Christianity and Islam

“The question to be asked, then, is whether, face to face with Islam, Christians will be able to sustain, rebuild, and create strong and resilient communities that provide institutional anchorage for the faith to endure and flourish. Will they have the imagination to form the spiritual architecture of the societies of which they are a part? This is a task for which Christianity is particularly well suited. It has a much longer lineage than Islam, it has taken many different cultural forms in the course of its history, and it has passed through the fires of modernity. It has a deeper and more coherent relation to its own tradition, including the cultural patrimony of classical antiquity. And it commands the intellectual resources to understand and engage other religious traditions as well as to provide moral inspiration for secular societies.

“Unlike Islam, Christianity began as a community distinct from the body politic, and for three hundred years it existed independently of political authority. This early history has never been forgotten. Even in the time of Christian hegemony in the West, during the age of Charlemagne, Abbot Wala of Corbie insisted that the Church constituted a parallel sovereignty. The king, he said, should have public properties for the maintenance of his army, and the Church should have ‘church properties, almost like a second public domain.’

“Augustine’s metaphor for the new life in Christ was not that of an individual’s being born again but that of becoming part of a city with its own form of governance. ‘Happy the people whose God us the Lord,’ wrote the psalmist. Though some may eschew the term, in the decades to come the great challenge for Christians will be to fashion, within the cultural and political conditions of the twenty-first century, a new kind of Christendom.”

-Robert Louis Wilken, “Christianity Face to Face with Islam,” First Things (Jan 2009), 26.

New Year, Old Year
We like to believe that January 1 brings new opportunities. So we make resolutions, or treat them as a game at New Year’s Eve gatherings. Most of us know, however, that there is nothing new under the sun, that the struggle to discard old burdens and create space for newness in 2008 will continue in 2009, and that we will likely fail, again. That too is old news for the Christian; dying to sin and rising to newness of life is our daily bread as Christ’s disciples.

As the years roll by, however, socio-political events and cultural undertows create patterns of thought and action that warrant change. Will any of the following resolutions find themselves on your list?

1. Ask for kneeling benches to be attached to the pews, if your church is redesigning its worship area.

2. Practice honest prayer through John Baillie’s A Litany of Daily Prayer in March and September.

3. Support or recommend one person for a position because she or he is qualified. Resist politically correct reasoning.

4. When leading the congregation in prayer, begin, “Let us pray,” not, “Please join ME in prayer.”

5. Read one book or article about Islam. Suggestions: Sinclair Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (Perennial, 2002), or Robert Louis Wilken, “Christianity Face to Face with Islam,” First Things (Jan 2009), 19-26.

6. Practice Lent during Advent.

7. Answer the question: Can a post-modern, missional theology prepare the church to engage Islam?

8. Befriend a marginalized person in your church or community.

Please add your own suggestions in the comments.
ACL

Pentecost, the Incarnation, and Diversity

Although far apart on the liturgical calendar, Pentecost and Christmas belong together. On Pentecost the Word Incarnate, seated at the right hand of the Almighty, poured out the Holy Spirit on a handful of disciples. After that event, God’s people were never the same. For the first time in the history of God with his people, Gentiles–red, and yellow, black and white non-Jews–became the object of God’s special attention. Not that they were ever out of consideration. Remember Seth, Noah, Rahab, Ruth and Naaman? And then there was Abram, who was a Semite, but not “Jewish,” when God called him to abandon kith and kin.

From Babel to Pentecost

At Babel the nations sought to build the city that would use heaven to save them from the corruption that filled the earth. But God scattered the nations–red and yellow, black and white–over the earth and. He forced them to continue an aimless wandering begun by Adam, Eve, and Cain. In their wandering these nations achieved enormous knowledge in mathematics, urban and agrarian development, architecture, medicine, music, Babylon and Ur preserved this knowledge in great libraries. From this sophisticated culture God rescued Abram and Sarah to become the parents of a nation not born by human will (Gen. 5; 11:1-26), but by the power of God.

That special nation would become known as Jews (after Judah, Jacob’s [Israel] son), chosen by God to live apart from the nations (Gentiles). Nevertheless, from the very beginning God told Abram that “all the families of the earth” (Gentiles) would be blessed through “his seed.” Thus, wherever Abraham went, and whatever God did with his descendants, the Gentiles were never out of consideration. They were, so to speak, in Abraham’s back pocket, waiting for God’s time to deal with them.

That time, the apostle Paul said, came in Jesus Christ. He was the seed God spoke about to Abram (Gal. 3:16) who destroyed the wall between Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:11-22). He also poured out the Spirit at Pentecost so that the nations heard the Gospel proclaimed by Peter.

Pentecost, then, was not a move from a uni-cultural to multi-cultural people of God, nor from one ethnicity to many, not even from Jewishness to whiteness. Rather, it was a move from a focus on God’s Jewish people to an inclusion of the Gentiles into the root planted by God with Abram (Rom. 11:17-21). At Pentecost massive numbers of Gentiles began to be grafted onto this root. At Pentecost peoples from all nations were amazed to hear Peter’s sermon in their own languages, the very thing that divided them at Babel. It was not one language, but one Word that was understood by all nations–red and yellow, black and white–by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That Pentecost was not a move from one to many ethnicities, but from many into one ethnicity is clear from Paul’s declaration that Christian Gentiles would be engrafted into the root God planted through Abram. Abram’s descendants are not merely another ethnicity (Rom. 9:3-5) among many others. It is the only ethnicity whose Word saves the nations from the corruption that threatens. Abraham’s Gentiles descendants are not Jewish, but through Christ they inherit the promises of God to Abraham (Gal. 3:29). All Abraham’s descendants through Christ have a heavenly citizenship.

Christmas and diversity

Christ’s coming, then, is not a move into diversity, but a unifying by the Word, of all descendants of Adam and Eve the Spirit entices into the body of Christ, no matter their culture, language, or skin color.

For more than 2000 Advents and Christmases, the Gentile Christian Church has sung: “Oh come, oh come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.” Of whom do we sing? Who is the captive Israel? Gentile believers from Iraq and Darfur? Mega-church attenders in Southern California or Guatemala? Because Gentile believers have not yet arrived at home, and will only arrive when the heavenly Jerusalem descends on a new earth (Rev. 21), this truly is our song. James speaks to the believers scattered among the nations (James 1:1).

But what of the descendants of Esther and Mordecai in the Middle East, of the exiles who went to Egypt with Jeremiah, and of the descendants of the exiles who died by the millions in Hitler’s furnaces, and who are awaiting the Messiah as Gentiles no longer do? They still experience an exile no Gentile Christian can grasp.

Pentecost brought Gentiles of all kinds into the Jewish church. Today the Gentile Church is overflowing with ethnicities, cultures, and languages, all united by one Word. But few, very few Jews. Is it not time for the Gentile church to rediscover the biblical diversity that would bring Jews into the Gentile Church? Only so will all Israel be saved.

But how many Christian churches are involved in evangelism to Jews evangelism? How many churches have decided to call off evangelizing Jewish people as too politically insensitive.

We work so hard to escort Gentiles who are not “our own kind” into the Church. But we’ve got the “not our own kind” wrong. No matter the language, color or race, they are our own kind, for we are all Gentiles. Like the little Jewish girl who told the Gentile Naaman about the prophet who heals, maybe we Gentiles–red, and yellow, black, and white–should speak the Word with a Jewish neighbor. Then all will be precious in his sight.

