrate the fifty years of this local Rotary Club and that global community of which it is a part. Memories flash through our minds as we reflect back over five decades of good friendships, camaraderie, and significant service to this community and beyond. We give thanks for that history into which we have moved to claim our place and keep the vision alive – a noble vision of fostering world understanding, goodwill and peace; supporting the improvement of health and education; joining the movements to alleviate poverty and human suffering; working for the building of world community. Grace us with your presence, O God, as we celebrate, even as we remember those whose service has ended, whose presence we miss, whose labor is complete. Bless those who have taken the torch of leadership to bring the Spring Lake Club to new dimensions of dedicated service. © Grand Valley State University   �Rotary Prayer Richard A. Rhem And bless us all gathered at table with abundant food and drink for which we give thanks. Amen © Grand Valley State University Page 2   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event 50-year celebration Location The location of the interview Spring Lake Rotary Club Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20080728 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Rotary Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 28, 2008 entitled "Rotary Prayer", on the occasion of 50-year celebration, at Spring Lake Rotary Club. Tags: Rotary, prayer, 2008. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-07-28 2008 Prayer Rotary https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d72461485d60adb822e8e1408e0235b9.pdf 247a09b7a77a23d27356c0de6eadd39d PDF Text Text All Saints’ Day Prayer Richard A. Rhem November 1, 2009 O God, to You we lift our souls, to You we lift our hearts. The Psalmist wrote of the deer panting for streams of living water and saw himself mirrored in that thirst. We, too, thirst for You, O Living God, To know that You are; To sense Your presence; To rest in Your grace. As your people gathered here in this place, We would be still and know that You are God. We bring our thanksgiving In the conscious knowledge that all is grace The order of creation – We reset our clocks and watches To catch a bit more light in the morning, But Brother Sun and Sister Moon are affected not at all; Summer and Winter, Springtime and Harvest In passing parade proclaim Your great faithfulness. You are a God we can count on, Keeping this vast cosmos balanced on a razor’s edge, Just so, just right. And we breathe; Planets move in marvelous symphony; Salmon swim upstream; Birds migrate to warmer climes; Trees, so recently so richly garbed Now poke heavenward bony fingers, Warning of winter storms gathering, Their leafy coats of dazzling color now lying shredded on the ground. And we sense a certain melancholy, a gentle grieving, For once again we are rushing headlong toward the end of another year. © Grand Valley State University �All Saints’ Day Prayer Richard A. Rhem Like sand streaming through our fingers Is the passing of our lives, And we seem paralyzed, failing to grasp it. Where have the years of our lives gone, O God, Where have they gone? And what will become of us? Ah, Dear God, Creator, Lover of this world In all the wonder of its diversity, There is no shadow of turning in You. You, the eternal God, From Whom we have life, To Whom our life returns, In You we trust, in You we rest. All is grace. We give You thanks through Jesus Christ, our Lord. For these moments, let us quiet our minds, Letting go of concerns that burden us, Regrets that cripple us, Fears that paralyze us, Whatever is troubling us. Let us image that which causes gratitude to rise in us – The gift and grace of life; The sources of our joy; Those persons who make life rich. Let us call to mind those images which have shaped us – The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, Of whom shall I be afraid? Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, And I will give you rest. Since God is for us, who can be against us? Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, Nor things present, nor things to come, Nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation Will be able to separate us from the love of God In Christ Jesus our Lord. All will be well, all will be well, © Grand Valley State University Page 2 �All Saints’ Day Prayer Richard A. Rhem All manner of things will be well. O God, Those words rise from our depths so naturally. O God It seems that, in moments like these When we purposefully, intentionally turn to you When we turn to whomever or whatever you are, We do so almost with a sigh, O God. For we know we are now in the zone of Mystery. There was something about Jesus when he prayed That caused the disciples to plead, Lord, teach us to pray. We plead, as well, O, God, teach us to pray. Once, perhaps, we came as suppliants To the Royal Throne of the Universe with requests We must admit on reflection were very self-centered, Reflecting a very small universe in which Our hopes and fears loomed very large. And still there are moments when we flee into your presence Totally occupied with our own concerns – Something that threatens us, or Some experience that crushes us, or Some potential happening that involves us in a loss we fear would undo us. And sometimes it is sheer joy, ecstasy, exhilaration That bursts forth in a torrent of praise, Shutting out everything else for the moment. But, more and more, we look not out there, But somehow within, into our own depths, Sensing we are connected deep down, rooted in Being itself, You being the inexhaustible Source and Ground of all that exists – The good earth, The starry heavens, The oceans’ tides And ourselves, conscious, aware, groping for some clue By which to know you, to rest in you, No longer strangers, but at home in the universe, At one with all that is. Sacred Mystery of Being, of our lives, © Grand Valley State University Page 3 �All Saints’ Day Prayer Richard A. Rhem Page 4 it is so good, so familiar for us gathered here to be gathered consciously in Your presence. Such rich memories we share of days gone by. O God, how grateful we are for all we have shared, for all we have experienced together – grateful for friendship, for mutual trust, mutual caring, support and love. On this All Saints’ Day we remember those we’ve loved and lost awhile. We are grateful, O God, for the confidence with which we live and die, that to live is to live unto the Lord and to die is to die unto the Lord and therefore whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. We are grateful, O great Mystery of life, that we have been graced with a fundamental trust that this cosmic dance into which our lives are woven is not a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, but a universe whose grain is love, whose end is life and light, a cosmos exploding before our eyes with marvels our forbears would not believe and we can hardly begin to comprehend. O God Our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Grant us joy and peace as in You We live and move and have our being, Confident we will never walk alone. Amen. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event All Saints Day Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20091101 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource All Saints Day Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 1, 2009 entitled "All Saints Day Prayer", on the occasion of All Saints Day. Tags: Community of Faith, All Saints' Day, prayer. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-11-01 All Saints' Day Community of Faith Prayer https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e39c0a897e29f51234a66fb5b7ccd2f7.pdf c9a002685bc814bf5a1ca4438c8a8424 PDF Text Text A Christmas Prayer Richard A. Rhem Spring Lake Country Club Spring Lake, Michigan December 20, 2009 O God, Mystery beyond us, Mystery within us, Sacred presence enveloping our lives in all that is good and true and beautiful, we are gathered here in this lovely setting with such depth and warmth of feeling, gathered with those with whom on so many Christmases past we have celebrated this High Holy Season, celebrated God in human flesh, celebrated the vulnerability of a child as the only true security. Ah, dear God, as we move toward that Holy Night we sense it once again. Our deepest intuitions our highest aspirations, persuade us again against all doubt, disappointment, cynicism and fear that the Story is true. The fairy tale goes to the heart of what is truly human, truly divine – love and joy and peace, the light that scatters the darkness, a vision of an alternative world that can find expression in nothing less than a choir of angels singing, “Glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace.” Once a year this annual festival calls us to stop, to reflect, to penetrate the mists of our muddled thinking, so caught up with matters of penultimate concern, to see what is truly ultimate, what matters ultimately, what is finally true – that vulnerability invites trust, humility invites embrace, © Grand Valley State University   �A Christmas Prayer Richard A. Rhem love begets love. Not Rome in all its glory but from the least of the tribes of Judah, from Bethlehem, the birth of a child signaled another way. A child was born whose ways and words would lift the veil of mystery from your face and provide us a window into your very heart – the heart of the Eternal, pure love, the heart of the Eternal, full of grace, a heart that spawned creation’s wonder, a heart that would not abandon nor ever let go of a world gone awry. A child was born and in his warm flesh, you touched us. In his words, you spoke to us, In his life, you showed us the way. The poet glimpsed your way – They all were looking for a King to slay their foes and lift them high; Thou cam’st, a little baby thing, that made a woman cry. You are with us in weakness rather than power. How strange that is, unsettling, unsatisfying, until we come to realize that only thus are you with us with our freedom intact; only thus can our humanity in your image be real. We come now, to this table. Spirit of God, Make for us this bread, the body, the reality of Christ; Make for us this cup, the blood, the life of Christ. In our eating and drinking Let us know that, in the end, we have nothing to fear. In His dying words – Into Your hands we commend our spirits. Amen. © Grand Valley State University Page 2   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Advent Series Following the meditation _Love Talk" Location The location of the interview Spring Lake Country Club Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20091220 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource A Christmas Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 20, 2009 entitled "A Christmas Prayer", as part of the series "Following the meditation 'Love Talk'", on the occasion of Advent, at Spring Lake Country Club. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-12-20 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7dee8928aea5d4c0edd66b381529798a.pdf 9c8c608d2190bbe4c799414b04a32221 PDF Text Text Morning Prayer In Autumn Richard A. Rhem Unity Church on the Lakeshore Douglas, Michigan October 17, 2010 O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home. When we in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds your hands have made, we see the stars, we hear the rolling thunder, your power throughout the universe displayed, our souls cannot but sing, O God, how great thou art! All about us the elegant beauty of the autumn landscape takes our breath away. Trees resplendent in autumnal garb, lining streets and country roads in a glorious procession of silent praise, drawing from the depths of our being wondering love as we look through them and beyond them to you, Creative Source of all, in whom we live and move and have our being. O God, seasons come and go and in that movement we see a parable of our days. How quickly pass the days of our lives. The freshness of spring passes into the mellowness of summer, which so soon becomes the ripe brilliance of autumn, which is the beginning of the end. But the end which does not trigger in our hearts despair, for we know that winter’s deadly snows are not a shroud bespeaking the end, but rather a mantle pure and white insulating the earth pregnant with the seeds of resurrection. Oh, dear God, if we have but eyes to see, hearts to feel, minds to wonder in awe when we see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night, we cannot but raise our voice in song, singing, “What a wonderful world!” If only we could remain there, enthralled in that wonderful world of nature, moving us to praise. © Grand Valley State University   �Morning Prayer in Autumn Richard A. Rhem Page 2   But when we turn from autumn leaves and blossoming mum plants to get the news of the day, we find ourselves bombarded with nastiness, twisted truth, blatant lies as we endure this election season. The poet of an earlier century could have been speaking of our day when he wrote, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;… The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” How can such a magnificent vision as we have shared as a nation come to this… irrational anger, bitter prejudice, bigotry, hate. As St. Francis prayed, so we pray in times like these, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.” But that was not all the news this week. Thirty-three lives were rescued from the bowels of the earth. We stood in awe of the marvel of human intelligence, skill, and ingenuity that enabled such a rescue, and we witnessed the better side of the human community as the whole world watched and waited, prayed and finally celebrated, confirming that within us all are better angels expressed in empathy and compassionate embrace of brothers and sisters unknown to us, far away, because they are family, part of the human family. In these moments, in this sacred space, in this warm community of love and care, we quiet our minds, let go of concerns that burden us, regrets that cripple us, fears that paralyze us, whatever is troubling us. Conscious of your healing presence, O God, touch us deeply, hold us securely, mantle us with peace. O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, We rest in you, our eternal home. Amen © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Unity Church, Douglas, MI Location The location of the interview Unity Church, Douglas Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20101017 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Morning Prayer in Autumn Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 17, 2010 entitled "Morning Prayer in Autumn", on the occasion of Unity Church, Douglas, MI, at Unity Church, Douglas. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-10-17 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b9f21ef2290e7257c9e672479f6a389c.pdf 35fb114eecee4d3cc5a28cc4589a976e PDF Text Text Prayer offered by Richard A. Rhem At the Celebration of the Life of Nancy Kay Edelmayer November 9, 2011 -––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– God of Love, God of Life, we have gathered in this place, in this hour, still reeling from the shock, the abrupt, wrenching away of someone so loved, someone so very much an anchor of loving support, a mother, grandmother, great grandmother and friend, whose vital presence was such a strong center of the family circle and the extended community. We know that death awaits us all, that from the moment we emit our borning cry there is for all of us a final farewell. Yet, especially when the leave-taking is sudden, it seems too soon. Though spared the agonizing pain and suffering of a slow, deteriorating death, there has been no time for proper goodbyes, no time to say things so often felt but left unsaid, no time for mutual blessing and holding and hoping. And thus, the grieving comes so sharply, cuts so deeply, because there has been no time for easing into the inevitable, to adjust to the loss. Thus, we feel bereft of one whom it seemed would always be there, an anchor, a rock, a steadying presence. We remember in these moments the way she was. Images tumble through our mind: She was a natural leader, strong, knowing her own mind, decisive, yet open, marked by good humor. She was without pretence; there was an authenticity about her; she never put on airs. Her honesty was refreshing if sometimes devastating; she had little patience for the games people play © Grand Valley State University �Prayer Offered to Celebrate the Life of Nancy Kay Edelmayer Page 2 when they are being less than honest. But somehow her strength, her presence larger than life, was wrapped in warmth, in compassion, empathy and good humor. She was kind and generous. She had a big heart and she loved deeply. No wonder then, O God, her death leaves such a crater, such emptiness. And no wonder we are gathered to celebrate her good life, to remember and give thanks for the gift we have shared. And on this, the eve of her 80th birthday, we remember the words of the Psalmist, “three score years and ten or by reason of strength, four score years “… Four score years she lived, lived well and fully, and then made her own 911 call. For her good death, we give you thanks, O God. Where love looms large loss is large as well. Where bonds of love are tight, when broken, grief and loss are painful. All of that we own, we acknowledge without denial . . . Yet we sense as well the beauty of this life lived well with love and grace, ending in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, confident that new vistas of wonder await, confident that all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well. Amazed by grace, now home, we rejoice for her, with her, and we worship you, O good and gracious God, through Jesus Christ our Lord who taught us all to pray saying, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. © 2012 Richard A. Rhem � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Nancy Edelmayer Funeral Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20111109 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Prayer for Life Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 9, 2011 entitled "Prayer for Life ", on the occasion of Nancy Edelmayer Funeral. Tags: Trust. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-11-09 Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b06931477ff5e2833524968b726f4cee.pdf 9ba345c8e004016a9b06d658efcb8e0f PDF Text Text Thanksgiving Prayer Richard A. Rhem St. John’s Episcopal Church Grand Haven, Michigan November 20, 2011 Let us be in a spirit of prayer, conscious in these moments of that Sacred Presence present to us in moments of awareness. Living God, fountain of creative energy, mystery beyond fathoming, we pray, we speak, we address You, hidden in a cloud of unknowing. We address You, God of our lives, for we have been addressed – encountered, touched, moved by grace. We contemplate our world and we stand in awe; wonder overwhelms us. Are You the cosmic poet, the composer of this cosmic symphony, the grand initiator of all that is, the ultimate strange attractor that beckons all life and existence toward the heavenly city? Infinite mystery of being, on this Lord’s Day evening we contemplate our lives; we bring our prayer of thanksgiving. We, Your children, offspring of stardust, gaze with awe at the wonder of it all. Creative Spirit, transforming chaos into cosmos, disorder into order, dissonance and noise into the language of a poem, You are our life, In You we live and move and have our being. Conscious, aware, observers of a cosmic drama – we sense we have been addressed. We have been touched by a very great grace. Overwhelmed by the wonder of it all, we are truly grateful, humbled by the richness and the goodness that mark our lives. November is here; another month, one more after this, and another year will have passed. © Grand Valley State University �Thanksgiving Prayer Richard A. Rhem Page 2 Season upon season – how quickly the tale of our lives is told. We know November is here: the trees are bare now; biting wind and chilling rain threaten the first snow. Sunsets are flaming gold and heavy clouds portend the approaching winter. November spells Thanksgiving –a time to reflect, to remember, to give thanks, to give thanks for a providence in life which we cannot comprehend. We give You thanks: that You are, that You are gracious, that You have created space for us, that You have taken time for us, that You have created us for life – together, for community; that You have brought us into fellowship with Yourself and with one another. We give thanks that we belong, that we are family. We are not immune from pain; we suffer loss; sometimes a tide of doubt overwhelms us; sometimes questions haunt us, fears taunt us. But we are not alone. We have each other and, in the care and support of one another, we find You. We know there is a love that heals and a grace that will triumph, and so we trust, sometimes in sunlight, sometimes in darkness, but always in You, O good and gracious God. Thanks be to You through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now as we move to this table, we pray for the breath of Your Spirit. Enable us to know the one who came garbed in our flesh to show us Your love as graciously, powerfully present to us, enlivening us, renewing us. Spirit of God, through bread and cup feed us, give us drink and let us know the love of God beyond knowing. Hear these our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Thanksgiving Location The location of the interview St. John_s Episcopal Church, Grand Haven Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20111120 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Thanksgiving Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 20, 2011 entitled "Thanksgiving Prayer", on the occasion of Thanksgiving, at St. John's Episcopal Church, Grand Haven. Tags: Thanksgiving, Community. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-11-20 Community Thanksgiving https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8de395c3a617aff307f3913e4306db0b.pdf ff2a068e0345a80b451b19e0050a84b0 PDF Text Text Prayer Fred Meijer Memorial Service Richard A. Rhem Sunshine Community Church Grand Rapids, Michigan November 30, 2011 Let us be in the spirit of prayer in the presence of the Creative Source of all being, in whom we live and move and have our being – that sacred mystery hidden in a cloud of unknowing. We are gathered here to celebrate the life of one whose presence was larger than life, one who, it seemed, would always be there. We are still reeling from the shock, the abrupt wrenching away of one so deeply loved – husband, father, grandfather, titan of business, inspiring leader of the broader community. We know that death awaits us all, that, from the moment we emit our borning cry, there is for all of us a final farewell. Yet, especially when the leave-taking is sudden, it seems too soon, even after nearly 92 years. Though spared the agonizing pain and suffering of a slow, deteriorating death, there has been no time for proper goodbyes, no time to say things so often felt but left unsaid, no time for mutual blessing and holding and hoping. And thus, the grieving comes so sharply, cuts so deeply, because there has been no time for easing into the inevitable, to adjust to the loss. Thus, we feel bereft of one who it seemed would always be there. Loss is proportionate to love. Pain is measured by what the one removed meant to us – and this one meant so much. There is no denying the loss. Yet, O God, there is no denying the wonder as well – wonder at the beauty of love, at the amazing grace, simplicity, humility and authenticity © Grand Valley State University   �Fred Meijer Memorial Prayer Richard A. Rhem with which this one, now absent from us, lived before us, with us. In the spirit of prayer, we remember this one whose life we celebrate – remembering the way he was in the fullness of human being; the brilliance of that mind that never rested, yet was ever at rest; a sensitivity that shined through those eyes dancing with delight as he looked into our eyes and put us at ease; a brilliance used never to intimidate or embarrass or humiliate, but to lay bare the truth that sets us free, to free us from superstition that holds the soul bound, from a lack of nerve, a failure of courage, to follow where justice and fairness lead, furthering the possibilities for a humane world, for civility and dignity, for compassion and peace… We remember and we marvel; he was so tender in his sensitivity and care, yet so strong… Living out of his own center in freedom, submitting to no external authority, living with a marvelous detachment that enabled him to live beyond the siren call of recognition or adulation or fame purchased at the cost of one’s soul – yielding never to compromise or expediency in the struggle for justice and defense of principle. In the silence we remember the way he was, the way he changed our lives. We remember and we are grateful, grateful that the luminosity of his being irradiated our own; grateful for this gift we have shared, this human encounter which has been divine. For Fred Meijer in whose life and love we have beheld You and been brushed by Your grace. what can we say but “Wow!” Thanks be to You, Oh, God. Amen. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University Page 2   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Fred Meijer Memorial Service Location The location of the interview Sunshine Community Church, Grand Rapids Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20111130 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Prayer at Memorial of Fred Meijer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 30, 2011 entitled "Prayer at Memorial of Fred Meijer", on the occasion of Fred Meijer Memorial Service, at Sunshine Community Church, Grand Rapids. Tags: Community, Love . Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-11-30 Community Love https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0692a60070aa6fcb543c524281a64f77.pdf eedfc455f3bdcf2b7309e31793142571 PDF Text Text The Best is Yet To Be Meditation and Prayer In Celebration of the Life of Frederic R. Birdsall Richard A. Rhem Freedom Village, Holland, Michigan June 16, 2012 Let us be in the spirit of prayer in the presence of the Creative Source of all being, in whom we live and move and have our being – the Sacred Mystery hidden in a cloud of unknowing. Eternal God, Source, Guide and Goal of all that is, from You we receive life as a gift and to You our life returns. In the Psalmist’s poetic expression, You send forth your breath, your Spirit, and they are created. You take away their breath, they die. We find our comfort in life and in death that we are not our own but belong to You, a faithful God whose steadfast love embraces us on this fascinating and fragile human pilgrimage. And thus we find it most natural at such a time as this, in such a place as this, to lift up our hearts in worship, to bow in Your presence before the mystery of life and the reality of death. We worship for we are aware of the wonder of creation, its beauty and its terror, its loveliness and its pain. We turn to You, O God; we rest in You; we trust where we do not know. © Grand Valley State University   �The Best Is Yet To Be Richard A. Rhem Page 2   In You we hope, and to You we commend those we’ve loved and lost awhile. Good and Gracious God, You breathe into us and we have the gift of life; we commend our breath to you and, thus, our earthly pilgrimage is ended. You, O God, are the source and giver of life, and to You all life returns. In the beginning, in the end, You are God. And in the meantime, this in-between time, You uphold us with everlasting arms. You overshadow us with a gracious Presence. You bear us up on eagle’s wings; beneath your sheltering wings we find refuge and peace. Sacred Mystery of all being, of our being, consciously aware of our lives in your light, we worship. We know that all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well. That was the confident trust of the one whose life we celebrate today. This one we’ve loved and lost awhile, our Fred, beloved husband, father, friend. Quiet, unassuming, competent in his profession – images tumble through our minds as we remember him. We will always smile as we think of him because he was our good humor man – story upon story he sent into cyber space, bringing to a wide circle of friends delight and laughter. Fred stories abound and the twinkle in his eye was contagious. Yet there was more – there was in Fred a passion for peace, for justice. An astute observer of our times, he was an advocate for human decency, civility and fairness. He was a truly good man who stood for a kinder and gentler nation and righteousness and justice in society. Fred cared and he made his voice heard for the values he embraced. With open mind he continued to wonder and to grow in knowledge and understanding, and with good heart he embodied compassion. © Grand Valley State University �The Best Is Yet To Be Richard A. Rhem And thus, O God, we celebrate Your grace in his life and remember him with affection and respect. Knowing he was resting on everlasting arms in the embrace of Grace, he saw his end, and in confidence he chose to enter Your presence, O God, resting in his final labored breathing in the abyss of Your love. And in such a time as this, in such a place as this, Gracious God, we are grateful above all that the end is not broken health and dreams unfulfilled, swallowed up in death, but rather the confidence that to live is to live unto the Lord, and to die is to die unto the Lord, so then whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Receive our thanksgiving, O God. Grant the comfort of Your Spirit, renew our hope and lead us on in the confidence that nothing can ever separate us from Your love in Christ Jesus our Lord, who taught us to pray, saying, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.   © Grand Valley State University Page 3   �The Best Is Yet To Be Richard A. Rhem Page two © Grand Valley State University Page 4   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Prayer and Meditation in Memory of Frederic Birdsall Location The location of the interview Freedom Village, Holland, Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20120616 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Best is Yet to Be, Birdsall Memorial Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 16, 2012 entitled "The Best is Yet to Be, Birdsall Memorial", on the occasion of Prayer and Meditation in Memory of Frederic Birdsall, at Freedom Village, Holland, Michigan. Tags: Faithful God, Grace. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-06-16 Faithful God Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/84c555339f9c96b8758b2ae2a35552ab.pdf 3ec32a474833692fbff0b44e83c674f6 PDF Text Text The Best is Yet To Be A Prayer in Celebration Of the Life of Louise Zevalkink Richard A. Rhem Fifth Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan July 3, 2012 Prepared text of prayer Let us be in the spirit of prayer in the presence of the Creative Source of all being, in whom we live and move and have our being – the Sacred Mystery hidden in a cloud of unknowing. Eternal God, Source, Guide and Goal of all that is, from You we receive life as a gift and to You our life returns. In the Psalmist’s poetic expression, You send forth your breath, your Spirit, and they are created. You take away their breath, they die. We find our comfort in life and in death that we are not our own but belong to You, a faithful God whose steadfast love embraces us on this fascinating and fragile human pilgrimage. And thus we find it most natural at such a time as this, in such a place as this, to lift up our hearts in worship, to bow in Your presence before the mystery of life and the reality of death. We worship for we are aware of the wonder of creation, its beauty and its terror, its loveliness and its pain. We turn to You, O God; we rest in You; we trust where we do not know. In You we hope, and to You we commend © Grand Valley State University �The Best is Yet To Be Richard A. Rhem Page 2 those we’ve loved and lost awhile. Good and Gracious God, we have gathered in worship to remember and to give thanks – to remember our mother, grandmother, great grandmother and friend. We remember the way she was – indeed an extraordinary person for whom there are not superlatives enough to describe her and to give expression to all she meant to us and the ways she made our lives come to life. Her physical beauty was the outward embodiment of the beauty of her soul, the instrument of a human spirit that transformed every situation into which she entered, creating joy, good humor, well being. She had an unaffected presence about her that made us confident that all would be well – not through what she did, but simply because her presence was a sweet aroma of grace and goodness that changed everything for the better. Our model, our inspiration – dear God, how we miss her and will miss her as weeks and months and years pass. But filling the cavern of our grief will be memories – so many memories of times and places, and through tears we will laugh as we remember her. Over these last years physical ailments took their toll and finally, slowly, her life ebbed away. The body gave way but not her mind, not her spirit, not her trust in You, good and gracious God. Her faith burned brightly. Scripture – favorite passages, old favorite hymns – these saturated her soul as life ebbed away. Enwrapped in a mantle of love from family and care givers, she breathed her last, awaiting “just one more surprise,” which for her was not a surprise at all for she has experienced that which in trust she anticipated. Face to face she has beheld him – © Grand Valley State University �The Best is Yet To Be Richard A. Rhem the blessed assurance with which she lived is now fully realized, even beyond her fondest dreams. O God, there is no denying our loss. Where love looms large, loss is large a well. Where bonds of love are tight, when broken, grief and loss are painful. All of that we own, we acknowledge, without denial. Yet we are overwhelmed by the beauty, the wonder of this life that has touched us so deeply – the amazing grace with which she lived and the deep trust with which she breathed her last. And in such a time as this, in such a place as this, Gracious God, we are grateful above all that the end is not broken health and dreams unfulfilled, swallowed up in death, but rather the confidence that to live is to live unto the Lord, and to die is to die unto the Lord, so then whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Receive our thanksgiving, O God. Grant the comfort of Your Spirit, renew our hope and lead us on in the confidence that nothing can ever separate us from Your love in Christ Jesus our Lord, who taught us to pray, saying, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. © Grand Valley State University Page 3 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Prayer for the Funeral of Louise Zevalkink Location The location of the interview Fifth Reformed Church, Grand Rapids Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20120703 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Best Is Yet To Be Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 3, 2012 entitled "The Best Is Yet To Be", on the occasion of Prayer for the Funeral of Louise Zevalkink, at Fifth Reformed Church, Grand Rapids. Tags: Faithful God, Grace, Family. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-03 Faithful God Family Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5e4b9a3c9f9cf7db64908f84628d475c.pdf c58623d39df5b002398e7271da0aaef3 PDF Text Text Prayer Following the Meditation for Marvin Bottema Richard A. Rhem Spring Lake, Michiga March 2, 2013 Eternal God, Source, Guide and Goal of all that is, from You we receive life as a gift and to You our life returns. In the Psalmist’s poetic expression, You send forth your breath, your Spirit, and they are created. You take away their breath, they die. We find our comfort in life and in death that we are not our own but belong to you, a faithful God, Whose steadfast love embraces us on this fascinating and fragile human pilgrimage. And thus we find it most natural at such a time as this, in such a place as this, to lift up our hearts in worship, to bow in Your presence before the mystery of life and the reality of death. We worship, for we are aware of the wonder of creation, its beauty and its terror, its loveliness and its pain. We turn to You, O God, giver of life and Ground of all being. We rest in You, we trust where we do not know. In You we hope and to You we commend those we’ve loved and lost awhile. Finally home, our beloved father, grandfather, great grandfather, brother, friend, your faithful servant, Marvin Bottema. Finally home in a grand reunion– his beautiful Thelma, Gerrit and Johanna, Neil and Alice, and the others who have been part of this remarkable family, a family rooted in a wonderful community of village and church where ties of love, mutual care and strong tradition created the good life – the good life we have all received as a gift of Your Grace, O God, a gift we treasure, a gift we pray we pass on as it has been entrusted to us. We give thanks for the privilege of living in the aroma of your Grace as it was manifested in his life. © Grand Valley State University   �Prayer for Marvin Bottema Richard A. Rhem The kitchen was the sanctuary – gathered around the kitchen table, the liturgy varied according to who came through the door. And no matter who showed up one could find their picture plastered on the refrigerator. There was always coffee and chocolate chip cookies – unless John had been there earlier. Precious times. Our loved one, now parted from us, was not, as it were, the chairman. On any given day on any given topic, anyone might take the lead. Nonetheless, his was the presence that mattered, the presence that bound all together in the bundle of life and love. We celebrate this life, this one who kept us together when his beloved Thelma entered your light eternal, O God. Summer holidays in the yard, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, crunched into the family room. And miss him though we will, grieve his absence, still we know it was time. He was tired, he was ready, he faced his end with equanimity, receiving the benediction in full assurance. O God, there is no denying our loss. Where love looms large, loss is large as well. Where bonds of love are tight, when broken, grief and loss are painful. All of that we own, we acknowledge, without denial. And in such a time as this, in such a place as this, Gracious God, we are grateful above all that the end is not broken health and dreams unfulfilled, swallowed up in death, but rather the confidence that to live is to live unto the Lord, and to die is to die unto the Lord, so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Receive our thanksgiving, O God. Grant the comfort of Your Spirit, renew our hope and lead us on in the confidence that nothing can ever separate us from Your love in Christ Jesus our Lord, Who taught us to pray, saying, © Grand Valley State University Page 2   �Prayer for Marvin Bottema Richard A. Rhem Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. © Grand Valley State University Page 3   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Funeral Service Location The location of the interview Spring Lake, Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20130302 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-03-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Prayer in Memory of Marvin Bottema Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 2, 2013 entitled "Prayer in Memory of Marvin Bottema", on the occasion of Funeral Service, at Spring Lake, Michigan. Tags: Prayer, Funeral, Community of Faith. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Community of Faith Funeral Prayer https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f3af856cca191e82568101d78c5fd644.pdf 7bd84097904914930803c85b7479417b PDF Text Text Prayer Offered By Richard A. Rhem At the Memorial Service for Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga Freedom Village, Holland, Michigan May 25, 2013 Oh God, beyond our fathoming, eternal, infinite – terms we use to describe what is indescribable – we bow in these moments conscious that we are in the presence of Mystery, a Mystery that embraces us and will always defy our lust to define, to reduce to manageable terms, yet a Mystery not all mysterious for, eternal though You be, You have taken time for us. In the beginning You stepped out of eternity’s depths and called a world into being. In the fullness of time You spoke once more and the Word that wrought our time became flesh in our midst; a human face gave shape to the glory of Your being and revealed You full of grace, mediated to us through the Presence of Your Spirit. Thus, on the morrow, the Lord’s Day, Trinity Sunday, we shall worship You, Father/Son/Holy Spirit, in whom we live and move and have our being. When we have done our best to grasp you, image you, only one thing matters – Eternal Love that came to expression in the face of Jesus. God is Love. All of our theology and philosophy, our reasoning and our wondering, comes down to that: God is Love. Thus Margaret knew you, trusted you, committed her life to you in her love of family, her community, whomever crossed her path in need. We remember and we give thanks. © Grand Valley State University   �Prayer Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Images tumble through our minds of the way she was, larger than life. Perhaps her fondest dream, her greatest gift, was the Art Museum for which ground was broken yesterday. How ironic, O God of Mystery, that this Memorial Day Weekend should see the realization of her dream and the celebration of her life in death. Yet so it is and, not denying the grief, still there is something rather beautiful – in her death her crowning achievement realized. We remember and give thanks for this one who touched so many with grace, whose heart was large enough to embrace a broad and diverse community, whose wisdom aided so many onto the paths of well-being. We remember and we give thanks for this remarkable woman, this Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga, strong of mind and will, strong of conviction and of faith, yet generous, full of life, good humor, loving to delight, one whose strong presence made a difference. And in such a time as this, in such a place as this, Gracious God, we are grateful above all that the end is not broken health and dreams unfulfilled, swallowed up in death, but rather the confidence that to live is to live unto the Lord, and to die is to die unto the Lord. So then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Receive our thanksgiving, O God. Grant the comfort of Your Spirit, renew our hope and lead us on in the confidence that nothing can ever separate us from Your love in Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Memorial Service Location The location of the interview Freedom Village, Holland, Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20130525 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-05-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Prayer in Memory of Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 2, 2013 entitled "Prayer in Memory of Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga", on the occasion of Memorial Service, at Freedom Village, Holland, Michigan. Tags: God is Love. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf God is Love https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bf2e9c7eddd36f3a759466abeeda2042.pdf d29f5472217d8a7f163a63900ed15773 PDF Text Text Prayer Offered at the Celebration of Dorothy Boelen’s Life Richard A. Rhem St. John’s Episcopal Church Grand Haven, Michigan August 1, 2013 In the spirit of quiet anticipation, we come consciously into your Presence, Sacred Mystery of Being, in Whom we live and move and have our being. We would be still and know that you are God, our Sustainer through this earthly pilgrimage and our eternal home. Hidden from us in a cloud of unknowing, yet so very present to us in life’s Grace moments, moments when Love becomes tangible because embodied in another, in a face, a smile, a touch. This one whose life we celebrate today was such an instrument of your Love, a channel of your Grace. What a gift we have shared! Loss is proportionate to love; pain is measured by what the one removed meant to us – and this one, our Dorothy, meant so much. There is no denying the loss. Yet, O God, there is no denying the wonder as well, wonder at the beauty of love she embodied, wonder at grace amazing, simplicity, humility, authenticity, indeed, an altogether lovely humanity. We remember the way she was. We remember and we give thanks that our lives were enriched living in the circle of light that shone through her. Good and Gracious God, we have gathered in worship to remember and to give thanks – to remember a wife, a mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister, aunt and friend. We acknowledge our sadness as over the last years and months we witnessed that brilliant mind closed even as her eyesight dimmed. The strong and gracious presence was reduced to quiet desperation. We were heartbroken that we lost her long before she breathed her last. © Grand Valley State University   �Prayer in Memory of Dorothy Boelens Richard A. Rhem Gord’s loving care, family’s deep concern and love surrounded her. But that vibrant one we loved and admired was only a shadow of herself. Yet, amazingly, O God, these are bittersweet moments. There is no denying the loss but there is no denying the wonder as well – the wonder at the beauty of love, the meaning of life, the sacredness of human bonding. Things come into focus; we gain perspective, We know in tangible experience what we thought we knew before, but realize we didn’t know as deeply – That what really matters finally is the love we’ve known – love given, love received. Our hearts swell, eyes moisten as we contemplate it all – the gift we’ve known in this one who loved so deeply, so broadly. And in such a time as this, in such a place as this, Gracious God, we are grateful above all that the end is not broken health and dreams unfulfilled, swallowed up in death, but rather the confidence that to live is to live unto the Lord, and to die is to die unto the Lord, so then whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Sacred Mystery of our lives, You are there to hear our borning cry, You are there when we are old. And when we shut our weary eyes you are there with just one more surprise. With such full faith we bid our loved one farewell, trusting in full assurance that All will be well, All will be well, All manner of things will be well. O God, our hearts are full, quite overwhelmed. We commend our loved one, full of love, into the abyss of Your Love, in the name of the Good Shepherd whose love she embodied, Jesus Christ our Lord. © Grand Valley State University Page 2   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Funeral Service for Dorothy Kruizenga Boelens Location The location of the interview St. John's Episcopal Chruch, Grand Haven, Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20130801 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-08-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Prayer in Celebration of the Life of Dorothy Boelens Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 1, 2013 entitled "Prayer in Celebration of the Life of Dorothy Boelens", on the occasion of Funeral Service for Dorothy Kruizenga Boelens, at St. John's Episcopal Chruch, Grand Haven, Michigan. Tags: Prayer, Mystery, Death, Profile in Love, Family. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Death Family Mystery Prayer Profile in Love https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d2a0555ae20a27e7427909c66572243a.pdf 569e1f12a53533ab14b35b5842a4f43b PDF Text Text   An Anniversary Prayer Prayer offered by Richard A. Rhem at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Glenn and Arlene Yoas December 13, 2013 Oh God, Eternal One, in whom we live and move and have our being, in the midst of this happy celebration we pause consciously to experience and to acknowledge your presence, present to us. We do so naturally at life’s critical junctures, life’s moments awash with meaning – those moments that cause our hearts to sing or to break, our minds to be radiant with light and illumination or numb in somber darkness. We pause; we are still. We are present to you who are present to us – the presence of Mystery in whom and before whom our lives are played out. In the quietness of this moment, we pause to give thanks for the fifty years of life together shared by Glenn and Arlene – for their love and faithfulness, for the richness of their experiences, for the model they are of strength and steadiness, of faith and devotion. We celebrate their years as lovers, partners, friends, and we give you thanks that, as children, grandchildren and friends, we can share these moments with them. Memories wash over us of special times and seasons. The film of fifty years flashes through our minds – times when we laughed until the tears washed over our cheeks; times when the struggle was intense, and the goal far off; times when dreams came true, © Grand Valley State University   �Anniversary Prayer Richard A. Rhem Page 2   and times when dreams were shattered; times when joy burst the soul, and times when grief filled the heart; times of health and strength; times when health seemed threatened and the future put in question. Oh God, we remember with laughter and with tears, and we own it all, the whole long, wonderful, fragile, perilous, beautiful journey. For it is the tapestry of two lives lived well, lived fully, authentically, before your face – a tapestry with entwining threads of all the colors of the rainbow: brighter and more somber tones, light and shadow. And through it all your presence, your faithfulness, even your presence in absence. We give you thanks, O God, for your grace that has enabled them to be all they are, and we seek your benediction upon them as they move beyond this significant landmark. Fill their future years with the richness of harvest, enabling them to savor the fruits of their love and labor. Favor them with good health and even new adventure. Surround them with the loving care of their children, the happy exuberance of their grandchildren, and embrace of the circle of their friends. May your mercy be experienced with every breaking dawn and peace mantle them with every golden sunset. And as they gaze on the grandeur of the night’s starry heaven, may they know themselves enwrapped together in the Mystery of the abyss of your steadfast love. With gratitude we gather around these tables, acknowledging the gifts of bread and wine. And in the midst of this joyous feast, we remember the one who broke bread and poured the cup, and has become for us the Bread of Life, the Wine of New Creation, the one whose birth we celebrate in this beautiful season of Advent and Christmas – Jesus Christ our Lord. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event A prayer at the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of the Yoas Location The location of the interview Grand Haven, Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20131213 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-12-13 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Anniversary Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 13, 2013 entitled "Anniversary Prayer ", on the occasion of A prayer at the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of the Yoas, at Grand Haven, Michigan. Tags: Prayer, Anniversary, Life Journey. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Anniversary Life Journey Prayer https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/568e3dd8a0c0084268b9babc93bad224.pdf d6427e543f6d736ebd2d700976dc7099 PDF Text Text A Family Christmas Prayer Richard A. Rhem Christmas, 2013 O God, Mystery beyond us, Mystery within us, Sacred Presence enveloping our lives in all that is good and true and beautiful, we are gathered here in this home we have loved for over 30 years as a family first formed forty-one years ago on Christmas. We remember the little church, the tree, the poinsettias, the reception at the Brysons in their warm and lovely home and can hardly believe we have shared forty-one Christmases as a family, grown from eight to twenty-six – a family we treasure, so warm, so caring – simply Love embodied. Today we welcome Robbie into the embrace of this family as he and Sarah dream a future together. And today Richard is in the circle, having been given a place in Dan and Susan’s family, welcomed by Dani, Sarah and Sam. Gathered here, we hold in our hearts those absent from us: Katie, Jonathan and Brenda, Joseph and family. How blessed we are. In these moments, O God, we know that the Christmas story is true. It goes to the heart of what is truly human, truly divine – Love and Joy and Peace, the Light that scatters the darkness, a vision of an alternative world that can find expression in nothing less than a choir of angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace.” �Once a year this annual festival calls us to stop, to reflect, to penetrate the mists of our muddled thinking, so caught up with matters of only passing concern, to see what is truly ultimate, what truly matters, what is finally true – that vulnerability invites trust, that humility invites embrace, that love begets love. O God, we worship and adore in the Presence of the Christmas Babe. Amen. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event A Prayer at a Rhem Family Gathering Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20131225 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-12-25 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource A Family Christmas Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 25, 2013 entitled "A Family Christmas Prayer", on the occasion of A Prayer at a Rhem Family Gathering. Tags: Prayer, Christmas, Family, Presence of God, Love. