Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christian Ministry

  • When is the Gospel the Answer?

    I had this question called to my mind a couple of times this week, and I want to pose it to you. Before I do that, however, let me tell you how it was called to my mind.

    The first item was a comment on my post on civil liberties. Dave Black comment on that post, saying:

    Yes, but…

    Spes mea in Deo est.

    (If you can’t translate the Latin, put it in Google and you’ll get a usable translation.)

    Then I attended the mid-week Bible study taught by the associate pastor at my church, Geoffrey Lentz. I love attending that study, because I first met Geoffrey when he was 14 and was a student in a class I offered for his church’s youth. Now I get to learn from him, and that’s a very special blessing.

    As we discussed a political point right after the class, and had quoted Lincoln’s “last best hope” comment, Geoffrey suddenly told us he didn’t really like that quote. “What about the gospel of Jesus Christ?” he asked.

    So that’s my question. This is really for my Christian readers, particularly those involved in Christian ministry. (We’ll leave aside the question of whether one can be “Christian” and not be involved in Christian ministry for the moment.)

    How often, when confronted with a problem in society, is you answer “the gospel of Jesus Christ”?

    I’m going to leave it at that without doing any more defining. I feel some posts coming on about some specifics. Yes, I know I still haven’t finished my series on “obvious” Biblical interpretation, but I will do that as well.

    Really.

  • A Calvinist Complementarian defines Arminian and Egalitarian

    … and does so very well. Not surprisingly (to me, at least), this is from C. Michael Patton on Parchment and Pen. To quote his definitions of “complementarian” and “egalitarian”:

    Complementarianism: Belief in essential equality, but functional hierarchy in the sexes. This hierarchy is by God’s design and is not due to the fall. Man is to be the leader in the church and home. Women are not to be in positions of authority over man in the church or home, but are honored due to their role in the same way as men.

    Egalitarianism: Belief in the essential and functional equality of the sexes. All role distinctions which imply leadership belonging to the man is due to the fall, not by God’s design. Therefore, women can serve in positions of authority over man in both the church and the home. Role is assigned by individual giftedness, not gender.

    While I would say that many in each group take things a bit further, for paragraph length definitions, I would describe those as fair, balanced, and even accurate. The same goes for the definitions of “Arminian” and “Calvinist.”

    The whole post is worth reading, especially as he discusses how a church can show, and not just teach, grace.

  • 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!

  • In Which a Calvinist Annoys and Delights Me

    Or you can call him “Reformed.” I personally dislike that particular term because to many people it implies that other protestants never passed through the reformation, that only the Calvinists “reformed.” All of which can also ignore the adjustments in Catholic theology since the time of the reformation. But that’s all a side issue, and I’m going to use the term anyhow, as those who keep up with theology at all are aware of the current meaning.

    I think that Adrian Warnock has an exceptional ability to pick out annoying portions of quotes, as he does in his post Piper on Leading People Towards Reformed Theology. Now I don’t mean annoying in the sense that it is somehow convicting. I mean it in the sense that it frames the opposition inappropriately, in my view, and in this case it looks a bit arrogant.

    Now having read Adrian’s extract, I clicked on through to Piper’s original words, and while they still contain that which annoys me, to which I’ll respond in a moment, they come in a much better context. Piper, who is an exceptional preacher in my opinion, even or especially when I’m busy disagreeing with him, is providing advice for a Reformed pastor who finds himself pastoring an Arminian congregation. His advice is excellent. I’d advise any pastor who has a congregation that disagrees with him in theology to follow it.

    I think it would work just as well for an Arminian pastor who ends up pastoring a predominantly Reformed congregation, or any pastor who ends up pastoring a congregation that is not in tune with his theology. I’d like to recommend his advice to those United Methodist pastors who end up in a congregation that wants to be entertained, while the pastor wants to become more God-centered. Be who you believe you’re supposed to be. If certain aspects of theology are too difficult or controversial, focusing on God and who God is will be an excellent place to start.

    Similarly, if you’re a liberal pastoring a conservative congregation, you too can focus on God. I assume that if you’re a pastor, you believe that the social imperatives you accept result from who God is and what God desires. So preach about who God is.

    Of course, as Piper notes as well, there may be a time to move on, and I personally would add that one shouldn’t seek out such a mismatch. But I know of a number of United Methodist ministers who feel very challenged by the beliefs (or lack of same) in their congregations, yet believe strongly they are called by God to be where they are.

