Communitarian Church of Vermont responds

I get hundreds of emails I never get a chance to respond to. I had forgotten about this email from a representative of the Communitarian Church of Vermont. It came in a while after I had posted this:
http://nikiraapana.blogspot.com/2008/03/communitarian-church-of-vermont.html

I planned on writing back, but wanted to wait until I had a chance to properly respond. I do remember thinking it very odd that the Cherry Hill Seminary severed all ties with the Communitarian Church the same exact month I started trying to locate the church. As far as I know there are no records of this church anywhere online. My next step was going to be contacting the state officials who authorized the program and the ministry.

Dear Tent Lady,

I just happened to stumble across your blog today, "Living Outside the Dialectic," at http://nikiraapana.blogspot.com/2008/03/communitarian-church-of-vermont.html . I realize the post is an old one, but would like to respond to some of your questions in the column titled, "Communitarian Church of Vermont."

The original founder of Cherry Hill Seminary thought that the school had to be associated with a church of some sort in order to meet state requirements. He founded the Communitarian Church, but I rather doubt he has ever read Etzioni (I have, btw). The logo is a cherry tree. The board of directors severed all ties with the Communitarian Church of Vermont on March 1, 2008. You will find no reference to it on our current web site. The seminary was privately owned by the founder in the early years, but is now a 501©3 charitable organization. Students have never been required to join the Communitarian Church, though in the early years they were told they must be a member in order to matriculate or be ordained. This was, again, an erroneous assumption on the part of the founder, which he supported changing when the board of directors determined it to be both unnecessary and a conflict of interest. The founder is no longer connected with us.

Regarding your reference to "Macha’s 2000 church," Macha NightMare has never been connected with the Communitarian Church other than through her involvement with Cherry Hill Seminary. She continues to serve as the Chair for the Department of Public Ministry, and is indeed a respected member of the Marin Interfaith Council, and frequent guest lecturer both here and abroad. Many of our Pagan colleagues, and some of our Cherry Hill faculty, are involved with the Parliament of the World’s Religions, the United Religions Initiative, and other interfaith projects, including service on boards of directors. A core requirement of all Cherry Hill Students is our Introduction to Interfaith course, because we feel it is vital to engage with our local religious communities in a positive and productive way.

Should you have further questions, please contact me any time.

Sincerely,

Holli S. Emore, CFRE
Executive Director
Cherry Hill Seminary
"Distance Education for Professional Pagan Ministry"
P.O. Box 5405
Columbia, SC 29250-5405
888.503.4131 t
206.600.6027 f
www.cherryhillseminary.org

Now I'm getting hits from this:
http://cherryhillseminary.org/pipermail/chsadcom_cherryhillseminary.org/2008-September/000191.html

[Chsadcom] FYI
Judy Harrow judyharo at comcast.net
Thu Sep 4 17:33:51 PDT 2008

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Well, now I've looked at the site. This appears to be the ravings of a paranoid, right-wing nut case. I;m not sure I would have dignified it with any sort of response at all. Holli, be sure to wash your shoes and pants thoroughly after wading into that muck!

warmly / Judy

The global Communitarian Religion portion of our studies remains the most neglected. I never even started an ACL topic page. I meant to because a lot of people ask me what I think the new religion will be. My guess has been leaning towards Ba hai or some other new "benign" mixture of Earth Worship with Christianity, Buddism, Islam, Judaism, Kaballah and freemasonry.

There is ample evidence that there will be a new global religion to go along with the new global political and judicial system. It doesn't make sense that the participants wouldn't know exactly what their group's ultimate goal is. As Holli said, "Many of our Pagan colleagues, and some of our Cherry Hill faculty, are involved with the Parliament of the World’s Religions, the United Religions Initiative, and other interfaith projects, including service on boards of directors."

The Parliament's Board of Trustees is worth a read through...
http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/index.cfm?n=1&sn=7

The Parliament's International Advisory Committee is the Who's Who List of major world religious leaders. The opening graph on their page tells us: "Each member of this committee is an exemplary figure in the movement for peace, justice, and sustainability."

I wonder if Holli and Judy know what sustainability means. Holli says she's read Etzioni. That puts her in a very elite group of players. I guess Judy was too busy going to charm school with Sarah Palin. She's the Chair, Dept. of Pastoral Counseling. I'm sure she'll never understand communitarianism, but if she's gonna pursuade me she's all for peace and justice, she needs to repeat her Introduction to Interfaith Course after she licks the muck off her own boots.

Holli also informed me their symbol is a Cherry Tree (alluding to my assuming it was a Tree of Life symbol). The Cherry Tree is a pagan symbol of death and rebirth. How closely related are witchcraft and freemasonry? Freemasonry also has a death and rebirth ritual that can be explained using the cherry tree:
http://www.masonicworld.com/education/files/artdec01/masonic_cherry_tree.htm

Wiki has an overview of the global religion's history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Parliament_of_Religions

Maybe the founder of Cherry Hill Seminary arrived at his idea reading John Goodwin Barby?

Doesn't it seem as if a lot of roads lead to Chicago lately?