Southern Fried Faith

Reflection on a Church Sign

2012-02-02T19:33:00.000-08:00

"Knowledge puffs up; love builds up." That's what I saw on the sign of a Lutheran church (ELCA) here in town today.

Regardless of what the intent in putting this on the sign was, this observation can be made: It can be safely said that the intent of the pastor was not the same as Paul's in I Corinthians 8:1 where he made the original statement. It is a safe assumption that the congregation of that church is not embroiled in a controversy about eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols.

Paul is not drawing an abstract contrast between knowledge, on the one hand, and love, on the other; or between the cognitive and the emotive. Paul is not saying knowledge is unimportant and love is. Both, for the Apostle, are important. In fact, one might could argue that in the context of the historic Christian faith (read: reflected in the Apostle's Creed and Nicene Creed), knowledge is impossible without love and love is impossible without knowledge.

At best, this is simply a jerking out of context a particular phrase of Paul's. And engaging in such a "sound bite" approach to the Scripture is a sin committed by both some of those who self-identify as "progressive" Christians and by their nemesis, some "conservative" Christians.

At worst, it represents an anti-intellectualism which, again, infects some of those at both ends of that theological spectrum. One will search in vain in the Scriptures to find knowledge qua knowledge contrasted with agape. Paul, for example, was a highly intellectual person who wasn't afraid to ascribe — in certain instances — certainty to his knowledge.

In some "progressive" circles, certainty is anathema. Thinking such as that very often will declare with absolute certainty that there can be no absolute certainty. That form of "progressive" Christianity is just as anti-intellectual as certain forms of "fundamental" or "evangelical" Christianity. But then, it's always easier to accuse others of the same faults which we have ourselves...maybe in hopes that if we point out theirs first, then ours won't be so noticeable.

Sometimes folks feel the need to pooh pooh knowledge in order to make up for their own lack thereof. Anti-intellectualism, whether of the progressive or fundamentalist kind, is still anti-intellectualism. And there's nothing anti-intellectual about Christian faith.

But back to the point: life as a Christian is not a life in which one must choose between intellectual content (and increasing that intellectual content) and some warm and fuzzy, but empty of meaning, notion of love. Biblical love is always defined in terms of how we act, not how we feel. And our actions must be informed (an intellectual activity). To live the Gospel, one must know the Gospel.

Born This Way, Pt. 2 — Good For Cynthia Nixon

2012-01-31T07:01:00.000-08:00

Apparently, viewing one's sexual behavior as a choice (i.e., choosing to do it) will get your "gay card" revoked, as actress Cynthia Nixon recently found out.

I recently posted a reflection prompted by a question with which my seminar class on "A Christian View of Sexual Ethics" was wrestling: does genetic predisposition to a behavior give us, in and of itself, an ethical assessment of the behavior?

In other words, (1) just because I may have a genetic predisposition to a certain behavior does not mean I have to engage in that behavior, and (2) just because I may have a genetic predisposition to a certain behavior does not tell me whether or not I should engage in that behavior.

That discussion had been prompted by a discussion of the “biological basis of homosexuality.” In that discussion, I had raised the issue of epigenetics and research being done as to why this or that genetic trigger, should it exist (and the verdict is still out on that, but for the sake of argument we’ll say that it does), is expressed in some while not in others — and the role of environmental stimuli on whether or not a given trigger is expressed.

Of course, the elephant in the room was homosexual inclination and behavior.

It has become a matter of faith, a doctrine, an unquestionable presupposition for some folks that homosexual behavior is ethically justified, and therefore certain “rights” belong to those who so self-identify and engage in such behavior, because of its alleged biological (i.e., genetic) basis. It is basically the “I was born this way, therefore...” or “I can’t help it because of my genetic makeup” kind of argument.

Not all folks, even those who are in same-gender relationships with a sexual component, agree with that line of reasoning, however. And apparently they pay dearly when they voice such disagreement.

Witness the recent statement by actress Cynthia Nixon, who is in a romantic/sexual/emotional relationship with another woman, who reportedly said in an interview:

“Why can’t it [same-gender sexual relationships - drg] be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate?”

Nixon is in a same-gender sexual relationship, the acknowledgement of which was applauded by “gay” media and “gay rights” groups. Her statement reflects the attitudes of, for example, the website, Queer By Choice. And the questions she raised are valid and those who seek to tie same-gender sexual behavior to biological compulsion have to answer them. Why would such behavior, if it is chosen rather than biologically determined, be less legitimate?

Apparently, however, viewing the entering into of such relationships as a choice is a heresy and a denial of one of the fundamental canons of “gay law.” It violates a supposedly necessary dogma of some gay apologists.

And now Nixon, for whatever reasons [not the least of which is pressure from “gay rights” groups and “gay” media], has had to clarify her original statement and explained to The Advocate that she self-identifies as bisexual, which for her is not a choice, but that she has, in fact, “chosen to be in a gay relationship.”

I am struck by the very real and significant intolerance here of those who cry out for tolerance.

Apparently for some self-identified gay folks there is no room whatsoever for divergence of opinion on the subject of the causes of homosexual behavior. Nixon, who was applauded by the “gay community” for making public her relationship with another woman, is now being criticized for saying she chose to be in that relationship.

Why, because the whole discussion of “gay rights” has mistakenly been tied to a yet to be proven biology and even if that biology was clear and unambiguous and conceded by all, it is questionable whether or not we can construct a notion of “rights” solely on the basis of it, much less give an ethical assessment of the behavior. There are much better ways to argue for people who engage in same-gender sexual behavior to be granted the same civil standing as those who don’t.

This confusion of sexual attraction and sexual behavior is what lies beneath such ridiculous statements like the one I heard on my local news the other day when a self-identified gay couple who had been denied a marriage license described it as the state “denying their love.” The state wasn’t telling them they couldn’t love each other; not at all. But such is the nature of political rhetoric, I guess.

There is most likely a genetic component, which may be triggered by environmental factors, in being physically attracted to members of the same gender. I don’t see how you can get around that. But that, in and of itself, cannot justify same-gender sexual behavior.

My physical attraction to a person does not compel me to have sex with them.

For Christians wrestling with this issue, the question is what might be a biblically informed and church tradition informed view of sexual behavior in general? To wit; who should have sex with whom, when and where and in what context?

If one argues that sexual intercourse should be reserved for the context of marriage and then defines that word, marriage, as a one man-one woman (at a time) governmental recognized contract, then yes, same-gender sexual relationships would be, in that view, morally wrong.

The fundamental question, however, is whether or not you can establish that view given a serious consideration of the biblical material.

Sexual behavior, like all of life, comes under the Lordship of Christ. What that means in its practical outworking is what we're dealing with here.

And this is not an essential doctrine of the faith! There is room within what can legitimately be called orthodox Christianity for a divergence of views of just what constitutes a Christian ethic of sex.

Split P's: The Newest Presbyterian Denomination

2012-01-24T13:03:00.000-08:00

The “Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians” [or ECO for short] has been born. According to a statement from the Fellowship of Presbyterians (a group of disaffected ministers and lay persons from the Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA), “ECO is a denominational entity under the umbrella of The Fellowship of Presbyterians...”

And though I am no longer a member of any Presbyterian group (or Protestant, for that matter), the now PCUSA was the denominational tradition of my birth, childhood and young adulthood. I have many treasured memories of the people and ministers whom I encountered there. So I do have an emotional interest in Presbyterian happenings; and I have an ecclesiastical one as well.

I’ve heard estimates that now, with this newest split, the PCUSA could possibly lose somewhere between 500 and 1000 churches. For a denomination that’s now less than half its greatest membership already, that ain’t nothing to sneeze at or dismiss. Though membership in the ECO does not require a minister/congregation to completely break ties with the PCUSA, I think it safe to say that if property ownership does not become the greatest motivating factor (as it might with some churches who want to go but have multi-million dollar physical plants), most will probably just go ahead and leave the PCUSA altogether. At least that’s what I’m thinking.

What one has to understand is this: causation of this split (and similar ones in other mainline denominations) cannot be assigned solely to the whole “gay ordination” thing.

While movement by the PCUSA (along with the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church) to allow for non-celibate self-identified gay/lesbian persons to be ordained is, no doubt, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, the issues are much deeper for most of these folks and go to the heart of what genuine Christianity is.

John Shore, in his piece at Huffington Post, titled “Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians: Cowardly Lions,” was absolutely wrong when he wrote: “What is certainly most notable, however, is ECOs refusal to anywhere, in any way whatsoever, just come out and say that they formed in response to PCUSA’s sanctioning the ordination of gay people. Everyone knows that’s why ECO formed.”

He couldn’t be more wrong. He does not take into account the long perceived decline in doctrinal integrity [read: commitment in theory and practice to historic, orthodox Christianity] in the PCUSA. I don’t know of anyone who wants to seriously debate that. It is pretty much recognized by all — although, in all fairness, some would not characterize it as decline so much as evolution or development. Regardless of what we call it, the fact of the matter is, the doctrinal commitments of the current PCUSA are not, for better or for worse, the same commitments which characterized the previous denominational expressions which have been brought together in the PCUSA and that the theological landscape begin to shift in the early and mid-20th century.

We can say the same of The Episcopal Church or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (and former groups which now make up that denomination).

To put it another way, some folks have been and are taking the late Christopher Hitchens’ statement — to the effect that he didn’t see how a person who didn’t believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah or his atoning death on the cross or his historical resurrection could in any meaningful sense call themselves Christian — and applying it to denominations as a whole. In other words, if a denomination qua denomination does not affirm those doctrines, can it in any meaningful sense be called a Christian denomination?

Folks forming ECO say no, and here’s why:

According to the PCUSA’s own survey, about 45% of PCUSA pastors believe, in essence, that reconciliation with God is possible without coming to Christ in faith. Only 66% of pastors and 45% of specialized clergy agreed or strongly agreed that “the only absolute truth for humankind is in Jesus Christ.” About 25% of pastors and 40% of specialized clergy agreed to one degree or another that “all the world’s religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth.”

This is much, much deeper than the whole “gay ordination” thing. It goes to how one defines and understands the gospel of Jesus Christ; it goes to the question of whether or not there is such a thing as objective truth; it goes to fundamental theological/philosophical questions about God and how God has or has not revealed himself (pardon the non-neutral gender language) to a fallen humankind — and what the nature of that “fall” is and how it may be remedied.

I tend to agree with those folks who say it requires extremely good vision and detective skills to find the historically understood “marks of the church” in the PCUSA, TEC or ELCA.

On the other hand, it is another observable division among those who call themselves Christians — those for whom Christ prayed for unity in order that the world would know that the Father had sent the Son. It is a matter of an ecclesiology of integrity and raises the same question which has been raised throughout the Church’s history but especially since the inception of the Protestant project: what, if anything, justifies splitting the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church? And this is one “mark of the church” which cannot be ignored: Unity.

Here’s my take: I think Hitchens was very wise and on target with his observation and it can be applied to denominational groups. When a denomination — through both it’s official pronouncements and in practice — no longer affirms the core doctrines of Christian faith [as found in the great ecumenical creeds] then it can no longer be called in any meaningful sense Christian. Those denominations should at least have the integrity of the Unitarian Universalists who for sometime have eschewed the label “Christian.”

My personal prayer is that those who have recognized that denominations like the PCUSA, Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutherans, which can, according to Hitchens’ standard, no longer in any meaningful sense be called Christian, would find their way back into the, albeit flawed, Catholic Church, taking seriously those creedal words: One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic.

BORN THIS WAY....SO WHAT?

2012-01-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

Author's note: this is a blog post, not a dissertation for a philosophy degree. As such it is brief and does not FULLY address certain issues, but rather, simply raises them for discussion. I welcome your reactions, as long as they are reasoned, rational ones.

“I’m beautiful in my way,

‘Cause God makes no mistakes

I’m on the right track, baby

I was born this way.”

So goes the refrain from Lady Gaga’s anthem, Born This Way. In the song, Gaga seeks to make the case that whether one “is” gay, straight or bi, lesbian or transgendered — and no matter what color your skin — the justification for “being” such is simply to be found in having been born that way. In her theological reflection she posits that a) you are the way you are because of your having been born that way; b) being born that way means created that way by a God; c) God only creates perfection (i.e., makes no mistakes); therefore, whatever I am is okay.

That kinda sums it up. More popularly, however, the song has been latched onto by those seeking to make the case for a positive ethical assessment of same-gender sexual behavior (read: gay) as a somehow authoritative statement of fact.

Put simply the argument goes something like this: “I engage in sexual behavior with members of my own gender. This is because I was born this way [read: genetically predisposed]. I didn’t choose so; I can’t help it. Therefore, it is okay (in an ethical/moral sense of the word)."

This is the question which was raised this past week at the end of a session of the seminar on Christian Sexual Ethics I’m leading at a local university for adult learners: Does genetic predisposition offer to us — in and of itself — an ethical/moral assessment of a certain behavior?

Based on popularized attempts at assessing same-gender sexual behavior as morally permissible or ethically justified, one might think so. And it spills over into ecclesiastical debates on “gay” issues such as ordination and marriage. Of course, some arguments go, we must ordain persons engaging in same-gender sexual behavior (as long as it is in a context which we define — most often with words like “committed” or “monogamous” or “long term and publicly accountable relationships) because people are born that way. They can’t help it.

There are, it seems to me, some problems which come with making such a case.

The first is that making the case thus seems to be the same as saying because a phenomenon is, we must ethically/morally approve of it.

The second is that making such a case will require one to also make the case that not all genetic predispositions are equal. For example, say, for the sake of argument that there are genetic predispositions to other types of sexual behavior which have yet to be discovered. While not many want to argue for the moral/ethical acceptability of those behaviors, one does have to rationally explain why genetic predisposition in one case provides such acceptability but not in others.

I say “rationally” explain because on the popular level, most arguments put forth on either side of the issue aren’t too rational and consist mainly in shouting matches.

Third, it seems that in making an argument thus, the very important distinction between behavior and a socially constructed notion of self-identity is lost, or at least blurred. In other words, there is that notion of self-identity which needs no moral/ethical assessment and there is the behavior, which does.

Moreover, the self-identity, in this context, really has no meaning apart from the behavior. For example, what does it mean if I stand up at church and say, "I am a sexually promiscuous person." And someone asks: "Does that mean you're having sex with a lot of different people?" And I say, "No, I'm not having sex with anyone. It's just who I am." To identify as "gay" or "lesbian" for example, really doesn't have much meaning unless you're having sex with a member of your own gender — in this discussion. What might those words mean if there is no sexual behavior content to the definition — even if the content is "I want to have sex with members of my own gender"?

But back to the question at hand: genetics is not destiny (see this well written piece: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/11/21/when-dna-is-not-destiny.html).

