I’ll be eagerly awaiting the inexpensive ebook of his lecture at Fuller. The summary is interesting.
Author: henry
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Last Day for Victim No More! Giveaway
My company, Energion Publications is giving away a free copy of Shauna Hyde’s book Victim No More! through our Facebook page. All you have to do is comment on one of the threads related to the book there. This giveaway is related to Domestic Violence Awareness Month which ends tomorrow.Any comments on our Facebook page on any of the threads related to the book or Domestic Violence Awareness Month will qualify you. We’ll randomly select one commenter to receive the free book.
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Another Gutted Reading – Psalm 89
I’m looking at the readings for Proper 25A, and again I notice a large chunk of the Psalm removed from the reading, Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17, so 7-12 is left out.
Now sometimes I see good reason for taking part of a Psalm, because one does need to keep the readings reasonable in length. As it is, many congregations only use a few lines from the Psalm.
But in this case, one could divide the Psalm into three sections, with the first being 1-6, expressing the greatness of God, the second 7-12 talking about living under God’s judgment or anger, and 13-17 being a prayer for God’s favor. Now if you leave out the center part of the Psalm, one misses the sense of the prayer.
In this case I suspect a desire of certain liturgists to avoid reading the really unpleasant verses, such as speaking of God putting our sins directly in front of him. Not comfortable reading, that!
In any case, I think this Psalm, as most Psalms, should be studied more as a whole, rather than chopped up. As worshipers, we should be more patient with hearing the reading of the Word.
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Brannon Howse and Justin Peters Dissing Visions
The following video comes from Worldview Weekend, and is a conversation between Brannon Howse and Justin Peters. What’s interesting about this post is that pretty much every accusation they make against modern people who claim visions of or visits to heaven could be made against various Bible writers.
In fact, they run into this difficulty in the middle of the video, just after 8:00, when they are criticizing Jess Duplantis for referring to God as having fingers. Suddenly they remember that the Bible also refers to God as having body parts, so they bring out the metaphor defense. Of course, that is a very good defense — it is metaphorical language. But why can’t Jesse Duplantis use metaphorical language?
They refer to Paul’s statement that he heard things he couldn’t speak of when he was taken up into the third heaven, and thus suggest no modern person should do so. Can anyone say, “Revelation?” Yes, they notice Revelation as well, but apparently don’t notice the problem.
The fact is that if you want to find weird things, you can find plenty of them in the Bible itself. My intent isn’t to defend everyone who claims a vision of heaven. I just don’t see any reason to exclude such modern visions if one accepts, as these men do, that such visions were ever possible.
I’m putting the video below the fold to keep it from autostarting on views of the home page.
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Revelation Requires Interaction
In my book When People Speak for God I used the story of the one-ended telephone cord. Edward Vick makes the same point in much more profound language than I used.
But even should someone intend to make known to me what I would otherwise never come to discover by myself, I shall not in fact know it unless I respond. The intention to reveal oneself, and the intention to know the other are not sufficient in themselves. Revelation takes place when there is giving and responding, an interaction between agents who are both free and purposive. Revelation is communication. Revelation takes place when what is ‘provided’ is grasped, what is ‘offered’ is ‘taken’, what is spoken’ is ‘heard’ (From Inspiration to Understanding, 174 [in advance copy]).
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Connectionalism and Dysfunctional Churches
I have made a few negative comments about conference dashboards keeping statistics on membership, apportionments, and other activities available to anyone who wants to read. I continue to question whether these numbers really tell the story of the health of the churches. There are, I believe, some very large and growing churches that have little or nothing to do with the kingdom of God.
Nonetheless, I think we have a problem with accountability in the United Methodist Church. When I took my new member class in my first United Methodist congregation, I recall the teacher, who made a number of historical errors, emphasized connectionalism. But if I were to go by his discussion of it, connectionalism means simply that we all go help one another as needed; nothing was said about accountability.
Those who are pushing the statistical approach are, I believe, responding to a very real problem. Pastors and church congregations in the United Methodist Church can go on indefinitely violating the discipline of the church or refusing to take necessary actions to make their church successful, while expecting that others will take up the slack.
That is what happens when a church continually fails to pay its apportionments. Now I’m not 100% a fan of apportionments as they are currently implemented, but they do represent a critical element of connectionalism. We put our money together to accomplish things we can’t do separately. Whatever reforms the system might need, the basic concept is sound, and more importantly if you have such a system, and some churches don’t do their share, all suffer.
