Join us in beautiful Hendersonville, North Carolina, for a wonderful time
to explore spiritual teachings,
relax and center yourself amidst the mountain splendor,
and enjoy playtime with fellow seekers!

Lytingale

• Lytingale with Trilogy, (Fletcher, NC) 
• our fabulous Talent Show

Trilogy: Georgia, Joel, Lyte

For the fifth year, this retreat will be held at Kanuga Conference Center in scenic Western North Carolina ~ on 1,400 acres, six miles from Hendersonville at 2300' altitude. 

Kanuga is a beautiful facility in a peaceful, wooded setting, with a friendly staff.  Kanuga offers a gymnasium, outdoor exercise trail, playing fields, tennis courts, hiking trails (varying degrees of difficulty), and a scenic lake for boating (canoes & rowboats available for free), fishing, swimming in the lake (chilly but available).  (Project Adventure Ropes Course, 52-foot climbing tower, indoor climbing wall may be available for an additional charge.)  

Enjoy delicious food at the breakfast buffet and family-style lunches & dinners.  Accommodations include the 62-room Inn, and 46 two- to six-bedroom cottages (no a/c, but rooms have ceiling fans or box fans provided - heat isn't usually a problem at this season. Some have shared bathrooms.)  There are plentiful rocking chairs overlooking the lake.

Kanuga Conference Center is reached from I-26, and is served by the Asheville, NC airport (30-minute drive) or Greenville-Spartanburg, SC airport (60-minute drive). Directions to Kanuga: http://www.kanuga.org/map.htm.  Area attractions include the world-famous Biltmore House (French chateau-style mansion, gardens, winery), Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site (tour of house, goat barns, hiking), Flat Rock Playhouse, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Chimney Rock Park, Pisgah National Forest (Cradle of Forestry, Sliding Rock, waterfalls, Pisgah Inn), excellent golf nearby, shopping in nearby historic downtown Hendersonville, arts & crafts, and antiques. Click for Links to more area info.

Kanuga Inn

A Guest house at Kanuga

We offer a Children's Program full of fun and creativity. Nursery care is provided for the littlest ones.

The experience begins with dinner on Tuesday evening
and lasts until 11:00 am Friday.
Fees include: 8 meals, 3 nights lodging, and all workshops and children's programs.

Join the fun!
We'll see you on the mountaintop!

"Words cannot express the joy & peace I brought home with me from the Spiritual Retreat..... It was a pleasure to meet you & so many new friends.  As I start my Path down the Unity journey, I'll always remember the joy & peace that fills me now.  Sincerely, Yvonne" - 8/21/99 

Massages & Bodywork by local professionals will be available for a separate love offering that you give to the bodyworker. Please indicate on your registration form that you plan to treat yourself, so we can plan times and availability.

Click here for Registration Form

2008 Keynote: 

The Right Rev. John Shelby Spong

 "...this study begins to give us a glimpse of who Jesus was before gospels were written, creeds formed or doctrines developed. If we are willing to journey to this place with openness, I think we can be assured that Jesus will look very different.... Perhaps in the words of my friend Marcus Borg, we might "see Jesus again for the first time." - John Shelby Spong

Bishop John Shelby Spong has become one of the definitive voices for progressive Christianity over the past 4 decades, and his books have sold more than a million copies.  Spong was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark NJ for 24 years before his retirement in 2001. His admirers acclaim him as a teaching bishop who makes contemporary theology accessible to the ordinary layperson — he's considered the champion of an inclusive faith by many, both inside and outside the Christian church. This liberal theologian, biblical scholar, religion commentator, and author calls for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief, away from theism and from the afterlife as reward or punishment for human behavior. He has been criticized by many theologians, notably the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams (when Williams was the Bishop of Monnouth).

A visiting lecturer at Harvard and at universities and churches worldwide, Bishop Spong delivers more than 200 public lectures each year to standing-room-only crowds. His bestselling books include Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, A New Christianity for a New World, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, and Here I Stand. 

Named Humanist of the Year in 1999, Bishop Spong's extensive media appearances include a profile segment on 60 Minutes as well as appearances on Good Morning America, The Today Show, McNeil/Lehrer News Hour, Oprah Winfrey, Politically Incorrect, Larry King Live, The O'Reilly Factor, William F. Buckley's Firing Line, and Extra. He has done countless radio broadcasts, written hundreds of articles, and published 19 books.

Martin Luther ignited the Reformation of the 16th century by nailing to the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 the 95 Theses that he wished to debate. I will publish this challenge to Christianity in The Voice. I will post my theses on the Internet and send copies with invitations to debate them to the recognized Christian leaders of the world. My theses are far smaller in number than were those of Martin Luther, but they are far more threatening theologically. The issues to which I now call the Christians of the world to debate are these:

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

-www.dioceseofnewark.org/jsspong/reform.html

• 2007 - Jesus for the Non-Religious
• 2005 - The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love
• 2002 - A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born
• 2001 - Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love and Equality
• 1999 - Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile
• 1996 - Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes
• 1994 - Resurrection: Myth or Reality? A Bishop's Search for the Origins of Christianity
• 1992 - Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus
• 1991 - Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture
• 1988 - Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality
• 1987 - Consciousness and Survival: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry into the possibility of Life Beyond Biological Death (edited by John S. Spong)
• 1986 - Beyond Moralism: A Contemporary View of the Ten Commandments (co-authored with Denise G. Haines, Archdeacon)
• 1983 - Into the Whirlwind: The Future of the Church
• 1980 - The Easter Moment
• 1976 - Life Approaches Death: A Dialogue on Ethics in Medicine
• 1975 - Dialogue: In Search of Jewish-Christian Understanding
• 1975 - Christpower
• 1974 - This Hebrew Lord
• 1973 - Honest Prayer

BACKGROUND:  

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UNC in 1952, he received his Master of Divinity degree in 1955 from the Episcopal Theological Seminary (Alexandria VA). That seminary and Saint Paul's College have both conferred on him honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees.  His further studies in contemporary biblical scholarship took him to Union Theological Seminary (NYC), Yale Divinity School, Harvard Divinity School, and the universities in Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge.

From 1955-1976, he has served as rector at churches in Durham NC, Tarboro NC, Lynchburg VA, and Richmond VA. He has held visiting positions and given prominent lectures at major American theological institutions, most prominently at Harvard Divinity School. He retired in 2000.

Spong's writings are influenced by modern critical analysis of Biblical and non-Biblical sources. He is representative of a stream of thought with roots in the medieval universalism of Peter Abelard and the existentialism of Paul Tillich. 

A prominent theme in Spong's writing is that the popular, alleged "literal" interpretation of Christian scripture does not speak honestly to the situation of modern Christian communities, and that a more nuanced approach to scripture, informed by scholarship and compassion, can be consistent with both Christian Tradition and a contemporary understanding of the universe. He believes that theism has lost credibility as a valid conception of God's nature. He explains that he is a Christian because he believes that Jesus Christ fully expressed the presence of a God of compassion and selfless love, and that this is the meaning of the early Christian proclamation, "Jesus is Lord". 

Spong has also been a strong proponent of feminisim, gay rights, and racial equality within both the church and society at large. Towards these ends, he calls for a new Reformation, in which many of Christianity's basic doctrines should be reformulated. 

The Keynote will speak:

• Wednesday Morning (Sept 10) - 9:00 -10:30 am
• Wednesday Evening (Sept 10) - 7:00-9:00 pm
• Thursday Morning  (Sept 11) - 9:00-10:30 am
• Thursday Afternoon (Sept 11) - 3:30-5:00  pm - Q&A with Spong