Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Christian Carnival #CCLXXIII Posted

    … at The Limitless.

  • Finding a Church Through a Blog

    The Internet Monk is providing a post for exchanging ideas about church congregations. Though I wonder about a church search done via blog comments, I’ve already commented on the post indicating that if that’s where people are searching, perhaps that’s where you have to help.

    I’ll be interested in seeing which traditions are represented in the questions/comments. I know many of my readers are United Methodist, who may not frequent the Internet Monk blog, though irrespective of tradition, you should. He presents a good deal of valuable discussion.

    Enjoy!

  • Fear and Response (Easter 2B)

    Scriptures: Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; (John 20:19-31)

    There are two major responses to fear in a group.  One is to gather together and seek mutual support.  The other is to scatter, with each individual seeking his own safety.

    One can see this in action in military history.  Many military leaders have recognized the importance of morale.  Napoleon, writing on St. Helena, said:  “Moral force rather than numbers, decides victory” (source).

    “Like a mighty army / moves the church of God . . .” or maybe not so much.  How do we do with “morale” or “moral force?”  Are we looking to numbers or budgets most, or are we looking at the strategy, with the power and the principles that are behind it?

    At the crucifixion, the disciples scattered.  Afterward, they began to come together, to present “moral force.”  At first they didn’t have numbers.  All they had was their unity and their commitment.

    How does your church congregation measure up?

  • Value of Short Term Missions

    When I first led mission teams to eastern Europe, I told the folks we were there to support that my team would be a colossal waste of money unless the team learned more than they taught. I know a Dentist who leads mission teams–more than 20 of them to Central America as I write. He also doesn’t sell his trips first for how others will be helped, but rather as a way for the members of the team to be changed. I have heard him tell groups over and over (and I went on one of his mission trips) that they will be changed by going on the trip.

    Now it may sound selfish to talk about the mission trip doing more for the team than for the folks we serve, but I think that is just one of the paradoxes of the kingdom. The more we give, the more we are transformed. If you haven’t gone somewhere to serve, try it. You will find yourself transformed. Your service doesn’t have to be overseas, but I do think it is valuable to get away from your support structures so that you will find yourself dependent on God and on those brothers and sisters you aim to serve. That will make it easier for you to bond with them and learn from them.

    There’s a great article on the Duke Divinity School’s Call and Response Blog by Olu Menjay (HT: Hi Lites and Dr. Platypus). It’s well worth a read.

    It also models one important point I always try to make. Build your mission team and trip plan around a need identified by people on the spot. Don’t plan you activities and then push them down somebody’s throat. It is truly the cooperative ministry that builds all concerned.

  • Reality, Perception, and TEA

    One of the great experiences of my life was meeting a Calvinist evangelist. His name is John Blanchard, and I only “met” him in a fairly large group, but it was clear that he was genuinely an evangelist and genuinely a Calvinist. He was asked during a question and answer session just how he reconciled evangelism with predestination. He said: “Predestination is a doctrine and I believe it; evangelism is a command and I obey it.”

    Now I had grown up in a Seventh-day Adventist home, then left the church altogether, and returned in a United Methodist congregation. That is a solidly Wesleyan-Arminian background. To me, Calvinists were always “the other guys.” We knew what we believed, we knew what they believed, and they were incomprehensibly wrong. We couldn’t understand why they would evangelize or how they could stand the thought that God might unconditionally predestine someone to eternal torment.

    But my perception ran apace into an actual Calvinist, and he wasn’t what I thought he was. Now my disagreement with Calvinism is undiminished, but my perception of Calvinists has changed because of him, and because of numerous other Calvinists I have personally encountered.

    “Some of my best friends are black,” became a cliched excuse for racism in decades past. But if one applied it in reverse, it could be very helpful. Make “best friends” of some people who are not the same as you are, and you will learn things that you might not otherwise have any opportunity to learn.

    I have noticed this while watching responses to the tea parties. There are several odd things about this. I heard one person say that all the tea parties were simply racist and nothing more. The people involved were just upset that there was an African-American in the White House. Others focused on the word “tea-bagging” and its sexual meaning (Google if you don’t know–and want to), as though “tea-bagging” was the biggest part of the protest.

    The picture you get in the media is that these are a group of really crazy people who are protesting nothing that is very important, and are probably not really patriotic Americans after all. Another line is that the protests are not spontaneous, but rather are corporate or party sponsored. (What protest doesn’t involve an element of both?)

