Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Religion

All posts relating to religion, including those on the relationship of religion to other fields, such as science and politics

  • The Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount

    Scot McKnight asks the question: Is the Sermon on the Mount the Gospel? I think it’s an excellent question, and my answer would be yes. But I see this as similar to the question of whether the gospel can be found in the Old Testament, or in the law generally, to which I again answer yes. If we get law out of its place, and make it the means of salvation, it becomes bad news. Law in its place, following grace, is definitely good news.

    I wrote about this some time back in an essay titled A Fruitful Faith, which I originally published in my preblogging days (July 29, 2003), but have just moved to the Energion.com site.

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  • Loving C. S. Lewis and Hating Rob Bell?

    Michael Patton, who often steps into controversial issues (which I do not mean as a criticism), asks why people love C. S. Lewis, but hate Rob Bell. His conclusion is that this is because Bell’s ideas that push the boundaries characterize his ministry, unlike those of C. S. Lewis.

    I must admit that I’ve read only a few lines of Rob Bell, while I’ve read just about everything related to Christianity that C. S. Lewis ever wrote. In addition, I’m not a universalist, though I don’t automatically call universalists heretics.

    But I ‘m going to suggest a different reason why people perceive these two men so differently. Rob Bell is contemporary. He may say many things other than what he said in his most recent book, but he has managed to become the poster boy for certain controversies. I’m not sure that his ministry is characterized by this one topic; it’s the publicity about him that bears that character.

    C. S. Lewis got started defending Christianity, and that certainly did make it easier for him to get accepted regarding other ideas. But he gets a pass on many doctrines that in others are regarded as heretical. In my view, other thinkers should get similarly gracious treatment.

    (Note: I ignore here issues of writing quality. In the little bit I’ve read, I’ve come to doubt I could tolerate reading an entire book by Rob Bell, whereas I really enjoy Lewis’s prose. But I haven’t read enough of Bell to make that a firm opinion of his writing.)

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  • Brannon Howse and Justin Peters Dissing Visions

    The following video comes from Worldview Weekend, and is a conversation between Brannon Howse and Justin Peters. What’s interesting about this post is that pretty much every accusation they make against modern people who claim visions of or visits to heaven could be made against various Bible writers.

    In fact, they run into this difficulty in the middle of the video, just after 8:00, when they are criticizing Jess Duplantis for referring to God as having fingers. Suddenly they remember that the Bible also refers to God as having body parts, so they bring out the metaphor defense. Of course, that is a very good defense — it is metaphorical language. But why can’t Jesse Duplantis use metaphorical language?

    They refer to Paul’s statement that he heard things he couldn’t speak of when he was taken up into the third heaven, and thus suggest no modern person should do so. Can anyone say, “Revelation?” Yes, they notice Revelation as well, but apparently don’t notice the problem.

    The fact is that if you want to find weird things, you can find plenty of them in the Bible itself. My intent isn’t to defend everyone who claims a vision of heaven. I just don’t see any reason to exclude such modern visions if one accepts, as these men do, that such visions were ever possible.

    I’m putting the video below the fold to keep it from autostarting on views of the home page.

    (more…)

  • Connectionalism and Dysfunctional Churches

    I have made a few negative comments about conference dashboards keeping statistics on membership, apportionments, and other activities available to anyone who wants to read. I continue to question whether these numbers really tell the story of the health of the churches. There are, I believe, some very large and growing churches that have little or nothing to do with the kingdom of God.

    Nonetheless, I think we have a problem with accountability in the United Methodist Church. When I took my new member class in my first United Methodist congregation, I recall the teacher, who made a number of historical errors, emphasized connectionalism. But if I were to go by his discussion of it, connectionalism means simply that we all go help one another as needed; nothing was said about accountability.

    Those who are pushing the statistical approach are, I believe, responding to a very real problem. Pastors and church congregations in the United Methodist Church can go on indefinitely violating the discipline of the church or refusing to take necessary actions to make their church successful, while expecting that others will take up the slack.

