In Sunday School yesterday, at the suggestion of the confirmation teacher, we combined the confirmation and senior high classes to discuss a rather pertinent topic - "Politics and Religion." I announced it in the first service and received numerous chuckles from the congregation. On the way out after service, I had numerous people pat me on the back giving me forlorn looks and an occasional, "good luck!" I felt like I was marching to the gallows. It seems that this is just a topic that we inherently fear, whether we think that they shouldn't be mixed, should be mixed, can't be mixed, can't help but being mixed, or some combination of the above. But everyone has an opinion, and as I soon found out, even kids.
We kept it as basic as we could, keeping the discussion to things like the purpose of the separation between church and state, etc. What amazed me, however, is the assumption that seemed to permeate the room that politics is one thing and religion a completely different and never the twain shall meet. Thus, when we asked whether a person's religious beliefs should influence their policies, the general response we got was no. Perhaps I am ignorant but I do not see how someone who is a follower of Christ can somehow put those beliefs on a shelf when he or she goes to do his or her job. If we are a follower of Christ, should not his values affect everything we do?
The kids also did not think that Christ was a political figure or that the church was a political body. I think this seems to be a common thought as well. Without seeing Christ as a political figure, it is hard to make sense of why the Romans crucified him. Perhaps Christ was saying a bit more than keep your religion at home. And when the church lays a claim on our lives that is absolute, how we are to live, where we are to spend our money, etc. it is difficult to see how this cannot be a political body.
I don't think we ask the nature of the relationship between them enough. Thoughts?
Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Protestant Ecumenists
"It was because they recognized what they had received through the Catholic Church that the first generation of Reformers wished for the renewal, not the disruption of the historic ecclesiastical structures. It was against their will that the visible continuity and unity were broken, and they thought of the separate polities which they established, not as new churches, but as temporary emergency measures. Convergence into a reformed and united church was their goal, and this once again is the objective of those Protestant ecumenists who are their heirs."
-George Lindbeck
-George Lindbeck
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Our Hope has a Name
This past Easter Sunday, a United Church in Toronto sang the glorious Easter hymn "Jesus Christ is Risen Today," but it replaced the name "Jesus Christ" with the phrase "Glorious hope." Here is an excerpt from the article printed by Globe and Mail:
"Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected – an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit – but not Jesus, contrary to Christianity's central tenet about the return to life on Easter morning of the crucified divine son of God.
"Generally speaking, no divine anybody makes an appearance in West Hill's Sunday service liturgy.
"There is no authoritative Big-Godism, as Rev. Gretta Vosper, West Hill's minister for the past 10 years, puts it. No petitionary prayers (“Dear God, step into the world and do good things about global warming and the poor”). No miracles-performing magic Jesus given birth by a virgin and coming back to life. No references to salvation, Christianity's teaching of the final victory over death through belief in Jesus's death as an atonement for sin and the omnipotent love of God. For that matter, no omnipotent God, or god.
"Ms. Vosper has written a book, published this week – With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe – in which she argues that the Christian church, in the form in which it exists today, has outlived its viability and either it sheds its no-longer credible myths, doctrines and dogmas, or it's toast."
There is a genuine consensus, the pastor of this church goes on to say, that the Bible is a human project that has no ontological truth, that it is absurd to think that salvation comes through the death and resurrection of a particular man. The church, she believes, needs to recognize this and throw off their old language that they might survive. If I understand her correctly, her justification for removing the name "Jesus Christ" from the hymn, ironically, is that the Christian church might not perish but might live.
My first observation is simply to acknowledge that Scripture says the exact opposite. Rather, it says rather clearly that our only life is in the life of this particular man Jesus of Nazareth who lived in a particular place at a particular time. And that this man is also God. If he did not rise on Easter morning, then there is no glorious hope. Paul writes: "Now if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith also in vain . . . and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied." -1 Cor. 15:13-14, 17-19.
Of course these statements are meaningless to someone who thinks like Rev. Vosper because she believes the Bible is just human invention. My second observation, then, is a bit more practical. Why bother? Why are you the pastor of a church? Why not sleep in on Sunday morning? I just do not understand why this person - or anyone who believes the way she does - would waste their time with coming together. And I further do not understand the basis of her glorious hope. Where is our hope if Jesus has not been raised. I think that we have none and we might as well just eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
But I do believe that He is risen. And I do believe that our Scriptures are the true story of God's covenantal interactions with his people. And I believe that they are the basis for our faith and hope that He will continue to be faithful to his promises. In short I too believe that glorious hope has risen today. But glorious hope has a name. Jesus Christ.
One last observation. I know not of this "general consensus" that Rev. Vosper speaks of. There are believers and there are non believers, as there always has been, but to say that there is a general consensus now that the Bible is of human invention is plain disingenuous. I find it funny to note that when leading theologians were asked to comment on her book, they all refused because they hadn't read it.
"Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected – an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit – but not Jesus, contrary to Christianity's central tenet about the return to life on Easter morning of the crucified divine son of God.
"Generally speaking, no divine anybody makes an appearance in West Hill's Sunday service liturgy.
"There is no authoritative Big-Godism, as Rev. Gretta Vosper, West Hill's minister for the past 10 years, puts it. No petitionary prayers (“Dear God, step into the world and do good things about global warming and the poor”). No miracles-performing magic Jesus given birth by a virgin and coming back to life. No references to salvation, Christianity's teaching of the final victory over death through belief in Jesus's death as an atonement for sin and the omnipotent love of God. For that matter, no omnipotent God, or god.
"Ms. Vosper has written a book, published this week – With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe – in which she argues that the Christian church, in the form in which it exists today, has outlived its viability and either it sheds its no-longer credible myths, doctrines and dogmas, or it's toast."