    Where have I heard that before? Oh, I remember. It was in right wing comments about war protesters and pacifists. You could generate all this commentary with a computer program. Alternatively, you could just recycle it, inserting new slurs regarding all sides.

    Now doubtless there are racists at tea parties. Just how are you going to block them at the gate? Doubtless there were some people who truly did hate America at anti-war protests. How could you identify them and stop them? It’s the nature of protest that crazy people will latch on. It’s the nature of extremist commentary to latch on to the crazies on the other side while ignoring the crazies on one’s own side.

    Now my perception of tea parties is impacted by the fact that I know personally some of the people there, and the ones I know are not insane, or at least no more insane than I am (which may not be saying much!). I might prefer a protest of excessive spending and thus excessive deficits, though I actually think the worst threat to our economy right now is neither excessive spending as such, nor excessive taxation as such, but the offensive concept of government bailouts. Bailouts involve excessive spending of money we don’t have, thus building the deficit, and the money goes to reward people who have done stupid and destructive things, thus encouraging behavior that should be vigorously discouraged. Bailouts are, in my view, complete stupidity, carefully packaged, and not even reasonably well disguised.

    But you know, these weren’t my tea parties, so the people who organized and attended them get to protest what they want in whatever way they prefer.

    There are valid points for debate in here, but in general these valid points, some of which I addressed in my post on my business blog Democracy – Taxed by a Feeling–are not getting any attention. The simple fact is that most of us don’t really know what “fair” taxation might be. Just as we have been fighting terrorism for years without a real strategy, so we fight economic hardship without any sort of strategy or plan.

    (Note: A strategy requires a goal, a plan, and some reason to believe the plan will reach the goal. Lacking any of the above, it should not be called a strategy.)

    There is a way out of this approach to politics, and I think the internet facilitates it. Get to know people with a variety of perceptions. Read their blogs, follow their tweets, friend them on Facebook, or whatever method you prefer. Find some locally as well. The internet isn’t a substitute for personal contact; it’s an adjunct. I regularly read as diverse a set of blogs as Levellers, Pseudo-Polymath, Pursuing Holiness, Thoughts from the Heart on the Left, Shuck and Jive, and Elgin Hushbeck: Politics and Religion.

    And those aren’t all. I have 233 subscriptions in my Google reader, and I at least check the titles every day, reading a selection. I follow a variety of people on Twitter, and try to get to know as many as possible. (Twitter still challenges me with its 140 character limit and fast moving data stream, but TweetDeck helps.)

    The point is that meeting people who are different will challenge your perception of who they are and why they think the way they do. This may or may not impact what you believe yourself–that should be based on better reasons than the people you happen to know. What I’m interested in is your perception of the people involved. Get to know them, not a brief stereotype of them.

    For Christian readers, let me reference 1 Corinthians 12, often known as the “gifts chapter.” The thing is, I think we miss the point when we treat this as Paul’s dissertation on spiritual gifts. What Paul is doing here is drawing on the fact of different gifts, and the way in which they are necessary to a functioning church body, as a way to teach about Christian unity and service. The focus is not on a list of gifts and offices, but rather on how those are brought together.

    Diverse people with diverse gifts, called to different types of service are brought together by one Spirit to work in unity for a purpose. Note that we are not told that the people are made the same. Rather, they are made part of the same body.

    This would be a wonderful demonstration for Christians to make to the world. It will require us to behave differently, get to know one another, and learn to differ constructively. I think that starts by letting our perceptions crash headlong into reality.

    Yes, some of the people you think are crazy, probably are. Most of them, on the other hand, are probably much saner than you think, and if you stepped past the stereotypes, you might find you could learn from them. I have!

  • Expectations follow Encounter

    I haven’t been posting on Leviticus for some time because I have been busy preparing books for publication.  All that paying work sure does interfere with one’s hobbies!

    Today I encountered this quotation in my continuing effort to read through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy alongside the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on those books.

    … It is important to remember, both in the case of God’s dealing with his people in the past, as well as with his people today, that God first encounters his people in history, and only after a relationship has been established are the expectations derived from the relationship presented.  Expectations follow encounter.  — p. 57, emphasis mine

    And that is how grace is manifested throughout the Bible–before we call, so to speak.

