Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Defensive Christianity

    PrayerI’ve seen a great number of words from Christians here in America recently, some of them coming from Facebook or Twitter, some in blog posts, some in words spoken directly to me, or on Television or the Radio. I’m not going to cite specific sources, because I’m not writing about what some particular person said. Rather, I’m writing about an atmosphere.

    The atmosphere is one of defensiveness, reflecting a Christianity that is on the defensive. Sometimes this refers to the church as a whole losing ground or being in danger. Sometimes it refers to one’s personal position or standing with God. Sometimes it refers to personal safety. At other times it’s about the course our nation is taking.

    Now I want to be clear that I’m talking about American Christianity here. I would hate for my brothers and sisters in places where they are truly threatened to think I’m talking about them.

    We American Christians live in a land of plenty. Yes, we’ve had some times that have been harder than usual, but we’re still doing well financially when compared to the vast majority of people on this planet. We also live in a nation where we are in the majority. Now I know many will question this by asking how many true Christians there are as opposed to just nominal Christians. My response to that is simply to point out that we tend to claim all those who identify themselves as Christians when we want to emphasize the strength of Christianity. Should we be permitted to change the definition in another context so we can call ourselves a minority?

    By defensive, I don’t mean that we actively defend our faith. I think apologetics is a good discipline. We should be able to give an answer for our faith.

    What I mean is that we live our Christian lives in a state of fear. We’re afraid that our young people will learn something in college that will make them lose their faith. We’re afraid that a book that teaches something heretical will lead us (or someone we call “weaker”) astray. We’re afraid that a Mormon president might make heretics of us all, or that a liberal Christian as president will change the face of the country. We’re afraid that the language in party platforms or the content of political speeches will make or break our lives here.

    We think that the results of this upcoming election may bring disaster and that we have to get desperate and persuade all our friends and relatives to vote the same way we do, because if the right person doesn’t win, our country is finished. We think we need to pray for God to make things go the right way, lest the wrong person get into power.

    The sum of all our fears makes us seem, and indeed be, defensive. We do not witness to the God who rules in the kingdoms of men (Daniel 4:17) because we aren’t really sure that he does. We think that the issue depends on us: our prayers, our actions, our votes, our words.

    It doesn’t depend on us.

    I’m not suggesting that we don’t pray. We need to pray, but we need to pray especially that God will work in us (more on prayer).

    I’m not suggesting that we don’t act. We need to act regularly. I’d suggest that Matthew 25:31-46 and related passages as a guide to our actions.

    I’m not suggesting that we don’t speak. Let our words be a witness to the One we belong to.

    I’m not suggesting that we don’t vote. I plan to vote. I hope you do too. In my view it’s a duty and a privilege. But God’s kingdom doesn’t depend on it.

    But what about our rights? Shouldn’t we be defending our civil rights, our freedom of religion?

    Yes, again, but remember that God’s kingdom doesn’t depend on our civil rights. In fact, some of Christianity’s greatest moments have been under persecution when church members had no rights at all.

    And if we remember that, we might also remember to defend everyone’s rights. We might add to “doing to others what we would have them to do us” something new: Defending the rights of others as we would hope they would defend ours. Whose rights might those be?

    Perhaps it would be a group of Muslims who want to build a mosque in “your” community.

    Perhaps it would be the atheist child who doesn’t want to be made a participant in your prayers in a public place.

    Perhaps it would be that person who has been singled out by security because he looks like a terrorist.

    Our willingness to see people in each of these groups given less rights than we have is a sign of defensive Christianity.

    A confident Christian would welcome Muslim neighbors and enter into dialogue with them, welcoming the opportunity to be a witness by demonstrating the love of Jesus.

    A confident Christian would be more concerned with the discomfort of the atheist child than he would be with his desire to do things his own way. After all, he can pray just about anywhere.

    A confident Christian would realize that the right thing to do is to defend the rights of the person who looks different than he is.

    I pray for the day when I will truly be a confident Christian, when I will truly desire the well-being of others more than I do my own (Philippians 2:4). I’m praying, not that God will bring about one outcome or another in the election, but that no matter what happens I will learn to live the kingdom of God more and more fully every day.

