Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • What About the War on Christmas?

    What About the War on Christmas?

    A war on Christmas
    Image components from Openclipart.org

    Each year I’m saddened and yes, annoyed, by the supposed war on Christmas and responses to it. Every time someone can’t set up a manger scene on public land, or is even forced to share the public space with other groups, there’s an outcry. It’s a war on Christmas! Never mind that there are, in almost every case, plenty of churches nearby, where such a scene could be placed with at least as much visibility.

    Or someone is wished “Happy Holidays!” at the store, and is offended that it’s not “Merry Christmas!” Oh the agony! And yes, it’s quite possible that the checkout person at your grocery store was instructed by management to say “Happy Holidays!” Having worked in retail, I know that I was constantly instructed in what I was to say when answering the phone, greeting customers, and most especially when taking their money following the sale. Some of the stuff I had to say was really annoying, too.

    But businessmen make these rules for their employees based on their perception of customer service. They are not religious decisions, and they are not actually doing you harm. You can say Merry Christmas all you want, but “he who has the gold makes the rules,” so if you work for the company, you follow the rules.

    If I owned a retail outlet, I would instruct my employees that unless they know who they’re talking to, Happy Holidays would be the appropriate greeting, and I would ask—and expect—them to be sensitive to each customer. This is not because I don’t believe in public witnessing or prayer. Just yesterday I encountered a lady in Walmart who needed my help getting a large back of cat food off the shelf. We chatted for a few minutes, and then we prayed together right there in the aisle. Nobody stopped us, because we were the customers. I knew before I suggested it that she would be open to prayer simply because I listened to her first. So we prayed in the aisle beside the cat food.

    Shoving a Merry Christmas in someone’s face is not likely to do much for witnessing. Here in the United States people already know this is a majority Christian nation. The form of your holiday greeting doesn’t make you special. If, on the other hand, you make a scene about what sort of greeting you receive at the store, you provide a very bad witness.

    When you take on the title “Christian,” you bear the name of Jesus, the anointed one. You are to be Christ, the presence of God, in the world. When you make a scene over not getting your way, you do not provide a good witness to the anointed One. Rather, you make Him seem small, selfish, petty, and rude. You may, in fact, be taking God’s name in vain. Rather than making someone more interested in the Jesus you serve, you may well be driving them away. The clerk in that store may herself be a Christian who is merely following the rules of her job as she should. And you’re going to make her life more difficult because of that? Really? Do you think the one who was led as a lamb to the slaughter yet didn’t open his mouth is pleased with that?

    The problem is that there is a difference between witnessing to Christ and witnessing to our own importance. What is the one thing that having a creche on the grounds of city hall does that having one in front of our church does not? It demonstrates our power. They would both witness to the story, always assuming that the right message is conveyed. But the one on the grounds of city hall tells people that we’re in charge and can do things the way we want to.

    There is a way in which Christians should be involved in the culture war. That is by living in a Christlike manner and bearing the name of Jesus as we do it. That is a gospel proclamation, by word, deed, and sign. Our importance, our position, and our pleasures would take a back seat to loving each person and making sure that’s evident.

    The original story of Christmas was one of giving, giving up rank and privileges, giving up power, becoming subject to the worst of the worst, and then loving, loving, and loving some more. I’m afraid there has been a real war on Christmas, but it’s all over.

    Here in the United States, we lost.

  • Elect a Nurse as the Next President

    93 percent

    An annual U.K. survey asking people whom they trusted most found nurses absurdly credible, with 93 percent of people trusting them. [The Guardian] {My source: FiveThirtyEight.com}

    This is for my sister, mother, wife, several aunts on both sides of the family, and a bunch of friends who are nurses. Also for my daughter who is in training to be a nurse. I don’t know what the figure would be in the U. S., but I bet it would be pretty good.

  • Toward a Strategy of Worship

    Toward a Strategy of Worship

    Credit: Openclipart.com
    Credit: Openclipart.com

    Over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking a great deal about strategy in connection with Christian living. It started when I was invited to preach the Sunday after Veterans Day, which was also the Sunday after the election. I used the first chapter of Colossians to talk about our identity and the means that we, as Christians, have to impact our culture. We have an identity in Christ, an authority in Christ, and a mission in Christ. The key is “in Christ.”

