Brief Descriptions of Select Seminar Presentations

Desire, Spirituality, and Gender. We can no longer avoid a formal look atDesire (Love), Spirituality and Gender. Queer Theory, gender issues—power structures, male dominance, the “glass ceiling,” role expectations—LGBTQ+, love, marriage, relationships, divorce, celibacy, birth control, abortion, love of God and the neighbor, ordination of women, Yin/Yang, Gods and Goddesses, are everywhere in world cultures and religions. 

These issues need to be treated comprehensively, from an historical and cross-cultural perspective: how they developed, where they developed, and the sources of today’s principles and behaviours. Sources are literature, poetry, story, myth, religious writings, philosophy, Greco-Roman cultures—the matrix Christianity grew up in—Asian cultures and texts, stories of India’s Gods, Goddesses, and sexualities, meditation comparative world views, and other sources. 

Having made these issues an area of specialization in 4 years’ BA studies and 13 years’ graduate studies, I have generated a comprehensive list of readings (bibliography), and am uniquely qualified to lead a Learning Experience in this area.  

SELF-DISCOVERY WRITING EXPERIENCE. “I never know what I’m feeling until I express it in writing–usually, a poem,” Dr Dave Fekete. Published or unpublished, writing matters!

Writing organizes emotions, generates community, is cathartic, teaches, and/or expresses an idea/feeling. 

Dr Dave states that he can’t write anyone’s narrative but his own. But he can coach/facilitate others to get their own narrative in print, to find their own authentic voice, perhaps published. His credentials for his include being sensitive, educated, accomplished, open-minded to a wide world of realities, supportive and encouraging.  

Eco-Justice and the Nature God Who Doesn’t Resurrect: Sir James Frazer, Jessie Weston, and the Poetry of T. S. Eliot. The climate crisis in which we are now has its origins in the “death of God” ideology pervading Euro-American Culture. T. S. Eliot, who attempted to capture “the mind of Europe,” prophesied this state of affairs in his epic poem, THE WASTE LAND, and in THE LOVE SONG OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK.

How we view Nature will determine how we treat Nature. Is Nature sacred? Is Nature only a set of dead chemicals? How do we relate to Nature: a symbol of spirituality; a Living Power we are children of; a garden we are stewards of; a commodity to dominate and subdue?

Emerson, Swedenborg, and The Bible show us ways to respect and honour Nature—even in a secular, materialistic society. The conclusion of his Learning Experience is that we are not free to interact with Nature in any other way than reverentially.

Matters of Matter, Mater, and God: T. S. Eliot’s Poetic Prophesy of The Debasement of The Feminine, The Desecration of Creation, and The Death of God. The loss of the sacred in contemporary society has its consequences. The “Me Too” movement, sexual misconduct by men in power positions, and the alarming data about climate change—now fact, and not a matter of opinion—suggest an unexpected correlation between the debasement of the feminine (Yin) and contempt for the Natural Order (Gaea). Both follow from a “death of God” ideology. 

Jessie Weston and Sir James Frazer detail examples of ancient religions which held the fertility cycle sacred in religious rituals to God, and the relationship between the fertility cycle and human interactions and human interactions with the Natural world. 

MYTH, METAPHOR, AND NO WORDS TO SAY: THE LIMITS OF LANGUAGE: Words fail us when we need them most. The most educated Modern poet admits it, “It is impossible to say just what I mean!” (T. S. Eliot, THE LOVESONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK). Plato invented logic and linear, rational reasoning. And in doing so, broke Europe out of mythology and poetry as the principal way to know something. Yet Plato is most famous for his metaphor and myths—most famously, the Myth of the Cave in The Republic.

I grew up with the expression, “There’s a scientific explanation for everything.” But there isn’t. There isn’t even an explanation for everything—let alone scientific. Humans need something besides explanations for a lot of our reality. When we try to express the inexpressible, words so often fail us. And explanations almost always do. Love is only one experience in which words fail too often. Certain Mystics of Spiritualities around the world resort to outright silence as the highest form of knowledge. 

We’ll glance at ways human beings express ourselves in this seminar. We’ll look at MYTH, METAPHOR, AND THE LIMITS OF LANGUAGE. 