    I am praying that God will change me so my confidence is in God and not in myself. That’s the only way I can give up defensiveness and truly be defended.

  • September 9 Christian Carnival is Coming

    Christian Carnival… to one of my other blogs, The Jevlir Caravansary, where I indulge in fiction and a bit of poetry. On September 9, however, I will indulge in links to Christian content around the blogosphere from the beginning of August to September 9. If you’d like your post included, or if you would like to nominate someone else’s post, use the submission form.

    So get busy!!

  • Holding the Church Hostage

    My quote of the day is from Ministry Matters:

    Peace and progress are incompatible.

    Author Dyton L. Owen also tells us when to let a church member go. Read the article!

  • Reading the Bible Chronologically

    A number of bloggers have responded to Marcus Borg’s article at the Huffington Post on reading the New Testament chronologically. Responses include Gaudete Theology, Bill Heroman, and Philip J. Long. I’d suggest reading those responses before reading my few comments.

    Here are some points that struck me:

    1. Borg contends that there is a trajectory of conformity to the culture. The earliest materials are radical while the later items have accommodated. I’m wondering how much this would differ from simply the fact that early Christians found themselves having to continue living in the empire, and that there would be more questions to answer about culture. In other words, if Jesus or Paul were to answer enough questions from people living from day to day, they might appear less radical than the distilled essence we get from them now.
    2. The New Testament, as a “book,” is the creation and possession of the church. I happen to believe that it is God’s creation through the medium of the church, but nonetheless without the church there is no New Testament. At a minimum, we need to recognize that reading it in a way so substantially different from the way the church created it will result in seeing a different picture.
    3. The historian may want to see the individual documents and read a history. I have great sympathy with than enterprise, but as I noted in point #2 the reading becomes different.
    4. If one postulates a different chronology, the book changes again. For example, folks like William R. Farmer and David Alan Black don’t accept Markan priority. While I am not fully convinced of this position myself, I do believe they have each, in very different ways, poked some serious holes in the consensus view.
    5. Viewing the gospels as products of the church rather than formative of it seems to privilege the written word above the oral at a time when that probably was not the case. In other words, the stories of Jesus told in the gospels were likely formative, and because of that became part of the written record. The gospel writers didn’t choose which stories to record in a vacuum. They were aware of which stories were more influential.
    6. I think #5 holds whether the gospels were written by eyewitnesses or not. Eyewitnesses will have been telling the stories for decades before writing them down. What was formative for the church would be in the gospels because of that, if nothing else.

    Obviously, I’m not recording well-researched and supported theories. I’m just noting some questions and observations.

     

  • On Christian Fiction and Covenant

    In the early days of my company, Energion Publications, I tried to post some reflections immediately after each new book release. Things have gotten much busier, and I’m behind, but I still hope to publish reflections. Perhaps if I’m diligent, I can catch up! I want to make clear that this isn’t a review, nor is it an official statement of my company. I don’t have anyone review or even proofread these notes. This may not (and in this case will not) be entirely about one book. It just contains my personal reflections on helping to bring a new book to the public.

    Before I look at the specific book, I want to say a few things about Christian fiction. There has been some debate about just what constitutes Christian fiction. Is it fiction that has a Christian theme? Does it include books that have (identifiable) Christians as characters? Does it have proclamation of the gospel as its central goal?

    I’m not too concerned with settling the debate. I doubt people will all come to agree. But here’s how I see it, and how I tend to divide Christian-related fiction.

    First, there are books that involve Christians in an identifiable way. They go to church (or not). They pray. They talk about their faith and how it relates to events. If the story is not portraying an explicitly Christian theme, I simply call this fiction. I’d like to see people of other faiths and of no faith at all portrayed as who they are in any novel. Just as we expect a good novelist to understand how various characters think and feel based on other factors, such as political views, family, culture, and psychology, we should expect a character to be portrayed accurately in terms of religious views and spirituality. A novel set in modern America should almost always have someone in it who is a person of faith, and just having a Christian in the book does not make it a Christian novel, any more than having a Muslim in it would make it a Muslim novel.

