The other day there was an article published on the Episcopal News Service website regarding Stem Cells and Stem Cell Research. I shared it with Dr. D. Joy Riley, a physician, former medical researcher, and bioethicist. Joy is an increasingly important voice among orthodox Christians dealing with this issue. I asked her if she would comment on the article.
What follows is first the ENS piece and then Joy Riley's responses. I think you will find them interesting.
Richard Kew
FROM THE EPISCOPAL NEWS SERVICE
While the debate over the many ethical implications of stem cell research rages, studies in molecular genetics, genomics and cell development continue to yield new information. One of the learnings which may be surprising to many is that the differentiation of a stem cell depends on the environment or microniche where it resides.
"What a cell's neighbors 'say' to it chemically, and what it says to its neighbors, impact what kind of cell it becomes," reported Dr. Christie A. Holland, retired Professor and Chair of Virology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Children's Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
"If context matters in ethics as well as in the development of a cell," posed Karen LeBacqz, bioethicist in residence at Yale, "we need to realize that we are talking about a different context here. It is a great pity that the debate around stem cells got framed in terms of the abortion debate. They are very different contexts."
Holland and Lebacqz were addressing the Ecumenical Roundtable on Science, Technology and the Church, as part of the program, "Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Churches, Ethics, and Politicians" presented by members from the United Church of Christ. This year's Roundtable was hosted April 27-30 by the Executive Council Committee on Science, Technology and Faith at the Emrich Retreat and Conference Center in the Diocese of Michigan.
Ron Cole-Turner, H. Parker Sharp Professor of Theology and Ethics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, led off the panel with a review of the history of the debate surrounding stem cells, and with the hope that the panel would serve as a resource for those at the meeting who may be called upon to speak to the issues in the political arena.
Olivia Masih White, who teaches biology at John Carroll University in Cleveland, reviewed the basic biology of stem cells, clarifying terms and adding "What I taught 20 years ago is completely different than what I teach my biology students now, and the best contemporary science is still changing."
Sandra Michael, convener of the Episcopal Network on Science, Technology and Faith, commented that she was glad White made the distinction between the two types of stem cells, totipottent and pluripotent. "This is rarely clarified in popular presentations on stem cells and is critical for understanding how they work."
Michael's research as Distinguished Service Professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton is in the genetics, endrocrinology and immunology of reproduction. "Just as people who aren't specialists in these topics need clear and thorough scientific explanations, scientists and clinicians need to consider the issues in a religious context as they apply the knowledge gleaned from their research."
The interplay of science, ethics and theology in the panel enabled the 40 Roundtable participants -- Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists as well as the UCC team and Episcopal hosts -- to clarify the other scientific terms which are used confusingly in politics and the popular media, as well as to explore the implications of stem cell research and therapies.
Lebacqz raised the question of just access to therapies developed from stem cell research, since the stem cell lines approved by the current administration for federal funding are not diverse enough to meet the needs of different ancestral groups. The ethics around the acquisition of eggs and somatic cells for research are exceedingly complex, and also generated discussion.
Stem cell therapies hold the promise of both increasing longevity and of improving the quality of longer lives, giving rise to another cluster of questions. Interestingly, the Working Group on Faith and Genetics in the Diocese of Massachusetts, also ecumenical in makeup and represented by several members of the Roundtable, has announced that the science of human aging and efforts to slow it will be the group's next topic for study.
Lebacqz conlcluded the formal presentaion with a series of her own theological questions. "What," she pondered, "Does being 'made in the image of God' mean in our time? For me, our dignity is relational; it has to do with communication, with being in communion with others and God." She concluded by returning to the science. As we understand more about how cells communicate and provide a context for one another, we see the resonance between science and theology deepen.
FROM DR. D. JOY RILEY
This is a proactive group; they are ecumenical in scope, but I am not sure there
is a diversity of opinion RE stem cell research. That is unclear. I mostly
take issue with such comments as these:
1) "If context matters in ethics as well as in the development of a cell,"
posed Karen LeBacqz, bioethicist in residence at Yale, "we need to realize that
we are talking about a different context here. It is a great pity that the
debate around stem cells got framed in terms of the abortion debate. They are
very different contexts."
Embryonic stem cells have, by definition, embryos as their source; in harvesting embryonic stem cells, embryos are destroyed. That is precisely what the abortion AND the ESC debates are about: embryos are human. These vulnerable humans are destroyed in both instances, with the latter utilizing them effectively for parts. Whether a calf is killed on the roadway, or cut up with a butcher’s knife for veal parmesan, the calf is still dead. The differing “context” is that of the garbage heap or the diner’s plate.
2) "Ron Cole-Turner, H. Parker Sharp Professor of Theology and Ethics at
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, led off the panel with a review of the history
of the debate surrounding stem cells, and with the hope that the panel would
serve as a resource for those at the meeting who may be called upon to speak to
the issues in the political arena."
Cole-Turner advocates being a resource for the political arena, although he does not say on which side. The book he edited on human cloning (Human Cloning: Religious Responses, Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) however, does support research up to fourteen days after fertilization or zygote formation, on what he terms “pre-embryos.” It should be noted that this is a term usually employed for semantic purposes; it is not a scientific term.
3) "Lebacqz raised the question of just access to therapies developed from stem
cell research, since the stem cell lines approved by the current administration
for federal funding are not diverse enough to meet the needs of different
ancestral groups. The ethics around the acquisition of eggs and somatic cells
for research are exceedingly complex, and also generated discussion."
The question of justice is a valid one, but I think this is a back door approach. The argument here is one for ESC (embryonic stem cell) research. What the embryonic stem cell research lobby wants is tax dollars in order to do research that is at least controversial. I think the real question here about justice, is, should those who understand this destruction of nascent human life for what it is have to pay for something they consider morally reprehensible? As there are no therapies to date from embryonic stem cells, the question of justice between ancestral people groups rings rather hollow at this time.
The acquisition of eggs is ethically very questionable; on this we agree. The number of human eggs required for therapeutic cloning research would be astronomical. From whence would these come? Egg procurement requires females of reproductive age, but over 21 years, in order to give consent (at least in the United States), for a procedure that entails a number of risks. In South Korea, two egg “donors” from the Hwang Woo-Suk debacle have filed suit for not being duly informed of the risks.
The acquisition of somatic cells is not typically problematic, ethically or physically, unless one has a problem with his/her cheek (mouth) being swabbed with a Q-Tip! The inclusion of somatic cells as ethically complex is somewhat spurious.
4) “Lebacqz concluded the formal presentation with a series of her own
theological questions. ‘What,’ she pondered, ‘Does being made in the image of
God mean in our time? For me, our dignity is relational; it has to do with
communication, with being in communion with others and God.’ She concluded by
returning to the science. ‘As we understand more about how cells communicate and
provide a context for one another, we see the resonance between science and
theology deepen.’”
Does this mean that only those who can communicate with others are human? How far
does this argument extend? Embryos cannot relate, so they are not made in
the image of God? What about those whose disease states render them incommunicado with others? Are they "no longer made in the image of God" or "never were in the image of God?" What about their eschatological potential for being in communion with God and others? What if they "speak" a language of angels, and not of men, so we are the ones without understanding?
These are a few of my thoughts. . .
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Monday, May 01, 2006
Dreaming of a Future for North American Anglicanism
Today I intend to finish reading James Holland's huge book, Together We Stand: America, Britain, and the Forging of an Alliance. Recently published in the USA by Miramax Books, it focuses on the North Africa campaign of World War Two, when for the first time Americans and Britons effectively fought alongside each other, cooperating and even merging their resources as necessary. The northern coastlands and deserts of the African continent was where the Anglo-American special relationship was properly forged, and political and military tactics that are still being used today were pioneered in 1942 and 1943.
That extended battlefield was the test bed from which has emerged many aspects of our contemporary world, yet even as the leaders on the Allied side were fighting for their lives, and victory seemed anything but a slam-dunk, they were already talking about the sort of world they wanted when the war was over. Churchill, aided and abetted by others from half a dozen nationalities, foresaw a totally different scene than the one which had entered the conflict in 1939.
Foreseeing required dreaming, envisioning, planning, and winning adherents to the vision. When Europe and parts of Asia lay in ruins when finally the hostilities ceased, when Stalin was intensifying his grip on Central and Eastern Europe while the Soviet Union was licking its wounds from at least 20 million casualities, and when the world was reeling at the discovering of the extend of the Holocaust, many of those dreams must have seemed beyond achieving.
Yet the dreamers were not bowed down. They were thinking up the United Nations, NATO, the liberalization of world trade, the extension of human rights and freedoms, and so forth. It may seem that in the intervening years some of their initiatives have gone awry, but we cannot underestimate the good that they did at the time. Where would Europe have been today without the Marshall Plan? What would have happened to Japan if the United States had not picked its old enemy up and helped dust it down? That generation of heroes who made this happen, the Greatest Generation, were extraordinary men and women to whom we owe an enormous amount.
Those who built the world we now inhabit became and arms, legs, and heads of an older generation like Churchill, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and so many others who dreamed how such a world could be born, but knew that age and energy would prevent them from necessarily going there. Like the landowner planting acorns so that generations hence will sit in the shade of mighty oaks, so it is our responsibility to do the hard work of dreaming into being a new kind of church.
Some years ago I read Karl Slaikeu and Steve Lawhead's book, The Phoenix Factor, a helpful little manual to enable individuals survive a personal crisis and grow as a result. The book is full of good advice that I know I have used on myself and with others in my years in ministry. The truth is that even the most traumatic crisis can itself become the springboard for growth and health. In their introduction the authors write, "Crisis theory points to a remarkable fact of human growth and development: newer, more satisfying, and more productive ways of living can come about only after the old ways have died" (Page x).
This book came off my shelves several months ago as I started to think what might be beyond the crisis that the Episcopal Church has inflicted upon itself, the climax of that crisis being reached with the actions of August 2003 that have been so destructive of fellowship and of worldwide communion. It could be that there are all sorts of people thinking long and hard about this, developing a strategy, and I am just not privy to what is going on, if so then discount what I say. If not, then can those of us who are mainstream Anglicans get down to doing the kind of planning and dreaming that enabled the Allies of the Second World War to remake their world.
I tend to see a lot of anger, despair, peeling away from the denomination, finger-pointing, and downward spirals of disappointment. I confess that I have shared these feelings in great depth, and have often wondered on a month-to-month basis whether my own little mission congregation can even survive in the midst of such a troubled pond. There is one chapter of the Slaikeu/Lawhead book that is entitled, Managing Painful Feelings, and I can assure you that I have spent a long time going over some of its pages again.
"In some cases the intensity of the current crisis ties directly to the fact that it dredges up old feelings -- you are now experiencing the pain of the current crisis and the pain of a previous crisis all at the same time" (Page 83). I certainly think this has been the case with many of us who are historic Anglicans within the American Episcopal scene. August 2003 was the trigger, a boil burst and out flowed years of resentment, anger at a compromised theological education system, bitterness at mistreatment by high-handed bishops, and so forth. Like a surgeon on an old-time sailing ship in the midst of battle, we have been knee-deep in blood and guts, and wondering why we are making such little progress.
Maybe the wastelands of the Gulf Coast are a visual aid. Katrina swept through and left behind total devastation. There are now pockets of restoration, and in many places a lot of the mess has been cleared away, but the whole area is a long way from restoration, and that is not going to happen overnight. I saw a piece the other night about the recovery of San Francisco from the 1906 earthquake and fire, and it took about twenty years for the city to get back into its stride -- meanwhile Los Angeles overtook it as the greater metropolis of the West Coast. The Gulf Coast will take years to come back, and right now they are looking toward another Atlantic hurricane season. Anglicanism won't recover overnight, despite our native impatience.
The impact of August 2003 upon the Episcopal Church was not unlike Hurricane Katrina, and while there are pockets of recovery here and there, and while some of the mess has been cleared away, we can see that it will take years to build something new. Meanwhile, we face with increasing dread the prospect of the next "hurricane season:" General Convention 2006. This is likely to be preceded by another destructive firestorm coming from San Francisco and the Diocese of California this Saturday, where any notion of theological sanity seems to have been abandoned.
Yet even in the midst of this we need to be dreaming and trying to envision the sort of future that we want for Anglican Christianity in North America. If we do not start envisioning and dreaming in this way, then the likelihood that we will have little or no future. If we cannot get beyond our anger and hurt, then we will be taken down by our anger and hurt, and in the process will do great damage to the wonderful Gospel of grace that has been committed to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.
If we are to rise from a crisis like a phoenix, then we need to start making radical changes -- not just outward changes, but inward changes, too. This process begins and ends on our knees. Those in the secular world who plan for the future have developed all sorts of wonderful tools to help envision what sort of future God might be calling us to, and we should learn how to make use of these. While there are encouraging islands of hope, they need to be linked together and expanded, and instead of a culture of fear and despair, the time has come to develop a strategy that has a vision attached to it that tens of thousands of lay and ordained Anglicans can focus around and move forward toward.
Such a vision will need to be looking not just three, four, or five years out, but ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and be willing to hold our course in terms of the objectives we set ourselves, despite inevitable setbacks. Mission must be the organizing principle of our work, holistic mission that is rooted and grounded in the fact that when Jesus came into Galilee and from there sent us into all the world. He came saying that with him the Reign of God planting a foothold in their midst.
The last few years have finally stripped us of our carriage trade image, and despite the posturing of the Episcopal Church Center and company, we are recognizing that we are a small and almost irrelevant denomination on the American scene. This may be a painful realization, but it is an incredible relief, too. We can now stop pretending to be chaplains to the culture, and can get on with the business of taking the transforming message of Christ into that culture. We may have lost something, but if we are missional people then we have gained a lot more.
Too long we have been living, for example, with the negative imagery of a denomination that is coming apart, if we are to be creative and effective in the future then not only do we need a vision and a strategy for tomorrow, but we must find ways to start thinking like winners again. By that I do not mean replicating the crass morale-boosting sessions that crop up in business enterprises, but by recognizing that we are under the sovereign hand of God and he who calls us will enable us to be his agents in this hard place -- and agents of transformation. He knows exactly where we are because he put us here!
I have a dream of a very different American Anglicanism some fifty years down the road, but as a sixty-year-old I know I will never see it, at least from this side of the grave. I dream of an Anglicanism that has been cleared of the debris of these turn-of-the-millennium crises, and is moving gracefully and faithfully across what will be a very different post-Christendom landscape reflecting in its love and dynamism the Good News of our biblical heritage.
I see it as an Anglicanism that is flexible and not wooden in its structures, recognizing that it needs to be moved forward by mission opportunities not held back by political in-fighting and turf-wars. I see this Anglicanism as self-giving and self-sacrificing, moving ahead without counting the cost, toughened as it engages in spiritual conflict rather than weak, flabby, compromised. I see it as a caring partner with other Christian traditions, teaching them and yet eager to learn from them.
This Anglicanism I envision will be rooted and grounded in the triune God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, and thoroughly biblical. It will have thought through the biblical faith in such a way that it will have shed its Enlightenment age packaging and come up with something a lot more appropriate and beautiful for that time. Indeed, because it is missional it will be constantly willing to test all its theology and attitudes against Scripture, modifying them where they are found wanting.
I suspect it will also be instinctively global, engaged in mission with Anglicans in orther parts of the world, and welcoming Anglicans from far away places to share the mission with us. It also has every possiblity of being flamboyantly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural.
I do not believe that a compromised Anglicanism will have survived in anything but small pockets here and there. Endowments can keep religious institutions alive for a long time, and there will always be those who prefer their faith to be tamed or undemanding. However, I believe the confusing tangle on the orthodox side of the spectrum now will have reached a far greater degree of order and cooperation. We need to remember that division is a characteristic of the Enlightenment approach to Christianity, not the more centrapetal approach that will prevail in these, by then, far post-Enlightenment days.
Slaikeu and Lawhead write, "You know you have successfully resolved the crisis when the crisis event has been woven into the fabric of your life in such a way that you are ready to face the future and get on with the business of living... There is a big difference in people who have integrated the crisis event into their lives and those who have not. Those who have are looking ahead: those who have not are directing their main energies backward toward the past" (Pages 202-203).
I like the look of the Anglicanism that I dream of, and I pray that my generation can, like the Churchills and Roosevelts of the World War Two era, set the trajectory that this future might face, leaving it for the next generation to put flesh and sinew on these bones. If we are to do this, then there is much inner work that we need to get done in fellowship with Christ and one another, and then a lot of planning and dreaming.