ACL

Education& Soulcraft

by Gilbert Meilaender (reviewing Stanley Fish, Save the World on Your Own Time)*

“What we can do in the classroom is, roughly what Fish says we can (and should) attempt; impart knowledge and develop skills needed to analyze ideas. We can give training in critical reflection about how different individuals and traditions have proposed that we should live. We can, on our good days or good semesters, produce students who think more clearly, critically, and reflectively about such questions. And, if we’ve really done well, we may even produce students who realize that critical thought is by no means the whole of moral life. It is what can be done in the classroom, what a college professor might be trained to do if he attempts not to save the world but to do his job. . . . .

“Moments of grace, divine dispensations, cannot be programmed or delivered according to any method within our control. The result of what we do in the classroom, whether we produce students who are creative or virtuous, is, as Fish says several times, a wholly contingent matter.

“The typical academician today is likely to think that we should be humble about our ability to know the truth but devoted to programmatic attempts to shape and form students’ characters. Fish thinks, rightly, that this locates humility in just the wrong place, in the process giving us a good conscience about shaping the souls of our students. We should be devoted to the pursuit of truth, aware that no one can say for sure what the effect of our teaching will be in our students’ lives, humbly prepared to keep our hands off those students’ souls.

“It ought to be Christians–and, probably, religious believers of other stripes–who know this. We know that we cannot program grace and that a moment of felicity will be required if what we do in the classroom turns out to shape the character of our students in desirable ways. So we should sharpen the intellect as best we can; we should pursue truth in matters we teach; we should transmit knowledge and the skills required to gain and extend that knowledge–but we should not try to produce or control what must be contingent and felicitous.”

*First Things (November, 2008), 35, 36.

Reformation Day, Again

Maybe you sang “A Mighty Fortress is our God” last Sunday, or will sing it next Sunday. Some may celebrate Reformation rallies in large auditoriums, but they occur less frequently.

How long can you maintain the fervor of newly discovered faith? How long did it take Israel before the excitement of arriving in Canaan deteriorated into doing what the Canaanites did? Or the Christians in Corinth or Rome? Enthusiasm for the faith once for all delivered to the saints has never been without its challenges.

Reformations have occurred with some regularity. In the days of the Judges God sent his servants to provide rest for a repentant people and King Josiah renewed temple worship in ancient Israel, only years before the exile. Reforms emerged in 10^th century Cluny and later in 16^th century Western Europe. These were followed by the Second Reformation of the 17^th century and beyond, and the reforming “schisms” of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Reformation is what the church does when it acknowledges it has followed other than the “old, old story.”

How long do the effects of any reformation last? Josiah’s reformation was doomed to failure because of Manasseh who came before him (2 Kings 23:25-26). Several small, Reformed Churches still drink at the well of the Second Reformation. But what of the larger, Presbyterian and Reformed, churches? So much has changed since the 16^th century Reformation. Few today would despise Roman Catholics; that would be too insensitive. Doctrinal disputes about the nature of justification, election and reprobation not only diminish the participants, but overlook the problem with truth. How do we today know they were right then? Then there is the increasing ennui with our 16^th and 17^th century confessions. Some are suggesting they were useful for their time, not so much for us today.

What has changed enormously compared to the time of the Reformation is the culture in which the contemporary church finds itself. The 16^th century Reformation occurred in a Christian Church and state culture. The magistrate was encouraged to promote Christianity and not other religions. Reasons for reformation then emerged from concerns about the free communication of God’s grace in preaching and sacraments, abuse of episcopal office and the role of the laity in a worship held in Latin, to name but a few. Those raising the questions were not interested in leaving the church, but in reforming it. Yet some were excommunicated for their efforts, and others followed them. Thus were born the churches of the Reformation.

Some of these churches have almost five hundred years of historical experience, many with a number of their own reformations. These churches themselves have changed since the Reformation and continue to change. But are there any similarities between us and the time of the Reformation?

Replacing the Roman Catholic altar with a pulpit for proclaiming the Word characterized Reformation era churches. What do we do with pulpits today? What do they mean today? Do they communicate the same emphasis on the proclamation of the Word and the subordination of the sacraments to the Word? Reformation arguments against indulgences, payments to reduce time in purgatory, were part of the promotion of the free gift of grace and life eternal, and liberated many from false and abusive church practices. Today many pulpits (and platforms) proclaim the clear gospel of health and wealth to reduce earthly debt and suffering (and please send in a donation). Reformation believers knew that this world was filled with devils, and we may even sing that part of Luther’s famous hymn this week. But in an age of electricity, genetic engineering, and telescopes peering into the universe’s past, belief in the existence of angels and demons is deemed quaint. Who or what are the participants in the contemporary religious struggles?

When we think about the 16^th century Reformation this week, what will we remember? Do the burning issues of that time remain important today? How are grace preached and sacraments administered? How is ecclesiastical office exercised and justification is experienced?. And what about the fact we no longer live in a Christian, but decidedly pluralist, culture in which Christianity is no longer the privileged religion, but others are? What might lead us to work for a much needed reformation in our time? Is our piety too worldly or self-indulgent? Is our worship more about us than about God? Do we, or should we, worry about our eternal destiny?

Whatever may be the case for reformation today, Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is our God” continues to be relevant. It gets at the essentials: God and his victory over sin and evil, our own inability to improve our spiritual condition and total dependence on Christ, trust in God and his victory over all that seeks to undo the church (them devils); and the gift of the Spirit. Especially challenging for every age are these words: “Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also, the body they may kill; God’s truth abideth still; his kingdom is forever.”

ACL

Suffering wealth: It depends on the kind of person you are

Augustine of Hippo

“Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointments emit a fragrant odour.”

“Thus our Paulinus, bishop of Nola, who voluntarily abandoned vast wealth and became quite poor, though abundantly rich in holiness, when the barbarians sacked Nola, and took him prisoner, used silently to pray, as he afterwards told me, ‘O Lord, let me not be troubled for gold and silver, for where all my treasure is Thou knowest.’ For all his treasure was where he had been taught to hide and store it by Him who had also foretold that these calamities would happen in the world. Consequently those persons who obeyed their Lord when He warned them where and how to lay up treasure, did not lose even their earthly possessions in the invasion of the barbarians; while those who are now repenting that they did not obey Him have learnt the right use of earthly goods, if not by the wisdom which would have prevented their loss, at least by the experience which follows it.”

The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1950), I.8,10.

Generous orthodoxy: Everybody’s a theologian, not!

You may have read about the politicians who took the opportunity to redefine their church’s theological position to score political points. Maybe you haven’t. It was about abortion rights and the beginning of life, and American politicians: Pelosi and Biden recently; Kerry and Cuomo some years ago. All are members of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC).

Support of their party’s pro-abortion rights position already placed them athwart of the RCC’s centuries long pro-life, anti-abortion rights declarations. Consequently there have been calls for refusing them and other RCC politicians who hold similar view participation in the eucharist. Indignant ripostes declared this “religious interference in political affairs.” Few talked about political interference in church affairs. Until Pelosi and Biden offered their theological positions.