“And lo!—Swedenborg is the Angel sitting at the tomb”—William Blake’s (poet) Complex Relationship with the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg’s influence is everywhere in Blake’s poetry. At times, Blake loved Swedenborg’s theology and at times he hated it. But love or hate, Blake could not get away from Swedenborg. This Learning Experience sketches Swedenborg’s ideas in the poetry of William Blake—from early infatuation to later sarcastic appropriation, to a still later embrace of Swedenborg’s thought.

Robert Frost’s Critical Appropriation of Swedenborg’s Theology. “What is my philosophy? That is hard to say. I was brought up a Swedenborgian. I am not a Swedenborgian now. But there is a good deal of it that’s left with me. I am a mystic. I believe in symbols” (Robert Frost in Lathem 1966: 49).

LEARNING EXPERIENCES: RELIGIOUS 

Survey of the Hebrew Scriptures.

WEEK 1–THE PATRIARCHS

WEEK 2–THE EXODUS

WEEK 3—CONFLICTING TESTIMONIES ON THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN

WEEK 4—THE CHALLENGE OF KINGSHIP

WEEK 5—FALLEN IS VIRGIN ISRAEL

WEEK 6—THE BABLYONIAN CAPTIVITY

WEEK 7—THE RESTORATION

An Orientation to the Gospels.

WEEK 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPELS

WEEK 2: JESUS’ BIOGRAPHY–BEFORE HIS MINISTRY

WEEK 3: JESUS’ BIOGRAPHY–THE EVENTS OF HIS MINISTRY

WEEK 4: JESUS’ BIOGRAPHY–THE TRIAL AND CRUCIFIXION

WEEK 5: JESUS’ BIOGRAPHY–THE RESURRECTION

WEEK 6: JESUS’ MINISTRY–THE HEALINGS

WEEK 7: JESUS’ MINISTRY–THE PARABLES

WEEK 8: JESUS’ MINISTRY–THEOLOGICAL TOPICS

WEEK 9: JESUS’ MINISTRY–SHORT SAYINGS

Foundational Teachings in Paul’s Letters (10-Week Course).

WEEK I: Paul’s Authority and Biography 

WEEK II: Christology

WEEK III: Reconciliation and Predestination 

WEEK IV: Salvation by Faith Part 

WEEK V: Salvation by Faith Part 2 

WEEK VI: The Life of the Spirit 

WEEK VII: Putting off the Old Self/Putting on the New Self  

WEEK VIII: Love 

WEEK IX: Sin 

WEEK X: Women in Early Christianity 

Reflections on the Ten Commandments (9-Week Course Based on My Self-Published 

Book).


The Sayings of Jesus (20-Week Course)

When one reflects on a course about the sayings of Jesus, two Gospels are best: Matthew or Luke.  Those two Gospels have the most sayings of Jesus, and they have basically the same sayings.  They have more sayings than the Gospel of Mark.  

I will be using Matthew’s Gospel in this course about the sayings of Jesus.  Matthew has more references to the Hebrew Scriptures in it than Luke does.  Early Christians drew on Hebrew Scriptures as they tried to understand who Jesus was.  So we’ll also learn about the Hebrew Scriptures as we learn about Jesus’ sayings, and we’ll see how Christians used the Hebrew Scriptures as they tried to make sense out of everything that happened surrounding Jesus’ birth, ministry, death, and resurrection.

We can’t use John’s Gospel, because it is unique and significantly different from the other three Gospels.

LIVING IN THE MIDST OF THE APOCALYPSE 

A 7-WEEK COURSE ON THE BOOK OF REVELATION

“Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day. ― Albert Camus, The Fall. 

Are these The End Times?  I think a lot of people are asking that question.  This 7-week course addresses that very question: LIVING IN THE MIDST OF THE APOCALYPSE.  My mother grew up in World War II and the depression times.  She watched the Love Revolution of the 1960’s and saw her boys grow their hair long.  She lived through Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the first foreign attack on US soil, when the World Trade Center was reduced to dust by the insane concept of weaponized commercial airplanes.  But she tells me that she’s never seen the likes of these days.  Neither have I.  Neither has anyone.  Unprecedented doesn’t even capture how these days are without precedent.  Friends of mine, who know that I am a Pastor, ask me if Revelation is happening, now.  Even atheists, who have heard the word Armageddon, but don’t know Christian theology, wonder if this is it.