Thursday, November 22, 2012



From the Earth to the Moon
by Jules Verne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love early science fiction and Jules Verne is the grandaddy of the genre (I recently read "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" and it was a great read). However, with this one I had to wade through 112 pages of mostly technical and engineering detail with very little dialogue until anything like an interesting plot development occurs. It's hard to know whether the Frenchman Verne genuinely admires Civil War era American ingenuity or whether his praise is an ironic device designed to point out the folly and hubris of the same. Certainly the unresolved ending leaves open the possibility that the novel is more critique than adoration.  As J. T. Maston muses at the book's conclusion, "Those three men [admittedly one is a Frenchman] have carried into space all the resources of art, science, and industry.  With that one can do anything..." Perhaps, but then perhaps not.  H. G. Wells' "The First Men in the Moon," obviously inspired by this earlier work of Verne's has far greater narrative appeal and depth of character development. However, anyone who wishes to understand the science fiction genre will want to read "From the Earth to Moon" even if only for its historic significance.


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Sunday, November 11, 2012

SERMON ON THE GOSPEL: THE WIDOW’S OFFERING




Wesley Church
11 November 2012
Text: Mark 12:38-44

Beware of theologians in long robes! Such a warning has a bit of a hollow ring to it when spoken by a theologian in a long robe. Jesus issued a warning in Mark 12:38-40 about the religious leaders of his day who enjoyed their privileged status and used it to abuse more vulnerable members of the community.

“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!” (vv. 38-39)

Yet behind this religious façade and community respectability lay darker motives and activities for, “They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” (v.40)

In contrast to these men who were viewed with the greatest esteem in the community, in verses 41-44, Jesus set forth a different kind of example altogether. While the religious leaders were devouring widow’s houses – taking advantage of her weaker status to shore up their own wealth – poor widows themselves were giving out of their poverty motivated by love for God.

“He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (vv. 41-44)

It was poor widows like these who in Jesus’ eyes approached more closely the ideal of the kingdom than the professional religious class. Jesus made this kind of contrast often in his teaching. Those who looked outwardly as though they were representatives of the kingdom (scribes and Pharisees) were often in fact only focused on their own little kingdoms of self-righteousness. On the other hand those who seemed the most insignificant – women, children, widows, and even despised lepers and prostitutes – were much closer to the kingdom than any of the religious leaders.

The Queensland government has been debating a bill that will make it legal for motel and hotel owners to refuse to rent rooms to sex workers. Many Christians will support this law because of their opposition to prostitution as an immoral activity. However, since this kind of private prostitution is legal in Queensland, anti-discrimination officials have quite understandably pointed out how unjust such a law would be. They have argued that it is wrong to consider a sex worker to have fewer rights than other citizens under the law. Whatever one may think of this particular debate, Jesus came to overturn the idea that prostitutes, or widows, or little children  were second class citizens with less rights than others. Rather, every person, even the most insignificant, is the object of God’s love and should be treated with justice and respect.

I was once taken out to dinner by a denominational leader who was head of a large missionary department in the United States. The restaurant was quite expensive and I was a little surprised to hear that the cost would come out of the missionary department’s budget. Of course I understand that some money may legitimately be spent on hospitality toward overseas visitors. But my heart sank when I thanked him for the meal and he replied, “Don’t thank me; thank the little old lady who saved her coins to support the missionaries.” That comment seemed to me to convey disrespect toward such faithful givers and left me sadly reflecting on the cynicism sometimes displayed by religious leaders.   

During the days of the U.S.S.R. the government placed severe restrictions on the churches believing that religion was destined to die out in any case. Only a few old ladies with headscarves were interested and these would soon pass on, leaving state-sanctioned atheism to take their place. But the faith did not die out in Russia and when the Soviet Union collapsed the Russian Orthodox Church was revived.

