Peter Kirk links to Roger Olson on why he defends Love Wins. Now I haven’t read Love Wins and it isn’t on my reading list. The reason for this post is to comment on this (Peter quoting Roger Olson):
I think that is what offends critics of Love Wins–the suggestion that God doesn’t get what he really, perfectly wants. That seems to them to demean God, to lessen his glory. …
And yes, I could have gone directly back to Olson’s post for the same quote. I suggest you do so, because Olson covers all this in more depth.
My major problem with Calvinism could be summarized by saying that it seems to me to force God to want something that humans can understand and accept. What if what God wants is a universe filled with creatures who can choose whether or not to love him? It may turn theologians’ brains into pretzels, but why should it be limiting to God’s glory to want that instead of to want what Calvinists prefer that he want?
It seems a very narrow few of God’s glory, and frankly strikes me as something more like a desire for God’s simplicity or comprehensibility, than one for God’s glory.
I can’t understand how a God who can set off the big bang and who knows the end from the beginning can also make creatures with choice. But I suspect he can.
There are many days when the United Methodist Church discourages me, and I wrote a post yesterday with that sort of feeling. But there are two things that regularly encourage me: Encountering vital small congregations, and meeting some of our young pastors.
Via another young pastor, Geoffrey Lentz, who is doing wonderful things at First United Methodist Church and especially with our ICON service, I met one of these young pastors through my publishing work–be warned that I’m going to push his book in this post just a bit–Darren McClellan. His book is Out of This World: An Assessment of Christian Community, and in it he evaluates a church congregation through interviews, and then looks at some suggestions to improve the way in which we handle such things. It’s a slightly edited version of his PrincetonDoctor of Ministry dissertation.
It’s with our paid/team imprint EnerPower Press, because it was submitted as a simple dissertation printing. Had it been submitted for traditional publishing, I might well have decided not to take it due to the size of the potential audience. In terms of quality, the manuscript need have no apologies (nor the author).
I’m not going to comment extensively on this, as it’s hardly my field, but in it, Darren starts with a view of discipleship derived from both Bonhoeffer and Wesley, and then allows the anonymous church members to express themselves on how this worked in their church. He then gives some specific ideas for reform in the church, and finally addresses suggestions to churches, to new pastors, to district superintendents, and to bishops. This may be a bit ambitious, but such directness is needed to prevent what Darren calls “vocational homicide.” That’s a strong term, no doubt, but my observation is that there are many people in the church who are guilty of that charge.
For my United Methodist readers, and any others interested, I’m going to put this book on sale for direct purchase. I see that the Amazon.com price today is $18.99. I’m going to put it at $18 shipped via Energion Direct. I’ll leave the sale price up for two weeks. I have some on the shelf here ready to ship.
At the same time, bloggers who are interested in reviewing it can e-mail to request a free review copy. The only requirement is that you do review it. There’s no requirement as to how you review it, but if you receive a free copy, I want to see your review. Oh, and the government wants you to note that you received a free copy.
I do have substantial problems with the church dashboard, including a great deal of the way in which the statistics are presented. I also am concerned about numerical measures of success in the church. It’s quite possible to build up numbers and be missing the mission and ministry of the church, and the proclamation of the gospel message. Some people will leave a church that is aiming for full commitment and discipleship. At the same time, as Dan Dick pointed out, some people’s professed disdain for such numbers is the result of laziness. But all of this has been thoroughly discussed amongst the Methodist blogs.
It seems to me, however, that the use of these numbers on conference dashboards is just a symptom of a certain retreat from personal responsibility. I don’t mean by this that our United Methodist bishops are off trying to avoid hard decisions. Rather, we are systematically trying to codify and quantify so much of human behavior and organizational policy that not only can avoid taking personal responsibility; they must.
For example, in my district, the district superintendent has 53 churches for which he is responsible, and the conference as a whole has more that 600 pastors, for which our bishop is responsible. Each year, pastoral appointments are made by the bishop, with the advice of the cabinet and many people in the churches, for those 600 churches. I think the temptation is going to be very strong to put some kind of simplified set of numbers on performance. The more details you have to consider, the harder it is to make a choice.
What I wonder is how often a bishop could get by with ignoring the numbers because, let’s say, one pastor is making better disciples, even if his numbers (for some reason) didn’t look as good. Could the popular pastor with the watered-down message be overlooked in favor of the pastor with the harder message of sacrifice and service? I recognize here that the pastor with the good numbers may be an effective disciple maker. I know some pastors in that category. The pastor with the bad numbers may be either lazy, or much more likely simply too beat up by parishioners, the system, and the unrealistic expectations we have for pastors that he is, in fact, performing badly.