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Christmas Family Love Prayer Presence of God https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3d8d378463cc4c0ce288ffe8f832390d.pdf f8f317ece3f74f24f2b9aa5b238b108d PDF Text Text Prayer Celebrating the Life of Norman Campbell Richard A. Rhem First Congregational Church Muskegon, Michigan January 24, 2014 Oh God, we would be still and know that You are God, Source of all being, Mysterious Mover of the ongoing cosmic drama, creatively breathing fresh surprises into the tapestry of our history, graciously present to us in those moments of awareness when we come to ourselves, when for at least a brief time light dawns upon us and we are saturated with wonder – at the sight of setting sun or starry sky, or our Great Lake blanketed with snow on towering bergs of ice. Then in silence and solitude we know what is beyond knowing. Then a serenity sweeps over our souls and we know all is gift. For we did not create ourselves or our world – not the brilliant winter sun or blinding blizzard, not the air we breathe, not the winter landscape wrapped in glistening ermine. Then we know we are part of something so much larger than the narrow parameters of our daily experience and limited understanding. Before the wonder of it all, we sense we are embraced, caught up in something the dimensions of which we cannot begin to take in – that Mystery that has addressed us, eliciting from us in turn the response of address, when from our depths we utter, “O God.” Then, knowing beyond knowing, we know we have been found by our Source and in turn have found our Resting Place. © Grand Valley State University   �Prayer in Memory of Norman Campbell Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Source and Resting Place, present to us in mysterious and gracious Presence. It is enough. Only gratitude then fills our being and thus we pray, “Thanks be to You, O God.” Gathered here as we are in the posture of worship in Your Presence, we have come to celebrate the life of this good man, Norman Campbell. We remember the way he was and we know why we are grieving so deeply. He leaves such a crater in our hearts for he filled us so tenderly with his mere presence – gentle, kind, gracious, humble, unassuming, generous – the adjectives surface so spontaneously. This one we have loved and lost awhile was a very special human being and he graced our lives so richly. A lover, a care giver, an irreplaceable presence. Beyond the circle of family and friends, a brilliant engineer, a keen industrialist and business man – one who created of his workers a family. Yet in this gentle giant a fire burned – for Tigers, and Blue was a sacred color in the liturgy of his life. And, O God, he walked always in Your Light, a man of deep trust, of inquiring mind, one who rested deeply in Your grace. Those of us beyond family saw all of this but knew as well that his family was where his heart dwelt, where his love was poured, where he found his deepest joy. We celebrate this one, dearly loved and deeply respected. We remember and we give You thanks, O good and gracious God, for the gift we shared– family, dear friends, larger community – the gift we shared of his presence in our midst. Loss is proportionate to love; pain is measured by what the one removed meant to us – and this one meant so much. Yet, amazingly, O God, © Grand Valley State University �Prayer in Memory of Norman Campbell Richard A. Rhem these are bitter-sweet moments. There is no denying the loss, but there is no denying the wonder as well – the wonder at the beauty of love, the meaning of life, the sacredness of human bonding. Things come into focus; we gain perspective. We know in tangible experience what we thought we knew before, but realize we didn’t know as deeply – that what matters finally is the love we’ve known, the love we’ve given, the love we’ve received. Our hearts swell, eyes moisten as we contemplate it all – the gift we’ve known in this one who loved so deeply, so broadly, so naturally… Knowing he was resting on everlasting arms in the embrace of Grace, he saw his end, and in confidence he chose to enter Your presence, O God, resting in his final labored breathing in the abyss of Your love. And in such a time as this, in such a place as this, Gracious God, we are grateful above all that the end is not broken health and dreams unfulfilled, swallowed up in death, but rather the confidence that to live is to live unto the Lord, and to die is to die unto the Lord, so then whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Sacred Mystery of all being, of our being, consciously aware of our lives in Your light, we worship. We know that all will be well, all will be well. All manner of things will be well. Amen. © Grand Valley State University Page 3   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Funeral Service for Norman Campbell Location The location of the interview First Congregational Church Muskegon, Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20140124 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-01-24 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Prayer Celebrating the Life of Norman Campbell Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 24, 2014 entitled "Prayer Celebrating the Life of Norman Campbell", on the occasion of Funeral Service for Norman Campbell, at First Congregational Church Muskegon, Michigan. Tags: Prayer, Funeral, Presence of God, Worship, Grace. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Funeral Grace Prayer Presence of God Worship https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7c2689ab3ee735b032e9b5d7140f983e.pdf 11512cc243754e285468d0c9c1b09a70 PDF Text Text Prayer At The Celebration of The Life of Margaret Ruth Olezczuk Richard A. Rhem The Lee Chapel, Sytsema Funeral Home Norton Shores, Michigan September 15, 2014 Transcription of the written prayer For these few moments, O God, Sacred Mystery of our lives, Creative Source, Eternal Presence, and our Final Home, grace us with awareness that we are held in the embrace of Love as family and friends and the one we have loved and lost awhile. God of our lives, beyond the changing seasons, constant through the passages that mark our days, for these moments, still our minds, quiet our hearts, be present to us as we, in Your presence, remember this one who filled so large a role in our lives. Her physical beauty was the outward embodiment of the beauty of the soul, the instrument of a human spirit that transformed every situation into which she entered, creating joy, good humor, well being. She had that about her that made us confident that all would be well – not through what she did, but simply because her presence was a sweet aroma of grace and goodness that changed everything for the better. O God, our hearts are full. Images tumble through our minds. We see her yet, always a lady, stunning, stylish, classy, able always simply to be herself – unaffected, genuine, authentic, deep. © Grand Valley State University   �Prayer in Celebration of the Life of Margaret Olezczuk Richard A. Rhem For this crown jewel of Your creative art, we give You thanks. O God, there is no denying our loss. Where love looms large, loss is large as well. Where bonds of love are tight, when broken, grief and loss are painful. All of that we own, we acknowledge without denial. Yet we are overwhelmed by the beauty, the wonder of this life that has touched us so deeply – the amazing grace with which she lived and the deep trust with which she breathed her last. And in such a time as this, in such a place as this, Gracious God, we are grateful above all that the end is not broken health and dreams unfulfilled, swallowed up in death, but rather the confidence that to live is to live unto the Lord, and to die is to die unto the Lord. So then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Receive our thanksgiving, O God. Grant the comfort of Your Spirit. Renew our hope and lead us on in the confidence that nothing can ever separate us from Your love in Christ Jesus our Lord, Who taught us to pray, saying, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. © Grand Valley State University Page 2   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Funeral Service at Sytsema Funeral Home Location The location of the interview Lee Chapel, Norton Shores, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20140915 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-09-15 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Prayer at the Celebration of the Life of Margaret Ruth Oleszczuk Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 15, 2014 entitled "Prayer at the Celebration of the Life of Margaret Ruth Oleszczuk", on the occasion of Funeral Service at Sytsema Funeral Home, at Lee Chapel, Norton Shores, MI. Tags: Funeral, Prayer, Grace, Trust. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Funeral Grace Prayer Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d7d7c981e89e8a6dbdfdbb435bc730c6.pdf 2d4b216d79808e83945ce0dc69caa108 PDF Text Text God of Many Names, A Prayer by Richard A. Rhem Interfaith Leadership Dinner Kaufman Interfaith Institute Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids, Michigan April 27, 2015 God of many names, gathered into one, in your love we sense our oneness. Having traveled our respective paths, which we honor, we find we have arrived here together in one place – not only physical space – but oneness of vision, oneness of spirit, embraced together in the freedom of grace and the wonder of love. We are grateful for this movement that gathers us, for those whose vision is being realized, for those whose faithful leadership challenges us to new frontiers of faith and service, and especially for the lives of those honored this evening, who have embodied the beauty of being as one in your presence. As we gather around tables spread, we know your grace as we look into each other’s face and sense a bit of heaven on earth. O God of many names, receive our thanksgiving. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Interfaith Leadership Dinner Kaufman Interfaith Institute Location The location of the interview GVSU, Grand Rapids, Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20150427 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-04-27 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource God of Many Names Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 27, 2015 entitled "God of Many Names", on the occasion of Interfaith Leadership Dinner Kaufman Interfaith Institute, at GVSU, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Tags: Prayer, Interfaith. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Interfaith Prayer https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/716a5bfa173c9ae8e23f4b29481715ac.pdf 5993d7b3796bad526bdc14ba8cc702c7 PDF Text Text Kruizenga Art Museum Dedication Prayer Richard A. Rhem Hope College Holland, Michigan September 9, 2015 O God, in Whom we live and move and have our being, great cosmic Artist, painting the universe in hues that take our breath away, inspiring human art that enhances and transforms our lives, we gather to dedicate today The Kruizenga Art Museum, a gem on this beautiful campus for the enrichment of the whole college community and the larger community beyond, whose space will be filled with masterpieces from around the world, bringing here a window on artistic expression from the global community. As we dedicate this museum, we give thanks for the vision of Richard and Margaret Kruizenga and the generosity that has made it possible, and we celebrate the intention that beautiful artistic expression enrich all the disciplines of the college. We pray your Spirit and grace will rest richly on the college that values life’s aesthetic dimension – on administration, on faculty, on the student body – that there may be a continuing stream of lives enriched by encounter with some of the world’s great art, who will make their world more beautiful, more humane, knowing that all that is true and good and beautiful flows from Your creative grace. O God, Source of all that enriches us on our human journey, to such high and holy purposes we gather to dedicate this, The Kruizenga Art Museum. Amen. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Dedication of the Kruizenga Art Museum Location The location of the interview Hope College, Holland, Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-1-20150909 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09-09 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Kruizenga Art Museum Dedication Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 9, 2015 entitled " Kruizenga Art Museum Dedication Prayer", on the occasion of Dedication of the Kruizenga Art Museum, at Hope College, Holland, Michigan. Tags: Prayer, Community, Art. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Art Community Prayer https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9fdb9833f36189fe96eb39dc8ec59522.pdf 94d3025b83b946b010d82d3b02d5ee05 PDF Text Text Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan January 30, 1989 Transcription of the spoken lecture I am giving you the first of three introductory looks at the proposed fall seminar with Ira Progoff. I wanted to begin now because I want to give you a bit of my rather slight understanding of Progoff and also to let you know why I was interested in Progoff in the beginning and why I believe that to bring the Journal Workshop to this community is the kind of thing that I would like Christ Community Church to do as a service to the broader community. I am going to try to stick somewhat to my area and not get into an area which is not at all my own, namely, the whole field of psychology and specifically depth psychology, because I know very little about it. But I see in the work of Progoff, in the knowledge I’ve had of it and of the persons with whom I’ve spoken, the kind of resource that would be valuable for persons, for many kinds of persons, a broad spectrum of persons, and therefore I have been rather excited about the possibility of getting him here. Getting him here is no small feat, and I guess he does only 4 or 5 Journal Workshops a year across the country. But, wonder of wonders, the man himself has agreed to come here this fall. I think to have the presence of someone like Ira Progoff in itself is significant and very meaningful. I have divided up what I want to say to you tonight into a few sections. The first thing I want to say is just a word about who I am, because some of you are from Christ Community, and some of you are from parts beyond. I want to say that I understand myself and I understand Christ Community as a kind of purveyor of this experience. Probably after tonight these kinds of things won't need to be said, but I want to say them at the outset. I want you to know that I am, first of all, a Christian person. My faith is in Jesus Christ, and I have found God through Christ and the grace of God experienced in Jesus Christ. I'm just a simple believer. Beyond that, my vocation, my profession, is that of a theologian and a pastor. I didn't know whether to put pastor first or theologian first, but I learned a little about my self-understanding because I put theologian first. And that means that I am a Christian who, in his vocational and professional life, is constantly trying to understand Christian faith and tradition and Christian existence in the larger context of the human experience. I'm always trying to do that. I am a pastor; I © Grand Valley State University   �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page 2   have pastoral responsibilities for this community of faith, but I think this community of faith, as we have postured ourselves, is concerned about the larger community, the total community beyond our bounds. And so, that's who I am. You have to know that I am a bridge person, or a boundary person. I always live "on the edge." I live on the edge of the Church. I almost can't stand to live in the Church. It's restricting; I get disappointed with it; I get frustrated with it. What little hair I have left I could tear out at the behavior of the Church, which, I think, in its institutional form has become rather rigid, has become very defensive, and has lost the sense of movement with which, of course, it began in the aftermath of Jesus Christ. It has become an institution with a lot of vested interest and a lot of structure and harness and all that kind of “stuff” to preserve. I think most of its posture is characterized by defensiveness and conserving and preserving, rather than stretching and probing and pushing. So I always live with uneasy relationship with the Church. I am a boundary person or a bridge person, and, as I understand myself, I feel it my calling to try to understand the whole spectrum of human knowledge in the light of the Gospel, and the larger Christian tradition, but then to attempt to translate that Gospel in the light of that context. So, it's always a two-way back and forth with me. I believe that in the scriptures I have a history of Israel and the event of Jesus Christ which is a given for me. But then the other pole is the present horizon, the world in which we live. It seems to me that the task of the theologian is to constantly be living between those two poles: trying to understand that which is given in the revelation in Israel and in Jesus; and to understand as much as possible the larger cultural context with its various human disciplines; and then seeking from that understanding of the larger culture to have questions addressed to the Gospel, which I believe bring new insights out of the Gospel; but also bringing the Gospel to bear on our culture so that culture is not absolute but is always under judgment of the Gospel. So, one must live in that kind of tension. I think the systematic theologian has the largest task of any thinker, frankly. We live in a world of great specialization. More and more people know more and more about less and less. And we know that the academic world is characterized by a lack of communication, a breakdown of communication and deep specialization where there is no longer the ability to communicate across disciplines. But the theologian is the one who claims to speak of God and, if God is the source and the ground of truth, then to speak of God is to speak of that whole spectrum, and therefore to be responsible to provide that umbrella that can bring some kind of unity and coherence to the respective human disciplines. Now, that's how I understand what I'm about and I love it and am fascinated by it, and I think that it is important to me as a rooted and committed Christian to be in that kind of dialogue and conversation with the broader spectrum of human learning. And then, let me say a word about this particular community of faith. One of the models by which we have shaped ourselves over the past couple of © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page 3   decades – one which I enunciated back in 1971, which had come to me in my own studies and kind of existential quest – was that this community should always seek to combine intellectual integrity with evangelical passion. The uniting of head and heart. Intellectual integrity, searching honestly for truth, wherever that may lead, in the confidence that the source of truth is in God and that God's revelation in Jesus Christ is an expression of that ultimate truth, and that therefore any genuine quest for truth cannot be something that will lead away from but, rather, to God, to the extent that it is an authentic quest. But also with evangelical passion, for we are not finally on a head trip, but we are engaged in seeking to bring good news to persons. And we are about human transformation here. We are about the transformation of the human person, which is more than communicating a system of doctrines or structure of belief. That is a means; that's all part of the mix. But, what we really are concerned to do is to see a human person transformed, moving toward wholeness. The best model that I can give you for that which we have had some experience with here, is the AA model, where various steps are set forth which are simply a borrowing of the Gospel without the names attached, but which lead to the transformation of persons. And I believe that what we see in the movement of AA is really what should be happening and happens all too little in the Christian Church. Through that genuine encounter, that community of support, that total acceptance and openness, which allows genuine confession and self-exposure in a healing environment, there does occur the transformation and the healing of the person. And the healing of the person is to say about the individual what we hope for the larger picture, and that is the humanization of society. Now, that may sound very humanistic. But, I happen to think that God is about a very humanistic thing. I think that God is about gracing persons in order to release their full potential and to recreate them into the image of Jesus Christ who, I believe, is the human person par excellence, and that the Kingdom of God is the rule of God or the reign of God and, where the reign of God is recognized, there will be a very human society. So, I could speak about the Kingdom of God, but just to keep it kind of down to earth, let me say once again, the transformation of the person and the humanization of society - that, I think, is what we must be about. And of course, our resources are dynamic; our power, our vision comes out of our understanding of the God revealed in Jesus Christ, and we do believe, as Scott Peck says in The Road Less Traveled, that this is a graced universe, and that there is a grace operative in the world at large which is a healing and positive movement of God toward this world and toward persons. So, that's kind of in a nutshell the way we operate here. That's what this community of faith, this particular congregation, is all about. To the extent that people have come and the church has prospered, to that extent, anybody that has come in has kind of bought that vision, and I suppose that I'm guilty of shaping it © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page 4   in large measure, but that always happens when you get to stand up front once a week, front and center. So, we are a Christian congregation, and yet we see, I believe, a broader world out there. We are not content to live a kind of parochial life of a Christian congregation, within a Christian tradition, but would seek to understand ourselves and to relate in a positive way to the broader cultural spectrum, and to the world of spirit in whatever form that manifests itself. I happen to believe that we are on the threshold of a new inter-dialogue among the religions, and I think it is inevitable. The earth has shrunk to the size of a grapefruit, and we really are members of a global community. It is no longer such that we have a largely Protestant religion in America, and that you go East to find Buddhism, and you go to the Middle East to find Islam or whatever. It's all over. The crosscurrents of religious expression are everywhere, whether you go to Ann Arbor or Chicago or New York, Los Angeles, you can find it all. Not only can you find it all, but also you can find all kinds of offbeat brands more and more. The religious resurgence in our day is one of the remarkable phenomena of this last quarter of the 20th century. It seems to be incumbent upon us to be in dialogue with that larger religious scene. I brought along this little study of Martin Buber, the great Jewish thinker. Martin Buber is very deeply knowledgeable of Christian faith, thinks very highly of Jesus, does not understand Jesus as I understand him, but nonetheless really sees a kind of movement of Messianism as he, as a Jew, understands it coming to expression in Jesus. But he says, speaking to Christians, It behooves both you and us to hold inviably fast to our own true faith, that is, to our own deepest relationship to truth. It behooves both of us to show a religious respect for the true faith of the other. That is not what is called tolerance. Our task is not to tolerate each other's waywardness, but to acknowledge the real relationship in which both stand to the truth. Whenever we both, Christian and Jew, care more for God Himself than for images of God, we are united in the feeling that our Father's house is differently constructed than our human models take it to be. Now that is a much broader understanding than has been true of Orthodox Christianity, which would see other religions as expressions of error. It is the understanding of my mentor, Hendrikus Berkhof, who says that, since the split of the Jewish and the Christian religions, God has had two peoples, and Berkhof bases that on his own biblical understanding of the irrevocable covenant that God has entered into with the Jewish people. That question is debated among Christian theologians and there is difference of opinion on it. The point is I think we need to be deeply rooted. Let me say, personally (I don't want to take you in on this), I need to be deeply rooted in my tradition. I need to be deeply rooted, deeply committed, and I must bring to the discussion my © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page 5   deepest and best understanding of Christian faith, and not try to just jot that down and remove the sharp contours of that in order to make it fit, but only as I do that as genuinely as I can can I engage in genuine dialogue with someone like a Martin Buber who will be genuinely Jewish. Harvey Cox is a theologian who has written a number of books, one of which is Many Mansions. He's been involved in much of this dialogue among the religions and it's his feeling that what we need in this inter-religious dialogue is not so much seeking to find the lowest common denominator, as bringing into the discussion the sharpest focus of each understanding, so that there can be genuine meeting and encounter. Well, let me say that that kind of dialogue I affirm. I'm not afraid of it. I don't think that our faith is so fragile that we will be tainted. I don't think that. I used to think that I had to protect my people. I used to think that one of my tasks as a pastor was to protect my people from error. Now I find that my people are well able to handle themselves in such areas, and that more often I don't generally really have to protect them. More often, I have to push them. I don't know if it's true in most congregations, but it's true in this congregation that I'm always pushing. I'm always trying to push people into risking and into scary places, because I believe that is faith-building. I don't think that you need to be sheltered. And, as a matter of fact, I wonder how long in the world in which we live anybody can be sheltered anymore. I think it could be less and less possible. All right. That's a little bit about the posture with which we approach this thing. Let me say a word about what I see in the horizon of our world. You maybe didn't ask for all of this, but give me an inch and I'll take an hour. I think we're in a very interesting period in the world's history. I think that the period in which we find ourselves is toward the end of a period of tremendous revolution and transformation in human