  • Book: Odd Girl Out

    In this continuation of the Quadrail series, Timothy Zahn is in his normal fun and action form as he keeps Frank Compton and Bayta in a great deal of trouble. We learn new things about the ongoing war against the group-mind Modhri, and also about the Chahwyn who are Compton’s employers.

    Once one gets past the extreme difficulty of conceiving of the interstellar railroad, one can enjoy the background created by that odd system and just have fun with the stories and the characters. The background isn’t really all that deep, however. Largely this is action-adventure fun. I like to try to imagine ahead of time just how much twisted nastiness Zahn has planned for his characters. I never quite imagine it all.

    It’s either “nonetheless” or “because of this” that I really enjoy these books. Those who have read my fiction reviews will know by now that while I like deep, serious fiction under certain circumstances, I’m a bit of an escapist at heart, and if you keep me entertained, I’ll go ahead and enjoy any number of things that one might criticize otherwise.

    Zahn is a good provider for all of that.

  • Stuck on Silent Saturday?

    OK, it’s Easter Sunday morning, and I can join the chorus: He is risen!

    But I know from experience that there are Christians out there who are stuck on silent Saturday or Good Friday. For them, Christianity is all–and only–about the cross. Jesus died, they died in Jesus. They had no hope. Jesus is their hope–but they don’t seem to live it.

    If you’re not in that place, you can just ignore me, but if you are, remember Easter morning. The point is not that death and suffering are wonderful. The point of realizing your need is not to go on realizing your need. If I’m thirsty, I get a drink of water. Then I’m not thirsty any more. If you’re in need of redemption, find redemption–and don’t keep acting like you never did find it.

    I think that in many of our arguments over historical issues, we forget the meaning of the story. The meaning isn’t about doom, death, and destruction. The story tells us that doom, death, and destruction lose in the end.

    By going past silent Saturday, I don’t mean that your pretend that bad things don’t happen. Rather, I ask for an essential Easter optimism that says that even when the worst is happening, there’s something to work toward, something to look forward to.

    Paul says:

    We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. — Romans 6:4 (WEB)

    Just so, brother Paul! He’s the one who is most often quoted by the hopelessness crowd, especially his words in Romans 7. But I think Paul was just pretty realistic. Looking and working for good endings doesn’t mean one doesn’t recognize the bad. Recognizing the reality of bad things doesn’t mean giving up on good things.

    My wife and I lost a son to cancer at age 17. (She wrote a book, Grief: Finding the Candle of Light.) That’s a bad thing. You may wonder why I put it that way. Some say, “Obviously it’s bad.” Others are thinking I’m putting it too lightly. Yet others are thinking, “He’s a Christian, writing on Easter Sunday morning, and God works all things for the good of those who love him, so it’s not really bad.”

    No, it’s really bad. It was, is, and will be really bad. There still are moments when I remember him like he had been here only moments before. When I take his little dog out for a walk in the morning, I remember how he used to stop on his way to school to say good bye to his dog when he saw us walking. It’s a painful moment. I acknowledge it. You should acknowledge your painful moments, times, and seasons as well.

    But then there are other things. There is the John Webb Golf Tournament that raises money for the child life program at Sacred Heart Hospital. There are many lives that he touched both before and during his illness.

    Do these things make illness and death a good thing? No! Easter morning didn’t make the cross painless either. The point is that you get past it, build on it, shake your fist at death and despair and say, “You don’t get the last word!”

    That, I believe, is something Easter should re-teach us each year. Death doesn’t get the last word. Evil doesn’t get the last word.

    He has risen. Have you?

  • Atonement: The Error Adrian Warnock and Giles Fraser Share

    Adrian says it wouldn’t be Easter “without a row about the atonement” and he has promptly located one in a Guardian article by Giles Fraser, in which Fraser says:

    Thinking about the celebration of Holy Week in my new adopted cathedral brings home to me quite how important it is for Christians to insist upon a non-sacrificial reading of the death of Christ. For too long, Christians have put up with a theory of salvation that has at its core the idea that God requires the sacrifice of his own son so that human sin can be cancelled. “There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin,” we will all sing. The fact this is a disgusting idea, and morally degenerate, is obvious to all but those indoctrinated into a very narrow reading of the cross.

    Adrian, in presumed response (I can’t find his precise quote in the article he links), says:

    I am not surprised by the strong language used by the opponents of the view of the cross generally called “penal substitutionary atonement” but understood by millions of children simply as “Jesus died to be punished for our sin.” If millions of Christians are as wrong as Fraser believes then no wonder that he would speak the way he does.