On Meet the Press, Pelosi reported that the RCC has been unable to define the beginning of life; Biden wielded Aquinas on “quickening.” Responding that both Augustine and Aquinas opposed abortion, RCC theologians politely suggested that Pelosi may have been confused and Biden not fully understood. The RCC archbishop of Denver was quoted as saying: “Meet the Press has become a national window on the flawed moral reasoning of some Catholic public servants.” (Weekly Standard [September 29, 2008], 27). These and other recent attempts to support a political platform by appeal to the subjectivity of religious faith were shattered on the hard rock of the RCC’s commitment to its position on the beginning of life as objective fact. Imagine that, the faith of ordinary members of the church being called to account by professional theologians. What do they know of the real world?

Along with “Virginia Slims” church members have come a long way by excitedly celebrating their newly found freedom not to be bound by truths of the past. Ignorant of church history they boldly go where they think noone has gone before, thus betraying the typical arrogance of youth that believes no one has had a good thought before them. Usually the young learn that the past has many things to offer the present; not so anymore. Today young and old tend to believe that what they believe is most important, that church officials have no real authority to define matters of faith for them, even if they are members of the church in question. And documents written at the time of the Reformation? How can they be meaningful for the 21^st century?

In an age of political correctness with its clear definitions of heresy (think of how extreme feminists responded to McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin), it is ironic that eternal values may only be fuzzy to fit the greatest number, that orthodoxy must be generous and inclusive to a fault. At a time when we value diversity of all kinds, encourage particular cultural expressions to the exclusion of the majority groups (the oppressor class), genuine doctrinal and ecclesiastical differences within the Christian family must be ignored, especially if we want to be inclusive.

Christian doctrine, however, never was, and cannot be, the product of private interpretation or personal preference. The apostle Peter (2 Peter 1:20-21) reminds his readers of that with respect to the prophets. How much more with us? A brief examination of the history of the church also discloses that there are good and not so good ways of thinking about Scripture; that good decisions take time. Think only about how long it took the church to think about the relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Or how we think about the nature of Scripture? But within the agreed upon definitions there are ongoing discussions. Usually in agreed upon terms. Everybody is not a theologian. Everyone is not a good reader of Scripture.

By the way. Like the Reformation confessions, the Scriptures were also written centuries ago. Are they still useful for the 21^st century? Have we outgrown them? Is the Apostle Paul just a dead Jewish theologian who has no more to say to today’s theological issues than yesterday’s bright-eyed convert? Are we too generous with our own thoughts about God and generously stingy with “the faith once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3)? Was Paul wrong to warn the young pastor Timothy to be aware of those who wanted to hear new and interesting things (2 Tim. 4:2-5)?

True generosity lets Scripture and the deep treasury of the church’s theological reflections on it, create in us a deep humility for the inheritance of truth we have received from those who have confessed the faith before us.

ACL

North American Christianity and Old Europe

Richard John Neuhaus*

“I have frequently cautioned against the propensity of some conservatives, especially Evangelicals, to claim that ours is a post-Christian society. That is, I contend, an easy out from engaging the tasks that are ours in an incorrigibly, confusedly, and conflictedly Christian America.

“[David B.] Hart sets out another consideration to which we should attend: ‘For, if we succumb to post-Christian modernity, and set the limits of its vision, what then? Most of us will surrender to a passive decay of will and aspiration, perhaps, find fewer reasons to resist as government insinuates itself into the little liberties of the family, continue to seek out hitherto unsuspected insensitivities to denounce and prejudices to extirpate, allow morality to give way to sentimentality; the impetuous among us will attempt to enjoy Balzac, or take up herb gardening, or discover “issues”; a few dilettantish amoralists will ascertain that everything is permitted and dabble in bestiality or cannibalism; the rest of us will mostly watch television; crime rates will rise more steeply and birthrates fall more precipitously; being the “last men,” we shall think ourselves at the end of history; an occasional sense of pointlessness of it all will induce in us a certain morose feeling of impotence (but what can one do?); and, in short, we shall become Europeans (but without the vestiges of the old civilization ranged about us to soothe our despondency).’

“Hart acknowledges that he is not original in observing that ‘the vestigial Christianity if the old world presents one with the pathetic spectacle of shape without energy, while the quite robust Christianity of the new world presents one with the disturbing spectacle of energy without shape.’

“It is reasonable to believe that a more churchly and culture-forming shape of Christianity may be in process through efforts such as Evangelicals and Catholics Together and new Christian initiatives in philosophy, literature, and the arts. There are, to be sure, formidable obstacles but, if we resist the temptation to resign ourselves to ours being a post-Christian society, such initiatives could bear impressive fruit in the short term of the next hundred years or so. And in the long term, who knows what might happen?”

Agreed. But do we have the energy to maintain confessional orthodoxy?

* The Best of “The Public Square.” Book Three (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 61-62.

Careless “good”ness

Short like Zaccheus, he made the best of that Sunday morning. After he moved the large Bible off the pulpit and on to the floor, the seminarian mounted the Bible and proceeded with the service, standing on the Word. This true story was told and retold with some relish during the late 60s into the early 70s when long hair and beards were still frowned upon, and colored shirts just began to appear on pulpits. The daring act affirmed the “revolutionary” nature of the times. And the desire for Orthodoxy. With anti-Barthian pride the seminarian confirmed to the consistory that he had truly stood on the Word. He may have been ready for his classical exam, but the consistory was not convinced of his orthodoxy.

How interestingly quaint. Pulpit Bibles on the pulpit. Today we more often find them off the pulpit and on the Lord’s Supper table, even on the organ (if you still have one, and the console is at the front). Anywhere but the pulpit. Pulpit Bibles, you see, are awkward. Sermon notes slip from them; you can’t walk around with them open in one hand; and, they’re obviously out of place on an acrylic pulpit. But even the big Bibles still on pulpits show how little they are used: they lay open to the same two dog-eared pages, somewhere in the Psalms.

Of course, ministers still preach from the Bible, and pulpits usually provide a pew Bible stored within or on the side. Some years ago, however, I had to go to the first pew to find one for pulpit use. Had I brought my own Bible there would not have been a problem that day. But then that would have been my personal Bible (people could have been amazed at how worn it was).

But Reformed worship is not about the minister, and certainly not about a personal Bible. Actually, it’s about the function of the pulpit. The Reformation replaced the altar with the pulpit; not sacrifice, but the Word assumed center stage. The minister would stand behind the pulpit on which a large Bible lay open. The preacher was subordinate to the Word.

Theological symbols have taken a backseat in contemporary liturgical vehicles. Pulpits, baptismal fonts, and Lord Supper tables are moved around without thought to what is being communicated. Sometimes from week to week. Preachers move around like entertainers, to get away from “elevating themselves,” which remaining behind the pulpit evidently does. It’s what people prefer, many say. But doesn’t walking all over emphasize the preacher? Where do the congregation’s eyes go? During this energetic presentation the pulpit remains empty, diminished, no longer central. In choosing energy we neglect our shape. It’s all so careless.

No less so than our everyday language. Take the following conversation:

“Good morning. How are you?”

“ I’m good.”

“No one is good, except God.”

“What????”

I know. Language changes. The rules of one age get thrown out in the next. “Ain’t” is now acceptable, as is “they” in the place of the traditional “he” to cover plural subjects that include men and women. I still like the traditional answer: “Fine, how are you?”

