Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Why I Publish Books by and for Seventh-day Adventists

    Why I Publish Books by and for Seventh-day Adventists

    This may seem like a simple question. A better one might be, “Why not?”

    Some Prefatory Remarks

    sda booksSeventh-day Adventists (SDAs) are often misunderstood, which complicates the issue. If I had transferred my membership from a Presbyterian church, for example, to a United Methodist congregation, it’s unlikely anyone would ask me why I maintain relationships with Presbyterians. As an ex-SDA, however, I’m often asked questions like the one I’m trying to answer right now. SDAs ask me how I could possibly leave the church. At an SDA church where one of my authors was speaking, a young man exclaimed to me, “How could you possibly have difficulties with SDA doctrine?” If you want to understand why I left the SDA church or how I feel about it, you might try reading The Joys and Sorrows of Being ex-SDA.

    Here’s my key point: While I disagree with the Seventh-day Adventist Church on a number of doctrinal points, especially on issues of prophecy and some applications of the (otherwise valuable) term “remnant people,” I still regard them as brothers and sisters in Christ, in the same way and on the same basis that I regard fellow Methodists, or members of Presbyterian, Baptist, Assemblies, United Church of Christ, independent, or any other Christian congregation. I have disagreements on doctrine with pretty much everyone I know (often including yesterday’s version of myself), and that doesn’t make me deny Christian fellowship.

    But there are always those other questions about SDAs. They’re different, yes, but they’re more different in weirder ways than others. Which reminds me of the church Staff-Parish Relations committee that decided that an SDA speaker, who had also spoken at continuing education events for pastors at the conference level, could not be allowed to speak at their church. Having read something about Latter Day Saints, they were certain they didn’t want an SDA to speak. Surely we should stick to Methodist speakers.

    There are two forms of ignorance here. 1) There’s ignorance of precisely who SDAs are and what they believe, and 2) There’s the ignorance of just how much weirdness we have in mainline denominations. If I need to find a crazy speaker, but am limited to those who are United Methodists, I will have no difficulty at all!

    What I Publish

    So what does this have to do with publishing?

    Very little, actually. It’s just that people expect it to.

    I frequently have to remind people that I am a Christian publisher, publishing books selected for a Christian audience. That doesn’t mean that all our readers are Christians. What’s more, it doesn’t mean that all our authors are Christians. In a blog post titled Why Did You Publish THAT Manuscript? (on the Energion blog), I noted that “We judge manuscripts and not authors here at Energion Publications.”

    To me that is a rather obvious point, but it has raised questions. In order to guarantee the publishing of Christian authors only I would have to first define the boundaries of Christianity, and then make myself the judge of whether someone had met those criteria or managed to fall within those boundaries. I can do that for myself with regard to organizations and systems. It’s a simple matter of definitions and categorization. To do it with persons would be problematic. In fact, I personally simply accept anyone’s self-confession of what their religious view is.

    Further, as publishers have discovered before, it’s much more difficult to determine whether a person is a good person than it is to determine whether a manuscript is a good manuscript. I choose to deal with manuscripts.

    Seventh-day Adventists

    I think my earlier remarks largely answer the question. When a manuscript by an SDA author seems to me to be of interest to my audience, an audience which definitely does include SDAs, I’ll publish it, always provided it meets other necessary criteria. I avoid publishing books that are of interest to only one denomination, for example.

    Here are some specific points:

    • Am I on a mission to convert SDAs and get them out of the SDA church? No. I have no intention of persuading anyone to leave their denomination. In fact, I will state that if you’re leaving any church, including the SDA church, because of anger at the organization, you’re going to find plenty of imperfections wherever you go. If you leave a church congregation or a denomination, do so for positive reasons. I may disagree with some doctrines of the SDA church, and so I moved to an organization that is more doctrinally compatible with my views, but I applaud and highly value the SDA educational and health systems. I also value much of the theological work done by SDAs over the years. I can both disagree with, and value, ideas.
    • What about the seventh day Sabbath? I consider the Sabbath a part of one’s approach to worship and a spiritual practice. Where I have seen it carried out as a spiritual practice, I find the seventh day Sabbath valuable. As with any other activity, it can be converted into a legalistic “work,” but the key here is “any other activity.” Because keeping the seventh day as the Sabbath stands out as unusual, people take it as extraordinary evidence of legalism. But it’s simply one more practice that can be positive or negative. I have said before that I miss the Sabbath as practiced in SDA circles. I have other means of seeing sacred time, but there’s nothing that quite matches taking sacred time together with a community.
    • Don’t SDAs think they’re the only true Christians? Some of them do. So do one or two Methodists. I think this is a problem for the SDA church partly because of teaching about God’s remnant people. But I have no problem with SDAs as a group over it. Most SDAs that I encounter treat me as a fellow-Christian even though I have left the church. There are occasional folks who treat me as an apostate. I believe that could be solved if there were no people in the SDA church. As things are, we’re stuck with it.
    • But SDAs don’t believe we go to heaven when we die! Indeed they don’t. Neither do I. I think the Bible is actually quite unclear about what happens after death, but the balance, I believe, favors soul sleep and a resurrection. I just don’t happen to think it matters. Arguing about this is very time-bound thinking. If I die and go to heaven immediately, there will be one breath here and next (breath? who knows?) on the other side. If I die and sleep with God until the resurrection, there will be one breath here, and the next (whatever!) on the other side. I won’t know the difference. (I publish several books related to this: Eschatology: A Participatory Study Guide, From Here to Eternity, Journey to the Undiscovered Country, and the forthcoming Death, Immortality, and Resurrection. The first and last are by Edward W. H. Vick, an SDA author.)
    • SDAs believe in Ellen G. White, a false prophetess. Got you now! Ellen White did indeed have a great deal to do with the founding of the SDA church, though I find her own view of herself and her mission refreshingly humble. I also find a number of her writings to be excellent devotional works (Steps to Christ, Desire of Ages, etc.). We have a voluminous collection of her writings, including letters that she wrote over a long life. The SDA church has had some struggles over how to view her and her relationship to the Bible. Bluntly, however, I’ve found traditions in local congregations of the United Methodist Church that have more sacred standing, in practice, than her writings do in the SDA church. I would say, rather, that the church as a whole, and the modern Charismatic and Pentecostal movements in particular, would do well to learn from the SDA experience. Speaking of which, I’m in the process of releasing Inspiration: Hard Questions, Honest Answers by Alden Thompson. He deals with issues of Ellen White in connection with discussing biblical inspiration in a work that I think the wider church would do well to study.
    • How do I deal with SDA authors in my catalog and marketing? Like any other author. I’ll advertise their books for their own denomination, but also present them to others for their wider value. And just like any other author, SDAs may write something that’s addressed more to their own church than to others. In that case, they will be more likely to publish within the denomination, again just like any other author might. I neither emphasize nor do I conceal the denominational connections of my authors.
    • Do my SDA authors quote Ellen White in their works? Yes, and no. I tell them to quote Ellen White as they normally would and if it’s necessary, we will add an explanatory note to the book so that others can understand and still benefit. This is a function of the level of controversy surrounding her work, rather than any judgment of it that I might make. Because there is controversy, explanation is helpful. On the other hand, when addressing the larger Christian community, SDA authors often feel it’s best to make their points without reference to an SDA specific source.
    • Are you trying to provoke dissent in the SDA church? No more so than in any other church. I do have some books in my catalog that have gone out of print from SDA publishing houses. The level of controversy in the SDA church has nothing to do with my decision. I still judge the book, not the author, and certainly not any former publisher. But beware! I’m not the arbiter of truth, and certainly not the arbiter of SDA doctrine. If you don’t want your beliefs challenged, then it’s my hope that my books are not for you!

    Conclusion

    I publish SDAs in the same way and on the same basis as I publish anyone else. It’s that simple (he says 1600 words later)!

  • Tonight on the Energion Tuesday Night Hangout: Bruce Epperly

    We’re going to talk about process spirituality, Advent, and Christmas. Fun!

  • Syntax and Exegesis of the Greek New Testament

    Dave Black has some interesting thoughts on syntax in the Greek New Testament and its importance for exegesis. I’ve extracted them to JesusParadigm.com so as to have a permanent link (by permission).

    I became a convert to the importance of linguistics in understanding biblical languages when I read James Barr’s The Semantics of Biblical Language in graduate school, and I took up the topic with all the fervor of a convert. I recall hearing more than one person comment that New Testament Greek doesn’t really have syntax, by which they meant that the relationship between words, phrases, clauses, etc. is indicated in Greek by word forms rather than by word order as it is in English.

    In reality, however, word order has a more subtle impact on the meaning than it does in English. As is usual with such binary distinctions, one can get in trouble with this one.

    When I have taught Greek, which is only on rare occasions, I start immediately talking about Greek word order, and such linguistic concepts as semantic range. With classes of lay people, I usually have the equivalent of a single term or perhaps a year with each student. In that time, I think it is more important that they come to understand some concepts of how language works and improve their ability to read material on the language in commentaries.

    My suggestion to those who want to go further is to make sure that they read lots of Greek text. This is why I like reader’s lexicons (listing words by chapter/verse), and the even more accessible tools available in good Bible software. It is quite possible for someone to use these tools to avoid actually studying and understanding, but a person who will do that will likely do the same thing with whatever resources are available.

    If your interest in biblical languages is aimed at going a grabbing a Greek word that you can emphasize, then that’s as far as you’ll get. And you will often be wrong. Your “wrongness” may sound important, but it will still be wrong.

    The excellent tools available now give you the opportunity to both cover large amounts of text by letting you look up the meaning of forgotten (or never learned) words quickly, and also to dig deeper. As the material Dave links to indicates, however, you need to think about more than word studies if you want to dig deeper into the meaning of the text.

     


  • 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.