There is a genuine consensus, the pastor of this church goes on to say, that the Bible is a human project that has no ontological truth, that it is absurd to think that salvation comes through the death and resurrection of a particular man. The church, she believes, needs to recognize this and throw off their old language that they might survive. If I understand her correctly, her justification for removing the name "Jesus Christ" from the hymn, ironically, is that the Christian church might not perish but might live.
My first observation is simply to acknowledge that Scripture says the exact opposite. Rather, it says rather clearly that our only life is in the life of this particular man Jesus of Nazareth who lived in a particular place at a particular time. And that this man is also God. If he did not rise on Easter morning, then there is no glorious hope. Paul writes: "Now if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith also in vain . . . and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied." -1 Cor. 15:13-14, 17-19.
Of course these statements are meaningless to someone who thinks like Rev. Vosper because she believes the Bible is just human invention. My second observation, then, is a bit more practical. Why bother? Why are you the pastor of a church? Why not sleep in on Sunday morning? I just do not understand why this person - or anyone who believes the way she does - would waste their time with coming together. And I further do not understand the basis of her glorious hope. Where is our hope if Jesus has not been raised. I think that we have none and we might as well just eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
But I do believe that He is risen. And I do believe that our Scriptures are the true story of God's covenantal interactions with his people. And I believe that they are the basis for our faith and hope that He will continue to be faithful to his promises. In short I too believe that glorious hope has risen today. But glorious hope has a name. Jesus Christ.
One last observation. I know not of this "general consensus" that Rev. Vosper speaks of. There are believers and there are non believers, as there always has been, but to say that there is a general consensus now that the Bible is of human invention is plain disingenuous. I find it funny to note that when leading theologians were asked to comment on her book, they all refused because they hadn't read it.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Maundy Madness
As I write this, Marquette is in the second half of a close game with Kentucky in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Though I have not had much time to follow basketball in the last seven years since leaving Iowa State, I do have an affinity for this game as it pits my current school against my former school. (Asbury Seminary did not have a basketball team so as far as sports go, I adopted the University of Kentucky as my collegiate team during those years.) But alas I am not watching the game as I am reading furiously to try to get ahead for the final push of the semester, "the Paper Madness" as I like to call it.
What is more unfortunate is that I will likely not pause too long to remember the significance of this day. For it is not just the beginning of March Madness, as most Americans (and sadly most Christians) will only take note of today, but it is Maundy Thursday, the day in which our Lord celebrated the last supper with his disciples, the day in which he donned the towel of a servant to wash the feet of his disciples. The Pope, in his Maundy Thursday address from Rome, likened the event to the early Christological hymn preserved in Philippians 2:
"He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death - and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion." -Philippians 2:6-8
If the Pope is right, and I think that he is (despite the fact that he was not speaking ex cathedra) then the footwashing episode is a microcosm of the entirety of Jesus' life. Even to the point that some of those whom he serves want to reject the cleansing. To paraphrase the early Patristic dictum with this understanding: "He became a servant, that we might be the one who is served."
This insight of the Pope's mirrors that of some of the early reflections on the Eucharistic mystery. Writers such as Cyprian of Carthage connected the actions Jesus took at the last supper in giving the bread and wine with the actions he took on Golgotha in giving his body and blood. It is all one mysterious act, through which we are reconciled to God. Our feet are now clean to walk where God walks. We could not clean them ourselves, as Peter's refusal was ultimately suggesting (despite the pious front), but we needed the Holy God to do it. This, when you think about it, truly deserves the appellation madness. And yet it is this madness - or foolishness as the Apostle Paul writes - that is our salvation.
What is more unfortunate is that I will likely not pause too long to remember the significance of this day. For it is not just the beginning of March Madness, as most Americans (and sadly most Christians) will only take note of today, but it is Maundy Thursday, the day in which our Lord celebrated the last supper with his disciples, the day in which he donned the towel of a servant to wash the feet of his disciples. The Pope, in his Maundy Thursday address from Rome, likened the event to the early Christological hymn preserved in Philippians 2:
"He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death - and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion." -Philippians 2:6-8
If the Pope is right, and I think that he is (despite the fact that he was not speaking ex cathedra) then the footwashing episode is a microcosm of the entirety of Jesus' life. Even to the point that some of those whom he serves want to reject the cleansing. To paraphrase the early Patristic dictum with this understanding: "He became a servant, that we might be the one who is served."
This insight of the Pope's mirrors that of some of the early reflections on the Eucharistic mystery. Writers such as Cyprian of Carthage connected the actions Jesus took at the last supper in giving the bread and wine with the actions he took on Golgotha in giving his body and blood. It is all one mysterious act, through which we are reconciled to God. Our feet are now clean to walk where God walks. We could not clean them ourselves, as Peter's refusal was ultimately suggesting (despite the pious front), but we needed the Holy God to do it. This, when you think about it, truly deserves the appellation madness. And yet it is this madness - or foolishness as the Apostle Paul writes - that is our salvation.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Lenten Reminder
"For men see Him just so far as they die to this world, and so far as they live to it they see Him not."
-St. Augustine
-St. Augustine
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
The Wisdom of Amy Winehouse
The following sermon was written and preached by J.D. Walt, the dean of the chapel at Asbury Theological Seminary and a good friend of mine. J.D. married Julie and me and spoke some of the most meaningful words to us that we frequently recall. He has the perfect style of taking the classic old message and putting it into words and images that connect with today's generation. In my opinion, the church needs more of this kind of preaching. The sermon is a bit lengthy but well worth the read. May it help us all to keep a holy Lent.
Read it here.
Read it here.
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