All issues of language change aside, Christians live by a story which includes the exchange between that rich young man who asked Jesus, “What good thing must I do to get eternal life.” After Jesus asked the young man why he asked that question, he said: “There is only One who is good.” If that is true, should committed Christians ever say, “I’m good”?

No one is intentionally trying to take God’s place when they say, “I’m good.” Nevertheless, using that locution, as does the culture around us, gives a totally different impression in the Christian community than, “Fine.” In the context of the parable about the rich young man, the phrase “I’m good,” is a like a finger nail scratching on the blackboard of Christian self-awareness. And it’s all so careless. Careless about who we are, what defines us, and how we communicate that.

In view of our careless liturgical language and daily speech, Paul’s word to the Ephesians about living as children of light, is worth remembering: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29). That’s good, and orthodox.

ACL

The 2008 Candidates for Ministry

By now many of you will have seen their eager faces in the Banner: candidates for ministry in the CRC approved by Synod 2008. At this writing at least 15 have already accepted a call to a congregation or mission service.

Long gone are the days when churches called a minister sight unseen, when a three year stay in a congregation, according to the Yearbook, was enough to place someone on a calling list. No such faceless calling today. A one year, even two years, courting process is not unusual. Candidates are similarly courted by congregations months before they are eligible. So much so, it exaggerates even the normal senioritis in their last year of seminary.

Who are they?

The Banner provides the congregations with basic information about candidates: most are married, some are beyond their twenties and starting a second-career, a smattering can speak a second language. If so, it tends to Spanish or Korean. Their names will tell you that not all come from CRC backgrounds. They’ve entered the CRC for various reasons: they love the Reformed confessions, they appreciate its theological traditions.

Candidates come to our congregations with widely different ecclesiastical and theological educational backgrounds. All have been declared eligible for a call by Synod; not all have taken their theological training at Calvin Theological Seminary. Reasons for studying elsewhere vary: hard to move a family with children, want to get out of Western Michigan or the “CRC culture,” CTS is too far, too difficult, too progressive. A few go to seminary, any seminary, only because it’s required. They know what “my” ministry is and feel theological education is a mere hoop.

Like church members everywhere, candidates for ministry reflect their culture. Thus some are committed to the confessional traditions and are challenged by theological issues and truth, others will operate more on the level of feeling and truthiness; some will look forward to tackling theological and pastoral problems, others back off, even whine and shift responsibilities when the going gets difficult. Some will appreciate the congregation’s feedback on their sermons and pastoral care, others will become defensive when the congregation refuses to appreciate their self-centeredness expressed in their homiletical striptease (their experiences are central). Some will want constantly to rework their “job descriptions” (= too much work). In other words, they will express all the positives and negatives of the people they serve.

Little of this is new, of course. Ministers and their spouses have never been perfect, and they can often be difficult for congregations: they leave parsonages in horrible shape; dress sloppily; love to hobnob with the rich and famous (such as they are in a given congregation) but neglect the needy; can’t preach, or teach, or make pastoral visits; refuse to administer discipline or all of the above. The 2008 candidates will not escape criticism, either. But they are young and inexperienced, in need of mentoring, shaping and direction. For all the experience in previous vocations, all that is learned and properly undone in their theological education, none of these candidates comes to you as a minister. The degree does not a doctor or minister make. Becoming a minister happens in the context of entrusted practice in a congregation or mission work.

What can the congregations teach them?

Some suggestions for mentoring a new minister:

1. Insist on good study habits. Time spent in their study is not wasted. A theological
education will keep them going for about a year and a half, after that it is all self-discipline. Good teaching, preaching, and pastoral care happen for a reason.

2. Their theological education has taught them that the CRC has its own vision, the confessions;its own definition of ministry, the church order and form for ordination. Reminding those who stray from their vow is a gift they should receive. They are with you to serve the congregation, not their vision, their ministry, their church.

3 Kindly help them with a preaching program. There are texts they should preach, the classics such as Genesis 1:1; Isaiah 40:1ff; John 3:16; Romans 3:23. It’s crucial the congregation hear fundamental truths about our being right with God, hear a call to lead holy lives, and be encouraged to struggle against deadly sin such as pride, lust, greed, gluttony, anger, and envy, rather than issues of world transformation. Ask them to leave prophetic condemnation or “social justice” texts for later because these matters require enormous wisdom, not merely youthful exuberance. Wisdom comes with time

4. Do not despise their youth. What they teach and preach is Scripture, not their own experience. A sermon on the family is based on Paul or on texts from Proverbs. Even if their families are not perfect, they must still let Scripture speak to you, but also to themselves

5. From day one help them to think about how they will leave the ministry among you: what will they leave behind. Think of the parable of the talents.

Ministry is a daunting vocation. Beginners should give themselves at least five years before thinking their preaching, teaching, and pastoral care has character and depth. Those of us in ministry for several decades know we’ve hardly scratched the surface.

ACL

Patriotism

Sometime during the First World War Rev. Herman Hoeksema, an ordained minister in the CRC, got into trouble for not allowing the American national flag in the church’s worship area. Howls of protest ensued. Questions were asked: Was Hoeksema not a patriot? Was he a German sympathizer? It was reported Hoeksema carried a revolver for self-protection.

A visitor from Canada attended a Thanksgiving worship service in an American CRC and was troubled that the service began with the reading of the presidential proclamation. Such state involvement in worship is unknown in the Canadian CRCs. Not so for Anglican churches. An ancient Anglican church downtown Halifax has so many civic features incorporated into its building, it’s difficult to tell whether civic duty or the Christian faith determines its identity. But it is not uncommon to find the American flag in American churches, including in some CRC churches. Some even sing patriotic hymns during or at the end of worship closest to July 4th.

Scripture enjoins Christ’s disciples to be good citizens, but with a difference. The Old Testament church and state were one; the capital of the kingdom of God was also the capital of the state. That is no longer the case. The Christian Church and the state, wherever that may be, are no longer the same. Citizens owe loyalty to their country; the center of their civic life is found in the national capital: Washington, Cairo, Beijing, Ottawa, or Mexico City. The center of the Christian life is the heavenly Jerusalem, where Christ reigns at the right hand of the Father.

In Christian worship we express allegiance to our heavenly citizenship, not to our earthly citizenship. Civic rituals are about our penultimate, earthly responsibilities, and are shaped to reflect that. Citizenship ceremonies, for example, do not end with the doxology and the raising of the Christian flag. In some countries citizenship and church membership, Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox, are almost identical. In others, churches place the national flag in the worship area to dispel suspicion that Christians are not good citizens.

Civic “holidays” are set aside to honor our earthly citizenship and engage in patriotic exercises. The national hymn is often sung at sports events and during the school year students repeat their pledges of allegiance daily. Christian holy days such as Sundays, Christmas, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, remind believers of the mighty acts of God in Christ. On those days we engage in patriotic exercises that express our loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ who reigns at the right hand of God the Father, almighty. The liturgy that shapes those exercises of Christian loyalty typically end with a doxology that publicly expresses our heavenly patriotism.

