Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christian Mission

  • Church and Health Care: Remembering My Parents

    Mark, at Pseudo-Polymath has written a post, The Christian Response to Healthcare and End of Life, which has what I consider the greatest quality for blog posts: It deserves to be discussed. My immediate problem is that there are simply too many things to discuss, and I’m a long winded person in any case.

    So I’m going to divide things up a bit and write several posts. In doing this division, I will use a couple of my own beliefs, which I may discuss later if I remember. The first is that I believe that Christian motivation and Christian strategy or courses of action are different. For example, we are to be motivated by love for our neighbor, but we can disagree on just how we go about it. We can desire that nobody suffer for lack of health care, and yet take completely different paths. This doesn’t mean that all courses of action are equal; it’s just that they should be discussed in practical, empirical terms. The liberal who believes fervently that everyone must have health care, and therefore advocates a single-payer government system because he believes that’s the only way to make it work, is not less or more of a Christian than the conservative who believes that system will destroy health care in his community. There’s lots of room for debate there as to just how a Christian should act, but I would suggest regarding both as properly motivated by Christian principles.

    The second division is between the things we accomplish through the government and the things we accomplish privately. As a Christian, I want my community to be safe. To what extent is this the work of my church, and to what extent is it the work of the police and courts? As a Christian where do I get involved? I think this type of question is important. For example, local churches provide various services to young people including tutoring, sports programs, and facilities for their activities. All of this helps make a safer community. I’m a firm believer in the Christian community as salt, or perhaps I might say more directly, the kingdom of God intruding on earth.

    My previous post that Mark linked was very much in the secular community, and reflects me looking at solutions that involved action in the political arena. Mark makes an important point in mentioning that fact. I’m several steps beyond my basic motivations, and trying to resolve at least a part of the problem through public action. I don’t apologize for that, but it is by no means a complete picture.

    It’s difficult for me to find the language for some of what I’m thinking, so I’m going to start by reflecting on my parents’ lives. Why? Because they embodied, in my view, the other side of the picture. There are things on which I disagree with them. My father has now gone to be with the Lord, but my mother is still very active at the age of 89. We now belong to different denominations. They are Seventh-day Adventists; I’m United Methodist.

    I’m guessing some of my more secular friends would not be terribly happy to have my father treat them. Dad would offer to pray with every patient, whether it was a consultation in the office, surgery, or on hospital rounds. He didn’t force it. If someone refused, he didn’t use the sarcastic, “Well, I’ll pray for you,” but I know that he did pray for all those patients on his own anyhow.

    For both my parents, providing health care was the way they lived out the gospel. They would not get along with many of the modern Christian hospitals where the only specifically Christian thing is the name of the sponsoring organization. There was no division. That was a difference between me and my dad. I speak “secular” when I feel it’s appropriate. His world was undivided.

    When I was in my teens I asked him whether God healed his patients or his medical care did, considering he prayed for every one. He said, “God always does the healing. Sometimes he uses my medical skills.” At the same time, he was passionate about the best information, the best equipment, the best techniques, and absolute thoroughness and integrity in medical care. I only recall my father becoming truly angry a couple of times, and all were cases when it appeared that someone’s negligence had harmed a patient. That was something you just didn’t do in his world.

    Though he was an MD, and was married to an RN, both professions in which one can make just a bit of money, my father lived and died with very little. One of the humorous incidents in our lives came while he was working in north Georgia, and my parents had applied to be a foster home. They were notified that they were approved, but then no children came. Since they had been told the county was desperate for foster homes, they wondered why. Suddenly, a year later, a new social worker arrives with child in tow, asking if we were prepared. Sure enough we were, but my mother wanted to know the reason for the delay. “Well,” said the social worker, “my predecessor didn’t think your husband was a real doctor. He doesn’t look like one or act like one.” We never did get the details, so we have to guess!

    For my dad, being a Christian and a physician meant being available. Everyone who came to him received treatment. During the few years he was in private practice he wouldn’t even send bills to collection. He sent two reminders and then forgot about it. He asked his church where care was needed, and he went there, serving in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Guyana (South America).