understanding. And I think that we have moved out of the settled past of maybe eighteen centuries of unquestioned tradition. And we are at the end of a couple of centuries of thrashing about, experimentation, of overthrowing old forms and shaking foundations, but we are not yet at a time in which new contours are clearly set. Just, for example, the social-political context. If you would read Hans Küng's Does God Exist?, you would find him tracing the roots of modern atheism. He would take you back to the Socialist Revolution in Russia, for example. But, behind that, you would go to the philosophical writings of the German philosopher, a Protestant pastor's son, Ludwig Feuerbach, who was the first to speak of religion as a human product, that religion arises out of the human person, and that God is the projection of our needs. We have these needs; we create God; we project God onto the screen of reality; we bow down and worship. The God we worship is the God we need. We created God. Religion is a human business. © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page 6   It was on the heels of Feuerbach that you have Karl Marx in the social-economic realm. You have Sigmund Freud in the psychoanalytical field, and you have finally Nietzsche with his nihilism, where he came to the conviction that nothing is nothing and that there is ultimately nothingness, the abyss. I do think that nihilism is really the logical conclusion of atheism. If God is not, then finally nothing is. And you can turn everything upside down and there's no reason for saying that good is evil or evil is good. You have no norms. It's over. But, if you see that development, you will also see that those people were dealing with very real issues in history and society which were manifesting themselves, and the reaction of the Church was, again, one of fear and defensiveness and refusal to engage in genuine dialogue with the realities of history that were right there. The Marxist theory was constructed on the background of a class society in Europe and the church leadership was very insensitive and not at all in genuine dialogue. If you take the actual political-social revolution, the Russian Revolution particularly, you see that it took on this atheistic form because the Church and the State were joined together; throne and altar were one. To throw over the government, to throw over the political and economic system was also to throw over the Church, because the two were joined where the Church ought never to be joined. Then the whole social revolution that took place took an atheistic bent, not because the economic theory demanded it, but because the social situation meant that those two were wedded and when one went, the other went. And if you come down to our present day and you see how that revolution has kind of spent itself, it has not brought in Utopia. In fact, Gorbachev would tell us that the whole thing is a failure and we can well pray that Gorbachev is successful in what he is about because he has by economic necessity been forced to see that it is either change and transform that old giant, or it's not viable. I think that you put all those things together and it is not just business as usual, but there are some very long-term movements and forces and tides within history which have created a kind of openness and possibility today, which just haven't been here in a long time. I think that this is a rather interesting time and it has peril and it has opportunity. And it's not just some result of an immediate situation, but I think the gathering of long-term things that have been going on for a couple of hundred years. The Enlightenment on the European continent, the Age of Reason which was the continuation of the Renaissance (the Reformation period was kind of an interruption of that flow), but the whole coming to the devotion of the human person, of the human mind, of reason, and of throwing off of authorities of all sorts: Church, Bible, whatever. The authoritarian day is past. We haven't learned that much in the Church yet. But Authoritarianism is over. In the world at large I really believe Authoritarianism is over. So that is the socialpolitical context. Take the scientific world. If you read Steven Hawking, this brilliant English Quantum physicist, in A Brief History of Time and Space, you find that we live © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page 7   on what is the threshold of that discovery of what they call the Theory of Everything, the theory for which Einstein was questing – that little formula that would reveal the ultimate core of reality and develop it. In the Christian Science Monitor of some time ago there was a series, Making the Quantum Leap: A FivePart Series, a fantastic series written in newspaper format, Christian Science newspaper format, so it's still a little hefty. But even I can almost understand some of it and it is amazing. I, in my next incarnation, hope to be either a conductor of a symphony or a physicist. I've always been fascinated by the close tie between physics and theology. Now, I regret to say that generally the breakthroughs in physics have been registered in theology rather than the other way. I'd like to get that reversed some day, but that probably won't ever happen. But Newton was a Christian thinker, a physicist. And he did his best to maintain his Christian faith alongside his understanding of the physical universe. But his system, his understanding of the cosmos actually left no room for God. No, Sir Isaac never gave up on God, and I'm sure that God never gave up on Sir Isaac. But, as a matter of fact, the ordered universe of Newtonian physics had no room for God; it had no room for prayer; it had no room for miracle or any of that. Now, the amazing thing is that Newtonian physics has been blown sky high. And Quantum Physics, the understanding of the structure of reality, whether in its cosmological expanse or in the understanding of the tiniest little molecule and atom, neuron and electron, speaks of eruption, of the eruption of the new, the possibility of randomness. It's an open ball game. Einstein hated it. Einstein hated it! He fought the Quantum Physicist Neils Bohr. Einstein said, "God doesn't play dice with the universe." He didn't want any randomness. But, nonetheless, that's where we are today, and it's impressive when you do see a person on the moon or when a satellite brings a picture from around the world, or your computer chip does everything you ever wanted done. The world of religion, the resurgence of fundamentalism in various forms. I read a statement by Charles Colson the other day. In his new book, Kingdoms in Conflict, he says, "Not since the Crusades have religious passions and prejudices posed such a worldwide threat." That's the world we live in today. I think he's right. Not since the Crusades. If not through a religious zealot or confused idealist whose finger is on the nuclear trigger, then certainly by destroying the tolerance and trust essential for maintaining peace and concord among people. Martin Marty, in a discussion of the aggressiveness and the orneriness of religion in the world in its manifestation, raised the question, "Is it not possible to be both civil and committed?" Is it not possible to be both civil and committed? Now, you see, that is kind of a trick, to be both civil and committed. But too often commitment has resulted in fanaticism and has wrought all kinds of havoc in the history of the world. And too often civility has been the result of lack of any real commitment or passion. To hold those two together is so important. © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page 8   Well, that's the world we live in and it is a wonderful fascinating world in which to be alive. I think that it is a world that has openings for those of us who are concerned about spiritual reality and human transformation like never before. Now, let me get more specific with Progoff. Why? What has all this to do with Ira Progoff? Well, I don't know a great deal about Ira Progoff. But I have heard him on tape, I've read some of his works and I was first put on to him by a couple of very respected friends in ministry some years ago, and I know that he has had wide acceptance in the Catholic church, more so than in the Protestant Church. But a couple of my friends in the Reformed Church have been part of some of his activity and have spoken very highly of him. Ira Progoff is of Jewish origin. He is perhaps best characterized as a JudeoChristian-Buddho spiritual sage. He has milked all of these traditions for insights, which he has put together with his understanding of depth psychology. Now, I really am not going to say very much about depth psychology because, well, I'm going to say everything I know, but that's not very much. I know that Progoff – having been a student of Carl Jung, Jung having been a student of Freud but breaking away from Freud – is one who created in his understanding room again for God, but not a God "out there," which incidentally isn't even in vogue in the best theology today, but a God in the depths of the unconscious where there is a kind of meeting of all kinds of consciousness down in some deep reservoir in the depth of reality. A depth psychologist believes that the consciousness of the person is the tip of the iceberg. And I think that that has been rather well documented in terms of the tremendous structure of the unconscious. And I think images do evolve out of an unconscious depth. But I don't know much about that. Anyway, that is Progoff's orientation. He is a spiritual person. He's a deeply spiritual person. He's a mystical person, in the line of the mystics, I would say. If you want to label him in terms of Protestant or Jewish theology, he's probably closest to Paul Tillich, a Christian theologian now dead, and to Martin Buber, whose famous I and Thou book has made such a great impact in our century. How Progoff speaks of religion – as I utilize Progoff's understanding of religion – it is a functional understanding of religion. He is dealing with the function that religion performs in human life and human society. It is more a question of functionality than it is a question of truth. Progoff would not want to referee between the truth claims of Eastern religions or Judaism or Islam or Christianity. But, he would see in them all a kind of commonality of function, and I believe that it is perfectly legitimate to look at it that way. Now, that's not all I'm concerned about, because finally I think that the truth question will obtrude itself. It certainly will for me. And I am always struggling with the truth question in Christian faith, in religious expression. But, nonetheless, there can be a very positive and helpful understanding of the place of religion in the function it © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page 9   performs in the person and in society as a whole. And when Progoff speaks about religion and the religions, he is speaking functionally. He would see its function as enabling persons to position themselves in relationship to the transpersonal reality in order that they may experience guidance and structuring for their outer life. Religion ought to help me to position myself over against reality that is beyond myself in order that in my everyday life and living I may have guidance, orientation, to be at home with myself and at home with the world. Now, if religion does that for a person, it has done a great, great deal. Progoff would see the various religions as particular forms and structures, all of which are performing that kind of common function: to enable me to live as a human being, with other human beings, to enable me to live as a person over against transpersonal reality. Sometimes when he speaks, I think of the AA program where you have a Higher Power. I have encountered, from time to time, a few Christian people who have been uneasy with that, as though to speak of the Higher Power is to deny either the uniqueness of Jesus Christ or the God we see in Jesus Christ. Now, it doesn't bother me at all. I had an old gentleman in here one day coming off the AA program and, so help me, a man in his 60s who had absolutely no conception of God. I had a yellow pad like this and I had a pen, you know, and I'm generally nervous and I was making signs and I was trying to kind of speak about God and him down here and I put a big cross between as kind of a bridge and I made this silly diagram and we talked together and he said, "Somebody said, well, the Higher Power: just visualize a telephone pole." Well, I made this little thing and we talked some more and when it was all over I was quite moved as he said to me, rather moved himself, "May I take that with me?" And I thought to myself, what hunger. You can call that God or you can put whatever face you want to on it and I don't think Progoff will argue with you. He will say, "Is it helping you to live well?" Now, I do think it is valid for us to take whatever resources we have to help people to live well. So, Progoff is kind of a mystic who believes that there is a huge cosmic process that has been about, which is evolving. He reminds me somewhat of the French Catholic thinker, Teilhard de Chardin, whose works, of course, the Vatican banned, but then the best things that come from Catholics get banned for a while. But, de Chardin is an original thinker who sees kind of the Omega point off there and he sees this whole cosmic process evolving toward that point. And Progoff believes that it is in the likes of us, in our individual spirits, that Spirit comes to expression, and that Reality enters the world – it emerges, as it were, out of the depths – through the individual spirit of a person. His concern is that we enable persons to become, to be the bearers of Spirit and the expression of Spirit, and that, as Spirit is able to flow through our spirit and come to some kind of tangible form, Reality actually enlarges itself and the whole process continues to go on. © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page10   He sees a crisis in the present time because he believes that traditional patterns, beliefs, doctrines and rituals have lost their grip on people, or people have lost their grip on traditional symbols and forms. Symbols and forms, be they doctrinal formulation, sacramental acts, or whatever, can function to put us in touch with the transpersonal as long as we believe in them. When we don’t believe in them, they can't do it for us anymore. Now, when you stand in Western Michigan with all of our churches and with a large Christian community and in a rather conservative part of the world, it may sound a bit apocalyptic to speak about secular culture and about people uprooted, cut off from their roots. But, we have to keep reminding ourselves that this is not all there is, and when he speaks perhaps with more of a world purview and he speaks out of the context of New York City and Los Angeles, he probably feels that and senses that more than we do. Nonetheless, we have to recognize that the world as a whole is not becoming – now speaking as a Christian and an advocate of the Christian Gospel – the world as a whole is not becoming more, but is becoming less Christian. We are becoming a minority. And it is a fact that those traditional patterns and beliefs and rituals have for large portions of the world population lost their power. But, the need still remains for that which will put the individual and the larger society in touch with the transperson, or with God, if you will. And so, the need in our day is to find the way in which that can happen. Now, being a depth psychologist, Progoff believes that we will find that truth by going into the depth dimension, and that God (I'll say God), is perceived, the knowledge of God is accessible, not through rational formulation, but through intuitive perception, that it comes not by rational instruction which has been the hallmark of Reformed tradition, but that it comes through apprehension, through images, and symbols, that it erupts, that it is not mastered rationally and discovered. Now, you know, I have to say, just coming as I have through the season of Epiphany, I have found myself wrestling with that question week after week. When you really get some insight, when you really have a "high" experience, when you really capture something, when there's been a breakthrough for you, how do you express it? Isn't it, "Suddenly it dawned upon me?" Isn’t it often after a churning and wrestling and in a moment of insight, and doesn't it often come to us whole? As I was wrestling with this whole matter of how God reveals God's self, I was so aware of the fact that it is one thing to say that the light's on; it's another thing to say, "I see the light." So that we can talk all we want to in theological and doctrinal terms about the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, about the light shining and all that, but when Progoff speaks about going into the depth dimension, I have to say that there is something to the fact that God's unveiling of God's self will happen within us. It must finally be a subjective apprehension, no matter how much we may clamor for the fact that it is objective and real. You know, we often equate objectivity with the real. Oh yes, it's certainly real. But until I believe it, until it grasps me and I say, "Wow," it has not really come full cycle. © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page11   And so, Progoff’s point for a community such as ours – this is what he would think: In a crisis of a culture that has lost its moorings, whose symbols have largely become empty symbols, he would say, first of all, the church should give social support to the person, enabling that person to work on his or her own inner life. If in our day our young people are being told, "Just say no," Progoff says to the Church, "Just say yes." When there's someone, some funny person in the congregation, a little odd, a little strange, doesn't fit the stereotype, talks about the inner journey, why he says, "Just say yes." Encourage them. Be a place that encourages people to get on with that work on the inner life. He says, secondly, let the Church be the social institution and the culture where work on the inner life can take place. And I like the word he uses here: "Let the church be a sanctuary where that can happen." You know, we really ought to be about that, and we really ought to get on with it. I think about that every Sunday when I see the large assemblage of people, and then I realize how superficial is my little touch. When they leave for the rest of the week, what's happening? Are we as a community creating a sanctuary where people can do more than come in on Sunday morning and at worst complete the Sunday obligation, at best get a little Sunday morning high, and hopefully in it all, worship God? Thirdly, he says, let the Church provide the means and the program whereby this can be encouraged. And I guess that bringing a seminar like this here would be a tangible, concrete means by which to expose and offer to people ways in which to do that. He remarks about the fact that youth, many of the younger generation, have taken over Eastern religions lock, stock and barrel. You know, it's faddish, it's trendy, and those waves happen. It does indicate, however, a real spiritual hunger and a search and a quest. And he also says, "Look, our generation cannot really successfully just go back lock, stock and barrel and pick this thing up. I mean, the new and the different is fascinating, and we understand all that dynamic, but he says it's not for them to go back and get ancient Buddhist meditation techniques, but the challenge to us is to find the ways in which they can be put in touch with God, with the transpersonal reality, in the garments of the 20th century. Find the methodology. Find the modes, the means by which this can happen, which I think is the same kind of thing which I said earlier tonight when I said I felt it was incumbent upon me to translate the Gospel into today's idiom, because that needs constant translation so that it always comes to expression in the conceptuality and the language of the particular context in which it is being proclaimed. Otherwise, it is simply the reiteration of formulas out of the past and that's fundamentalism – just the literal reiteration of formulas out of the past is © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page12   fundamentalism. You don't think about that. You just give obeisance to formulas, slogans, models, and then you're not really in touch. So, in his book The Dynamics of Hope, Progoff deals at quite some length with the experience of Tolstoy who went through a period of tremendous anguish in his life after being very successful. He was on top of the world socially, culturally, a great literary success, and he came to a time of a sense of the meaninglessness of it all. And he tells in some detail Tolstoy's experience and he speaks in The Dynamics of Hope, of the Utopian person, and that is the person who has this kind of prophetic sense, who is willing to anguish and struggle, but always in hope, and out of the anguish and the struggle eventuates the new realm of experience and insight, which is the prelude to another struggle and anguish, which eventuates in a new breakthrough, because he sees our human experience as being an ongoing pilgrimage and process and, for creativity to be released, there is a need for this constant movement between the struggle and anxiety and always, however, with the hope undergirding it and breaking through to a new plateau and a new discovery. Let me just read a couple of paragraphs. "I began to understand,” Tolstoy reports, “that in the answers given by faith was to be found the deepest source of human wisdom. That I had no reasonable right to reject them on the ground of reason, and that these principle answers alone solve the problems of life. I understood them, but that did not make it any easier for me.” The fact, in other words, that his reason was now giving assent to an act of faith of some sort, did not bring such an act of faith any closer. It did not even make it any more possible. All that this new intellectual realization achieved, in fact, was to intensify the internal pressure and to build up an even greater tension around the vacuum of meaning which he felt in himself. How could he find a faith that he would not merely be in favor of believing? But one that he would actually be able to feel as a reality? It would be good if he could accept some structured body of doctrine that had been worked out in generations past by an established church. That would not be a fact for him. He would not feel the reality of such a faith. And so, no matter how much he might try to convince himself rationally that he ought to place his faith there, the persistent question about the validity of life would not be silenced. But, he goes on and he struggles and then he tells about the dream that Tolstoy had and the peace and the resolution that he came to. I'm not going to do more with that, but this is a very fine introduction to Progoff’s understanding of the journey of the individual, and it is his conviction that it is necessary for an individual to feel his life story and to be able to have a sense of continuity through the various stages and that in the creative unfoldment of a life there will be those periods of dark and light. I was thinking about his understanding of the human experience in contrast to, for example, someone within the Reformed Church. I shouldn't even say that © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page13   because it's not Reformed, but there is this friend of mine who I know rather well and who probably most of you would know, as well, Bob Schuller and the Hour of Power. Bob Schuller with his possibility thinking, which was built on Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, has done a tremendous amount for many, many people. He has recognized the importance of self-esteem and he has brought a positive and hopeful accent, and many people who didn't believe that they had it in them have found that, after all, they had it in them. My problem with Schuller is that I feel that sometimes he almost becomes shrill and I want to say to him sometimes that success isn't always the consequence of faithfulness or responsibility or effort, and so I always felt that there was something lacking. There was a depth dimension in the Gospel, if you will, that I felt never came to expression with Bob Schuller's formulations. I thought to myself, interestingly, how much closer Progoff is to an understanding of human personality and the experience of darkness and light, of guilt and forgiveness, of bondage and freedom. And then, really, not just a once for all thing, although we believe in a great once for all transformation, but as the ongoing unfoldment of life, this constant swinging between the poles. I can understand that in terms of my understanding – my biblical orientation. Walter Brueggemann in an excellent study of the Psalms speaks about how you can categorize the Psalms as Psalms of Orientation where creation is good, God's in his heaven, all's right with the world, everything's ducky; Psalms of Disorientation, where nothing is right and everything's unraveling; and then there are Psalms of New Orientation. Brueggemann's point is that life is not often lived in only orientation or disorientation. Life is generally lived moving from orientation, disorientation and new orientation, and out of the study of the Psalms you have that same kind of expression. Our life is a dynamic movement, and we do move through periods of openness, joy and light; we do move through valleys and through arid periods and dry periods; and it seems to me that is more true to human experience as I understand it than in some of the pop psychology and what I think is kind of a vulgarized psychology taken over by some of the religious stuff that is on the market. Finally, in his book The Symbolic and the Real, Progoff has, toward the end of the book, that which really spoke to me and what turned me on in the first place to his thinking and his whole approach to things. Let me just read you a couple of paragraphs here. His point, again – I said this earlier and I'm going to say this once again – his point is that to be in touch with reality or to be in touch with God is not the consequence of coming to the end of a well-constructed syllogism. It is the intuition that comes with the apprehension of symbol and image; it is a moment of illumination; it's revelation. So he says: As the symbol unfolds, reality enters the world and becomes present. A new atmosphere is established, and this is much more than a new climate of thought. It is reality increasing its presence among humankind by means of symbolic events that are enacted upon the depth dimension of © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page14   the psyche. In another style of language, this type of event is often described as a breakthrough of spirit, into human experience. It has, indeed, all of the traditional attributes of spirit, for it possesses power and meaning and the healing quality of inward peace. It expresses itself, however, not in the fixed