    All those parts of Piper’s post are a delight. I’m not going to try to quote from it. You need to read the whole thing. In a few paragraphs, Piper gives all of us good advice–provided we ignore the slanted Reformed and Arminian bias, to which I now turn my attention.

    Piper says:

    In other words, a Reformed position mainly means, God is really big, really strong, really powerful, really knowledgeable, really wise, really great, really weighty, and he is going to be big in this service, and we’re going to make a big deal out of God here. There are a lot of born-again Arminian people who like that. It’s because they don’t see the implications of their theology.

    The bottom line here is that this is not really the main Reformed position, at least not in distinction to other positions. I normally like to let people define themselves, but if that definition includes “unlike me” I am quite prepared to object. I too believe God is strong, knowledgeable, wise, and weighty, and you can put however many “really’s” in front of each word, because “infinite” licenses you to do so. I think the worship service should center around divine things as well.

    Arminian theology doesn’t imply anything else either. You see, “God is sovereign” means that God gets to do what God wants, and that includes anything whatsoever that God wants to do, including ordaining free will. Somehow some Calvinists think that predestination gives greater glory to God because it takes human beings out of the equation. But you don’t give greater glory by saying something false about a person or thing. If I praise my hammer as a saw, I’m just being silly. It won’t make it a saw, and it won’t make anyone regard my hammer more highly because of its saw-like attributes.

    I would note the condescension in the final sentence of the quote about us illogical Arminians. It may seem nice to give us the excuse of ignorance or blindness, but it seems to replace a certain spiritual arrogance with an intellectual variety.

    That doesn’t answer the question of who is correct, however, because my argument cuts both ways. If I’m wrong about free will, I do not increase God’s glory by proclaiming it either. That’s beyond the scope of this particular post.

    This ties in with my current series on Interpreting the Bible, and particular my last post in which I said:

    Now how does this apply to my test passages? I want to make clear here that the problem with the passages I cited is not that I don’t like what they say. My feelings about what a passage says do not impact what it’s now dead author meant to say. The ancients said many things that I don’t like. God is represented as saying things that I don’t like in scripture. My dislike of the statement doesn’t alter the intent of that statement.

    When we phrase the problem in that way we open things up for non-Christians to point out that we are simply taking what we like from scripture, for more conservative Christians to suggest that we are discarding passages at will, and for those more liberal to suggest that we haven’t moved far enough.

    The inverse is also possible–when one presents a problem of interpretation which involves an apparent contention of two views in scripture, it is quite easy for one’s opponent to represent this as a problem of trying to discard something one doesn’t like.

    But my major problem with predestination is not that I don’t like it. I admit I don’t, but I also don’t like the command to “take up my cross” and I think that one is absolutely valid and binding! My problem is that I think the doctrine of predestination, as stated in the Westminster Confessions, misrepresents God, who God claims God is.

    So please do go on proclaiming the sovereignty of God. Make God-centered worship services. If you’re an Arminian who has somehow become pastor to a church of Calvinists, do the same. Make your worship services God-centered.

    I am reminded of a friend who was discussing creation and evolution with me who proposed the same type of question. “How can this be reconciled with the Biblical picture of a loving God?” he asked me. Well, that is a difficulty, but it is not a difficulty that will alter the facts on the ground. When you get right down to it, things like the flood and hell fire provide at least as much reason to question one’s picture of God. And evolution occurred (or not) whether I believe it, like it, ignore it, or abhor it.

    Even the Wesleyan-Arminian view of choice leaves many wondering. How can a choice, even by a prevenient-grace-enabled, yet finite human, settle an eternal destiny? Is it fair for God to allow such an uninformed choice to result in eternal consequences? Under this view, were the sinner permitted to look into the pits of hell when making the decision, would it be the same? Of course the word “fair” here begs for definition, but I’m using it because I’m intentionally framing this in a form based on human feeling. The Bible proclaims that God is just, which may not seem fair!

    No, it’s not a question of just how sovereign God is. It’s a question of what we believe God actually has done. I think the evidence, both scriptural and historical, indicates God has, in his sovereign will, left a great deal more to humanity than we would like. But whether we like it or not, God, by definition, gets to make the ultimate choices.