    One of the more amazing things my parents would do, besides praying with patients was occasionally to sing for them, again during hospital rounds. This was especially likely in terminal cases, or cases of great hardship. Many patients remember Dr. and Mrs. Neufeld singing a duet for them at the bedside in the hospital.

    What I’m asking myself as I write this is just how they would fit in the context of modern Christian medicine. I know that my father complained that there were very few places where he could practice the type of personal, caring medicine he believed in. I’m guessing that situation hasn’t gotten better. I also have to ask, when I consider things that I said such as “health care must be produced” (and it does), just what can and will motivate people to provide good health care. I know my parents weren’t motivated by money; they rarely had more than just what they needed.

    I’m going to use this as a launching pad to get into discussing health care more broadly than I have, not just talking about what governmental programs might be proposed, but discussing what duties and opportunities the church has. And no, I will not forget end-of-life care either, which is close to my heart. But I’ve already written more than I intended in this initial post.

    [I must add a brief commercial announcement, however, since I talked about my parents. My mother has written, and I published, a book on her experiences, Directed Paths, and my wife has co-authored a book on grief for Christians that rose out of our experience with our son who passed away at age 17. It is titled Grief: Finding the Candle of Light. OK, that’s all the commercial stuff!]

  • Holy Heteroclite Playing Word Games

    Why don’t you join him? The post is “I wanted to know Jesus, but you gave me a library”. It sounds like fun.

  • Can a Liberal Learn from Mark Driscoll?

    I’m using the dreaded “L” word for myself again, because if I was put up against [tag]Mark Driscoll[/tag] I would certainly come out as liberal, no matter how moderate I think I am. Regular readers of this blog know that I disagree with him on a substantial range of issues.

    There’s a profile of Driscoll available on the Christianity Today web site (HT: Adrian Warnock). There’s some interesting things here, including most of the stuff on which I differ. Occasionally I stir people up through what I write on this blog, but in real life, I put much of my effort into reconciliation. I try to be a peacemaker in church. I’m not a [tag]Calvinist[/tag] by any stretch. Even good [tag]Arminian[/tag]s suspect me of heresy in the pelagian direction. I’m [tag]egalitarian[/tag], not [tag]complementarian[/tag], and if the bad guy is threatening the playground, I’m going to call 911 before mixing it up with them myself.

    Yet there are a number of things one can learn here. Driscoll really believes what he is teaching, and I think the evidence is good that he cares about his church and the people of his community. He’s willing to meet them culturally, something that other church people ranging from right to left are not willing to do. To many of us church is our culture, and others have to leave the “world’s culture” and become part of the “church’s culture.” But we have no particular reason to assume that the church’s culture as we practice it is actually better than the world’s culture. Driscoll seems to have caught on to the fact that from the point of view of the church, especially the mainline church, reaching the person down the street is just as much cross-cultural ministry in many cases as is going overseas.

    Nonetheless, I deplore Driscoll’s position on women in leadership and in ministry. I believe it would be quite possible for the church to articulate and practice a strong theology of family and of leadership without wedding itself to the single model of the dominant male. At the same time, egalitarians sometimes behave as though men don’t need to learn any leadership and even foster the “let women take care of spiritual things” attitude. We need to learn to respond to those attitudes.

    Too often what we practice is not the empowerment of all people to use the gifts God has given them and to follow God’s call on their lives, but it is rather a “let those who will do it go ahead.” We’re afraid to challenge men in spiritual leadership because we might sound too much like Driscoll. I am willing to confess to weakness when it’s there, but in this case, I’m not myself confessing to this practice. I have regularly preached that men need to be ready to get up on Sunday morning and lead their families to church. They need to be actively involved in both church life and in the moral life of their family and community.

    A family can only be properly led when both father and mother take up their appropriate gifts. But this does not allow looking down on supposedly “feminized” men either. That male leadership can involve the man cleaning the house, doing the dishes, changing diapers and helping get the children dressed. It might involve a husband getting the children to Wednesday night activities because the wife is working or out of town on a business trip.

    In other words this is another part of modern culture that we could meet with the gospel, rather than try to change into a first century image that exists largely in our own minds.

    I would suggest reading the Christianity Today article asking yourself this: “How can I make my spiritual life connect more with the age? What are the essentials of my spiritual and ethical beliefs, and what are just my church culture?” All of us could do with such a checkup.