forms of dogma, but in the living fluidity of symbolic acts. (p. 214) And then he speaks about revelation in the Old Testament: One context in which this new perspective is especially important is our attitude toward the Bible. In the biblical tradition there has been the view that when the Old Testament was finished and was certified in its standard version, that was the end of God's appearance to man. After that, man was not to expect a breakthrough of spirit in the world. At least not until the coming of the Messiah. All that was required of people then was that they keep the formulas and the stories so that they would keep alive the remembrance of the great moments of contact with the Divine which had taken place in history and were now restricted to the past. The traditional understanding was that since the voice of God stopped speaking when the Old Testament was closed, it would be best if people stopped listening for the voice of God in the world and concentrated on fulfilling the commandments. When the experiences recorded in the New Testament transpired, this view was reconsidered and was opened anew. Then it was felt that God had indeed made a new entry into the world. Necessarily so, since He had needed to make a new covenant between Himself and man. With the ending of the experiences in the New Testament, however, the same tendency to restrain the human spirit and enclose it in fixed molds recurred. Again, it was believed that the spirit of God would no longer enter the world in a prophetic breakthrough. It would not because it was no longer felt to be necessary. The Truth had been given. After that it would be sufficient if people would imitate Christ and concentrate on entering the dimension of the sacred by repeating the festive formulas accrued by ecclesiastical authorities. (pp. 222-223) And then he says, One of the very greatest and most basic difficulties of Western history is expressed in this fact that we have drawn from our traditions of belief that major openings of the Spirit are not possible any longer because they stopped when the Bible was officially sealed. We need to become capable of reopening the Bible as a living contact side by side with other styles of experience and sources of the spirit in the modern psyche. The two testaments which comprise the Bible are openings. They surely were not intended to be closings in man’s relation to the infinite. (p. 224) © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page15   I think he's right. I think a great problem with the Church is the fact that, in order to manage the revelation given, it was historically necessary to close the canon. It was a historical necessity. But then, to refuse to understand that the Spirit of God continues to speak was to allow the Church to become rigid and to allow a conception of orthodoxy. And I must say to you, this is my confession, one that I close with, that to me the idea of orthodoxy is an arrogant presumption. That's probably why I'm a heretic. Now, I think from my perspective, my understanding of things, there's richness here and that it is a great resource. I will be participating with my own labels, with the God reflected in the face of Jesus. I will understand this in terms of my own theological understanding. But I see the possibility of a very fruitful instrument here which again I think holds great promise for the healing of persons and, through the healing of persons, the humanization of society, which I think is what we're all about. Now, I think I've talked sufficiently long so that you should be sufficiently tired, so you probably wouldn't even want to raise a question. But, if you would, I would be happy to take it. Frank: I agree you're a heretic. I think you're making heretics out of all of us, but I think I'm beginning to enjoy it. When you sent that first letter about Ira Progoff I immediately rose up in my traditional background and sent you a letter back saying you probably were off base, and that we couldn't tolerate this new kind of thinking. But, I guess it just exemplifies the fact that most of us are completely uneducated. For forty years I have been studying anatomy and physiology and biochemistry and medicine, pharmacology, thinking that all of medical science depended on how much I — I suddenly realize how much an uneducated nincompoop I am and I sure appreciate your bringing these things into the open so that we could all learn from them and get carried along with your enthusiasm. RAR: Well, thank you, Frank. I want to say that the questions, the concerns you raised were very legitimate concerns. Frank. I was really comforted to find explicitly Progoff recognizing the dangers of that kind of trendy movement, of the sensitivity movements and groups, and those things of the 60s or 70s where people were undressed and then left defenseless, and he definitely set himself over against that kind of thing. And the legitimacy of his Journal Workshop has been tested. He's kind of a quiet person; he shuns the idea of guru. Doesn't even want to be called a sage. He's a very humble pilgrim who is sort of feeling his way along. But, your concerns were very, very well taken, and I was almost positive immediately that that's not where he was, but I was happy to find it confirmed, that he also distanced himself from that kind of thing. So, I appreciate the concerns you raised. I read today the Seminary Times of last fall, a book by James Ashbrook, whom I do not know. He's a seminary professor. He was at Colgate Rochester; he's moved since then. Making Sense of God. And it is a book entitled Brain and Belief where © Grand Valley State University �Introduction to Progoff Richard A. Rhem Page16   for a couple decades he has done serious research on the brain, as a theologian, trying to find the relationship of the function of the brain to spiritual perception. It is an absolutely fascinating article. And there is a rather serious critique of it, as well, in which, you know, it's such a pioneering kind of thing that the guy says, "I don't know how to critique it." But it's just fascinating. In fact, I'm going to give it to you to take home with you and you can tell me about it when I get back from vacation. But you know there are such interesting things happening today and there is an openness today. I think across the board: to structure of reality, to what we mean when we say God, and I do think that it is an exciting time in which to be alive. It's a perilous time, too, because people are also falling for all kinds of... someone accused me of being New Age. Now, I've never read anything New Age. I don't know what New Age is. But, I know this - that anytime that there is a genuine breakthrough and movement, there are going to be all kinds of counterfeits and all kinds of peripheral things going on and there will be faddy, trendy things. That's true. But, nonetheless, that shouldn't scare us. Ira Progoff. The Dynamics of Hope: Perspectives of Process in Anxiety and Creativity, Imagery and Dreams. Dialogue House Library, 1985. Ira Progoff. The Symbolic and the Real: A New Psychological Approach To The Fuller Experience of Personal Existence. Peter Smith Publisher, Inc., 1983. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Midweek Lecture Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Ira Progoff, The Dynamics of Hope: Perspective of Process in Anxiety & Creativity, Imagery and Dreams, 1985, Ira Progoff, The Symbolic and the Real: A New Psychological Approach to the Fuller Experience of Personal Existence, 1983 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-3-19890130 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989-01-30 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Introduction to Dr. Ira Progoff Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Talk created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 30, 1989 entitled "Introduction to Dr. Ira Progoff", on the occasion of Midweek Lecture, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Tags: Progoff, Transformation, Hope, Spiritual Journey, Symbol, Emergence, Insight, Spirit, Interfaith, Consciousness, Nature of Religion, Community of Faith, Global Community,Revelation, Nature of Religion, Psychology . Scripture references: Ira Progoff, The Dynamics of Hope: Perspective of Process in Anxiety & Creativity, Imagery and Dreams, 1985, Ira Progoff, The Symbolic and the Real: A New Psychological Approach to the Fuller Experience of Personal Existence, 1983. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Community of Faith Consciousness Emergence Global Community Hope Insight Interfaith Nature of Religion Progoff Psychology Revelation Spirit Spiritual Journey Symbol Transformation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bc50d5f76951f91e4caf5bd404ccf465.pdf e145e9517fd457752535311d84ca521b PDF Text Text The Church in Conflict – Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Prepared Text for the Address to The Synod of the Mid-Atlantic, Reformed Church in America To be delivered at Ramapo, New Jersey October 4, 1996 Editor’s Note: See “Regarding the Conflict About Christian Exclusivity” for the edited transcript of the spoken address followed by questions & answers. Let me begin by saying that we are focused on the wrong question; the issue is not whether non-believers can be saved, but rather, whether those who yearn for God and seek God can experience God's gracious embrace outside the revelation of that grace as it has appeared in Jesus Christ and been mediated through the Christian tradition. I suspect the question means to raise that issue - can nonbelievers in Jesus Christ as the sole mediator between God and humankind be saved? But, we ought to be careful that we not give the impression that those who believe in Jesus Christ are the world's only believers. If pressed, I doubt any of us would claim that, but our language can be thus construed and create such an impression. As for the first phrase in the day's theme, “The Church in Conflict,” there is no doubt. The Church is in conflict and I have been at the center of that conflict. I was given the ultimatum by the Classis of Muskegon to recant my views on the extent of God's grace, on the possibility of knowing God savingly beyond the limits of the Christian tradition or leave the ranks of ordained clergy in the Reformed Church. Refusing to deny my conviction that the grace of God is broader than that grace operative within the Christian tradition, I resigned my ordination. How did we come to such a point? A brief review is important in order to understand the conflict situation because the salvation question was not the issue that fomented the conflict. The catalyst for the Classis of Muskegon to investigate my ministry was a feature article in The Muskegon Chronicle on the Muskegon Metropolitan Community Church. For nearly two years that small community had been conducting Sunday evening worship in our chapel. We had hosted a pastoral care seminar on ministry to persons suffering from AIDS. At that seminar we learned from the pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church that they were meeting in the basement of a Muskegon bar because they could not © Grand Valley State University   �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   find a church facility open to them. We brought the matter to our Consistory which unanimously invited the group to use our facility without charge. The Consistory saw the invitation simply as an act of hospitality. The newspaper feature appeared on the Friday before the Spring session of the Classis in March of 1995. The article mentioned that the group met in our chapel and accompanying pictures were taken in our chapel. At the close of the Classis session, someone brought up "Christ Community's ministry to homosexuals." There followed an emotional discussion of our ministry, which can only be explained as an outburst of pent-up hostility to our ministry in general. That was the beginning. A task force was appointed to investigate our ministry to homosexuals. Our Consistory gathered at the request of the task force and answered their questions - the real question being, "Do you call these people to repentance?" Our Elders answered yes, that we are all called to repentance every time we gather in worship. Obviously, that was not the answer being sought. The interrogators wanted to know if the Metropolitan Community people were challenged to turn away from their homosexuality. Not being satisfied with the task force findings, the Classis Executive Committee requested I present myself for questioning from the floor of Classis at its Fall meeting. At the October, 1995, meeting, I was asked to give my view of homosexual relationships. I answered that I believed sexual orientation was for the most part a given at birth and that homosexuality was not a moral issue. That viewpoint shocked the Classis. From there it led to the charge that I obviously did not believe in the authority of the Bible. And further, I was questioned about salvation through Jesus Christ alone. I am not even certain how that question came up. The meeting got out of control. There were calls for my immediate dismissal. Finally, it was moved that the Executive Committee engage me in theological discussion. On Reformation Day, 1995, the Executive Committee came to Christ Community for the discussion on the three issues that surfaced at the Classis meeting: 1. What do you believe and teach about the scriptures as the only rule of faith and life? 2. What do you believe and teach about the way of salvation apart from Jesus Christ? 3. What do you believe and teach about the need to repent of homosexual behavior? For about two hours I gave account of myself. Although two tape recorders were used, neither one produced a usable recording. Therefore, one of the Executive Committee members summarized what they had heard from me and he and another committee member came to me with the summary. Scanning the summary, I said I felt my views had been heard and were quite well represented. I offered to take the summary and put it in my own words, keeping to the same © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   format and length. I also promised to be as clear as possible so that the issue in each case would stand out clearly. I then suggested the Classis meet to discuss my response to their questions at a session in which no vote would be taken. This was done. On February 1, 1996, the Classis met in special session, breaking up into small groups to discuss my paper, hoping to come to a consensus on whether or not my views were within what was judged to be acceptable parameters of Reformed faith. Of the eight groups, five held I was beyond the limits, two that I was within and one group couldn't come to a consensus. With that indication from the body, the Executive Committee called a special session for February 29. They had decided to drop the issue that had been the catalyst for the whole discussion - the issue of homosexuality. I suspect they realized the Classis was getting bad press on that issue and it was the issue the press grabbed on to. I think, too, they came to recognize that Christ Community was living out the General Synod's directives concerning pastoral ministry to persons of homosexual orientation more than any other congregation in the Classis. The charge that I have an inadequate view of biblical authority has never been discussed. Again, I suspect the Classis was not overly confident they could make a case there and I resolutely rejected their charge. Thus, the centerpiece of the case against me was that I denied that salvation was available through Jesus Christ alone. That issue was clear and simple and it generated emotional response. Because the conflict took on this sharp focus, we are here in conversation around the question of salvation, not whether nonbelievers can be saved, but whether only those who believe in Jesus Christ can be saved. To the question put to me by the Muskegon Classis regarding salvation apart from Jesus Christ, I responded: SALVATION I am a Christian. I trust in, worship and serve God as God has been revealed to me by God's Spirit in the face of Jesus Christ. For me, Paul has expressed it well: ...the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"... has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. II Corinthians 4:6 That is the God I have preached for thirty-five years, twenty-nine of them in Spring Lake. The Good News that appeared in Jesus is the Gospel preached at Christ Community, the Gospel that has built this Christian community. © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Is this God, Creator of all - God alone, known by any others through any other manifestations? Is God's Spirit operative savingly through any other revelation? My study, reflection and experience would say, "Yes." There are three answers given to the question of salvation in the Christian tradition. Although there are shades of difference within each position, for simplicity's sake, let me define the three positions thus: The exclusivist position says salvation is available only through Jesus Christ consciously embraced by the believer. The inclusivist position holds that salvation was accomplished only through Jesus Christ but some will be included even though they make no personal appropriation through faith in Jesus Christ. My position is the pluralist view: Jesus Christ mediates to the Christian community salvation, but the God of whom Jesus is a true revelation is known by others in their respective traditions. I use the example of a cathedral resplendent with stained glass windows. The windows tell stories, biblical stories, but think for our purposes, for example, of Jewish folk gathered in the nave, the Christians in the choir, Muslims in the transepts. Each group is reading the story of faith in their respective areas through their specific windows, the windows of their tradition. But that is possible only because there is a common source of light that filters through all the windows. I see the respective religions as historical concretizations of founding revelatory experience, but the common source of all true revelation is the one God - the God who, for me, is the God whose heart is revealed in the face of Jesus. It is to that God that I witness; it is to the grace of God that I point. But I can enter authentically into dialogue with other faith traditions, bearing my witness but also listening, open to learn new nuances of truth. All religions are not equally true (or equally false). That is where dialogue and mutual understanding come in. There is clarification, growth and transformation possible where such dialogue is entered into without fear and defensiveness, but with deep trust in the God whose Spirit leads into truth. Salvation became the single focus of the inquiry into my theology and, in spite of my affirmation of God's saving grace through Jesus Christ as the center of my faith and my preaching and teaching ministry, I have been judged as outside acceptable parameters of Reformed faith because I will not go on to say that only those who come to God through Jesus Christ can be saved. I have made this point concisely before the Classis. I was very clear that, if they would scratch the word "alone," I would gladly assent to the statement they called upon me to affirm. In "A Pastoral Letter to Muskegon Classis Churches © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Regarding our Relationship with the Rev. Richard Rhem," the Executive Committee wrote: • We affirm theological search, questioning, and struggle. Clearly these are values of the Reformed tradition. At the same time, we affirm the integrity and the appropriateness of communal belief. • We affirm Dick Rhem's love for Christ. • We recognize Dick Rhem's respect for and struggle with Scripture. • We know that many have been very blessed by the work and ministry of Dick Rhem as it has been carried out for 25 years at Christ Community Church. However, setting aside the issue of personal faith and based on our serious and sincere consideration, we believe that what is being taught and preached by Dick Rhem at Christ community Church in regards to the authority of Scripture and salvation by Jesus Christ must be considered unacceptable. This conviction comes from out of a time of honest wrestling, and causes us much pain and sorrow. To the extent that this stance will hurt and bruise fellow children of God, we do grieve that result. Having said this, we hereby recommend that, unless Dick Rhem publicly recant his views, as clearly espoused, which are not fully supportive of the definitive authority of Scripture and salvation by Jesus Christ alone, Rev. Rhem and the Muskegon Classis purposefully move toward a peaceful separation, with humility and a gentle spirit. Muskegon Classis Executive Committee February 22,1996 It was the "alone" I could not in good conscience declare. I stated in the special session of February 29, 1996, that I did believe the revelation of God was possible beyond the Christian tradition and that the grace of God could be mediated other than through Jesus Christ. I also affirmed that I felt it arrogant to deny that, as well as presumptuous to declare that God must save universally. But the "alone" was the part at issue and on February 29,1996, Classis Muskegon voted 2 to 1 against me, thus leading to my being set outside the Reformed Church of America. At its June, 1996, session, the General Synod of the Reformed Church seemed to confirm the decision of Muskegon Classis relative to the exclusivity of salvation through Jesus Christ. A news release stated: © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page 6   RCA General Synod Reaffirmed Doctrines of Christ and the Scriptures The General Synod of the Reformed Church in America, meeting June 814 at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, strongly reaffirmed two tenets of the church - that salvation is only through faith in Christ and that the Bible is the Word of God, the only rule of faith and practice. It also approved (subject to approval by two-thirds of the RCA's 46 classes) a Book of Church Order change which would require ministers to annually affirm these beliefs. The news release did not go on to relate the further action of the Synod which was reported in the July/August, 1996, issue of The Church Herald. THE UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST The General Synod adopted the following resolution upon the unanimous advice of the advisory committee on theology: The 1996 General Synod of the Reformed Church in America joyfully and gladly reaffirms its confession that God's unique, unrepeatable, and decisive activity in Jesus Christ is the only sure hope for this world. God's work in Jesus Christ alone saves all who believe. Indeed, there is salvation in no one else, as the Old and New Testaments themselves teach. Further, this position marks not the end, but the beginning of the church's attempts faithfully to witness to the gospel. In our culture, there is an increasing tendency to view religious issues merely as matters of personal preference. Such an attitude renders the church's confession more difficult for many to understand and to embrace. Increasing contact with adherents of other religious traditions and those outside the Christian faith also stretches the boundaries of Christian understanding, as Christians recognize truth and value in religions and perspectives other than their own, even while challenging them with Christ's unique claims about himself. Therefore, in light of these changes in our world, the Reformed Church in America seeks fresh guidance on how to interpret and to live out its faith in the uniqueness of Christ in the midst of a pluralistic world with diverse religious perspectives; and further, The General Synod directs the Commission on Theology, in consultation with Evangelism and Church Development Services, to engage in a study on "Christian Witness to the Uniqueness of Christ among People of Other Faiths" which will both interpret the nature and character of Christian claims regarding the uniqueness of Christ and also guide Christians in understanding and assessing the religious experience and claims of those outside the Christian faith. © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page 7   Thus, the conversation in which we are engaged today is part of the RCA agenda at the present time. Let me move on now to give the background of my claim that God's gracious embrace is broader than the Christian Church. As I do that, I want to be clear that my movement from an Exclusivist position that salvation is possible only through the atoning death of Jesus Christ consciously embraced by faith - to a Pluralist position - that God's revelation "happens" not only within the biblical tradition (Israel and Jesus), but also beyond that tradition in other religious traditions, and, further, that God's saving grace is mediated also through other traditions beyond the biblical tradition - is the result of long wrestling with the biblical tradition and the theological tradition of the Church in the light of my own human experience. Those three, the biblical witness, the theological reflection of 2000 years, and present human experience, must be understood as the mix out of which my present position is arrived at. They are the matrix upon which thoughtful reflection - the exercise of one's rationality - is focused as one carries on the interpretive function of the theological task. If I were to identify the catalyst for my in-depth probing, I suspect it would be my experience of a world marked by global consciousness in which the great religious traditions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism in their respective expressions are being practiced in close proximity to each other. I have for some time questioned the idea that the whole world would be brought to embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It simply does not appear a likely possibility, given the long traditions of those great traditions that arose in the First Axial period, 800-200 B.C., and their present vitality. Questioning the possibility of world evangelization, I found my concrete experience calling into question the propriety of the effort to turn the respective traditions from their path to Christian faith. That experience was a close encounter with Jewish faith in its concrete observance. In a day-long dialogue between Rabbi David Hartman and Bishop Krister Stendahl in 1991, sponsored by the West Shore Committee for Jewish-Christian Dialogue in Muskegon, Michigan, David Hartman raised the question, Do I have to deny your truth to affirm my truth? Do I have to deny your joy to celebrate my joy? From the depths of my soul, I answered, "No, of course not." It was not only the actual content of this all-day discussion that deeply impacted me; it was the manner in which two totally committed religious scholars and leaders in their respective traditions engaged each other. It was a moving experience to watch these two persons wrestle with the issue of faithful interpretation. © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page 8   That experience led me to accept an invitation to join the West Shore Committee