Perhaps our mental image needs to be that of King David and the Temple. Forbidden by the Lord to build his Temple in Jerusalem, David said, "Well, at least I can provide the materials for my son to do what is barred to me." So, he made preparations, but it was Solomon who did the building. Let us pray that in the days ahead orthodox Anglicans will stop taking it out on one another and starting sitting down at the table together and say, "Now, how do we rise like a phoenix from these tragic circumstances that have been thrust upon us?"
This, I believe, is the godly way forward.
That extended battlefield was the test bed from which has emerged many aspects of our contemporary world, yet even as the leaders on the Allied side were fighting for their lives, and victory seemed anything but a slam-dunk, they were already talking about the sort of world they wanted when the war was over. Churchill, aided and abetted by others from half a dozen nationalities, foresaw a totally different scene than the one which had entered the conflict in 1939.
Foreseeing required dreaming, envisioning, planning, and winning adherents to the vision. When Europe and parts of Asia lay in ruins when finally the hostilities ceased, when Stalin was intensifying his grip on Central and Eastern Europe while the Soviet Union was licking its wounds from at least 20 million casualities, and when the world was reeling at the discovering of the extend of the Holocaust, many of those dreams must have seemed beyond achieving.
Yet the dreamers were not bowed down. They were thinking up the United Nations, NATO, the liberalization of world trade, the extension of human rights and freedoms, and so forth. It may seem that in the intervening years some of their initiatives have gone awry, but we cannot underestimate the good that they did at the time. Where would Europe have been today without the Marshall Plan? What would have happened to Japan if the United States had not picked its old enemy up and helped dust it down? That generation of heroes who made this happen, the Greatest Generation, were extraordinary men and women to whom we owe an enormous amount.
Those who built the world we now inhabit became and arms, legs, and heads of an older generation like Churchill, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and so many others who dreamed how such a world could be born, but knew that age and energy would prevent them from necessarily going there. Like the landowner planting acorns so that generations hence will sit in the shade of mighty oaks, so it is our responsibility to do the hard work of dreaming into being a new kind of church.
Some years ago I read Karl Slaikeu and Steve Lawhead's book, The Phoenix Factor, a helpful little manual to enable individuals survive a personal crisis and grow as a result. The book is full of good advice that I know I have used on myself and with others in my years in ministry. The truth is that even the most traumatic crisis can itself become the springboard for growth and health. In their introduction the authors write, "Crisis theory points to a remarkable fact of human growth and development: newer, more satisfying, and more productive ways of living can come about only after the old ways have died" (Page x).
This book came off my shelves several months ago as I started to think what might be beyond the crisis that the Episcopal Church has inflicted upon itself, the climax of that crisis being reached with the actions of August 2003 that have been so destructive of fellowship and of worldwide communion. It could be that there are all sorts of people thinking long and hard about this, developing a strategy, and I am just not privy to what is going on, if so then discount what I say. If not, then can those of us who are mainstream Anglicans get down to doing the kind of planning and dreaming that enabled the Allies of the Second World War to remake their world.
I tend to see a lot of anger, despair, peeling away from the denomination, finger-pointing, and downward spirals of disappointment. I confess that I have shared these feelings in great depth, and have often wondered on a month-to-month basis whether my own little mission congregation can even survive in the midst of such a troubled pond. There is one chapter of the Slaikeu/Lawhead book that is entitled, Managing Painful Feelings, and I can assure you that I have spent a long time going over some of its pages again.
"In some cases the intensity of the current crisis ties directly to the fact that it dredges up old feelings -- you are now experiencing the pain of the current crisis and the pain of a previous crisis all at the same time" (Page 83). I certainly think this has been the case with many of us who are historic Anglicans within the American Episcopal scene. August 2003 was the trigger, a boil burst and out flowed years of resentment, anger at a compromised theological education system, bitterness at mistreatment by high-handed bishops, and so forth. Like a surgeon on an old-time sailing ship in the midst of battle, we have been knee-deep in blood and guts, and wondering why we are making such little progress.
Maybe the wastelands of the Gulf Coast are a visual aid. Katrina swept through and left behind total devastation. There are now pockets of restoration, and in many places a lot of the mess has been cleared away, but the whole area is a long way from restoration, and that is not going to happen overnight. I saw a piece the other night about the recovery of San Francisco from the 1906 earthquake and fire, and it took about twenty years for the city to get back into its stride -- meanwhile Los Angeles overtook it as the greater metropolis of the West Coast. The Gulf Coast will take years to come back, and right now they are looking toward another Atlantic hurricane season. Anglicanism won't recover overnight, despite our native impatience.
The impact of August 2003 upon the Episcopal Church was not unlike Hurricane Katrina, and while there are pockets of recovery here and there, and while some of the mess has been cleared away, we can see that it will take years to build something new. Meanwhile, we face with increasing dread the prospect of the next "hurricane season:" General Convention 2006. This is likely to be preceded by another destructive firestorm coming from San Francisco and the Diocese of California this Saturday, where any notion of theological sanity seems to have been abandoned.
Yet even in the midst of this we need to be dreaming and trying to envision the sort of future that we want for Anglican Christianity in North America. If we do not start envisioning and dreaming in this way, then the likelihood that we will have little or no future. If we cannot get beyond our anger and hurt, then we will be taken down by our anger and hurt, and in the process will do great damage to the wonderful Gospel of grace that has been committed to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.
If we are to rise from a crisis like a phoenix, then we need to start making radical changes -- not just outward changes, but inward changes, too. This process begins and ends on our knees. Those in the secular world who plan for the future have developed all sorts of wonderful tools to help envision what sort of future God might be calling us to, and we should learn how to make use of these. While there are encouraging islands of hope, they need to be linked together and expanded, and instead of a culture of fear and despair, the time has come to develop a strategy that has a vision attached to it that tens of thousands of lay and ordained Anglicans can focus around and move forward toward.
Such a vision will need to be looking not just three, four, or five years out, but ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and be willing to hold our course in terms of the objectives we set ourselves, despite inevitable setbacks. Mission must be the organizing principle of our work, holistic mission that is rooted and grounded in the fact that when Jesus came into Galilee and from there sent us into all the world. He came saying that with him the Reign of God planting a foothold in their midst.
The last few years have finally stripped us of our carriage trade image, and despite the posturing of the Episcopal Church Center and company, we are recognizing that we are a small and almost irrelevant denomination on the American scene. This may be a painful realization, but it is an incredible relief, too. We can now stop pretending to be chaplains to the culture, and can get on with the business of taking the transforming message of Christ into that culture. We may have lost something, but if we are missional people then we have gained a lot more.
Too long we have been living, for example, with the negative imagery of a denomination that is coming apart, if we are to be creative and effective in the future then not only do we need a vision and a strategy for tomorrow, but we must find ways to start thinking like winners again. By that I do not mean replicating the crass morale-boosting sessions that crop up in business enterprises, but by recognizing that we are under the sovereign hand of God and he who calls us will enable us to be his agents in this hard place -- and agents of transformation. He knows exactly where we are because he put us here!
I have a dream of a very different American Anglicanism some fifty years down the road, but as a sixty-year-old I know I will never see it, at least from this side of the grave. I dream of an Anglicanism that has been cleared of the debris of these turn-of-the-millennium crises, and is moving gracefully and faithfully across what will be a very different post-Christendom landscape reflecting in its love and dynamism the Good News of our biblical heritage.
I see it as an Anglicanism that is flexible and not wooden in its structures, recognizing that it needs to be moved forward by mission opportunities not held back by political in-fighting and turf-wars. I see this Anglicanism as self-giving and self-sacrificing, moving ahead without counting the cost, toughened as it engages in spiritual conflict rather than weak, flabby, compromised. I see it as a caring partner with other Christian traditions, teaching them and yet eager to learn from them.
This Anglicanism I envision will be rooted and grounded in the triune God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, and thoroughly biblical. It will have thought through the biblical faith in such a way that it will have shed its Enlightenment age packaging and come up with something a lot more appropriate and beautiful for that time. Indeed, because it is missional it will be constantly willing to test all its theology and attitudes against Scripture, modifying them where they are found wanting.
I suspect it will also be instinctively global, engaged in mission with Anglicans in orther parts of the world, and welcoming Anglicans from far away places to share the mission with us. It also has every possiblity of being flamboyantly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural.
I do not believe that a compromised Anglicanism will have survived in anything but small pockets here and there. Endowments can keep religious institutions alive for a long time, and there will always be those who prefer their faith to be tamed or undemanding. However, I believe the confusing tangle on the orthodox side of the spectrum now will have reached a far greater degree of order and cooperation. We need to remember that division is a characteristic of the Enlightenment approach to Christianity, not the more centrapetal approach that will prevail in these, by then, far post-Enlightenment days.
Slaikeu and Lawhead write, "You know you have successfully resolved the crisis when the crisis event has been woven into the fabric of your life in such a way that you are ready to face the future and get on with the business of living... There is a big difference in people who have integrated the crisis event into their lives and those who have not. Those who have are looking ahead: those who have not are directing their main energies backward toward the past" (Pages 202-203).
I like the look of the Anglicanism that I dream of, and I pray that my generation can, like the Churchills and Roosevelts of the World War Two era, set the trajectory that this future might face, leaving it for the next generation to put flesh and sinew on these bones. If we are to do this, then there is much inner work that we need to get done in fellowship with Christ and one another, and then a lot of planning and dreaming.
Perhaps our mental image needs to be that of King David and the Temple. Forbidden by the Lord to build his Temple in Jerusalem, David said, "Well, at least I can provide the materials for my son to do what is barred to me." So, he made preparations, but it was Solomon who did the building. Let us pray that in the days ahead orthodox Anglicans will stop taking it out on one another and starting sitting down at the table together and say, "Now, how do we rise like a phoenix from these tragic circumstances that have been thrust upon us?"
This, I believe, is the godly way forward.
Monday, April 24, 2006
The Da Vinci Code and Company
A few evenings ago I slipped down to Barnes & Noble, and spent an hour going through the religion shelves looking for books that are riding the rapidly rising Da Vinci Wave. I ended up with nine or ten volumes that I spread out on a table in the Starbucks section of the place and perused. I finally chose three or four to read and returned the other volumes to their shelves.
The last few days have found me going over these books in an attempt to get to the bottom of the Da Vinci Code phenomenon that has been riding high now for several years, and which is reaching something of a fever peak as the relase date for the move of the best-seller draws near. The hardback of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has now been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 159 weeks, and this week was its second week on the top of the paperback lists. There is now an illustrated Da Vinci Code, Da Vinci Code tour guides, and I expect all sorts of other ephemera will appear in coming months. This has become a big cultural "event."
Maybe it was fitting that I read The Da Vinci Code soon after it was published, on my way home from Minneapolis in July 2003, where I had been addressing a pre-convention gathering. (Needless to say, I have not be invited to speak at any gatherings in Columbus in June, and probably never will be again!). The book was commended to me be someone as a great read, and so it is. If you are looking for a page-turner, then this is it! However, from the supposed factoids on the first page, I was irritated by the way it played so fast and loose with facts, and was so badly researched.
Don't get me wrong, The Da Vinci Code is a terrific yarn, my problem was that its author seemed unable to separate fact from fiction -- which makes him a very contemporary kind of person! The book leans heavily on Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which when I read it some years ago struck me as a puzzling piece of pseudo-religious exotica, a book that seemed determined to make a massive case with a minimal amount of evidence. The Da Vinci Code is very much the same in its use of facts, scholarship, and evidence.
This week's New York Times Best Seller list has no fewer than three of these kinds of books on the non-fiction lists, and then The Da Vinci Code is there in the fiction lists. One of those non-fiction pieces is The Jesus Papers, written by Michael Baigent, one of the co-authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. He and his colleagues recently challenged Dan Brown in the British court system for plaigerizing. They lost their case, but gathered huge amounts of publicity, which translated into book sales, and in the midst of it out comes this latest offering that is sub-titled, Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History. Coincidence?
There seems to be a cycle of these kinds of books. Every few years out comes another little batch filled with what purports to be 'new evidence' that Jesus did not die, Jesus did not rise, Jesus did not exist, Jesus married Mary Magdalene, or whatever the latest flavor of the month might be. With some of his own flourishes, Michael Baigent actually warms over and adapts the arguments of Hugh Schonfield, whose book, The Passover Plot, was published while I was in seminary -- and I remember clearly the delight I had in watching Michael Green, who taught me New Testament, using careful scholarship to demolish it and show was a shallow piece of work it was.
Well, just like alien space craft crashing near Roswell, NM, or extra-terrestrial research taking place at Area 51, there are some bad ideas that never die. Indeed, what Baigent and, earlier, Schonfield mostly do is re-present notions that have been around for at least 1900 years and regularly come up for air. Baigent writes well, and some of the things he asserts are fascinating, but the book is a little bit like attempting to make a fine Persian rug with colored grasses!
What fascinates me about all these kinds of books is that there are extraordinary juxtapositionings of ideas, facts, half-facts, and fictions, and then they are all tied together and something is made of them. Furthermore, they read like papers I wrote when a student, where I would attempt to make a huge case with very, very limited information. For a time, I thought I was a master at making one or two pertinent points stretch for ten pages, until a professor called my bluff and threw the paper back with a failing grade. At that point the penny dropped, if I was going to write something with substance I needed to do the requisite research and preparation.
As I read Baigent, I find that he doesn't stack up well against the great New Testament and Church History scholars whose work I have delighted in over the years: Oscar Cullmann, Joachim Jeremias, Tom Wright, Leon Morris, E. Earle Ellis, Howard Marshall, William Barclay, C. H. Dodd, Charlie Moule, and so many others. Reading his stuff is like watching a club golfer trying to make his way in an Open Championship at St. Andrew's. He might get some good shots off here and there, but he is no match for the real pros.
Again, as I read Baigent, I found my own brain putting some interesting connections together. There is a flavor about his writing that seemed to ring bells with me and I found myself asking where I had read material presented in this kind of way before. Finally, I realized that there seemed to be an affinity between Baigent and the way that John Shelby Spong writes. A pleasing style takes limited scholarship, evidence, and facts, and somehow manages to weave something interesting but highly questionable out of it.
The problem with The Da Vinci Code and its flotilla of other products is that these things get the kind of marketing that rebuttals will never get. Tom Hanks playing the lead role in the movie of The Da Vinci Code is going to be heard and believed by far more people than the attractive written response of a Lee Strobel (which I would thoroughly recommend).
People have always loved stories, and what these detractors from Gospel truth have done is to hijack the story and make it their tool for presenting their question mark that they want to raise over the Christian faith as it has been revealed. Somehow or other, in this age when narrative and illustration goes far further than careful argument, we have to learn how to repossess the form of the story so that it grabs the attention of those who are seeking after truth, much as Jesus's parables did for his followers two thousand years ago.
This is the point where scholarship, faithfulness, artistry, media talent, and resources intersect. It is not that the church does not have access to these (although perhaps not the financial resources that are available to Hollywood, etc.), but it does have an abiding story that when artistically presented catches imaginations. I find myself wondering whether it is an accident that this latest surge of pseudo-scholarly attacks on the faith come three or four years after "The Passion of the Christ" was in the cinemas, or maybe I am paranoid.
Yes, it is important that we challenge with evidence these cases which are made with such slender evidence, but it is also important that somehow we find a way to winsomely and wonderfully present the alternative case.
The other day a friend suggested I look at the Author's Note at the end of Anne Rice's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. Anne Rice is not a writer I have taken a lot of interest in, but at my friend's urging I got the book and found myself fascinated, for here is a novelist who really understands the importance of careful, methodical research and scholarship. In this afterword she tells of her journey from old-fashioned Roman Catholicism, through atheism, and back to the Christian faith.
As she had prepared to write this book she had expected that she would find fellow travellers among the more skeptical writers and scholars who have flourished since the Enlightenment, "and that Christianity was, at heart, a kind of fraud" (Page 312). She goes on, "In sum, the whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified by nobody and had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and would be horrified by it if he knew about it -- that whol picture which had floated in the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years -- that case was not made. Not only was it not made, I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I'd ever read."
Her assessment becomes even more tart: "I was unconvinced by the wild postulations of those who claimed to be children of the Enlightenment. And I had also sensed something else. Many of these scholars, scholars who apparently devoted their lives to New Testament scholarship, disliked Jesus Christ. Some pitied him as a hopeless failure. Others sneered at him, and some felt an outright contempt. This came between the lines of the books. This emerged in the personality of the texts" (Page 314).