  • My Latest Book (Partly)

    My new book wasn’t planned–by me, that is. Rev. Riley Richardson, pastor of Gonzalez United Methodist Church (and thus my pastor) were talking one day about books, and he said, “What I need is an extremely simple book that I can give to new members that will tell them what to do next and help guide them into discipleship.

    Discipleship: Jesus With Us

    Being a publisher, and more specifically a publisher whose publications are driven by what I perceive as educational needs in churches, I immediately suggested to Riley that he write such a book and I would publish it. But he didn’t jump right on the bandwagon until I offered to help. So on the new book you will see right below Riley’s name the phrase “with Henry Neufeld.” That means Riley got to make all the decisions, and I helped him produce it. I helped myself by incorporating material from some of our existing Participatory Study Series tracts with Riley’s approval.

    For those who don’t know him, Riley is an energetic, evangelical Methodist pastor. He’s practical and down to earth. So the book isn’t really mine, despite the title to this blog post, but I had quite a bit to do with it and I’m happy to be able to offer it as a tool for pastors, church leaders, and every member who has ever wondered what to do next when someone becomes a Christian or joins the church.

    The statistics are not so good for new Christians staying in the church. Discipleship and fellowship are key elements to sticking with it. Both Riley and I pray that this little book will be a help to many.

    This book will not (or at least should not) teach the pastor anything new about discipleship. It’s a tool to use in ministry and in sharing with others. Activities and study questions are included so it can be used in small groups.

    A couple of personal notes–first, nepotism is involved in the cover production. That beautiful cover is the work of my nephew, Jason Neufeld (contact info at jasonneufelddesign.com). Riley has designated his royalties to go to the Ukraine missions that are carried out by Pacesetters Bible School and partially supported by Gonzalez United Methodist Church.

  • What Embarrasses me About Christianity

    A discussion has been raging over on the Religion Forum, and Tom Sims has taken it up on his blog regarding Bishop Spong and a quote (Rochester, MN Post-Bulletin) in which he says:

    “Religion in America today embarrasses me,” said Spong, 75, who will speak in Rochester next week. “If that’s what Christianity is all about, then I’m not really interested in that.”

    Of course the question is clearly just what Bishop Spong thinks Christianity is actually about. Frankly, while Spong is one of the more popular characters in modern liberal Christianity, he is by no means the most thoughtful, in my view. In fact, when it gets right down to it, I don’t find his historical reconstructions I find him one of the least credible of the writers on the historical Jesus.

    He makes one excellent point, however, in the interview I cited, when he tells us that the problem comes in when someone claims that their way is the only way it can be. I’m one of those “embarrassments” who believes in the resurrection. Once I’ve swallowed a doctrine like the incarnation, it hardly seems a matter of concern. Could I be wrong? Of course I could! I’ve been wrong before, am quite probably wrong about many things right now, and I suspect I will go right on being wrong until I die.

    Especially in matters of theology we do well to walk and talk humbly, simply because when dealing with the infinite we are by definition infinitely ignorant. We have to recognize that very often the more rational option is to simply admit that we don’t really know. But I, and others like me, have a category of experience to describe, and it is religious language and even religious doctrines that describes it.

    For Bishop Spong, however, and for many in the Jesus Seminar, one has to ask just how Christian their Jesus actually is. I do not arrogate to myself the right to judge whether they are Christians or not, or what their relationship to God might be. My question is simply one of picking up their views and making them my own.

    I recall the series of stories by Isaac Asimov which are set at the dinners of the Black Widowers. Each guest was asked one major question: How do you justify your existence? I think the question that needs to be asked of Spong’s Jesus is the same one: How do you justify your existence? When one limits oneself to a purely historical reconstruction, and one done with a seriously skeptical turn of mind, then the resulting “Jesus” is often rather weak, and one has to wonder why anyone should care whether such a person lived.

    In the historical sense, one might make the question instead whether the Jesus one has discovered by historical research would be likely to have had the impact that he had. The one thing I always find when I think about Jesus in purely historical terms is that in the end I’m certain that Jesus must be more than what I can prove him to be historically, otherwise there is an excessive effect for the cause involved. In some ways, however, the Jesus of Spong fits well with American Christianity–tepid and not terribly challenging.