To make an ethical/moral assessment of a behavior requires, it would seem, that there be alternative behaviors in which one can possibly engage, between which one can choose. One must be able to do or not do. In terms of sexual behavior, to make a moral/ethical assessment, either positive or negative, requires that a person be able to choose between engaging in such behavior or not engaging in it.

There is quite possibly a genetic component in sexual behaviors. But to argue for moral/ethical acceptance based solely on that is, it seems, to be saying there are no other possibilities of actions for the person; that, in effect, the genetic predisposition is more compelling that having a gun to one’s head (for even in that case there are options, alternatives of actions).

Which gets us back to the core question of all of the “homosexual” debates which have torn various denominations apart: What types of sexual behavior are acceptable from a moral/ethical point of view and in what context?

In other words: who can have sex with who, and when, and in what context? And that’s what trying to establish a biblically, informed Christian ethic of sex is all about.

Young Love, Old Love

2012-01-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

Leaving St. Francis Hospital last night after eight hours of doing the chaplain thing, I opted to ride home via downtown Greenville (SC). As I crossed from what we call the West End into Downtown proper, especially as I passed a local coffee shop and one of our very fine independent downtown restaurants and made my way across the bridge that spans the Reedy River, I noticed quite a few “young couples” walking hand in hand. By young, I mean 20-somethings.

Driving slowly, I could see that one couple gave every appearance of being on a first date. Others seemed more comfortable with each other.

Young love. Full of promise. Exciting. Exhilarating. It warmed my heart as my mind drifted back to my own experiences of young love.

Then my mind went to some patients and families I had interacted with during the night and others from days and nights in the past few years. They were the ones who spoke to me — often through tears of either anticipatory grief or at the death of their spouse — of being together 50 years, some 60+ years. The “old” love they shared, the “old” love they exhibited for each other — that also warmed my heart.

Why Are We Afraid of the "H" Word? (Heresy)

2012-01-03T14:53:00.000-08:00

Former Anglican now Roman priest Fr. Dwight Longnecker recently posted a very thought provoking piece on his blog, Standing On My Head. It was titled “Arianism Today” and spoke to what might be properly called Neo-Arianism: that is, new, contemporary manifestations of an old heresy which denied that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the eternal second person of the Godhead and, therefore, co-equal to God the Father.

Longnecker wrote: “Heresies are like weeds. They keep coming back. The thing is, they come back in different guises.” How true!

I read the post a couple of times and it confirmed a thought that’s been bouncing around in my head for some time now: somehow, somewhere along the line, Christians developed a significant avoidance of using the “H” word.

In fact it seems we are far quicker to use other words that are usually identified by their first letter than we are this one. That word is Heresy.

Now, notice I didn’t say “heretic,” though there are times when that word might be appropriate, too. But in the interest of discussing ideas rather than people, I have opted to focus on the former: Heresy.

I have often thought about this phenomenon, but especially in the past few years. Granted, the Church does not have a blemish-free history when it comes to confronting heresy. Far too often in our distant past we, i.e., the Church, have focused on the heretic and, at certain points in our history, have employed detestable and often violent and unChristian methodologies in our confrontation. There is much sin that has been, and continues to need to be, confessed in that regard.

But that shouldn’t move us to abandon the use of the word “heresy” in the life of the Church. In fact, we are given plenty of admonition and examples in the New Testament about confronting heresy.

Coming from the Greek word meaning “choice” heresy is more or less choosing the believe, live on the basis of, and promulgate doctrinal propositions which are at variance with the clear teachings of Scripture which have been long held and given formulation by the Church in the great ecumenical creeds.

As Fr. Longnecker points out, Neo-Arianism takes forms which have, to a large extent, taken over the theological thinking of much of mainstream Protestantism. I think it pretty safe to say a lot of this “take-over” among lay persons can be traced to the work of the Jesus Seminar and folks like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan and John Shelby Spong. I mention those three in particular because they have been the popularizers of this “new” heresy through their very popular (especially among self-identified “progressive Christians”) books and lectures.

At least another popular writer, professor Bart Erhman, has had the consistency of thought to no longer self-identify as Christian (although, to be fair, it was, he confesses, the problem of evil in particular which drove him to that point, not his New Testament or Jesus studies — see the first chapter of his, God’s Problem).

But that still doesn’t explain why so many of us who hold the historic faith propositionally presented in those great Creeds and subsequent Confessions are so hesitant to use the “H” word.

I am inclined to think that a large part of the reason for our reluctance is to be found in the postmodern culture in which we have lived. It seeps into our thinking: there is no objective Truth, spelled with a capital T; every belief system is just as valid as any other; the world’s religions are simply different paths up the same mountain; Jesus is on the same par as the Buddha, etc.

Concomitant with that is the undeniable fact that most of the mainstream Protestant seminaries, where pastors of churches are trained, take a very postmodern approach to both biblical studies and doing theology. So the sad poison of postmodernism comes into the thinking of church members from the pulpit and classroom. As Longnecker wrote: “They [modern heretics] inhabit our seminaries, our monastaries, our rectories and presbyteries. They are the modernist clergy who dominate the mainstream Protestant denominations and who are too many in number within the Catholic Church as well.” I say "sad" if for no other reason than such thinking provides no answers whatsoever the the great questions of human existence and leave one either in acknowledged hopelessness or with some forced and unfounded, irrational sense of an upward moral trajectory for humankind.

Longnecker put it well when he wrote of this particular heresy: “Instead Jesus [in Neo-Arianism] is a good teacher, a wise rabbi, a beautiful example, a martyr for a noble cause. At most he is a human being who is ‘so fulfilled and self actualized that he has become divine.’”

Regardless of what one may think of the technical problems of his apologetic, the late Francis A. Schaeffer, among others (but he in the loudest and most popular way), warned against this postmodern trend way back in the mid-1900s through the ministry of L’Abri. It is well and advisable to revisit his work from time to time.

I would recommend his trilogy: The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason, and, He Is There And He Is Not Silent.

And I would invite us to be a little more inclined to use the “H” word when it is applicable and to confront heresy and error in the Church regardless of how unpopular or non-inclusive it may appear. Of course, we do it in love. We must always speak truth in love. As Schaeffer so often reminded us, when we don’t confront heresy in the context of love it is ugly.

Reflections on Reflections on the Death of Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-20T13:16:00.000-08:00

It’s been enlightening and interesting to read the reactions from various quarters (and by that I mean self-identified Christians) to the recent death of Christopher Hitchens.

They have all contained, it seems, a fair assessment of the intellectual gifts (though he himself would probably not have recognized them as such) and debating skills which he possessed. Nobody doubted the width and depth of his knowledge, nor did anyone serious question whether or not he could hold his own in debate. All seemed to concur that he was one of those rare individuals who could say absolutely nasty things about someone and, because of his style, get away with it — most often done with drink and cigarette in hand.

I am inclined to think, from a Christian point of view, Hitchens did us all a great many favors, not the least of which was the insight he portrayed when he said, in response to a Unitarian Universalist minister’s praise of Jesus as a great moral teacher while rejecting his divinity:

“I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”

In that assessment, he clearly spoke the truth. And Hitchens did what so many of us Christians seem so hesitant to do because we don’t want to be viewed as exclusionary in any way: that is, refuse to allow those who deny the core formulations of historic Christian doctrine as found in the ecumenical creeds to take upon themselves the label “Christian.”

Justin Taylor, of the Gospel Coalition, seems to agree.

Taylor also pointed out another example of what I’m talking about when he referenced Htichens’ de facto agreement with C.S. Lewis’ classic formulation: “Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse.”

Hitchens, after talking about some of the difficult teachings of Jesus, wrote: “Such a person if not divine would be a sorcerer and a fanatic.” Of course, Hitchens opted for the latter in his view of Jesus.

What I’m getting at is this: Hitchens seemed to recognize the great failings of much contemporary theology; that if you do away with the supernatural/historical orthodox formulations of who Jesus was, what you are left with (i.e., the Jesus of Borg and Crossan and, it might be argued, Brian McLaren) what’s left is not very attractive at all and probably cannot be philosophically sustained. He recognized that if you divorce the “Jesus of history” from the “Christ of faith” — as much of “liberal” or “progressive” Christian thinking wants to do, then all you are logically left with is a mad man or one of the greatest con men of all time — or some combination of those two.

Of all the reactions I read the one that intrigued me the most was that of philosopher Eric Reitan in a guest blog post on Religion Dispatches. He is the author of the very worthwhile book, Is God A Delusion?

In discussing Hitchens relentless efforts to open our eyes to the stupidity of religion, Reitan writes: “And that’s why he did it. Not because he hated God (although he called himself an antitheist) but because he loved the good so much he was driven to hyperbole in its defense.”

Then later he writes: “Those who, like Hitchens, are devoted to the true and the good are, by implication, oriented towards anything that could rightly be called God.”

I bring this up not to join in the wasteful debate as to the eternal destiny of Hitchens. I like the way Doug Wilson ended his reflection on Hitchens in that regard: “We therefore commend Christopher to the Judge of the whole earth who will certainly do right.”

Rather, I bring it up to highlight what I consider to be the great need to maintain a biblically informed view of humankind.

Yes, humans are created in the image of God and, therefore, are to be treated with dignity and respect at all times. But — we must also keep in the forefront the biblical teaching that unregenerate man does not really seek Truth spelled with a capital T, that unregenerate man does not seek the personal-infinite God who has revealed himself in space-time history in the person of Jesus, the second person of the Trinity and through the Scriptures. Rather, man seeks to erect false gods (of truth or goodness considered in and of themselves) in place of the true and living God. According to the biblical testimony, Hitchens — and all of us apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts — did in fact hate God. And to hate God is to hate Truth. “I am the truth,” said Jesus the Christ, God incarnate.

HOPING PATIENTLY — ADVENT

2011-12-12T16:31:00.000-08:00

AN EXPANSION OF A PREVIOUS POST

HOPING PATIENTLY — ADVENT

by David R. Gillespie, M.Div

Delivered at Peace Congregational Church, Clemson SC

December 4, 2011

The Second Sunday in Advent 2011

TEXT: 2 Peter 3:8-15a

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.

Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?

But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.

The Christian community is one that was born in hope. That is clearly reflected in the passage from II Peter which we read earlier. It’s also reflected in the Old Testament readings which the lectionary points us to on this, the second Sunday of the Advent season — and in the Gospel reading as well.

The people of God are people of hope. We are characterized by hope. We live in hope.

Indeed, even though we may light several candles of the Advent Wreath, each representing a different idea — today we lit the Candle of Love — the season itself, that period in the Christian year we call Advent, is fundamentally characterized by this thing called hope.

So we have to ask, what is this hope?

I’m inclined to think that there are basically two kinds of hope.

Most often when we use the word, we’re talking about something that we’d like to happen, or like not to happen, but we can’t be absolutely sure that it will or won’t happen.

We casually remark, for example, “I hope this winter will not be as difficult as last winter.” Or, “I hope it doesn’t snow as much.” Or, I hope we don’t get ice this year.” Many people in this neck of the woods had their hopes dashed a couple of weeks ago. They were hoping that Clemson would beat Carolina. Prior to that they’d been hoping that Clemson would win the national championship again like they did back in the early 1980s. Now they have great hope for a bowl game. This is the same kind of hope that I have that I’ll win the lottery some day: although I think the odds of Clemson having won the national championship were far greater than of me winning the lottery.

Sometimes our hope take a more noble bent. We hope that the wars in which our country is engaged, which seem to be perpetual, would end. That’s a good thing; a good hope to have. We hope that matters of poverty and oppression would be addressed, both here at home and around the world. That, too, is a good thing. We like to hope that we as a species, the human race, would become more benevolent and kind in our dealings with others. We hope that our society would become more and more characterized by that which we call justice.

Especially at this time of year, we hope that people would find love and compassion in their hearts — not unlike what we see happen in some of those old classic Christmas movies.

But those hopes, as good as they may be, are not really biblical hope. They are hopes which may be indeed good to entertain in our hearts and minds, but they are not rooted in certainty.

The hope which sustained the Old Testament folks like Abraham and Moses, the hope which was proclaimed by the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah or sung about by the Psalmists, that is a different kind of hope. It wasn’t simply an aspiration. It wasn’t simply some desire which may or may not be fulfilled. It wasn’t like any of the hopes which we typically express.

It was a hope that looked to the God of Israel, the God who had spoken the universe into existence, the great Creator God who had chosen Israel of all the nations of the world to use as an instrument of blessing to other nations — it was a hope that looked to the true and living God acting in space and time and history to make all things right again. Specifically, it was the hope that the unbroken relationship which had characterized humanity with God, so well illustrated in the interaction between God and humankind in the first two chapters of Genesis, would be restored. It was a hope that sin and its effects would be removed from the world. After all, this was what God had promised.

panentheistic god which is the god of much of what calls itself Christianity in the United States these days. Our hope is rooted in the true and living God who has self-revealed to us and promised us to make all things right.

The first expression of that promise in the sacred literature of our faith is found in the opening chapters of Genesis. After the Fall, after the relationship between humans and their Creator has been broken, while Adam and Eve are attempting to hide from God, God seeks them out. In speaking the the Tempter (presented in the story as a serpent) and heard, no doubt, by Adam and Eve, God promises: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he (that is, the offspring of the woman) will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

God is promising to make things right. Things will be made right through a man, the offspring of the woman. This is the promise of God’s loving action, despite our rebellion, of giving hope to humanity.

I reference this to point out the essential truth of what we’re presented with throughout Scripture: Christian hope is not humanly focused, it is focused on, it is rooted and grounded in the promise of God to make things right, to restore all things. It is not an inwardly focused hope; some general notion that somehow we are evolving as a species into better and better folks and that given enough time and money and education we will become, on our own, a benevolent species. That flies in the face of history and fact. It also flies in the face of the self-revelation of God found in the Old and New Testaments and the self-revelation of God in Christ Jesus.

And so we can say with confidence that biblical hope, our hope, our certain hope, cannot be separated from Jesus. And it is not a view of Jesus that simply sees him as just a radical political figure or just a good moral example or ethical teacher to which we must have our hope grounded. Those views cannot be sustained. It is Jesus as the second person of the Trinity. It is Jesus as God incarnate. It is Jesus as God among us.

Neither is our hope other-worldly in its focus.

N.T. Wright published a wonderful book a couple of years ago entitled Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. In the beginning of that book he wrote:

“This book addresses two questions that have often been dealt with entirely separately but that, I passionately believe, belong rightly together. First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present?...As long as we see Christian hope in terms of ‘going to heaven,’ of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated...But if the Christian hope is for God’s new creation, for ‘new heavens and new earth,’ and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together.”

And that is what I would like to invite you to consider this afternoon, to contemplate, think through, to be praying about during this Advent Season: what is the essence of Christian hope and how does that hope inform and impact our lives now?