and that experience has led to many concrete encounters with Jewish people and Jewish observance - a briss in which I recognized precisely the same yearning for God's grace to embrace the child, the same commitment of parents and grandparents and community that I experience at the baptism of an infant in the Christian community; a Bat Mitzvah at which I experienced the same passage into spiritual adult faith that we experience at the confirmation of our youth; Sabbath worship in which the Word is heard and prayers are offered before the mystery of the God of Israel. Beyond these formal moments of ritual and worship, it has been my privilege to come to know in meaningful friendship persons in the Jewish community and sense with them our solidarity in the human family. Such experience is powerful; it is transforming. It calls in question one's traditional posture that would disallow the validity of the religious tradition of the other. One finds the sharp divide created by religious exclusivism eroding. What does one do with that experience? If one would be serious and responsible to one's calling to be a minister of the word and sacrament, one will necessarily be sent back to one's own tradition: to the biblical story and the theological formulation of the faith. For me, this was not a new endeavor; I had been wrestling with the biblical word and Reformed confessional formulations for a quarter century since my return from study in The Netherlands with Hendrikus Berkhof. While with Berkhof I recognized that the inability of my own conservative Reformed tradition to deal with ongoing human experience stemmed from its understanding of the nature of scripture. My theological education had taught me that Scripture is God’s inspired word, infallible in all that it intends to teach. Further, I was taught that Scripture is to be interpreted by Scripture– an individual passage in light of the whole testimony of Scripture; there could be no contradictory material within the Bible. The presupposition was that there was finally one unified biblical witness. To determine the content of that witness, one had to apply a confessional hermeneutics – that is, one approached the biblical material with a pre-formed doctrinal system. To be sure the biblical theological scholars and the systematic theologians carried on their debates, the biblical people pointing out the gaps and flaws of the system by reference to biblical texts that did not “fit.” However, in the Reformed Church and in conservative evangelical theology generally, the system prevailed – Scripture interpreted by Scripture subsumed and explained away the contradictions. In this hermeneutical approach the rich diversity of the biblical witness was smothered and the diverse voices that came to expression within the canon of Scripture were silenced. © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page 9   My awareness of this failure to listen to the whole diverse biblical testimony dawned as I read Berkhof’s Well-Founded Hope, a study of the biblical teaching of themes of heaven and hell, judgment and salvation. From his study I learned that the scheme of things I had always believed – that faith in Jesus Christ brings salvation from eternal damnation and failure thus to believe destines one for eternal punishment – was not the whole story. From Berkhof I learned there are also passages that point to a universal salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Further, I learned that this was not something that lessened Berkhof’s passion for witness to God’s grace in Jesus Christ but, rather, gave him the hope that ultimately God’s “Yes” to humankind would prove stronger than the human “No.” Cautious, not presumptive, nevertheless a positive hope that the gracious God would overcome all human alienation. Yet it was obvious that, not only the followers of other religious traditions lived and died without knowledge or experience of Jesus Christ, but in the secular society of the West many lived and died without any apparent Christian faith or practice. How would all those who “died without Christ” be reconciled to God through Christ? If it were the case that God’s grace was universal in its embrace, how would that grace be mediated to those who never heard or heard but never heeded? I was moving away from exclusivism toward an inclusivist understanding of salvation but had no sense of what was involved in such a move. After twelve strenuous years of building Christ Community, it was time for a sabbatical. Without this as my goal, my sabbatical experience set me on a course of investigation that gave foundation to my nascent inclusivism and paved the way for my eventual movement to a pluralist position. In the fall term of 1983, Hans Küng, the noted Roman Catholic theologian, gave a series of lectures at the University of Michigan entitled, “Eternal Life?” It was an investigation of life after death as a medical, philosophical, and theological problem. He faced squarely and straightforwardly all the difficult questions surrounding the subject, dealing with ancient and contemporary issues, the question in the history of religions, the modern denial of anything beyond death, and the near-death experiences recorded in recent years. He dealt with biblical material, the question of resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus, and the church’s teaching on judgment, heaven, and hell. The lectures were subsequently published under the title Eternal Life. By virtue of my sabbatical, I attended the lectures and was a participant in a cross-discipline seminar with Küng for the term. I came away with two striking realizations: first, that there was intense interest in these questions of death and dying, of life after death, of heaven and hell on the campus of a large secular university. The lectures had to be moved from the largest lecture hall available to the Rackham Auditorium. Secondly, I realized © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page10   how little these vital questions were probed in the church, how little reflection I had personally given to them in my ministry, and how comfortably and uncritically we in the church have accepted traditional answers. Once awakened to the questions that are not nearly so simply answered as once I had thought, and also to the deeply existential interest of today’s people, both secular and religious, I began to open again questions on which I had come to premature closure. For me, the greatest surprise came in a new appreciation for the teaching of purgatory, which was resolutely rejected at the time of the Reformation and which has received little serious reflection in the Protestant tradition. For the first time ever I sought to understand what the ancient tradition of the Roman Church taught. To my surprise my own mentor, Hendrikus Berkhof, also recognized a place for some process of purgation following death. He wrote, God is serious about the responsibility of our decision, but he is even more serious about the responsibility of his love. The darkness of rejection and God-forsakenness cannot and may not be argued away, but no more can and may it be eternalized. For God’s sake we hope that hell will be a form of purification. (Christian Faith, Revised, p. 536) I found C. S. Lewis’ treatment of the subject in The Great Divorce profound and helpful. And in his Letters to Malcolm the imagery is moving. Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know.” – “Even so, sir.” I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition, partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don’t think suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than I or more. “No nonsense about merit.” The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much. My favourite image on this matter comes from the dentist’s chair. I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am “coming round,” a voice will say, “Rinse your mouth out with this.” This will be Purgatory. © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page11   I was convinced. Whatever the nature of the encounter with God at our death, the redeeming intention of the God of all merely seemed to me consistent with the whole movement of God in the historical outworking of the covenant of grace. I returned to the biblical story, reading with new eyes, with new questions, and I discovered a rich vein of material that pointed to a wideness in God’s mercy I had never discovered in the Scriptures before. Along with the witness of Scripture, I found a long line of theologians from the early Church Fathers who affirmed the universal triumph of God’s redeeming grace. I summarized my research in an article I wrote for the journal Perspectives (September, 1988)” Throughout Christian history some have understood God’s redemptive action in Jesus Christ to be universal in its scope. The early church was far more universalistic in its understanding of the radical renewal of reality, the radical alteration of the human situation through God’s action in Jesus Christ, than was the church of subsequent centuries. Among the fathers of the early church we find statements pointing to the final conquest of evil and rebellion, if not within history, then beyond, through some kind of purgation process. Clement of Alexandria wrote, Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state (Pedagog,1.8). Clement’s more famous pupil, Origin, wrote, …God is a consuming fire, what is it that is to be consumed by him? We say it is wickedness, and whatever proceeds from it, such as is figuratively called “wood, hay, and stubble” (I Cor. 1:ii), which denote the evil works of man. Our God is a consuming fire in this sense; and he shall come as a refiner’s fire to purify rational nature from the alloy of wickedness… (Contra Celsum, Lib. IV, 13). Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, declared, All evil, however, must at length be entirely removed from everything, so that it shall no more exist. For such being the nature of sin, that it cannot exist without a corrupt motive, it must, of course, be perfectly dissolved and wholly destroyed, so that nothing can remain a receptacle of it, when all motive and influence shall spring from God alone (De Anima et Resurrectione). Theodore of Mopsuestia held © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page12   That sin is an unavoidable part of the development and education of man; that some carry it to a greater extent than others, but that God will finally overrule it for their final establishment in good. Among these early Christian thinkers there is no denial of evil and sin, but they seem to entertain no doubt that God will finally conquer the last vestige of evil and restore all things through remedial punishment. It was not until 544 A.D. at a local council called by Justinian that the teaching of universal salvation was condemned. In the Perspectives piece I brought the discussion closer to our time, referencing Karl Barth. In our century the question of universalism has surfaced in Reformed theology in the work of Karl Barth. Berkouwer’s early study of Barth was entitled, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth. Barth’s detractors labeled him a Universalist and wrote him off as dangerous. Yet the matter is not that simple. Barth resisted systematizing; he defied neat pigeonholing. In a lecture delivered to a Swiss Reformed minister’s association in 1956, he reflected on those early, heady days and the theological ferment he fomented. He entitled his remarks, “The Humanity of God.” One consequence of the humanity of God, Barth maintains, is that the sense and sound of our word must be fundamentally positive. He writes: To open up again the abyss closed in Jesus Christ cannot be our task. Man is not good: that is indeed true and must once more be asserted. God does not turn towards him without uttering in inexorable sharpness a “No” to his transgression. Thus theology has no choice but to put this “No” into words within the framework of its theme. However, it must be the “No” which Jesus Christ has taken upon Himself for us men, in order that it may no longer affect us and that we may no longer place ourselves under it. What takes place in God’s humanity is, since it includes that “No” in itself, the affirmation of man (The Humanity of God, p. 58). After developing that notion, Barth raises the question, “Does this mean universalism?” He then makes three observations “in which one is to detect no position for or against that which passes among us under this term” (p. 59). Barth suggests one ought not surrender to the panic that that term seems to spread before informing oneself exactly concerning its sense or nonsense. One should, he contends, at least be stimulated by Colossians 1:19 and parallel passages to determine whether the concept could not perhaps © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page13   have a good meaning. And he suggests finally that the ‘danger’ with which universalism seems to be attended should be balanced by concern for an even greater danger: a theology that fosters suspicious questioning because of its own legalistic perspective and morose spirit. Of this Barth is certain: we have no right to set limits to the lovingkindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Rather, he argues, it is our duty to see and to understand it as still greater than we have seen before. And, of course, my mentor, Hendrikus Berkhof, was an important guide for me as I wrestled with issues of ultimate concern. I wrote, Hendrikus Berkhof gives a full discussion to the question before us in Well-Founded Hope, the chapter entitled “The Double Image of the Future.” He deals seriously with the biblical witness but concludes, as was stated above, that Scripture leaves us with a double track. Countless attempts have been made to subsume one track of texts under the other by ingenious “exegetical tricks” but, Berkhof concludes, “we cannot smooth out this contradiction in the New Testament.” All that we read about the future, texts offering consolation and texts of warning, do not “fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.” In the case of the passages giving warning, these present the gospel in its nature as a call to decision; the passages offering consolation give hope and the promise of eventual salvation of all. We must hear both witnesses; we must not reduce one to the other. But we cannot simply allow them to stand with no link between them. Berkhof suggests we pronounce them “one after the other,” for “only the person who has learned to tremble at the possibility of rejection may speak about universal salvation.” It is the believing church, declares Berkhof, that can confess the last secret. In the end it is the power of God’s “yes” that triumphs over the recalcitrance of the human “no.” This is our last word but a last word that must be spoken if we believe God is ultimately not powerless or cruel or arbitrary, but rather infinite in mercy through Jesus Christ. Summarizing his conclusion on the issue in Christian Faith, Berkhof writes: We know that the covenant means that God’s faithfulness ever and again does battle with man’s unfaithfulness. What ultimately will be forced to yield: divine faithfulness or human unfaithfulness? Paul raised that question with respect to Israel, as the trial grounds of God’s relationship to man; and he ends with the confession: “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy © Grand Valley State University �Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Richard A. Rhem Page14   upon all” (Romans 11:32). These considerations compel us, not to detract from the gravity of the human “No” against God and its consequences, but to think just a little more of the divine “Yes” to recalcitrant humans. God is serious about the responsibility of our decision, but he is even more serious about the responsibility of his love. The darkness of rejection and God-forsakenness cannot and may not be argued away, but no more can and may it be eternalized. For God’s sake we hope that hell will be a form of purification. (Revised edition, p. 536). Is this universalism? Karl Barth was unwilling to be so labeled and rightly so. In my own wrestling with the question I have come to realize that it is not for us to dictate to the Eternal God what is or what must be. It would be arrogant to deny that God’s gracious embrace did not include all; it would be presumptuous to insist that it must. But for me, the serious revisiting of the biblical story and reflection on the Christian theological tradition convinced me that the extent of God’s grace is far wider than I had ever thought. As I concluded the piece I wrote for Perspectives: In light of God’s gracious election in Jesus Christ, of God’s steadfast love and covenant faithfulness, of God’s infinite power and patience, we have good reason to trust and confidently hope that the habit of God’s heart will finally heal every wound, overcome all opposition, and gather all God’s children safely home. References: Hendrikus Berkhof. Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979, Revised edition, 1986. C. S. Lewis. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Harcourt, Inc., 1964. Richard A. Rhem, “The Habit of God’s Heart,” Perspectives, September 1988, pp. 8-11. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Series Address to The Synod of Mid-Atlantic, Reformed Church in America Location The location of the interview Reformed Church Synod of Mid-Atlantics, Ramapo, New Jersey Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-3-19961003 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996-10-03 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Church in Conflict - Can Non-Believers Be Saved? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Talk created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 3, 1996 entitled "The Church in Conflict - Can Non-Believers Be Saved?", as part of the series "Address to The Synod of Mid-Atlantic, Reformed Church in America", at Reformed Church Synod of Mid-Atlantics, Ramapo, New Jersey. Tags: Inclusive Grace, Nature of God, Pluralism, Global Community. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Global Community Inclusive Grace Nature of God Pluralism https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c46aba8fa9763f10a6f1bc023ce08666.pdf 0a1a0fbe85a5115e186f2d5a1c04e5c7 PDF Text Text Regarding the Conflict About Christian Exclusivity Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Edited Transcript of the Spoken Address followed by Questions and Answers at The Synod of the Mid-Atlantic, Reformed Church in America Ramapo, New Jersey October 4, 1996 Editor’s Note: See “The Church in Conflict – Can Non-Believers Be Saved?” for the prepared text of the address. Thank you for the opportunity of being with you today (I think). I want to begin by saying that I am not here on a crusade. I am here because I was invited to come and, having taken the stand I have, I feel there is some responsibility to give an account of myself. I have all of my life been a part of the Reformed Church in America, and being outside at this point in my life is the most surprising thing that has ever happened to me. And yet, I don’t want simply to turn my back on that which has been my whole life, but continue in a dialogue and conversation to the extent that that is desired. And so, I am here today to do that very thing. But, I want to be clear, I am not here because I am trying to win a battle or make a point. I’m not on a crusade. I was not on a crusade in Michigan, either. I was simply ministering in my own concrete community of faith, in my own congregation, and there was no idea ever that what we had discovered at Christ Community to be an effective embodiment of the grace of God should be exported anywhere, to our local community or beyond. We simply were trying to be faithful as the people of God in that place, and what has transpired over the last year has come to us from the outside; it is not something that originated inside, and it is not something that has happened because we were trying to move out. I want to be very clear about that. I am here to be in conversation with you and to be of whatever help I can be in lifting up aspects of the question that is before us, namely, that the grace of God is limited to those who come to God through faith in Jesus Christ; in other words, Christian exclusivity. I think there is no one that would deny that we are dealing with a very important question for the Christian church, but I begin with that disclaimer, that I am here for conversation and not as a crusader, not moving out now to convince the whole world, after all, that I was right or that I am right. © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page 2 The other thing I want to say is that I am a Christian minister of the Gospel. I have for 36 years been involved in the ministry. Four of those years I was in graduate study in The Netherlands. Other than that, I have been a pastor and have preached every week, been involved in pastoral care, preaching, teaching, just a garden variety pastor, committed to the local congregation – all of that done as a Christian minister. I preach the grace of God as it has appeared in Jesus Christ and no other message. We don’t get up on Sunday morning at Christ Community and say, “Well, let’s look at the menu this morning. Shall we have a pinch of Buddhism or a dimension of Islam, or whatever.” No, I preach every week from the scriptures. I try to be faithful in my wrestling with scripture and its interpretation, and to proclaim the God whom I have come to experience as the one embodied in Jesus Christ. So, let me be clear on that, as well. I suppose there will be some other things that will come out as the day progresses, but I think I want to say those things by way of introduction. I am here at your invitation, not at my initiative, and I’m here as one who continues to be what he has always been and that is a minister of the Gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. I’ve tried to think of how I could best get the story, the issue before us, and sometimes to tell one’s own story is about as effective as anything. Obviously, in the last weeks and months I have had good opportunity to try and track the pilgrimage on which I have been engaged, and the way that I have come to where I am presently in my understanding of Christian faith and other faiths. It seems to me that, when I was in New Jersey in the middle 60s when my “little system” was coming up short in terms of being able to deal with the experience of a pastor in a congregation, and my ability to interpret life, understand human experience, and to preach my theological system, my understanding of the faith, was limited. I came out of a very conservative nurture and continued in that very conservative track through my college and seminary education. I went into the ministry a very conservative, evangelical pastor and I certainly would have been at the far right of the theological spectrum. Human experience has a way of humbling us and creating situations in which our tight little systems are not adequate. I was beginning to run into that when I made the move from Spring Lake to New Jersey. My first four years were in Spring Lake, Michigan. At the time that I came to New Jersey, the Reformed Church was engaged in some controversy over a Church School curriculum, Covenant Life Curriculum, and this was the first time in which the church at large was being introduced to some of the critical views of the scripture. It was really very good stuff and very responsible and actually conservative material. But, nonetheless, there were those who were threatened by some of the things that were handled in the Covenant Life Curriculum. I began to study that curriculum and it began to address some of the questions that I was having in my own pastoral ministry. It was time for me to go to Europe in 1967 and find out if I really had anything to say, if I had a Gospel to preach. © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page 3 I went there wanting, for the first time in my life, to know the truth. I went through my whole college and seminary education seeking to buttress the presuppositions with which I came, those I had imbibed with my mother’s milk. I did not want to be stretched and I was not aware of it, but I was very defensive against those questions that put my faith understanding in question. But one eventually has to deal with that and so I went to Europe and found a very wonderful mentor in Hendrikus Berkhof who was at the University of Leiden. He helped me identify what the real questions were. Berkhof would say, when I would come with a question, “Ja, ja, ja. That’s the question.” I said, “I know that’s the question. What’s the answer?” He’d say, “Ja, ja, ja, ja. Just live with the question for a while.” So I did and they were four wonderful years in which I imbibed as much as I could. I read and read and read and wrote and read and wrote and thought, and had, what was for me, my first real immersion in an educational experience. I sat in his study one day and I said to him, “You know, in the Reformed Church, we can’t really deal very effectively with any of the specific theological questions that come up because we have never dealt with the issue of the authority of scripture and how scripture is to be used. It seems as though with everything we’re debating, we never debate the issue. We debate the issue in terms of what it will do to our doctrine of scripture.” I think at the time it may have been the ordination of women to the Elder-Deacon office, and I could see that nobody was asking whether women could be spiritual, whether women could be gifted, whether women could be effective leaders in the church. It seemed to me that the issue always came down to, “Well, if we grant that, what will happen to First Timothy, whatever, and what about this passage?,” so that it was not the issue itself, but it was that authority which informs all of our decisions. I said to Berkhof, “What I really should do is write a dissertation on the place of scripture and the use of scripture in the church,” and he looked at me and he said, “You go back to the Reformed Church in America and the United States of America and do that, do you know what they will do to you?” And so, I came back and I didn’t do that. But I was aware that that needed to be dealt with. Then, after some years, having returned to Spring Lake where I had continued to wrestle with the faith, I went to the University of Michigan in the fall of 1983 where Hans Küng was a guest, giving public lectures on Monday night. They were held at Racham Auditorium, with overflow crowds. He gave the lectures, now published, entitled Eternal Life? On Tuesday afternoon I was engaged in a crossdiscipline seminar with him for three hours. There were about 35 of us from the various schools of the university, medical people, artists, a couple of pastors – a marvelous experience. He was working from mimeographed material on paradigm change in theology – wrestling with that whole shift in perspective that © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page 4 comes when current data put the present conception of things