I, too, sense that there is this dislike of Jesus in certain corners of the church, but that dislike turns to something stronger in the writing of a Dan Brown, a Michael Baigent, and others. All this means that those of us who love Jesus with heart, soul, mind, and strength, have our work cut out.
The last few days have found me going over these books in an attempt to get to the bottom of the Da Vinci Code phenomenon that has been riding high now for several years, and which is reaching something of a fever peak as the relase date for the move of the best-seller draws near. The hardback of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has now been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 159 weeks, and this week was its second week on the top of the paperback lists. There is now an illustrated Da Vinci Code, Da Vinci Code tour guides, and I expect all sorts of other ephemera will appear in coming months. This has become a big cultural "event."
Maybe it was fitting that I read The Da Vinci Code soon after it was published, on my way home from Minneapolis in July 2003, where I had been addressing a pre-convention gathering. (Needless to say, I have not be invited to speak at any gatherings in Columbus in June, and probably never will be again!). The book was commended to me be someone as a great read, and so it is. If you are looking for a page-turner, then this is it! However, from the supposed factoids on the first page, I was irritated by the way it played so fast and loose with facts, and was so badly researched.
Don't get me wrong, The Da Vinci Code is a terrific yarn, my problem was that its author seemed unable to separate fact from fiction -- which makes him a very contemporary kind of person! The book leans heavily on Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which when I read it some years ago struck me as a puzzling piece of pseudo-religious exotica, a book that seemed determined to make a massive case with a minimal amount of evidence. The Da Vinci Code is very much the same in its use of facts, scholarship, and evidence.
This week's New York Times Best Seller list has no fewer than three of these kinds of books on the non-fiction lists, and then The Da Vinci Code is there in the fiction lists. One of those non-fiction pieces is The Jesus Papers, written by Michael Baigent, one of the co-authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. He and his colleagues recently challenged Dan Brown in the British court system for plaigerizing. They lost their case, but gathered huge amounts of publicity, which translated into book sales, and in the midst of it out comes this latest offering that is sub-titled, Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History. Coincidence?
There seems to be a cycle of these kinds of books. Every few years out comes another little batch filled with what purports to be 'new evidence' that Jesus did not die, Jesus did not rise, Jesus did not exist, Jesus married Mary Magdalene, or whatever the latest flavor of the month might be. With some of his own flourishes, Michael Baigent actually warms over and adapts the arguments of Hugh Schonfield, whose book, The Passover Plot, was published while I was in seminary -- and I remember clearly the delight I had in watching Michael Green, who taught me New Testament, using careful scholarship to demolish it and show was a shallow piece of work it was.
Well, just like alien space craft crashing near Roswell, NM, or extra-terrestrial research taking place at Area 51, there are some bad ideas that never die. Indeed, what Baigent and, earlier, Schonfield mostly do is re-present notions that have been around for at least 1900 years and regularly come up for air. Baigent writes well, and some of the things he asserts are fascinating, but the book is a little bit like attempting to make a fine Persian rug with colored grasses!
What fascinates me about all these kinds of books is that there are extraordinary juxtapositionings of ideas, facts, half-facts, and fictions, and then they are all tied together and something is made of them. Furthermore, they read like papers I wrote when a student, where I would attempt to make a huge case with very, very limited information. For a time, I thought I was a master at making one or two pertinent points stretch for ten pages, until a professor called my bluff and threw the paper back with a failing grade. At that point the penny dropped, if I was going to write something with substance I needed to do the requisite research and preparation.
As I read Baigent, I find that he doesn't stack up well against the great New Testament and Church History scholars whose work I have delighted in over the years: Oscar Cullmann, Joachim Jeremias, Tom Wright, Leon Morris, E. Earle Ellis, Howard Marshall, William Barclay, C. H. Dodd, Charlie Moule, and so many others. Reading his stuff is like watching a club golfer trying to make his way in an Open Championship at St. Andrew's. He might get some good shots off here and there, but he is no match for the real pros.
Again, as I read Baigent, I found my own brain putting some interesting connections together. There is a flavor about his writing that seemed to ring bells with me and I found myself asking where I had read material presented in this kind of way before. Finally, I realized that there seemed to be an affinity between Baigent and the way that John Shelby Spong writes. A pleasing style takes limited scholarship, evidence, and facts, and somehow manages to weave something interesting but highly questionable out of it.
The problem with The Da Vinci Code and its flotilla of other products is that these things get the kind of marketing that rebuttals will never get. Tom Hanks playing the lead role in the movie of The Da Vinci Code is going to be heard and believed by far more people than the attractive written response of a Lee Strobel (which I would thoroughly recommend).
People have always loved stories, and what these detractors from Gospel truth have done is to hijack the story and make it their tool for presenting their question mark that they want to raise over the Christian faith as it has been revealed. Somehow or other, in this age when narrative and illustration goes far further than careful argument, we have to learn how to repossess the form of the story so that it grabs the attention of those who are seeking after truth, much as Jesus's parables did for his followers two thousand years ago.
This is the point where scholarship, faithfulness, artistry, media talent, and resources intersect. It is not that the church does not have access to these (although perhaps not the financial resources that are available to Hollywood, etc.), but it does have an abiding story that when artistically presented catches imaginations. I find myself wondering whether it is an accident that this latest surge of pseudo-scholarly attacks on the faith come three or four years after "The Passion of the Christ" was in the cinemas, or maybe I am paranoid.
Yes, it is important that we challenge with evidence these cases which are made with such slender evidence, but it is also important that somehow we find a way to winsomely and wonderfully present the alternative case.
The other day a friend suggested I look at the Author's Note at the end of Anne Rice's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. Anne Rice is not a writer I have taken a lot of interest in, but at my friend's urging I got the book and found myself fascinated, for here is a novelist who really understands the importance of careful, methodical research and scholarship. In this afterword she tells of her journey from old-fashioned Roman Catholicism, through atheism, and back to the Christian faith.
As she had prepared to write this book she had expected that she would find fellow travellers among the more skeptical writers and scholars who have flourished since the Enlightenment, "and that Christianity was, at heart, a kind of fraud" (Page 312). She goes on, "In sum, the whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified by nobody and had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and would be horrified by it if he knew about it -- that whol picture which had floated in the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years -- that case was not made. Not only was it not made, I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I'd ever read."
Her assessment becomes even more tart: "I was unconvinced by the wild postulations of those who claimed to be children of the Enlightenment. And I had also sensed something else. Many of these scholars, scholars who apparently devoted their lives to New Testament scholarship, disliked Jesus Christ. Some pitied him as a hopeless failure. Others sneered at him, and some felt an outright contempt. This came between the lines of the books. This emerged in the personality of the texts" (Page 314).
I, too, sense that there is this dislike of Jesus in certain corners of the church, but that dislike turns to something stronger in the writing of a Dan Brown, a Michael Baigent, and others. All this means that those of us who love Jesus with heart, soul, mind, and strength, have our work cut out.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Outside of Logic and Reason
Some Holy Weeks and Easters have been a romp for me, others have been more like marathons -- this one has fitted into the latter category. So here I am on Easter Monday, exhausted and shell-shocked, sitting at my computer mulling over the last few days. Two things have kept coming back. The one is what I would consider to be the interrelated furor of the Gospel of Judas and the renewed interest in The Da Vinci Code sparked by the outcome of the High Court trial in London. The other was a conversation I had at our Easter Egg hunt with a young father whose family are on the fringes of our congregation.
While mothers and kids were scampering around the yard of the home where the Easter egg hunt was taking place, this young dad and I got talking about video games and gaming. That morning, as I had "chaplained" the YMCA Soccer Field opposite the church, and had noticed a geeky looking guy sitting apart from other parents. I had approached him with the eagerness of a Golden Retriever puppy, only to be held at bay by an icy glare.
It was then that I caught sight of the magazine he was reading while supposedly watching his seven-year-old daughter play soccer: an online games publication. It didn't take a split second to deduce that this parent was a loner whose life to some degree revolved around the fantasy world of an online game (or two). I backed off, but raised the subject in the afternoon when talking to this dad about his first grader's interests and how they are attempting to steer him away from getting lost in games.
The afternoon dad is in the retail business, and began talking about how big the games industry already is, and how big it is going to become. I was already aware of some of this from television, radio, and other news outlets, but Adam quickly gave a seminar in its growth curve, and how deeply it had dug into the lives of so many of their contempories and their children. I confess that my computer game experience has been limited to an occasional round of Freecell and variations on Tetris, but I have been amazed when browsing through places like Circuit City to see how realistic so many games now are. I can fully recognize how easy it would be for an impressionable or compulsive person to get caught up in this fake world to the exclusion of reality.
I have written before about my concern over our increasing inability to relate cause and effect, or action and consequence. Now here I was being given the alarming picture of just how big is another component of our culture that is facilitating this separation of reality from fantasy or imagination. It would seem that it is a sign of inner health to be able to allow an interplay of your inner being with the world around you so that each is appropriately interpreting the one to the other. All of us have mental boltholes into which we escape, but the majority know the difference between a pleasing fantasy and the reality around us.
However, I found myself wondering whether this indulgence in online entertainment is yet another erosive factor attempting to give the fantasy world a far higher profile than is appropriate for mental, emotional, and spiritual health. It may be harmless for two small boys to slip into the character of their favorite figure in Star Wars and then to spend several happy hours acting their imaginary world out, but is there a point in a person's development where such an ability is first counter-productive and then even dangerous?
I don't have any answers to such questions, but it seems that in the world of entertainment and illusion in which we live today, there are increasing numbers of individuals for whom this is a relevant question -- and will it go further? Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was made bearable for its inhabitants by large doses of illusion and consequence-less sex: how far have we proceded down this road?
This all then ties into what I perceive to be the fraying of the edges as we look at the wider world and irrational or a non-logical disconnect between actions and consequences. It may be good that postmodernity takes intuition more seriously (something I rejoice in as an off-the-Myers-Briggs-chart intuitive), but we cannot allow intuition and the warm fuzzies to take over in such a way that we abandon reason and logic.
Not only do we seem to be doing so, but this in turn is doing damage to the fabric of our culture and society. For example, falling in love (clearly a non-logical experience informed by Hollywood romances) has in the minds of millions become more important than remaining married -- with the most awful consequences. Or individuals are eager to buy themselves out of melancholy with ther credit cards, all the time ignoring the fact that eventually the bills need to be paid. In politics, business, world affairs, the life of the churches, we see equally abherent behaviors.
Which brings me to The Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas. I love the comment of Ben Witherington of Asbury Seminary following a conversation with A. J. Levine of Vanderbilt Divinity School, recorded in his blog about the Gospel of Judas before it was aired on National Geographic, that "we need to all have our baloney detection meters set to 'heightened alert' as we watch the special on the Gospel of Judas tonight."
In the following days Dr. Witherington in his blog (http://benwitherington.blogspot.com), unpacks this 2nd or even 3rd Century Coptic Gnostic piece using all the tools of modern biblical and historical research to demonstrate the baloney factor. He then goes on through Holy Week in his blog to take on James Tabor's book about Jesus founding his own dynasty -- with the same acute baloney meter in play. Here is a scholar using reason and intelligence to debunk something that is rather interesting but has very limited foundation in facts.
Yet, alas, our culture does not listen to the Ben Witherington's of this world, but the Dan Brown's who then take this half-baked scholarship and make a ripping yarn from it, and there is no doubt that The Da Vinci Code is a fabulous story. However, here again we see the inability of people to separate truth from fiction because having enjoyed the tale, there are many who have swallowed the Mary Magdalene mother of Jesus's children thesis. A few years ago it was "The Celestine Prophecy" that filled this kind of role.
There is much that was lost in the modern Enlightenment Age which we have in recent years begun to recover, and to our enrichment, but we do ourselves untold harm if we do so at the expense of rational and logical thinking. If I ruled the world, as the old song goes, I would insist that every high schooler take at least two or three semesters of good old elementary logic as a requirement for graduation. I would also provide remedial courses in logic in colleges, universities, and workplace in-service training.
The value of learning to think logically is that it helps you ask the right questions and to root out the fallacies upon which more and more of our postmodern life is founded. It feeds our internal baloney meter. It is like a correctional lens that helps us to see reality with a clarity that we might otherwise be missing. It is when we see reality clearly that we are able to recognize the place of Christ within this brew that is human life, and to minister Christ appropriately.
While mothers and kids were scampering around the yard of the home where the Easter egg hunt was taking place, this young dad and I got talking about video games and gaming. That morning, as I had "chaplained" the YMCA Soccer Field opposite the church, and had noticed a geeky looking guy sitting apart from other parents. I had approached him with the eagerness of a Golden Retriever puppy, only to be held at bay by an icy glare.
It was then that I caught sight of the magazine he was reading while supposedly watching his seven-year-old daughter play soccer: an online games publication. It didn't take a split second to deduce that this parent was a loner whose life to some degree revolved around the fantasy world of an online game (or two). I backed off, but raised the subject in the afternoon when talking to this dad about his first grader's interests and how they are attempting to steer him away from getting lost in games.
The afternoon dad is in the retail business, and began talking about how big the games industry already is, and how big it is going to become. I was already aware of some of this from television, radio, and other news outlets, but Adam quickly gave a seminar in its growth curve, and how deeply it had dug into the lives of so many of their contempories and their children. I confess that my computer game experience has been limited to an occasional round of Freecell and variations on Tetris, but I have been amazed when browsing through places like Circuit City to see how realistic so many games now are. I can fully recognize how easy it would be for an impressionable or compulsive person to get caught up in this fake world to the exclusion of reality.
I have written before about my concern over our increasing inability to relate cause and effect, or action and consequence. Now here I was being given the alarming picture of just how big is another component of our culture that is facilitating this separation of reality from fantasy or imagination. It would seem that it is a sign of inner health to be able to allow an interplay of your inner being with the world around you so that each is appropriately interpreting the one to the other. All of us have mental boltholes into which we escape, but the majority know the difference between a pleasing fantasy and the reality around us.
However, I found myself wondering whether this indulgence in online entertainment is yet another erosive factor attempting to give the fantasy world a far higher profile than is appropriate for mental, emotional, and spiritual health. It may be harmless for two small boys to slip into the character of their favorite figure in Star Wars and then to spend several happy hours acting their imaginary world out, but is there a point in a person's development where such an ability is first counter-productive and then even dangerous?
I don't have any answers to such questions, but it seems that in the world of entertainment and illusion in which we live today, there are increasing numbers of individuals for whom this is a relevant question -- and will it go further? Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was made bearable for its inhabitants by large doses of illusion and consequence-less sex: how far have we proceded down this road?
This all then ties into what I perceive to be the fraying of the edges as we look at the wider world and irrational or a non-logical disconnect between actions and consequences. It may be good that postmodernity takes intuition more seriously (something I rejoice in as an off-the-Myers-Briggs-chart intuitive), but we cannot allow intuition and the warm fuzzies to take over in such a way that we abandon reason and logic.
Not only do we seem to be doing so, but this in turn is doing damage to the fabric of our culture and society. For example, falling in love (clearly a non-logical experience informed by Hollywood romances) has in the minds of millions become more important than remaining married -- with the most awful consequences. Or individuals are eager to buy themselves out of melancholy with ther credit cards, all the time ignoring the fact that eventually the bills need to be paid. In politics, business, world affairs, the life of the churches, we see equally abherent behaviors.
Which brings me to The Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas. I love the comment of Ben Witherington of Asbury Seminary following a conversation with A. J. Levine of Vanderbilt Divinity School, recorded in his blog about the Gospel of Judas before it was aired on National Geographic, that "we need to all have our baloney detection meters set to 'heightened alert' as we watch the special on the Gospel of Judas tonight."
In the following days Dr. Witherington in his blog (http://benwitherington.blogspot.com), unpacks this 2nd or even 3rd Century Coptic Gnostic piece using all the tools of modern biblical and historical research to demonstrate the baloney factor. He then goes on through Holy Week in his blog to take on James Tabor's book about Jesus founding his own dynasty -- with the same acute baloney meter in play. Here is a scholar using reason and intelligence to debunk something that is rather interesting but has very limited foundation in facts.
Yet, alas, our culture does not listen to the Ben Witherington's of this world, but the Dan Brown's who then take this half-baked scholarship and make a ripping yarn from it, and there is no doubt that The Da Vinci Code is a fabulous story. However, here again we see the inability of people to separate truth from fiction because having enjoyed the tale, there are many who have swallowed the Mary Magdalene mother of Jesus's children thesis. A few years ago it was "The Celestine Prophecy" that filled this kind of role.
