THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601190240
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Most churches have ``revivals'' that often turn into high-pitched emotional rallies that all but obscure reason and real life.
Thus, I was intrigued when retired City Clerk Corinna Jeffreys called to tell me about a ``seminar'' planned at her church, Park View United Methodist Church, next door to where I live.
The flier going around town about the seminar advertises it as a discussion of ``Understanding God in Our Time.''
The Rev. Dan Spaugh, the new pastor of the old church, said he is planning the seminar for ``the churched and the unchurched.'' The emphasis, he said, will be ``strong on the intellectual side.''
Spaugh is not shy about his distaste for religiosity that calls forth little more than emotions.
``The thinking individual will reject the way the Gospels are explained today,'' he said. ``You find God when you sit and reason with Him.''
A retired nuclear overhaul production manager at the Navy yards here and in Portsmouth, N.H., Spaugh has taken his first church pastorate at age 49. He often use phrases like ``stop and think'' and he's pretty clear and open about what he thinks.
``God is misrepresented'' in much of today's religion, he said.
Religion is more than a feel-good exercise, he added, and he is concerned about the many ways people are deluded by those who claim to be preaching ``the truth.''
``These cults are full of deception,'' he said. ``Emotionally, people may feel good but they are intellectually and spiritually dead.''
Why are the many splinter groups and fringe churches so successful then?
``Sheep will seek a shepherd,'' Spaugh said. And if people are not getting guidance in one place, they'll find another.
Sad but true, that's what has happened to many of the old main-line churches. As they grew less dynamic, people were more easily sidetracked to the fringes.
Spaugh said he sees the minds and the emotions like a car and a trailer. Where the mind goes, so go the emotions.
``When emotions rule the mind, the church is in trouble,'' he added.
His seminar is ``designed to discussed a total encounter with God'' - intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.
Spaugh discards the oft-repeated notion that ``God's will'' is responsible for tragedy and evil in our lives.
```It is my sincere heartfelt conviction that God is blamed for a lot of things that are not God's fault,'' he said.
Life is not programmed at birth, according to Spaugh, who added, ``Individuals have free will.''
A cheerful, red-headed man with a ready smile, Spaugh said he's been thinking about some of his theses since 1972. He hacks away at the feel-good notions perpetrated on society by a variety of ``self-help'' books and organizations as well as churches and other religious groups.
For instance, he cited ``I'm O.K.-You're O.K.'' as one of the ``great deceptions that was visited on people.''
Spaugh sprinkled his conversations with quotes from many sources, including Adm. Hyman Rickover, the Navy's nuclear submarine champion.
``He actually signed off on my qualifications for the shipyard,'' Spaugh said. ``Rickover once told me that you should learn from other people's mistakes because you wouldn't live long enough to make them all yourself.''
Another Rickover saying that is sort of a motto for Spaugh: ``No friction, no motion.''
Lack of action is as much a sin as bad actions, Spaugh said.
Nobody can accuse him of lack of action. He strikes me as a man who will keep right on challenging what he believes are misrepresentations of God and religion.
That's a rare breed in today's society. Yet in this city, where we have so many churches and so many problems, it seems like somebody ought to be talking about what religion really is.
On the flier for the free seminar, Spaugh ``guarantees'' a challenge to your thinking.
If you want to take him up on his promise, stop by Park View Methodist on Crawford Parkway at Webster Street. He'll be talking at 7 p.m. Jan. 28-Feb. 1. Admission is free and there'll be no pressure to join the church. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
ABOUT THE SEMINAR
The seminar on ``Understanding God in Our Time'' will be at Park
View United Methodist Church at 7 p.m. Jan. 28 to Feb. 1. It will be
led by the Rev. Dan Spaugh.
by CNB