A congregation in Romania had their church appropriated by the government under the regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu. When their bishop died they were not permitted to bury him in the traditional location of the church’s crypt. Determined to defy the order they took a jackhammer and began to open up the pavement at the front of the church.  As the young uniformed police officers attempted to stop this activity, little old Orthodox ladies took their umbrellas and began to beat them crying, “Shame on you; shame on you!  How can you do this thing”?  That story could be seen as a metaphor for the end of the repression of the Church in Romania.  Again we see the faithfulness of widows doing what they can to keep the faith alive. Thank God for those ‘little old ladies with headscarves’ who kept the faith alive during that period of repression, allowing it to blossom back into life when the time was right.

The reason Jesus praised this poor widow was that while others gave larger sums, and she only gave two small copper coins, she gave more because she gave all that she had. It seems that God is not so much interested in how much we give but in how much we keep.

This week George Lucas (pictured right) the creator of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises struck a deal to sell his company Lucas Film to the Disney corporation. He “has announced that he will be putting the vast majority of the $4.3 billion dollars from the sale into a foundation which will focus on education. Lucas is the sole shareholder of Lucas Film so the entire sum will go to him and he is free to do what he wants with all of it.  This donation will put him on par with Bill Gates in terms of his charitable giving.”[1]

I think people like George Lucas and Bill Gates are to be applauded for their charitable giving but this widow even more so, for they gave out of their abundance but she out of her deep poverty.

If you have ever spent time in the developing world you will have experienced the generosity of the poor. People who have very little will generously share the little they have with you, motivated by hospitality. On the other hand the wealthy can at times be so protective of their wealth that they cling to it possessively.  I remember being involved in a bitter church dispute over property and finances. The way the congregation divided over the issue was very interesting.  Those who were quite well off financially were arguing the case for frugality and concerned about what would make the most money for the church.  On the other hand those with little resources – pensioners, missionaries, and welfare recipients all argued the case for generous and extravagant giving without thought of financial return.

In today’s Old Testament reading from 1 Kings 17:8-16 we learned about the widow of Zarephath. During a time of famine, this starving widow gave the prophet Elijah her last meal, which she had reserved for herself and her son. As a reward God miraculously provided her with bread and oil until the drought broke.       

In some circles it is taught that the more we give financially the more God will bless us financially in return. Televangelists have been among those who have promised miracles in return for money. Early one morning I was shocked to hear one of these tell his audience how God had blessed him when he was able to swoop in on a foreclosure and get a bargain basement house.  No thought was given to the poor farmer and his family whose house had been devoured due to the sub-prime mortgage debacle. Now, if viewers (many no doubt poor widows) would send in a generous donation to the televangelist’s ministry they too could expect God to perform such financial miracles on their behalf.

Neither the poor widow of the Gospel story nor the starving widow of Zarephath gave with such motivation in mind. They gave out of their poverty because they were motivated by love.  They made no showy pretensions of piety. They didn’t care to announce how much they had given. When they gave, their left hand knew not what their right hand had done.         

Beware of religious leaders who devour widow’s houses. Look instead to unimportant people (unimportant in the world’s eyes) who in the generosity they display in the midst of their poverty are the true and best examples of God’s kingdom of extravagant love.   +


[1] http://www.inquisitr.com/386822/george-lucas-to-give-majority-of-disney-money-to-charity/ accessed 10 November 2012

Friday, September 21, 2012

Reply to Geordan Hammon's 'John Wesley's Sacramental Theology and Practice in Georgia'


Given at the Uniting Church Centre for Theology and Ministry, Parkville, 27 August 2012

The Wesleys in Georgia icon by Louise Shipps
Note: There is some duplication in the first section of this post from my earlier post on 'Listening to John Wesley in the Uniting Church.' Those who do not wish to read that again can skip down to the next section

It is a genuine honour to be invited to respond today to the excellent paper of my colleague Dr. Geordan Hammond. Before I respond directly to the paper, I would like to reflect briefly on the Uniting Church context.


