I am Rev. Dr. Robert E. Shore Goss – ordained a Catholic Jesuit priest in 1976 – who fell in love with another Jesuit, Frank Ring, and resigned from the Society of Jesus. I am an unlaicized Catholic priest (excommunicated) and served from 2004-2017 as Senior Pastor/Theologian of MCC United Church of Christ in the Valley,, a totally green or environmentally friendly church (check out the pictures of our church and garden at www.mccinthevalley.com/). MCC in the Valley became a dual-affiliated church with MCC and the United Church of Christ. I am retired as pastor and followed my husband Rev. Dr. Joseph Shore-Goss, elected Pastor of the Federated Church, Marlborough, NH. We now live there. The Federated Church became a church federated of the Congregationalists, Methodists, and UUA in 1927. It is a unique, activist church, very involved in the town of Marlborough. The Federated Church became the first Creation Justice Church in New Hampshire.
In 2021, my husband and I made a decision to move to Orlando because of better care of my auto immune blood disease and proximity for health care. Joe sacrificed a position that i loved, and I am deeply moved by his love and care for me. My family is here, and Joe has friends. This is important for me that he have support if something happens to myself.
I am a member of the UCC Environmental Justice Council and a recognized UCC Environmental Trainer and a theologian. The Insurgency of the Spirit: Jesus’s Liberation Animist Spirituality, Empire, and Creating Christian Protectors was published October 2020. (Lexington Books, Division of Rowman & Littlefield).
From my research on The Insurgency of the Spirit, I worked with the Green Team of the Federated Church on proposed resolution on the Rights of Nature. After a year’s vetting process, The UCC General Synod in July 2021, adopted the Resolution by a vote of 518-18. Now the hard working of implementing the resolution.
Also with Rev. Dr. Joseph H. Goh, we have a co-edited a volume– Unlocking Orthodoxy for an Inclusive Theology: Queer Orthodoxies., Routledge, 2020. It is part of Routledge’s Gender, Sexuality, and Theology series.
I am co-editing with Mona West on an updated version of The Queer Bible, Commentary. I am the editor of the Second Testament, The commentary will be published in 2022.
I am available for conducting workshops on the following topics:
Eco-Spirituality
Falling in Love with Nature, Becoming a Creation Justice Church, The Rights of Nature, Compassion and Our Compassion Deficit Disorder Society, Meditation Practices: Animist Spirituality: The Wilderness Spirituality of Jesus, Becoming a Christian Earth Protector: Environmental Grief: From Resilience to Resistance during Climate Catastrophe: Resistance and Civil Disobedience, Hope and Kindness in Age of Crisis. Spiritual Ecology, Environmental Organizations as Faith Communities,
Queer Theology
The Biblical Stonewall: Taking Back the Bible for LGBTQI+ Folks, The Open Table: The Practice of the Inclusive Church; Finding the Missing Body of the Ascended Christ in Indecent Contexts; From Incarnation to Intercarnation, Queer Christology; Holy Spirit as Trickster and Mischief Maker; The History of Queer Theology. Being a Buddhist Christian: How They Make a Better Christian.
My Husband Joe:
I am legally married in California to Rev. Dr. Joseph (Joe) Shore-Goss, a clergy in the United Church of Christ. He is a thoroughly creative whirlwind, artistic and spiritually talented and compassionate, pastorally gifted and the love of my life. See his blog for his sermons:
Joe’s Blog. Sometimes Alleluia, http://revjoeshore.blogspot.com/2018/10/?m=0
We love our companion dogs Friskie and Troy, who bring us joy and companionship, and they teaches us so much about life and grace.
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I describe myself as a Bodhisattva Christian, a hybrid spirituality whose primary roots are in Jesus Christ but a spirituality which also honors the spiritual path of the Buddha and his successors. My spirituality combines the spiritualities of Ignatius of Loyola, Mary Magdalene, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Berry (and his students Mary Evelyn Tucker & John Grim), Albert Schweitzer, Teilhard de Chardin, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr., Rachel Carson, Richard Rohr, Leonardo Boff, Sallie McFague. Matthew Fox, Winona LaDuke, Robin Hall Kimmerer, Diarmuid O’Murchu, Troy Perry, John McNeill, Marcella Althaus Reid, and numerous other faithful justice-seekers, mischievous-makers, green activists, peace-makers, and contemplatives in liberation in the world’s faith communities.
I am a contemplative in liberation. That is a refinement of what Christians call a “contemplative in action” or “mindful compassion in engaged action.” The contemplative path emerged from animist traditions of participatory awareness of nature as spiritual. Jesus serves as model of a contemplative in liberation by interweaving his contemplative practice of God’s presence with with embodying the social dynamics of embodying God’s compassion for the suffering poor and suffering non-human life. Jesus taught, Be compassionate as Abba God is compassionate. Luke 6:36.
I had a dual major in Classics and Theology at Holy Cross College. I entered the Jesuits, and went through two years of the Jesuit Novitiate and making the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, and then attended the Jesuit Weston School of Theology (now the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry). I had some of the greatest Jesuit theologians and biblical scholars in class, and I credit them teaching me how to think outside the box.
I began doctoral studies in Comparative Religion and Theology at Harvard Divinity School. My first year of graduate school, I enrolled in a Seminar on Faith taught by Dr. Wilfrid Cantwell Smith. I wanted to do a seminar presentation on Buddhist notions of faith, but since I knew Latin, Dr. Smith assigned me the topic of Thomas Aquinas’ notion of faith. When I presented the paper on Aquinas, something remarkable happened that Friday afternoon at the Center of the Study of World Religions. A Muslim participant saw parallels with Al Ghazali’s notion of faith. Almost like dominos one seminar participant after another discovered parallel notions of faith with Maimonides, Ramanuja, and Dogen. It was at that moment I began to comprehend faith as part of our human make-up – that faith is placing our heart and trust what each person of faith finds to be ultimately meaningful, true, beautiful, and loving. One of the consequences of the insight I experienced was my further evolution as a Bodhisattva Christian on my journey to become an interfaith Christian. Read in the new book Queering Christianity, my chapter on “Bodhisattva Christianity: A Case of Multiple Religious Belonging.”
As a Christian, I have often found the Holy Spirit to be a Mischief-Maker – who colors outside the lines of institutional orthodoxies and authoritarian and exclusive ecclesiogies. She is the sustaining power of God immanent in the universe – in all life and within ourselves. She is immanent as the green energy of the universe and all life.
I received my Th.D. from Harvard University in Theology and Comparative Religion with a specialization in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Christian Theology. My dissertation: The Hermeneutics of Madness: The Mila-ras-pa’i-rnam-thar Of Gtsang Nyon Heruka. It was the same month that my first book came out: Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto.
For my queer biography, read the first chapter “Out of the Closet into the Streets” of Queering Christ. I transferred as an unlacized Catholic Priest to MCC in 1995. I was confirmed for Privilege of Call within the United Church of Christ and plan to honor a wedding promise to my husband Joe, A UCC clergy to follow him wherever he secures a position of Pastor. I intend to write more books and work as trainers and green missionary for faith communities to grow in their commitment to Earthcare and environmental justice. I will update my contact page when I know where the Lord is calling us. In the meantime, I will keep my email: revdrbobshoregoss@gmail.com and continue to use this website.
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