Sunday, March 23, 2008

Communitarian Church of Vermont?

Does every church in the world embrace communitarian morality? Is there one church that includes all religions? Is there one church qualified to become the World Church? Why do all the modern churches endorse communitarianism without bothering to inform their followers that is the ideology permeating the faith-based initiatives?

Should it be of any interest to us that the symbol for the Communitarian Church of Vermont is the same symbol that Amitai Etzioni's first name means? What is the Tree of Life and what influence does it have on Communitarian LAW? What is the philosophy of building community, and why do so many federal grant programs and foreign war efforts use the exact same terms?

http://cherryhillseminary.org/index.htm

"Cherry Hill Seminary is a privately owned Pagan seminary program based on the Communitarian philosophy of the sacredness of connections and community building. In that regard, the Seminary is committed, in general, to the mission of building connections between all faiths of the world, and specifically, to train and ordain qualified ministers who are dedicated to the philosophy of building community within their particular Pagan denominations."


Who is:

M. Macha Nightmare

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

M. Macha NightMare, a priestess and witch, is an author, teacher and ritualist, with a penchant for collaboration. An initiate, and among the founders of, Reclaiming Tradition Witchcraft, as well as Faery/Feri Tradition, Macha holds Elder and ministerial credentials through The Covenant of the Goddess (CoG), the oldest and largest non denominational organization of Witches in the USA. A member since 1981, she is a former National First Officer and has served the Covenant in many other capacities. She also is an ordained minister of the Communitarian Church in Vermont. {Emphasis added}

NightMare is also a participating member of The Biodiversity Project Spirituality Working Group; the Sacred Dying Foundation; the Marin Interfaith Council; the Ord Brighideach; and the Nature Religion Scholars Network.[1] Her matron is Kali Ma. Her magical practice is inspired by feminism and a concern for the health of our planet, and is informed by Celtic, Hindu and Tibetan practices, the sacred art of Tantra, and the magic of enchantment. When the opportunity presents itself, Macha travels the "broomstick circuit" of neopagan gatherings, where she enjoys immersing herself in the diverse community of American Witchcraft. Her writing has appeared in many periodicals, and she has frequently spoken on behalf of the Craft in electronic and print media, and at colleges and universities. She currently teaches at Cherry Hill Pagan Seminary in Bethel, Vermont.

She brags on her website of her participation in establishing early foundations for the Faith-Based Initiative" implemented under Bush II.
"In 1998 Macha participated in The Biodiversity Project Spirituality Working Group, a small gathering of religious and environmental leaders, in Madison, WI; their work informed the publication of Building Partnerships with the Faith Community: A Resource Guide for Environmental Groups."

I freely admit I was taken in by paganism when I quit drinking and joined AA back in 1990. I respectfully listened to people of all faiths, bought and read all kinds of books passed around in 12 step meetings, and eventually hosted ceremonial pipes at my home (and no it wasn't pot in the pipes). I was still a consumer back then and the recovery book market was flooded with feminst/indian spirituality throughout the 90s. I bought one of Starhawks books about becoming a Shaman, found it to be full of vague assumptions, and that may have been when I began to smell a rat in the recovery rooms. I have since identified the principles for the 12 step program as part of the communitarian plan. I shouldn't have been shocked when I read Marianne Williamson identify communitarian values as the "solution" in A woman's Worth, by name. But I had no idea these bitches were part of something called the Communitarian Church!!!

Bobby, do you have any information on the Communitarian Church of Vermont? There's no direct link to the church (and isn't that a bit odd?)
"Macha holds Elder and ministerial credentials through CoG and is an ordained minister of the Communitarian Church in Vermont. The Communitarian Church is the parent of Cherry Hill Seminary, where Macha chairs the Public Ministry Department. Prior to taking over the department, she taught at 15-week survey course called “Call of the Dark Mother: Working with the Dying, Death, and Grieving.” She is committed to developing the first, and so far only, program in public ministry for Pagans. She views this endeavor, shared with other dedicated and accomplished colleagues, as an opportunity to set a high standard for future generations of Pagans."

All I was trying to do today was write a back cover for our hardcopy of the manifesto so we can send it off to the printer. Was loooking for Barmby's 1850s Church of Communitarianism and found Macha's 2000 Church instead. How did I miss this???? Did I see it before and just didn't think it was that significant, or have I since forgot?

Cherry Hill's Seminary lecturers boast of their invitations to attend the Parliament of the World's Religions. Donald Frew's bio includes: "He represented CoG at both modern Parliaments of the World's Religions ('93 Chicago, '99 Cape Town) and was invited to participate in the Parliament Assembly (other members include the Pope and the Dalai Lama)." http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/index.cfm

Registration Now Open!