    There are a number of things about American Christianity that do embarrass me, though they don’t primarily have to do with doctrinal beliefs.

    I’m embarrassed

    • that we have so many buildings and so much real estate that tends to be idle during the week. I believe we could improve our use of that property for building up our communities.
    • that we now have almost as many definitions of heresy and orthodoxy as there are denominations. At least the inquisition worked from one script. Now I can be fundamentalist, orthodox, heretical, and an atheist all at the same time. Just ask my critics!
    • that we still permit discrimination and even foster it in our society–any discrimination that considers something other than the ability of the person in question.
    • that we are depending more on political and temporal means than on the transforming power of the gospel.
    • that for so many Christians church is just a social club. We debate the spiritual gospel and the social gospel, but while we do so the “comfy chair” gospel is often winning in churches.
    • that so many of us couldn’t even discuss the issues that Spong is raising, because we have no clue what we believe or what our church claims to believe in the first place.
    • that our faith is so weak and so poorly grounded that we have to get into a real tizzy about every new book that comes out about Christianity.

    I’m embarrassed, but I don’t dwell on it, except for posts like this. Mostly I just try to help alleviate that situation in the little corner where I am.

  • Sudan Missionary from Pensacola

    There was an encouraging story in the Pensacola News Journal titled Big difference in Sudan about Jim Esson who is returning to the Sudan and working on building a medical clinic. This is a very positive form of mission activity.

    In the comments someone complains that the mission is out of town while there are still people in need locally. But there are many different forms of service, and we don’t need to choose just one. There are plenty of resources available; what we need is the willingness to use them wherever there are needs.

  • Put Your Bible Down for a Day

    That would be a weird thing for a Bible teacher, such as myself, to say. And indeed, I didn’t say it. Dennis Stout did, over a Christianity Today/Christian Bible Studies.com. There’s some good advice in this article, so I wanted to commend it to my readers.

  • The Problem with WWJD

    One of the primary objections that conservative Christians have to the work of historical Jesus scholars is that they often have a tendency to create Jesus in their own image, or at least in an image congenial to them. This is said particularly of the scholars of the third quest, and of the Jesus Seminar in particular. It’s not entirely a false charge, either. With the use of historical criteria one can quite easily tilt the results in just about any direction depending on what weight one gives to each historical criterion, not to mention the weight given to the various sources.

    Now this isn’t an essay on the historical Jesus quest, as interesting as that subject is. But what struck me recently was how easy it is for any of us to create a Jesus in our own image, whom we can piously follow. Conservatives can get in on the game, simply by placing more weight one one text than another. Do you need a more violent Jesus? Try the cleansing of the temple. More gentle? “Love your enemies.” If you’re dispensationalist, at least of the older variety, you can simply disregard whole swaths of the teaching of Jesus because they apply to a different dispensation.

    In the person of his followers, Jesus is both for and against the war in Iraq, both for and against capital punishment, eager to help every immigrant or determined to move them out as quickly as possible, interested in more or less government regulation (I’m really not sure where this comes from, but there are those who invoke “Christian principles” on the matter), and so forth.

    Recently I read an excellent blog post on the patriarchal movement, (Women Who Drive and the Men Who Let Them, which led me to this patriarchal article). There is much that one could comment on in an article such as this, but there were a couple of sentences that inspired this post:

    But at the same time, our culture is at war with this masculinity. This means that the men who are equipped to maintain peace in their homes will be men at war beyond the front door. A man who has what it takes to provide peace, stability and security in his home will be just the kind of man who is embattled outside. Our world system is hostile to the kind of masculinity which is capable of guiding and protecting the godly home. Centuries ago, in the great battle over the Trinity, Athanasius was told at one time that the whole world was against him. Then let it be known, he said, that Athanasius is contra mundum against the whole world. In the same way, the biblical man should know that his scriptural hardness, the necessary protective fence for his family, will always provoke a hostile response whenever he is out in the world.

    Jesus the controlling masculine he-man! This shows how far in one direction some people will adjust the image of Jesus in order to make him fit the way they want to view the world. Elsewhere in this patriarchal movement we have advocacy of harsh corporal punishment and an ungodly level of control, all practiced in the name of Jesus. (Hey, the guy ought to at least apologize to Athanasius!)