But can the leadership determine this with accuracy in all (or nearly all) cases? Would they be willing to send the less popular pastor to a larger church?
It seems to me that collecting statistics is valuable, though I think someone well qualified in analyzing data should rework the conference display. I sense a few cases of deceptive use of numbers. Most importantly, the numbers are not related to the nature of the existing church body and the community in which it is located. All of that requires personal knowledge such as cannot be collected remotely.
But what if such information was collected and available? Would our leadership be willing to act against popular pressure? I see this as a common problem in leadership, at least in the United States today. We have a problem making a decision and standing up for it. Of course, in employment situations, the decisive leader may well have to present statistics as evidence in court in order to justify a decision.
That’s one reason for “zero tolerance” policies in so many cases. “Zero tolerance” means that people in leadership don’t have to make responsible, nuanced decisions. But “zero tolerance” is just the extreme case of avoiding responsibility. Putting it all on a set of numbers is another one. It’s a trend I don’t like, even though I recognize it as a response to the other extreme–a complete lack of accountability. (I have tremendous respect for Bishop Willimon, for example, whose dashboard I linked as an example. Yet I’m still not happy with it.)
I ramble because I don’t know a solution, other than to say we need leaders to take responsibility, and we need to make sure we know who is responsible for what, so they can be accountable. I also think we need to bring leadership closer to the local church so that each person in leadership is responsible for a reasonable number of people and churches. That would allow individuals to seek out all those nuances that back up the numbers.
I don’t know the solution, and since I am neither a pastor nor a church administrator, and have avoided most church committees, I am probably the wrong person to propose one. What I do believe is that, though structural changes can help, the answer doesn’t lie in precisely how the church is organized. There are congregational style churches that are just as dysfunctional as any Methodist church whose bishop sent the “wrong” pastor.
What we do need is a change of our personal culture, from that of an organization that must maintain itself to one of gospel driven discipleship.
I just noticed a post from The Congenial Christians, Top Ten Biblical Learning Blogs, which lists this blog as #1. Though I don’t know what the criteria are, I want to thank them, and provide this link back to their blog.
Some time ago I was teaching a Sunday School class and the topic of prayer at public events came up. Now I would have a serious problem offering prayer at a public event. Though I support the idea of separation of church and state, my major objection is not based on the constitutional principle. After all, courts have allowed prayers in congress.
My opposition is simply that I believe public prayer is prayer offered for a group. If it is just a ritual, or if it cannot reasonably be expected that the group joining in the prayer actually does join, then to me it is empty. I could sit out in my car and pray for a blessing on the activities of government, but I could not stand up in the group and offer a prayer as though God and the governmental meeting were on the same program.
In my private prayers for the government, I pray largely that God will give wisdom to political leaders. I do not make the assumption that those political leaders and the political system under which I live are somehow more on God’s program than any other.
I think that prayers at government events are not designed to invoke God’s favor, nor are they designed to seek God’s will. They are designed to give the impression that those who are doing the government’s business are, in fact, blessed, and are somehow blessed. It’s the whitewash on the sepulcher.
In any case, to get back to the story, my explanation of my own view didn’t get through. One gentleman raised his hand and said, “I think you just don’t have the courage of your convictions.”
“No,” I told him, “I don’t have the courage of your convictions.”
In the discussion that followed, it became clear that he simply could not conceive of a reason for not offering a public prayer, other than that I was afraid of offending people in the audience. He (and many in the room) were so certain that this was an appropriate activity that they simply couldn’t see any reason not to. To them, America is God’s country, a Christian nation, and there’s no problem with Christian prayers.
I was reminded of this when reading this post by Arthur Sido (HT: Dave Black Online via Christian-Archy.com). This is a topic that will shock many, many American Christians. Why not wear a “God Bless America” T-Shirt? It’s not something they’ve ever considered. The conviction that God is on our side runs very deep. Often it erupts in the claim that American policy carries out God’s will, either knowingly or unknowingly. That claim in turn can lead us to give up the church’s mission and ministry to the world.
If we truly believe that the Gospel is “God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes” then we ought to act that way. But over and over again our solutions for economic problems, crime, moral issues, and even family relations is to get the government to solve it for us. I don’t doubt that the government needs to have its eye on such things, but how much of our effort as Christians needs to be used in that way?
Would we not change more people and make more of a difference in our world by living and proclaiming (and I believe proclaiming without living is no proclamation at all) the good news accomplish more than all the political activism we can do as a church?