The 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions will be an international interreligious gathering spanning seven nights and six days – from December 3rd to 9th - bringing together an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 persons.

The city of Melbourne, Australia has been awarded the bid to host the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions. The Council conducted a ten-month search that resulted in the selection of Melbourne in October 2006 as the host city for the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions.

The Melbourne host team put forth an impressive bid that met all the criteria established by the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions. The way in which the team in Melbourne addressed the multiple questions and challenges that surround social cohesion in the midst of diversity within their local context contributed to Melbourne’s selection by our advisory committee. Click here to review the website devoted to the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions.




Okay back to Hegel and Etzioni, can't keep going on this anymore today. But what a trip it is to keep finding things that back up our manifesto in such huge ways. Is the plan to actually name the emerging global religion the Communitarian Church?? Participants of the Cherry Hill Seminary HAVE to become members of the Communitarian Church. What is the baptism or confirmation process for that conversion?

"The church operates the seminary to provide training in Pagan ministry skills and to ordain those graduates interested in service as a Communitarian minister. The State of Vermont Department of Education requires that the seminary only enroll members of its parent church, the Communitarian Church. Therefore, all matriculated students are required to become members of the Communitarian Church by paying annual dues of $25 before enrolling. (Continuing Education students pay for short-term membership via higher application fees, and course enrollment fees)."
Here's an interesting essay on whether the Catholic church is communitarian: http://jloughnan.tripod.com/comunity.htm

How many of us know about the "Wider Bush Plan for Religious Communitarianism" or that most search returns on "communitarian church" lead to the Catholics and occassionally the Lutherans, even though the founder of the Communitarian Network is a Talmudic Zionist dual Israeli-US citizen trained by the Hegelian social theorist and mystic Martin Buber; Etzioni's office bills him as a "guru" but he's not mentioned by his high priestesses in the Communitarian Church. We could assume they are separate entities except for the fact that they sell and promote the exact same agenda of rebuilding communities. I guess it's a lot like the way Wiki editors said Etzioni has nothing to do with Communitarian Law.

Our enemies in the interplanetary realm think we are distracted by their obscure categorization and diasapora of the communitarian ideology. We are not. :http://www.americanatheist.org/supplement/communitarianism.html

And but of course the Parliament of the world's Religions links us to the URI who supports the UN Millenium Goals:

Written by Charles Gibbs Friday, 14 March 2008:

Dear Friends,

Greetings of love and peace.

As a non-governmental organization with consultative status at the UN, the URI has a responsibility to support initiatives that further key UN objectives and are consistent with URI's Preamble, Purpose and Principles.

In January, I shared with you URI's involvement in an effort to have the UN declare a Decade of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace. I would now like to share with you two other initiatives the URI has been asked to participate in related to fulfilling the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

First, a reminder that the eight MDGs were approved as part of the Millennium Declaration, affirmed by 189 countries and signed by 147 heads of states and governments in during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000. The eight goals, to be achieved by 2015, are:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

http://www.uri.org/

We should ask ourselves why a religious organization would include goals 7 and 8 (above). And, here we go again, Religions for Peace explains the primary new goals of all UN affiliates. Sustainable Development and BUILDING COMMUNITY is the new mantra:
Religions for Peace - USA is a coalition comprised of leaders from over sixty U.S. religious communities. RFP-USA operates on the conviction that multi-religious cooperation and common action can be powerful instruments in the quest for constructive social development, justice, reconciliation, and peace.

Building Community — Addressing Diversity
— Discussing the Role of the United States in the World


Maybe it's time to design a new communitarian chart that shows ALL the connections. Do the Germans have Communitarian Churches (and pagan feminist witches)? Does this lead to other conclusions regarding the implementation of "Communitarianism as the social and legal theory behind the German Constitution?" http://icon.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/citation/2/3/431

It's amazing what I found today searching for Barmby's Universal Communitarian Association, what eventually became known as the Communist Church in 1841. I see many new things I would like to read, wonder who kept Barmby's works... the Communitarian Church? Is the modern Communitarian Church more of a witches' council?