Wright points out clearly what we really already know: that some true and faithful Christians tend to view the essence of Christian hope as simply going to heaven when you die. Over and over again, however, we see in Scripture that our hope, ultimately speaking, is in the resurrection of the body and the new heavens and new earth. In other words, in the completion of God’s making everything right, of God’s making all things new. And that has ramifications for the hear and now.

This seeing Christian hope as just dying and going to heaven not only ignores a great deal of the biblical testimony, it is focusing solely on the first question (what is the ultimate Christian hope?) to the exclusion, very often, of the latter.

I think there is often an opposite, equally misguided approach to that as well, found in what is often referred to as “progressive” Christianity. That is to say, often those who self-identify as progressive Christians tend to separate the questions, too, by focusing solely on the latter (what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present?) question without serious consideration of the first.

Christian hope — that hope in which our community was originally born — was much more than a mere optimism. It is much more than a desire that humanity would somehow find it in itself to do better, to be more just, to be more loving. One could argue — in fact, I think I would argue so — that if that is all our hope is, that we’d somehow do better as humans, then our hope is flying in the face of history and fact. There is no empirical reason to think that might actually happen, as noble as it may be and as desirable as it may be.

But there is every reason to be sure and certain in our hope that God is making all things right, all things new. And that points us to the real, space-time historical event we call the Resurrection.

In other words, you can’t have Advent without Easter. Indeed, Advent really has no meaning without Easter.

Advent and Easter tie the two questions to which Bishop Wright referred together. About midway in his book, he wrote this: “Precisely because the resurrection has happened as an event within our own world, its implications and effects are to be felt within our own world, here and now.”

You can’t have the historical resurrection event without the implications and effects. That is the error of much of what orthodox Christianity in the United States has become during the past 150 or so years. It’s the mistaken thinking which is wrapped up in the phrase, “So heavenly minded you’re no earthly good.” It’s the mistaken thinking which focuses so much on “going to our heavenly home” that it forgets, as Wright pointed out, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a historical, this-world event pointing us to what the biblical writers call the new, or re-created, heavens and new earth.

But at the same time it seems clear that we can’t do away with or try to explain away or mythologize the historical resurrection event and have any real, sound basis for trying to manifest those implications and effects of that event. That is the error of much of self-defined old school liberal and contemporary “progressive” Christianity.

Biblical hope, ultimate Christian hope — Advent, if you will — is a firm and certain conviction of the veracity of God’s promise to make all things new. And, as seen in our text from 2 Peter this afternoon, it is a patient hope.

God is, the Apostle seems to be arguing, making all things new, even though it may not appear so to us at this moment. “The Lord,” we read, “is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.” The final new creation will occur, we’re told. “We wait,” we read, “for a new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”

Since this is true, Peter exhorts us, since God is fulfilling and will ultimately fulfill his promise to make all things new and right — the ultimate attestation to this being the historical, physical resurrection of Jesus who is the Christ — what sort of persons ought we to be? We should be people leading lives of holiness and godliness. In other words, we should be living as new creatures, as inhabitants of God’s new creation — where compassion and justice and genuine love abound — “waiting for and hastening the coming day of God.”

What is it in Advent that we are ultimately hoping for? It is for that day when the kingdom of God will be fully realized; it is for that day when God’s kingdom will come and God’s will will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.

What are the implications and effects of that ultimate hope? That we live, here and now, as God’s grace enables us, as inhabitants of that kingdom, that we live lives characterized by those things which characterize the kingdom itself; that we live lives which are both transformed by God’s grace and transformational as instruments of God’s grace.

Hanging Up My Geneva Gown and Stole

2011-12-04T07:13:00.000-08:00

On November 6th of this year, I signed, on the book of the Gospels and before my friend and fellow chaplain, Fr. Bartholomew Leon, the following statement which followed, on the same printed page, the Nicene Creed:

"By this Profession of Faith, I state that I believe in and hold firm all that the Holy Catholic Church believes in, teaches and professes as handed down by the Fathers of the Church and ancient Tradition. In witness thereof, I state this Profession and Act of Faith in the Church of Saint Rafka, in Greer, South Carolina, before the hands of the priest Bartholomew Leon, pastor of this parish on this 6th Day of November, in the Year of Our Lord 2011, and sign it upon the Book of the Gospels."

By doing so, I effectively hung up my Geneva gown, my alb and my stole.

When some of my Reformed and evangelical Facebook friends read this, they may “unfriend” me, and that’s okay. “Let goods and kindred go; some FB friends, also.” I hope they don’t, but honestly, I will understand if they do.

I thought it would be more difficult to leave behind the life of a Protestant clergyman. It has, for so long, been an important part of my own self-identity, having been originally ordained as a Presbyterian minister in the fall of 1979, having served two small Presbyterian churches and having worked in a Presbyterian institution at one time. After all, the Presbyterian manifestation of the Christian Church was the one into which I’d been born, in which I was raised and catechized and confirmed, in which I received seminary education. Even though my life in the Presbyterian fold was not all sweetness and delight (due to a divorce in 1983), it was where I, as we southerners say, was “raised up.” I have had some good counsel from trusted and respected friends like Fr. Bart and Fr. Trey.

I quickly found out that I was neither alone nor unique in my journey. Via several organizations (The Coming Home Network, Called to Communion, et al) and my own personal knowledge of the journeys of others (i.e., Fr. Dwight Longnecker), I have discovered a whole bunch of Reformed and Presbyterian folks who have moved into the Catholic Church. And I am in good company: read the journey of the former President of the Evangelical Theological Society, Francis J. Beckwith, in Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic. or Scott & Kimberly Hahn's Rome Sweet Rome: Our Journey to Catholicism.

I have roots which were nourished in the soil, not only of American Presbyterianism (receiving my M.Div at Reformed Theological Seminary in 1979), but of Evangelicalism as well, having been educated (for undergraduate work) at what I still maintain is one of the finest schools around: Columbia International University. The impact CIU had on my life can never, nor do I want it to be, erased.

A priest friend once jokingly told me to click my heels together three times and say, “There’s no place like Rome. There’s no place like Rome.” It wasn’t that easy or quick in reality.

So why? The question, actually, for me was, Why not?

In other words, rather than being convinced of compelling reasons to become a Catholic, the question for me was, What are the compelling reasons NOT to become a Catholic? After growing up as a Presbyterian Christian, and after examining Anglicanism and Lutheranism, I could find none.

Again, I don’t think there’s anything really unique to my journey (I prefer to think of it more as the final step of a journey than a “conversion” to something). But in trying to explain it, there are a number of factors which I’m still trying to understand.

It must be understood that I don’t see these thoughts as an apologetic of any kind or an evangelistic effort to move my Reformed and/or Evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ in the direction of the Vatican. If you’re interested in exploring that, I recommend Fr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism.

These are simply those considerations which moved me to become convinced that there were no compelling reasons not to sign that document and have the sign of the Cross placed on my forehead by Fr. Bart.

There was, of course, the “high church Episcopalian” mother who introduced me to and instilled in me a great appreciation for more liturgical forms of worship. She and my father had compromised on Presbyterianism between her Episcopalianism and his South Carolina red-clay hills Baptist-ism.

And there were some theological considerations as well.

The first of these was my inability to escape the absolute truthfulness of what I call the four pesky words of ecclesiology: one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

Found in the Nicene Creed, those concepts are given some recognition by Reformed Christianity. I found, however, that defining those terms, particularly “one” and “catholic” and “apostolic,” always seemed to be done in such a way as to legitimize continued separation from the Catholic (read: original) Church. I began questioning whether those abuses to which the Reformation addressed itself still existed, and, even if they did, legitimized continued separation. I concluded that they didn’t; and that much of what passed for Reformation-influenced ecclesiology had become an exercise in self-preservation and self-justification more than an attempt to genuinely reform the Church. After all, we all know Luther wasn’t out to start a new one, just to rid the original one of some genuine abuses which had grown up in it during it’s, at that time, 1500 year history.

Continue the reformation, yes! Semper Reformanda! But reformation does not equal separation — at least not in any meaningful sense. The pastor of my parish (St. Mary's in Greenville, SC), Fr. Jay Scott Newman maintains a blog titled Ecclesia Semper Reformanda.

For me it also meant taking seriously Christ’s prayer for the Church to be one, found in the Gospel of St. John, chapter 17. Christ clearly and unambiguously states that a part of our sanctification is being one, just as he and the Father are one (a real unity) with a view toward the world believing that the Father sent him. In fact, going back to my evangelical undergraduate education and Reformed graduate education, it was a Reformed Evangelical who prompted me to begin taking that prayer for visible, observable unity seriously: the late Francis A. Schaeffer (see his book, The Mark of the Christian). I might even be tempted to say that Schaeffer, in this regard, started me on the road to Rome.

Moreover, I began taking seriously the whole matter of canonization and how that impacts one’s view of the typically understood Reformed notion of Sola Scriptura.

I concluded that, for me, there is no inherent contradiction between what may be called the Catholic view of Scripture and the notion of self-attesting authority as put forth in 6.005 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. I don’t think it makes me any less Catholic to believe the truth of 6.010 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, either. All controversies of religion, all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers (or contemporary ones for that matter), etc., should be viewed from a biblically informed point of view.

However, the canon didn’t arrive on the scene in the early Church complete. It was, in fact and obviously, a Church Council, deriving its authority from the Apostles and ultimately Christ, who decided which books would be included in the Bible and which ones would not. I don’t know of any of my Reformed friends who deny that the Holy Spirit works through the actions of church councils; in fact, they pray for such when they deliberate (or at least they used to).

Where that took me is that while theoretically one can speak, as does the WCF to a point and do many contemporary Reformed folks, of the self-attesting nature of Scripture, you can’t separate that practically speaking from the testimony of the Church. Sola Scriptura, understood in a way which tries to practically separate Bible from Church, cannot be maintained. It flies in the face of history.

One. Holy. Catholic. Apostolic.

Not only is Christianity a religion rooted in historical events (especially the physical, space-time resurrection of Jesus), it must always be in touch with its history in terms of the understanding of Jesus passed down to us by those closest to him and those closest to the Apostles — an understanding which, for example in the case of Paul, was received directly from Christ. I kind of like the way Beckwith put it when he wrote: “the whole idea that theology is mine to choose — like a pair of slacks that I can have tailored for my own specifications — was precisely the problem...As long as “Church” was something that was under me rather than me under it, I was doomed to a life of ecclesiastical promiscuity despite my best efforts to practice safe sects.”

It was this notion of one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church which went through my mind recently on a drive to a dairy farm south of the city in which I live. Driving down Highway 25 I saw church building after building, representing a myriad of traditions, some even sitting on opposite sides of the highway facing each other. And Jesus prayed that we would be one.

Like it or not, and regardless of how much it might rub up against my American individualism, the “faith” is passed on to me by the Church, not the other way around.

I still hold tightly and dearly to much which I’ve learned/inherited from my Reformed and Presbyterian life. I am a pretty strong believer in the type of presuppositionalism found in Gordon H. Clark (under whom I studied philosophy) and have a great appreciation for, and have been influenced by, other Reformed philosophers/apologists such as Van Til, et al. I’m with Augustine more than I am with Aquinas, though find much guidance in both. I like the notion found in the WCF of looking at things through the lens of Scripture — even the traditions of the Catholic Church. But I also believe I need the traditions of the Catholic Church to help me understand Scripture correctly.

Now about that whole liturgical thing: in my forays into ancient Church history, one thing became abundantly clear: the Mass is central, and it includes both Word and Sacrament. Luther liked the Mass; why shouldn’t I?

That brings up a final theological point, I suppose: those clear, unambiguous words found in the synoptic gospels and repeated by Paul in the Corinthian correspondence, words which have been manipulated and spiritualized and metaphorized by those seeking to distance themselves from Rome: THIS IS MY BODY.

Four more words which I cannot escape; nor do I want to do so. I also have to have an adequate understanding of those four words from I Peter: “baptism now saves you...”

So yes, a recovery of the deeper, and more biblical, and more historically understood, meaning of the Sacraments is very much a part of this journey on which I’ve been led.

That’s a final and very important part of this. Being led. After all of the theological, historical and philosophical considerations, it was the leading of God which took me to that moment on November 6th in which the notion of Holy Mother Church became more than just words.

At the beginning of this reflection I wrote that I thought it would be difficult to leave the life of a Protestant clergyman behind. In many ways, it has been a great relief for me. Given my nature and the times, much of that life has been caught up in this or that ecclesiastical “battle.” In hanging up the robe and stole, I am freed to focus on the ministry to which God has called me at this point in my life: chaplaincy in a hospital (yes, Catholic hospital) setting.

An Advent Reflection of a Hospital Chaplain

2011-11-29T17:11:00.000-08:00

[this is the reflection I will be delivering on Thursday at our Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital Advent Service]

BON SECOURS ST. FRANCIS

ADVENT REFLECTION 2011

David R. Gillespie, Chaplain

If you sit behind the desk at the Batson Cancer Center and look over the

desk at the wall, you’ll see two quotations from the Bible.

The one on the left is taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Roman

Christians and reads:

“May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that

you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

The one of the left is taken from the book of the Prophet Isaiah and we heard

it read earlier:

“…but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar

on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and

not be faint.”

Hope is the beginning of what the Advent season is about for Christians.

This is why the first candle lit for Advent is the candle of expectation or

hope.

As we heard from the Gospel reading, at one point this expectation was that

of the coming “child.” Our hope now looks to God’s making all things right

and new through that “child” who has come.

Hope. Such an important word, especially here in the setting of an extension

of the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.

There are, I’m inclined to think, two kinds of hope.

One is a kind of generic optimism. It’s a kind of cross-your-fingers and

hope-for-the-best kind of hope. Sometimes it points to rather mundane

things, like “I hope it doesn’t rain until I get home,” or “I hope this winter

isn’t as severe as last winter.” For some folks here, it may have been “I hope

Clemson wins the national championship this year.” It may be a hope that

this or that political party will carry the day next November and a hope that

whichever one it is will be able to strengthen the American economy. It may

even be as noble as to express itself in thoughts like “I hope the war in

Afghanistan is over soon.”

But these are, though well-meant, uncertain hopes.

The hope to which the Scriptures read earlier point us is certain, it is

grounded in the certain knowledge that even though it may not appear so at

the time, the fact of the matter is that God is making things right; that the

great Creator God has acted in space and time to make all things new by

sending the one we know as Jesus Christ; that God is now in the process of

healing a broken world. This is why we are urged by the prophet Isaiah to

“wait,” in a very literal sense at times, upon the Lord.

So we might say that we are to hope, patiently.

But there is another sense in which we hope, patiently.

