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<\/h4>\n<\/h4>\n“We tend to resist change, especially in the area of the sacred. But, Jesus was change,” shared Margaret Gray Towne, presenter at\u00a0the Voices for an Open Spirit dinner.<\/p>\n
Towne, author of Honest to Genesis: A Biblical and Scientific Challenge to Creationism <\/em>has close connections to the Church of the Brethren since 1963, when she taught biology at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa. She returned\u00a0as a visiting professor in science and religion in 1999.<\/p>\n Towne celebrates the new ideas given to us by science–ideas which celebrate the powers of God. New ideas are difficult, but they are how we develop and grow, she said. She pointed out that churches were critical\u00a0of the discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus, only to apologize to the scientists later.<\/p>\n As we learn and celebrate new ideas, Towne stressed the importance of humility in relating to each other. We often don\u2019t hold the whole story, and thus must practice “reserving judgment.” Reserving judgment is a practice Towne encourages in a course she teaches on critical thinking. “As Christians,” Towne said, “we should err on the side of loving.”<\/p>\n None of us have all the truth, she emphasized, saying that\u00a0as we learn, we need to be humble. We have different opinions and perspectives, but we need to love one another, she said, quoting Jeremiah 33:3,\u00a0“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things which you have not known.”<\/p>\n Towne spoke of two kinds of love: the “because of” love, and the “in spite of” love. We love others often “because of” our similarities and connections with them. Jesus loved us “in spite of” our limitations. “We need to love each other in spite of our differences and our different life journeys. In churches, unification comes to us via the ‘in spite of’ love.” Through our diversity we come to better understand each other and God, she added.<\/p>\n “We don\u2019t need to be uniform, but we do need to be unified,” she emphasized.<\/p>\n Towne closed with words from a well-known song, “We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord\u2026.and they\u2019ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.”<\/p>\n –Melissa Troyer is from Middlebury (Ind.) Church of the Brethren and is a member of the Church of the Brethren\u2019s Committee on Interchurch Relations.<\/em><\/p>\n ———————————————————————————— 223rd\u00a0Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren San Diego, California — June 26, 2009 “We tend to resist change, especially in the area of the sacred. But, Jesus was change,” shared Margaret Gray Towne, presenter at\u00a0the Voices for an Open Spirit dinner. Towne, author of Honest to Genesis: A Biblical and Scientific Challenge to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89,3,85,500],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-1390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brethren-annual-conference","tag-church-of-the-brethren","tag-juniata-college","tag-middlebury-church-of-the-brethren"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1390"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1403,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions\/1403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=1390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe News Team for the 2009 Annual Conference includes writers Karen Garrett, Frank Ramirez, Frances Townsend,\u00a0Melissa Troyer, Rich Troyer; photographers Kay Guyer, Justin Hollenberg, Keith Hollenberg, Glenn Riegel,\u00a0Ken Wenger;\u00a0staff Becky Ullom and Amy Heckert.\u00a0Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford, editor. Contact <\/em>cobnews@brethren.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"