    But I would note here that for many, the word “punished” is not nearly so central, and the statement is that Jesus died for our sins, whatever that may mean. Most of us will admit that we don’t know quite precisely what it means.

    So let me confess here right up front that I don’t really understand the atonement. But before all you knowledge-filled people jump up to tell me how you do understand it, and are thus in a position to set me straight, I’m going to refer you to 1 Corinthians 8:2, which I think applies here.

    And that’s the problem with these views. Adrian points out that both those who find penal substitutionary atonement is “the most precious truth of the Bible,” and those who believe it is “cosmic child abuse” cannot both be right. I agree! But both of them can quite easily be wrong.

    Now I don’t want to make accusations regarding Giles Fraser. It’s possible that he might nuance his point a little more if he had more space than a newspaper column. Adrian, on the other hand, has convinced me rather thoroughly that he is clear on his view and intends what he says. My summary, which I make available for criticism, is that penal substitutionary atonement, the idea that Jesus took the punishment demanded by God for our sins, and that this is to be understood in a judicial sense, is the true core meaning of the atonement.

    The response of some seems to be, “No, it isn’t. It doesn’t mean that at all. It means something else entirely.”

    That’s the error that I think is shared. In fact, I’m going to suggest that any statement that says that the singular meaning of the atonement is X, is wrong for any value of X. Neither side seems to be able to handle metaphor. Oh, we’ll get acknowledgment that theological language is metaphorical, but the same persons who make such statements don’t behave as though the language is metaphorical.

    To Adrian I would say that the language of penal substitution is a highly refined and narrowed form of one scriptural way of talking about atonement. It even deprives the sacrificial metaphors of much of their meaning, because sacrifice is not centrally about judicial penalties.

    One of the problems with understanding the death of Jesus as a sacrifice is that most of us in the Christian world have a very narrow and superficial idea of what sacrifice was about in the ancient world. If we’re going to use the metaphor of sacrifice, we ought at least to use it in a Jewish context, and not emphasize the most pagan elements, such as appeasement.

    But again, I would tell Adrian and those in his camp that if this particular metaphor suffices to make them believe that God forgives them, and thus is for them the most precious truth of scripture, then by all means see it as precious and cling to it. That’s what a good metaphor is about.

    But at the same time, realize that this specific formulation isn’t all there is to it, and isn’t necessarily central. Others may find their understanding comes through other metaphors. Metaphors are useful that way–not everybody has to get cozy with every one of them!

    But to turn to those on the side of Giles Fraser, don’t throw out the metaphor just because some people have grabbed it as a singular truth. You’re quite right to object to some results of the penal view of the atonement, and even the sacrificial view. But the penal view is only part of the sacrificial view, and the notion of sacrifice is an important part of how theology of the atonement developed and is understood.

    It’s a metaphor; it doesn’t tell us everything. It’s not supposed to. But the beauty of metaphors is that you can use many different ones to describe the same thing, with each one giving you additional light and understanding.

    In addition, one metaphor provides a corrective for another. When sacrifice or penal substitution leads us to see God as vindictive, we then need to look to other ones to help build our understanding of God.

    There is a beauty in the cross, but it’s a beauty that comes through transformation. Jesus took what was disgusting, despicable, and evil, symbolic of the worst of human nature, and transformed it. A symbol can be transformed.

    One way to understand that transformation is by the metaphor of sacrifice, but Jesus also transformed the very idea of sacrifice. Fraser alludes to this, but then proceeds to dispose of the metaphor itself. If you dispose of the metaphor of sacrifice, how can you see the transformation? If you dispose of the cross, how will you see God’s transforming power?

    If you try to blot out Good Friday, how will you comprehend Easter morning?

  • Of Making Many Books

    … there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. — Ecclesiastes 12:12 (ASV)

    I think that will be my new theme text.

    With four books in process with release dates varying from this coming week to July, and a very small staff with most work done by contract, I have been working day and night, and thus not blogging here very much. (Those interested in just what I’m publishing should read my business announcements blog.)

    On the other hand, since blogging produces, at the most, a few cents, while publishing books pays the bills, I should be happy. And indeed, I am–tired by happy.

    In the meantime, I’m hoping to get back to blogging a bit more, which is actually one of my forms of relaxation, but next week promises to be rather intense as well.

    A happy Easter to all. If you don’t celebrate, at least enjoy the day off!