There is much that was lost in the modern Enlightenment Age which we have in recent years begun to recover, and to our enrichment, but we do ourselves untold harm if we do so at the expense of rational and logical thinking. If I ruled the world, as the old song goes, I would insist that every high schooler take at least two or three semesters of good old elementary logic as a requirement for graduation. I would also provide remedial courses in logic in colleges, universities, and workplace in-service training.
The value of learning to think logically is that it helps you ask the right questions and to root out the fallacies upon which more and more of our postmodern life is founded. It feeds our internal baloney meter. It is like a correctional lens that helps us to see reality with a clarity that we might otherwise be missing. It is when we see reality clearly that we are able to recognize the place of Christ within this brew that is human life, and to minister Christ appropriately.
Monday, April 10, 2006
The Millennium Development Goals
The other day one of our deputies to General Convention wrote to several of us, "There will be a great deal of pressure on us... to support the MDGs. In principle it is difficult for Christians to be against such lofty goals." The email then raised several concerns that this particular deputy had, asking for insight from this little group.
If you don't know or don't remember what the Millennium Development Goals are they are as follows:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development
The goals were established within the context of the United Nations in 2000, and have resulted in unprecedented efforts by many governments and groupings around the world to respond to these international needs and challenges.
Just glancing at them, they are hard to gainsay, especially for citizens of God's Kingdom. Having worked in global ministry until relatively recently and done a lot of traveling around the world as a result, I can from experience and observation say that each one of these targets is vital for the health and future of humanity. So, in many respects this should be a no-brainer for believers.
It seems that the problem with the MDGs comes in the unpacking and the application of them. As a Christian who has the privilege of a roof over my head, food on my table, adequate healthcare and access to education, then I have the obligation laid upon me by the compassion of Christ to take seriously the wants and needs of those who have few of these blessings -- which is a huge slice of the world's population. The conversation that Jesus had with his disciples which is recorded in Matthew 25:1ff makes clear the obligation of the agape (love) to which we are bound as the greatly blessed followers of the Lamb of God.
Yet the question is just how we are going to attack even the small sliver of these goals of which we are capable. This seems to be one of the places where we come apart because the bodies engaged in this task that some trust others do not. In response to this question about the MDGs were responses, for example, that denigrated the United Nations or praised it. (BTW, I think there is a different perception of the UN among those of us who come from smaller, weaker nations, than that held by so many Americans, citizens of the most powerful nation in the world). There are also very mixed feelings about the Christian and church agencies that might involve themselves in this work.
Having worked internationally, as well as being concerned about those we support who are able to put boots on the ground, food in bellies, and schoolbooks on desks, there is also the huge issue of accountability. After having been misled by even the most godly people, when I was working with Global South dioceses and in Russia, it became my practice when visiting somewhere that might be the recipient of resources to ask to see the accountant. I would also try to discover the network of interrelationships among those who would administer work at the receiving end, for in some places those with a job have a primary obligation to family, clan, or tribe.
The reason for this carefulness was simple: it did not matter how good people's theology might be, or how much they said they loved the Lord Jesus, money and resources going into so many places where they were a scarce commodity would too often get channelled off into other pockets or to meet other needs than those being funded. We might tut, tut, over this, but quite honestly it happens in the developed world as has been seen from some of the scandals that have surrounded certain significant philanthropies. Those of us called to administer funds and resources not only have a responsibility to the recipients, but also to the donors.
So, when trying to assess things like the Millennium Development Goals there are a whole series of questions that need to be asked and answered. Not only if these are appropriate goals for Christians to put their weight behind, but also how we are to approach the challenge, which challenges we are going to take on for ourselves, who is going to administer the work we commit to undertaking, and who is going to be accountable for the right use of funds and resources at every stage of the process. There are more questions, but these are a good starting point.
A further concern has to be what will happen to monies that might released for other work as a result of donations from the rich world, especially if one of the key partners is the government of a nation. If, for example, we put funding that might help with the area of public elementary education, will the government then withdraw funding from there and use it to help buy the president a jet or add another armored vehicle to that country's army? And if this happens, would this be a good thing or a bad thing?
Which brings us back to the goals themselves. In principle they all look pretty good to me, but the way I might interpret them, given my biblical Christian worldview and presuppositions, might be very different from the way that a secular body would interpret them. For example, having seen child mortality at first hand in needy countries, I am deeply moved by the reality behind simple song we all learned that "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world..." This means feeding, clothing, medicating, and educating must be on the front burner, but how do we relate to those for whom challenging child mortality means preventing the birth of "unwanted" children by means of abortion?
Since being asked this far-reaching question I have found myself trying to frame my own personal response to the Millennium Development Goals, which I have not had to this point. I have concluded that they are in principle a valuable tool to use to measure our involvement with the needs of the world, and that we as Christians will be failing in our discipleship if we do not support them. However, I would further suggest that there should then be a multiplicity of ways of responding creatively to them in our policy-making, giving, and involvement.
First, passing ecclesiastical legislative affirmations of them is cheap and easy, and is something American mainline Christians love to do, but developing a trusted partnership in the Global South requires a lot more effort -- and then the willingness to back that effort with years and years of support and follow through. We are even worse at that.
For a number of years now, my wife has worked with a particular Sudanese refugee camp in northern Uganda providing scholarships in an elementary school that is run by one of the Sudanese dioceses. Each year seventy or more students, primarily girls, have had their needs covered by parishes and individuals in the Diocese of Tennessee. This isn't big, but it makes a huge difference that could be amplified over the years as Southern Sudan settles down to nation building. I like such hands-on micro-partnerships very much because there is a relationship that does good and by its very nature demands accountability.
But there is a component of these goals that I have not looked at yet, and that is to "ensure environmental sustainability." This one comes home to each of us and our lifestyles. Those of us in the developed world, however responsible we seek to be, are the most profligate in the use of the world's resources. This is having its impact on the climate globally, which is surely going to lead to a lot of tears as a relatively short period of time passes. When the environment is handled irresponsibly, the poor and needy are almost always the first to be hurt.
This requires each of us to look at the way we live, the way we do transportation, the way we do church, the way we educate our children, and so forth, to ask some pretty fundamental questions, and then to act upon them. It may be politically correct to trumpet the value of the MDGs from the housetops, but are we prepared to take these goals into our own houses and start asking what the real implication is for ourselves and the way we manage our lives? This is where the rubber really does hit the road.
There is a lot to be dealt with in a question like the one that was asked by our deputy, and I am grateful to have been asked it. I do not know how adequate my responses are, but I would hope they are a springboard from which those who are brighter, more intelligent, and more dynamic than myself might launch themselves.
If you don't know or don't remember what the Millennium Development Goals are they are as follows:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development
The goals were established within the context of the United Nations in 2000, and have resulted in unprecedented efforts by many governments and groupings around the world to respond to these international needs and challenges.
Just glancing at them, they are hard to gainsay, especially for citizens of God's Kingdom. Having worked in global ministry until relatively recently and done a lot of traveling around the world as a result, I can from experience and observation say that each one of these targets is vital for the health and future of humanity. So, in many respects this should be a no-brainer for believers.
It seems that the problem with the MDGs comes in the unpacking and the application of them. As a Christian who has the privilege of a roof over my head, food on my table, adequate healthcare and access to education, then I have the obligation laid upon me by the compassion of Christ to take seriously the wants and needs of those who have few of these blessings -- which is a huge slice of the world's population. The conversation that Jesus had with his disciples which is recorded in Matthew 25:1ff makes clear the obligation of the agape (love) to which we are bound as the greatly blessed followers of the Lamb of God.
Yet the question is just how we are going to attack even the small sliver of these goals of which we are capable. This seems to be one of the places where we come apart because the bodies engaged in this task that some trust others do not. In response to this question about the MDGs were responses, for example, that denigrated the United Nations or praised it. (BTW, I think there is a different perception of the UN among those of us who come from smaller, weaker nations, than that held by so many Americans, citizens of the most powerful nation in the world). There are also very mixed feelings about the Christian and church agencies that might involve themselves in this work.
Having worked internationally, as well as being concerned about those we support who are able to put boots on the ground, food in bellies, and schoolbooks on desks, there is also the huge issue of accountability. After having been misled by even the most godly people, when I was working with Global South dioceses and in Russia, it became my practice when visiting somewhere that might be the recipient of resources to ask to see the accountant. I would also try to discover the network of interrelationships among those who would administer work at the receiving end, for in some places those with a job have a primary obligation to family, clan, or tribe.
The reason for this carefulness was simple: it did not matter how good people's theology might be, or how much they said they loved the Lord Jesus, money and resources going into so many places where they were a scarce commodity would too often get channelled off into other pockets or to meet other needs than those being funded. We might tut, tut, over this, but quite honestly it happens in the developed world as has been seen from some of the scandals that have surrounded certain significant philanthropies. Those of us called to administer funds and resources not only have a responsibility to the recipients, but also to the donors.
So, when trying to assess things like the Millennium Development Goals there are a whole series of questions that need to be asked and answered. Not only if these are appropriate goals for Christians to put their weight behind, but also how we are to approach the challenge, which challenges we are going to take on for ourselves, who is going to administer the work we commit to undertaking, and who is going to be accountable for the right use of funds and resources at every stage of the process. There are more questions, but these are a good starting point.
A further concern has to be what will happen to monies that might released for other work as a result of donations from the rich world, especially if one of the key partners is the government of a nation. If, for example, we put funding that might help with the area of public elementary education, will the government then withdraw funding from there and use it to help buy the president a jet or add another armored vehicle to that country's army? And if this happens, would this be a good thing or a bad thing?
Which brings us back to the goals themselves. In principle they all look pretty good to me, but the way I might interpret them, given my biblical Christian worldview and presuppositions, might be very different from the way that a secular body would interpret them. For example, having seen child mortality at first hand in needy countries, I am deeply moved by the reality behind simple song we all learned that "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world..." This means feeding, clothing, medicating, and educating must be on the front burner, but how do we relate to those for whom challenging child mortality means preventing the birth of "unwanted" children by means of abortion?
Since being asked this far-reaching question I have found myself trying to frame my own personal response to the Millennium Development Goals, which I have not had to this point. I have concluded that they are in principle a valuable tool to use to measure our involvement with the needs of the world, and that we as Christians will be failing in our discipleship if we do not support them. However, I would further suggest that there should then be a multiplicity of ways of responding creatively to them in our policy-making, giving, and involvement.
First, passing ecclesiastical legislative affirmations of them is cheap and easy, and is something American mainline Christians love to do, but developing a trusted partnership in the Global South requires a lot more effort -- and then the willingness to back that effort with years and years of support and follow through. We are even worse at that.
For a number of years now, my wife has worked with a particular Sudanese refugee camp in northern Uganda providing scholarships in an elementary school that is run by one of the Sudanese dioceses. Each year seventy or more students, primarily girls, have had their needs covered by parishes and individuals in the Diocese of Tennessee. This isn't big, but it makes a huge difference that could be amplified over the years as Southern Sudan settles down to nation building. I like such hands-on micro-partnerships very much because there is a relationship that does good and by its very nature demands accountability.
But there is a component of these goals that I have not looked at yet, and that is to "ensure environmental sustainability." This one comes home to each of us and our lifestyles. Those of us in the developed world, however responsible we seek to be, are the most profligate in the use of the world's resources. This is having its impact on the climate globally, which is surely going to lead to a lot of tears as a relatively short period of time passes. When the environment is handled irresponsibly, the poor and needy are almost always the first to be hurt.
This requires each of us to look at the way we live, the way we do transportation, the way we do church, the way we educate our children, and so forth, to ask some pretty fundamental questions, and then to act upon them. It may be politically correct to trumpet the value of the MDGs from the housetops, but are we prepared to take these goals into our own houses and start asking what the real implication is for ourselves and the way we manage our lives? This is where the rubber really does hit the road.
There is a lot to be dealt with in a question like the one that was asked by our deputy, and I am grateful to have been asked it. I do not know how adequate my responses are, but I would hope they are a springboard from which those who are brighter, more intelligent, and more dynamic than myself might launch themselves.
Monday, April 03, 2006
How Are The Boomers Aging?
It was an article in last Sunday's New York Times (March 26, 2006) that brought back to my mind the plight of Boomers. On the business page was a relatively small piece about the median size of the inheritance that Boomers are receiving from their parents' generation. Many had been hoping for gazillions, but what they are getting is around $29,000. As the article pointed out, once nursing home bills are paid, and so forth, the average Boomer will get about enough to buy little more than a new car.
But that isn't all. Social Security is now on an age scale that is sliding upward, and 65 is no longer the assured retirement age for this generation and those coming afterward. Then there are all these corporations who have found their traditional pension schemes too onerous and are transferring across to 401k plans. This means that those in their forties and fifties who are caught in the middle of this alteration are suddenly looking at far less in the way of a retirement haul than they had anticipated.
Add to all this the fact that the Boomers have been famously profligate with their funds, and it looks as if this a good portion of this generation is facing a financially bleak old age. All this is before assessing the price of healthcare, something all of us are going to need a lot more of in years to come, and is being
delivered through an expensive and tottering system. It would seem that a huge number of Boomers are going to have to work, and work hard, well into what we consider today to be old age. In addition, they are often going to find themselves doing it without the family support that they want and need.
Programmed to be self-actualizing, Boomers have not only been profligate in the way they have used their money, they have also been profligate with relationships. Marriages too often have been treated as disposable, which has meant that relationships with children (spouses, and former spouses) have been tenuous or badly damaged. While past generations of aging parents have been able to look to their offspring for assistance with growing old, many in this generation are in a big fix on this front.
As the first wave of Boomers is reaching sixty and is beginning to think about its golden age, it is discovering that the currency of these "bonus years" has acquired quite a tarnish. I have been talking and writing about this for quite a while now, but most of the time my observations have been greeted with the "How interesting" kind of response, and the page has been quickly turned so the subject can be changed. For many a Boomer just the idea of being old is hard to digest!
This does not mean that all Boomers are going to have a rough time of it. We are both sixty, and while Rosemary and I will certainly not be rich, as things look right now we are well placed for an active "retirement" that will be adequately financed (unless the whole world economic system collapses, and then we will all be in trouble!). There are millions like us who have paid our Social Security, have good pension funds, have salted savings away, have taken care of our real estate, and have managed to educate our children and maintain an excellent relationship with them.
As we look at the Boom Generation, it seems likely, however, that there will be a strong mismatch between the Haves and the Have-nots. Some of us will be able to travel, live in our dream house, and watch our grandchildren grown from toddlerdom to adulthood, while others could well find themselves living in seedy isolation, working as greeters at Walmart, and be attached to the world through our Internet umbilical cords. My nightmare vision for certain males of our generation is that they will live alone in a one-room apartment indulging as they are able in the excesses of gambling and pornography that the online world is able to offer.
One thing that we can be certain of is that retirement is not going to be the same for the rising generation of elders. While the G.I. and Silent generations were able to look forward at a relatively early age to hanging up their cleats and settling into an easier and less stressful existence, possibly in some resort area in the country, Boomers face a much more bracing time, and this will present some
extraordinary challenges to those in ministry.
For example, as we get older we spend more time pondering our mortality. I am watching my contemporaries succumb to various complaints and diseases of aging, whether it be cancer or arthritis. Some of my peers are beginning to die as a result of their ailments, while others are unable to live the active and freer lives that they had anticipated by this point in their earthly journey. As these realities press in upon us, there is every reason to do what Boomers have spent little time doing, and that is wondering if there is anything after this.
I first focused on this in a big way when I wrote Brave New Church several years ago, and as I look back over the chapter about The Fast Approaching Gray Wave in that book, I see few reasons to radically modify my forecasts. This is a great opportunity for the churches, but I do not see us taking it seriously, and few if any have any strategies in place.
During the last couple of years we have been thinking about what might come when in due course we hang up our spurs here. What should we do, if our health holds steady, with those years that God gives to us when we do not have to be out there in the marketplace earning our keep any more. Right now we only have ideas, but they will be relatively easy to flesh out as the reality approaches and we become more focused on the task. What we are certain of is that ministry will not cease but will go on. Freed from the need of a package of salary and benefits it is possible that we will be able to take on tasks for which there are no funds available, or even to focus our ministry on working with our peers who have spend the whole of their lives at odds with the Christian faith and organized Christianity.
