ASHLAND — Engaging such weighty issues as the role of nature and sex in religion, humanistic Judaism and the historic words and actions of Jesus, the new Jefferson Center for Religion and Philosophy staged its inaugural Summer Institute here this week.

Started by retired Ashland Episcopalian priest Robert Semes, the conclave at Ashland’s Unitarian-Universalist Center attracted 100 students to three days of panels, lectures, small groups and book signings by six noted author-scholars in widely varying fields of religious study.

The main speaker was Arthur Dewey, one of two dozen scholars on the Jesus Seminar, which researched and translated original texts about Christ in the first three centuries, voting on which words and actions were most likely his and which were likely added later by devotees.

The nonprofit center was started on a $10,000 grant from a local individual and will now begin the process of finding other individual, corporate and institutional grants to further its mission of "promoting enlightened religious thinking," said Semes, a former professor of history, philosophy and religion at the Jesuit University of San Francisco.

"The center’s mission is to develop critical thinking in young people, so they learn to be evaluative and use reason, so they’re open to what’s good, positive and nurturing in religion and not to what’s destructive," he said. "There’s a great deal of muddled thinking in religion, looking at it as a panacea, a means to alleviate anxieties and fears and make the demands of life less difficult."

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The center has attracted 50 members so far. Its board of directors includes the Rev. Patt Herdklotz of Ashland Unitarian-Universalist Church, Southern Oregon University philosophy professor Prakash Chenjeri, retired SOU biology professor Frank Lang, Ashland publisher and Islamic scholar Steve Scholl, SOU sociology professor Mark Shibley, theologian and SOU colloquium teacher Carol Voison and others.

During the year, the center will hold programs and workshops on religion, ecology, the theology of civil rights, nature spirituality, the "errors of fundamentalism," creation of a global religion, recent biblical research and oppression of minority groups, said Semes.

For members, Semes publishes a quarterly newsletter, annual journal and a Web site with articles by members and other thinkers "seeking to be part of a global network with an inclusive vision of religion." The center is named for Thomas Jefferson, U.S. president who wrote the alternative Jefferson Bible. Membership is $50 a year, $80 for couples.

At the Summer Institute, Naomi Seidman, director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union, drew a vision of a humanistic Judaism that, while it embraces law and tradition, finds God in acts of kindness to fellow humans.

"It focuses on ethical values in the here and now, values that would be accepted by any religion," Seidman said. "It is wary of the dangerous, imperial, aggressive claims of any religion, that would lead you to harm the planet or another human being."

In his exploration of the findings of the Jesus Seminar, Dewey, a theology professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, said the divinity of Jesus was added by later Christians, but was never claimed by Christ — nor did he claim to die for humanity’s sins.

Christ came at one of society’s regular times of expanding communication and cooperation, Dewey said, and he saw himself as an alternative voice, a gadfly trying to provoke people’s consciousness out of the paradigm of Roman rule and imagine a Kingdom of God taking place in and around them now.

Episcopalian priest Jay Emerson Johnson, program director for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, told the conclave that major religions have lost sight of the common roots of spiritual and sexual fulfillment, as they both are means of transcending modern isolation and finding much-needed union.

"I’m committed to Christian tradition," he said. "I’m not a libertine, but we’re at a time in American culture where we need to reflect on the spiritual nature of sexual desire and relationship — and our desire for communion that can end our isolation and enable us to get out of ourselves."

Eric Allen of Ashland, author of "Wild Grace," presented nature as a "connection to the greater spirit," noting that by regaining a connection to nature, people can live with an "instinctive grace and ease," remembering they are on earth to be "in service to a much greater weave of life than we’re aware of."

Semes said these ideas are "vibrant" and "cutting edge" and give many people hope and solace as they confront an era of globalization, increasing technology, an irreverence toward the earth and "increasing alienation among peoples because of dogmatic religious, tribal and cultural attitudes, that lead to prejudice, civil strife, terrorism and war."

The Jefferson Center next year will stage its conference here on "Science and Religion," inviting major speakers to explore issues such as stem-cell research, the big bang, cloning and evolution.

For more information about the Jefferson Center, visit the Web site at www.thejeffcenter .org or write the center at P.O. Box 3452, Ashland, OR 97520.

John Darling is a freelance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at jdarling@jeffnet.org.