ACL

Not of Works but of Grace

Lesslie Newbigin*

“While it is at the heart of true morality that it is aware of an objective moral order to which we ought to conform, yet to achieve that conformity by our own effort corrupts morality. Let us try to make that clear by a simple everyday example. When we have done wrong or failed in respect of some duty, our ordinary natural reaction is to say ‘I will make up for it by being better, kinder, more conscientious next time’ . . . . I think this is a fair description of the way our minds work when we are ‘trying to be good.’ ‘I have done badly today, but I will do better tomorrow’; and the second clause is intended to compensate for the first. In other words, we find compensation for a past fault in a future merit. We have put ourselves in debt, as it were, to the moral order, but tomorrow by an extra effort of goodness we hope to make up the deficit . . . .

“But now let us see what we have done. In the first place we have corrupted moral motives. We are going to do better tomorrow to make up for today; we are going to do good deeds, not because they are good, but to justify ourselves. Our fundamental selfishness has got into the very heart of our motives. We have introduced just that seed of egocentricity which turns free self-forgetting goodness into ‘good works’ done with an ulterior motive–between which two things there is the difference between light and darkness . . . .

“But we have not only corrupted moral motives. We have also lowered moral standards. For if we suppose, as a legalistic morality constantly does, that we can make up for past failure by extra effort in the future, we are acting on the assumption that it is possible to have a sort of credit balance in goodness–in other words, that it is possible to do more than our duty. If I suppose that my goodness today is going to compensate for my failure yesterday, I am really supposing, as far as today is concerned, that I can be better than necessary.”

*Cited by John Baillie, A Diary of Readings (London: Oxford, 1955), 218

Quodlibet

Communities

In an article of the “Cliché Community” (Weekly Standard June 2, 5008), Andrew Ferguson writes, “It’s why every group of individuals, no matter how various or loosely tethered, is suddenly called a community. In the last couple of days I’ve read not only of the vegetarian community, which would include both Gandhi and Hitler, but also of the Catholic community (actually, it’s a church) and the conservative community (which lumps me with Richard Viguerie–no thanks). It goes without saying that the best of these communities are nurturing and sustainable . . . .”

Add to these the internet community, the hair challenged community, and the community of faith (to which belong Hindus, Muslims, animists, and Calvin Seminary [actually a school]). How soon can we look forward to administrative communities (consistory, classis, synod), or the 2850 community?

Confession

Other clichés: you “share” instead of “tell.” Too confrontational; and “doing wrong” too judgmental; please say “behaving inappropriately.” Thus Ferguson. But what about the worshiping community: “sin” too rough, judgmental? Then why not “unfaithful,” “a moment of self-reflection,” “thinking better thoughts”?

Confession has fallen on bad times in churches, especially the sensitive evangelical mega-communities. And who does not fall over their feet to imitate? Reformed churches have not traditionally had confession as a liturgical item. Even so, we've not been afraid to be bold: sin in the sermons, in the long prayers, and at least four times a year a list of “gross sins” was part of preparation from the Lord’s Supper. In those days, if you didn’t come to the Lord’s Supper you had a reason. Reading the list of gross sins before the Lord’s Supper is still encouraged by the official community, but the nurturing and the sensitive think it inappropriate, insensitive to the people’s struggles. Maybe we ought to rethink the Reformation’s doing away with confession, having the opportunity to confess your real sin to an authorized listener, and to hear a word of forgiveness. More believers struggle with being truly forgiven than with saving the environment.

A good beginning for your devotional life is John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer. Not a word to please the politically correct community, no clichés, only honest confession of real human sin, and petitions to discipline the Christian life as a member of the body of Christ, the church.

Priestly worship: On earth as it is in heaven

by Herman Bavinck

“People have almost forgotten why they go to church and what they do there because they fail to understand the true purpose of public worship: that we openly gather to engage in priestly service. In public worship we go about our Father’s business, we bring sacrifices to God’s temple, we offer ourselves to him with all we have. In worship we do not passively receive but actively seek to build up ourselves and others in our most sacred faith. That is the true meaning of going up to the house of prayer.

“The key to this understanding is rooted in the truth that all believers are priests. The priestly task today no longer . . . focuses on a mediating intercession of the Old Covenant which belongs to a specific priesthood. This disappears with the universalization of the priesthood. Nevertheless, this remains: observing the service of the holy place, that spiritual and heavenly offering which coincides with the sacrifice of the New Covenant. This offering consists in confessing the name of Christ, in revering God, in our participation in Christ’s intercession, and in the presentation of gifts for God’s work and the poor in Christ.

“It is God’s will that we call upon him in public gatherings. In public because he is worthy of such honor and because it is proper that the world hears God’s people acknowledge him as God. In gatherings because God only wants and recognizes believers as the body of Christ, as an entity wholly organized in Christ. Outside of Christ, that is outside his body, God has no communion with the individual, as of old he would not with an Israelite separate from Israel.

“For this reason the faithful gather on the day of rest. Every local congregation represents the body of Christ. Her members are called to priestly service in the congregation, which is the temple of the Lord. As priests they come together, as priests they bring the Lord offerings of praise and thanksgiving, of petition and lament, as priests they present gifts for the temple and the faithful. That is the essence, the wonderful meaning, and the joy of our gathering on Sunday, or whenever we gather as God’s people. Thus we find ourselves in communion with those gathered in heaven, and work as one with them; even the angels, as a sign of that unity: are present in our meetings as they are in the heavenly congregation.”

Excerpted from “De Predikdienst,” in Kennis en Leven (Kok, 1922), 80-81. Translated by ACLeder.

This is my body (2)*

by Arie C. Leder

Scripture’s high view of the human body tells us it is nothing less than what God has created for joyful and sensual service. From the day Adam sang of Eve as “flesh of my flesh,” they were so gifted and without embarrassment (Gen. 2:23-25; cf. Song of Songs). But then Eve and Adam compromised their bodily service, touching and eating what God had prohibited. In priestly terms, they defiled their bodies, and by so doing defiled the presence of God in which they moved and had their being. Life would forever be changed: the most ordinary bodily activities, birth and work in the field (Gen. 3:16, 17-18), would bear the marks of the broken relationship between God and his human creatures (Gen. 3:10, 23-24), and between men and women (Gen. 3:21, cf. 2:25).

By virtue of their disobedience all Adam and Eve’s descendants are broken and impaired, both in body and soul. Thus, Paul teaches that we are dead (Rom. 5:12; 6:23) in our trespasses and sins. “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness,” he urges his listeners, “offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 7:12-13). It is only within the body of Christ that our bodies, that we as body-soul beings who are fundamentally broken, can begin to experience and practice a righteous use of the body. All of us, whether cognitively or physically impaired. Leviticus already points us in this direction.

Lessons from Leviticus

In its theological description of life in the presence of God Leviticus employs the human body, its ordinary processes, fluids, and a still difficult to define skin disease. Although ordinary, these processes are so “yucky” that chapters 11-15 receive less than their due attention in the pulpit. After all, it might be asked, how can ancient instructions about eating, post-birth uterine discharges, skin disease, and genital discharges be spiritually enlightening? Strangely enough, they are.

The apostle Paul, a learned OT Scripture reader by training, helps us to understand the theology of Leviticus when he reproaches the sexually immoral Corinthian Christians: “Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?” (1 Cor. 6:19; cf. 3:16-17). The human body is endowed for priestly service (Roman. 12:1-2), like the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and the tabernacle in the desert. In this Paul reflects nothing less than Leviticus. Our bodies are not our worlds to do with or think about as we please, but God’s. That is, he rules over our bodies as his temple. Our bodies then are a microcosm of the macrocosm, a small version of the world God created and in which he is present as its Creator, Ruler, and Redeemer.