There are, in fact, all sorts of wonderfully creative things that churches and elder Christians are able to pioneer and to do. There is also a huge amount of incredible talent that is being wasted on golf courses all over the country, as Christians with fabulous skills to share have no outlet, so as a result they let themselves go to seed.
In a culture that is as youth-oriented and youth-fixated as ours, it is extremely difficult to raise much interest in the elder generation, but in many ways it is the next ministry frontier, and there are profound possibilities for the future. The problem is that these possibilities will not be noticed until they are upon us. Actually, with an older than average membership, North American Anglicans are beautifully placed to begin doing something about all this, but I suspect we are too engrossed in our own ecclesiastical navel-gazing to be able to do much constructive about it.
But that isn't all. Social Security is now on an age scale that is sliding upward, and 65 is no longer the assured retirement age for this generation and those coming afterward. Then there are all these corporations who have found their traditional pension schemes too onerous and are transferring across to 401k plans. This means that those in their forties and fifties who are caught in the middle of this alteration are suddenly looking at far less in the way of a retirement haul than they had anticipated.
Add to all this the fact that the Boomers have been famously profligate with their funds, and it looks as if this a good portion of this generation is facing a financially bleak old age. All this is before assessing the price of healthcare, something all of us are going to need a lot more of in years to come, and is being
delivered through an expensive and tottering system. It would seem that a huge number of Boomers are going to have to work, and work hard, well into what we consider today to be old age. In addition, they are often going to find themselves doing it without the family support that they want and need.
Programmed to be self-actualizing, Boomers have not only been profligate in the way they have used their money, they have also been profligate with relationships. Marriages too often have been treated as disposable, which has meant that relationships with children (spouses, and former spouses) have been tenuous or badly damaged. While past generations of aging parents have been able to look to their offspring for assistance with growing old, many in this generation are in a big fix on this front.
As the first wave of Boomers is reaching sixty and is beginning to think about its golden age, it is discovering that the currency of these "bonus years" has acquired quite a tarnish. I have been talking and writing about this for quite a while now, but most of the time my observations have been greeted with the "How interesting" kind of response, and the page has been quickly turned so the subject can be changed. For many a Boomer just the idea of being old is hard to digest!
This does not mean that all Boomers are going to have a rough time of it. We are both sixty, and while Rosemary and I will certainly not be rich, as things look right now we are well placed for an active "retirement" that will be adequately financed (unless the whole world economic system collapses, and then we will all be in trouble!). There are millions like us who have paid our Social Security, have good pension funds, have salted savings away, have taken care of our real estate, and have managed to educate our children and maintain an excellent relationship with them.
As we look at the Boom Generation, it seems likely, however, that there will be a strong mismatch between the Haves and the Have-nots. Some of us will be able to travel, live in our dream house, and watch our grandchildren grown from toddlerdom to adulthood, while others could well find themselves living in seedy isolation, working as greeters at Walmart, and be attached to the world through our Internet umbilical cords. My nightmare vision for certain males of our generation is that they will live alone in a one-room apartment indulging as they are able in the excesses of gambling and pornography that the online world is able to offer.
One thing that we can be certain of is that retirement is not going to be the same for the rising generation of elders. While the G.I. and Silent generations were able to look forward at a relatively early age to hanging up their cleats and settling into an easier and less stressful existence, possibly in some resort area in the country, Boomers face a much more bracing time, and this will present some
extraordinary challenges to those in ministry.
For example, as we get older we spend more time pondering our mortality. I am watching my contemporaries succumb to various complaints and diseases of aging, whether it be cancer or arthritis. Some of my peers are beginning to die as a result of their ailments, while others are unable to live the active and freer lives that they had anticipated by this point in their earthly journey. As these realities press in upon us, there is every reason to do what Boomers have spent little time doing, and that is wondering if there is anything after this.
I first focused on this in a big way when I wrote Brave New Church several years ago, and as I look back over the chapter about The Fast Approaching Gray Wave in that book, I see few reasons to radically modify my forecasts. This is a great opportunity for the churches, but I do not see us taking it seriously, and few if any have any strategies in place.
During the last couple of years we have been thinking about what might come when in due course we hang up our spurs here. What should we do, if our health holds steady, with those years that God gives to us when we do not have to be out there in the marketplace earning our keep any more. Right now we only have ideas, but they will be relatively easy to flesh out as the reality approaches and we become more focused on the task. What we are certain of is that ministry will not cease but will go on. Freed from the need of a package of salary and benefits it is possible that we will be able to take on tasks for which there are no funds available, or even to focus our ministry on working with our peers who have spend the whole of their lives at odds with the Christian faith and organized Christianity.
There are, in fact, all sorts of wonderfully creative things that churches and elder Christians are able to pioneer and to do. There is also a huge amount of incredible talent that is being wasted on golf courses all over the country, as Christians with fabulous skills to share have no outlet, so as a result they let themselves go to seed.
In a culture that is as youth-oriented and youth-fixated as ours, it is extremely difficult to raise much interest in the elder generation, but in many ways it is the next ministry frontier, and there are profound possibilities for the future. The problem is that these possibilities will not be noticed until they are upon us. Actually, with an older than average membership, North American Anglicans are beautifully placed to begin doing something about all this, but I suspect we are too engrossed in our own ecclesiastical navel-gazing to be able to do much constructive about it.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Email Daily Devotions
One of our ministries at the Church of the Apostles, South Williamson County, Tennessee, during the last three years has been an email Daily Devotion.
Each Monday to Friday it is delivered to your email box every morning and provides a Scripture Reading, a Thought for the Day, a Topic for Thanksgiving, a Topic for Intercession, a short Collect, and the readings from the Daily Lectionary for that particular day.
It is now being used by people in various parts of the world, and we invite you to receive them. If you would like to give it a try then email me at RichardKew@aol.com.
If you don't like it after you have given it a try you can always email to get yourself removed from the list...
We are working on putting together a new website for the Church of the Apostles, and it will include not ony the usual stuff, but access to the Daily Devotions, as well as audio and video from our worship each Sunday. Our website has not been updated for a while because we are in this transitional period, but you can find us at
Each Monday to Friday it is delivered to your email box every morning and provides a Scripture Reading, a Thought for the Day, a Topic for Thanksgiving, a Topic for Intercession, a short Collect, and the readings from the Daily Lectionary for that particular day.
It is now being used by people in various parts of the world, and we invite you to receive them. If you would like to give it a try then email me at RichardKew@aol.com.
If you don't like it after you have given it a try you can always email to get yourself removed from the list...
We are working on putting together a new website for the Church of the Apostles, and it will include not ony the usual stuff, but access to the Daily Devotions, as well as audio and video from our worship each Sunday. Our website has not been updated for a while because we are in this transitional period, but you can find us at
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Ecclesiastical Meditions from a Lawnmower
It is that time of the year again in Middle Tennessee: plenty of rain, warm sunshine, sweet breezes, all of which make the grass grow and bring the mower back to the lawn. Just as against all reason my wife enjoys ironing, so I get pleasure from mowing the lawn, especially during these last couple of years that we have had a riding mower! Mowing gives a person time to think, and this afternoon I did.
As is always the case with lawnmower meditations my mind was initially all over the place, but little by little it became focused on one concern. In this case it was a comment made by a lay friend who left ECUSA for AMiA, and who said to me the other week, almost in wonderment, that it amazed him that folks like me had hung on for so long. I confess there are days when it amazes me, and regularly I have to ask myself whether it has to do with native stubbornness, the fact that I am so deeply entrenched in the Pension Fund, or what?
Besides, aren't evangelicals like me supposed to be sticklers for correct theology, so why on earth am I clinging to the hopeless wreckage of a church that is so compromised some folks find it difficult to think of it as a church? Yes, we are sticklers, and I think that in the last few years I have become more of a doctrinal stickler than ever, but this is precisely the reason I stay rather than taking my toys elsewhere, although elsewhere would a lot more comfortable.
As I rode my mower, the spring breeze in my face, I started to ennumerate reasons why I stay. As I have said before, it is certainly not because I still love the Episcopal Church as a denomination. Respect for ECUSA has long since evaporated, and my attitude toward those in leadership is somewhere along a continuum from disdain to despair. But as my friend, Bishop Ed Little, wrote in Christianity Today just recently, quoting another friend, Bishop Jeffrey Steenson, "The true identity of the church as Christ's body is in no way diminished by the imperfections of its human members."
Bishops Ed and Jeff are neither of them saying something new, because doesn't the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion state that "in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments?" (Article XXVI). The compilers of the Articles did not make this up, they were standing on the shoulders of the likes of St. Augustin of Hippo, and neither was Augustine out on a limb of his own because he was merely extrapolating from the words of our Lord Jesus.
When Jeffrey Steenson was a seminarian and I was his field education supervisor, I remember having several conversations about Jesus's parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30), and about the Net (Matthew 13:47-50), where the Lord makes it blatantly clear that it is not for us to measure the visible community of faith. It is when time is wrapped up and eternity begins that the Sovereign Judge who knows the secrets of all hearts will work that one out, separating sheep from goats.
It is because I want to be faithful to Scripture that I am still part of the Episcopal Church of the USA. The seamless robe of Christ has been torn just too many times for me to want to be part in ripping it further. I understand the discomforts that have led so many to leave, but understanding does not give me permission to follow.
Another significant reason is rooted in the history of our Anglican tradition, especially its evangelical emphasis. We evangelicals look particularly fondly upon Thomas Cranmer, the Reformation Archbishop of Canterbury, who did not demolish the historic structures of the church, merely renewed them by cleansing from the tradition unnecessary accretions that had attached themselves to English Christianity during the centuries leading up to the 16th.
Deep within our spiritual DNA is the assumption that if God could reform then, then he will enable reformation again. Of course, we assume reformation is essential for within our consciousness is the Reformation's watchword, Semper Reformandum. The church is, in one way or another, always in need of reformation, and that reformation will not take place if all those with a reformation vision march rapidly for the doors as soon as things get uncomfortable.
But as well as being the spiritual children of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, we are also the spiritual children of those Puritans who stayed after the Restoration of the monarchy following the English Civil War and Commonwealth. With so many of their fellows leaving as part of what became known as the Great Ejection in 1662, it was not easy for those stalwarts who stuck with the Church of England to do so, but they did and much that was good in following generations can be traced back to this particular root.
Since then there have been other opportunities to leave, like the rise of Methodism, and the cruel demise of Anglicans on this side of the Atlantic following the War of Independence, but often from that tiny handful who have stuck it out have come the seeds of future renewals and revivals of faith. Evangelical Anglicanism has this tenacious streak, and deep within it is a providential sense that God has put us in this tradition for an hour like this.
There is still more, for it is love of biblical truth that makes us want to challenge the excesses of overt error. We are not given the truth to keep it carefully protected, wrapped in cotton, hidden in a bank vault, but to be put to use. Being a bearer of truth means willingly entering into debate and dialogue with those who have missed the point when measured by revelation and the catholic faith, for it is only by engagement that minds, hearts, and souls are changed. This does not mean that we believe we have got it right, for all of us are called to measure our convictions against the scrutiny of Scripture's message.
I guess this is why I echo the words of Ed Little:
Why do I not join those who have left or are leaving? Why do I stay? Serving a broken and divided church is a hard calling, and I do not minimize the difficulty of the task or the inevitable disappointments that I will encounter on the journey. But the Lord, for his good purpose, has (I humbly believe) thrown into one church Christians of radically different and sometimes theologically incompatible perspectives. Is it possible that in the midst of this painful discontinuity, he may do a work that none of us can foresee? It is in that hope and in remembering that he is Lord of the church and in charge of the big picture that I follow Jesus in the Episcopal Church.
As is always the case with lawnmower meditations my mind was initially all over the place, but little by little it became focused on one concern. In this case it was a comment made by a lay friend who left ECUSA for AMiA, and who said to me the other week, almost in wonderment, that it amazed him that folks like me had hung on for so long. I confess there are days when it amazes me, and regularly I have to ask myself whether it has to do with native stubbornness, the fact that I am so deeply entrenched in the Pension Fund, or what?
Besides, aren't evangelicals like me supposed to be sticklers for correct theology, so why on earth am I clinging to the hopeless wreckage of a church that is so compromised some folks find it difficult to think of it as a church? Yes, we are sticklers, and I think that in the last few years I have become more of a doctrinal stickler than ever, but this is precisely the reason I stay rather than taking my toys elsewhere, although elsewhere would a lot more comfortable.
As I rode my mower, the spring breeze in my face, I started to ennumerate reasons why I stay. As I have said before, it is certainly not because I still love the Episcopal Church as a denomination. Respect for ECUSA has long since evaporated, and my attitude toward those in leadership is somewhere along a continuum from disdain to despair. But as my friend, Bishop Ed Little, wrote in Christianity Today just recently, quoting another friend, Bishop Jeffrey Steenson, "The true identity of the church as Christ's body is in no way diminished by the imperfections of its human members."
Bishops Ed and Jeff are neither of them saying something new, because doesn't the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion state that "in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments?" (Article XXVI). The compilers of the Articles did not make this up, they were standing on the shoulders of the likes of St. Augustin of Hippo, and neither was Augustine out on a limb of his own because he was merely extrapolating from the words of our Lord Jesus.
When Jeffrey Steenson was a seminarian and I was his field education supervisor, I remember having several conversations about Jesus's parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30), and about the Net (Matthew 13:47-50), where the Lord makes it blatantly clear that it is not for us to measure the visible community of faith. It is when time is wrapped up and eternity begins that the Sovereign Judge who knows the secrets of all hearts will work that one out, separating sheep from goats.
It is because I want to be faithful to Scripture that I am still part of the Episcopal Church of the USA. The seamless robe of Christ has been torn just too many times for me to want to be part in ripping it further. I understand the discomforts that have led so many to leave, but understanding does not give me permission to follow.
Another significant reason is rooted in the history of our Anglican tradition, especially its evangelical emphasis. We evangelicals look particularly fondly upon Thomas Cranmer, the Reformation Archbishop of Canterbury, who did not demolish the historic structures of the church, merely renewed them by cleansing from the tradition unnecessary accretions that had attached themselves to English Christianity during the centuries leading up to the 16th.
Deep within our spiritual DNA is the assumption that if God could reform then, then he will enable reformation again. Of course, we assume reformation is essential for within our consciousness is the Reformation's watchword, Semper Reformandum. The church is, in one way or another, always in need of reformation, and that reformation will not take place if all those with a reformation vision march rapidly for the doors as soon as things get uncomfortable.
But as well as being the spiritual children of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, we are also the spiritual children of those Puritans who stayed after the Restoration of the monarchy following the English Civil War and Commonwealth. With so many of their fellows leaving as part of what became known as the Great Ejection in 1662, it was not easy for those stalwarts who stuck with the Church of England to do so, but they did and much that was good in following generations can be traced back to this particular root.
Since then there have been other opportunities to leave, like the rise of Methodism, and the cruel demise of Anglicans on this side of the Atlantic following the War of Independence, but often from that tiny handful who have stuck it out have come the seeds of future renewals and revivals of faith. Evangelical Anglicanism has this tenacious streak, and deep within it is a providential sense that God has put us in this tradition for an hour like this.
There is still more, for it is love of biblical truth that makes us want to challenge the excesses of overt error. We are not given the truth to keep it carefully protected, wrapped in cotton, hidden in a bank vault, but to be put to use. Being a bearer of truth means willingly entering into debate and dialogue with those who have missed the point when measured by revelation and the catholic faith, for it is only by engagement that minds, hearts, and souls are changed. This does not mean that we believe we have got it right, for all of us are called to measure our convictions against the scrutiny of Scripture's message.
I guess this is why I echo the words of Ed Little:
Why do I not join those who have left or are leaving? Why do I stay? Serving a broken and divided church is a hard calling, and I do not minimize the difficulty of the task or the inevitable disappointments that I will encounter on the journey. But the Lord, for his good purpose, has (I humbly believe) thrown into one church Christians of radically different and sometimes theologically incompatible perspectives. Is it possible that in the midst of this painful discontinuity, he may do a work that none of us can foresee? It is in that hope and in remembering that he is Lord of the church and in charge of the big picture that I follow Jesus in the Episcopal Church.
Friday, March 31, 2006
An Appreciation of Alec Motyer
Since I posted a piece the other week in which I mentioned Alec Motyer, various folks have been in touch with me who, in one way or another, have had their lives touched by the Motyers. It seemed that it might be worth saying a few more things about Alec and Beryl Motyer because they have always been a model and example to Rosemary and myself.