    There are some keys to thinking strategically about anything. First, you have to know what it is you are trying to accomplish. Second, you need to know what resources are available. Third, you have to know what limitations there are in how those resources are applied. Use of resources without reference to purpose is largely waste. Anything accomplished is random.

    I’ve noted over the years that one can tell whether a church is alive and active by asking a couple of members what the mission of the church is. This can apply both generally (the Christian mission of the Gospel Commission), and specifically (what is the mission of this church). Tactics is more specific and local. Individual tactics can be successful in a strategic failure. This usually results from improperly planned overall strategy. To see some excellent application of tactics in a mission that was a strategic failure, watch the movie A Bridge Too Far. In my sermon I quoted Gen. Robert H. Barrow, commandant of the Marine Corps from 1979-1983 who said, “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.”

    Here’s some tactical thinking about worship:

    • We had good attendance today for our special service. We should do that more often.
    • Lots of people complimented me on my sermon after the service. I must have done something right.
    • Some people walked out. We need to fix it.
    • If you didn’t like the service, it’s probably your attitude.
    • Worship’s about God, not about you. Forget about your desires.
    • I realize that nobody remembers what I say in my sermons even until next week, but I’m still preparing for the same sort of sermon next week.

    I know the second to the last statement, “worship is about God” is repeatedly stated with great piety. I disagree however. Worship is certainly all about God, but it’s all about the worshipers as well, in that 100%-100% sense that orthodox theology brings. Usually “it’s all about God” is used as an excuse by people who are putting on a worship service (and I use putting on, in the sense of a performance intentionally), and doing so badly. It’s there excuse for leaving the worshipers behind. I don’t like “I have to be fed” or “I need music that I like” any better. All of these are narrowly focused and frequently selfish in orientation. In all cases they’re very much tactical. Did we get what we wanted out of this week’s service?

    Our starting point for worship must be to ask what worship is. Let me quote Alexander Schmemann in For the Life of the World:

    … But this [cultic] is not the original meaning of the Greek word leitourgia. It means an action by which a group of people become something corporately which they had not been as a mere collection of individuals–a whole greater than the sum of its parts. It means also a function or “ministry” of a man or of a group on behalf of and in the interest of the whole community. (p. 21, Nook edition)

    There is a function of the gathering of the saints in worship, but worship does not occur exclusively in this “worship service.” There is a purpose in our gathering, which is to constitute and reconstitute ourselves as a community ready to be Christ in the world (our identity in Christ), to understand the reality of what Christ has done through his death and resurrection and how we are incorporated in that (our authority in Christ), and the empowering and impetus to carry that result back out into the world. (I highly commend Alexander Schmemann’s work, whether or not you are a fan of Orthodox theology. For the Life of the World is a powerful little book. I may develop some of these ideas further on this blog, but for now I’m just assuming them due to space limitations.)

    So at the starting point of our search for a strategy of worship is to realize that it is not a teaching event, or a singing event, nor is it necessarily a ritual event. It may be partly all of those things, but as long as we don’t consider what our real goals are, why we gather for this event, we may carry out every worship service over “a bridge too far.”

    Here are some things to consider, I think:

    1. How do we gather the people together? Questions of music, format, buildings, PowerPoint presentations, pews, advertising, and so far can occur at this point, but all must be subordinated to the overall purpose. And we might want to ask a more important question: Have the people who gather in the church experienced becoming the church? Have the experienced the presence of God? Have they sensed the reality of that community? If they experience none of these things, I believe that in time no matter how entertaining you may make the time, it will still be a failure.
    2. What do we do to make people a community? Schmemann works through the meaning of the liturgy, and I find his interpretation powerful. Yet I don’t think what he outlines is the only approach that can be authentic and successful.
    3. What do we do to engage people as a community with God? This would require many words. I’ll just leave the question open.
    4. What do we do that helps us leave empowered to be Christ in the world?

    If we aren’t accomplishing these things I question whether we are truly engaged in full Christian worship. We may be taking stabs at it. We may be doing a great job getting across the bridge that’s in front of us, but are we becoming the body of Christ?

    I think our general failure is made evident by the way in which we depend on Caesar’s methods to accomplish cultural goals. We sense that our witness to Jesus Christ is not accomplishing what we believe we need to see. Perhaps we need to reconsider whether our witness to Jesus as the Anointed One is genuine and whether our activities on a Sunday morning are more about keeping the church calendar moving than about being Christ in the world.

    What do you think?