In the world of Leviticus, God is in Israel’s midst and Israel in God’s close presence. But God’s close presence is dangerous because the sinful descendants of Adam and Eve’s need grace to survive in God’s close presence (Lev. 10:1-3; Ex. 20:18-19; cf. Heb 12:28-29). Thus Leviticus addresses us as Adam and Eve’s descendants: about their, and our, deep brokenness in body and soul; their, and our, lack of wholeness; their, and our, being subject to death and decay like the flowers of the field. Leviticus uses our own bodies to instruct us. For our purposes we will look briefly at Leviticus 13-14, two chapters on skin dis-ease (We’ll exclude the part about mildew in the walls.)

The Levitical body and brokenness

Several things we know with a high degree of certainty: the skin disease in question is not Hansen’s disease, leprosy, but something like psoriasis. Second, the uncleanness and the resulting excommunication from the camp is not the result of human intentionality. No one wills to have this skin disease. Unlike life-style diseases such liver problems which result from alcohol abuse or sexually transmitted disease, the skin disorder of Leviticus 13-14 comes upon the person randomly, like most diseases and impairments. Third, the human body is treated like two other important spaces: the camp and the tabernacle. Like these spaces, the human body must be clean, without defilement of any kind. The tabernacle must be clean because it is God’s dwelling place, the camp because the tabernacle resides in its midst, and the bodies of Israelites because they reside in the camp, in the close presence of God.

When any one of these spaces becomes unclean, certain rituals are prescribed for its cleansing. Thus, the Day of Atonement rituals serve to cleanse the tabernacle from the defilement of Israel’s sin (Lev. 16:16). Human life in the presence of God ought to be pure, whole, clean, and stay within its assigned limits or boundaries, but sin has introduced unwholeness, uncleanness, impurity, and the transgression of limits or boundaries. This is now the “natural” state of humanity before God. Leviticus uses the human body, its natural processes and unintentional defilements, to speak about one’s relationship with God.

Because skin disease breaks the skin and may form patches of scales, a person so afflicted carries in her or his body evidence of unwholeness, decay, and death. Because the body is broken and defiled, the person is broken and defiled. The afflicted and unclean must then move from the camp, life continues, but now outside of the normal relationships. Daily, the defiled person experiences a “little exile,” i.e., being removed from the place where her true identity is rooted, the presence of God and her family and friends. And there is no fault attributed. Disorder appears randomly. When it so breaks into someone’s life the afflicted must warn everyone: “Unclean, unclean.” Similar with normal bodily processes such as post-birth uterine and genital discharges. In this case uncleanness occurred repeatedly, or, seemingly, without end (Mark 5:25-34).

Such is the grace of divine pedagogy: Our own bodies, “whole,” “normal,” or “broken,” are conscripted to serve as kingdom-of-God signs that point us to the truth of our “natural” state.

Wholeness and unwholeness

Only through the hearing of the gospel (Rom. 10:14-15) can such pedagogy be effective. Through it alone can we confess that we are fundamentally impaired, no matter what our “normal” or “broken” cognitive and physical abilities may be. But that very confession also allows the Christian to bear the whole range of brokennesses–including emotional, cognitive, physical, and spiritual dis-ease–as signs that participate in God’s reminding us of our natural unwholeness. Outside a profound commitment to the gospel this understanding of life in the human body makes no sense; it is foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18-31). It is folly because the world considers our bodies “our only comfort,” our very own garden to accept or deny, and then cultivate as we will.

The knowledge of our fundamental impairment shapes us when we experience the random physical impairments that come from disease. We will know that our wholeness does not reside in our bodies, whether “normal” or “broken,” but in our being one with the Lord of life during the times of our “normal” or “broken” lives (Mark 5:34). Wholeness derives from belonging to the body of Christ, a body that is perfectly whole from before the foundations of the world, a body whose wounds and suffering comprehends all the wounds, suffering, abuse, cognitive and physical impairment, that may come upon the sinful descendants of Adam and Eve. And when members of that body suffer such impairments in this life they, we, pray for the sick and disabled, the suffering.

But how should we offer such prayer. Take the following samples of prayers for the sick. Note the honesty about our “natural” state. See how the brokenness of body and soul are taken up into a confession of sin, but also of complete trust in the Lord to whom we belong, body and soul, in life and in death. Do we pray this way? Should we pray in this manner? Are these but old-fashioned prayers that do not meet “my needs”? Are our prayers for healing rooted in Christ’s wholeness?

Prayer and wholeness

“I acknowledge, Lord, that your chastisement is just; I have deserved them thousand-fold. My sins have so provoked you that you are just in striking me with the rod of your anger. I have also failed to do my neighbor the good I could have while I was strong. Even more, my carelessness has endangered the souls of my neighbor. Therefore you come in righteousness to banish me from the fellowship of my friends and set me among strangers. But Lord and good God, there is grace and mercy with you; and even though this contagion . . . prevents me from being with my children, I have complete access to you, through Jesus Christ my Lord.” (Excerpt from “A Prayer for one visited by Pestilence,” by Willem Teellinck [1579-1629].)

“We beseech Thee that Thou wilt grant us the grace of the Holy Spirit, that He may teach us to know truly our miseries, and to bear patiently thy chastisements, which as far as our merits are concerned might have been ten thousand times more severe. . . . We submit ourselves without reserve to Thy holy will, regardless whether Thou wouldst leave our souls here in these earthly tabernacles or whether Thou wouldst take them home unto Thyself. We have no fear because we belong to Christ, and therefore shall not perish. We even desire to depart from this weak body in the hope of a blessed resurrection, knowing that then it will be restored to us in a much more glorious form.” (Excerpt from a “Prayer for the sick and the spiritually distressed,” Psalter Hymnal [1976], 187.)

“We acknowledge that we have within ourselves nothing but evil inclinations and inability to do any good. On this account we have merited this affliction, yea, have deserved far more. . . . count not our sins against us, . . . give us patience and strength to bear it all according to Thy will; and may it thus in Thy wisdom redound to our edification. . . . . Rather chastise us here, Lord, than that we should have to perish with the world hereafter. Grant that we may die to this world and to all earthly things, that we may be renewed daily after the image of Jesus Christ. Suffer us never to be separated from Thy love . . . .” (Excerpt from a “Prayer for the sick and the spiritually distressed,” Psalter Hymnal [1976], 188.)

Or, in the words of the hymn: “Lord Jesus, for this I most humbly entreat; I wait, blessed Lord, at Thy crucified feet; By faith, for my cleansing, I see Thy blood flow; now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (Psalter Hymnal [1976], number 379, st. 3)

*Part one, June 2007, this website.

