Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Of United Methodists and Beth Moore

    From time to time various Methodists get very worked up about the idea that members of United Methodist congregations are using Beth Moore studies in their study groups and Sunday School classes. Via Facebook I encountered an older post regarding Methodists and Beth Moore. That article is actually quite restrained and gentle by comparison to some of the discussion I’ve heard. The author makes some good points, but I think, perhaps, not enough good points.

    My first thought is that if you are a United Methodist pastor or church leader and your worst problem is that your members are spending too much time listening to Beth Moore, you should spend some serious time thanking the Lord for your blessings.

    It’s not that I agree with everything Beth Moore says. In fact, I likely disagree with a good percentage. I really haven’t bothered to make a list. She’s probably more literal than I am, and we doubtless disagree on matters of biblical criticism. Besides, I don’t particularly like watching videos in a study group or class. I’d rather get together to actually study or listen to someone who is present. So my point is not to be an apologist or a critic — of Beth Moore, that is.

    What I’m wondering is why so many people in the church, and particularly the United Methodist Church (since I’m a member), think they can or should control what people hear.

    Oh, I know the arguments. We have a responsibility to teach good theology. We have a duty to teach sound biblical knowledge. We are Methodists (or whatever), after all, and that should mean something!

    Should it really? I find denominations useful, sort of. They could be a great means of getting us to work together for missions that are bigger than local church congregations. Ideally, they can provide some sort of accountability. I happen to like the United Methodist doctrinal distinctives, which is why I joined a Methodist congregation.

    Trouble is, I found out rather quickly that very few Methodists were aware of their doctrinal positions, if it’s proper to call these positions “theirs” if they don’t know what they are. Before I joined my first United Methodist congregation I asked for something that would tell me what Methodists believed, officially and clearly. The pastor gave me a copy of the United Methodist Discipline, clearly with serious misgivings. I loved it. Well, the first 100 pages or so. The rest is well nigh useless, and I’m convinced that most gospel work done by Methodists results from someone ignoring the rules.

    After reading that first part of the Discipline, I decided I could get on board with this new church, and so I joined. Then I discovered that Methodists weren’t really acquainted with their own history. The orientation to the church, in which one speaker explained that John Wesley had been influenced by Karl Marx (perhaps with the intervention of Dr. Who, though he made no mention of it), was biblically, doctrinally, and historically ignorant.

    The pastor invited me to teach a series on Sunday nights about the doctrine of Christian Perfection. I was interested to note that there are two full statements of this doctrine in the Discipline, and chose to start from that point. As I flashed up my overhead transparencies, I was disappointed to discover that nobody was interested in the fact that there were two statements (really a bit more complicated than that), because they hadn’t been aware that there was even one. I found that growing up Seventh-day Adventist, I had learned more about John Wesley and Wesleyan theology than I would find around the Methodist church.

    This was not a matter of personal pride. I had these things drilled into me as a child. I really couldn’t have avoided knowing them if I wanted to. Further, I’d be unlikely to complain about the problem, except for a related tendency I found as time went on.

    That related tendency was the idea that we needed to make sure to teach Methodists only Methodist doctrine, thus protecting them from all that other stuff that was flooding the world. If we could just keep them listening to only Methodist teachers, everything would be OK. Unfortunately, I suspect that most crazy ideas have a Methodist champion somewhere.

    Now there are a number of non-Methodist doctrines I would love to protect Methodists from. I wouldn’t mind protecting everyone else as well. The whole Left Behind series and related “prophecy” material would be a start. I don’t like it and I don’t even like to have to take the time to respond to it. It’s that bad. In my opinion, of course.

    But people are going to hear that point of view of the book of Revelation and other apocalyptic literature, and I’m going to have to respond. And despite any tendency to wish it would go away, I know I’m wrong to do so. The right response is to do better teaching on other views. If we get people studying for themselves and help them to learn to study well, they will find the flaws in these various trends on their own.