I first met Alec Motyer toward the end of my first year in seminary, and then as my second year began I became field education student at his parish, St. Luke's Church, West Hampstead, London, a position that I held for two full years. In many respects those two years were the most influential part of my theological education because not only was Alec a fine scholar, but he was (and is) an extraordinary expository preacher, and a loving pastor.
Before coming to St. Luke's, Alec had been the Vice-Principal of Clifton Theological College, Bristol, one of the three seminaries that was eventually to be merged into Trinity College, Bristol. Alec had left under something of a cloud not long before I became his field education student. While I never knew nor sought to find out the details, it was an experience that I believe tempered the man so that a few years later when he became Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, he was ready for that work and excelled in it. His successor there was none other than George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury.
Alec is Irish, born and raised in the Repubic of Ireland, education at Trinity College, Dublin, and ordained in the Church of Ireland, where he served as Curate at St. Kevan's Church, Dublin, before moving to England with his wife, Beryl. What is remarkable about him is that in many respects he looks no different now than he did forty years ago, although his flaming red hair is sandier as a result of streaks of grey. He still has the brightness of spirit and agility of mind that those of us who came under his influence loved and appreciated.
For two years, every Sunday morning and evening, I was privileged to sit under Alec Motyer's powerful preaching ministry. In some ways it is oratorically from another time, but beneath it was a profound and devout respect for the Word of God, and his belief that it is through these inspired words that God speaks to human beings and shapes their lives. It is not the preacher's task to get in the way of the Word, but to rightly apportion the Word so that it forms the lives of those who are willing and obedient enough to put themselves under its authority.
What I gained from these years was not only from his example of obedience, but also an understanding of how God speaks to us through Scripture, and how I might, as a pastor, open Scripture so that it speaks to those for whom I have spiritual responsibility. When I was first ordained my preaching style was a fourth-rate aping of Alec Motyer, although as the years passed and we went our separate ways I was able to develop my own distinctive manner of handling the Word. Yet to this day I often sit during preparation and wonder how Alec would handle the piece of Scripture that I find myself wrestling with.
Actually, Alec's life and mine did not go separate ways immediately after seminary. My first ordained ministry was as assistant in a parish just up the road from St. Luke's Church in North London, and then when a couple of years later Alec became Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, at his prompting I found myself as assistant on the staff of the large congregation in whose parish boundaries Trinity College sits. If as a seminarian I had the privilege of sitting under Alec's ministry, as a junior priest he had the more dubious privilege of sitting under mine!
That was not as daunting as I had imagined it might be, and it enabled me to continue learning from this man who had become so important in my life. He and Beryl were important not just for ministry reasons but for personal reasons as well, as I am about to recount.
On October 9, 1966, the second Sunday of the month, as I was standing with Alec in the gathering dark on the steps of the church in the gathering dark following the evening service this woman, a student at the London University college next door to St. Luke's came bounding up. To cut a long story short, within a couple of minutes we had been introduced and set to work putting back together the middle school group that had languished following the ill-health of its former leader.
I confess that for the first few weeks we were thrown together I couldn't stand this female. But Alec and Beryl believed with all their heart in the biblical mandate that it is not good for a man (or a woman) to be alone, and so they nurtured and stoked our relationship. Twenty-one months later this woman became my wife at a ceremony presided over by none other than Alec Motyer! Nearly thirty-eight years later I agree with Alec, it is not good for a man or woman to be alone, and I am thankful that he helped me find my life's partner, Rosemary, even if I was not initially too impressed by her (or she by me).
Alec is a product of an Anglicanism that is a significant part of our tradition, but which is perfectly happy to have full fellowship with those beyond our tradition, particularly on the conservative and Protestant end of the spectrum. He is a low churchman who is still happiest celebrating the Lord's Supper from the north end of the communion table, and who believes pulpit takes priority over sacrament. While most orthodox American Anglicans might regard the Catholics as their nearest denominational neighbors, for Alec it is Presbyterians of a more conservative color. He is very much a product of the definitely Reformational Church of Ireland in which he was reared.
He also taught us to have a healthy skepticism of the excesses of modern scholarship. While he encouraged us to be use our brains and be scholars, which meant reading and learning from the stuff that was being published at that moment, he also made sure that we asked significant questions of it, not necessarily accepting the validity of dominant theories.
For example, the central focus of Alec's intellectual life has been his study of the prophecy of Isaiah, and since retiring he has published two substantial commentaries on this great book. While benefiting from those students of the text who believe that there is actually an Isaianic school and that you can point to two or three different voices within that school, Alec has never been convinced and believes most of that magisterial book came from God's inspiration of Isaiah of Jerusalem. I hazard that Alec has read just about everything ever published in English on Isaiah, but he has not allowed academic orthodoxy to turn his head.
While I have not always agreed with Alec's theses, I am profoundly grateful for his example and teaching that I need not be carried along by what is intellectually fashionable. Rather than being an anti-intellectual or obscurantist mindset, what this does is lead to an independence of mind that does not allow itself to be "tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine..." (Ephesians 4:14).
Alec, like his former colleague and another mentor of mine, Jim Packer, has drunk deeply at the wells of the Puritan tradition. Now sneered at, particularly in many Anglican circles, there was a richness of theological reflection and pastoral faithfulness among Puritans that we would do well to listen to today. The Puritans certainly had their shortcomings, but there was a faithfulness to their theologizing and pastoring that sought to bring the rich essence of biblical theology to play in ever facet of human living and personal holiness.
This stream of Anglicanism continued to have a dynamic life within particular elements of the evangelical movement in the Church of England, parts of Australia, and in other pockets. It is richly composted soil, enabling us to recognize that theological developments that seek to sidestep the normative values of the Christian faith as found in the 66 books of Holy Scripture are ultimately theological and spiritual missteps. This, probably, is something that makes some of us us awkward partners and bedfellows to those who would be more cavalier in their understandings.
Alec Motyer is around eighty now, and despite some ill-health a few years ago, is a spritely energetic man. He and Beryl live on the outskirts of Manchester, England, not too far from their daughter, Katie, who was born, appropriately enough for an Irish couple, on St. Patrick's Day, 1967. When Rosemary and I were ministering in Bristol, Katie was in our Sunday School, but now has children of her own of that age!
I have written this appreciation because I want to honor this man who means so much to me. My life and ministry would have been far poorer without his presence, guidance, and wisdom. As far as I am concerned he is a giant of the Twentieth Century. He is not so proud that he had to get ecclesiastical accolades, for he ended his ministry pastoring a small congregation on England's South Coast. This is a man who has not been in ministry for a good "career in the church," but because he was prepared to accept whatever call the Lord Jesus made upon him. I pray that I might continue to learn this lesson from him.
p.s. You can get an idea of the extent of Alec's writing by Googling his name, or by going to http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/author.pl/author_id=278
I first met Alec Motyer toward the end of my first year in seminary, and then as my second year began I became field education student at his parish, St. Luke's Church, West Hampstead, London, a position that I held for two full years. In many respects those two years were the most influential part of my theological education because not only was Alec a fine scholar, but he was (and is) an extraordinary expository preacher, and a loving pastor.
Before coming to St. Luke's, Alec had been the Vice-Principal of Clifton Theological College, Bristol, one of the three seminaries that was eventually to be merged into Trinity College, Bristol. Alec had left under something of a cloud not long before I became his field education student. While I never knew nor sought to find out the details, it was an experience that I believe tempered the man so that a few years later when he became Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, he was ready for that work and excelled in it. His successor there was none other than George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury.
Alec is Irish, born and raised in the Repubic of Ireland, education at Trinity College, Dublin, and ordained in the Church of Ireland, where he served as Curate at St. Kevan's Church, Dublin, before moving to England with his wife, Beryl. What is remarkable about him is that in many respects he looks no different now than he did forty years ago, although his flaming red hair is sandier as a result of streaks of grey. He still has the brightness of spirit and agility of mind that those of us who came under his influence loved and appreciated.
For two years, every Sunday morning and evening, I was privileged to sit under Alec Motyer's powerful preaching ministry. In some ways it is oratorically from another time, but beneath it was a profound and devout respect for the Word of God, and his belief that it is through these inspired words that God speaks to human beings and shapes their lives. It is not the preacher's task to get in the way of the Word, but to rightly apportion the Word so that it forms the lives of those who are willing and obedient enough to put themselves under its authority.
What I gained from these years was not only from his example of obedience, but also an understanding of how God speaks to us through Scripture, and how I might, as a pastor, open Scripture so that it speaks to those for whom I have spiritual responsibility. When I was first ordained my preaching style was a fourth-rate aping of Alec Motyer, although as the years passed and we went our separate ways I was able to develop my own distinctive manner of handling the Word. Yet to this day I often sit during preparation and wonder how Alec would handle the piece of Scripture that I find myself wrestling with.
Actually, Alec's life and mine did not go separate ways immediately after seminary. My first ordained ministry was as assistant in a parish just up the road from St. Luke's Church in North London, and then when a couple of years later Alec became Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, at his prompting I found myself as assistant on the staff of the large congregation in whose parish boundaries Trinity College sits. If as a seminarian I had the privilege of sitting under Alec's ministry, as a junior priest he had the more dubious privilege of sitting under mine!
That was not as daunting as I had imagined it might be, and it enabled me to continue learning from this man who had become so important in my life. He and Beryl were important not just for ministry reasons but for personal reasons as well, as I am about to recount.
On October 9, 1966, the second Sunday of the month, as I was standing with Alec in the gathering dark on the steps of the church in the gathering dark following the evening service this woman, a student at the London University college next door to St. Luke's came bounding up. To cut a long story short, within a couple of minutes we had been introduced and set to work putting back together the middle school group that had languished following the ill-health of its former leader.
I confess that for the first few weeks we were thrown together I couldn't stand this female. But Alec and Beryl believed with all their heart in the biblical mandate that it is not good for a man (or a woman) to be alone, and so they nurtured and stoked our relationship. Twenty-one months later this woman became my wife at a ceremony presided over by none other than Alec Motyer! Nearly thirty-eight years later I agree with Alec, it is not good for a man or woman to be alone, and I am thankful that he helped me find my life's partner, Rosemary, even if I was not initially too impressed by her (or she by me).
Alec is a product of an Anglicanism that is a significant part of our tradition, but which is perfectly happy to have full fellowship with those beyond our tradition, particularly on the conservative and Protestant end of the spectrum. He is a low churchman who is still happiest celebrating the Lord's Supper from the north end of the communion table, and who believes pulpit takes priority over sacrament. While most orthodox American Anglicans might regard the Catholics as their nearest denominational neighbors, for Alec it is Presbyterians of a more conservative color. He is very much a product of the definitely Reformational Church of Ireland in which he was reared.
He also taught us to have a healthy skepticism of the excesses of modern scholarship. While he encouraged us to be use our brains and be scholars, which meant reading and learning from the stuff that was being published at that moment, he also made sure that we asked significant questions of it, not necessarily accepting the validity of dominant theories.
For example, the central focus of Alec's intellectual life has been his study of the prophecy of Isaiah, and since retiring he has published two substantial commentaries on this great book. While benefiting from those students of the text who believe that there is actually an Isaianic school and that you can point to two or three different voices within that school, Alec has never been convinced and believes most of that magisterial book came from God's inspiration of Isaiah of Jerusalem. I hazard that Alec has read just about everything ever published in English on Isaiah, but he has not allowed academic orthodoxy to turn his head.
While I have not always agreed with Alec's theses, I am profoundly grateful for his example and teaching that I need not be carried along by what is intellectually fashionable. Rather than being an anti-intellectual or obscurantist mindset, what this does is lead to an independence of mind that does not allow itself to be "tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine..." (Ephesians 4:14).
Alec, like his former colleague and another mentor of mine, Jim Packer, has drunk deeply at the wells of the Puritan tradition. Now sneered at, particularly in many Anglican circles, there was a richness of theological reflection and pastoral faithfulness among Puritans that we would do well to listen to today. The Puritans certainly had their shortcomings, but there was a faithfulness to their theologizing and pastoring that sought to bring the rich essence of biblical theology to play in ever facet of human living and personal holiness.
This stream of Anglicanism continued to have a dynamic life within particular elements of the evangelical movement in the Church of England, parts of Australia, and in other pockets. It is richly composted soil, enabling us to recognize that theological developments that seek to sidestep the normative values of the Christian faith as found in the 66 books of Holy Scripture are ultimately theological and spiritual missteps. This, probably, is something that makes some of us us awkward partners and bedfellows to those who would be more cavalier in their understandings.
Alec Motyer is around eighty now, and despite some ill-health a few years ago, is a spritely energetic man. He and Beryl live on the outskirts of Manchester, England, not too far from their daughter, Katie, who was born, appropriately enough for an Irish couple, on St. Patrick's Day, 1967. When Rosemary and I were ministering in Bristol, Katie was in our Sunday School, but now has children of her own of that age!
I have written this appreciation because I want to honor this man who means so much to me. My life and ministry would have been far poorer without his presence, guidance, and wisdom. As far as I am concerned he is a giant of the Twentieth Century. He is not so proud that he had to get ecclesiastical accolades, for he ended his ministry pastoring a small congregation on England's South Coast. This is a man who has not been in ministry for a good "career in the church," but because he was prepared to accept whatever call the Lord Jesus made upon him. I pray that I might continue to learn this lesson from him.
p.s. You can get an idea of the extent of Alec's writing by Googling his name, or by going to http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/author.pl/author_id=278
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Making Sense of Tennessee
We are living through tumultuous times in the Diocese of Tennessee. Had we been a simple majority diocese I suspect that by now Neal Michell would have been bishop-elect, and we would be starting to think about how we move forward together in mission in this weird and wonderful century. But we are not a simple majority diocese, we require 2/3 in each order to elect, which is difficult enough in less troubled times, but given where we are today it seems to be a North Face of the Eiger that needs to be scaled. We gather again on May 6th to give it another try.
But what is behind this? Although the mix is distinctively different, in many ways this is akin to the stand-off that is happening in other parts of all the churches, not just the Episcopal Church. The Diocese of Tennessee has changed enormously in the last dozen years, going from being a jurisdiction whose previous bishop had died in office amidst enormous confusion. Tennessee, despite its ancient name, was, in effect, a new diocese carved out of one that used to cover the whole state, and the previous bishop never really grasped that -- and the dynamics that go with it.
The present bishop, Bertram Herlong, did grasp that reality and began giving the diocese focus and visionary leadership. Virtually all its vital signs show remarkable health, even with some almighty hiccups after the events of August 2003, when the General Convention determined that the sovereign self takes priority over the revelation of the Sovereign God. Yet not everyone in the diocese sees what has happened in this corner of God's Vineyard as progress, and this perception is what has been playing itself out over the last two Saturdays.
The tragedy is that those who have managed to prevent the election of a bishop here have a deep affection for the Episcopal Church of the USA, and do not want its genius to be lost. One can admire their love for the institution that many of us have served for a long time, but if we were to tot up the evidence it would seem to suggest that their approach will further damage this little corner of the church rather than strengthen the institution for mission in the bracing climate that lies ahead.
We live in a very different kind of age from the one that spawned the church structures that we have been used to, and part of the unraveling that is taking place right now is due to the fact that yesterday's structures are totally inappropriate for tomorrow's church in tomorrow's world. It is hard to let go of what is old and familiar in order to move into a different kind of age, but that is what is being asked of us. However, some seem unable to do that, and while seeing themselves as champions of the institution, they are in fact endangering it by trampling over seeds of new life.
This is a postdenominational age, as my friend, Kevin Martin, has pointed out, and one of the challenges to old-line denominations is how we should adapt, function, and fullfill our ministry in an era like this. What is required of us is the ability to modify, to take calculated risks, to see how what we have inherited can be made to work on the different kind of landscape that is emerging.
In the midst of this a good chunk of the received historical structures of North American Anglicanism are obsolute or irrelevant, getting in the way rather than enabling the mission. Indeed, they are wedded to outmoded ideologies and a top-heavy bureaucracy with the result that they seem completely absorbed in their own agenda that there is little room for God's agenda to make itself known.
Those who hold a major portion of the balance in the Tennessee vote are non-parochial and retired clergy, many of them wonderful men and women, but folks whose ministry was exercised in a different time, or outside the steady pattern of parish life that is the front line of the church's mission. I was a non-parochial priest for 18 years, so from personal experience I fully understand the lesser sense of accountability that such folks have to the congregational and diocesan framework of day-to-day church life.