Listening to John Wesley in the Uniting Church

It is sometimes difficult to say too much about one of the precedent traditions of the UCA since to do so might seem to be privileging the contribution of one tradition over the others. There are those who feel that hearkening back to Wesley would be a backward step when the UCA is called to be a new, dynamic, and forward-looking Church.  Yet the Basis of Union calls us to pay close attention to the formative voices of the past.        

Paragraph 10 of the Basis of Union calls upon the Uniting Church to ‘listen to the preaching of John Wesley in his Forty-Four Sermons (1793)’ and commits its ministers and instructors to ‘study these statements, so that the congregation of Christ’s people may again and again be reminded of the grace which justifies them through faith, of the centrality of the person and work of Christ the justifier, and of the need for a constant appeal to Holy Scripture.’[1]

Davis McCaughey, in his Commentary on the Basis of Union, reflected on the Uniting Church’s readiness, expressed in Paragraph 1 of the Basis of Union, to ‘go forward together in sole loyalty to Christ, the living Head of the Church.’[2]

It would have been easier to say, ‘we shall go forward loyal to the best of our traditions as Calvinists and Wesleyans…And…we would neglect what Calvin and Wesley have to teach us to our peril. But at the beginning the Basis of Union reminds that our loyalty is not to them but to Christ.[3] 

There is wisdom in these words.  The ancestors are not to be followed blindly or uncritically and our loyalty is first to Christ. Yet to neglect Calvin, Wesley and other fathers and mothers of the faith is to be imperiled. Earlier this year I read Robert Bos and Geoff Thompson’s Theology for Pilgrims, a collection of important formal documents of the UCA. It was interesting to note the tendency in the definitive sources selected to appeal to John Wesley and the Methodist tradition when wishing to affirm the ongoing significance of Evangelicalism and evangelistic activity in the Uniting Church.[4] The idea that Wesley’s thought may be an important theological resource for the Uniting Church was less evident.  I think it is fair to say that the renaissance in Wesley studies that was initiated in the second half of the twentieth century and continues to the present, has made it much clearer than the framers of the Basis of Union could have foreseen, how valuable a theological resource is the founder of Methodism.

The Christocentric features of the Basis of Union make the document profoundly Evangelical in the broadest sense of that term, and there is at least one particular place where a characteristically Wesleyan theological emphasis may be identified.  Paragraph 6 confesses that Christ, by the gift of the Spirit, ‘awakens, purifies, and advances in [us] that faith and hope in which alone [the] benefits [of new life and freedom] can be accepted.’[5] Giving close attention to Wesley’s theology can continue to be one way that the Uniting Church can live out of that freedom which is made ever new by the Spirit. 

Wesley and the Sacraments

Dr. Hammond has provided us with a careful and comprehensive account of Wesley’s approach to the sacraments, well grounded in the sources and in Wesley’s own immediate context, particularly in Georgia. His paper is a model of what Albert Outler called ‘Phase III’ of Wesley Studies.  ‘Phase I’ was the hagiographical approach to which early biographers and admiring Methodists were particularly prone.  ‘Phase II’ was the attempt to claim Wesley as belonging to a particular tradition - Anglo-Catholic (Rattenbury), Reformed (Cell, Cannon, Deschner), Puritan (Monk), Moravian (Towlson, Hildebrandt), and others.  ‘Phase III’ according to Outler was long overdue and would open toward a ‘new future for Wesley studies’ reading Wesley on his own terms and in light of his sources.[6]

So thank you Geordan for making clear the influence of the Nonjurors on Wesley’s sacramental thought and practice, for providing us with a summary of John Johnson’s Unbloody Sacrifice, Daniel Brevint’s Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice, and William Wall’s History of Infant Baptism, and for describing Wesley’s sacramental practice in Georgia.  The observation that Wesley held a minority view within the Church of England on the Prayer Book in keeping with the Usagers among the Non-Jurors is of very real interest.  It is also worth noting in Geordan’s conclusion that, though Wesley later dropped some of the practices applied in Georgia, his overall theology of the sacraments did not undergo significant change later in his life.    
  