    But now let’s use the last example to bring us to the next category. A novel set in a Muslim community, in which characters attend prayers on Friday, fast during Ramadan, and search for answers from the Qur’an might well be a Muslim novel. But if the theme instead is one of a Muslim character who convinces a Christian to convert to Islam, that would certainly be a Muslim novel.

    Now just reverse the names of the religions. Many Christian novels have as a plot, or at least a subplot, the conversion of one of the characters. One form of this kind of novel is a Christian romance that does not involve Christians getting romantically involved, but rather has one lead character (most frequently the female lead) fall in love with the other (generally the male lead), even though he is not of her faith. Over the course of the novel the one is converted so that they can both be saved and live happily ever after, including going to heaven when they die. (Please don’t send me one of these. There are enough of them already.)

    Then there are works of fiction that portray a particular Christian theme. Our first fiction publication, Megabelt, is such a book. It portrays life in the large Christian churches of the Bible belt (mega=megachurch, belt=Bible belt). It is Christian themed and discusses Christian life. It even tends to push readers to try to get out of their “Christian” cultural ruts. At the same time, I know there are non-Christian readers who have enjoyed it. At the other extreme of this category (in our catalog) is Prayer Trilogy. By its title you can tell it has a religious theme. But it is not a book about converting people (though it does talk redemption). Rather, it portrays Christians who pray and try to live out their faith. You could enjoy this even if you saw coincidence (and just plain good people) where the author sees providence.

    As you can tell, I think the boundaries aren’t clear. For example, how would one view the works of Andrew Greeley? I’ve said before that he preaches the gospel in writing. Many conservative protestants will miss this, because there is an overt theme of sex, but he still gets God involved and even draws out the love of God as portrayed through human passion (Song of Songs anyone?). I know many non-Christian readers enjoy Greeley’s novels. So the boundaries are not absolutely clear.

    Covenant - the NovelSo let’s get to Covenant, the recent novel released by my company. It’s author, Daniel Martin, has written a definitely Christian novel. I think wherever you stand on the various definitions, this one is going to be labeled “Christian.” Its author wouldn’t want it any other way. If there was any chance you’d miss it, you might be clued in by the large angel on the front cover.

    Covenant isn’t going to convert anyone to Christianity. I take the time to say this, because people make this mistake frequently. Our books don’t convert people. We don’t convert people. Conversion is between God and the individual. It’s an act of the Holy Spirit, not of humans. What we can do, and what Covenant does, is bear witness. It’s a testimony in fictional form of someone who has been in the trenches, who knows Jesus Christ, and who has chosen this form to tell the story. I don’t mean here that it’s autobiographical, except in the sense that it’s a biography of every Christian. “It’s by grace you’re saved, through faith. And that’s not something you did yourself. It’s God’s gift” (Eph. 2:8)!

    There are going to be challenging moments for people of various theological views. People in the mainline churches, for example, don’t like to talk about angels and demons (especially angels in this case) being quite this active. Redemption comes as God works through people and by sending angels. Spiritual warfare is very active and critical. If there weren’t challenging points, I would never have published the book. Sometimes a novel is a good way to encounter some of these things. Just what do you believe? Have you thought about it? Have you studied it?

    While I say this isn’t autobiographical, I recall remarking as I was reading the manuscript for the first time that it was clearly written by someone who had been in the trenches. The author knows how to describe the down and out, he knows how to describe trouble, and he also knows how to describe redemption. And yes, he even knows how to describe the struggles that go through redemption. Don’t look for any quick and obvious miracles to derail the plot. The angels are there, but they’re generally pushing (and helping) the people to find their way and do the things they are called to do. That is when they aren’t riding motorcycles or sliding down the noses of statuary. But you’ll have to read the book to find out about that.

    You don’t find a lot of preaching in the book. What you find is people acting and living. There is a sermon here, but it’s in the story. It merits the title Christian fiction. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s witness may even be the means by which God speaks to you.

     

  • And Now About Church Success

    It’s interesting that just after reading an article that suggests we’re misreading school success I find one that questions our measure of church success. I find all of the points in Five American Myths of Successful Churches and Ministries (CharismaNews) by Joseph Mattera.