From the Dictionary of National Biography, http://books.google.com/books?id=ZCwJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=communist+journal+barmby&source=web&ots=fqxDZjdMzd&sig=1FuyvVCnZ6LeN6vxSCB5w4PEM0A&hl=en#PPA235,M1
Barmby claimed credit for founding the East Suffolk and Yarmouth Chartist council in September 1839. In December he was elected delegate to the Chartist convention and in 1840 and 1841 he was re-elected, though alienated from political radicalism by this time. Already a correspondent of the Owenites’ New Moral World (writing on language reform and Charles Fourier), in 1840 he visited Paris with a letter of introduction from Owen. There he studied French social organisation and claimed by this to have originated the English term ‘communism’. He married at Marylebone on 4th October 1841 Catherine Isabella Watkins (1816/17–1853), who, under the signature of Kate, contributed to the New Moral World. They had a son, Moreville, and a daughter. On 13th October 1841, Barmby founded the Communist Propaganda Society and designated 1841 Year 1 of the new communist calendar. The Universal Communitarian Association followed, promoted by the monthly Educational Circular and Communist Apostle. In 1842, he founded and almost single-handedly wrote the monthly Promethean, or, Communitarian Apostle, which also promoted rational marriage and universal suffrage, and lectured at the ‘communist temple’ at Marylebone Circus, Marylebone, Middlesex. Out of this activity and through his contact with James Pierrepont Greaves (with whom he published the New Age, or, Concordian Gazette, the journal of Greaves’s own Ham Common community), Barmby established the Moreville Communitorium at Hanwell in 1842. The following year, he issued his Communist Miscellany, a series of tracts written by himself and his wife, and founded the weekly Communist Chronicle, which also supported the German communist Wilhelm Weitling.


Thomas Frost described Barmby at this time as ‘a young man of gentlemanly manners and soft persuasive voice, wearing his light brown hair parted in the middle after the fashion of the Concordist brethren, and a collar and necktie à la Byron’[2]. With the Communitorium renamed the Communist Church by 1844, Barmby began his move towards sectarianism; he conducted a propaganda tour in the north and midlands in the winter of 1845–6 and forged links with the Dublin sect of White Quakers. In 1845 he combined with Frost to revive the Communist Chronicle, for which he translated some of Reybaud’s ‘Sketches of French socialists’, and wrote a philosophical romance entitled The Book of Platonopolis, which sought to fuse utopian fiction and modern science. However, Frost soon tired of Barmby’s sectarianism and separated from him in 1846, to establish the Communist Journal.


Is the Communitarian Church the Church of Jerusalem with certain modifications? Thomas Frost tells us in Recolllections of a Country Journalist that he fully told the history of the Communist Church in his "Recollections." Anybody got a copy of it I can borrow? As the world's leading anticommunitarian scholar whose undisputed thesis is that Etzioni's history of communitarianism is a lie, I'd sure like to be "fully told" about the history of the Cherry Hill Seminary's "parent" church. Why is there nothing about it online? If they receive federal tax funds via the faith based program, are they required to comply with an FOIA request for documents? Argh, do I have time for this? No... but maybe one of you do, which is why I made time to post all this today. This is a KEY element to the communitarian propaganda machine, an explanation of how it evolved into UN Millenium Goals may be helpful to Christians, Muslims and Jews who are caught up in the dialectically imposed crossfire.

Update March 25:
Is there a Communitarian Church of Carriage Hills in California? Are there others besides the one in Vermont?

December 17, 2006

UPF Argentina

“During the last 45 days I had the privilege to be the heart, the feet, the hands and the mouth of Rev. (Sun Myung) Moon”, says Pastor Andre Jackson, of the Communitarian Church of Carriage Hills in California, one of the 120 leaders taking on the commitment to travel the world as part of a Tour, that leads them through 120 nations and which is organized by the Universal Peace Federation.

http://www.peace-tour.org/tour4_2006/nation/argentina.php

It's more commonly known as the Carriage Hills Community Church. In 2006 he was still traveling with the Peace group, this time to Germany:
Rev. Andre W. Jackson from the Carriage Hills Community Church in Richmond, California, gave his delightful sermon in the Free Catholic Church in Munich with the cooperation of Archbishop Ungerer and Bishop Umipig. It was a wonderful ecumenical service for peace. Thirty people from different backgrounds and churches attended the program.
There are several wiccans who claim to be ordained ministers. Maybe Lady DragonWing will explain something for us about how she obtained her position in the Communitarian Church.
http://www.magnoliacircle.org/LDW.htm

UMass, Amherst connects the Communitarian Church to the Covenant of the Goddess:
http://www.umass.edu/religious_affairs/

And there's another, the Scarsdale Communitarian Church of the Non-Sectarian Community Nursery School, http://homepage.mac.com/connersax/33_scarsdale.htm

And in Asia the Catholics see a need to create a Communitarian church:
http://www.pohd.org/pages/ministries/parish-human-development-committee/background.php

Here's an event attened by all the Communitarian Church members, called MerryMeet. One of the speakers was a presenter at Rio in 1992 and was the New england Regional Religion Coordinator for Earth Day 1990. These Wiccan communitarian freemason witches sure care a lot about our environment, don't they? Who knew how much influence Witches had on preparing the document that would establish Communitarian Law across the globe.