    That is what happens when a church continually fails to pay its apportionments. Now I’m not 100% a fan of apportionments as they are currently implemented, but they do represent a critical element of connectionalism. We put our money together to accomplish things we can’t do separately. Whatever reforms the system might need, the basic concept is sound, and more importantly if you have such a system, and some churches don’t do their share, all suffer.

    This means that we need accountability as part of our connectional system. Churches need to be accountable to those who support them. In a more congregational system, an older church barely hanging on while slowly dying would have a hard time getting people to send money to help. A United Methodist congregation that refuses to take necessary actions, and continues to fail to support the team will nonetheless benefit from the resources of the denomination.

    We should be willing to give money to support the mission of the church. But supporting a church that is willfully imitating a sinking ship sliding under the waves is not mission—it’s bad stewardship.

    In addition, dysfunctional congregations continue to be part of the witness our denomination gives regarding Christ. Our “brand” can be tarnished by the actions of any of our churches. In the case of a denomination, tarnishing the brand also provides a negative witness—tarnishes the brand, so to speak—of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    My problem is that statistics can and generally do fail to get the entire picture. You can have good statistics and still not be building the kingdom of God. I welcome moves to make pastors more accountable. I think more could be done to make churches accountable as well.

    But accountability is going to take more than reading the numbers. It will require people with good discernment who can see the context, make the necessary decisions, and take responsibility for those decisions. It may be difficult. We may prefer to find some objective measure, but it is still necessary. An objective measure of a subjective set of values will, by nature, be deceptive.

    In critical ways, the church is not a business. Thus my call is for accountability carried out by human beings who exercise all their discernment and wisdom and seek to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

     

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  • This Headline Says It All

    Tithing Hits Record Low; Churches Spend More to Make Congregants Happy.

    While I don’t believe tithing is a command binding on Christians, my problem is not that it would demand too much, but rather that it demands too little, does so in the wrong way, and for the wrong reasons. But that’s another topic.

    And I can’t resist noting that the word “tithing” used to refer to giving 10%, not 2.38%, though I know the word has changed meaning. Still, if you’re going to call it a biblical command, it might be better to stick with the biblical meaning, or a close approximation.

     

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  • To the IRD: Democracy is Biblical?

    Mark Tooley of the Institute for Religion and Democracy thinks that religious leaders should not be supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement:

    “Religious activists who have aligned with the Wall Street Occupation should model mature Christian discernment, not echo angry resentments that dream of a secular utopia.”

    That quote is highlighted at the top of the IRD statement titled IRD Challenges Religious Left over Support for Wall Street Occupation (HT: Christian Post).

    Now I have reservations about religious leaders becoming tightly connected to a particular political movement. I think it is way too easy to let our commitment to the kingdom of God be hijacked by various political agendas.

    But that’s not IRD’s point. They believe that the agenda of these leaders in the religious left is, in itself, not biblical. Their own statement says, “The Institute on Religion & Democracy works to reaffirm the church’s biblical and historical teachings, strengthen and reform its role in public life, protect religious freedom, and renew democracy at home and abroad.” In fact, if you look over your web site, it becomes apparent they have their own political agenda, for example on the death penalty, in which Mark Tooley again suggests that only those supporting the death penalty are presenting “careful reasoning rooted in Christian tradition . . . ”

    If one believes Mark Tooley, those who show “mature Christian discernment” apparently must support democracy, but oppose big government, and particularly redistribution of income. Now while I am leary myself of schemes to redistribute income, I do not make the assumption that my own political position is the only Christian one. I believe that God calls us to care for the poor and unfortunate; he has not told us in scripture the precise method to use.

    And please tell me just where it is that the Bible supports democracy. I have heard this over and over, yet I don’t see any case where democracy in any form recognizably similar to modern democracy, was practiced or advocated. Might it be the best way to run a country in which one may live as a Christian? I would imagine so. I like it myself. But the Bible doesn’t make that the one and only Christian option.

     

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  • O’Reilly vs Dawkins and Mocking God

    The video below is a short exchange between Richard Dawkins and Bill O’Reilly. I’ve come to expect nonsense from O’Reilly, and I have a fairly low opinion of what Dawkins writes regarding theology, while considering his science writing second to none.

    Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

    What caught my attention here was the accusation that Dawkins is mocking God. More and more, I see this accusation used against anyone who doesn’t accept someone’s religious beliefs and has the audacity to challenge them. I’ve expressed a certain disdain for what Dawkins writes about theology, but I believe he has the right to say that.

    Is what he says “mocking God”? Well, he’s an atheist. He doesn’t believe in God. What exactly do you expect him to say?

    Thus I can be regarded as blaspheming Islam because I don’t believe that Mohammed was a prophet. In turn, a Christian might think a Muslim was blaspheming Jesus because he doesn’t believe Jesus is divine. If you believe something isn’t true, well, you believe it isn’t true!

    Dawkins is bound to think the core story of Christianity is myth (understood in the derogatory sense), because he doesn’t believe it’s true, either as history, or as a good, effective myth (seen in the more positive sense). I may disagree. I may dislike what he has to say. I may even think his language is intemperate from time to time, but that fact still remains.

    But expressing it in a children’s book? Again, I have the right to produce a children’s book based on my theological beliefs, entwining them in the story. Is this not also acceptable when done by someone else with different beliefs?

    Just because faith is involved shouldn’t mean that it’s unacceptable for each person to express their point of view, and defend it, even vigorously.

  • Discipleship Not About Numbers

    … so says Dan Dick. All I can say is I agree. Go read!

  • Hired Staff Won’t Solve Church Problems

    Yesterday I posted one of my short stories over on my Jevlir blog. For those who don’t read that blog (its readership is quite low), I wanted to write a couple of notes here.

    Many churches think they’ll find the solution to the problem of declining membership or financial problems by hiring just the right staff. But in most churches, the problems are much deeper than who is on the staff. In most declinining churches, I would suggest there is a need to change the church culture. You can’t hire a “Minister of Evangelism” and expect that to make the church grow. A “stewardship consultant” is only going to be able to go as far as the church’s commitment will take it.

    The solution to declining membership, in my view, is discipleship. If you can’t get the church to commit to being disciples in all ways, then no number of paid staff is going to solve your problem. In order to change the culture of the church, you may have to lose even more members. Let the folks who don’t want to be disciples and who don’t want to be ministers (every member should be!) move on.

    I don’t mean by this to sit in judgment on their discipleship. What I mean is to allow the self selection. If the church determines to be Christ in their community and to take this commitment seriously, then those who don’t want to go along will get annoyed and leave. Too frequently, our response to this is, “Oh no! We’re losing more members!” So we keep the problem alive by sacrificing discipleship to numbers.

    I don’t have a problem with church staff when the purpose of that staff is to facilitate the ministry of the members. But in an overwhelming number of cases, the paid staff is expected to do the ministry, and the stewardship problem is to get the members to cough up enough money to pay the staff to do the things that they, the members, should be doing themselves.

    The gospel fulfilled in discipleship is the only answer … not more paid staff to replace the ministry of the whole body.

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  • The Dominionism Debate Continues

    Joel Watts and Peter Kirk are at it about dominionism, and now a book I publish, The Politics of Witness, is getting a place in the debate.

    I have a couple of problems with the title “dominionist.” First, in response to Joel, I think it is important to make distinctions between different viewpoints, even when we see some relations. Similarity is not the same as equality. I object when the right wing calls President Obama a socialist, because I think that blurs the distinction between his mixed approach to the economy and that of a real socialist. I also object when someone who thinks more Christians in office would be a good thing is equated to R.J. Rushdoony. I’ve read the latter; the two ideas are different.

    Second, my problem with the label “dominionist” is simply that I don’t see a reasonably defined movement that should all be painted (tarred?) with the same brush. It seems to me that the label is covering more people than deserve it, at a minimum.

    I’m going to write a bit more in a few days as I write one of my posts reflecting on publishing a new book, this time on The Politics of Witness. I am not favorable to the idea that we need to get more Christians in office. Personally, my voting is religiously neutral. There are many Christians for whom I would never vote. There are atheists for whom I would. I am never favorably impressed when a candidate puts his or her “born again” status front and center. I’ll explain why this is my position in that future post.

     

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