Margaret nominated for literary prize

Margaret Placentra Johnston has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Click here for details

Upcoming Speaking Events for Margaret Placentra Johnston

Scheduled Engagements

A three-session Workshop will be offered on October 10, 17 & 24, 2011. 7:30 to 9 PM at Washington Ethical Society 7750 16th Street, NW Washington, DC 20012. $25 for all three sessions (payable to Washington Ethical Society) or $10 per session on a drop in basis.

Spiritual Development for Humanists

Margaret Placentra Johnston, a longtime member of the Northern Virginia Ethical Society, is writing a book about how people develop (or mature) spiritually (according to fourteen well-known theorists.) Margaret is offering a three-session workshop to discuss how humanists might apply this understanding in the service of a deeper, kinder appreciation of the beliefs of others.

Session One: Reason, Science and Religious Questions

In this session we will discuss the all-important (but often overlooked by religious people) step of examining our beliefs in a critical manner, thinking about them directly as opposed to accepting them tacitly. This process leads a person to take responsibility for his or her belief system and, in many cases, to grow beyond traditional organized religion. (Paul Ricoeur’s Critical Distance or the Rational step)

Session Two: Spiritual Maturity is Not…..

Today we will examine the ways in which accepting pre-set literal beliefs from religious authority is not even what mature religion was ever supposed to be about. (Gordon Allport and Walter Clark on mature vs immature faith) We will consider what might keep some individuals holding onto literal religious belief (Ricoeur’s “baser needs”) and why some religious authorities always seem to discourage questioning, thus leading their congregations to remain pre-critical (Maslow’s Peakers versus Non-Peakers.)

Session Three: Pre-critical Belief versus Post-critical Faith (or of what value is the spiritual journey?)

Examining these stages is of no value unless it can point a person toward a more authentic life. How can the distinction between pre-critical belief and post-critical faith lead to a fuller, deeper humanity?

Ricoeur’s Second Naïveté challenges us to move beyond the “baser needs” that bind a person to a specific religion. It shows how a metaphorical interpretation of religious symbols can lead a person to appreciate the beliefs of others.

K. Helmut Reich pushes us toward a form of reasoning more sophisticated than the binary logic, “yes or no” about God’s existence and other spiritual concepts.

Ken Wilber’s expanding circles of consciousness invite us to extend our community beyond our race, beyond our nation, and beyond just humans to include animals, nature and the entire universe—even that which cannot be seen and measured by science.

The distinction between James Fowler’s Stages Five and Six prompts us to radical social action in service of a unitive worldview.

Past Engagements

April 21, 2011 - Wisewoman Group, Jung Society of Washington

"Journey Beyond Belief"

Various theorists from different disciplines and even different centuries have delineated an uppermost level in spiritual development we can loosely refer to as the “Mystic” level. Here voices from the unconscious (or spirit level) are given more credence than human reason–or the rules of a church. Spiritual concepts are interpreted metaphorically rather than literally, and unity is valued over the divisiveness so common in our society today. Often some advantageous personal traits begin to emerge: humility, gratitude, acceptance, forgiveness, compassion and tolerance of paradox.

To reach the Mystic level, a person must travel through a period of questioning that may involve rejection of religious belief altogether. Margaret Placentra Johnston will discuss this spiritual development process by way of real life stories from her upcoming book: “Beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind.”