Such careful contextual reading of Wesley has too often been neglected so that we have ended up with readings of Wesley that are coloured by what some modern Methodists wish that Wesley had said and did, rather than what he actually did say and do.  Protestants, and especially Evangelicals, have often been embarrassed by Wesleys sacramental views, and have attempted to show, either that Wesley uncritically accepted the Anglican formularies, or that his theology underwent a change after his Aldersgate experience, as if he had been a High Church sacramentalist beforehand and a Low Church evangelical afterwards.  This is wide of the mark.  There seems to have been little shift in Wesley’s sacramental views after Aldersgate although Swedish Bishop Ole Borgen argued in the 1970s that after 24 May 1738 there was in Wesley’s view of the sacraments a greater stress on God’s action rather than on human action.[7] The claim that Wesley’s sacramental theology is muddled or inconsistent or that his Protestant theology of justification cannot be reconciled with his Catholic theology of the sacraments is uncritical and thus misplaced.  

Wesley follows Augustine and the Western tradition generally in distinguishing between the signum (the sign) and the res (the thing signified). There are two parts to a sacrament and they naturally belong together, though they cannot be identified as the same thing. This is why Wesley is able to say that baptism is not the new birth, and at the same time that it is brings the new birth.[8] The word ‘baptism’ sometimes refers only to the outward sign of water, and in this sense baptism is not the new birth.  However, when the word is used in the sense of including the inward reality of baptism - justifying and regenerating grace - then baptism does bring the new birth. When Wesley refuses to identify the signum with the res, he is certainly not suggesting that they should ever be separated! Notwithstanding any misgivings about the mind/body distinction that may be in our audience, for the sake of the argument – the mind and the body are to be separated in logical distinction, but no one would want them to be separated in experience.  The soul is not the body and the body is not the soul, but body and the soul together make a person.  Similarly, the outward sign is not the inward reality and the inward reality is not the sign, but both together make a sacrament.[9]

Whilst John Wesley maintained the importance of the formal validity of sacramental administration among the episcopally ordained priests of the Church of England, this insistence was, for him, a question of church order.  He had a much deeper concern and that was the concern to demonstrate that unless God himself validates the sacraments, they are of no effect, regardless of who performs them, or how closely the rubrics are followed.  Unless God’s grace effectuates the sacramental signs they are nothing. It is not the validity of the orders of the one who presides that matters, or even the form of words, but the grace of the one who effectuates, a kind of ex opera Deus is at work.

William Wall's History of Infant Baptism
Wesley on Baptism

It is traditional in meetings such as these for the respondent to find something to criticise in the main paper. I have no real criticism to make and the suggestion I do make now hardly even qualifies as a quibble.  It may have been preferable in considering the sacraments to begin with baptism before moving on to the Eucharist, since baptism is constitutive of Christian identity and it is baptismal grace that provides the foundation of all subsequent religious experience and entrance to the Eucharistic feast.       

Whilst baptism is not absolutely necessary for salvation, it is, according to Wesley, God’s ordinary means of conveying justifying grace.  Christ, the Second Adam, has found a remedy for the disease of sin, and ‘the benefit of this is to be received through the means which he has appointed; through baptism in particular, which is the ordinary means he hath appointed for that purpose; and to which God hath tied us, though he may not have tied himself.  Indeed, where it cannot be had, the case is different, but extraordinary cases do not make void a standing rule.’[10]

This does not mean that Wesley saw baptism as any sort of absolute guarantee of heaven.  It is possible to strangle the seed of new life implanted in baptism.  Wesley never loses sight of moral responsibility, which is why he was able to declare to the baptized gentlemen at Oxford, ‘You must be born again!’  It wasn’t that they hadn’t been born again at baptism, but that they had so quenched the Spirit through a lifetime of willful sin, that they must now repent and believe.  In baptism ‘...a principle of grace is infused, which will not be wholly taken away, unless we quench the Holy Spirit of God by long-continued wickedness.’[11]

Infants, as well as older believers, are the proper recipients of baptism, a position for which Wesley argues ‘from Scripture, reason, and primitive universal practice.’[12]  Borgen contrasts Wesley’s approach with that of modern Methodists.
           