This sure and certain hope that God is indeed making all things right, that

the kingdom of God is being established here among us, gives to us all who

minister here an incredible sense of purpose in our daily interaction with

patients; it give this sense of purpose to those of us who are loved-ones and

friends who are patients here.

We often say in pastoral theology that healing takes many forms. Hope, then,

for healing, thus considered, is something we should never forget or let go

of. That healing — whatever form it may come in — is God making things

right. And that hope gives our work, our lives, purpose.

To walk in hope as a Christian is not simply to be optimistic. It is to walk

along side, to minister to, those who are sick and suffering, with an

overriding and under girding sense of doing so in the presence of the living

God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.

The daily Huddles, in which employees participate here at St. Francis, end

by asking, Why Are We Here? And the answer is, To Be Good Help.

This speaks directly and simply to purpose. It serves us well to remind

ourselves again today and during this Advent season — a celebration of

expectation and hope — that a part, a very fundamental part, of being good

help to others is to be a channel and reflection and depository of this sure

and certain hope.

And so we — doctors, nurses, support staff, volunteers, families and friends

of patients — we all seek to have St. Paul’s prayer answered in our lives:

“May the God of Hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that we

may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

A GOOD MID-WEEK REMINDER.....

2011-11-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRF45dAcryU&feature=fvsr

Reflections on the Pastorate (Pt. 4): Pride and Prejudice

2011-11-14T17:10:00.000-08:00

What is it about some pastors, particularly Protestant ones, who feel compelled to make fun of other Christians? I’m not talking in a comedic, joking sort of way — the way a good Anglo-Catholic friend of mine sometimes makes fun of Protestants by kinda curling his lip up when he utters the word. I’m talking about in a genuinely deriding, nasty sort of way.

I knew a mainstream Protestant pastor once who seemed to almost take a delight in making fun of more evangelical Christians, especially Baptists, and those who happen to interpret Scripture in such a way that allows for what is typically called The Rapture. Often they would be painted with the same broad brush that was used to paint those who predict times and days of Christ’s return with the point being that anyone who believe in the “Rapture” was a fruit-loop. That pastor would also make fun of Catholics: again, not in a comedic, joking sort of way but in such a way as to make them look either like the enemy or “superstitious” idiots who attribute some “magical” (as opposed to Sacramental) qualities to things like water and bread and wine and characterized all priests as egocentric, “better than everyone else,” folks who suffered from clericalism (whatever was meant by that).

The great subtle traps that one can fall prey to in the pastorate: Pride and Prejudice. Being “conservative” does not immunize one against these delightful and devastating vices; and neither does being “liberal.”

Other Christians — those who can join in affirming the great essential truths of Scripture that have been formulated by the Church in the great ecumenical creeds — they are not the enemy. Unbelief is the enemy; lies presenting themselves as truth, they are the enemy. Other Christians who differ with me certain theological dogmas — those non-essential areas of Christian belief where folks of good conscience can disagree — they are not the enemy.

And even if they were, our Lord commands us to love our enemies.

No one that I’ve ever encountered has as succinctly, clearly and forcefully argued for a visible demonstration of love between true Christians than the late Francis A. Schaeffer. It was through him that I was first confronted with this great truth: that the watching, unbelieving world has a legitimate basis on which to know whether or not we are disciples of Christ and that is how we love one another.

“The point is that it is possible to be a Christian without showing the mark [this visible, demonstrated love],” he wrote in The Mark of the Christian, “but if we expect non-Christians to know that we are Christians, we must show the mark.”

Schaeffer also argues, correctly I believe, that how we as Christians relate to one another is, what he terms, the “final apologetic.” It is by our unity, we find in the prayer of Jesus recorded in John 17, that the unbelieving world may know that God the Father has sent God the Son into the world.

“Jesus is praying for the oneness of the church, the oneness that should be found specifically among true Christians. Jesus is not praying for a humanistic, romantic oneness among men in general...Jesus here makes a very careful distinction between those who have cast themselves upon him in faith and those who still stand in rebellion...We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus’ claims are true, and that Christianity is true [and Schaeffer, and I agree, means truth with a capital T, objective Truth, not ‘truths’ in the postmodern or existential sense of the word] unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.” --The Mark of the Christian

As an aside, though at one time an almost fundamentalist separatist in his younger days, Schaeffer saw, to an extent, the larger ecclesiastical ramifications of what he understood Scripture to be teaching (a common front of Catholics and Protestants confronting the practice of abortion, for example). I do wish he had explored and expanded it further in terms of visible, organizational unity especially in light of post-Reformation Christianity.

But to the point: when a pastor/teacher stands up before a group of church members and teaches them that it is okay to disparage or jeer at or put down or scoff and scorn at other genuine Christians, then Christ’s prayer goes unanswered. Moreover, there is no reason to expect our message that the Father has indeed sent the Son would be believed; there is no reason to expect that the watching unbelieving world would know that we are servants of Christ, disciples of Christ.

Maybe they think it makes them look better to do so. I don’t know.

Pride and prejudice. I have been so very guilty of both.

For whatever reasons, I had this desire in my youth to be the smartest person in the room, or at least appear to be (maybe it was my philosophy professors’ fault). I think, I hope, I pray, I’m getting a little better about that. It still pops out every now and then and I must seek forgiveness when it does.

It is tempting to me, and I’ve on occasion shamefully succumbed, to paint all self-identified progressives and liberals with the same broad brush of criticism of being some of the most intolerant and exclusive folks I know. But that is attributing, in this case, the characteristics of a few to the whole group — aka, prejudice.

Pride and prejudice. For the pastor/teacher especially, a sharp eye must be kept Out for those two. They are subtle indeed.

Reflections on the Pastorate (Pt.3) - Preaching and Preachers

2011-11-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

I figure I’ve preached about 500 sermons in my lifetime. That’s not many, compared to most. I only served a parish for three years, which accounts for, say, half, but I’ve been graciously invited by a number of churches to preach and still am occasionally, which accounts for the rest. I’ve preached some pretty good sermons and I’ve preached some sorry ones, too.

I figure I’ve listened to way more than that during my life. A bunch more. And I’ve heard just about every kind of preaching there is, I suppose. From the very powerful and meaningful 10-minute homily I heard Fr. Jay Scott Newman preach at All Souls Mass this past week at St. Mary’s Catholic Church to the 45-minute thundering Puritan-style preaching of my old Systematic Theology professor, Dr. John R. de Witt I used to hear in the chapel of Reformed Theological Seminary. I’ve heard great preachers; I’ve also listened to some pretty lousy ones. I’ve sat in pulpits listening; I’ve watched, yes, I’ll admit, the sermons of the preacher at one of our local mega-churches.

I firmly believe that the power of a sermon is directly attributable to the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart and mind of the hearer, and to its faithfulness to the gospel, to the faith, as it’s said, once delivered by the saints.

That being said, I think there is a great responsibility on the person delivering the homily or sermon to craft the very best possible sermon within those parameters mentioned above: faithfulness to the gospel and historic Christian orthodoxy. Sadly, I fear, some pulpit-occupiers seem to shirk this obligation and deliver, instead, either hurried constructions done the day or night before which, though perhaps faithful, exhibit the haste with which they’re written. Others deliver something that may sound like the Christian faith, but are really post-modern, relativistic, truth-denying words which subvert the gospel. Still others, too lazy to really do the hard work of sermon preparation, simply string together thoughts, often taken from Feasting On the Word, hopefully, I suppose, to give their congregations the impression that they are well-read.

What do I look for in a sermon or homily, beyond the givens mentioned above?

I am inclined to think that first and foremost, it must come from the heart. It must be genuinely believed by the deliverer. It must be part and parcel of who the preacher is. Realize it or not, preachers, we in the congregation can pick up on just how invested you are personally in the content of your sermon.

It must also, I believe, be written and presented in such a way that each individual member sitting in the pew is in the moment in the sense that they get the impression you are talking to them and only them. I want you to speak to me. Therefore, it must take into account the Sitz em Laben of the hearers. That, in turn, is going to require the preacher to spend time with parish members to really know their spiritual struggles and triumphs.

Meeting me where I am, addressing those spiritual struggles I have — such will make your sermon interesting, it will keep me awake, it will contribute to my growth in grace an knowledge of Jesus Christ.

On the back of the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church of Anderson, SC, the first pulpit from which I preached as a young man, was a plaque. To the best of my recollection, it read something like this: “Let every sermon contain enough of the gospel that should an unconverted man walk into the congregation that morning he would have heard the saving good news.”

I’ve never forgotten that. Perhaps then, a sermon, regardless of its length, regardless of whether it is an expositional sermon or an exegetical sermon or a topical sermon — regardless of whether it is a 10-minute homily or a 1-hour sermon on this or that topic — might ought contain within it at least this much of the gospel: that Christ has died for our sin, that Christ has risen (physically, bodily — anything else is meaningless) confirming our faith, and that Christ will come again. It can be done in a simple paragraph:

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.” -- St. Paul, First Letter to the Church at Corinth, 15:3-5

Beyond that, I look to be fed. Take me beyond where I am in my spiritual understanding. Challenge me. Give me depth. I’m not asking to simply be made to feel better about myself, though there is an important place for encouragement. I’m asking to be stretched in my discipleship. Don’t give me fluff; don’t give me totally abstract. Bring it home. Present me with the demands that the gospel makes on me, then encourage me in striving, by God’s grace, to meet those demands. After all, the spiritual depth of a congregation is directly related to the spiritual depth of the preacher and the preaching.

Finally, in these days of political obsession, yes, show me what a Christian view of this or that political issue might be, but please, don’t overshadow the gospel with politics. If you are going to talk to me about justice, show me what God’s justice is, as opposed to the world’s notion of justice; show me what living out Christ’s compassion and concern for the poor is, don’t just talk about the latest fad in political fashion might be. If you’re going to talk to me about truth or speaking truth to power, make it truth with a capital T or, as Francis Schaeffer called it, true truth, not the relativistic sense of truth which pervades our culture where everybody’s truth is equally valid. Give me God’s truth.

And, if you're so inclined, maybe pick up and read a copy of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' book, Preaching and Preachers. In the words of Sly and the Family Stone, it'll do you no harm.

Sharing A Death

2011-10-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

It seems that in my work as a chaplain at a Catholic hospital, I’ve recently been at more deaths than usual. And that’s given me pause.

I walked away from a death and grieving family the other day with what some might consider a strange thought: what a privilege our great and compassionate God has given me to share in those moments.

Some are more difficult for me than others. I guess a lot of that has to do with the circumstances surrounding the death or the depth of involvement I’ve had with the patient and/or the family.

Having buried my father, mother and only sister, I am well acquainted with grief. But I have been blessed to have learned, and am still learning, from the dying. It is a gracious gift given by our Lord.

From my perspective as a Christian, that time, when physical life is waning, is just as sacred and holy as those moments when life begins. It is full of mystery. And I am reminded in each case of the hope that we as Christians cling to: that is, the resurrection of the dead.

Of course, in those moments, very often family members will speak of the patient’s “being with the Lord now” or “gone home” or similiar thoughts. And as a chaplain I affirm the emotions of the grieving behind those statements. But I also walk away with a renewed sense that what we long for as Christians, what we look forward to as Christians, what are hope consists of as Christians, is in fact the resurrection. And so those words spoken so often come to mind: may the patient rest in peace and rise in glory.

I think sometimes that those who seek to call themselves Christian but deny the bodily resurrection — that those who see the physical resurrection of Jesus as mere myth or the development of some "Easter faith" with no roots in historical fact — are not unlike those of Jesus’ day who did the same: the Sadducees, and, as I was taught as a child, that is why they are sad, you see; for they have no real hope. And I'm convinced that a "theology" which makes no room for the space-time bodily resurrection of Jesus (and by extension, our own physical resurrection from the dead) can, in no meaningful way, really be called Christian.

(I commend to you N.T. Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope)

Reflections on the Pastorate (Pt.2)

2011-10-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

Every early this morning I sat in the lobby of the Catholic hospital at which I work as a Chaplain talking with a young Presbyterian minister. I had called him earlier at the request of a family with which I was working. He had a few years ago graduated from the same seminary which I had graduated from 30 years ago: Reformed Theological Seminary.

I made a statement in the context of our conversation which I’ve jokingly (okay, half-jokingly) made many times before: every new seminary graduate ought to be required to take, as their first call, a small rural pastorate.

To be honest I’ve only served two parishes. And that was straight out of seminary. The rest of my direct experience was, and is, in institutional ministry. But I have observed and interacted with local parish ministers, pastors, all of my adult life.

The two churches I served were small rural congregations in the South Carolina low country; specifically, 7 miles out of a little town called Kingstree in Williamsburg County. Prior to that, my only small church experience was filling the pulpit for a number of such congregations throughout South Carolina during my undergraduate years and in the summers when I’d return home from seminary in Mississippi. I had grown up in a big, downtown church: First Presbyterian of Anderson, SC. That was pretty much the only church life I knew.

I will forever be indebted to the members of the Bethel (now closed) and Mouzon Presbyterian churches down there in that flat, swamp and river riddled land of Williamsburg County. They taught me much more that I ever taught them.

They were a people hungry for the spiritual food found in the Bible. As is typical for Presbyterians, the sermon was the core of our Sunday worship and I, true to my undergraduate and graduate training, preached through various books of the Bible. Small group Bible studies held on Sunday nights were well attended also.

They were also the training ground for my developing sense of pastoral identity. Granted, pastoral visits were either done in the homes of elderly members, who invariably kept the heat turned way up and constantly offered me cake, or in fishing boats and pick-up trucks.

One such member whose pastoral care was done in a pick-up truck was a guy named Pete. Pete rarely came to worship on Sundays, but he’d often come by the manse late in the afternoon and we would ride — always very slowly, no more than 10 mph it seemed — the dirt roads which cut through the fields and stands of timber. His funeral was the last I preached down there, if I remember correctly. I learned so much from him, about life and about death and dying.

Seminaries, good seminaries like the one I attended, are very adept at teaching biblical and theological content — and that is sorely needed in these days when several of the large (but getting smaller) mainline denominations have cut themselves loose from their orthodox Christian moorings in theological terms denying in statement and practice the existence of, as Francis Schaeffer wrote of, the God who is there and who is not silent, and in terms of Christology, preferring to sup at the table of the Spongs, Borgs and Crossans of this world rather than the table of the Lord of All, even Jesus.

But as absolutely essential and necessary as biblical and theological content is, those good seminaries sometimes fall a hair short when it comes to training what was at one time called, Doctors of souls, pastors.

Newly minted seminary graduates, having received all of that wonderful biblical and theological content, can sometimes enter a pastorate thinking that they have all the answers. Sometimes they can come across as a little arrogant, that they and they alone know how to do church and must teach the poor souls in the congregation how to do church properly. I probably — hell, ain’t no probably to it — had that attitude upon my graduation.