  • The Ministry of Complaining

    I once preached a sermon by that title, and my main point was simply that complaining can be a valuable activity. We need people who notice things that are wrong and are willing to point them out. We need critics. I was reminded of that sermon today when I read the post Clergy Haters from Adventures in Revland.

    There are indeed people who are just going to complain. If you’re a pastor, and new members show up tearing down their previous pastor, beware! In some cases they may have an honest complaint and you may do better. But more often than not, the complainer is going to keep on complaining, only now it will be about you.

    I recall coding a small program together with one of the toughest critics I have ever known. We were doing some simulation. I would propose an algorithm, and he would shoot it down. I’d modify it and he’d explain why it just wouldn’t work. From time to time he had suggestions, but he was rarely satisfied even with his own suggestions. I would finally propose something that was close enough, based on both our input, and once he was that close he would polish it off. I must note that he was the better programmer of the two of us. His criticism, however, was one of two most critical elements for the project.

    But complaining is rarely a ministry. Some might even complain (!) about my use of the word “complain” in this context. But I rather like the effect, so words are just going to have to mean what I want them to, nothing more, nothing less, for the duration of this post! Why is it that pointing out faults and failings is viewed so negatively?

    When I have a manuscript to edit and proofread, I will pay people to read and mark the errors in the manuscript. They’re really useful people: proofreaders. What they do is point out faults and failings, much like complainers do.

    So what’s the difference between those folks and the ones you don’t really want in your church or business?

    When I was younger, I was always told that there was a difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism. Constructive criticism, I was told, involves having a solution to suggest to the problem, and not just pointing it out and leaving it at that.

    I’ve had a problem with that for years. I can call the power company and point out that the electricity is off without having any idea what to do about it. As an editor, I can point out a section in a manuscript that is unclear, without necessarily giving the proper wording. In fact, in practice how I approach that depends on the particular author. For one person I might rewrite the passage and let them accept or reject it. For another I might just say, “This is unclear. You might want to work on it a bit.” It just depends on what gets creative juices flowing.

    [For those who are wondering, I have neither proofreaders nor editors for this blog. All unclear passages are the product of my own arguably slightly deranged mind.]

    But I’ve found something better to distinguish complaining as a vice and complaining as a ministry: The person(s) to whom you present your complaint.

    In my sermon I held up the “blue book” which was our church directory. I opened it to the section that listed the committee chairs and members. I pointed out that there were people who were charged with the various ministries and activities of the church. “To make your complaints into a ministry,” I told the congregation, “you first have to take them to the right people.”

    You see, I had a great example handy. I had been leading a Bible study group. The chair of the Staff-Parish Relations committee attended because she was interested in joining. (For my non-Methodist readers, replace “Staff-Parish Relations Committee” with whatever group of people deals with the staffing of your church and interfaces between the paid staff and the members.) A massive complaint session broke out in the study group. I can’t even remember what brought it on, but it was something in the passage we were studying that the group members felt applied to their church. They were pretty negative.

    After a bit I pointed out that we had the SPR chair in the room, and perhaps they should address their comments to her. Now in case you’re thinking that the complaint session broke out because she was there, it turned out that nobody else knew she was the SPR chair. I will provide the excuse that she had only been in that position for a couple of months, but still…

    She immediately said that if they had suggestions or complaints that she would be willing to write them down and deal with them. She already had a pen and paper out and was ready to write. But she pointed out that they had yet to provide her with anything specific that she could actually address. She asked for the specifics or offered to meet with anyone who needed to present something in a private setting.

    Silence descended on the room. So far as I know, no appointments resulted from the meeting. You see, those folks wanted to complain, but they were much less anxious to sit down with someone who was ready to hear them and ready to take action. One problem was that they weren’t very clear on what was bothering them. But I think there was also the simple fact that it’s easy to complain in general to people in general, but when you start complaining to the person with the power, you’re putting yourself on the line.

    I don’t want to downplay the usefulness of combining your complaint with positive comments on things that deserve them and with suggested solutions. But you should also be ready to have your suggestions set aside for ideas brought by others.

    I must tell one other story here about taking suggestions and complains. I once discussed the worship service at my church with my pastor over lunch. We were discussing how to improve a particular service, and grabbing a convenient napkin and pen I outlined five ideas I had. There were things I didn’t like about the service and these were ideas to improve it.