But there are other factors. One is that those who are leading the charge on both sides of this divide are Boomers, and as the history of this generation has shown, we Boomers see things in terms of competing visions. About twenty years ago William Strauss and Neil Howe published their remarkable book, Generations, in which they said that "Unlike their G.I. fathers, who excelled at overcoming crisis, Boomers are attracted to the possibility of fomenting crisis" (Page 314).
Strauss and Howe, in their more recent book, The Fourth Turning, posit that sometime during the first decade of the 21st Century we would encounter an enormous Crisis. Written before 9/11, it is possible that what took place then either triggered it or was the ominous early warning of a lot that was (and still is) to come. Older and wiser, they now say that "When the Crisis hits, Boomers will need to defuse the Culture Wars at once. Their pro-choice secularists and pro-life evangelicals will need to move beyond their Unraveling-era skirmishes and unite around an agenda of national survival, much as Missionary elders (an early prophetic generation) did during the depression and war. Bommers must also display a forbearance others have never associated with them" (Page 325).
The question before us in Tennessee is sobering because there are many difficult choices and decisions attached to it. Those of us who are Boomers in this battle are, perhaps, being forced to face up to what Strauss and Howe call the dark side of our collective persona. We require wisdom that comes from above that will prevail over being hot-headed. We require grace and holiness that will counter self-centeredness. We also need to grapple with what it means to be a people committed to the truth wherever such a commitment might take us. Without the aid of a mighty God these challenges could be considered dilemmas that are mutually exclusive.
Yesterday, between ballots in Christ Church Cathedral I began reading Eugene Peterson's latest volume, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. In its second chapter there is a paragraph that I wanted to shout from the rooftops because it precisely addresses what we are dealing with.
Peterson writes, "I want to counter this widespread practice of taking personal experience instead of the Bible as the authority for living. I want to pull Christian Scriptures back from the margins of the contemporary imagination where they have been so rudely elbowed by their glamorous competitors, and reestablish them at the center as the text for living the Christian life deeply and well. I want to confront and expose this replacement of the authoritative Bible by the authoritative self. I want to place personal experience under the authority of the Bible and not over it. I want to set the Bible before us as the text by which we live our lives, this text that stands in such sturdy contrast to the potpourri of religious psychology, self-development, mystical experimentation, and devotional dilettantism that has come to characterize so much of what takes cover under the umbrella of 'spirituality'" (Page 17).
But as I have read these words again today I realize that if I am to be a person who lives his life under the authority of God's revelation, then I personally have to take responsibility for the part that I have played in the stand-off here in Tennessee. Whether our intentions are the very best, and I hope that mine have been, because of our fallenness we cannot help but complicate things. I want to discover in the next few weeks how I might, with others, find a godly resolution to this impasse, and one that will bring such glory to God that the heavens will trumpet forth their praises.
But what is behind this? Although the mix is distinctively different, in many ways this is akin to the stand-off that is happening in other parts of all the churches, not just the Episcopal Church. The Diocese of Tennessee has changed enormously in the last dozen years, going from being a jurisdiction whose previous bishop had died in office amidst enormous confusion. Tennessee, despite its ancient name, was, in effect, a new diocese carved out of one that used to cover the whole state, and the previous bishop never really grasped that -- and the dynamics that go with it.
The present bishop, Bertram Herlong, did grasp that reality and began giving the diocese focus and visionary leadership. Virtually all its vital signs show remarkable health, even with some almighty hiccups after the events of August 2003, when the General Convention determined that the sovereign self takes priority over the revelation of the Sovereign God. Yet not everyone in the diocese sees what has happened in this corner of God's Vineyard as progress, and this perception is what has been playing itself out over the last two Saturdays.
The tragedy is that those who have managed to prevent the election of a bishop here have a deep affection for the Episcopal Church of the USA, and do not want its genius to be lost. One can admire their love for the institution that many of us have served for a long time, but if we were to tot up the evidence it would seem to suggest that their approach will further damage this little corner of the church rather than strengthen the institution for mission in the bracing climate that lies ahead.
We live in a very different kind of age from the one that spawned the church structures that we have been used to, and part of the unraveling that is taking place right now is due to the fact that yesterday's structures are totally inappropriate for tomorrow's church in tomorrow's world. It is hard to let go of what is old and familiar in order to move into a different kind of age, but that is what is being asked of us. However, some seem unable to do that, and while seeing themselves as champions of the institution, they are in fact endangering it by trampling over seeds of new life.
This is a postdenominational age, as my friend, Kevin Martin, has pointed out, and one of the challenges to old-line denominations is how we should adapt, function, and fullfill our ministry in an era like this. What is required of us is the ability to modify, to take calculated risks, to see how what we have inherited can be made to work on the different kind of landscape that is emerging.
In the midst of this a good chunk of the received historical structures of North American Anglicanism are obsolute or irrelevant, getting in the way rather than enabling the mission. Indeed, they are wedded to outmoded ideologies and a top-heavy bureaucracy with the result that they seem completely absorbed in their own agenda that there is little room for God's agenda to make itself known.
Those who hold a major portion of the balance in the Tennessee vote are non-parochial and retired clergy, many of them wonderful men and women, but folks whose ministry was exercised in a different time, or outside the steady pattern of parish life that is the front line of the church's mission. I was a non-parochial priest for 18 years, so from personal experience I fully understand the lesser sense of accountability that such folks have to the congregational and diocesan framework of day-to-day church life.
But there are other factors. One is that those who are leading the charge on both sides of this divide are Boomers, and as the history of this generation has shown, we Boomers see things in terms of competing visions. About twenty years ago William Strauss and Neil Howe published their remarkable book, Generations, in which they said that "Unlike their G.I. fathers, who excelled at overcoming crisis, Boomers are attracted to the possibility of fomenting crisis" (Page 314).
Strauss and Howe, in their more recent book, The Fourth Turning, posit that sometime during the first decade of the 21st Century we would encounter an enormous Crisis. Written before 9/11, it is possible that what took place then either triggered it or was the ominous early warning of a lot that was (and still is) to come. Older and wiser, they now say that "When the Crisis hits, Boomers will need to defuse the Culture Wars at once. Their pro-choice secularists and pro-life evangelicals will need to move beyond their Unraveling-era skirmishes and unite around an agenda of national survival, much as Missionary elders (an early prophetic generation) did during the depression and war. Bommers must also display a forbearance others have never associated with them" (Page 325).
The question before us in Tennessee is sobering because there are many difficult choices and decisions attached to it. Those of us who are Boomers in this battle are, perhaps, being forced to face up to what Strauss and Howe call the dark side of our collective persona. We require wisdom that comes from above that will prevail over being hot-headed. We require grace and holiness that will counter self-centeredness. We also need to grapple with what it means to be a people committed to the truth wherever such a commitment might take us. Without the aid of a mighty God these challenges could be considered dilemmas that are mutually exclusive.
Yesterday, between ballots in Christ Church Cathedral I began reading Eugene Peterson's latest volume, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. In its second chapter there is a paragraph that I wanted to shout from the rooftops because it precisely addresses what we are dealing with.
Peterson writes, "I want to counter this widespread practice of taking personal experience instead of the Bible as the authority for living. I want to pull Christian Scriptures back from the margins of the contemporary imagination where they have been so rudely elbowed by their glamorous competitors, and reestablish them at the center as the text for living the Christian life deeply and well. I want to confront and expose this replacement of the authoritative Bible by the authoritative self. I want to place personal experience under the authority of the Bible and not over it. I want to set the Bible before us as the text by which we live our lives, this text that stands in such sturdy contrast to the potpourri of religious psychology, self-development, mystical experimentation, and devotional dilettantism that has come to characterize so much of what takes cover under the umbrella of 'spirituality'" (Page 17).
But as I have read these words again today I realize that if I am to be a person who lives his life under the authority of God's revelation, then I personally have to take responsibility for the part that I have played in the stand-off here in Tennessee. Whether our intentions are the very best, and I hope that mine have been, because of our fallenness we cannot help but complicate things. I want to discover in the next few weeks how I might, with others, find a godly resolution to this impasse, and one that will bring such glory to God that the heavens will trumpet forth their praises.
Monday, March 20, 2006
A New Thing?
Several weeks ago I wrote a piece about the theological vacuum that there is among those who believe the whole issue of rethinking our understanding of human sexuality is of God. As I have before, I asked at that time if anyone could come up with an adequate theological response to orthodoxy, and as usual, there has been a resounding silence. I guess it should not surprise me because few 'reappraisers' visit this blog, but stuff does get around on the Internet and I had hoped that somehow or other it would get into the in-box of some of those leading this charge away from received biblical values.
However, I have raised the issue with one or two 'progressive' friends, and it would appear that the only approach they can come up with that gives them permission to move forward is that God is doing a new thing. That is, to assert that God is doing something that is above and beyond anything that has ever happened before in the history of monotheism, outside the canon of Scripture, and having little to do with the on going tradition and life of the church.
What this allows for is an end run on the last 4,000 years or so, and seems to obviate any need for a response to careful historical analysis, and the mindset of the church catholic through the ages. It also obviates any need to respond to careful and disciplined theological analysis that makes it very clear that a revisionist understanding of sexuality has no place in the Christian story.
The manifesto in the Episcopal Church of those who are going down the path that God might be doing a new thing is a document that was presented to the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham, England, last year, and which goes by the unlikely title of To Set Our Hope on Christ. Shallow and thoroughly postmodern in its approach toward Scripture, it asserts that "For almost forty years, members of the Episcopal Church have discerned holiness in same-sex relationships and, have come to support the blessing of such unions and the ordination or consecration of persons in those unions" (TSOHOC 2.0). It believes that this is the gift that we have to offer the rest of the world.
It is not my intention to respond to this document, although obviously I find it totally lacking, but to move forward to discuss the wider implications of what it means for God to be doing a new thing like this in our midst.
First of all, we have to get a clear answer to the question why God has broken completely will all precedent that was set by... God! If we are to be trinitarian Christians believing in the God who has revealed himself, then it is essential that we accept that this deity is eternal, almighty, and immutable. This means that God was, is, and always will be unchanging and changeless, and that in this Almighty God we live and move and have our being.
This also means that what we believe (and have always believed) about this God and God's self-revelation is either wrong, or was revelation just for a limited period of time and now has been superceded. This would mean that we are part of some kind of evolutionary continuum, and not only have we evolved 'upward' but so has God.
This further means, therefore, that if God is doing a new thing, then God is a process rather than all the things that Christians have declared him to be since 325 AD and the Council of Nicea. If this God is always changing, developing, and altering, because we are always changing, developing, and altering, then this God is becoming a different God than the One he used to be. It is also to say that those who are in the know, gnostics if you like, have a better idea of who God is and what God is up to than the whole of the rest of world Christianity.
To say that God is doing a new thing is an attempt to totally sidestep revelation and all our Christian past in favor of an untried and untested future. It also raises such huge questions that it soon becomes apparent that this solution to a profund theological dilemma is actually no solution at all, unless you want to abandon all that the church believes about God, and start again from scratch. It is to happily declare ourselves out of step and out of communion with the whole Christian faith tradition of the last two millennia. This is nothing less than chronological arrogance that flies in the face of To Set Our Hope On Christ's protestations of humility.
That these 'progressives' are prepared to go to such lengths illustrates that not only does the left not understand precisely what it means to be human and made in the image of God, but also that they have totally lost touch with the nature of the triune God in whose image we have supposedly been made (Genesis 1:27, Mark 10:5-9). This is perhaps the most supreme example of cutting off your nose to spite your face, or of demolishing the whole building in which your apartment is located for fear that your home will be repossessed!
Looking at the history of the church, there has been a steady stream of those who have pronounced that God is doing a new thing going back as far as Montanus, a prophetic individual from Asia Minor at the end of the Second Century. His prophecies were claimed to be of a higher order than what God had already revealed, and were finally declared suspect. There were also a variety of strange practices and values attached to the Montanists.
It would seem that a good few of these movements of new or higher revelation have a sexual component to them. Somewhere within them there are individuals who chafe under biblical standards of sexual morality. We have certainly seen this in plenty of 20th Century groups who have made such claims. And here we have such a claim being made again, except this time instead of being on the fringes it is in the heart of the established churches.
I actually had an experience of this phenomenon early in my ministry. In the early 1970s as the charismatic renewal was cranking up and from America's West Coast came the Jesus Movement, I was the assistant on the staff of a young and dynamic parish in North London. A Jesus Movement group had found its way to London and began preying on our fairly large and lively congregation of teens and twenties. This group was then known as the Children of God.
The Children of God had been founded by a Christian Missionary Alliance pastor who subsequently took for himself the name Moses David. He had been a plain vanilla evangelical minister, but as the phenomenon went forward he began receiving revelations which resulted in the Children of God moving away from revealed Christianity. In a relatively short time they went from being a quirky but basically orthodox outfit, to being something entirely different.
Among the revelations that Moses David had was one that opened the doors for a different kind of sexuality. Certainly, his own appetites were met by a variety of women, and not long after this, supposedly under the guidance of God, they launched their "flirty fish" initiative which based upon the teaching of Jesus that he would make his followers fishers of men, sent out a bevvy of pretty young women into the streets to offer their bodies to men as evangelistic outreach.
For more than a year I lived in proximity to this group, and the problems and damage that they did in the lives of individuals. Indeed, one young woman who had gone off and joined the group for a while until her parents abducted her, lived with us for many months, so we were up very close to all that was going on among these people.
If God is doing something new, then I suggest that those who adhere to this notion rather than ignoring objections to their position should provide solid and strong justification for it that item by item, issue by issue tells us clearly why God's nature has changed, and why God's nature even needs to change. We need evidence, we need hard facts, we need solid research and clear spiritual insights to help us grasp the kind of new thing that God might be doing because God's nature is in a process of evolution. Those asserting that a new thing is taking place are the ones who are obligated to clear away without reason of doubt objections to their position, not vice-versa.
We haven't received this, and certainly To Set Our Hope On Christ does not provide anything but the most tentative grounds for accepting this huge sea change that is being claimed is taking place. This is what I might call as a result of my experience Moses Davidism.
In effect, what I am being asked to do as I climb the mountain of faith is to change midstream to untried and untested equipment. Not only that, but I am being asked to put my whole weight on some new kind of rope that was designed by someone who has never done any research on why the old one doesn't work as well as it should. Sorry, I'm just not in the business of doing such a thing.
However, I have raised the issue with one or two 'progressive' friends, and it would appear that the only approach they can come up with that gives them permission to move forward is that God is doing a new thing. That is, to assert that God is doing something that is above and beyond anything that has ever happened before in the history of monotheism, outside the canon of Scripture, and having little to do with the on going tradition and life of the church.
What this allows for is an end run on the last 4,000 years or so, and seems to obviate any need for a response to careful historical analysis, and the mindset of the church catholic through the ages. It also obviates any need to respond to careful and disciplined theological analysis that makes it very clear that a revisionist understanding of sexuality has no place in the Christian story.
The manifesto in the Episcopal Church of those who are going down the path that God might be doing a new thing is a document that was presented to the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham, England, last year, and which goes by the unlikely title of To Set Our Hope on Christ. Shallow and thoroughly postmodern in its approach toward Scripture, it asserts that "For almost forty years, members of the Episcopal Church have discerned holiness in same-sex relationships and, have come to support the blessing of such unions and the ordination or consecration of persons in those unions" (TSOHOC 2.0). It believes that this is the gift that we have to offer the rest of the world.
It is not my intention to respond to this document, although obviously I find it totally lacking, but to move forward to discuss the wider implications of what it means for God to be doing a new thing like this in our midst.
First of all, we have to get a clear answer to the question why God has broken completely will all precedent that was set by... God! If we are to be trinitarian Christians believing in the God who has revealed himself, then it is essential that we accept that this deity is eternal, almighty, and immutable. This means that God was, is, and always will be unchanging and changeless, and that in this Almighty God we live and move and have our being.
This also means that what we believe (and have always believed) about this God and God's self-revelation is either wrong, or was revelation just for a limited period of time and now has been superceded. This would mean that we are part of some kind of evolutionary continuum, and not only have we evolved 'upward' but so has God.