    In my reading of the Word of God over the past 34 years I have noticed a keen difference between the biblical measure of success and the way many American churches seem to measure success.

    Many of the ways American churches measures success are in fact direct violations of the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 23. In this passage Jesus speaks against people loving titles, celebrity status, and desiring prominent places in public events. Through the centuries theology and church practice have been greatly influenced by the surrounding cultures. …

    Well, that’s both true and not terribly exceptional. Unfortunately we all say this, but we continue to do the same things.

    Mattera lists five myths, which are generally closely related. These are 1) by size, 2) budget size, 3) celebrity of leader, 4) leader’s title (bishop, apostle, whatever), 5) leader’s affluent lifestyle. Some of these relate especially to the charismatic movement, where unfortunately apostles are a dime a dozen, not to mention bishops in charge of single churches. Mattera mentions churches offering prophecies for money. I’ve seen churches where having prophets pray for people is a good way to fill the offering plate even if there’s no quid pro quo for a “word from the Lord.”

    I find the issue of titles particularly interesting. Mattera speaks of titles that aren’t backed up by training or mentoring. I’m wondering if we have need of most of these titles. In addition, I’ve noticed a tendency amongst some Christians to be very anxious to get degrees, creating an excellent market for diploma mills.

    It’s interesting that the author is then identified by his titles that include both “presiding bishop” and “supervising bishop.” I’m not entirely against any titles. Sometimes we need them just for identification. But it seems odd to use that bio after this article. I don’t mean that as particular criticism of this author. There are plenty of things in my life that do not match the ideals I see in the New Testament. We almost need to throw everything out and start over.

    Come to think of it, is the idea of a “measure of success” even appropriate to Christianity? I think it’s a good question.

     

    In my reading of the Word of God over the past 34 years I have noticed a keen difference between the biblical measure of success and the way many American churches seem to measure success.

    Many of the ways American churches measures success are in fact direct violations of the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 23. In this passage Jesus speaks against people loving titles, celebrity status, and desiring prominent places in public events. Through the centuries theology and church practice have been greatly influenced by the surrounding cultures.

  • Ken Schenck Reviews Wayne Grudem

    I’ve been following Ken Schenck’s review of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, and starting with the second post (Word of God), he is discussing material that I find fascinating. I am not trained as a theologian. Despite having an MA in Religion, I must note that my concentration was Biblical and Cognate Languages, and practically all my courses involved language study and not theology. But one can’t really discuss the Bible as a Christian and not deal with the theology involved.

    I should further note that I am obviously much more likely to agree with Ken Schenck than with Wayne Grudem. I’m somewhere around the Arminian territory in theology, not Calvinist if nothing else.

    After describing Grudem’s discussion of the Word of God as “anemic” and “implicitly circular” (and I agree), he continues to discussing the Old Testament Canon and then the New Testament. I’m skipping discussion of the nature of the Word of God, even though it is extremely interesting. Ken Schenck provides some excellent pointers to questions that need to be answered if one is to cure the anemia and escape the circularity. (I outline my views on this in my pamphlet What Is the Word of God?)

    There is a basic issue here that has troubled me for some time, and that is the starting point. I grew up with a form of evangelism that started by trying to convince people of the truth of the Bible, at least whenever we weren’t just assuming that people accepted the Bible as true already and just needed either to get busy following it, or needed to have their understanding corrected. There was a certain arrogance in the latter part of this approach; we always had to approach people as though they couldn’t really read and needed us to find the texts for them. (I refer to my early experience as a Seventh-day Adventist.)

    But my observation is that many Christians have precisely the same approach, and often have very little success. They can revive the belief of someone who grew up with it, but are very rarely successful at talking to someone who is truly not Christian in either background or belief about the authority of the Bible.

    But when the early church starts talking to people, I don’t hear anything about the authority of the Bible. Rather, I see testimony to their encounter with the risen Christ. In the modern church we try to convince people of the reliability of the Bible, and get them to believe in the resurrection based on that. The disciples testified to the resurrection and all else followed from that.