I don’t know this, but I think most of us simply don’t believe that the Gospel will transform people’s lives. I don’t think we really believe the Gospel will work. I suspect that, throughout Christian history, our resort to the sword of the state results from a lack of faith.
The separation I’m most concerned about is the separation where the church says, “We cannot compromise the gospel with the state’s structures of power. We need to stay away to maintain the integrity of the gospel.” The theological separation is more important than the constitutional.
When my wife and I decided to get married we also made another decision: God would be first in our married life. That means that for me, God comes before my wife, and for her God comes before me. Some people hear that as a sort of sacrifice. We have less because we give more to God first. But in practice we both would say that putting God first actually makes our love for one another greater.
I think this is a characteristic of loving God. In 1 John 4:20 love for one’s brothers and sisters is inextricably linked to love for God. Matthew 25:31-46 explicitly tests love for God by our actions of love towards others. Love for God is intended to bring us closer to one another, not to separate us. Like many things in Christian orthodoxy, 1 + 1 = 1, i.e. 100% devotion to God results in 100% devotion to others, without either detracting from the other.
Now perhaps you think I’m going to say next that 100% devotion to God will result in 100% devotion to my country, and thus make me the most devoted of patriots. And with the proper perspective, that is partly true. I would say that devotion to God makes me a better patriot.
But my love for God also limits and guides my patriotism. I think it makes me a better citizen, but to some it may make my devotion questionable, and others may even see me as disloyal. Many Christians over the centuries have been seen as disloyal because they put God first, and because there were things they could not offer their country. My father planted trees in Canada because he refused to bear arms in World War II. Many people saw that as disloyal. Even though I don’t share my father’s view completely, I honor his devotion to God.
You see, for many patriotism means supporting whatever one’s country chooses to do, and being willing to carry out orders, no matter what those orders are. If they are the policy of one’s country, the patriot carries them out.
I believe a country, any country, is best served by those who offer their integrity, their best judgment, and their commitment to the morals and ethics they have chosen and accepted. That means that they must, in some cases, say no. They may sometimes be wrong, yes, but they always act with integrity.
So at the same time as I honor those who have fought for freedom in this country and in others, I want to also honor those who have stood against the tide and chosen to act with integrity, even that action cost them their social standing, their livelihood, their reputations, and even their lives.
There are many times we, as a nation, would have done much better by listening to them.
He writes in opposition to the approach taken by by Michael Heiser and C. Michael Patton, each of whom have written posts regarding how to deal with errors in the Bible.
Now I’m going to be brief (don’t laugh!). Michael Heiser and C. Michael Patton aren’t idiots. I don’t mean here to imply that John Hobbins says they are. But a point I have made previously about inerrancy in response to John is that the common usage of the word “inerrancy” does not agree with the way John uses it.
That doesn’t make Heiser and Patton more right about the inerrancy of scripture, but my observation is that their view accords with the more common understanding of what inerrancy means. Maybe people ought to mean something different, but they don’t. But I’m of the school of thought that suggests the meaning of words is to be determined by their usage, and by that standard, calling Hobbins’ view “inerrancy” is misleading. Most readers, at least non-academic readers, will understanding him to believe something different than he does.
People in the pews tend to believe someone who claims to accept biblical inerrancy would be concerned with discussing whether Jacob bought or conquered Shechem (as Heiser does), or the details of gospel stories (as Patton does).
But Hobbins says:
Now, if you believe that it is part of the Holy Spirit’s teaching office to reveal to us that Jesus (say) healed two blind men at Jericho, not one; that Jacob (say) bought Shechem and then conquered it at a later time, you are claiming that the Holy Spirit speaks, not through Scripture, but through harmonizing exegetes. I oppose such outlandish claims.
But if I ignore the vocabulary, I find I can affirm, indeed that I really like many of the phrases that Hobbins uses in regard to scripture and inspiration. I like to say that when we discover the message God has for us in scripture (always through the power of the Spirit), it is always true. Recently I have had to add the affirmation that we can discover that message. We have no need to walk in darkness.
So why not use another term, such as simply stating that one has a high view of scripture?
. . . finds me at #27, which is actually surprisingly good considering that I only wrote one blog post during June. My excuse is that I was working on half a dozen book releases for my company, two of which will actually take place in July.
As for the great controversy about the library, I would note that if one puts complete posts in one’s RSS feed, as I do, one must expect to lose some page views. You can follow my blog via Good Reader and never actually look over here at all. At the same time, I’m glad the discussion resulted in direct links to posts, which is a requirement for collating content.
