After the first space flight, the Flat Earth Society quietly disappeared, and in new editions of the Bible, most flat earth statements became blurred or lost in translation.

But the ghost of the Flat Earth society still haunts Christian churches. We are still using language that suggests 'layer cake' theology, God and Heaven above, Satan and Hell below, and us somewhere in between.

This three-tiered structure is no longer credible. Beyond the gravitational pull of our planet, there is no 'up' or 'down,' yet our theology still speaks of God up there and us down here. We take literally, the Biblical metaphors of "descending into hell" and "ascending to heaven." We have used teachings of reward in heaven and punishment in hell to ensure social order.

A survey in America showed that 60% of the population had left the religion they grew up with. For most, the reason was not external distraction but because people could no longer believe what they were being taught. The credibility gap was too wide.

We cannot live our faith backwards. If churches are trying to adhere to 2000 years old theology based on reward and punishment, they will die. This should be of concern to us all; but what can we do about it?

In Judaism there is a saying: Fix the old and do not block the new.

If we are to learn from that, how do we fix the old? We can read the Bible as parable rather than law, so that the Holy Spirit speaks to us through it. We can value the old theology as history, as we build the new on its foundations.

What will be the new that will replace the old vertical three-tiered structure? I believe it will be a lateral "heart" theology that sees God everywhere and in everything, a theology that recognises we all exist in God's love. We will not try to limit God in man-made structures.

Our souls come from God and return to God. In our new theology, we will see that the old divisions caused by fear, belong to human thinking. In the expanse of God's love, the only hell we might experience is on this earth, and we know God went through that before us, to show us the light of resurrection.

A faith that comes from God's love is credible. It will live because it is the truth within us. Beliefs that come from human ideas about God are not credible. They will wither and die.

Isn't it time we put the Flat Earth Society finally to rest?

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Then God revealed more. We saw the light of God in other people, glimpsed it in the song of a bird, the wings of a butterfly, the breaking of waves on a shore. We felt the

inter-connectedness of everything and believed that God had created this unity.

Now we know that God is the unity. God is the intelligence, the energy, the love that makes the whole beautiful design operate. God is not just up there, but moving in all directions at once, and we are a part of that flow.

Joseph Campbell once said, "The universe is not just a product made by God. It is a manifestation of God."

Remember Moses and the burning bush? Moses had killed an Egyptian and been forced into exile for several years. He was in the Sinai desert, tending a flock of sheep, when he came across a bush that was on fire but unburnt. Curious, Moses was drawing closer, when a voice from the flames told him to take off his shoes because he was on sacred ground.

I guess Moses must have wondered who owned the voice, because God then said to him, "I AM who I AM."

What kind of name is that? How does it resonate inside us? To me it sounded like "I AM and there is nothing else."

Thanks to a rabbi friend, I discovered there was more to God's statement than was in my understanding. Jewish scholars say that our translation is inadequate. The Hebrew word cannot be translated so simply into English. A sentence is needed to give some kind of sense that the proper noun is also a verb.

"I AM is the I AM that is always evolving.

God is continually making himself/herself manifest.

Isn't this true in our lives? If we look back at our faith journey, we see that God has been constantly shaping us and taking us to a larger place. The I AM is not only in a burning bush. It is everywhere we look and we are a part of it.

When we see this, we are overwhelmed by the knowledge of how much God loves creation. It is his favourite disguise and he is never separate from it. Our hearts take off their shoes in the presence of a love so big it chose to become one with us.

We live on a eucharistic planet.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

The current numbers are staggering: 2.5 billion people lack adequate sanitary facilities; 849 million practice open defecation.

In Southeast Asia, that means 38 percent of the population; in sub-Saharan Africa, 25 percent meet their needs without safety and privacy.

More people have mobile phones than toilets.

Half of them are female.

The United Nations presented its Millennial Development Goals in 2000. A recently released UNICEF report, "Progress for Children," surveys successes and failures in meeting those goals. It is a pretty dismal read.

For example: Despite all efforts, 1 billion people live in extreme poverty, nearly half under the age of 18; female youths are almost twice as likely to be illiterate as their male counterparts; girls account for nearly two-thirds of adolescent HIV/AIDS infections.

These statistics show improvement. Things may be getting better, but things are getting worse for the poorest, especially for women and girls.

So as madmen wander around beheading and blowing up people in their demented search for both world domination and the blessings of their God, little girls in simple villages have no bathrooms, no education, and exponential chances of dying of AIDS.

Every culture has its priorities. The developed West is beginning to understand it must respect the planet. But it is one thing to "go green" and quite another to respect the human person.

Apparently, it is even more difficult to respect the female human person. The stupidities of the developed world — the noise that masquerades as music, the intense interest in epicurean delights, the unending search for pleasures of every description — turn eyes and minds from the needs of people, real people, who are suffering.

Facts of life: There are just too many people living in absolute poverty. There are just too many people lacking education, lacking shelter, lacking water. Continue reading

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Water Aid

Between it and me, stretching into the distance, lies an artificial lake filled with a black, barely-liquid, toxic sludge.

Dozens of pipes line the shore, churning out a torrent of thick, black, chemical waste from the refineries that surround the lake.

The smell of sulphur and the roar of the pipes invades my senses. It feels like hell on Earth.

Welcome to Baotou, the largest industrial city in Inner Mongolia. I'm here with a group of architects and designers called the Unknown Fields Division, and this is the final stop on a three-week-long journey up the global supply chain, tracing back the route consumer goods take from China to our shops and homes, via container ships and factories.

You may not have heard of Baotou, but the mines and factories here help to keep our modern lives ticking. It is one of the world's biggest suppliers of "rare earth" minerals.

These elements can be found in everything from magnets in wind turbines and electric car motors, to the electronic guts of smartphones and flatscreen TVs.

In 2009 China produced 95% of the world's supply of these elements, and it's estimated that the Bayan Obo mines just north of Baotou contain 70% of the world's reserves. But, as we would discover, at what cost?

Element of success

Rare earth minerals have played a key role in the transformation and explosive growth of China's world-beating economy over the last few decades.

It's clear from visiting Baotou that it's had a huge, transformative impact on the city too. As the centre of this 21st Century gold-rush, Baotou feels very much like a frontier town. Continue reading

Sources

• BBC Future
• Image: abc News