    Or they might come up with the arguments that would make me realize I’ve been wrong. Regarding the whole futurist/dispensational view of prophecy, I doubt they will, but they could. The point is that they should have the opportunity to do so.

    What’s more, with modern media and the internet, it’s ridiculous to think that you will protect your congregation from hearing things you’d rather they not hear. Telling people they can’t study certain things or hear certain speakers is likely to have the opposite effect.

    And then there’s the question of whether you really have anything better to teach at all. I’ve heard this type of complaint from people who couldn’t construct a sound biblical argument in a room full of commentaries (even if they ignored the commentaries!). They simply wouldn’t know. But they can tell whether a teacher’s denominational credentials are in order.

    I recall one church that had a young adult class that was growing and getting popular. There were young adults who didn’t even attend church who were coming to the class and enjoying the discussions. The church leadership, clearly dismayed at the success of this class, decided they needed to bring it under control. They were reading and discussing unapproved books. So they found a teacher who would follow the party line, and thus managed to reduce the membership of the class to zero in a mere four weeks.

    Another Methodist church wanted Methodist materials, but in their absence was prepared to gut some Southern Baptist materials, removing reference to such dangerous doctrines as salvation, so people would, at least, not hear the gospel message from a Baptist perspective, even if no Methodist perspective was to be offered instead.

    I’ve mentioned growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In the church I encountered censorship rather regularly. In order to keep apart from the world it was important to read SDA materials and to stick with the SDA agenda. I was watched when teaching to make sure I wasn’t leading people astray. I kind of expected that kind of censorship due to the nature of the denomination. Since other churches were leading people straight to the Mark of the Beast, we obviously shouldn’t be listening to anything they said, lest we too go whoring after the beast and his image.

    I’ve heard both liberals and conservatives claim that all censorship is done by the other camp, but my observation is that both have a tendency to decide that they’re correct. That’s actually not a bad thing. Surely if one thinks one is wrong one will change one’s view. The problem is that certain people decide that they have to impose their rightness on others. Not persuade, impose. And that’s going to fail.

    So my suggestion to a pastor who hears that a group in his church is using Beth Moore studies is to first rejoice that they care enough to study. Then if you object to some of the content you should first make sure you know what it is and what is being taught, and then teach what you believe is right. Do it vigorously, make it relevant, and show your love of scripture as you do so. One thing that came out clearly in the post I linked and in the comments is that people appreciate Beth Moore’s love of scripture. I know from experience that if you are teaching from your heart and you have paid the price in study and prayer time, people are going to listen when you teach.

    Do you, as a pastor, exhibit that same love? Can your congregation tell that you’re seriously studying, doing your best to understand, and sharing what you have learned? Do they detect that you have spent time on your knees when your preach or teach? Or is your only real response to point them to a list of Methodist (or other denominational) doctrines?

    There is a group in the Methodist church, as there was in the Adventist church in my youth (and friends tell me still is), and I suspect in every church, who consider “but it’s not Methodist!” a good argument. But there are less and less of these people. You need a better argument.

    I believe that there are plenty of people in the United Methodist Church (I wonder why I keep typing “untied” for “united” and having to correct myself) who love scripture and love to learn more. There are plenty more who are hungry to hear and want to learn how to study. You’re not going to draw them away from one source without providing another.

    But even more importantly, if they hear the scriptures taught in different ways, from different perspectives, by people who truly love to study God’s word, they’re going to be enriched by it. Even if they come to the conclusion that some of it is wrong.

    Especially if they come to the conclusion that some of it is wrong.

  • Speaking of Dying Churches

    Speaking of Dying Churches

    9781893729568sWhat should a church that grows out of the New Testament witness look like? Dave Black posted a list of items on his blog today, and I, with his blanket permission, extracted the list to the Jesus Paradigm web site. (The site supports Dave’s book The Jesus Paradigm, which I publish.)