    I’m sure someone will object that we cannot possibly testify to the resurrection personally. But we can testify to our own experience of the risen Christ and to our own incorporation into the Body of Christ.

    So what does this have to do with the canon? I sponsored a panel discussion a few years back that related to the reliability of the Bible. Two members of the panel discussed the topic based on dealing with the reliability of the texts and their transmission. The third started with the church’s creeds. At first that was hard for me to follow.

    But it seems to me that it’s difficult to have a robust theology of canonization without having a robust ecclesiology, and in turn this requires a robust pneumatology. I admit to really disliking systematic theology, but it is obviously critical if you’re going to discuss the Bible as a Christian, because the Christian Bible is defined by the Christian church.

    Now I don’t mean that the church gets to choose what is in Scripture. That’s where the work of the Holy Spirit comes in. The church recognizes the things which are to be of authority in the church. Without that connection, there is no canon of Scripture, because the canon defines what has authority.

    So I would suggest the order of discussion being one’s personal experience of the risen Christ, then the way in which that personal experience brings one into the community, and from the community to the role of the Bible as the community’s authority.

    (I discuss this further in my book When People Speak for God and I recommend the discussion of the same topic in From Inspiration to Understanding, [Edward W. H. Vick] especially chapter 2.)

  • For Gospel Preachers

    Scot McKnight has some excellent advice.

  • Trouble at My Alma Mater – Walla Walla University

    Over the last few weeks I’ve been following events at my undergraduate alma mater, Walla Walla University, largely via the Spectrum Magazine blog, starting with the news that Pastor Alex Bryan of the Walla Walla University Church had been recommended as president by a search committee. Now it has been a number of years since I was a student at WWU and I don’t know the players personally. But as the story developed (you can follow it by using the search box at the link shown above and searching for either Bryan or McVay), various groups got together to campaign against Dr. Bryan, and the board, while considering him sound enough theologically to pastor the university church, decided they didn’t want him as president of the university.

    If I had been leaving the SDA church for personal reasons, this would have been one of them, “this” being the tendency of various small groups to get together to guarantee the total orthodoxy of all selections. My lifelong missionary parents even saw their membership blocked at a local SDA church.

    But wait a minute … I said “if”.

    The reason I bring this story up is as the backdrop for saying quite clearly: If you’re thinking of leaving your church for personal reasons (solely or even primarily), don’t!

    If I had left the SDA church for personal reasons, I would long since have found an equal number of reasons for leaving every church in which I have held membership since. The specific issues are different, but human nature remains the same. It is so easy to start a rumor campaign. One doesn’t even have to plan it. But when you add a little fear, such as people thinking “maybe our church won’t be the same as it always was,” and you can have a full campaign going before you know it. Fight it where you are, because it may well happen elsewhere.

    Perhaps this is why gossip is considered such a serious sin in Scripture. Paul often includes it with his “sin lists.” It’s right there in Romans 1:28-32, but for some reason I’ve never heard a sermon preached from that passage that concentrated on gossip as a sin. If we have any sin in the church that we refuse to give up and that we tolerate openly in contradiction to Scripture, I’d suggest gossip for the title. And just because gossip is spread through Facebook groups or on Twitter doesn’t make it any less gossip.

    But this is the other side of the coin. I said don’t leave your church if your reasons are personal, including this one. I’d suggest that one’s choice of a church home should be based on where you can carry out your call to ministry as a member of the body of Christ. All of us are called to ministry, and our faith community should be helping us carry out that call. You may have to leave a more gossipy church for a less gossipy one, assuming you can find one. But consider that God may be calling you to stay where you are and try to make things better.

    I have doctrinal disagreements with the SDA church that make it impossible for me to be a member. But I continue to be a member of a very imperfect church, just an imperfect church where God is working through the efforts of many imperfect people–like me.

    If we’d think more about service and less about our own comfort and safety, I think things would go much better.

  • Finding the Sound of the Bloody Cross Gospel

    Russell Moore looks at some comments by Pat Robertson. There’s everything here including a response to the prosperity gospel. Make sure to read right to the end. (HT: Unsettled Christianity.)