This further means, therefore, that if God is doing a new thing, then God is a process rather than all the things that Christians have declared him to be since 325 AD and the Council of Nicea. If this God is always changing, developing, and altering, because we are always changing, developing, and altering, then this God is becoming a different God than the One he used to be. It is also to say that those who are in the know, gnostics if you like, have a better idea of who God is and what God is up to than the whole of the rest of world Christianity.
To say that God is doing a new thing is an attempt to totally sidestep revelation and all our Christian past in favor of an untried and untested future. It also raises such huge questions that it soon becomes apparent that this solution to a profund theological dilemma is actually no solution at all, unless you want to abandon all that the church believes about God, and start again from scratch. It is to happily declare ourselves out of step and out of communion with the whole Christian faith tradition of the last two millennia. This is nothing less than chronological arrogance that flies in the face of To Set Our Hope On Christ's protestations of humility.
That these 'progressives' are prepared to go to such lengths illustrates that not only does the left not understand precisely what it means to be human and made in the image of God, but also that they have totally lost touch with the nature of the triune God in whose image we have supposedly been made (Genesis 1:27, Mark 10:5-9). This is perhaps the most supreme example of cutting off your nose to spite your face, or of demolishing the whole building in which your apartment is located for fear that your home will be repossessed!
Looking at the history of the church, there has been a steady stream of those who have pronounced that God is doing a new thing going back as far as Montanus, a prophetic individual from Asia Minor at the end of the Second Century. His prophecies were claimed to be of a higher order than what God had already revealed, and were finally declared suspect. There were also a variety of strange practices and values attached to the Montanists.
It would seem that a good few of these movements of new or higher revelation have a sexual component to them. Somewhere within them there are individuals who chafe under biblical standards of sexual morality. We have certainly seen this in plenty of 20th Century groups who have made such claims. And here we have such a claim being made again, except this time instead of being on the fringes it is in the heart of the established churches.
I actually had an experience of this phenomenon early in my ministry. In the early 1970s as the charismatic renewal was cranking up and from America's West Coast came the Jesus Movement, I was the assistant on the staff of a young and dynamic parish in North London. A Jesus Movement group had found its way to London and began preying on our fairly large and lively congregation of teens and twenties. This group was then known as the Children of God.
The Children of God had been founded by a Christian Missionary Alliance pastor who subsequently took for himself the name Moses David. He had been a plain vanilla evangelical minister, but as the phenomenon went forward he began receiving revelations which resulted in the Children of God moving away from revealed Christianity. In a relatively short time they went from being a quirky but basically orthodox outfit, to being something entirely different.
Among the revelations that Moses David had was one that opened the doors for a different kind of sexuality. Certainly, his own appetites were met by a variety of women, and not long after this, supposedly under the guidance of God, they launched their "flirty fish" initiative which based upon the teaching of Jesus that he would make his followers fishers of men, sent out a bevvy of pretty young women into the streets to offer their bodies to men as evangelistic outreach.
For more than a year I lived in proximity to this group, and the problems and damage that they did in the lives of individuals. Indeed, one young woman who had gone off and joined the group for a while until her parents abducted her, lived with us for many months, so we were up very close to all that was going on among these people.
If God is doing something new, then I suggest that those who adhere to this notion rather than ignoring objections to their position should provide solid and strong justification for it that item by item, issue by issue tells us clearly why God's nature has changed, and why God's nature even needs to change. We need evidence, we need hard facts, we need solid research and clear spiritual insights to help us grasp the kind of new thing that God might be doing because God's nature is in a process of evolution. Those asserting that a new thing is taking place are the ones who are obligated to clear away without reason of doubt objections to their position, not vice-versa.
We haven't received this, and certainly To Set Our Hope On Christ does not provide anything but the most tentative grounds for accepting this huge sea change that is being claimed is taking place. This is what I might call as a result of my experience Moses Davidism.
In effect, what I am being asked to do as I climb the mountain of faith is to change midstream to untried and untested equipment. Not only that, but I am being asked to put my whole weight on some new kind of rope that was designed by someone who has never done any research on why the old one doesn't work as well as it should. Sorry, I'm just not in the business of doing such a thing.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
On the Horns of a Dilemma
Many of you have been watching the episcopal election in the Diocese of Tennessee, noting that we recessed for a week at around 6.00 p.m. on Saturday evening without having elected a bishop, and will gather again to continue the process next Saturday.
It needs to be pointed out for starters that elections in this quirky diocese are always extended affairs, with 2/3 required in each order for an election to take place. Elections have been known to go to 40, 50, or even 60 ballots in Tennessee in the past, although the present polarized state of the Episcopal Church adds intensity to our immediate set of circumstances.
Having said this, I have a sense that we have become the latest small cockpit in which something much bigger is playing itself out in both church and the culture. I find no enjoyment in such things, but it seems that if we are to be faithful to Christ then we have to graciously and lovingly work our way through what might be a stalemate -- and at the heart of faithfulness is the vital business of theological and doctrinal obedience, which has profound implications in the way we live our lives.
I don't want to go into the pros and cons of our election or the electoral process, but to focus attention on what should be the faithful believer's mindset in the midst of such circumstances. Yes, I wake up in the night worrying about what is happening. Yes, I pray prayers that perhaps are sometimes selfish and self-serving. Yes, I am anxious that we will do the wrong thing or elect the wrong person.
But underneath this very human set of concerns has to be a strong affirmation that we serve the living, sovereign God, and that his ways are not always our ways. Didn't Isaiah write, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8).
This is a lesson that each follower of Christ nees to be reminded of again and again, especially when we sense that our backs are up against the wall, our heart is in our throat, and there is that horrible sinking feeling in the pit of our stomachs. I confess that I woke up this morning feeling nauseous and was weak and tense for most of today. But while I have always lived very close to my feelings, they should not be allowed to take control and rule my existence.
Last summer Rosemary and I spend a delightful day on the outskirts of Manchester in England with Alec and Beryl Motyer. Alec has been a dear friend and mentor for just about forty years, and is one of the finest expository preachers and teachers that I have ever encountered. Alec taught me so much not only about using Scripture to edify others, but also how I can feed myself from God's Holy Word.
Alec is an Old Testament scholar who is spending his retirement getting onto paper the treasures of a lifetime of parish ministry and seminary teaching. As we were parting in July he gave me a copy of his most recent book on Exodus (The Message of Exodus - J. A. Motyer. IVP, 2005) which about a month ago I began using to aid me with my daily bible reading. I could not have picked up anything more appropriate to help me negotiate through a difficult situation like the one we find ourselves in in Tennessee, or the difficulties that confront us in the wider Episcopal Church.
These recent years of ministry have been among the hardest, and there is many a time when I have wondered if somehow I have misread God's guidance. So it came as a needed reminder in those early pages of Alec's book, as he orients us to God's working among his people during the Exodus, that there is mystery in the divine government of history, "whether on a national, domestic or individual level: the great and loving God is in control, and because he is truly sovereign he works out his purposes in his way, not ours... He offers no explanations, but grants his people a sufficient insight into his ways, his character, his intentions and his changeless faithfulness so that, however dark the day, they can live by faith and be sustained by hope" (page 19).
Not only was this classic Motyer, but it is rock-sold biblical theology, neither weak nor sentimental, telling me that I am where I am because the sovereign Lord has put he there, much as he put the children of Israel in Egypt initially for protection but after 400 years in such agony that they were crying out for release. These have been dark days of ministry, but even in the gloom there has been evidence of his hand and the hope of his grace -- and I saw it again in church this morning.
The story of the Exodus is a story of seemingly endless delay, muddle and confusion, then the quick and decisive hand of the Lord, before again wilderness wanderings require much patience. The experience of these Old Testament People of God was akin to those things that we today find ourselves wrestling with. God may be sovereign, and he may be protecting his people, imparting promises to them, and giving them hope, but we need to remember the words of Paul to the Christians in Asia Minor that it is through many hardships that we enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22).
This seems to be a message for our time, especially to those of us who are North American Anglicans. "It is not God's way to explain himself... so the biblical account provides us with no pat answers to our questions, but it does provide us with a framework and context within which we can begin to make sense of the days of darkness which have ever been the lot of God's people throughout history... We see him working out his own schemes in his own way, on his own scale, to his own time plan and according to his own wisdom, and we find the assurance that, although the days were dark, it was all right, it was all planned and it will all be well" (page 31).
So during these weeks I am soaking myself in the way the Lord provided for his people in Egypt, and gently but lovingly my dear old friend has been telling me afresh that "there is a contemporary reality about the word of God, so that when we read Exodus we are not just learning of the past, we are learning for the present" (page 33). I want answers to huge questions as I agonize over the horns of dilemmas of which our episcopal election is only the latest, but instead I am reminded that God is God and that even in the darkest days his loving reassurance is that all is OK, and it will ultimately be well.
Meanwhile, I am where God desires me to be, and while it might sometimes appear to be a wilderness journey into nowhere, God understands precisely where he is taking us and how long it will take. Our responsibility in these circumstances is not to waver, but to be faithful, especially when there is a high price to pay for that faithfulness. We think of the Exodus as a wonderful release from slavery, but often forget that when Israel left, many of them left homes, neighborhoods, gardens, and even Egyptian friends that they loved and cherished. Obedience always involves discomfort and letting go.
All this puts our Tennessee travails into perspective and reminds me a cold, damp London night in early 1967 when the rubber of Motyer's teaching hit the road of my life. I was Alec's field education student at his then parish of St. Luke's Church in West Hampstead. It was late by the time my responsibilities were finished and he drove me to the Underground station. Sensing that I was in agony about something he lovingly coaxed my problems from me.
"Alec," I remember telling him, "I'm just not happy, I'm not happy."
There was loving sternness in his lilting Irish voice as he responded with words that have, perhaps, been an ever-returning watchword in all the years since then, "Richard, you were not called to be happy, you were called to be faithful."
My record of faithfulness has been patchy, but God's record of faithfulness has outshone my wildest dreams. Alec Motyer is now an old man, and I am getting there, too, but this lesson taught when I was a seminarian I have passed on to others over the years.
I share it now with my brothers and sisters in Tennessee as we live with on the horns of our immediate dilemma. I share it too with those faithful men and women who sense that they are embattled by the storms that have swept over the Episcopal Church, and for whom misery in some form or another is an almost constant companion. I share them not knowing where God is leading or what God has in mind. As the author to the Hebrews puts it,"You have need of endurance, so that when yhou have done the will of God you may receive what is promised" (Hebrews 10:36).
It needs to be pointed out for starters that elections in this quirky diocese are always extended affairs, with 2/3 required in each order for an election to take place. Elections have been known to go to 40, 50, or even 60 ballots in Tennessee in the past, although the present polarized state of the Episcopal Church adds intensity to our immediate set of circumstances.
Having said this, I have a sense that we have become the latest small cockpit in which something much bigger is playing itself out in both church and the culture. I find no enjoyment in such things, but it seems that if we are to be faithful to Christ then we have to graciously and lovingly work our way through what might be a stalemate -- and at the heart of faithfulness is the vital business of theological and doctrinal obedience, which has profound implications in the way we live our lives.
I don't want to go into the pros and cons of our election or the electoral process, but to focus attention on what should be the faithful believer's mindset in the midst of such circumstances. Yes, I wake up in the night worrying about what is happening. Yes, I pray prayers that perhaps are sometimes selfish and self-serving. Yes, I am anxious that we will do the wrong thing or elect the wrong person.
But underneath this very human set of concerns has to be a strong affirmation that we serve the living, sovereign God, and that his ways are not always our ways. Didn't Isaiah write, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8).
This is a lesson that each follower of Christ nees to be reminded of again and again, especially when we sense that our backs are up against the wall, our heart is in our throat, and there is that horrible sinking feeling in the pit of our stomachs. I confess that I woke up this morning feeling nauseous and was weak and tense for most of today. But while I have always lived very close to my feelings, they should not be allowed to take control and rule my existence.
Last summer Rosemary and I spend a delightful day on the outskirts of Manchester in England with Alec and Beryl Motyer. Alec has been a dear friend and mentor for just about forty years, and is one of the finest expository preachers and teachers that I have ever encountered. Alec taught me so much not only about using Scripture to edify others, but also how I can feed myself from God's Holy Word.
Alec is an Old Testament scholar who is spending his retirement getting onto paper the treasures of a lifetime of parish ministry and seminary teaching. As we were parting in July he gave me a copy of his most recent book on Exodus (The Message of Exodus - J. A. Motyer. IVP, 2005) which about a month ago I began using to aid me with my daily bible reading. I could not have picked up anything more appropriate to help me negotiate through a difficult situation like the one we find ourselves in in Tennessee, or the difficulties that confront us in the wider Episcopal Church.
These recent years of ministry have been among the hardest, and there is many a time when I have wondered if somehow I have misread God's guidance. So it came as a needed reminder in those early pages of Alec's book, as he orients us to God's working among his people during the Exodus, that there is mystery in the divine government of history, "whether on a national, domestic or individual level: the great and loving God is in control, and because he is truly sovereign he works out his purposes in his way, not ours... He offers no explanations, but grants his people a sufficient insight into his ways, his character, his intentions and his changeless faithfulness so that, however dark the day, they can live by faith and be sustained by hope" (page 19).
Not only was this classic Motyer, but it is rock-sold biblical theology, neither weak nor sentimental, telling me that I am where I am because the sovereign Lord has put he there, much as he put the children of Israel in Egypt initially for protection but after 400 years in such agony that they were crying out for release. These have been dark days of ministry, but even in the gloom there has been evidence of his hand and the hope of his grace -- and I saw it again in church this morning.
The story of the Exodus is a story of seemingly endless delay, muddle and confusion, then the quick and decisive hand of the Lord, before again wilderness wanderings require much patience. The experience of these Old Testament People of God was akin to those things that we today find ourselves wrestling with. God may be sovereign, and he may be protecting his people, imparting promises to them, and giving them hope, but we need to remember the words of Paul to the Christians in Asia Minor that it is through many hardships that we enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22).
This seems to be a message for our time, especially to those of us who are North American Anglicans. "It is not God's way to explain himself... so the biblical account provides us with no pat answers to our questions, but it does provide us with a framework and context within which we can begin to make sense of the days of darkness which have ever been the lot of God's people throughout history... We see him working out his own schemes in his own way, on his own scale, to his own time plan and according to his own wisdom, and we find the assurance that, although the days were dark, it was all right, it was all planned and it will all be well" (page 31).
So during these weeks I am soaking myself in the way the Lord provided for his people in Egypt, and gently but lovingly my dear old friend has been telling me afresh that "there is a contemporary reality about the word of God, so that when we read Exodus we are not just learning of the past, we are learning for the present" (page 33). I want answers to huge questions as I agonize over the horns of dilemmas of which our episcopal election is only the latest, but instead I am reminded that God is God and that even in the darkest days his loving reassurance is that all is OK, and it will ultimately be well.
Meanwhile, I am where God desires me to be, and while it might sometimes appear to be a wilderness journey into nowhere, God understands precisely where he is taking us and how long it will take. Our responsibility in these circumstances is not to waver, but to be faithful, especially when there is a high price to pay for that faithfulness. We think of the Exodus as a wonderful release from slavery, but often forget that when Israel left, many of them left homes, neighborhoods, gardens, and even Egyptian friends that they loved and cherished. Obedience always involves discomfort and letting go.
All this puts our Tennessee travails into perspective and reminds me a cold, damp London night in early 1967 when the rubber of Motyer's teaching hit the road of my life. I was Alec's field education student at his then parish of St. Luke's Church in West Hampstead. It was late by the time my responsibilities were finished and he drove me to the Underground station. Sensing that I was in agony about something he lovingly coaxed my problems from me.
"Alec," I remember telling him, "I'm just not happy, I'm not happy."
There was loving sternness in his lilting Irish voice as he responded with words that have, perhaps, been an ever-returning watchword in all the years since then, "Richard, you were not called to be happy, you were called to be faithful."
My record of faithfulness has been patchy, but God's record of faithfulness has outshone my wildest dreams. Alec Motyer is now an old man, and I am getting there, too, but this lesson taught when I was a seminarian I have passed on to others over the years.
I share it now with my brothers and sisters in Tennessee as we live with on the horns of our immediate dilemma. I share it too with those faithful men and women who sense that they are embattled by the storms that have swept over the Episcopal Church, and for whom misery in some form or another is an almost constant companion. I share them not knowing where God is leading or what God has in mind. As the author to the Hebrews puts it,"You have need of endurance, so that when yhou have done the will of God you may receive what is promised" (Hebrews 10:36).
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