    I hope you will go read, think about, and then discuss the ideas Dave presents. They’re similar to the ones he presented in his book. I’d love for you to read the book as well. It’s available in print as well as for Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and Adobe Digital Editions. My greatest disappointment as a publisher is not when a book doesn’t sell or sells poorly, though I want books to sell well, but when a good, challenging book doesn’t reach as many people as I think it should. The Jesus Paradigm is a book that I think has reached far fewer people than it should.

    Now when I say reached, I don’t just mean that people have bought the book, or have read it, or even have agreed with it. What I mean is that people have thought about it. Do you disagree with some of Dave’s points? Fine. Discuss! Much more importantly, do! If a few of us in the church would do more and talk less, it would be great. Talking and listening, writing and reading are great and essential. But action based on good listening, reading, and thinking is better.

    My fundamental idea in choosing what I publish for Energion Publications is to ask whether it will drive people to think and study, and then hopefully to put something into action. I think the most important element of learning to study the Bible is actually doing it. I think the most important aspect of mission and ministry is doing it. That’s why I’m delighted that so many of the Energion authors are active in ministry. One of my authors (my mother) is 94 years old and is still active in the mission of her local church. She gives the children’s stories and she’s involved in sewing, knitting and quilt making in service for the poor. Incidentally, she’d agree with the point Dave makes about having all ages together in the church. What about you?

    9781938434648sIn addition, this is why I have a diversity of authors. Contrast Dave Black with Bruce Epperly. I publish books by both. They both are or have been seminary professors. One is a Southern Baptist, the other United Church of Christ. But Dave wrote The Jesus Paradigm and Bruce wrote a study guide to Philippians that actually has the audacity to suggest we should be applying a bunch of what Paul says to what we do in our local congregations. With that start, I’m hooked on both. Now I’m editing Bruce’s forthcoming book Transforming Acts, in which he again has the audacity to suggest looking back at the early church to see how we can transform the church now.

    Do these books or these authors agree on everything? No. But they’re both taking the step I would like to see readers of this blog or of their books take: They’re looking to the source and listening to the Spirit and asking what this means for the church today.

    This post has a somewhat commercial sound to it, and I don’t deny I hope to sell books. But these aren’t the only people thinking about this and taking action. Our pastoral staff at First United Methodist Church in Pensacola have decided to focus on preaching from acts for the seven weeks leading up to Pentecost. What a wonderful way to spend the season of Easter and prepare for Pentecost! Dr. Wesley Wachob is teaching Wednesday evening classes from Acts. He’s preparing a study guide to the book for me to publish. I’m excited about that opening as well.

    And I suspect each of you have Bibles as well. Turn to the book of Acts as a starting point, read it, and ask yourself how you can build God’s kingdom. Let me suggest that it wouldn’t be a program, a system, or a denomination. Perhaps it will be people on fire, speaking in many languages, in many ways, in many places.

  • Is the UMC Dying?

    I tried not to steal the headline from the article by Rev. Robert Rynders in UM-Insight, The Church Isn’t Dying, It’s Already Dead, but this post is largely to tell you to go read that post.

    After reading his article and thinking about the good things I’ve seen happening in some United Methodist churches — and I see quite a few good things happening — is that most of the good things result from people deciding to just do something good in their own congregation or community rather than spending their time on denominational politics.

    I will confess to being strongly attracted to this idea simply because I simply can’t stand church politics. It’s not that I’m better than all the other people. It’s just that when we get into committees we all seem to turn into some form of alien monsters. So I’m naturally inclined to accept Rev. Rynders’ thesis. It lets me feel better when I ignore the politics.

    What about you? What do you think?

  • Dave Black: 13 Things Greek Teachers Won’t Tell You

    Dave lists 13 things Greek teachers won’t tell you, but I must say that most of mine did. And Dave does admit that many Greek teachers do say these things.

    But do students listen? Do people in the pews and those who read books get the message?

    My experience is that many do not. Not infrequently someone will tell me that they trust my interpretation of a particular Scripture because I read Greek, or because I was reading it from the Greek New Testament. The same applies to Hebrew. There is a great deal of respect that is given to someone who knows their biblical languages. But as Dave points out in both items #1 and #2, Greek is one tool. It doesn’t mean you’re right.

