{"id":24626,"date":"2013-07-13T11:02:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T15:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=24626"},"modified":"2016-09-30T16:03:18","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T20:03:18","slug":"all-are-welcome-new-church-seeks-to-embrace-all-religions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2013\/07\/all-are-welcome-new-church-seeks-to-embrace-all-religions\/","title":{"rendered":"All Are Welcome: New Church Seeks to Embrace All Religions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the New York Times:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Clad in proper Pacific Northwest flannel, toting a flask of \u201crocket fuel\u201d coffee typical of Starbucks\u2019 home turf, Steven Greenebaum rolled his Prius into a middle school parking lot one Sunday morning last month. Then he set about transforming its cafeteria into a sanctuary and himself into a minister.<\/p>\n

He donned vestments adorned with the symbols of nearly a dozen religions. He unfolded a portable bookshelf and set the Koran beside the Hebrew Bible, with both of them near two volumes of the \u201cHumanist Manifesto\u201d and the Sioux wisdom of \u201cBlack Elk Speaks.\u201d Candles, stones, bells and flowers adorned the improvised altar.<\/p>\n

Some of the congregants began arriving to help. There was Steve Crawford, who had spent his youth in Campus Crusade for Christ, and Gloria Parker, raised Lutheran and married to a Catholic, and Patrick McKenna, who had been brought up as a Jehovah\u2019s Witness and now called himself a pagan.<\/p>\n

They had come together with about 20 other members to celebrate the end of their third year as the congregation of the\u00a0Living Interfaith Church<\/a>, the holy mash-up that Mr. Greenebaum had created. Yearning for decades to find a religion that embraced all religions, and secular ethical teachings as well, he had finally followed the mantra of Seattle\u2019s indie music scene: \u201cD.I.Y.,\u201d meaning \u201cdo it yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

So as the service progressed, the liturgy moved from a poem by the Sufi mystic Rumi to the \u201cpassing of the peace\u201d greeting that traced back to early Christianity to a Buddhist<\/a> responsive reading to an African-American spiritual to a rabbinical song.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u201cMany of our most intractable ills may be laid on the altar of our divisions into \u2018them\u2019 and \u2018us,\u2019 \u201d Mr. Greenebaum, 65, said during his sermon. \u201cSuch a mind-set allows us to judge others and find them lesser beings. Now, I\u2019m not here to try to convince anyone that there is no such thing as right or wrong. But I am here to say that there is no \u2018them.\u2019 And there is no \u2018us\u2019 who are somehow superior to them.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026Indeed, fully one-quarter of Americans attend worship services outside their own faiths, according to a\u00a02009 survey<\/a>\u00a0by the Pew Research Center. The report attributed that trend to the growth of interfaith marriage and to the influence of Eastern religions and New Age spirituality.<\/p>\n

Stephen Prothero<\/a>, a professor of religion at Boston University, placed the experiment of the Living Interfaith Church within the larger \u201cidea of religion as compassion.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThis strikes me as a kind of institutionalization of a very strong trend,\u201d he said of Mr. Greenebaum\u2019s start-up. \u201cIt\u2019s the idea that all religions are different paths up the mountain, and when you get to the top of the mountain you find compassion. But one reason we have different religions is that we have different rituals and different beliefs. Those are not insignificant.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for all religions to be one religion, you need to elide all the elements that were central to religion in the past: the hajj to Mecca, Jesus dying on the cross, whatever it might be. You\u2019ve got to turn these first principles into last principles.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the New York Times:\u00a0 Clad in proper Pacific Northwest flannel, toting a flask of \u201crocket fuel\u201d coffee typical of Starbucks\u2019 home turf, Steven Greenebaum rolled his Prius into a middle school parking lot one Sunday morning last month. Then he set about transforming its cafeteria into a sanctuary and himself into a minister. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interfaith-news","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nAll Are Welcome: New Church Seeks to Embrace All Religions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From the New York Times:\u00a0 Clad in proper Pacific Northwest flannel, toting a flask of \u201crocket fuel\u201d coffee typical of Starbucks\u2019 home turf, Steven\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2013\/07\/all-are-welcome-new-church-seeks-to-embrace-all-religions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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