  • Credit to One of My Teachers

    Credit to One of My Teachers

    Today in Sunday School class the teacher referred back to challenge I had presented to the calls some time ago. I had suggested reading the prophecies of Isaiah, particularly 2nd Isaiah (40-55) without our “Jesus colored glasses.” I don’t suggest this not because I think Christian readings are inappropriate, but rather because it helps give you a sense of history. Place yourself as best as you can into the place and time from which the prophecies were spoken.

    Professor J. Paul Grove
    J. Paul Grove

    Our Sunday School teacher today, Melinda Henry, brought this challenge back to the class, after she had taken it herself. In her experience an teaching it led to placing ourselves into these prophecies, particularly the servant passages, and seeing there the call to be a servant in just that way.

    When she did this I was reminded of when I was first challenged to read this passages in a different way. My undergraduate major in Biblical Languages was offered by the School of Theology at Walla Walla College (now a university). Thus most of my classes were taken with students who were preparing for pastoral ministry.

    I took a class in Hebrew prophets from J. Paul Grove, and I confess that I didn’t really like it that much. He was the one to first challenge me to read Isaiah in that fashion. In addition, he had the requirement that we produce three sermon outlines per week derived from the texts we were studying. I hated that requirement and even tried to get out of it by pointing out that I wasn’t going to be a preacher. But the professor insisted.

    It was a great experience and has stuck with me ever since. Paul Grove has gone on to his rest (as they would say in his SDA tradition), but I wanted to express my gratitude for pointing me toward some ideas I have used repeatedly in the years since, even though I thought it was wasted effort at the time.

  • Videos: Taking a Break from Paul

    I’m going to take a break from my Thursday night studies on Paul and resume them on the first Thursday evening of the new year, January 5, 2017. I simply have too many things to complete for the publishing business before the end of the year and do not have the time to prepare properly.

    I hope you’ll join me in January!

  • Surprise: Fixing Is Harder than Criticizing

    Surprise: Fixing Is Harder than Criticizing

    “The flaws in Obamacare are obvious to me. The solutions are much harder,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). (Source: Politico.)

    Image credit: Openclipart.org.
    Image credit: Openclipart.org.

    As a restatement of the obvious, that quote leaves little to be desired. Just so. I too can find plenty to criticize in the Affordable Care Act, which is not surprising for a law that is really a patchwork of compromises. That it is called “Obamacare” is a testimony to how we like to simplify things and find one person to credit or blame.

    I just couldn’t resist posting the quote. I will watch with interest if there is a three year deadline to see what patchwork of compromises results, if any. Healthcare has always been an issue where proposing solutions has been much easier than getting them past Congress.

    While I also find the ACA to be flawed in many ways, I give President Obama credit for having actually tackled the issue, done the hard work of proposing solutions, and getting even a flawed act passed. (See? I like to simplify my targets too!) If we get something more workable out of the new process, which I think is unlikely, President Obama will still deserve credit for forcing the issue. If he hadn’t, I expect nobody would even get to it in the next couple of congresses.

  • Recounts: The Scripts Continue to Change Hands

    Recounts: The Scripts Continue to Change Hands

    Ancient Egyptians exchange scripts on accession of new king. (Credit: Openclipart.org). Note: This is neither real hieroglyphs, nor is it a political script.
    Ancient Egyptians exchange scripts on accession of new king. (Credit: Openclipart.org. Those who can’t tell real from fake news take note: This is neither real hieroglyphs, nor is it a political script.)

    Political discussion in this country seems to have somewhat more in common with trash talk among sports fans than it does with any form of constructive dialogue.

    OK. Now that I’ve practiced understatement, let’s look at the current state of political talk. I had hopes that I might find my Facebook feed more palatable after the election. No, not so much. I really enjoy carefully thought out pieces written by people I disagree with. I can’t stand trash talk, even by people I agree with, perhaps especially by people I agree with.

    And so goes talk of fraud in the election. While voter fraud is vanishingly rare in this country, there will always be reports of suspicious activity, and almost any anomaly produces some sort of complaint. Back in my college years I served as poll watcher in a couple of elections. The slightest perception that we weren’t being treated with due honor would morph in our minds into a sinister intent to mess up the vote in our precinct.

    All parties do this and all parties criticize other parties. It is in the nature of something as complex as a U. S. federal election that there will be allegations of fraud. Of course, the president-elect has managed to carry this to new heights in a tweet claiming that there were “… millions of people who vote illegally,” and this in an election he won!