    And then there is the ultimate sign of the blessings of Jesus–opposition. Because Jesus was crucified for who he was, and because he said that his followers would be persectued, many see opposition, ridicule, and persecution as a sign of how right they are. But you can awaken opposition and persecution in two different ways: 1) Your life might be a rebuke to others because you are living so well, but much more likely, 2) You could just be a person who is obnoxious! Many, many Christians are rejoicing in opposition (persecution is too strong a word for what goes on in the U.S.) as a badge of their righteousness when it is really an indication of how little like Jesus they are.

    The problem with asking “What would Jesus do?” is that you have to be willing to look openly at the things that challenge your own way of living and of doing things. It has to be a sincere question that looks for a challenging answer, otherwise it’s just another form of excuse.

  • Being United Methodist: Identity and Purpose

    One of the problems with having a sign in front of your church, and particularly a denominational identity, is that it produces certain expectations in people who may considering entering your property and visiting your church for an event or a worship service. Now some of you may not think this is a problem–you want an identity. That’s good! But consider these question: Is the expectation created by your label realistic? Is it what people will find when they enter? Are you willing to stand by that purpose even if they choose another church?

    This discussion could apply to any denomination, I think, and also to many non-denominational congregations. But my experience is with entering a United Methodist local church. I’ve discussed parts of this experience several times before, but rather than link to a scattered set of sources, let me just highlight the relevant points of my own experience.

    I was raised Seventh-day Adventist, and completed my MA degree in Biblical Languages at the Andrews University Graduate School in conjunction with the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. Then I left the SDA church and all churches for 12 years. I started my path back into the church at a United Methodist congregation. One of the first things I asked for was a definitive statement of United Methodist doctrine. I wanted to know what I was getting into. So the pastor of that church gave me a copy of the United Methodist discipline. Don’t groan! Considering the way I presented my question to him, he had no choice.

    I read the early pages of the discipline, the doctrinal standards and the explanations. I questioned elements of the social principles, but based on that reading I thought I could get along in a United Methodist congregation. I was naive enough to believe that Methodists actually had some idea of what was contained in their own doctrinal statement, but more on that in a moment.

    I attended two different United Methodist congregations off and on, and also went to small group Bible studies in both. When I had decided to rejoin the church, and specifically one of those two congregations I went to the pastors and discussed it. The first pastor told me that I would be welcome in his church no matter what. I explained that while I had been baptized, I had been out of the church for some years and wanted to acknowledge that. “We don’t care about that,” he said. “We just want you to enjoy our fellowship.” There was no discussion of my beliefs in any way. I’m not sure he had ever heard me affirm that I believed in God, though he knew I read Greek. I can testify that the two are not equivalent.

    The second pastor sat down and asked me what I believed about Jesus. What a difference! We had a serious conversation. I even contested points with him. But at the end he knew that I did, in fact, believe in Jesus and was ready to accept me into membership. I joined the second congregation.

    I suspect that the first pastor did not want to offend me by suggesting anything in particular I had to do. But by doing so he made me ask myself why I would join his congregation. What was the purpose? If it was merely to “enjoy fellowship” that wasn’t sufficient to me. By being open to all, I think he made the church seem to be unimportant and of little use.

    Even in the church I did join, however, there was disappointment. I read about the doctrine of Christian perfection, one of those Wesleyan doctrines with which I have a certain amount of trouble. I read Wesley’s A Plain Account of Christian Perfection amongst other things in order to clarify what Wesley taught on the matter. When I discussed that with the pastor he asked me to teach a class for the entire church on the topic. Now I had grown up in the SDA church and heard about John Wesley all my life. Imagine my amazement when I found that not one single member in that class was even aware that there was a doctrine of Christian perfection and that it was listed in the doctrinal standards of their denomination.