Rev. Maureen Khoreia Reddington-Wilde is a minister of the Church of the Sacred Earth : A Union of Pagan Congregations. She is a Hellenic Reconstructionist Pagan, a dedicated Priestess of Aphrodite, currently pursuing a Masters degree in Classical Studies at Harvard University.

Ordained in 1988, her ministry has been dedicated to interfaith outreach in local, regional, national, and international levels. She served as the New England Regional Religion Coordinator for Earth Day 1990, which led to her founding role in Eco-Spirit New England, an interfaith environmental
network, as well as the Seventh Principle Project, a Unitarian Universalist environmental network, and participating in the International Coordinating
Committee for Religion and the Environment which helped prepare input for the U.N.'s 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil. For the past ten years here in
Massachusetts, she has served on the steering committee, now the board of directors, of the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, serving as Co-Chair in 2003-2004 during the time of the Goodridge decision and the first legal gay marriages in the Commonwealth.

Maureen Reddington-Wilde will be presenting at the Leadership Institute.
And then I started looking up some of the NGOs at Rio and found this list: http://habitat.igc.org/interven/

My question tonight is: Were there Ordained Communitarian Ministers at Rio who helped write the Global Communitarian Legal Plan called UN Local Agenda 21? I might also be falling asleep wondering if Etzioni knows there are Quabbalistic trained Wiccan High Priests who are also Masters in Masonic Secrecy who are Communitarian Ministers?

How bizarre does this thing get? Nordica told me if I exclaim "Oh my God" one more time she's gonna throw something at me. She thinks I should be conditioned to this stuff after all these years. She can't believe I'm still shocked. But I am. After 8 years I find out there's a Wiccan connection so direct and out there that it feels like I never did any research on communitarianism at all. Plus the fact that there's ZERO online about the actual church. Where is it? Jerusalem? Rome? At the Mennonite Center in North Carolina? At BlackWater's Training Center nearby? And the Catholics sure discuss their church as a communitarian church a lot... this is all almost too much for my brain to absorb.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had never heard of the Communitarian Church of Vermont. It turns up 1 hit on Google which is...
http://www.handfastings.org/officiantlist.htm where I found this listing:
Name: M. Macha NightMare, P&W
Affiliation:
·Covenant of the Goddess, Elder;
·Reclaiming Elder;
·Communitarian Church of Vermont, parent to Cherry Hill Seminary,
where I am Chair of the Public Ministry Department
U.S. State registered with: California and Vermont
Path or Religion: Witchcraft/Pagan
Legally ordained: Yes
Years of Experience in performing weddings: 23
Email: herself@machanightmare.com Website: http://www.machanightmare.com
Location: P. O. Box 150694, San Rafael, CA 94915-0694
I perform: Weddings, Handfastings, Baby Blessings and Namings, Commitment Ceremonies,
Marriage Vow Renewals, Funerals and Memorials, Rites of Passage, First Bloods, Cronings/Sagings, and Divorces/Partings/Leavetakings.

Cherry Hill Seminary: gets 2660 hits on Google:
"Cherry Hill Seminary is a privately owned Pagan seminary program based on the Communitarian philosophy of the sacredness of connections and community building. Cherry Hill Seminary offers online courses designed to impart a graduate-level Pagan clergy education." - http://cherryhillseminary.org/index.html

Universal Life Church: 177000 Google hits, is apparently much larger and it seems that most of the ordained officiants who perform handfasting ceremonies are affiliated with it.

"The Universal Life Church has no traditional doctrine. We as an organization believe in that which is right. Each individual has the privilege and responsibility to determine what is right for themselves, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. We do not stand between you and your God. We are active advocates of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America." - http://www.ulchq.com/

Its interesting that the organization believes in "that which is right", but each member has to figure out for themselves "what is right", and it doesn't matter what it is so long as it doesn't "infringe on the rights of others". However, with no standard of "right" I can imagine that what one believes is right may infringe upon the rights (beliefs) of many others. I cannot imagine how rights, distilled down to the self determined beliefs of each member could possibly produce harmony within a community.

What do you want to bet that there is a facilitator of belief who arbitrates every difference between every individual belief. Yep, you can believe whatever you like just so long as you agree with everyone else.

No wonder they wanted to "dumb down" the population first!

Anonymous said...