Serving a congregation of farmers, or people who have some connection to life lived out in a rural context, can go along way to trimming away that arrogance. There is a humility to be found in living among folks who, in a very large and palpable sense, live lives that are totally dependent upon the graciousness of God, especially when it comes to weather — of being confronted in a non-academic way with death, with disease, with spiritual struggles and depression, with family issues, etc. There is great humility to be found in participating with them in their lives, their joys and their sorrows.

I remember when I accepted the call to those two small churches I was told my salary would be $12,000 annually. I don’t know how much that translates into these days, but I’d wager not much as far as starting salaries go. At the time I couldn’t think of how I’d spend all that money (this was after 3 years of seminary surviving on the kindness of my parents and strangers). But then, even though I have a few classmates who make more than $100,000 a year now in tall-steeple churches, one shouldn’t enter into this ministry for the money. It brings to mind a local pastor I knew who would constantly complain that their church had not given them a raise in the past 3 years — in this economy!

A DISCLAIMER: I WRITE OUT OF THE EXPERIENCE OF A PROTESTANT WORLD. I AM JUST NOW BEGINNING TO LEARN WHAT "PASTOR" MEANS IN THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

Am I Too Hard On Pastors?

2011-10-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

Am I too hard on pastors? Am I too critical of them? I do wonder sometimes.

One mainline Protestant denomination pastor I knew seemed to take every criticism I leveled at pastors in this blog as a personal attack on themselves. That same pastor apparently felt that any disagreement with them on matters of biblical interpretation or Christian practice that I would voice was a challenge to their authority, an attempt to undermine them.

Pastors, especially Protestant ones, are an interesting breed. I know this because I used to be one. Maybe I shouldn’t say “used to be” for in a very real sense I still am one, though my parish is the ever-changing "parish" of the Catholic hospital where I serve as a Chaplain.

Parish ministers or Parish Pastors. Maybe that’s a better nomenclature. It more correctly describes those of whom I sometimes write about here. Let’s settle for that.

Parish ministry brings with it tremendous responsibility. The spiritual health, or lack thereof, of a local congregation can, to a large degree, can be placed on the doorstep of the local parish minister. Richard Baxter’s classic work, The Reformed Pastor, gives a clear picture of what I’m talking about in that regard.

Not only have I been a parish minister, I have been observing them for most of my adult life. And, to be honest, I often wonder where some of them got their notions of what being a parish pastor is all about.

To me, at this point in my own journey, and based on my understanding of the Christian scriptures and the development of the Church, one central role of the parish pastor that has unfortunately been eclipsed is that of teaching. The shepherd must see to it that the flock is fed.

The prophet’s assessment in Hosea 4:6 —

"my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. "Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children."

is one that more parish pastors need to take seriously. The spiritual health of a local congregation cannot be measured, it seems to me, by any other yardstick other than their knowledge of the written Word of God and how it has been historically understood by the Christian Church. Yes, I’m talking about pastors — whether through their preaching or in group studies — feeding their flock biblical/theological content. Instruction in the content of Christianity is often pushed aside by otherwise well-meaning efforts to build community.

Community without biblical/theological content, however, is the same thing as any social club or group can provide. What distinguishes the work of a pastor, for example, from that of an Executive Director of some not-for-profit organization (as an aside, the minute we start thinking of the Church, or a church, as simply another not-for-profit organization is the moment we've lost all biblical/theological conception of what the Church actually is).

Many pastors, I have observed, are, it seems, more about the “business” of the church than they are about seeing to the spiritual growth and development of their flock, and that is sad. And we see easily the end results: a lack of understanding of historic Christian faith, a lack of understanding of what a Christian world-life view is, a lack of understanding of what the demands of Christian discipleship are.

Pastors used to have a study, not an office. The study of the Presbyterian pastors of my childhood had book-filled shelves surrounding their desks and could often be found pouring over them. I can’t help but think that maybe some pastors today, if they were to really spend, for example, an hour of preparation for every minute of the sermon, would be afraid that their flock might think them lazy for some odd reason. It’s far to easy to simply string together a host of thoughts and quotations from Feasting On the Word and call that a sermon.

I have observed, and do personally know, many parish pastors who take seriously their responsibility to feed the flock — in a variety of traditions: Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, Presbyterian, etc. One of my classmates from seminary is pastor of a large Presbyterian church and I'm always impressed that he finds time amidst all the "business" of that church to still teach classes on a regular basis in addition to his weekly preaching. It seems, unfortunately, that for every one who does, there are three who have no concept of their responsibility in this regard.

And that makes me often wonder what is taught in seminaries today, especially mainline Protestant ones, about what it means to be a pastor.

Finally! Reframing the Debate on Homosexuality

2011-10-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

I, and others, have for some time argued that the debates surrounding issues of homosexuality/homosexual behavior have really ignored the core issue: sexual ethics. Agree or not with the positions of Trevor Wax in this piece, he at least recognizes what we should be talking about: not homo sex, not hetero sex, but sex—and in what context and by whom it may be engaged in from a Christian point of view.

http://www.crosswalk.com/church/pastors-or-leadership/how-i-wish-the-homosexuality-debate-would-go.html?utm_source=Crosswalk_Pastors_Resources&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10/21/2011

Confession Making A Comeback?

2011-10-12T06:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/features/27003-confessions-of-our-generation

What If We Reviewed Church Services?

2011-09-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

What if people wrote reviews of church services just like they do of movies or concerts or books? Might be interesting. How would one do that?

I’ve engaged on a little project which will occupy me the next 8 weeks or so: visiting various churches in the Greenville (SC) area. There are a couple of reasons for that.

Not the least of those reasons is our tendency, pastors especially, to talk about other churches, sometimes in a derogatory way or, at the most gentle, kind of make fun of them because of either what they believe (or what we think they believe) or how they worship (I must confess my own sins on this one).

I still don’t know how that reviewing thing would go, though. Would one simply report: “this is what the preacher said” or “this is what the worship experience was like.” Would be pretty easy to do the former; I’m inclined to think ruling out one’s own aesthetic tastes for the latter would be difficult.

For example, I visited a local Lutheran church this past Sunday. Beautiful sanctuary. Great music (pipe organ and choir). Good, meaningful homily. I really was participating internally and externally in the worship, especially in the Eucharist.

Would that work as a review? Is there too much of “me” in that review? My friend Paul, who’s the Arts Writer for the local paper, would probably do a much better job.

It occurred to me, however, as I thought about this probably silly notion of reviewing churches that there are (1) some pastors out there don't have an ego that would be able to handle being reviewed (though I know many who do) and (2) we seem to lack, at least in some Protestant circles, a good theology of worship, particularly of what its foundation is (R.C. Sproul is good here, especially in terms of God's holiness).

My friends who follow the “regulative principle” when it comes to worship have a point — just not so sure they live that out in the only possible way. And, sadly, they are the ones who seem — operative word there being “seem” — to play down the Sacrament part while really doing a good job on the Word part.

Who knows? Anyway, I’m looking forward for the next few weeks to worshipping in various churches. I’ll probably even go to our local “praise band” styled megachurch (aka, NewSpring), too. What I hope to take away from this project is a greater understanding of and appreciation for how good and faithful people, folks who are committed to a historic, orthodox understanding of the gospel, worship in a communal way (even though my own personal, and hopefully theologically informed, preference is for all those smells and bells, for Word and Sacrament to both be there, for a tradition that can be traced way back to the ancient Church).

Does "Hate Crime" Legislation Really Work? Interesting Article...

2011-09-18T13:18:00.000-07:00

I've never been much of a believer in "hate crime" legislation. I've always thought it served simply as a way of scoring political points. This piece highlights one of the many reasons I've not been supportive of such laws: they simply do not do anything to prevent violence against others based on some notion of just not liking them.

http://www.truth-out.org/beyond-hate-crime-legislation-addressing-violence-and-promoting-safety-transgender-people-us/1315945

Ultimately, as a Christian, I understand quite well why people do in fact attack others that they simply don't like — it's called rebellion against the Creator (aka, sin) and I understand that no amount of legislation is going to change the human heart. Only a sovereign, loving God who acts in space and time can do that.

One Christian's Reflection on 9-11

2011-09-11T20:25:00.000-07:00

Today was the day, the 10th anniversary of a coordinated attack in the United States — in New York, Washington and over the skies of Pennsylvania — which claimed more than 3000 lives, lives of people who represented more than 90 countries. It was much more than an attack on the U.S.; it was an attack on the world.

In the decade since that September morning 2001, thousands more — military and civilians — have been killed as a direct result of that act on that September morning back in 2001, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As I was driving to morning worship, I began noticing the signs at various congregations I passed on the way. Typically they read something like, “Patriotic Service Today.” It was different at my own little Lutheran church. The pastor didn’t want the choir leading us in the national anthem in the church, so we gathered outside and sang it a cappella.

I was sitting in my mother’s bedroom when the attack occurred. She was pretty much bed-bound by that time, so we often watched TV together in there, as we were doing that morning. Having lived through Pearl Harbor and WW2, she simply looked at me and asked, “Davy, are we at war again?” I told her I didn’t know.

Tomorrow I’ll be leading an Observance of Prayer and Reflection at the hospital in which I serve as a chaplain. Other chaplains will be joining me in that. We’re inviting anyone who’s in the building and can and wants to, to join us.

I say all of this if for no other reason that one would have to be living under the proverbial rock to not know what was on pretty much everyone’s mind this weekend.

What I offer here is simply the reflection of a particular Christian. It arises out of my understanding of the teaching of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures (aka, the Bible) and the Church’s understanding of that teaching as it has been understood down through the ages.

I have chosen not to embroil myself in the debates that surround that day; things like did the U.S. bring this on itself by its own imperial actions around the world; or was Islam as a religion in and of itself to blame; or were the ensuing wars (although never declared) justified?

For me, the events of that day — although by no means the most extreme example either in recent history of ancient history — illustrate once again the seemingly inexhaustible capacity of the human species for doing evil. Yeah, then President Bush was made fun of by some because of his use of the phrase “evil doers” but the bald, undeniable fact of the matter is, we are capable of, and often do, profound evil.

Novelist Joseph Conrad summed it up from one point of view when he wrote, “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary: men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”

The prophet Jeremiah put it this way: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?”

For me as a Christian, I find a very clear explanation of why we are broken, why we are sick; an explanation of why we, throughout our history, have found it so easy to engage in horrific evil; a clear explanation of the evil that men do: we are creatures in rebellion against the God who created us.

This is the irreducible reason for 9-11, and for every other evil we do: we would rather worship and serve ourselves rather than the God who created us. We have sought to make ourselves the final standard by which all should be judged. We would live on our own terms rather than those set forth by our Maker. Of course doing so makes sense if we live in a universe where the ultimate truth is no more than time plus chance, if we begin with a view of things that is, as Francis A. Schaeffer described it, "based on the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its present form by impersonal chance."

The biblical language for this rebellion is sin. We could also call it mutiny; in fact, the ultimate mutiny.

Sin has fallen out of favor in some circles. Or at least it has been reduced to only some notion of corporate misguidedness, “societal sin” it is sometimes called. But that doesn’t really explain our propensity to do evil to one another. One cannot separate “societal” evildoing from “individual” evildoing. Sin is not some vague force in the world; it is the very real rebellion/mutiny in which humankind is engaged, collectively and individually. It is, as Paul wrote, “worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”

In that sense, Conrad is exactly correct in his assessment.

Sex, Heresy & the ELCA (and PCUSA and Episcopal Church)

2011-08-31T07:48:00.000-07:00

I sometimes wonder if my brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), who have formed informal groups like the Orthodox Lutherans here in my own Synod of South Carolina and with whom I walk side by side theologically, have latched onto the whole “gay ordination” thing because they unconsciously or consciously realize that the exercise of church discipline, when it comes to core theological beliefs as historically defined by the great ecumenical Creeds and particular Confessions of the Church (such as Augsburg, Westminster, 39 Articles), is pretty much impossible these days.

I could say the same of similar folks, again with whom I walk side by side theologically, in the Presbyterian Church, USA (PCSUA) and The Episcopal Church (TEC).

In all three cases, some “conservatives” (or evangelicals, or whatever word we want to use to describe those of us who hold to core traditional, apostolic Christian beliefs as verbalized in those Creeds and Confessions) have opted to make the whole “gay” thing their primary bone of contention and attempt to draw a straight line (no pun intended) from a particular view of Christian sexual ethics to a rejection, say, of the authority of Scripture. I don’t think you can really do that, but no one seems to want to talk about that.

There seems to me to be room in orthodox Christianity for a divergence of views when it comes to trying to understand what a biblically informed ethic of sexual behavior might look like. But back to my main thought here — the inability of any of those three mainline Protestant denominations to exercise what might properly be called church discipline when it comes to basic, core theological outlook.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

The response of The Episcopal Church in the matter of James Pike back in the early and mid-1960s is instructive. Put simply, Pike, who served as dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC and as Bishop of California, had some problems with core theological beliefs which the Church has long held regarding the person and work of Christ, the nature of sin, the Trinity, et al.

The Episcopal Church, rather than discipline Pike, expanded its notions of theological freedom so that folks with understandings like Pike’s could fit under the big tent.

This is exactly what these three denominations have done. They have continually expanded the tent over and over again to accommodate more and more divergent theological views to the point where in any given Synod or Presbytery or Diocese one can find those who represent theological stances which have very little resemblance to historical, orthodox, apostolic Christianity as it came to be understood in the first few centuries of the Church’s existence along with those who still profess a commitment to that understanding of Christian faith. The tent, for these three denominations, is reaching Unitarian Universalist proportions where we pray, as the joke goes, “to whom it may concern.”

It’s not that different words are used — they are all still there: God, Christ, justification, redemption, creation, fall/sin, et al — but the meanings are, very often, opposites and mutually exclusive.

And so, I’m inclined to think, that some of us who still remain faithful to the historically understood teachings of Scripture, knowing that the tent is now so big that we can’t possibly expect any exercise of church discipline when it comes to theological commitments, have retreated to sexual ethics and have been attempting to draw the line in the sand there. Folks are leaving the ELCA in significant numbers, many in the PCUSA are contemplating some form of disengagement from the denomination, TEC has seen a multitude of defections: all because of, allegedly, a move to ordain folks who don’t live up to a certain view of Christian sexual ethics.

In 2001, the Reverend Don Stroud, a minister in the PCUSA, was accused of heresy. He wasn’t charged with this because he believed, for example, in a Borgian-Crossan type of metaphorical resurrection. He was charged because he self-identified as “gay.” In my own ELCA Synod of South Carolina there is that informal group self-titled “Orthodox Lutherans.” I could easily be a member of that group if.... if I held the same view of sexual ethics that they do.

