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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
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Richard A. Rhem
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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Richard A. Rhem
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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.
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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
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Title
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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
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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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
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RA-3-19890130
Date
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1989-01-30
Type
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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
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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/f2bc2074584740741352551f0f40583d.mp3
cd922a8aa2af1f4a1fe8708882462bb5
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
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Mardi Gras Sunday
Scripture Text
Psalm 148:1-14, Psalm 149:1-5, Luke 7:18-35
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Gertrud Mueller Nelson, To Dance With God: Family Ritual & Community Celebration, 1986
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
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KII-01_RA-0-19950226
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1995-02-16
Title
A name given to the resource
From Feasting to Fasting
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 16, 1995 entitled "From Feasting to Fasting", on the occasion of Mardi Gras Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 148:1-14, Psalm 149:1-5, Luke 7:18-35.
Community of Faith
Liturgical Calendar
Psychology