    The pastor implemented changes, five for five. Each change was recognizably related to one of my suggestions, but each had been modified and, I must say, substantially improved. They fit better into the worship setting and connected with the members better than what I had suggested. Basically, that pastor took seed from what I said and grew something much better. The congregation started thanking the pastor for the improved service.

    What did he do then? He gave me credit for the whole thing! If you’re a pastor or a leader and you want to improve the “ministry of complaint” in your church, organization, or business, try that approach.

    Turning complaint into a ministry requires courage. One of the things my wife and I determined shortly after we got married was that we weren’t going to answer for each other when we write, speak, or teach. You many wonder why not. Do we not support one another in our respective ministries and calling? Indeed we do! Are we embarrassed by what one or the other teaches? Well, occasionally, but that’s usually because we’re telling stories on one another. More than one weekend seminar at which we both spoke has been generously seasoned with stories of our courtship!

    But we discovered quite early that in places where people wanted to complain, certain folks would come to me to discuss what Jody had to say. It sometimes happened the other way, but it may be a comment on church culture that it was more likely someone was coming to me. In general, it wasn’t clarification they wanted. The undertone was that I needed to straighten my wife out on some point.

    I should note here that one doesn’t straighten my wife out. She’s actually quite teachable, but you better line your ducks up in a row and get them quacking in unison. Then she’ll straighten herself out once she’s fully convinced. But at the same time each of us is quite capable of responding to questions put directly to us. As soon as I perceived that there were people who thought they could tell me that my wife was wrong and that I’d somehow go and take their complaint to her, I made it my policy to simply say, “If you have a question about what Jody said (or wrote) go ask her.” Nobody who first came to me ever has gone on to take their question to her.

    We were having a discussion about that the other night and it brought me to this point of courage. Can you take your complaint to the actual person you want to complain about? Can you explain it to them? Sometimes there are privacy issues. Sometimes there are issues of retaliation. But most of the time, especially when the complaint is about a pastor, I think there are simply courage issues. The complainer wants to get someone else to do the hard work of telling the pastor he’s wrong about something, not to mention avoiding the embarrassment of finding out it wasn’t the pastor who was wrong, but rather the complainer.

    To be a ministry, your complaint needs to be honest, it needs to be brought to the right person, and you need to bring it with the right attitude. It’s a shock, but the complainer could, in fact, be wrong. At the same time, an honest complaint needs to be heard and dealt with. A little bit of courage to face the person against whom one has a complaint will go a long way in improving your own success, and that of your organization.

  • Worship: Few Words, Boy Friends, and Girl Friends

    David Ker is complaining about modern worship songs (since the 90s), and Peter Kirk has partially taken him to task about it, wondering about the air down in Mozambique and whether it causes David to rant. (Personally I suspect it’s looking at too many hippos, but in non-essentials charity, I say!) David continues with a more in-depth piece, Droning, desymbolization and Christian mantra. I think the latter is especially well worth reading, though all three will help set the stage.

    Now I’m going to try to “let my words be few,” but I’ve already written quite a number of words, so that may not be easy. [Note after completing this–I failed.] Since I have an eclectic readership, let me note here that this is written to Christians. It’s internal shop talk and will probably be simply boring or weird to others.

    I’m personally in sympathy with David on this from the point of view of music quality and what makes me worship. Over the years, however, I’ve tried to learn to be less critical. If I find it difficult to handle a song, I look around the congregation and inevitably I see plenty of other people who are quite deeply drawn into the crowd. If I focus on that community, I often find myself drawn in as well–to the worship, not really the music.

    After hearing from friends overseas who must drive a couple of hours to fellowship, and have no options, I have felt very convicted about my complaints regarding local worship services. If I don’t like the worship one place, I can easily move to another. Many Christians can’t. Thus read the following advice with reference to American Christians, and to others only where truly applicable.

    To worshipers, if you can’t stand the worship music, get over it. Worship is a communal activity, and it’s likely that if a particular style of music is repeatedly presented at your church, somebody is being attracted to it.

    I recall one church where my wife and I could barely stand some of the music. It always seemed out of harmony with the worship service itself. But then we noticed that there was almost half of a section of the sanctuary filled with kids, many of whom attended that church without their parents, and those kids were completely involved in the very music that was driving us nuts. We chose to get over it.

    If you can’t get over it, and I admit that this is quite possible, find another congregation. I can think of a few churches I’ve visited where I believe my best efforts to follow my own advice would fail. In that case, you need to find a place where you can become a part of the community.