We have, it seems, replaced such questions as, Do you believe in the historical, physical resurrection of Jesus? with questions like, Who can have sex with whom and in what context?

And both sides of the debate, when it comes to that latter question, operate on the assumption, it seems, that is faulty: that there is an immutable, ontological reality known as sexual identity/orientation rather than seeing it for the social construction it really is.

We have, essentially and in practice, replaced such theological loci as Christology and Soteriology and Anthropology with the ethics of sexual behavior as the standard of orthodoxy — and that saddens me on two fronts.

First, it saddens me in that it speaks to the apparent impossibility of any of those three denominations (ELCA, PCUSA, TEC) to maintain standards of theological orthodoxy through the proper exercise of ecclesiastical discipline.

But second, it saddens me that those of us who would see ourselves as being faithful to the Gospel, to the Scriptures and apostolic witness, and to our Lord, have retreated from defending the essential core commitments of true Christianity to sexual ethics for drawing a line in the sand.

Should Churches Be Allowed To Die?

2011-08-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

Sitting in a palliative care team meeting today at the hospital I began thinking of possible parallels between that context and the context of churches (both local churches and denominations - not the Church Catholic/Universal).

Is it sometimes desirable to move into a palliative care mode with local churches or denominations? If so, what might be transferable from the context of "medical palliative care" to "spiritual palliative care" contexts? Can we construct a definition of "spiritual palliative care" that draws from the medical context?

Here's a fair definition of medical palliative care —

any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing severity of disease symptoms rather than trying to halt, delay or reduce the natural progression of the disease OR provide a cure

On Studying the Work of Francis A. Schaeffer

2011-08-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

I was heavily influenced by the late Francis A. Schaeffer in my college years — and still am today. While I don't necessarily agree with everything he wrote or said (and only a non-thinking person would agree with EVERYTHING a theologian/philosopher writes or says), I still value very much his voice and am grateful for this site's promotion of his work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSy5VuWz-yY&feature=youtu.be

Passing Through Kingstree

2011-08-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

I’ve just returned from a week at the beach; Litchfield Beach (SC) to be exact. I make that journey each year and, when I’m coming back to Greenville, I invariably go through Kingstree, SC. It's not the fastest route, but I have to go there. I do so to eat the very best BBQ in the world and for another reason as well.

A small community about 7 miles north of Kingstree, the Mouzon Community, is the locale of my entry into parish ministry. In 1979, I was called to be the pastor of two rural churches, the Bethel and the Mouzon Presbyterian churches (the Bethel Church is now closed, the result of an aging, and dying, congregation). The Mouzon Church is still there.

When I stop, I always walk through the graveyard behind the church to visit the graves of folks I knew, and to see if any have appeared during the year since my last visit.

This always brings a flood of memories back to me.

I left that community, and those churches, back in 1982. This coming January will mark the 30th anniversary of my departure. I did so for a particular reason: my wife at the time and I divorced and divorce was severely frowned upon by the denomination of which I was a member at the time.

As I think about that time, I am sometimes overwhelmed with a sense of the hurt that I caused others: church members, friends, ministerial colleagues — not to mention my family, my wife and children.

A friend of mine used to be fond of quoting (or at least she attributed the quote, correctly or not) the Yankee scourge, Gen. William T. Sherman. The quotation was something like this: “I choose to regret nothing.”

I find myself more in line with Frank Sinatra on this count: “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.”

I know, deep in my soul, I caused not a small amount of heartache and sorrow and grief — for those who did nothing to deserve it. It took me a long time to get past that, to forgive myself to the point where I can, with ol’ Blue Eyes, say, yeah, but that was so very long ago.

I have never formally apologized to my ex-wife; I think I might need to do that. But I have to my children and urged them to learn from my mistakes and now enjoy restored, satisfying relationships with them and, through them, with my grandchildren.

I have confessed my sin to God and am confident of his forgiveness through Christ. And I’ve reconnected with a number of folks, including members of that community and former ministerial colleagues, from that time 30 years ago. For that I am filled with gratitude.

We can never go back and undo the hurtful things we do. I often consider times past in the framework of words penned by my favorite poet, James Dickey, who wrote this line in his great poem, Cherrylog Road:

"Drunk on the wind in my mouth, Wringing the handlebar for speed, Wild to be wreckage forever."

I look upon that time in my life as wreckage, a trail of wreckage left behind me in the form of hurt lives. I’m glad God does not. I’d like to think God looks on that time as one of instruction, of teaching me what is passing fancy and what is foundational and genuinely important in life.

A Roman Priest, an Episcopal Priest, and a former Presbyterian Minister-now Lutheran Walk Into A Bar.....

2011-08-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

A Roman priest, an Episcopal priest, and a former Presbyterian minister-now Lutheran sit down for lunch. The food is delicious, the conversation fun and edifying.

There are real and recognized differences between us when it comes to those matters of theology commonly referred to as adiaphora. None of those differences are, however, insurmountable.

What’s more important is that which binds the three of us together: we are one in Christ; our understanding of Christ and of God’s involvement with humankind is contained in the three great ecumenical creeds. We do indeed profess one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

I enjoy those lunches because they give expression to that which I’ve found to be so true in my own life and thought. Where I am now in my understanding of Christian faith is the convergence of four distinct but related streams.

There is so much I have come to appreciate and have appropriated from the Roman Catholic understanding and practice of our common faith. There is also much I have come to appreciate and have appropriated from an Anglican understanding and practice of Christian faith. And of course, I cannot escape, nor do I want to escape, the Reformed tradition in which I was raised and educated. All three have informed my own faith and practice. Then there is a fourth stream contributing to this: the approach to living out Christian faith which I learned from my professors and fellow students at Columbia International University — what may, at least for now given the changing nature of definitions, be called an “evangelical” tradition.

I don’t see the need to jettison one tradition simply to gain from the other. I value all four. I call it a polyphonic theology.

But more than that, such a lunch reminds me that perhaps the greatest scandal of our faith, perhaps the greatest impediment to our communicating the gospel of our Lord (the content of which which we all agree upon) to the "watching world" (to borrow a phrase from the late Francis Schaeffer), is our utter failure — since 1054 CE — to manifest visibly the unity which to exist between disciples.

Surely, when Jesus prayed that we would be one, included in that notion was more than a simple “spiritual” invisible unity. After all, that unity for which he prayed was to be a visible witness to the Father having sent the Son.

Sam Patterson, who served as president of Reformed Theological Seminary while I was a student there, lived during the Presbyterian division of the late 1960s and early 1970s which eventually gave birth to the Presbyterian Church in America. Sam, as did one of my good friends, mentors and teachers, Al Freundt, never left the larger denomination, now the PCUSA. They gave themselves over trying to convince others to remain as well and work for reformation of the Church from within.

Sam was fond of saying: “Luther said, ‘Here I stand,’ not ‘Here I split.’”

The Church of Luther’s time was corrupt, very much so. There are those today who would argue the same about, for example, the PCUSA, The Episcopal Church, or my own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I can see why one would want to argue thus, though I don't think any of those denominations have quite yet reached the level of internal corruption that Luther was dealing with.

While there are those within all three of these denominations who do, in fact, by word and action, deny the essential core commitments of biblically informed Christian faith (as expressed in the great ecumenical creeds), none of those denominations has, as of yet, “officially” renounced any of those commitments (though the PCUSA sometimes seems to want to at least make room for such a renunciation by adding more and more confessional documents to its Constitution — but it still hasn’t).

So here's the big question: At what point do we declare a visible manifestation of the Church to be so corrupt, so “apostate” that we can justify rending yet again “the seamless robe of Christ?”

Do, for example, differences in understanding when it comes to a biblically informed sexual ethic constitute such a justification? Some fellow Chrisitans in the Episcopal Church have thought so. Some of my friends in my own ELCA have thought so. Some folks I know in the PCUSA seem to think so.

The pivotal matter, for them, is the ordination of people who are engaging in sexual activity without the surrounding context of marriage (one man-one woman). That, for them, constitutes a falling away from the core commitments of Christian faith and practice so severe that it requires separation, rending the body of Christ yet again.

I just can't see that right now. And I don’t think it is as easy, as some think it to be, to draw a straight line from a difference in understanding of sexual ethics to a repudiation of either Scripture as normative or, even more difficult, to a renunciation of those essential beliefs of apostolic Christians found in, say, the Nicene Creed. I don't see how a difference in understanding when it comes to sexual ethics is as fundamental as, say, one's Christology or soteriology. The Scripture is very clear when it comes to the latter; maybe not so much when it comes to the former. And holding a differing sexual ethic does not necessarily mean holding a different or lesser view of the authority of Scripture.

A Roman priest, an Episcopal priest and a former Presbyterian minister-now Lutheran walk into a bar.... and they enjoy each other’s company thoroughly and gather in the name of the one who gave each of them new life, even Jesus the Christ.

Navigating the Waters of "Gay Marriage" — Why I Can't Go There

2011-08-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

I am finding that the only way I can navigate the whole “gay marriage” thing is to implement a very clear separation of church and state. Doing so, I can support the state’s recognition, for a variety of reasons, of same-gender couples. Also, doing so, I can say — much to the disappointment and perhaps anger or dismissal by some of my acquaintances who self-identify as gay or lesbian — that I’m not convinced regarding “gay marriage” as far as the Church is concerned. This is not a logical, well-honed argument but simply the putting down of my thoughts at the current time. And let me say at the outset, I much prefer the term "same-gender" marriage for reasons mentioned in the postscript.

Not the least of those reasons my my unwillingness to join in the chorus calling for same-gender marriage is the real definition of ‘marriage’ offered by the state.

Typically, a ‘marriage’ as far as the state is concerned is the simple, and recorded by the court, recognition of a contract between two consenting parties - who meet various criteria such as age and, in many cases, gender - and that said contract impacts things like inheritance, child custody and property rights. When these contracts are approved of by the state, then the couple is ‘married’ or at least has the benefit of a civil union. Those benefits, for same-gender couples, are greatly restricted because of the existence of certain federal laws.

Actually, when all is said and done, the use of the word “marriage” by the state brings with it a lot of confusion for me in our contemporary situation. I’m inclined to think that we really operate with two marriages: 1) the contract approved of and, in some cases, dissolved by, the state; and 2) the ceremony by which the Church invokes the blessing of God on two people who have joined their lives together.

Further confusion arises out of the fact that, for example in my state of South Carolina, the Christian minister or Jewish rabbi officiating at a “wedding” are, in fact, operating at one point as a religious figure and at another point (typically the end of the ceremony) as an agent of the state (that whole, ‘by virtue of the authority granted to me by the state of South Carolina’ thing). They are, in fact, "notarizing" the contract.

And I have to remember that when it comes to dissolving that contract (to wit, divorce) I, as a minister of the gospel, am not consulted. It is an act of the state and has real effect whether or not the Church recognizes it. It is the same with the entering into of that contract. No recognition by the Church, or any religious body, is required for the state to establish a “marriage,” therefore I’m inclined to think that religious definitions of marriage should have no place in civil law.

I can find no justifiable reason, given our fundamental commitments to the principles expressed in the U.S. Constitution, to withhold that legal recognition of a contract entered into by two consenting adults, regardless of any secondary characteristic: i.e., race or gender. If two people of the same gender want to enter into such a contract, they should be allowed to do so and to incur both the responsibilities and benefits of such a contract.

It is a different matter, however, in my mind when it comes to the Church invoking the blessing of God on a couple as they begin a life together. The problem comes when these two (state and Church) are confused (as they have been to one degree or another since the Constantinian project).

So what’s the Church to do? Is it a matter of “justice” when it comes to the Church invoking the blessing of God on a union of two people? What exactly is going on?

In my denomination — the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — the discernment process took a decidedly different direction with “the vote” which opened the door for self-identified gay and lesbian folks who were in committed, monogamous and publicly accountable relationships to be ordained as pastors.

But the ELCA, as I understand it, has yet to establish “gay marriage” as a Church-approved thing. Now some ELCA pastors (I know of one at least in my own synod of South Carolina) have indeed performed, or plan to perform “gay marriages” or bless established civil unions or bless the renewal of "wedding vows" taken in other jurisdictions. But as of yet, such a thing really doesn’t exist in the ELCA. As a friend who is an ELCA pastor expressed it to me: “There is no right, when there is no rite.” I kinda like that. He’s correct. When there is no liturgy in place for a “gay marriage,” when there is no Church-approved rite, then it’s probably not "right" for an ELCA pastor to do such.

Where the ELCA is right now, as I understand it, is that it is looking for ways “to allow congregations that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable, life-long, monogamous same-gender relationships.”

That’s not the same thing as approving “gay marriage,” not at all. And it would be inaccurate to say that the ELCA has approved “gay marriage.” It has not. In fact, as best I understand, the ELCA is reserving the terms “marry” or “marriage” or “married” for male-female couples only (see the newly revised Visions and Expectations for Ordained Ministers in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, endnote 2).

ELCA defines those terms in what seems to be the best way possible given the current situation (again, see the current Vision and Expectations document, endnote 4):

“Lifelong” is taken to mean that the same-gender couple intends the relationship to last ‘till death do us part.’

“Momogamous” is understood as meaning that the couple will engage in sexual activity only within the confines of their relationship and only with each other.

“Publicly accountable” is the more nebulous of the terms and a bit more difficult to nail down. Inasmuch as there is no legal/civil recognition of the relationship in many jurisdictions, the Church looks for other indicators including, but not limited to, open acknowledgement of the relationship, especially within the congregation of which one or both are members; tangible indicators of the relationship; and a willingness to “seek and accept the aid of individuals and community in sustaining the relationship...”

“Marriage,” it seems to me, as far as the Church is concerned, is something different from simply the establishing of a mutually agreed upon and beneficial contract. For the Church that is faithful to Christ and the informative and normative place of Scripture, and which takes into account the traditions of the ancient and developed Church, then “marriage” is much, much more than a simple contract. It is a meaning-filled thing with highly symbolic value presented in Scripture (i.e., Christ and the Church, God and Israel, etc.).

It Really Is All About the Sex. A case in point.

The Bible is replete with examples of same-gender, intensely intimate friendships and, dare I say, loves. Surely the clearest of these is David and Jonathan. There are those who want to make those two out to be homosexual lovers. That, to me, is simply reading way, way to much into the text.

But no one would doubt the love between those two men. It was a love so deep and so real and so intense that it prompted that incredible lament of David upon hearing of the death of Jonathan. Those two guys loved each other as much as my mother and father ever did. I have no doubt about that and I don’t see how anyone could deny that.

However, that’s a far cry from saying David and Jonathan engaged in sexual activity with each other.

Among all of my aunts and uncles there were two aunts who served all of their adult lives as Baptist missionaries. Neither ever married but each of them established a deep, abiding, intense love for another woman with whom they shared their lives. You always referred to them as you would refer to any couple. They shared living quarters, vacations, family reunions. They were as much of a couple with their companions as were my mom and dad. They were, both of them, in what we would term today same-gender loving relationships. But...!