    I think I agree largely with Nate Silver in his article, Why I Suppport an Election Recount even though It’s Unlikely to Change the Outcome. As he points out, it is statistically incredibly unlikely that a recount will change the results. Those who think this might somehow produce a Clinton win are probably smoking something that’s only legal in Washington and Colorado (bless their hearts!). At the same time, in an age of electronic voting and hacking, I think it would be worthwhile to have an audit of our security procedures, not to change this election, but to make good security plans for the future.

    But hypocrisy will reign, as those who threatened not to accept the election results if they lost criticize others for questioning them in any way, and those who criticized them advocate recounts.

    Scripts are exchanged. Life goes on. Truth is the victim.

  • Dona Nobis Pacem

    I find myself unable to sleep. I was temporarily overwhelmed by something simple: the cast of M*A*S*H singing the song “Dona Nobis Pacem.” It’s a little thing, and somebody’s bound to say, “It’s a TV show. It’s fiction,” but last night what got to me was the thought that it has been 25 years since I served in the first gulf war, and our young men and women are still dying over there. I had to leave the room to get control of myself. No use putting all of this on my joyful grandchildren!

    And yes, I thought first of our American young men and women. I should, as a Christian, be equally concerned with all who suffer and die in war, wherever and whoever they are. I did start to think of them in time.

    This is not in any way about sympathy for me, or about any bad experience I had. In fact, I had a rather pleasant war, as wars go, and one I chose. I went out of my way in the two or three years before 1990 to get the qualifications that pretty much guaranteed I’d be headed out to any action in the Middle East, and I was even asked if I wanted to be deployed. I did.

    This is not about being a pacifist. I still hold the beliefs, and have the character (I think) that sent me over “there” (wherever!) in the first place. A democracy, to be viable, needs a military that carries out the order of the elected government. I am proud to have been a small part of that, and to have been there when my country needed me.

    But what is making it hard to sleep is the memories, the knowledge of what dedicated young people right now are giving for their country. There is a duty for those of us who remain, whether we’re veterans of such an experience ourselves, or are those who have  been privilege to live peacefully  while they have been giving.

    I said that a democracy requires a military that will carry out the orders of its civilian masters. The other side of that is that our military needs—and deserves—a culture and government that makes effective use of their service, that makes sure that they do not die—or kill—for nothing.

    Yet many do not want to take the time to think about this. While our men and women  fight and give their lives, we have little time to discuss whether we will make that effort effective. I’m not advocating one strategy or another here. I’m just thinking that how we’re going to go about this endless war on terror needs the application of more wisdom, more long-term strategy, and more weight. We’re mostly concerned about our jobs, our comforts, and our taxes next month. This is an issue of people dying.

    While we’re at it, we need to count the full cost of war. Not just the cost of keeping the troops over there and equipping them well, though that’s important, but also the cost of caring for these people once they’re back, and caring for their families when they pay the ultimate price. We love to watch videos of returning service men and women. We love to see acts of charity that warm our hearts. But taking care of the people who have given this much is not an act of charity; it is  payment of a debt. It should not be left to chance. It should be systematically paid as a moral obligation.

    I had it easy and came back in robust health. I recall a conversation with the son of one of my best friends who was still overseas when I had returned. His question was this: “Why can’t it be my daddy coming home?” His daddy did come home, thank God, but that etched in my mind the fact that somebody’s daddy or mommy is not coming  home, or is coming home injured in body or spirit.

    The people who sent them owe them. We owe them every bit of support. We owe them a willingness to think and learn, to make sure their sacrifice is not in vain.

    How we accomplish that is a good subject of debate. That we owe it is not.

     

  • Perspectives on Paul: The Formation of Paul’s Gospel

    Perspectives on Paul: The Formation of Paul’s Gospel

    Apocalyptic background - flash and lightning in dramatic dark sky

    I’m resuming/continuing my study this evening, looking at Lesson Two from Galatians: A Participatory Study Guide by Dr. Bruce Epperly. I’ll be sticking closely with the lesson itself tonight, discussing how Paul was chosen and learned. I will doubtless discuss a number of these topics from related materials in other epistles.

    Here’s the viewer:

  • Music and the Hebrew Text (Hangout Interview)

    I commend to my readers my interview last night with Bob MacDonald regarding his newly released book The Song in the Night. I make some further remarks on the Energion Discussion Network.