    There is a third option I hesitate to mention, and that is to try to improve the worship experience of your own church. The problem with this approach is that, barring debates over the color of the carpet, debates over styles of worship can be the most divisive, and frequently lose the goal of the best worship for the community in efforts by individuals to have everything done in their personally favorite style. So if you try this option, do it prayerfully and make sure that you’re trying for the best for everybody and not just for yourself.

    Having said this to members of the congregation, I would like to emphasize a paragraph from David’s second post:

    But, worship leaders also have a key role in this. On the stage, it’s easy to get swept away in the beauty of the music and the enjoyment of the moment and not realize that a hundred people in the congregation have their hands in their pockets and are bored out of their minds. Open your eyes, worship leaders! Be aware of the temperature of the congregation. You are supposed to be leading others in worship not zoning out in the front.

    I send a separate message to leaders and congregants. Leaders, if you see your congregation bored, uninvolved, uninterested, or simply not worshiping, then you have some work to do. It’s fine for someone like me to tell people (especially myself!) to get over themselves and worship. But that’s not an excuse for some of the careless crap that goes on in worship.

    People treat a stumbling presentation of the liturgy as a joke, something nice and folksy about the church. Communion is done so frequently that many pastors don’t take time to connect it to the message and the rest of the liturgy. One gets the feeling of “oh yes, we’ve gotta hand out some bread and wine” from such presentations. Worship leaders don’t pay attention to scripture or theme.

    Rather than being folksy and fun, such things make the congregation treat worship as something unimportant and casual. If the minister can’t even find one sentence to insert in the communion liturgy at the appropriate points (marked conveniently with asterisks in the United Methodist hymnal), or the worship leader can’t be bothered to communicate with the minister and provide musical settings with a sense of connection, then the worshipers are justified in concluding that somebody doesn’t really care.

    But finally, what is this business about boy friends and girl friends? Yes, I finally got to that point. It has to do with “I am so in love with you.” (No, not YOU, someone else!) I believe that in scripture one of the strongest metaphors for the way in which God seeks people and for the bond between myself and God is sexual passion. I don’t mean sanitized, hand-holding, going on a date level passion. I mean the kind of passion that makes one unable to wait to get to the bedroom before the clothes are coming off. I imagine that image offends some. Enjoy being offended.

    Then read Ezekiel 16, for example, and see God’s passion for us represented as the passionate desire of a lover, while unfaithfulness is represented as the passion for someone other than our true spouse. There are many other texts. The problem with “lover” music, in my view, is not so much that we trivialize our love for God by expressing it in the form of cheap love lyrics; rather, it’s that our love for God is often so much more shallow than those cheap lyrics.

    Hmmm. I intend none of this as judgmental about any particular person. There are many of you, such as both David and Peter, whose service for God indicates that they speak from a depth of passion that most stay-at-home American Christians cannot hope to match. If you’re in that situation, please don’t be offended at my suggestions here.

    But if you’re just checking off the boxes of your supposed weekly activities, then give it some consideration. Is your relationship with God a casual date or a life-long covenant?

  • Quote of the Day 1-19-09

    From Only Wonder Understands:

    This week, in working on a sermon on transforming discipleship (drawing on some materials by Trevor Hudson) I was reminded that Jesus always values people over efficiency and effectiveness.

    One might also remember that what is efficient will depend on what one’s goal is. And yes, I think it’s a good one for Martin Luther King day.

  • Two Steps Back, and Proof Texts Too

    Via Aristotle’s Feminist Subject, I found the story of the “True Woman” movement. See their manifesto as well.

    Earlier today, John Hobbins was calling for “respectful dialogue” as the “need of the hour.” I like John Hobbins, and he displays great wisdom. Respectful dialogue is both needed and rarely to be had.

    Unfortunately, with respect to the issue of women in leadership, I have a hard time complying with that request. It’s not the nature of the logical arguments involved. I do regard the complementarian position to be an egregious misapplication of scripture, using a collection of particulars to overcome the force of the overarching and underlying narrative. It uses a few comments by Paul to transform the incarnation into some sort of petty power play.

    But that’s not why I’m emotional about this, despite my fairly heavy language in the last paragraph. I read, hear, and speak this issue in the shadow of the many women I know whom God gifted for leadership, and whose behavior these women would call ungodly.