There is no reason whatsoever to think that those particular relationships had a sexual component. None at all. And those relationships were acknowledged and supported by the Church. There is absolutely no compelling reason to think David and Jonathan ever had sex with each other (David seemed to be more attracted sexually to married women).

What the Church — at least the ELCA — is struggling with is when you add a sexual component to the relationship. We’ll come back to that.

For now, I think the ELCA has done the right thing in reserving the term “marriage” (as far as the Church is concerned) for opposite gender couples. I am with them on that. That is the biblical model (I don’t see how one could argue otherwise, since the biblical texts knew nothing of same-gender sexual relationships as we understand them today) and is attested to by the history of the Church. Marriage, from a Christian point of view and whether or not it is state-sanctioned or not, is portrayed as the joining together in emotional, psychological and physical terms, of a male and a female. And that union is held out as an image of the relationship between God and his people, between Christ and the Church.

I'm inclined to think that my Roman Catholic Christian friends are on to something (and please correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding) that "holy matrimony" or marriage is, de facto, something God does in bringing two people, a male and a female, together for a specific purpose, and the Church simply recognizes it. I'm not ready to call it a Sacrament, but I think they are on to something.

If we can keep distinct not only the division between state and church when it comes to our discussions of the Church’s approach to same-gender couples, but also keep also keep distinct the terms “marriage” and “unions” then I am inclined to think we will eventually be driven to a discussion of sexual ethics.

That, to me, is the foundational discussion to have. Remember my two aunts? The Church had no problem with those relationships, those same-gender loving relationships.

The problem would have come when the discussion turned to sex — just as it does today.

At the heart of the matter in this confused and murky discussion of the Church’s view of and response to “gay marriage” is the question of what context is there in which sexual activity may be approved of and blessed by the Church?

At this point, that is what the ELCA is truly struggling with: can the Church bless the sexual activity of two men or two women in the context of a monogamous, publicly accountable, life-long relationship? The ELCA has already answered in the affirmative inasmuch as folks in such relationships, who are presumably having sex with each other at least occasionally, may be ordained to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. It is not ready, however, to call those relationships “marriages” — and neither am I.

PS: Another fundamental reason for my opposition to “gay marriage” is because I really don’t believe in “gay” anything. “Gay” doesn’t describe an ontological reality any more than “straight” does; rather, it is simply a socially constructed thing which tries to categorize certain desires and behaviors. I prefer the term: "same-gender" marriage. But that’s for another discussion.

Church or Not? That Is the Question.

2011-08-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

I found this article thought provoking. Perhaps you might as well.

http://theaquilareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5137:our-collapsing-ecclesiology&catid=79:commentary&Itemid=137

The Lord's Supper: Apparently It's Not Just For Christians Anymore

2011-07-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

I been trying to deepen my understanding of all things Lutheran lately. I was taught well in seminary all the “original” stuff: Luther, Melancthon, the Reformation, etc. But what I’ve been looking at recently are contemporary expressions of Lutheran Christian faith.

There is an observable trend — a trend that has been developing now, apparently, for some time — in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, paralleled by a similar trend in mainline Protestant denominations, such as The Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church USA, which has to do with the practices involved in Holy Communion, or the Eucharist.

Specifically, I’ve become aware of what seems to be a growing division in practice, as opposed to what is the stated, published viewpoint of the denomination. Some priests/pastors/churches are inviting non-baptized, non-professing persons (i.e., non-Christians) to participate, to receive the elements of bread and wine during the Communion. I'm not talking about inadvertently serving the bread and wine to a non-Christian person, neither am I talking about the justifiable practice of serving communion to professing, baptized Christians of other denominations, but about the practice of almost going out of one's way to tell any non-Christians attending the worship that they, too, without having to profess faith in Christ, may come to the table to receive Christ's body and blood.

This exploration has brought up memories of my own childhood. At that time, in the then PCUS, only those who had confirmed their baptism were allowed to receive the elements. At one time in their history, Presbyterians, and others, practiced what was called "fencing the table" which required not only self-examination by examination by church leaders to determine whether or not one should partake. While I don't agree with either of those approaches, at least they indicated a very serious understanding of what the Lord's Supper was and of the teaching of the Apostles and Church Fathers.

Let me say up front, as I have looked at this phenomenon and sought out explanations from individuals and in the literature, I can find no sustainable, biblical-theological justification for such a practice — not to mention that it flies in the face of established and accepted church teaching. I would welcome a well-thought out, exegetical, historical biblical-theological defense of such a practice (as opposed to simply throwing slogans and opinions about).

Given that, I’ve sought to understand why it is that some priests/pastors/churches would choose to so flagrantly and openly go against the teaching of their own denominations in this regard. For example, one of my friends, an ELCA pastor, reminded me of this statement from the ELCA’s “The Use of the Means of Grace” —

“Admission to the Sacrament is by invitation of the Lord, presented through the Church to those who are baptized... When an unbaptized person comes to the table seeking Christ’s presence and is inadvertently communed, neither that person nor the ministers of Communion need be ashamed. Rather, Christ’s gift of love and mercy to all is praised. That person is invited to learn the faith of the Church, be baptized and thereafter receive Holy Communion.”

This is where I am currently in trying to understand this, aside from the discussion of whether or not a given priest/pastor is upholding their ordination vows or not (that’s for another discussion).

Some seem to want to turn the “meal of the baptized” into just an evangelistic tool. As the pastor of the ELCA church wrote recently: “It is better to go from the table to the font for being welcomed than to go from the table to the door for being denied.”

She also wrote: “It’s a family meal (the Eucharist, Holy Communion) that allows guests—those who do not have the same last name. We do it all the time. It’s called hospitality with transforming power.”

The thought there, especially in this last statement, seems to be that if we invite non-Christians to the table, then by virtue of our being nice to them and inviting them, this expression of “hospitality” will somehow effect a conversion in them. That seems to me to be viewing the Eucharist as simply an evangelistic tool rather than what it has for 2000 years been viewed as by the church (beginning with its institution by Christ and its explanation by the Apostle Paul) — a meal in which ideally only disciples of Christ take part.

This pastor also wrote: “They [non-Christians, I assume, coming to the Table] are searching...how could we deny them?” In addition to redefining the Eucharist as simply an evangelistic tool, that seems to me to fly in the face of Paul’s clear teaching, reflecting that of the rest of Scripture, that unregenerate humans are not searching for God at all, at least not the God who is there, the God who is self-revealed in Jesus Christ and the scriptures, but rather are rebelling against God (see his letter to the Roman Christians).

This pastor typically says at the end of the Eucharistic prayer something to this effect: "This is Christ's table and he invites all to come to it to be nourished."

In a sense, and on the surface, that is true enough. But... the invitation of Christ is, according to the scripture and apostolic teaching, to faith and repentance, to an appropriation of him as Lord and Savior, as Messiah. So yes, one could say that Christ invites all to the table, but the route to the table is through faith and repentance. In other words, to be true to the scriptures and to apostolic teaching, the font (read: faith and repentance, a profession of biblical faith) must precede the table.

Another friend wrote: “Open communion. It’s what Jesus would (and did) do.” I'm not sure I can find that in the gospel records of the institution of the meal or Paul's explanation of it.

It seems to me, after listening to others and reading others, that the desire to engage in the practice of inviting all, Christian and non-Christian alike, to receive the elements of bread and wine during Holy Communion, arises out of something other than an effort to clearly understand the teaching of Scripture and the Church. It arises out of an understandable sense of not wanting to be perceived by the world as exclusive and is “baptized” under the rubric of being hospitable, of being welcoming or just plain nice.

That seems to indicate a blurring of lines, to me, between the Church and the world, and I see it in a lot of discussion, especially among my more “progressive” friends. It is taking those statements which were originally made just to the church, the community of believers, and applying them to all of humanity, the world around us.

This is an underlying, deeper problem. The gospel, by its very nature, is both exclusionary and inclusive.

It is inclusive in that no barriers should be erected (in Paul’s day, the barrier of Jew/Gentile, for example) between the invitation to come to Christ in faith and the hearers of that proclamation. That is crystal clear throughout the New Testament.

It is exclusive in that those who have come to Christ in faith form a distinct, separate, alternative, exclusive community (i.e., those who have not come to Christ in faith are not a part of it). In fact, one can argue very convincingly that those who have not come to Christ in faith are, in fact, by nature, antagonistic (usually in very subtle ways) toward the community.

This growing practice is also indicative, to me, of replacing the clear teaching of scripture and accepted practice of the historic, apostolic Church with an autonomous human mind (i.e., a very subtle worshipping and serving of the creature rather than the Creator). It subjects theological understanding to cultural and social trends and political correctness rather than the Word of God (personified in Jesus and attested to in scripture).

It also seems to me that this move to “really-open, open communion” requires a dramatic shift in understanding just exactly what Holy Communion is, what is its sacramental nature and how it is a means of grace. It seems to me that to make the jump from “meal of the baptized” to “a meal where anyone, regardless of faith, may come” requires adopting a view of the supper that even Zwingli would recoil from. It removes all ontological reality from the supper; it removes all real meaning from the supper; and plunges the sacraments into a very postmodern vat of goo. And we have to remember, whatever we say of Holy Communion, we might have to, it seems, in some way, say, too, of Baptism. If Holy Communion is only an “evangelistic” tool in the sense that participating in it might bring others to adopt a Christian way of living (again, self-defined), then why not break out the hoses and wash people down as they walk by the church, too, in hopes that by being drenched they, too, might come to faith in Christ?

The downside of all of this shifting from what has been the practice of the Church for 2000 years to the warm, fuzzy niceness of "dont want to offend anyone Christianity" is that, if one looks seriously at all of the sociological data, it will simply further the decline of mainline Protestant denominations. It is self-destructive behavior.

Sam Patterson's "Vow of Poverty"

2011-07-21T08:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading a book titled How Big Is Your God? which is the biography of Sam Patterson. It is written by a classmate of mine from seminary, Rebecca Barnes Hobbs.

Outside of Presbyterian circles, particularly outside of the world of Reformed Theological Seminary, my alma mater, Sam is not that well known. He was President of RTS when I was a student there in the late 1970s.

Beyond the insights into all the political turmoil that was RTS in those days (like firing one professor because he was perceived to be too conservative and another because he was perceived to be too liberal), two things above all in the book, and in Sam’s life, impressed me. And shamed me, too.

The first was Sam’s commitment to the visible unity of the Church — in his case, the visible unity of the then Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (now PCUSA). After his retirement,

“...Sam continued to work tirelessly to keep churches from pulling out of the PCUS...In April, 1982, he partnered with the late Albert Freundt [a dear friend and former professor of mine - drg] to write ‘A Call to PCUS Conservatives,’ a letter sent by Covenant Fellowship to over 200 PCUS ministers who were graduates of evangelical non-PCUS seminaries.”

In that letter, Sam and Al wrote:

"Brothers in Christ, let us make every effort to maintain the true and faithful witness, without rending the Church of Christ through our activity or initiative. There are enough problems in the PCUS without our adding to them. Let us contribute to the healing of the Church, not to its demise or dismemberment."

I put this quotation in not to contribute to the debate regarding when it is right and proper to divorce oneself from a visible manifestation of the Church (i.e., when does a church cease to be the Church), but simply to show the heart of these two men.

This was not a political stance nor of power-grabbing for Sam, neither was it for Al. Both men were convinced of the truth of Martin Luther’s stance. Sam is quoted as saying, “Luther said ‘Here I Stand,’ not ‘Here I Split.’” It was a heart-felt conviction. I fear that in these days, both in the PCUSA and in my own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), politics and power often overrule heartfelt conviction.

More than this, however, was Sam’s virtual vow of poverty. Hence, the shame.

When he died, he had $87 in his checking account. He had been living in a small, rough cabin in his beloved French Camp, Mississippi with an income that consisted only of his Social Security and what he might be paid for preaching engagements. He sustained his life largely via the kindness of friends and supporters.

In a sermon titled “The Disciples and Possessions,” he wrote this:

“Luke, in his development of discipleship, makes it very clear that the living out of one’s discipleship will probably be most evident in our relationship to possessions. Therefore, I will not preach on Luke 14:33 (So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.) I’m frightened by it! I don’t understand the depth of it! What does Jesus want me to do? Whatever it means, I know I haven’t done it, and I’ve never met a Christian who really tried... the world will be more affected by that message [the preaching of the gospel - drg] when we demonstrate the teachings of Jesus Christ regarding our property. Jesus doesn’t encourage saving or spending. He encourages giving and sharing.”

‘Nough said.

Is Knowing the Bible Important? The Pastor/Teacher's Job

2011-07-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

In a conversation with my good friend and classmate from Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson, MS), Jay Coker (pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Fayetteville, NC), we brought up the subject which, it cannot be denied, is one of the plagues currently visited on the Church in the U.S. Specifically, for our purposes, the Protestant manifestation of the Church. That plague is the deplorable level of biblical literacy.

Numerous studies have been undertaken and multiple polls taken which bear this out. When it comes to a workable knowledge of the Hebrew and Christian holy writings, Christians in the U.S. (at least) are woefully — and, I would add, dangerously — ignorant. While self-identified evangelical Christians, though perhaps knowing a bit more than their moderate/mainline/liberal counterparts, are not where they should be in this regard.

Jay and I also talked about church growth a good bit. During the tenure of his pastorate in Fayetteville, he has seen a dying, downtown, tall steeple church revitalized. The church has grown not only numerically, but also in the level of its discipleship and commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He attributes that, in part, to solid, thorough Bible study. I say in part because he and I and you all know that growth is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of people.

Eventually the conversation turned to what we both agreed was the again deplorable level of biblical literacy — among pastors/ministers/teachers. You know, those people who are charged with teaching and preaching the Scriptures to the Church.

Among the many, varied reasons for the decline of mainstream denominational groups, like Jay’s own PCUSA or my own ELCA, at least one factor has to be this: that men and women who are being schooled to be pastors/ministers in Christ’s Church are not coming to those positions with any great knowledge of the Bible, particularly in the language of the people.

So I decided to take a peek at assorted seminary curricula to see, put plainly, how much Bible is taught.

I arrived at Reformed Theological Seminary in 1976 (and quickly became friends with Jay). I had an advantage, I’ll admit it. I had graduated from a school which made a point of teaching a comprehensive biblical content to its students. At the time the school was known as Columbia Bible College (I also spent a year at Covenant College studying philosophy, systematic theology and Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion), and its now known as Columbia International University.