    This reminds me of a conversation I had with a member of a Bible study group. He informed me that understanding the book of Revelation was really quite simple, because the author of the book he was reading on Revelation said it was quite simple. Not only that, but the author promised to present it simply so that anyone could understand. I told him that the problem was that I had a whole shelf of books on Revelation that claimed that they had the key and that it was really quite straightforward. No two of those books agree. In general, they don’t even agree broadly. Then there are the other books written by people who are more honest and admit Revelation is not that easy. And they disagree some more.

    Which leads me to point out that whatever interpretation you hear argued by someone who reads Greek or Hebrew, there are many other people who also read Greek or Hebrew who disagree. Skill in biblical languages relates to knowledge of the Bible as possession of a toolkit relates to repair of a car. Just because you have a good toolkit doesn’t mean the car is fixed. On the other hand, without the toolkit, things may be difficult!

    I’d also like to underline point #5. Greek words (and words in general) don’t have just one meaning. So when someone says, “What the Greek really means …” you’re probably about to get misinformed. Even those who might follow that intro with a carefully nuanced expression of the meaning of the word in that particular context ought to restrain themselves and choose a different way of getting the idea across.

    And then there are the people who use Greek or Hebrew to back up mundane points equally well expressed in English. I’m referring to things like, “Jesus said to build your house on a rock. Now the Greek word here means ‘house’ or ‘a place to live.’” Um, yes. That’s why the translators translated it “house.” But the speaker now sounds so much more educated or sometimes more spiritual.

    Then there are those preachers who have clearly been using their Strong’s concordance, but for the benefit of my blood pressure, I won’t go there.

    To #10, Greek is good for more than word studies, I can but say “Amen!”

    To #11, Greek can make you lose your faith, I’d add, “So can theology.” As someone who left the church approximately at the same time I left the seminary, only to return, though in a different denomination, about 12 years later, I can testify to this.

    There are folks who think this is all the fault of liberal seminaries presenting pure and innocent young students with dangerous critical theories. But for me it was more a matter of losing my experience of faith while becoming deeply involved with the minutiae of doctrine.

    In seminary I was studying the Bible many hours every day. With my concentration in biblical languages, my Bible study became almost constant. My attendance at church dropped off. In fact, I became so critical of sermons that I really couldn’t comfortably attend church. None of the stupid people who were preaching  could do a good enough job to suit me. So I just neglected the gatherings of the saints. At the same time my witness died out. I was no longer sharing. If I discussed with anyone, it was about the latest esoteric thing I had read. Christ and him crucified was forgotten.

    If you behave as I did, you can lose your faith whether you are in a liberal, moderate, or conservative seminary, or even in school studying another subject.

     

  • Hebrews 2:6 and Inspiration

    James McGrath brings up Hebrews 2:6, where the author introduces a quote by saying “somebody somewhere says.” Dr. McGrath uses this sort of as an argument against inerrancy, though primarily as an argument for human authorship.

    I have used the text in a similar way. It is not, in fact, a good argument against inerrancy, at least as generally defined by scholars who affirm it. It is not an error but rather a failure to state a fact. Is this rhetorical? One of the commenters on Dr. McGrath’s post seems to think so. I would suggest rather that the author either did not remember precisely or simply didn’t come up with a good way to introduce the passage.

    But the important thing about this, in my view, is that the verse sounds distinctly human. The problem with “distinctly human” is that we don’t really have a way of knowing how God might talk about such a thing should he choose to. But arguing about this particular issue and finding a way to make it more “god-like” in tone is not the issue.

    One key point I try to make in my book When People Speak for God is that we need to look at how Scripture actually was produced and how it functions in order to understand how it was produced and how it functions. Circular? Well, in a way. There’s nothing like looking at the actual object or mechanism to discover what it is and what it does.

    But the tendency in creating or producing a doctrine about Scripture is often to read texts in Scripture that say what the “Word of God” is, or texts that speak of what Scripture is (circular again, anyone?), then to imagine what this would mean in practice, and finally to force the texts to fit the definition.