into question. Then there seems to arise a new model that can include and embrace the fresh data and there is a significant shift. It happens, of course, in the sciences, and there was a significant book by Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he said this is actually what happens in the natural sciences. Hans Küng and David Tracey of the University of Chicago had gathered a consultation in Tübingen prior to 1983 about the application of paradigm shift through theological understanding. So I really got into that paradigm shift dimension early on. Küng helped me to understand that, in all of my training, I had come up with the scriptures as the authoritative word of God and all of human experience, the ongoing human experience, really had little impact on the faith understanding that came out of the scriptures. I had one pole to which I was lashed, and yet life was going on “out here.” Küng helped me to see that the theological task is to live between the two poles – that which is given, the history of Israel and Jesus in our scripture, and ongoing human experience, the present horizon. And that theology does not pass along through history untouched by historical circumstance, some deposit of faith as though it fell out of heaven, simply to be delivered to the next generation as it is. Rather, theology is that hermeneutical task that constantly runs between the given revelation that is in the scripture and the ongoing human experience, so that from the scripture the present is illuminated and the present elicits new life and new understanding from the scripture. There is a coordination between those two poles. And when I saw that, I realized that my whole experience prior to that had been living out of this pole of the scripture without any significant regard as to what was happening out in the world. I also realized that what had happened in the liberalism of the 19th century, that had come on bad times, was that there was such an earnest attempt to understand and accommodate what was going on in the world that the pole of the scripture was not taken seriously. I began to realize that the task really for us in the church is to live between that biblical story and our ongoing story, and to understand our lives in the light that comes from the story, the founding story, but that the founding story has spurred a tradition that has resources that are rich, being enlarged through ongoing human experience, that can continue to be reclaimed to bring the faith to fresh expression as we go on in our pilgrimage. For me, I think that was a very significant moment. On Monday night Küng spoke on heaven and hell and purgatory, judgment and death to overflow crowds in this vast educational institution where only a professor’s half time is given to a program in religious studies in this huge state university. There is just a smidgeon of interest in the whole phenomena of religion. This was a new experiment at the time, Küng being the first guest lecturer in Religious Studies. The Vatican was putting the heat on him in Germany; they wanted him put under censure for his views, and he came to the University of Michigan almost on a lark in order to have some leverage back in © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page 5 Tübingen because Michigan did say to him, “If you want to stay here, you can stay here.” He didn’t do that because, when you’re a professor at Tübingen in the German system, you want to retire out of that system, which he has done. So there I was, preaching every week, and now I see in this huge secular arena sophisticated, educated, cultured, cultural despisers of religion sitting for two hours to hear the rather difficult English of this Catholic theologian talk about death, purgatory, hell, judgment, and I said to myself, ”Good grief, I don’t even preach on those things in my own pulpit. In this secular setting I gathered with people, fully human, listening to lectures on such issues. Maybe they know, too, they’re going to die, and they must wonder, and maybe they’ve lost someone, and they must wonder.” And so it was like a revelation to me that there was this intense existential interest in the human person, whether they were connected with the institutional religion or had any particular faith profession. Those end questions engaged them, and I came home and began my own search. That is what has gotten me into trouble, because I discovered the expanse, the extent of the grace of God was much broader than I had ever dreamed. It was about that time that the Reformed Church founded a journal of theological investigation whose purpose was to stimulate theological discussion in the Reformed Church and, because I was a pastor at a rather safe pastorate, I seemed to be the one that got the assignments to write on the issues that would address the Reformed Church in terms of those questions that we felt needed to be talked about. And so, an early article was on purgatory. I never would have believed that I would have been concerned at all about purgatory, but I began to see what was the wisdom of the ancient church and what was behind that whole construction of things, and to recognize that, as a child of the Reformation, I never got a fair shot at understanding what that was all about because we were in such sharp reaction precisely at that point in the 16th century. And then I began to investigate the extent of God’s grace and I found out that, in the early church, there was a strong strain of universalism, that the grace of God would finally be triumphant in regard to all. And I found some high Calvinists who simply were more logical than some of the rest who also came to that same position of the ultimate triumph of the grace of God And then, of course, there was my own mentor, Hendrikus Berkhof and his reference to Karl Barth and to the contemporary discussion of that issue. And so, again, I wrote in Perspectives. The “Letters to the Editor” revealed that some people were upset. There were also a few positive comments and there was engagement. However, it was in black and white. Over the next decade I continued to address these issues in the journal until 1995, when I published an article on interreligious dialogue and my recognition that we had within the Christian church some serious thinking to do before we could enter authentically into religious dialogue. That © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page 6 got me to where I am and there was never any question about it until the spring of 1995. The catalyst for the discussion on salvation was the fact that we allowed a group from the Metropolitan Community Church ministering largely to gay and lesbian people simply to use our chapel. When that was called in question, then one thing led to another, and then my theological views were called in question and eventually the Classis recognized, I think, there wasn’t much point in pursuing the original issue, but they were deeply concerned, then, about this question of salvation apart from Christ. This has become a conversation within the Reformed Church and the question, as it has been phrased, is “Can non-believers be saved?” I want to say that that is the wrong question. I’m not interested in the question of whether non-believers can be saved. I am interested in the question of whether those who have a yearning for God and seek after God and who pursue that yearning and that seeking in another faith tradition can be saved, because we are not talking about people who are Christian and the rest of the world as non-believers. We are talking about a world that is laced with believers of many stripes, and we are living in a context today, a global context in which these people are our neighbors and our children are bringing home people of other faiths and presenting them as their future spouses. We meet them at work and down the street there is a temple or a meditation place or a shrine of some sort that was not the case some years ago. So, the question is not whether non-believers can be saved. The question is “Must I insist that there is salvation through Jesus Christ alone?” Now, let me be very clear again. Before the Classis of Muskegon I said, “If you will scratch out one word, I’ll sign your document” that affirms that there is salvation through Jesus Christ. I believe that and I would affirm that, and I have affirmed that. But, when you tell me that I must say it is through Jesus Christ alone, then I don’t know what to do with Jewish folks that I have come to know so well and have become so fond of, working in the Jewish-Christian Committee for Dialogue in the West Shore area of Michigan. Then, what do I do with all of those about me in our world today who seem to manifest all of the fruits of the Spirit, whose questions are my questions, and whose experience seems to be the same experience as mine – what am I to do with them? The issue is not whether or not there is salvation through Jesus Christ. It is whether or not I must be held to an exclusivist position that says through Jesus Christ and through no other, and that apart from Jesus Christ there is only condemnation, there is no salvation and light, and no eternal life for any who come not through Jesus Christ our Lord. That I will not say. And that is the issue upon which I have been put out. Obviously you might expect me to argue my theological conclusion on the basis of scripture. But that is not as simple as it sounds because, as has been claimed in many arguments, anything can be “proven” by scripture. I learned from Professor Berkhof the rich diversity of the biblical witness, for example, on the very © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page 7 question of the extent of God’s grace. In his Well-Founded Hope, he has a chapter entitled “The Double Image of the Future.” He deals seriously with the biblical witness but concludes that Scripture leaves us with a double track. Countless attempts have been made to subsume one track of texts under the other by ingenious “exegetical tricks” but, Berkhof concludes, “we cannot smooth out this contradiction in the New Testament.” All that we read abut the future, texts offering consolation and texts of warning, do not “fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.” In the case of the passages giving warning, these present the gospel in its nature as a call to decision; the passages offering consolation give hope and the promise of eventual salvation of all. We must hear both witnesses; we must not reduce one to the other. But we cannot simply allow them to stand with no link between them. Berkhof suggests we pronounce them “one after the other,” for “only the person who has learned to tremble at the possibility of rejection may speak about universal salvation.” When my article, “The Habit of God’s Heart” was published in 1988, I was the Preaching Professor at Western Theological Seminary. The piece caused a stir. I was called before the Executive Committee of the seminary board to give an account of myself. I remember distinctly when I suggested that scripture spoke in more than one voice on the matter of the extent of God’ s grace, I was immediately “corrected.” Scripture interpreted by scripture leaves no ambiguity – salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone. I remember a conversation with the wonderful Lutheran bishop, the late Krister Stendahl, who was a guest at our Jewish-Christian Dialogue. He spoke of the brilliant apologist for Christianity, C. S. Lewis. He spoke of how much he loved the Lewis of Shadowland and of A Grief Observed, the result of his grievous loss of his wife to cancer. Lewis, in his grief expressing the loss of his love, spoke the language of the heart. But, said Stendahl, when Lewis argues for the existence of God, the incarnation, the atonement, I don’t take him seriously because he is so brilliant he could be just as effective on the other side of the question. So it is with the Bible. As Luther argued, scripture is a wax nose; one can be as honest and responsible as possible and have someone on the other side of the question come up with a contrary conclusion. And thus I have not really engaged in the whole biblical debate. That said, it does not imply that I do not believe there is a legitimate biblical witness to God’s universal grace. In Luke’s Acts we read the story of the movement of the Gospel beyond its community of origin – to the vast Gentile world. The story of Peter and Cornelius is paradigmatic, showing the expansive movement of the Gospel to the Gentile world. Luke records the story and then © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page 8 has Peter rehearse the whole experience before the Jerusalem Elders who called him to account for going to the Gentiles. In light of his concrete experience of the Spirit of God anointing the Gentiles, Peter says, according to Luke’s account, “…who was I that I could hinder God?” An even larger crisis was generated by Paul who brought the Gospel intentionally to the Gentiles. Acts 15 records the story of the first “Church Council.” The Jesus Movement was at a crisis point; a decision had to be made concerning the nonJews who were embracing the Gospel and becoming a growing part of the Jesus Movement that, to begin with, was a Jewish movement. Peter recounted his experience with Cornelius. In Luke’s recounting of the story, he has Peter declare, And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us…we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. (Acts 15:811) Following Peter’s witness Barnabas and Paul told of “the signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles” (verse 12). And then the leader of the Jerusalem Church, James, gave his “decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who were turning to God…” (verse 19). Luke is recording the most momentous decision that early Jesus Movement was called upon to make. Luke records the pivot point of the whole Jesus Movement. Gentiles could become Jews. That was not new. What was new in Paul’s argument is that Gentiles can become God’s children without first becoming Jews. Paul is arguing for Grace, the Grace of God embracing the Gentile apart from those specifically Jewish rituals, circumcision, dietary laws, whatever, and Paul’s experience is that God is embracing the Gentiles through faith as Israel had been embraced through all the generations. Peter’s experience is that God is embracing a Cornelius and his household, the Holy Spirit falls on them, the waters of baptism are applied to them. In Jerusalem the leadership asks, what’s going on here? That was a critical point because they could have said it would be necessary for the Gentiles to come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah, but they would have to do it by way of full participation in the Mosaic legislation following the Torah. And they decided not. They decided that the grace of God could embrace the Gentile without that Gentile becoming a Jew, and that was a paradigmatic shift. Paul said God is doing a new thing; God is creating one new humanity. In Romans 9, 10 and 11, Paul is struggling because he does not see how his Jewish brothers and sisters can fail to see what he sees in Jesus. How they can fail to see © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page 9 what God is doing in history. He says, “My heart is deeply distressed. I, myself, would be accursed for my brothers and sisters if only they could see.” He goes on in those three chapters struggling with that issue, and he comes to the end of that struggle in the 11th chapter in verse 32, where he says, “God has reckoned all in disobedience, the Jew and the Gentile, Israel and the nations, in order that God may have mercy on all.” And then he breaks out into the one great doxology that has no reference to Jesus Christ, just praising the eternal God, the God of Israel, for His unsearchable ways, His inscrutable judgment, and he says, “Source, Guide and Goal of all there is, to God be glory forever.” He finally believes that a mystery is at work here, that Israel finally will be saved, he knows not how, and, in the meantime, the grace of God has come to the Gentiles. Now we are talking about a hinge point in history. We are talking about the fact that Peter had to do that which is contrary to the scripture by which he had lived. He could quote scripture and verse, the ritual, the tradition that would have said don’t enter the house of Cornelius, don’t do this, don’t do that. He was going contrary to that which had been deeply inbred in him, and he did it because he said who can fight God? He was so inwardly compelled and the evidence, what he saw before his eyes, made him say, “I have to do this.” And it was confirmed in the experience. So I would say we are at another hinge point in human history. I don’t know where we got into it and I don’t know when we’ll get out of it, but I think that we are living through a time of global change. We live in that period of history in which the whole human family is experiencing its history at the same time and together. This is a time of global consciousness, of a global community, and it does not seem reasonable to me that the whole world is going to be evangelized and the Gospel is going to be brought to the whole world. That was a noble dream and a noble vision, and it was an honest response to an apocalyptic vision, that conviction that they were standing on the end of the age and that the whole cosmic drama would be wrapped up rather soon. But, can you imagine that the Christian church could hold its breath for 2000 years and still be talking about the imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ? As we approach the year 2000, are we not going to hear more and more about it? And how can we honestly do that when we come to recognize that those New Testament documents were written by those who believed they were at the End and they were not at the End. The Jewish scholar Paula Fredrikson of Boston University has written From Jesus to Christ, and she says, “Why did the Jesus Jewish movement fade out first, and why did the Christian movement become a Gentile movement?” She says, first of all, because the one who was to come didn’t come. Nothing happened. Three times in the Gospel of John it speaks about being put out of the synagogue. Why? Well, if you were a Jew and if you had responded and believed that this Jesus was the Messiah that you were expecting and according to the message, © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page10 history was all going to end very soon and this one would return, but nothing happened. And now the Pharisaic, Rabbinic Judaism, the movement of Judaism after the temple which became the ascendant group, the ongoing Jewish community – that community now is saying, “If you say Jesus was the Messiah, you’re going to be put out of the synagogue.” And now you have to say, “Am I going to remain with my religious heritage of all of these centuries, or am I going to be put out of the synagogue on the chance that this one really was the Messiah and he’s going to come back very soon?” What would you do? Paula Fredrikson said the reason that the earliest movement faded , first of all, nothing happened; and secondly, there were just too many Gentiles. Paul was too successful. And if Paul succeeded, if Judaism had stayed with the church, there would not have been the question of assimilation of the Jewish people in the 20th century. It would have happened in the first century. And I think our world would have been diminished for lack of that ongoing Jewish community. Now it seems to me that what was going on then is going on now. We are not seeing the death of the great religious traditions; we have seen their renaissance and their resurgence, and, not only that, we have found that they contain riches and gifts that can enhance our own understanding and our own experience. I believe that we are faced with a global reality that calls us, in light of the power of religion and its volatility, to discourse together, to learn from each other, to live in mutual respect and civility in order that all together we may work toward the building of community and world understanding. Karl Jaspers was a German philosopher who spoke about the first axial period. The pre-axial period was when the human family was pretty much caught up in the rhythms of nature and the cosmos. Then the first axial period, 800-200 BCE, independently, in three places around the globe, India and China and the eastern Mediterranean, the great religious traditions arose. They all arose in that period of time effecting a transformation of human consciousness, a transformation that shaped the first axial period to the present. Ewert Cousins, Fordham University, suggests that we may be in the second axial period and that the image for us is that view of the globe that the astronaut has seen, that beautiful, fragile, blue globe hanging in space. For the first time our kind has been able to look back and see it whole and to realize that all the borders and divisions and the lines that we draw over which we fight and for which we kill, that all of that has no reality because we are a part of one inner-connected whole. And, if we are part of one cosmic whole and we are part of one human family, and if we are serious that God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, then I believe that it is high time for us to deepen our particularity and to learn again from Jesus Christ and all of that which has been revealed through him of the purpose and heart of God and to recognize that God has a grander scheme and a broader purpose and that there is so much enrichment, so much greater possibility as we live together in the human community transcending those barriers and divisions that have separated us. © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page11 As I said, Krister Stendahl was in Michigan. He was at the temple on Friday night, a Sabbath service, and then Saturday lectures, and then he preached at Christ Community Church on Sunday morning. My son came up to me afterwards and said, “Dad, I’ve had a religious experience,” and I said, “I know.” He said, “This feels so right,” and I said, “I know. If it feels so right, you don’t need an argument, do you?” He said, “No.” I said, “Once you have had that sense that it’s so right, then you can simply be there and invite others to share that same sense of shared humanity. You don’t need to prove anything or demonstrate anything.” But, I’ll tell you, my own experience is that I have never experienced such openness from the other and desire to hear about my Jesus than since the time I laid down my arms and did not feel that monkey on my back of world evangelization, but rather speaking of the grace of God in Jesus Christ and listening and receiving and giving and taking in a mutual enhancement that builds toward world community that is so much better than anything I have ever known. Thank you. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS Q. The rise of fundamentalism in all world religions frightens me. How can people engage with Christians and other fundamentalist groups when they are willing to kill for their faith? A. Well, it scares me, too, and I do believe that that is part of the reason why it is so imperative that we enter into dialogues in a broad scope. James Davison Hunter, in his New Culture Wars, points out the fact that the breakdown in civil discourse and in communication between people has created such a threat throughout the world, and I think that the militant mind in the respective traditions, there's a Jewish fundamentalism, an Islamic fundamentalism, a Christian fundamentalism, you don't have to have a particular badge in order to have that mentality and that mind set, and I do believe that as the times become somewhat anxious and people become somewhat unsteady and afraid, they tend to this kind of fanaticism and absolutism, wanting to find security and wanting to find the answer that is absolutely clear and simple. So to me, I don't know why, I just know that, in such a world, at such a time it is critical that we dialogue together and open up the channels of communication together. Now, for a lot of these things I do not think that it is a question of being right or wrong. I mean, there's such a broad spectrum of understanding, and there are various symbol systems © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page12 and it's not like one will work and the rest won't. I think that we need to find that which communicates meaning and connects us to that sense of transcendence, meets that hunger for God, and if that is in place, then I think that, rather than enforcing that on everyone else, in that sense of connectedness with the transcendent to find a freedom and a resting place in which to open oneself up to the other and thus create the bridges of communication. So, I don't know what the answer is, but I know it's a serious problem. Q. Will you describe more fully your phrase “Monkey on your back?” You applied that to world evangelization. A. Did I say that this morning? Well, if I didn't, I should have. I came into the ministry, I grew up, feeling that I had to defend God. I had to defend the faith. I felt such an urgency; I was insecure. I didn't know how insecure I was. I didn't know how defensive I was. But I thought it was up to me to defend God and to keep God enthroned, and it seemed to me that it was my responsibility that you believed correctly, that you dotted the i's and crossed the t's and that is a terrible, terrible burden. I can remember the experience of believing finally that God could take care of God's self, whether or not I could defend God. Now, that was Step One. And then to believe, as well, that God had a marvelous embrace of people who had an experience quite other than mine, and yet which seemed to be also very similar in terms of that which it generated within the individual. And when I could simply affirm that and not have to change someone to my image ... I had lived with a monkey on my back. I had to get the world to Jesus. And I had no sense of letting that in God's hands and simply being an instrument, and so that's what I meant. Q. We have just heard for over an hour about the love of God for everyone, but 10% of those God has created are homosexuals who cannot change their identity and are ostracized by the church. These are people who are looking for God's love. How can the church deny them? A. Well, I don't think the church can deny them, but the church does deny them. I have to say that this was the catalytic event that got this whole conflict started for us because, as I said to you, we gave a group ministry, largely lesbian and gay people, the use of our chapel. For us it was an act of hospitality. Again, I was not looking to take on a crusade. This was not my issue. Subsequent to what has happened, I think it should have been my issue a long time ago. It is an issue of justice; it is an issue of the love of God and the grace of God. I had heard stories, people pouring their heart out to me, beautiful human beings and I thought, "My God, where was I all these years?" Just not even concerned about this thing with people who were suffering and being ostracized and being shunned and so, when you say how can the