Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • 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.)

  • Pat Robertson and the Meaning of Prophetic

    One of the dividing lines in Christian churches today is over the gifts of the Holy Spirit. While speaking in tongues gets most of the attention, the gift of prophecy is a close second. In terms of its potential to tear a church apart, it comes out ahead of tongues, I think. Currently there seem to be two major approaches. First, there are those who refuse to allow anything like prophecy, seeing safety in simple denial, while on the other hand we have many churches in which just about anyone who claims to speak words from God is at least tolerated.

    There is also a strong tendency not to want to say anything in opposition to anyone specific who claims to be a prophet, often under the idea that one should, like David, never speak against God’s anointed. The difficulty here is that one has to question the precise type of anointing and calling of someone who peddles nonsense as the word of God.

    Let me clarify quickly what I mean here by prophetic. There is a general popular sense of “prophetic” as a message that predicts the future. On the other hand, there is a religious or spiritual sense of prophetic that deals with correction and challenge to a group of people. A “prophetic voice” might call a community to greater social action, for example. The Biblical prophetic movement combined aspects of both. I would suggest, in fact, that you will find little or no prediction in Biblical prophecy that is intended simply to satisfy curiosity or to provide information about the future as its purpose. Rather, when a prophet speaks of the future he does so to challenge the community or individual to some form of action, or to rebuke or correct.

    Both of these aspects are tied together by the affirmation of the prophet that he speaks for God, and by the acceptance of the audience that he does so. Prophets did face rejection, but only rarely was this rejection based on the assumption that the prophet was false. The sense in which I’m using the word “prophetic” prophetic here includes those three elements: challenge or rebuke, prediction or promise, and an affirmation of divine guidance or content.

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  • Swearing In on Relevant Books

    Speaking of swearing in on relevant books, the new Governor of Massacheusetts chose to take his oath on a Bible that was a gift of freed slaves to John Quincy Adams who had fought for their release, according to the Boston Globe (Hat tip: Breaking Christian News (e-mail).

    I like the symbolism involved in that.

  • What Should he Swear On?

    It appears that Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to congress, is also quite an effective politician. He wants to be sworn into congress holding a copy of the Qur’an, to which a number of “traditional” Christians have objected (on which more in a moment), and has chosen to do so on a copy previously owned by Thomas Jefferson. (Hat tip: Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

    I was commenting on this story to my wife and she said her first impression was that she would rather have the newly elected congressman swear his oath on a book he considers sacred thus giving it more weight. Her second thought was yet more interesting. “Didn’t Jesus say something about not swearing oaths?” So perhaps the most traditional Christians should go with “swear not at all.”

    Again you have heard that it has been said by the ancients, “You shall not swear falsely, but you shall fulfill your oaths to the Lord.” But I say to you, “Don’t swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king, neither shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your word be clearly yes or no. Everything more than that is from the evil one.” — Matthew 5:33-37

    So maybe the answer is: Nothing!

  • Heat, Light, and Comments

    This morning I awoke to start my early morning blog and e-mail work only to find that co.mments.com had supplied me (at my request) with seven messages alerting me to comments on Ed Brayton’s most recent blog entry on the Richard Dawkins petition debate, representing 27 comments. I only worked my way through a few of the comments which seem quite repetitive.

    What struck me initially was simply that it seems like the least central of issues easily get the largest number of comments. My largest blocks of comments generally don’t come on the posts in which I feel that I’ve made a thoughtful contribution, but on those posts in which I got emotional on reading a news story or someone else’s blog entry and batted out a few paragraphs worth of annoyance.

    It’s worth considering why that is. I think my own commenting often reflects a similar trend. When I read a good, thoughtful post, I go think about it and often by the time I have anything to say, I’ve even forgotten where I read it. That’s one of the reasons I signed up for co.mments.com in the first place.

    Now I’ve already commented on this issue as such. I wrote about how I think that indoctrination, as I understand the term, is not a good thing. As a Christian, I don’t want people indoctrinated into my faith. I want them to learn about and choose it. That choice is up to them, not to me. I think the petition Richard Dawkins signed was not a good idea, and I’m glad he’s repudiated that signature. In fact, he has risen in my estimation by his response. I have realized from my first exposure to his work (reading The Blind Watchmaker [link is to my review]) that he and I are not going to see eye to eye on many things, and that he has some contempt for my liberal Christian perspective (or moderate perhaps). At the same time his writing on science is truly exceptional and challenging, and I must continue to recommend reading it. Further, I think my fellow Christians should climb down off the ceiling, especially hear in the United States. I’d be much more concerned about the religious right getting power than the “atheist left.” There is, in fact, so little “atheist left” out there, that your expectation should not be that atheism is going to take over. Probably you should be more worried about me. 🙂 The woods are full of us moderate and liberal Christians, and we’re beginning to get really annoyed at what the hard right is doing to our faith. (Note that I use “moderate” as a very broad term that actually includes most evangelicals.)

    As I was thinking up all these exciting things to say, I saw in my feeds Nick Matzke’s post Divided by a common language: Richard Dawkins clarifies his position. It doesn’t make me want to go beat up on Ed for his reaction. Many Christians will react even more forcefully and will not be satisfied with the explanations. After reading the petition, and based on my own experience living overseas, I still think that petition reads very badly and implies some inappropriate things. But what Richard Dawkins is saying in the quoted e-mail is very rational and forms a good basis for discussion.