    I can’t really speak of what goes on in the broader denomination. I’m a small picture man. But I do see this in congregations. If you try to be all things to all people, you can easily wind up being nothing at all. Those who know me and read any of what I write will know that I’m not calling for tense, lengthy, doctrinal standards. But I am calling for knowing our identity and purpose at the congregational level. United Methodists should go out to that cross and flame symbol and ask themselves whether it is false labeling. Are people going to experience the the incaranational love and revelation of Jesus Christ and the fire of the Holy Spirit in your church? Is it an expectation of all or most of the members? Don’t suspect me of forcing a particular definition of each of these elements. I’m not. What I’m wondering is whether you could answer that question, whether you’re church member or pastor, in an intelligible way. If I was joining your church, would you say that you just wanted me to enjoy your fellowship, or would there be expectations of service, an identity to assume, and a purpose to support?

    My pastor (Gonzalez UMC) when he arrived at the beginning of a building program for a “family life center,” made certain that the name was changed to “community life center.” The name makes a difference, he told me. We need to be a church that reaches out to our community and makes a difference. There’s one piece of the identity. If you don’t want to reach the community, you’re going to have many moments of discomfort at our church. It gets more detailed than that, but I’m not writing to tell you what your purpose should be in detail.

    What I’m trying to say here is that when we get so open that we lose identity, we also give up any reason for anyone to enthusiastically support us. People don’t support an organization with any enthusiasm because of what it’s not. They support it for what it is. If you don’t know the purpose of your church, whether you’re church leader, member, or pastor, you will find it difficult to grow.

    As a final note, I think this is an area in which Christian liberals and moderates have failed in particular. We too often either define ourselves, or fail to define ourselves by what we are not, and then try to keep from offending anyone on any side.

    On the one hand I can define myself as a person who does not believe in the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, who does not accept a literal seven day creation week, who rejects penal substitutionary atonement as the true meaning of the atonement, and who rejects male only church leadership. But what a dull litany that is!

    I’d prefer to be known as a person who believes that God has gifted us through his Spirit with the testimony of persons and communities of faith who have experienced him in real and special ways, who believes that God works mightily through the reliable fundamental laws of the universe he created to produce near-infinite variety, who sees the atonement as so broad and deep that it requires many metaphors just to scratch the surface, and who believes that God gifts all of his children in wonderful ways for a variety of roles in the church.

    And frankly, I’m happy with that latter identity. If you want to openly discuss those issues, welcome to fun and fellowship. But if you want to put down those who don’t believe the Bible is inerrant, or demand that all recognize just one metaphor of atonement, or make the women of the church feel as if they are not merely different than, but less than–well, go find another fellowship! I will, if I find myself in a congregation that wants to behave in that way.

    It’s not a matter of writing people out of the kingdom of heaven, or refusing to discuss with them or deal with them. It’s a matter of bringing together a congregation that can produce a coherent witness to the love of God in their lives.

    (I wrote some on a related topic on the Pacesetters Bible School news blog.)

  • Role of Women

    I thought I was just about done with this topic after commenting on <a href="textual issues, but there have been some additional comments that called attention to some additional information. Molly commented and through her comment I found her very thoughtful entry Jesus/Women: Equal Worth, Unequal Role (?), and her link to another thoughtful article, On being “Equal in Being, Unequal in Role”. The second article looks particularly at doctrinal issues related to the trinity. There seems to be at lest some case that complementarians are abandoning an orthodox view of the trinity in order to support their theology on male and female roles. That’s way out of my stomping ground, so I just suggest you read the articles if you’re interested.

    What came to my mind as I looked at this was a practical question. We have numerous posts dealing with theological and doctrinal issues and many more discussing exegetical issues in numerous passages, but what about simply observing the church and women’s ministry today? By asking this I’m not suggesting that we abandon the scriptures and all doctrinal statements and just take a practical look. Rather, I accept the particular interpretation of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral that calls for examination of doctrine in the light of scripture, tradition, experience, and reason. (There are similar views in a number of traditions.) I do this under the conviction that there is certainly an opening for women in ministry in scripture, and that the tradition of the church has often placed women in positions of authority, though less often than men.

    Let me start from a very secular point. Placing people in roles for which they are not suited, or for which they are not gifted can produce dangerous results in any organization. Managers who are not capable of delegating, disorganized administrators, teachers who know their subject but cannot communicate, and so forth. Being put in a position which one cannot properly fill results in fear, feelings of incapacity, and in responses such as over-control, or complete lack of control. Basically putting people in roles for which they are not gifted produces bad results.

    (more…)