Hope and the private soldier

by W. R. Inge

“But we must not disguise from ourselves that God’s dealings with this world are still a very difficult problem. After reading the Old Testament we have no right to think that what perplexed the chosen people for so many centuries will all be plain to us even with the New Testament to guide us. There is a great deal of shallow optimism which ‘heals too slightly’ the wounds which experience inflicts upon Faith and Hope. It is useless to say, ‘God’s in His heaven; All’s right with the world,’ when many things are obviously wrong in the world. It is vain to argue, as Emerson does, that divine justice is an automatic self-adjusting machine, so that all get their deserts (not of course in a grossly material sense) in this life. Eminent literary men in the last century were too secure and comfortable to see what a rough place the world is for the majority of those who live in it. It was only after long travail of soul that the Jews learned their lesson; we shall not learn ours by turning epigrams. Remember that complacent optimism, no less than pessimism, is treason against Hope. The world, as it is, is not good enough to be true. We ought not to be satisfied with it. ‘God has prepared some better thing.’ . . .

“This world exists for the realization in time of God’s eternal purposes. Some of these are bound up with individual lives, for God intended each one of us to do and be something; others have a far wider scope, and require far more time for their fulfilment. The manifold evils in the world are allowed to exist because only through them can the greater good be brought into activity. This greater good is not any external achievement, but the love and heroism and self-sacrifice which the great conflict calls into play. We must try to return to the dauntless spirit of the early Christians . . . And let us remember, when we are inclined to be disheartened, that the private soldier is a poor judge of the fortunes of a great battle.”

“Day 19,” in John Baillie, A Diary of Readings (Oxford, 1955).

The Returning Church

The Returning Church will be holding a meeting in Michigan on Thursday, April 17 at 7:00 p.m. We will again be hosted by 1st CRC in Byron Center.

The purpose of this meeting is to discuss "The Vibrancy of Confessionalism" and the place of biblical truth in our local congregations. Dr. Robert Swierenga (Research History Professor at the VanRaalte Institute and CRC member) will be giving a brief background on the role of the Form of Subscription in the Reformed churches to set a starting point for maintaining biblical truth in a denomination. His speech will be followed by an open forum/panel discussion on the broader topic of the place of biblical truth in our local congregations and the role of our confessions. In light of rampant post-modernism - even an all-out assault on truth - in our society and even in our churches, this topic could not be more timely.

In Praise of Unity in Diversity

by John Bolt

There is much to be said in favor of the currently fashionable emphasis on diversity. We are all enriched by authentic engagement with different cultures. They give us new perspectives, fresh angles on the human experience of living in God’s polychrome world. When we consider that each of us has a unique fingerprint and DNA we begin to grasp how much God loves diversity. None of us desires to go back to black and white television; how could we possibly prefer cultural insulation and isolation.

Diversity in catholicity

For Christians who take seriously the catholicity of the church, the gain is obvious. The rhythms, music, and dance of Africa, the deep wisdom of Asia, the Pentecostal passion of Latin America—when included with Bach, Handel and American gospel, with the Christian appropriation of Plato and Aristotle, with the spirituality of the Franciscans, the Dutch Second Reformation, the Great Awakening, Korean prayer warriors and Billy Graham—all this enriches us beyond our capacity to take it all in.

And yet . . . . diversity as we experience it today is a mixed blessing, shining discovery joined with shadowy politics. How did such a clearly beneficial emphasis become problematic for us? How did we manage to turn multi-culturalism into an ugly ideology; how did we subvert a plea for greater openness and understanding into a political hustle for power? How did we turn Dutch Calvinists who love the Genevan Psalms and were beginning to enjoy and even (slowly!) sway and clap to gospel, how did they morph into people aggravated by Al Sharpton?

Those who push diversity very hard are quick to point the finger at unresolved racism as the reason. They are probably not altogether wrong; the sin of racism is not far from any one of us and we need to acknowledge its lurking presence. Reformed folk, after all, are Augustinians and Calvinists, not Wesleyan perfectionists in their understanding of original sin. All the same, I believe there is a profound and positive reason for being uncomfortable with diversity as it is currently understood and promoted in society and church. The qualification is critical because the lingering question I have is whether there is any unity left after we have exalted diversity. Are those factors that distinguish us really greater than those that unite us as human beings, as fellow image bearers of God? And if we become uncomfortable with that conclusion, should the church not be proclaiming unity before emphasizing diversity—a unity by virtue of creation and then also a deeper unity in Christ?

The fundamental question

I believe that is the question properly posed to diversity advocates today: Do you believe that there is a fundamental and prior unity underlying all diversity in God’s creation? Do you believe that what we have in common with each other, universally, is far more important than those things that distinguish us from each other? For the Christian church, it seems to me, the answer is a clear YES! So let me state my understanding of this as a constructive principle, one rooted in a deep conviction about God himself: All diversity is grounded in and must therefore serve the prior unity of God, his world, his truth, and the humanity he created for his glory.

I claim no originality for this affirmation; I learned it from Herman Bavinck. As I spend more and more time with my teacher I am increasingly convinced that the socio-cultural, political, and intellectual issues we face today—the so-called challenge of post-modernism, for example—are really not all that new. Bavinck was aware of the tendency of modernity to drift toward nominalism and relativism as it jettisoned the intellectual moorings of Christian conviction about God and the world.

Put very simply—as the founders of modern science knew well—for us to be persuaded that our senses give us reliable knowledge about the world and that the scientific knowledge we accumulate is a reliable correspondence to reality, we need to believe that the universe is a creation and a cosmos, not a chaos. The order in the cosmos makes it possible to form universal concepts that are true. In what seems initially a counter-intuitive suggestion, Bavinck insists that when we “entertain concepts we are not distancing ourselves from reality but we increasingly approximate it.” (Reformed Dogmatics, I, 231) To abandon this conviction is to retreat into skepticism.

Unity in God

For Bavinck, the conviction that there is a deeper unity undergirding all diversity is finally grounded in the Christian belief that God has revealed himself to us as One Being, yet in three persons: “Just as God is one in essence and distinct in persons, so also the work of creation is one and undivided, while in its unity it is still rich in diversity.” (Reformed Dogmatics, II, 422) And in another place: “The unity and diversity in the works of God proceeds from and returns to the unity and diversity which exist in the Divine Being.” (Our Reasonable Faith, 144)

This fundamental conviction is the basis of a Christian worldview. The unity of God points to the unity of the human race created in the divine image. There is, Bavinck argues, no other foundation for international law. There is no other possible ground for international justice than the conviction, articulated in the American Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal” and for that reason have “inalienable rights.” Without such a basic belief, international relations become nothing more than power plays; the world becomes a Hobbesian jungle where the fittest survive and the weak are exterminated. Only the Christian doctrine of creation, accompanied by a belief in the catholicity of the church, is capable of creating a just international order: “International justice ultimately rests (and must rest), either implicitly or explicitly, on two pillars: the Christian principle of the oneness of the human race in origin and essence, and the principle of the catholicity of God’s kingdom.” (Essays on Religion, Science and Society, ed. J. Bolt, trans. H. Boonstra and G. Sheeres [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008], 277)

I believe that this means we need to reconsider our push toward diversity. Not that we should deny diversity or fail to celebrate it in appropriate ways. However, diversity for its own sake will always disappoint and fail to achieve social good if it is not grounded in a prior conviction about unity. Our diversity rests in unity because God is one, his truth is one, the human race is one, the holy, catholic church is one.

Preaching Home Runs

by Calvin P. Van Reken

For years now my kids and I have used baseball hitting as a metaphor for preaching success. When we hear a sermon we will discuss whether the preacher struck out, hit a single, double, triple, or a home run. While we never had strict criteria for evaluating a sermon’s success, in what follows I suggest some possibilities.