    It’s not that they want to raise children. Many of the women of whom I speak raised families as well, and I do not intend to speak ill of those women–or men–who make a choice to be homemakers. It’s a praiseworthy choice. It’s not so praiseworthy, however, when one pretends that choice makes one spiritually superior, or makes efforts to restrict the choices for other women who may feel somewhat differently.

    At the emotional level I know women who are definitely gifted, ranging from Lucille Knapp, the gifted woman who taught me my first two years of Greek to Dr. Leona Running who taught me such languages as Syriac, Akkadian, and Middle Egyptian, to my wife Jody Neufeld who is a gifted teacher capable of taking spiritual concepts and bringing them down to daily life.

    The problem, you see, is that when I hear someone say that a woman can’t speak or lead in a church, it’s not some abstract thing. I see those women and the myriad of others like them, being told that it doesn’t matter how God has gifted them–they better shut up, go away, and make that other choice.

    Egalitarians can, and should, celebrate women who choose to make their ministry in their home. But complementarians will find it impossible to celebrate those women who choose to exercise their God-given gifts of leadership in the church, or those men who choose to be homemakers.

    And that leaves me with a strongly, even emotionally, held position.

  • Idolatry of Theology and Liturgy

    • In a recent comment on my video Why I Hate the KJV, I received a comment that began thus: “You were saved by the KJV. . . .”
    • A young man visited my home and discussed with me for more than an hour. At the end, he said he was concerned for my salvation because of various details in the way I understand salvation by grace through faith.
    • A student asked me just what set of beliefs he needed to convey to someone and convince them to believe before he could be sure they had been saved.
    • A church member quits attending worship because he can’t stand the drums, the organ, the people raising their hands, the people not raising their hands, the way the pastor prays, ad nauseum.

    All of these points do have something in common, I believe. There’s the theory of salvation by grace through faith (God does it), the theory of salvation by works (get working and earn it), and the wonderfully western theory of salvation by intellectual assent to correct theology. I would suggest, however, that this intellectual assent version falls afoul of Paul’s note “not of works lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:9, emphasis mine). I think that could justifiably be paraphrased “not of intellectual assent (or prowess) lest any man should boast.”

    But no, there’s a substantial group of Christians who hold implicitly, if not explicitly, that without getting certain parts of their theology right, people cannot be saved. No thieves hanging on crosses need apply! One wonders just how many facts about atonement the thief on the cross grasped in the moment that he said “Lord, remember me”? Did he even know what “Lord” meant in that context?

    Now I’m told that I put too much weight on the story of the thief on the cross, but I think it’s a tremendously important counter-example. That thief hangs there athwart the path of all those who want to make salvation difficult by requiring amounts of time, training, works, or even understanding. There’s nothing there but a cry for help and grace extended.

    People frequently paint pictures of God from the theological prose of the Bible that contradict the God who appears in the stories. Personally I think this is reversed. As the thief on the cross hangs athwart the path of those who require intellectual understanding, so do Deborah (Judges 4 & 5) and Junia (Romans 16:7) stand in the way of those who want to claim that God can’t use women as leaders. At a minimum, those two examples should make one look carefully at each individual woman one meets in ministry and ask, “Is she one for whom God has made an exception?” Of course I think there are better theological reasons for rejecting gender exclusion in ministry, but that’s another post.

    But what does all of this have to do with the last example I gave, a liturgical one, and with the title of the post which refers to idolatry? Quoth Paul again, “Much, in every way!” I use the basic definition for idolatry I got from reading Tillich: “Treating as ultimate anything that is not ultimate.”

    • The commenter on my YouTube video has made the KJV the ultimate thing, replacing God and Jesus as the agent of salvation, and replacing it with a book, a translation made by human hands.
    • The young man who questioned my salvation based on his theological propositions has made those theological propositions into his god. They are the idol of God before which he worships. I would note here, however, that in my view grace is sufficient for gossips and murderers, and yes, even idolaters!
    • The student who asked about what must be believed was a very sincere person who was nonetheless distressed by the idea that he might not present the right pieces of the puzzle and thus not reach someone. He was being tempted by idolatry.
    • The church member who quits over liturgy, well . . . see below.

    I suspect that liturgy is the part of theology which tempts us most to idolatry. Many people ignore the atonement debates and simply believe that Jesus died for them. The idolatry is more frequently one of church leaders than church members. But everyone knows whether you raise your hands or don’t. Everyone knows what kind of music they like. Everyone knows whether they like a fixed order or a more spontaneous service.