At Columbia I took courses like:

Biblical Studies in Prayer

OT: Genesis - Song of Solomon

OT: Prophetic Books

Biblical Backgrounds

NT: Galatians and Colossians

NT: Life of Christ

NT Greek Grammar

Principles of Biblical Interpretation (hermeneutics)

NT: Romans

NT: Hebrews

Systematic Theology: Soteriology, Christology, Pneumatology

Daniel & Revelation

Systematic Theology: Ecclesiology & Eschatology

Principles of Exegesis

Progress of Redemption (Biblical Theology)

OT: Zechariah

NT: Corinthian Correspondence

This, in addition to a lot of history, philosophy, cultural studies and practical theology. All in all, not a bad background in biblical studies, for which I'm grateful. It put me at a definite advantage, I realize, over those RTS students who had come with a variety of undergraduate degrees like philosophy or psychology or history or math or English or whatever.

RTS, like many conservative seminaries, assumed, I think, that its students would graduate and then spend a lot of time, once in the pastorate, doing work in the original biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek. Therefore, there wasn’t just a whole lot of English Bible taught, and understandably so given that assumption. That’s not to say that English Bible was ignored; it wasn’t. It popped up in Old Testament Biblical Theology and New Testament Biblical Theology courses and in various systematic theology courses. But as a rule I think it safe to say that it was an unwritten assumption that students would continue their studies of the biblical texts in the original languages once they graduated and assumed pastorates.

I’m inclined to think however well-intentioned that assumption was, it was flawed greatly.

However, I am most grateful for what I learned at RTS and even more grateful for the background in English Bible I brought with me to seminary.

A lot of time has passed since then and seminary education, both in independent schools like RTS and in mainline denominational schools has morphed with the times. But Jay and I did agree on this: generally speaking, at least from the historic Presbyterian and Reformed (that would include Lutherans) perspective, people are graduating from seminary with, at best, a modicum of knowledge of the vernacular Bible, or at worst, woefully ignorant of its content.

Darling theologian of self-identified “progressive Christians,” Marcus Borg, in his latest offering, Speaking Christian, wants us to know that “scholarship has made it clear that the Bible is a human product, not a divine one.” (Why it can’t be both, he doesn’t seem to want to discuss. I kind of have a idea, though, of why he won’t allow that possibility.) And he wants to locate any foundation for the authority of the Bible in the lives of Christians solely in the canonization process; that the Bible is authoritative (whatever that might mean) simply because Christians of long ago said it was. “That is why the Bible has authority — not because it was uniquely and directly inspired by God.” This from the Canon Theologian of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon.

The purpose here is not to engage or review Borg’s new book. I mention it, and lift those statements out, simply as reflective of the attitudes which many mainline denominational pastors have toward the Bible; hence, it’s importance for them and, via them, for their parish members is diminished. If the Bible is solely a human product, if it is only historically and culturally conditioned reflections on some religious experience — if those gospel records and all those letters (some written by Paul all scholars would grant) are simply folks trying to put down on paper some meaningful interpretation of their own experience with a man (and only a man) named Jesus, then it really doesn’t make much sense to spend a whole lot of time familiarizing oneself with the texts.

So yes, a general ignorance of the content of the vernacular Bible among not only church members but pastors as well, is the expected outcome of a low view of the Bible which is based on the presupposition of a closed universe in which God cannot become incarnate in any real, ontological, meaningful way and in which God cannot use the medium of human language to reveal himself. The Bible being a divine-human product is no more possible, conceivable or necessary than the second person of the Triune God taking on flesh and dwelling among us (John 1). If a personal-infinite God has not been active in a redemptive way in human history, then why study, why concern oneself with the flow of redemption found in that book we call Bible?

What’s a little more difficult to understand is why Christians who profess to have a much more accurate view of what the Bible really is also are becoming more and more ignorant of its content. I’m not sure where to lay the blame for that, or even if I should. After all, I’m a “fix the problem, not the blame” kind of person.

I do know this: one of the courses I took in undergraduate school was called “Progress of Redemption,” taught by the incredible ‘Buck’ Hatch. Then in seminary I was introduced to Old Testament Biblical Theology and New Testament Biblical Theology. In those courses I was given a comprehensive look at God’s progressive self-revelation culminating in the person and work of Jesus the Christ. I was taught to look at the Bible in this way, among others such as systematic theology. In other courses we examined the various ‘books’ of the Bible from beginning to end to see the flow of each. For those courses I shall always be grateful.

So, maybe part of the reason why we who profess such a ‘high’ view of scripture really don’t know it well is that we don’t like those long, protracted studies. We prefer topical studies: what does the Bible say about this or that contemporary subject? Not that such studies are ‘wrong’ or unnecessary; they are good to do. But without actually studying the Bible as it is, without looking at the complete content, say of Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, we’re still left pretty ignorant.

I’m convinced, based on my 30+ years experience in ‘church life’ now, that a local congregation will not flourish, will not do well in terms of its primary task of making disciples unless it has trained and knowledgeable pastor/teachers who are teaching the members of the church the content of the Bible in their own language (English or Spanish for most of us here in the U.S.).

In Praise of Older Men

2011-07-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, yes, I do often refer to myself as an old man. After all, I'm getting very close to 60. Those men to whom I'm referring here, however, are in their 80's. They are, like my father and my "uncle" Vernon, men who fought in World War II.

Rarely does a week go by when I don't encounter such a man in the course of my duties as a hospital chaplain. Today it was a man who fought in Patton's 3rd Army in Europe, and went on to fight in Korea. He was, at one point, awarded the Silver Star.

The word "hero" is used far to easily these days. Everybody is a hero; which, in fact, means no one is a hero. The word has become meaningless. However, when applied to the "greatest generation" its meaning is full.

One of the most outstanding things I've noticed about these men — it was true of Ray Gillespie and of Vernon Moore — is that they are, or were when alive, possessed of a great humility. They did not consider themselves heroes. But they were. With each one I meet I inevitably close our encounter with a "It was an honor to meet you, sir."

One day, if I keep working as a hospital chaplain long enough, they will all be gone. They will have all finally died off. And that is something that, while unavoidable, nevertheless saddens me greatly.

A "Progressive Christian" Creed?

2011-07-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

The following appeared on the website, Virtueonline.org, and was written by Linda VonBergen.

Though not necessarily applicable to every single person who self-identifies as a "progressive" Christian, the sentiment in this, I assume, satire actually comes very close to presenting what many self-identified "progressive" Christians I know, and am friends with, would affirm.

It also, for me, points to why I have some serious problems with what is typically called "progressive" Christianity.

I am not convinced that such sentiments, such "faith commitments," exhaust the meaning of "progressive Christianity." In other words, there is a sense in which one can self-identify as "progressive" (which needs to be self-defined) and still affirm the historic beliefs and practices of the Christian Church as formulated in the great ecumenical creeds and seen in the life of the early Church.

That being said, VonBergen's "satire" does reflect a theological stance which is found in many, if not most, presentations of "progressive Christian" thinking, a stance which apparently characterizes the majority opinion in several mainline Protestant denominations, a stance which comes very close to what has been termed Moralistic Therapeutic Deism — in other words, a stance which cannot in any meaningful way, to reference Christopher Hitchens' wise observation, be called Christian.

Admittedly, there are some statements of this 'creed' which can and should be affirmed by orthodox Christians. However, it is tucked away in much of which orthodox Christianity would rightfully reject. As disciples of the living, risen Christ, we must be equally concerned about orthodoxy and orthopraxis. "Progressive" Christianity seems to want to emphasize the latter and ignore the former; and far too often, manifestations of what can be genuinely called biblical Christianity ignore the latter while stressing the former. True Christian discipleship calls us to both.

We believe in one God,
the sacred at the center of existence,
maker of earth, father of ubuntu,
known in relation with us.

We believe in Jesus,
the peasant prophet,
a divine human, born as
the Son of Man,
not God, but godly,
Spirit person,

from mystic to shaman,
experienced as well,
an Enlightened One,
teaching an alternative wisdom,
with a social vision grounded in
the compassion of God,
a remarkable man.
For his political views, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death.
On the third day, he rose metaphorically
in accordance with the culture of his followers;
he exists as spirit,
and is found in our experiences.
He is non-judgmental,
and his kingdom is here and now.

We believe in a great spirit, not a master,
who exists in all creation.
With God, in all forms, it is worshipful.
It has spoken through many prophets.
We believe in one church of all faiths.
We acknowledge loving works as forgiveness of sins.
We look for resurrection as meaning,
and the life of the reign of God now. Shalom.

**To avoid charges of plagiarism, I credit this source for 80% of the above phrases: www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/borg_bio.html
Additional language is from Jefferts Schori.

---Linda VonBergen is a assistant professor of English at a community college. She enjoys reading C.S. Lewis, Peter Kreeft, and Flannery O’Connor. Linda also plays mountain dulcimer with “The Sweet Songs of Grace,” a group that ministers to local nursing homes.

Random Thoughts on Church Growth

2011-07-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

I’m a member of a small Lutheran parish. We have about 100 or so members and routinely have somewhere between 45 and 55 in attendance for Sunday morning worship. That puts us in the majority of Christian congregations in the U.S. — under 100 members.

As such, our conversations, both informally and in the context of various ministry team or church council meetings, occasionally turn to, yes, you guessed it, church growth.

I mean after all, the rule of thumb is you need about 125 average Sunday attendance to maintain a full-time pastor and reasonably good and effective ministry. We have a full-time pastor, a part-time secretary and a part-time music person. Needless to say, almost all of our collected monies go to salaries, paying the mortgage and keeping the lights on. There’s just not much left for, say, faith formation and outreach/missions or supporting the larger work of our Synod (SC Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America).

So yeah, we’d love to have more members. And we’d love to have more folks who get closer to that 10% mark than to the typical 2% mark in terms of giving to the church.

Our situation is not unusual or atypical at all.

All of this gets me thinking about church growth and here are some of the thoughts that have been rambling around in my brain.

First and foremost, based on the biblical witness, we can say with absolute confidence that ultimately speaking, and in a very real way, we [my small local church — or any other manifestation of Christ’s Church, for that matter] are not responsible for church growth. That is God’s work.

We are never commanded to go out and get larger numbers. We are commanded to “make disciples,” to “preach the gospel,” to “baptize,” to celebrate the Eucharist (way more often than that whole once or twice a year thing, my Baptist friends), to minister to the needy and suffering. Those are clear “job descriptions” for the church. But increasing our numbers is not our job. “Saving” people is not our job. It’s God’s: “...and day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” (Acts of the Apostles 2:47b)

That being said, I think it a reasonably safe observation that most churches do, in fact, spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about ways to do something that simply isn’t our job — getting more and more people into the church. We spend time and effort and money coming up with creative ways we can “get people in the door” when, in fact, that’s technically not our job. On particular study reported in the World Christian Encyclopedia, indicated that the average "convert" costs the Church about $1.5 million. I don't know how that figured is arrived at (note to self: follow up on this) but just as an indicator, rather than an actual hard number, it is astonishing.

Now, on both local levels and in terms of larger organizations, some are growing, some are stagnant, and some are hemorging members. Why? This is a perennial question.

In 1972, as mainline denominations were starting their current slide in terms of numbers, in an effort to understand the answer to that question, Dean Kelley published the results of his extensive research in a book titled, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion. Simply put, Kelley’s research seemed to indicate that more “conservative” or “evangelical” groups were growing because they did what their more mainstream/liberal/progressive counterparts eschewed: putting serious demands on members in terms of doctrine and behavior.

David Brooks, in a review of the Broadway hit, The Book of Mormon, gave a fresh, almost 40-year later expression to that when he wrote: “The religions that grow, succor and motivate people to perform heroic acts of service are usually theologically rigorous, arduous in practice and definite in their convictions about what is True and False.”

At the recent meeting of the SC Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, I heard these statements in reference to the Church in the global south:

“...churches that are growing are those who have recaptured the basic starting point of the gospel, that have not buried Christ in cute and hopefully attractive programs, who have not surrendered to what characterizes most mainline churches...”

...the "what" being what has come to be called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. I'm convinced that this is true in our hemisphere as well.

Again, “there is a strong correlation between denominational growth rates and ‘strictness’”

...and ‘strictness’ was used in terms of doctrinal, behavioral and requirements for membership. Hmm...

This is evinced by, among other studies, the growth rate of my former, but still loved, denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America which posted approximately 331-thousand members in 2005 and 346-thousand in 2009.

Compare that to, say, one of the least strict religious groups in the country, the Unitarian Universalists.

Some time ago the UU’s officially shed any notion of Christianity and views itself now as a creedless, progressive, nondogmatic spiritual community comprised of essentially two groups: theists [of the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism kind at best] and non-theists [i.e., secular humanists]. I, having once worked briefly in a UUA group [I just can’t call them church], have long maintained that these folks were quite adept at telling you what they were not, but really poor — because of their basic, fundamental commitments — at telling you what they were.

According to available studies/figures, membership in the UUA dropped in 2011 for the 3rd year in a row and now rests at 162,800 with 1.046 local groups.

But back to my small, local parish.

I am convinced by my experience in the 30+ years since my ordination that our calling is to be faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as found in the Holy Scriptures and traditions of the larger church (those pesky Creeds and Confessions). And in doing that, God will “add to our number those who are being saved.”

I am convinced that one of the many, many factors which account for current religious trends in the US in which mainstream, progressive traditions are dying off is the rise of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism which characterizes much of the teaching and preaching I hear, for example, from ministers in the PCUSA, the UCC or other traditions which seem to pride themselves on being “progressive.” Churches which opt to reject the perceived “strictness” of those groups that are growing simply have nothing to put in its place. They reject Truth with a capital T in favor of truths with a lower case t in the hopes of making themselves more attractive to the masses, but the effect is the exact opposite.

Therefore, I cannot help but think and feel that if my small local parish opts for trying to make itself more attractive by lowering its commitments to Truth, to the Gospel, to Christ; if it replaces its commitment to faithful preaching and teaching of God’s Word and the right and proper administration of the Sacraments, then it will wither and eventually die. Denominational experience seems to bear this correlation out.

And finally, I am convinced that getting one’s undies in a wad over smallness or slower numerical growth than, say, Joel Osteen’s personality cult, I mean, church, might post or some of the local megachurches in my area which rely much more on gimmicks and manipulation to pull people in than relying on the Holy Spirit to work in folks’ hearts, is not only unnecessary but sad as well.

That is one of the pluses of being a small, struggling parish: we don’t have any money to waste on gimmicks or cute programs or slick advertising pieces (like the ones that end up in my mailbox from a local megachurch). No, being such hopefully motivates us even more to rely on the power and work of the Holy Spirit in the lives and hearts of those whom God sees fit to bring into our group to live and worship with us.

It would be really cool to have the number of people we really need to support a "full-time church" but being small does have some advantages: we all know each other; we are, I think, pretty good at ministering to each other and helping one another to deepen our discipleship.