church deny them, I don't know how the church can deny them love, and I will now speak anywhere, everywhere for... In fact, I’ve got a lot of stories. © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page13 Q. Does God's grace extend to non-believers, too, in your theology? Could your position be better supported by the teaching of Christ himself rather than appealing to St. Paul? Who now holds your credentials? Will the Spring Lake church align itself with another denomination? A. The congregation holds my credentials at present, and we have done some very preliminary kind of investigation, but I have found that it's a little bit like marriage, it's a lot easier to get in than to get out, and I'm – just scratch that one – I'm at this advanced age, you know, and in the springtime of my senility, and I don't know if I really want... I believe in the connectedness of the church and I believe in mutual covenants of accountability, I believe in all that, but I may just keep investigating long enough to where it won't be an issue anymore, and in all that time no one will be able to criticize me for living in splendid isolation and I'll say, "I'm working on it, I'm working on it," and one day they'll bury me. Sort of like Peter Paulson today, as Bob said, you know, Paul Fries tells me that he suggested to Peter when he went into the pastorate that he always keep a body at hand in case he needs a funeral. Can my position better be supported by teachings of Christ? I do believe that. Yes, I do believe that. But, you know, when you've got Dutch Calvinism in your blood and your genes, you have to argue with Paul and I do believe, yes, Jesus. Again, I'm hesitant to get into biblical discussions about this because you can argue it all over the place. But, I would say that, apart from any specific biblical reference, just the God I see in Jesus is a God that would make me reach out and embrace my neighbor and listen to the other and live in harmony with the other, and that's not by having a text, it is by the whole context, the whole encounter with Jesus Christ which says to me God is bigger than anything we've yet dreamed of, so I would agree with that. Does God's grace extend to non-believers, too, in your theology? Yes. Because ... I don't know. How do I know? This is what I think and that is that God is not through with us at our death. This is what I began to wrestle with Hans Küng and then I would never have thought that I would think twice about purgatory and I go to these lectures and find, why did the ancient church have this? What were they talking about? Then I read from C. S. Lewis, his Letter to Malcolm, where he talks about purgatory as, you know, being in the dentist's chair and when you're coming around the dentist says, “Wash your mouth out with this." And he says, that's purgatory. I began to read Lutheran and Reformed theologians as well as Catholic theologians who speak about our encounter with God at our death, and so, what does it mean to be a non-believer? What does it mean? Does it mean that I have been so damaged by the institutional church? I'll tell you what -I could almost leave the institutional church. This past year with that experience in the church – I'll tell you what – if I wasn't a stubborn Hollander, I'd be out. I'm just too ornery not to go. But then, how many people have not been damaged and hurt by the attitudes, by the spirit, by the structures? So, non-believers - who are © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page14 they, anyway? I don't find as many non-believers out there as I used to. I used to know how many there were; I used to know what percentage of the population they were, and now I found out when I don't know so much, they're really interested and they really want to talk and I think there's something deep down in the human spirit that can be appealed to that makes that category of non-believer somewhat fuzzy. One of the old, early American preachers, Lyman Abbot, said if he were a Calvinist he would be a universalist, but he said, because I respect the human will, I cannot be a universalist because I believe that God will not finally crush my human Yes or No. I think God respects our Yes or No to such an extent that... So, non-believers? Someone wants to finally say, "Not thy will be done, but my will be done?" will God say then, "Thy will be done?" I don't know. Of course, I don't know those answers. But, I don't think there are as many non-believers out there as I used to. Q. You said that you didn't want to get into scripture, but there are a few people here who would like you to at least address some issues. One question: please speak on the question of the necessity of the cross of which Jesus speaks often, particularly consider the incident of Jesus in Gethsemane saying, "If it is possible for the cup to be removed," but God demanded Jesus to drink of it, nonetheless. A. Yes. I would say that one of the areas of revision as I reflect on Christian faith and doctrine, as I have learned it and I have preached it and taught it, is my understanding of atonement. I think that when Jesus said, "Let this cup pass from me," that Jesus was saying, "Bring that kingdom about, effect your purposes apart from my having to go through with tomorrow." I think Gethsemane was just what it appears to be and that was the real existential struggle of Jesus in the garden at the threshold of his own death, a horrible death, in which he could have slipped out of town and gotten away with it. I don't think that Jesus died to bear our sins; I think Jesus died because of our sins. I think Jesus died the way he died because he lived the way he lived, and his dying was the authentication of the life that he lived ,which was the embodiment of the kingdom of God and the rule of God in the midst of human society. And so, when he said, “Let this cup pass from me," I think he wanted out, like I would want out. And I think when he said on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" that's not like my Calvinist theology said, that in that time he was experiencing the torments of hell because God turned God's face away from Jesus in those moments. I think he was experiencing hell; he was experiencing forsakenness. That which he had staked his life on and pointed to and embodied was not happening. He was dying! He was being crucified. And I think anybody that lives the way he lives is going to end up pretty much like he ended up, and that's why most of us are smart enough, most of the time, not to do it. And to follow the Way of Jesus is a most radical way to go, and I'll tell you what - I'm not ready for it. © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page15 Q. How do you respond to such scripture as "No one comes to the Father but by me"? A. I refer people to Bishop Krister Stendahl's little paper on “From God's Point of View, We're all Minorities.” Now, he's a New Testament scholar; I'm not. And he says, you know, to take a text in the intimacy of conversation between Jesus and his friends, and then to lift that up out of its context and absolutize it as though it is the end all and the be all.... I wouldn't be in any trouble if it weren't for John 14:6 and Acts 4:12. "No other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." In other words, save as healed, and they're talking about the crippled man who was just healed. And they are saying in Acts 4:12, in your name did you do this? And Peter says, "No, not in our name. There isn't any other name. The only name is the one Jesus, that name. That is the healer, that Jesus who was in our midst who was the embodiment of God who brought the healing power of God to bear." And in 14:6, “In my Father's house there are many resting places." Krister Stendahl says that's in the world. In the world there are many places you can be, and so, be there. And as I go to prepare a place for you and so forth. I do not think that one ought to take John 14:6 and try to explain it as though it had no nuances of exclusivism because there is a genuine biblical exclusivism, there is that track in the scripture, and I think that it is most understandable that there would be, because the Bible, New Testament documents, this is not a book on interreligious dialogue; this is not a book on religious philosophy; this is a book of proclamation. This is a book written by those who believed they were at the end of the age, that God had appeared in Jesus Christ, that the answer was in Christ, everything was in Christ, this was their message; this was their preaching, so, I don't think I ought to try to whitewash that thing and say there is no possibility of constructing that kind of exclusivist view where there is salvation through Jesus alone and no other. The only thing that I would argue is that that's not the only voice of the scripture, and that if we look at it in its context and in its time and then, through the tradition of 2000 years and our present situation, you put all of those things together, then I think that's the basis on which I would say that if Jesus said John 14:6, which Jesus Seminar says he didn't, of course, that's too easy, isn't it, then I think that there's the possibility of nuanced interpretation, but maybe that's exactly what John wanted to say. Q. Has human experience taken precedence over the authority of scripture? A. Yes, I hope so. And that's why I'm in trouble, because I say things like that. You see, and now Dr. Fries can't be that foolish because he still holds an institutional position. But, the reason I'm in the trouble I'm in is because I think human experience and scripture need to be in dialogue and need to be coordinated. I need to give human experience a lot of credence in order to make up for the first fifty years of my life, when I didn't know that human © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page16 experience even existed. I had a text and I had a book and it didn't matter whether human experience was being honored or regarded at all. So, I think there is the scripture, there is the tradition, there is present human experience and then there is the reflection of reasonable faith, and Krister Stendahl who was with us some years ago in a dialogue with David Hartman, the Rabbi from Jerusalem, spoke about tradition as an instrument for continuity and change. Now, I know of tradition as an instrument for continuity. I didn't understand it as an instrument for change. As Krister Stendahl spoke of it, I could see that it is the living tradition that connects us with the founding story, and that living tradition is a constant re-interpretation of the founding story in light of ongoing human experience, so that at every point of the historical spectrum, as you look back at this event, you see it from a bit of a different angle, you see new wrinkles and new nuances because what goes on is also God's history and the spirit of God is still active in the world. It’s not as though it all happened back there and now it's just waiting for the applause at the end. We have to constantly look at that story in light of our experience, in light of that way we have traversed, and we do it, we use our heads, we think! And in that mix we come to our present understanding of the faith which helps us to interpret present human experience. So, I think that's a red herring. I think that's a false dichotomy. I don't think you can understand the Bible apart from human experience, and I don't think that human experience apart from the critique of the founding story will ever connect you to the transcendent. I think that both of them have to live in tension. Q. How do you view Buddha and Krishna? A. Hardly ever do. I don't know, and frankly, I am an incurable Christian theologian and I have not really dipped with any breadth or depth into the world of religious dialogue. The only specific relationship I've had is with the Jewish community which has been a very enriching kind of relationship, but I am not a scholar of world religions. However, when I hear someone like John Hick who advocates a pluralist position, or when I hear someone like Huston Smith, then I sense that perhaps if I am going to make sense of what they tell me about the authenticity of that spiritual experience, then I would say that the spirit of God can take up residence within Buddha, Krishna. I think that the historical, concrete figure may be agent and instrument of the Spirit of God, and that there have been those in whom that transcendence came to shining expression to a degree far beyond that which is true of us ordinary mortals. So, I think where there are great religious leaders, if there is truth there, I would guess it is the truth of God. Q. Where or how do you fit in the 250,000 Jewish people who have come to believe in Jesus as Messiah since 1967, and who believe that the Messiah is still to be preached to their own people? A. I am aware that there is such a movement. I just got a letter from Isaac © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page17 Rottenberg who wrote to a Rabbi in New York City about the Jesus Jewish movement and the fact that that ought to be a part of the agenda of the discussion, the dialogue between Christianity and Judaism. I think in all of the religious traditions there ought to be the possibility of crossing over. I believe that one ought to deepen one's own tradition and one's own particularity. In other words, don't hear me say that you ought to put all the traditions into a blender and homogenize them and come out with some new kind of mush. Let's be authentically what we are. Let's even deepen what we are. Because I do believe that the universal is accessed only through the particular. But, I think that there should always be the possibility for a Jewish person to see Jesus and say, "Messiah!" And if that is the authentic experience of that person, wonderful. Ironically, in the Muskegon Classis in the last two years, I'm the one who has baptized two Jews, adult Jews! I almost did it with a bad conscience. I said, "Are you sure you want to do this? You know, you don't really have to do this," but they wanted to do that. Okay. But, on the other hand, seriously, about myself, maybe I'll join the synagogue. I could become a Jew because I see Jesus very much in his Jewishness and to follow Jesus and practice Judaism, live out of the Torah, so if I want to do that, I think the Rabbi should receive me. But, all I'm saying is that you can cross over, pass over, if that is where you find that connects you, God bless you. And if you are a Jew and you want to find in Jesus the Messiah today and you want to tell your fellow Jewish people about that, I think that's witness, that's fine, that's fine. I respect that. Q. If your views moved the Reformed Church closer to the Unitarian position, if so, what would be gained for the church body, and what might be lost? A. The doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery and I can understand how the church, seeking to come to terms with the raw material of its experience, its Christological creedal formulas, I understand. I understand what those doctrinal symbols are pointing to and seeking to communicate. Would my views move the church more toward Unitarianism? Maybe, but not necessarily, because I think that, even within the Jewish tradition, that which comes to expression in the doctrine of the Trinity, there are echoes of that in Judaism, as well. And so, I think that that is not necessarily the issue of where I would go. I would say this: I understand the impetus to Unitarianism when it happened. I can understand why there was such a movement and such a development, and I'm not nearly as scandalized by it as once I was or probably some of you would think I should be. But, I want to maintain the embodiment of God in the flesh of Jesus. That's the God I know. That's the God I see, and I am not as impressed with some of the contemporary discussions of the Trinity where that's reflective of community within a godhead which is modeled after community of humankind - frankly, it never really grabbed me, but that's for esoteric theologians like Dr. Fries. I mean, you know, we wouldn't need seminaries, we wouldn't need such brilliance if there were not those kinds of questions to think about. © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page18 Q. Will you please respond to the question once posed to Karl Barth – “Professor, will there be a hell?” A. Hell, no. I think that Hell is the experience of separation from God and I do believe that I believe in judgment. I believe that no one will get away with anything. Thank God. True for all of us. So that there will be this authentic encounter with God so that my life will be there and I will face my life, and then, you know you have to talk in symbols and images. I love The Great Divorce, where C.S. Lewis says on the other side of death you can sort of float around in those misty grey flats as long as you want to, and then if you want to get on board the bus a little farther in, a little farther up, okay. You get up there and say, "Ooh, this is too bright. I think I like it down below," the ambience of the misty flats. But, it is always the individual in authentic encounter with God. God is not mocked and I will see myself consciously in the presence of God. I believe in judgment. But, I believe that judgment is redemptive. I think that in the scriptures that judgment is always for salvation. So, Hell for as long as you want it, but it doesn't have as many folks in it as it used to have, for me, and it doesn't last as long as it used to last. Q. Dick, it would have seemed that Joseph Campbell addressed this issue without the controversy, why is it now considered controversial? A. Well, Joseph Campbell wasn't talking within the rather narrow limits of the Reformed Church in America. I mean, Joseph Campbell had a world stage and the whole mythology tradition of which, of course, he was expert. I cannot believe that this issue is of such interest that it would get on the front page of the New York Times. I can't believe it. Others have said it better; they've said it years and decades and centuries ago more eloquently, more explicitly. I do not know why now this issue is so big. I think it's reflective, perhaps, of the church being afraid, being threatened. And rather than in faith saying, "What in the world is going on?" and "Is there something bigger? Does God have a grander scheme that is more than I ever, ever conceived of?” Rather, there's this growing in, and why it is now, I don't know. I don't feel like I have said anything new. I've not said anything very well. I am pretty much mainstream, down the middle. In my context? No, but in the broader human context, certainly, and even within the broader Reformed Church, I believe that I would come somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. So, it baffles me. Q. As a seminary student that shares your views, should I consider a longer engagement, both live together for a while, or break it off now? A. If I answered that in all honesty, I would be answering out of a deep woundedness that would not be a fair answer. I am wounded. The church has hurt me. And I should not be giving counsel to anybody for another year or two. Q. Why is there no movement to change our creedal statements? Why are we © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page19 stuck in 15th and 16th century statements? A. I said to the Classis of Muskegon that I would be willing to sign the formula for ordination which speaks of those statements as faithful, historical witnesses to the Christian faith. I do believe that those statements were authentic statements of faith. They were affirmations; they were proclamations. In their context they addressed the questions and the issues of that time. It's simply a human quality - we tend to say it, the movement erupts, there is this prophetic flame, there is an eloquent statement, and then we absolutize it and we perpetuate it through history as though it no longer will be touched by ongoing historical experience. It happens all the time. It happens in every tradition. You don't have to be the Reformed Church in America, and I think that's the question. Until we can honor our creedal tradition as being a faithful expression in a given context, recognizing that that faith needs constant translation and fresh expression - until we do that, we'll be going through the torment of this past year in Michigan. Historical consciousness is a relatively late arrival on the scene of the human disciplines. I think that science of history, historiography, is an 18™ century phenomena, and it, when it really soaked into the human psyche… I mean we all think historically today. It is the very lens through which we see everything, but we have somehow or other compartmentalized our faith and our theological expression, and made out as though those expressions do not need to continue to bring new light through translation in light of ongoing experience. I don't know. I don't know why we can't learn that. I've learned it. I said in New Brunswick Seminary when John Beardsley - John Beardsley, where are you? What year did you go to New Brunswick? Could it have been '64? I sat there on behalf of Western Theological Seminary and stood in your procession and John Leese gave a lecture, and John Leese's lecture pointed out the historical condition of every creedal statement, and it was like a light went on, and I sat there and thought, why didn't I understand that in my first 30 years? Why didn't I know that? And then I could see. It happened. It's just amazing to me, but I can remember it like it was yesterday. The historical conditionedness. You want to read a great story? The Presbyterian Controversy by Bradley Longfield, the fundamentalist controversy from 1920 to 1936 in the Presbyterian Church, the one where _________came out and started Westminster Seminary. Henry Sloane Coffin, I think, Robert McCartney, William Jennings Bryant, anyway, six of these outstanding church leaders, and the controversy of those, assembly after assembly, where the fundamentalists in the decade of the 20s, it is an amazing story, and Jay Gresham Machen said this is the deposit of faith and this thing goes down through history and nothing touches it. © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page20 I can remember as a student reading Machen who said never go down on the playing field. They'll slaughter you. Stay in the citadel of faith. Okay, you got it here, stick there, just keep saying it. Fundamentalism is simply the reiteration of yesterday's answers to today's questions, and so, you don't go down. He said, don't get out of the citadel and go down there. In other words, you can't reason with those people. Don't draw swords with those people. Don't dare try to go mind to mind, thought to thought. No encounter, because they'll slay you, because if you have the citadel of faith, and you have this pure source of revelation, you just keep repeating it. Well, to think that that deposit of faith can just sort of move through history with all of the... was it Einstein who said after the explosion of the first atomic bomb? Everything is changed, except our thinking. I would say that, on the threshold of the year 2000, if the church would open its eyes, it would have to say everything has changed and it's time we think about it. And then it's a question of whether one really believes in God, really has faith, you see. I believe in God. I trust God for the future. I think it's going to be great. I'm going to keep preaching. Q. What can be done by a Reformed Church minister to engage in a serious Christian-Jewish dialogue where the Consistory is opposed to this dialogue? A. Take a call. I don't think you can do it without leadership in tune with it. The only reason I've survived this past year is because my own congregation has been wonderfully solid and supportive. If my congregation were torn up, I would be torn up and I would be out of here because I am not a fighter. I don't go around looking for confrontation and I couldn't stand it if my own people were not together in this thing. So, I would be very hesitant to recommend a minister or a church leader of any sort to get involved in that which is not affirmed by his or her own leadership. It's a formula for disaster, I think. Q. Of course, a lot of things can feel right, even demonic persecution which takes the persecutor beyond need for argument. What are the critical criteria for putting holds on affirming all kinds of behaviour, such as your ouster …? A. Well, you see, I think that if we operate with a biblical tradition, with the biblical story, with the Christian tradition in a concrete community of faith, and if we are in dialogue together and in conversation together, then I think that we'll make some mistakes, but I think we'll correct ourselves, too. I trust, basically, the people. I think that there's a terrible gap between the academy and the congregation. Your pastors have known a lot of things they've never told you about over many, many years, and my experience has been that I can trust my people with anything I'm thinking about, anything I'm toying with, and it's a community and the Spirit of God lives in that community. And so, I have the biblical story, I have the tradition, I have the concrete community. And then, I think we test the spirits, and sometimes we make mistakes, but © Grand Valley State University �Spoken Address to Mid-Atlantic Synod Richard A. Rhem Page21 we have the freedom to fail, and then we can turn around and say that didn't work or the consequences of that were not foreseen. I'm going to back down from that. I don't know any other magic, but I do think that the Christian community can be trusted. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Series Address to The Synod of Mid-Atlantic, Reformed Church in America Location The location of the interview Reformed Church Synod of Mid-Atlantics, Ramapo, New Jersey References Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 1960,1996, Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, 1986 C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, 1964, Richard A. Rhem, "The Habit of God's Heart," Perspectives, Sept., 1988. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-3-19961004 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996-10-04 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Regarding the Conflict About Christian Exclusivity Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Talk created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 4, 1996 entitled "Regarding the Conflict About Christian Exclusivity", as part of the series "Address to The Synod of Mid-Atlantic, Reformed Church in America", at Reformed Church Synod of Mid-Atlantics, Ramapo, New Jersey. Tags: Inclusive Grace, Nature of God, Pluralism, Universal Grace, Scripture, Authority. Scripture references: Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 1960,1996, Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, 1986 C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, 1964, Richard A. Rhem, "The Habit of God's Heart," Perspectives, Sept., 1988. . Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Authority Inclusive Grace Nature of God Pluralism Scripture Universal Grace