The "Communitarian Church" may be a single congregation, coven or whatever they would call it. It may also now be defunct. Kirk White was its pastor at one time.

Here is his resume: Kirk C. White, M.A.

White was also the founder of Cherry Hill Seminary"
"In recognition of his founding role, long service and faithful dedication to Cherry Hill Seminary, the Board of Directors has asked White to remain on the board as President Emeritus. White will also continue to represent the Communitarian Church, parent body of Cherry Hill Seminary."
- Changes at Cherry Hill Seminary

How about that resume? Is there any secret society he doesn't belong to? Notice the range of his interests and understand that these are all New Age fascinations. I would say that he is most definitely carrying water for the New Age Movement.

You might find a site search of cherryhillseminary.org for "Communitarian Church" interesting.

Communitarian Church may just be a registered name to legitimize the function of the Seminary: "The State of Vermont Department of Education requires that the seminary only enroll members of its parent church, the Communitarian Church."

The Cherry Hill Seminary is no longer associated with the Communitarian Church: "We will no longer be an auxiliary of the Communitarian Church. Our principal office is now in Columbia, South Carolina."

This information identifies a firm connection between Communitarianism and the New Age Movement!

Find most of this in the site search.

Niki Raapana said...

I can't believe all of White's positions in so many different freemason orgs. This confirms what my neighbor's been telling me. He claims that he was concieved in a ritual ceremony and his parents were high priest and priestess of a Wiccan church AND heavily involved in some kind of masonic group... he told me they were the same thing. I thought he was exagerating on that, but apparently the founder of the Communitarian Church is not in the least bit hesitant to advertise just exactly how inter-related they are for him too. Not at all suprising is White's studies of addictions and recovery, the pagans are all over the 12 step agenda. I'm gonna check out what he was doing at UMass too, synthesis is always a keyword for me!

Thanks Bobby, I knew you'd check this out further. So you think it's possible they just used the church name to get accredited by the state of Vermont? The Seminary promotes the communitarian philosophy but no longer affiliates itself with the church. If the church never existed then maybe the State of Vermont should be informed of this. If it did exist then the State has to have some kind of paperwork on it. Yeah... there's a lot more to this than we know right now.

Niki Raapana said...

And how much of the Faith Based money did this guy get?

Niki Raapana said...

A search for cherry hill seminary faith based grants led me to the Druid Order of white Oaks
http://www.whiteoakdruids.org/servicewhiteoak.cfm

Nice list of pagan orgs on the links page. Can't find any grants, and nothing more on the church, except that they may still require students to become members. This is a trip reading about witches and their covens learning to build community consensus about growth... Nightmare does a seminar on building community, sponsored by the Covenant of Gaia Church in Alberta. It all sounds so lovely, just like all things communitarian.

sewneo said...

This is the Noahide Laws, told of by Douglas Reed in reference to Sparticus Weishaupt, and as far as I know they are a direct reference to Talmudic beliefs that the "lower" races, being unfit to worship God, are directed to worship nature and reason, using the 7 laws of Noah as a guideline.

http://www.noahide.com/index.htm

Many of the top 'officials' are signed up under this garbage.

In "Controversy of Zion" D. Reed goes into detail about how Weishaupt believed that men should worship nature and reason and he draws the comparision to these Noahide laws.

I WONDER IF ANY WITCHES ARE BUILDING COMMUNITIES AND GIVING SEMINARS WHERE I LIVE!

Geez... this article was a true shell shock. Thanks Niki.. and thank you too Bobby.

Anonymous said...

I have known about the Freemasonry - Wiccan - New Age - Communitarian connection for a couple of years, and have implied that in some of my articles and emails but I didn't have the documentation to prove it.

I picked up most of my clues from email discussions with people who were Masons. Some try to recruit me and I play along by pretending to have a little knowledge so they always help me out with a little more. When they figure out that I know more than I'm revealing, they tend to become quite nasty.

One of them claimed to be a architect. He had blueprint plans for a land development (Vision something or other) and was looking for a location for construction. He had met Maurice Strong, and thought he was a great guy. He was well connected with environmental groups in California. The project would provide housing and a plot of ground for small farming, something like 10 to 40 acres as I recall. He thought I would be interested in becoming a stakeholder. Participants would control their holdings for life, but wouldn't actually own anything. It would be essentially a commune. He was a Mason and likely a Wiccan by my calculations, and he was a strong defender of feminism.

He always wrote in riddles, and when I responded in ways which indicated that I understood, he would go a little deeper. I knew that this was a process of initiation (maybe "self initiation") and when I indicated that I understood what he was doing, he became furious and refused to continue.