    I think Christian education, specifically what goes on in churches in Sunday School classes, Wednesday night classes, and even many weekend retreats fails because it is shallow, repetitive, and intended for indoctrination. We want our children to be like us, and the programs are designed to make them like us. What we need is a next generation that knows how to consider, think critically, and decide. Now there will be some both non-Christians and Christians who will think I’m being foolish here, in both cases because they think children educated in that way won’t grow up as people of faith. I understand the possibilities, and I’m willing to risk it. In fact, risk is not the best word. An unthinking, knee-jerk Christian is just as much a loss to the faith and possibly more so than the person who leaves because of their best judgment.

    I believe that the reason Christianity has failed so many times in accomplishing its purpose is that the principle of self-sacrificing love is not something that can be produced by indoctrination, it can only be chosen. What indoctrination produces is a simulation of self-sacrificing love, thus hypocrisy, and soon after that judgmentalism. The fruit of unrestrained judgmentalism is persecution.

    Hopefully with Nick Matzke’s nifty contribution, and Richard Dawkins well-considered words (unlike the initial petition signing), we can work toward some light here coming out of a great deal of heat.

    Update: I don’t want to write another post on this subject, but I want to add a link to Ed Brayton’s excellent letter to Richard Dawkins that was posted after I wrote this.

  • Thinking About Hell

    Via the Christian Blog Carnival I found this article on hell with some discussion of various views held by Christians.

  • Christian Carnival CLIV Posted

    The Christian Carnival CLIV has been posted at From the Anchor Hold. It’s another nice selection and a good job by the host. I didn’t get a submission in because I was out of town and away from a good internet connection, but I hope to have time to call attention to some particular posts.

    Happy New Year to All!

  • Can one Like both George Bailey and Howard Roark?

    Joe Carter has a wonderful post today, The Fountainhead of Bedford Falls: Comparing George Bailey and Howard Roark, discussing elements of the style and meaning of It’s a Wonderful Life and The Fountainhead. While I might quibble about some points in the evaluation, it’s a well written and thoughtful piece, and you should take a look at it. In fact, what I say here will not make much sense unless you read his piece first. Just be aware that I’m taking off at about a 90 degree angle rather than building directly on Carter’s comments.

    But having said that, I want to ask you to think about some things that aren’t in either of these works of literature. You see, I have enjoyed both, while being fully aware of the contrasting views involved. Carter notes:

    The fans of The Fountainhead are therefore not likely to appreciate Wonderful Life. Indeed, the messages are so antithetical that only a schizophrenic personality could truly appreciate both George Bailey and Howard Roark. For even though they are surprisingly similar characters, when the spell of sentimentalism has faded the contrasts become clear.

    Perhaps I’m just such a schizophrenic. But I think not. Rather, I think that both these pictures give us stark contrasts that are not the day to day personalities we have to deal with. That’s not a bad thing. One of the enduring qualities of the book of Revelation (shameless plug for my study guide), beyond and timelines and specific future predictions one extracts from it, is that it clears up the good guys and the bad guys. We know which is which, we know who to hate and who to love, and we can cheer as the deserving ones get thrown into the lake. A similar fascination comes from watching Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings. We know when to cheer and when not to. Evil comes along so dark and obvious that we can be certain all its allies are culpable and certainly not completely deceived.

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  • New Life Church Behaving Responsibly

    I’m not one to spend a great deal of time criticizing the media for their treatment of Christianity, but I do think that in general journalists in this country have a really good idea for what’s not the most important story, and as soon as they detect such a thing, they print it immediately. That’s why I like to look at stories from multiple sources because then I can gather together the few facts, and the scattered actually interesting things that they all print.

    A case in point is the MSNBC story 2nd Colo. pastor quits over ‘sexual misconduct’ which informs us that another minister at New Life Church has resigned over sexual misconduct. It turns out that the sexual misconduct was by an adult with another adult, both unmarried, several years ago. I’m not trying to make light of the sin here, but considering that New Life Church has around 200 staff members, the possibility that someone had committed a sexual indiscretion within the past six or seven years was pretty good. It is something that should be dealt with, with a key factor being that it is thoroughly contrary to the expressed standards of that church, but is just isn’t news.

    But there was some real news in the story; it was just not deemed worthy of the headline. The report says:

    The church’s outside Board of Overseers was asked to examine the “spiritual character”? of its 200 staff members after Haggard resigned last month from the church and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

    “We recognize there will be increased scrutiny of our church in the wake of the scandal,”? Brendle said.

    Now that’s responsible behavior, and it’s good news here. We’re not going to have perfect churches, and we will have scandals involving church leaders as long as human beings are leading churches. That’s not an excuse; it’s just a fact. We need to deal with problems as they occur. Hypocrisy is serious sin, and we need to be especially careful about living up to our expressed standards. But in the case of Ted Haggard and New Life Church, the church structure responded promptly and efficiently and dealt quickly with the problem. Then they went the extra mile and brought extra scrutiny on themselves.

    I think that responsible handling of a situation is more newsworthy than one young adult leader who was guilty of a sexual indiscretion.

  • The Wayne Grudem Interview – Reflections

    I’ve been responding at some length to Adrian Warnock’s interview with Dr. Wayne Grudem. He has now posted his Highlights and Reflections and I’m not going to respond point by point to that as it simply deals with issues I’ve responded to earlier.

    I think probably the best question to ask at this point is why on earth I took the time to respond to this entire interview. While Dr. Wayne Grudem is not completely at the opposite end of the spectrum from where I am, he’s far enough from me that it is often hard to engage. I disagree with him on Biblical inerrancy, on women in church leadership, and on the atonement. Just what do we have to talk about?

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