This means that we need accountability as part of our connectional system. Churches need to be accountable to those who support them. In a more congregational system, an older church barely hanging on while slowly dying would have a hard time getting people to send money to help. A United Methodist congregation that refuses to take necessary actions, and continues to fail to support the team will nonetheless benefit from the resources of the denomination.
We should be willing to give money to support the mission of the church. But supporting a church that is willfully imitating a sinking ship sliding under the waves is not mission—it’s bad stewardship.
In addition, dysfunctional congregations continue to be part of the witness our denomination gives regarding Christ. Our “brand” can be tarnished by the actions of any of our churches. In the case of a denomination, tarnishing the brand also provides a negative witness—tarnishes the brand, so to speak—of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
My problem is that statistics can and generally do fail to get the entire picture. You can have good statistics and still not be building the kingdom of God. I welcome moves to make pastors more accountable. I think more could be done to make churches accountable as well.
But accountability is going to take more than reading the numbers. It will require people with good discernment who can see the context, make the necessary decisions, and take responsibility for those decisions. It may be difficult. We may prefer to find some objective measure, but it is still necessary. An objective measure of a subjective set of values will, by nature, be deceptive.
In critical ways, the church is not a business. Thus my call is for accountability carried out by human beings who exercise all their discernment and wisdom and seek to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
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Revelation and a System of Doctrine
I really enjoy the last few days of work on a pending book release, because I include an opportunity to read the final form of the book at a more reasonable pace and without the constant distraction of working on editorial changes. Well, I should confess that I’m also always going crazy with production issues, but we’ll leave that to one side.
Right now I’m doing my final run through From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully by Edward Vick. It’s an enjoyable process. I’m going to comment on it a bit more later. Today I’m just going to use one quote, regarding revelation.
But the meaning of the Bible is not exhausted by being made the basis of a system of doctrine. There is much that escapes when ‘Bible’ and ‘system of doctrine’ are conflated. In fact, while by no means denying the importance of doctrine (why should a theologian do that?), one must say that if the importance of the Bible is made to consist in its being construed as a source of doctrine, it is being severely reduced, misunderstood, and indeed distorted. Revelation is not reducible to the communication of propositions, and faith is not identical with assent to propositions, in this case propositions repeating biblical statements, or being inferred or worked out from them (emphasis mine).
Note that Dr. Vick is not suggesting, as the context makes even more plain, that there are no propositions involved or that propositions have no value. Rather, revelation is much more than and other than that.
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This Headline Says It All
Tithing Hits Record Low; Churches Spend More to Make Congregants Happy.
While I don’t believe tithing is a command binding on Christians, my problem is not that it would demand too much, but rather that it demands too little, does so in the wrong way, and for the wrong reasons. But that’s another topic.
And I can’t resist noting that the word “tithing” used to refer to giving 10%, not 2.38%, though I know the word has changed meaning. Still, if you’re going to call it a biblical command, it might be better to stick with the biblical meaning, or a close approximation.
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To the IRD: Democracy is Biblical?
Mark Tooley of the Institute for Religion and Democracy thinks that religious leaders should not be supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement:
“Religious activists who have aligned with the Wall Street Occupation should model mature Christian discernment, not echo angry resentments that dream of a secular utopia.”
That quote is highlighted at the top of the IRD statement titled IRD Challenges Religious Left over Support for Wall Street Occupation (HT: Christian Post).
Now I have reservations about religious leaders becoming tightly connected to a particular political movement. I think it is way too easy to let our commitment to the kingdom of God be hijacked by various political agendas.
But that’s not IRD’s point. They believe that the agenda of these leaders in the religious left is, in itself, not biblical. Their own statement says, “The Institute on Religion & Democracy works to reaffirm the church’s biblical and historical teachings, strengthen and reform its role in public life, protect religious freedom, and renew democracy at home and abroad.” In fact, if you look over your web site, it becomes apparent they have their own political agenda, for example on the death penalty, in which Mark Tooley again suggests that only those supporting the death penalty are presenting “careful reasoning rooted in Christian tradition . . . ”
If one believes Mark Tooley, those who show “mature Christian discernment” apparently must support democracy, but oppose big government, and particularly redistribution of income. Now while I am leary myself of schemes to redistribute income, I do not make the assumption that my own political position is the only Christian one. I believe that God calls us to care for the poor and unfortunate; he has not told us in scripture the precise method to use.
And please tell me just where it is that the Bible supports democracy. I have heard this over and over, yet I don’t see any case where democracy in any form recognizably similar to modern democracy, was practiced or advocated. Might it be the best way to run a country in which one may live as a Christian? I would imagine so. I like it myself. But the Bible doesn’t make that the one and only Christian option.