    Preferences aren’t the problem. In fact, it’s not a problem to seek to understand and believe correct theology. That is, until what you say about God and how you worship becomes more important than God. Worship is about experiencing and worshiping God in community with one’s fellow believers, the body of Christ. When you let your personal preferences keep you from corporate worship, at least some elements of that are lost. In fact, I would suggest that if you are in no sense giving up something to others in worship, you may not be fully experiencing corporate worship.

    And when you let those individual preferences keep you from worship, then that becomes idolatry as well. Something that is not ultimate–the form of the worship service–has become ultimate for you instead of God.

    Should pastors, church leaders, and liturgists not strive for a good worship service? Absolutely they should do their best in this area. I am not advocating sloppiness either in theology or in liturgy. I am advocating the correct priority. When a pastor presents the Eucharist carelessly and thoughtlessly, for example, it may make it harder for people to experience the presence of Christ in their midst. I very much enjoy the Eucharist. There have been times, however, when I have had to work to experience the presence of Christ because it was so clear that the pastor was not experiencing it, and didn’t care.

    On another occasion I recall a minister who I thought might ascend from before the altar at any moment because he was so thoroughly engaged in the liturgy he presented. The simple fact that his worship was so completely directed at God, and so engaged his entire being, made it easy for the worshipers to join him.

    It is not good liturgy and good theology that I’m challenging here. Good liturgy and good theology help bring one to God. But no liturgy or theological proposition that stands between God and the person can be truly good.

    A tree is a good thing, but when one bows down and worships it, it becomes an idol. It is the same in our theology. A good doctrine, a good worship service, or a good deed, placed above the one in whose service they should stand, has become an idol.

    Friends, keep yourselves from idols. Amen! — 1 John 5:21

  • Coolness and Complacency

    OK, I’m going to try for three short notes at a time. In this case I’m helped by Dave Warnock, who already wrote on the topic.

    It seems that Adrian Warnock doesn’t like people to be “cool-headed” about the atonement. He says:

    To be honest, when I heard this book was going to be “cool-headed” I was already concerned about it. I’m not sure the atonement is a subject that it’s possible to be terribly cool about. That’s because another word for cool is lukewarm. Jesus hates us to be lukewarm about crucial issues, even threatening to spit the lukewarm from his mouth (Revelation 3). I much prefer interacting with someone who is either hot or cold about important issues like this.

    Dave correctly points out that Adrian is using a questionable definition of “cool-headed.” But I would like to make a few more remarks.

    There’s a tendency among many religious or spiritual people to believe that the more belligerent and confrontational one is, the more truly one believes and is committed to one’s beliefs. I would suggest that just as frequently the one who is belligerent and pushy is quite insecure about those beliefs and makes up for confidence with bluster.

    I’m frequently told that my self-designation as a passionate moderate is an oxymoron, as one cannot be both passionate and moderate at the same time. There’s a grain of truth to this, if I accept that the meaning of words is determined by usage. But many people who self-identify as moderates would also regard themselves as passionate about their moderate beliefs. Having determined on a position that is not at either extreme on a particular issue, I can be quite passionate about opposing either of the extremes.

    But there’s another point here. Often being cool-headed is the best way to advocate for a particular course of action. You stir more people up by being confrontational, but you don’t necessarily persuade anybody that you’re right.

    Having said that, I’m not sure that I’m as cool-headed as Dave on this one. Frankly I do find the hard-line position of penal substitutionary atonement, when it includes the idea that this is the meaning of the atonement, rather than one (only slightly) helpful metaphor amongst many, is not just wrong, but dangerous. It is a position that drives people away from God’s grace, not toward it in many cases. I also believe it is scripturally wrong.

    Often the liberal or moderate position is argued as an OK, not so tense, alternative to the conservative position–acceptable, rather than more correct. That is unfortunate. I believe what I do because I believe those positions to be better than, not merely an OK alternative for more relaxed people. I regard the teaching of PSA as the meaning of the atonement as wrong. I regard exclusion of women from positions in ministry as wrong. It is not that I ask tolerance from my more conservative brethren for my sake. Rather, I believe tolerance would be good for them.

    So perhaps I’m not the best person to argue for cool-headedness in this case.