    What does it mean for Scripture to be “god-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16)? The only way we have to really know that is to look at other things that are god-breathed, if we can find them. The difference between “All god-breathed Scripture” and “All Scripture is god-breathed” may be somewhat less substantial than people think. What we need to do is to fill in the definition of “god-breathed” by looking at Scripture, rather than concocting a definition and then imposing it on Scripture.

    Besides looking at how Scripture itself came to us, we have some interesting claims regarding what God’s breath might do, such as Genesis 2:7, when God breathes into the first human being. Interestingly enough, that first human became alive. He did not, perhaps unfortunately, become inerrant.

  • Poetry and Trinity

    … from Bob MacDonald at Dust. I like his way of talking about it!

  • Reaching Those in a Cult Situation

    The best advice I’ve heard on this topic is provided in a short post by Elizabeth Esther.

    Takeway? Be a listening ear.

  • Theologian Pastors

    Mostly, this is a link to Allan Bevere’s post, which builds on Michael Bird’s post.

    I’m one of those parishioners who would like to hear more sermons from well-educated theologians. Even if the circumstances are different (see comments to Allan’s post), I, like John Wesley, have but a lowly MA.

    But there are several things that will need to happen for this to work.

    First, we will need to redefine the role of a pastor in the minds of the people in the pews. For them, preaching is less than an hour of their pastor’s work during the week. Sure, if you pin them down on the subject, they’ll admit there must be preparation time, but it’s still only a minor thing. They want to see the pastor visiting, administering the church, attending all the committees, being around for social occasions, and in some churches doing part of the maintenance work. Face it, to most of the people in the pews, theology just isn’t work.

    Second, we need to learn to have the whole church do pastoral work. A nation of priests sounds alright until we need to put it into action. There are people in every church who are called to do pastoral work, such as visiting the sick and shut-ins, helping with various ministries to those in need, and so forth. There are others gifted for administration. If the work was divided between the gifted, perhaps there would be more time. Then we could have a pastor who was primarily teacher or “resident theologian.”

    Third, if we get the daily non-theological work (or the theology in practice, perhaps) taken care of, we need to convince the people of the church that a theologian is a worthwhile investment. I think it would be. In fact, it is one of the few staff positions I see as necessary. In many cases, a group of churches should band together and hire a resident theologian. Then the leadership of those churches could go study with that individual, and in turn teach their congregations. The theologian, of course, should also spend time with everyone.

    Fourth, if we are to reduce the separation of the academy from the church, perhaps the academy itself needs to be distributed more. Modern technology might be able to help with this, and I don’t mean largely by distance learning in this case. I mean by theologians, resident or not, giving classes in various areas that would be tracked for credit. In other words, one’s academic degree would not be accomplished entirely in the academy, and one’s academic career could not be spent entirely in the ivory tower.

    I’m probably leaving dozens of problems out of this discussion, but since I don’t see us getting past my points 1 & 2, I guess that’s enough!

     

  • Thumbs Down to ChristianMingle.com

    Jonathan Merritt has some interesting words about ChristianMingle.com. You should read all, but this struck me, about the result of his search:

    The search function of the site is user-friendly. I’m given a list of women in my area. Their profile pictures are surprisingly provocative—low cut shirts, exposed shoulders, skin-tight pants, pouty lips. The selection proves again that while the Lord may “looketh at the heart,” His people are still very much interested in outward appearances.

    Yeah, methinks he’s got that right. And the rest of it too. It’s not that one cannot meet one’s future spouse online, though I’m old fashioned enough that it seems odd. It’s just that the theology is so hopelessly wrong. No, make that shallow—and disgusting.

    (HT: Jesus Creed)

  • Dividing the Essentials

    C. Michael Patton has a seven level division that has “essential for salvation” at the core, and “pure speculation” as the outer layer. Now what I’m wondering is whether getting the division of your essentials right is an essential or not. It makes one wonder!