Truth

For a sermon to be a single, it needs to be true. A sermon cannot reach first base if the main point of the sermon and its central corollaries are not all true statements. I say the main point and central corollaries because it’s rare to hear a sermon in which some minor comment that is untrue isn’t said, usually it’s some kind of an overstatement. A preacher may get some statistics wrong, or have the problem I often seem to have with getting calculations correct. Such mistakes are bad enough, but a surprising number of sermons have main themes or central points that are false. Some preachers herald a health and wealth gospel; some preachers state, in effect, that you need to work your way into God’s good graces; some preachers tell you that you can improve yourself by trying harder.

Biblical

If a sermon gets to first base, it will get no further if it is not biblical. The Bible doesn’t teach every truth, it has very little on quantum mechanics or even on how to drive a car. A sermon can be true without saying something that is taught in the Bible. One common example of this occurs when a preacher spends a whole sermon explain something that is really pop psychology, and may be true enough, yet doesn’t announce any revealed truths at all. Or a preacher takes some effort retelling a Bible story, and then draws some comparison between the main characters and people today. No doubt this can be done so that nothing false is said–no doubt it’s true we need to have more courage like David did when we confront the Goliaths in our lives. Yet such moral truths are thin gruel for people who have come for a real meal. A sermon which is not biblical never gets to second base.

Textual

To get to third base, a sermon needs not only to be true and biblical, it must also be textual. This is not exactly the same as being biblical. A biblical sermon simply needs to be something revealed somewhere in the bible, to be textual a sermon has to express truths revealed in the text on which the sermon is based.

Relevant

Finally, to be a home run a sermon needs to be true, biblical, textual, and relevant. Some sermons are very good at explaining theological, spiritual, or moral truths without ever showing how such truths make any difference in the life of anyone. Such sermons languish on third base. Home run sermons always have some clear and specific applications showing how the textual truths uncovered can and should affect the real lives of those who hear it. A sermon should include how this word from the Lord matters, for example, to a teenage boy, or a stay at home mom, or a retired widower.

No preacher hits all home runs. Still, like Babe Ruth, a preacher ought always to aim for the fences.



The renewal of preaching

by Richard Lischer*

“The renewal of preaching will not begin with a new form or style of the sermon. It never has. The poet says, ‘I gave up fire for form till I was cold.’ No, not form. In fact, renewal will not begin with the sermon at all. It begins with those who make sermons. The first step in the recovery of preaching is the renewal of our faith in the priority of Jesus Christ and the priority of his language toward the world. In Luke’s account of the confusion at Pentecost (Acts 2), he does not tell us that the Holy Spirit created only one language or that there had ever only been one language of faith. ‘Each one heard them speaking in his [or her] own language’ (Acts 2:6). The miracle of Pentecost is that there is one Lord surrounded by many languages and world-views, who cannot be translated away. He must be restored to the center of our theology and church life.

“This recentering also takes place by means of language, but not the language of homiletics. Where do sermons come from? They come from prayer, worship, and the daily witness of ordinary Christians. We will not fix preaching by tinkering with our sermons by relearning the distinctive language of the church’s faith.

“It begins and ends in self-abandonment to the word of God.”

*Taken from Richard Lischer, “The Interrupted Sermon,” Interpretation 50 (1996): 179-180.

Epiphany 2008: New Year’s Resolutions

by Arie C. Leder

A week into our first New Year’s in Puerto Rico the neighbor boys asked our twins: “¿Qué les trajeron los reyes?” “What did the kings bring you?” Three Kings Day, the last of the twelve days of Christmas, was a much anticipated event. Like the celebration of Sinterklaas in the Netherlands, children prepare for the day by placing hay in their shoes the evening before. For the kings’ horses, of course. Three Kings Day is still all about gifts; the gifts received, not given.

Three Kings Day, the feast of the Epiphany in the Christian liturgical calendar, is a new year’s festival. Many Christians, however, celebrate another, more secular, New Year’s festival: Resolutions. If Christmas is for giving others gifts, Resolutions is for giving ourselves gifts: no more smoking, dieting, more exercise, be more friendly, don’t touch what isn’t yours, and so on. And we fail, every year, usually. So, what kinds of resolutions?

An Epiphany

One of our resolutions may be to put Christ back into Christmas, make it less commercial. Next year, of course. Perhaps take over the Dutch tradition of small gifts, with poems, several weeks before Christmas. Too counter-cultural, I’m sure. Or do the twelve days of Christmas. In Puerto Rico we once practiced this: one gift a day for each child until Three Kings Day. We thought it was a good thing. We had a twelve day lament. Our laudable goal of connecting two important events on the liturgical calendar met with resolute opposition. We stuck with the Puerto Rican tradition of having a family night on “Noche Buena,” the night before Christmas. We still do.

Three Kings Day, Epiphany, is not about us receiving gifts, however, but about Christ receiving recognition of his kingship, and that from the ends of the earth (Ps. 72:10-11), right under the world’s nose. The powers that be were not pleased with this recognition (Matt. 2:3, 7-8), and sought to destroy him (Matt. 2:16-18). Herod’s agents slaughtered many children in Bethlehem.

Giving Christ gifts put him in danger; he escaped to die another day. It also places the giver in danger: to give Christ gifts is to honor his Kingship and no other; it puts the giver in deadly conflict with the powers of this world. But is that not what Paul urges his readers to do? Give Christ the gift of undying loyalty, be a living sacrifice in body and soul (Romans 12:1-2).

Sacrificial resolutions

Whether you want to quit smoking, clean up your language, work on your lust or greed, it will cost you dearly. You yourself have to change. The world’s inhabitants agree, it is good not to covet another’s spouse, to quit smoking, not to overeat. All are worthy goals and resolutions. But, what kind of resolutions is the church capable of, what goals does it consider crucial, worth dying for; what can the church resolve to do that the world has no interest in, and even opposes?

Let our worship connect more with the church of all ages, its hymns, prayers, and liturgies, for the sake of those whom the Lord will gather into his fold today. Serious worship takes place in the presence of God, not in the presence of the world. Let us be noticeably Christian in our liturgy and life-style. Let our worship be undefiled by the culture of this world.

Let us read Scripture as it has been once for all delivered to the saints. As in early Christianity, there are those today who would add “gospels” because, it is argued, the church did not give a fair hearing to other voices. But the so-called gospels of Peter, Philip and Judas take away from the apostolic testimony about Jesus Christ. The world loves these gospels; it makes Jesus more palatable. If Jesus was married he is a real guy, one “we can truly understand.” What can be wrong with that? Besides, those gospels give more room to women. Isn’t it time to expose the male dominated foundations of the church? So the argument goes. Let’s not add to Scripture for the sake of the world.

Let the church examine its ways with multiculturalism. Let it have an epiphany and resolve not to mirror the world’s desires for tolerant pluralities that have a strange way of undermining the truth we have confessed throughout the ages. Are the ecumenical creeds and the post-Reformation confessions really only true, or mostly true, for their own time? Let our commitment to the creeds and confessions remain as firm in 2057 as it was in 1857, 1907, and 1957.

None of these possible resolutions is easy to keep; we’ll be working on them way beyond next Epiphany. Until Jesus comes again. May he find us faithful, if tired to the bone.