[Modern Methodism has] reduced [infant baptism] to little more than an ‘excuse’ for demanding certain vows of the parents.  God is not allowed to give his grace    to anybody who is not of age.  The emphasis is purely on human actions and experience.  Such views exhibit a frightening ignorance of what Wesley actually        teaches concerning baptismal grace…Modern Methodism practically push[es] God out of the picture.  Wesley always stresses experience, but his emphasis is on God’s work, and not on [human] ability or ‘experience.’[13]

Infants ought to be baptized, furthermore, since they ought to come to Christ and be admitted into the Church and thus dedicated to God through the means he has appointed.[14] Turning to apostolic practice, Wesley argues, ‘If to baptize infants has been the general practice of the Christian Church in all places and in all ages, then this must have been the practice of the Apostles, and consequently, the mind of Christ.’[15] He cites Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian, Ambrose and Augustine in support of this.  Indeed, there is not ‘...one instance in all antiquity, of any orthodox Christian who denied baptism to children...[Such practice was] never opposed till the last century but one, by some not very holy men in Germany...[W]e may safely conclude, it was handed down from the Apostles, who best knew the mind of Christ.’[16]

Finally, Wesley argues from the covenant of grace.  All that was promised under the Old Covenant has its equivalent under the New Covenant. Just as children received circumcision then, they ought to receive its equivalent in baptism now. 

It is clear, then that Wesley’s theology of baptism, far from being muddled, confused, or uncritical, is a well thought through position, consonant with the classical Christian consensus.  Certainly, Wesley displays no great innovation in his theology of baptism, and some might see this conservatism as less than a virtue.  His most important work on the subject, A Treatise on Baptism (1758) is an extract from his father, Samuel’s work Pious Communicant (1700).  Some find fault with this, as if Wesley ought to have done more thinking of his own in this area and come up with a theology of baptism that fit more neatly his evangelical doctrine of the new birth.  But Wesley’s theology of infant baptism is no less evangelical than his theology of justification by faith.  (The same of course is true of Martin Luther’s doctrine.)

Wesley on the Eucharist

Geordan has helpful distinguished Wesley’s views on the Eucharist from Richard Hooker’s ‘receptionism’ identifying Wesley’s approach as closer to that of the Non-jurors with their stress on the Spirit’s role invoked in the epiclesis.

Let me here briefly make some other comparisons. Wesley affirms a real spiritual presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, which is close to Calvin with his idea of ‘Spiritual Presence,’ but whereas Calvin stresses the presence of Christ in terms of ‘power and strength,’ mediated through the Holy Spirit,[17] Wesley stresses the Presence of Christ in his divinity.  ‘[I]n fact the whole Trinity is present and acting, bestowing upon men [and women] the benefits of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.’[18] Thomas Cranmer held a two-fold Presence - figurative in the sacrament and real and spiritual in the hearts of believers, and Wesley comes close to this view.[19] Whatever the case, Wesley seems furthest from the Zwinglian ‘real absence’ position.[20] ‘The sacraments,’ for Wesley ‘are true and effectual means of grace; thus all purely memorialist conceptions are excluded.’[21] In Wesley’s view of the Eucharist the church reverently adores God and transcends time and space so as to enter vicariously into the Eternal Now of Christ’s sufferings.[22]
   
The Trinity and the Sacraments

There is a Trinitarian shape to the Wesleyan theology of the sacraments exhibited in the 1780 Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists. The following is from a section entitled ‘At the Baptism of Adults.’ 

                        Come Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
                        Honour the means ordained by thee!
                        Make good our apostolic boast,
                        And own thy glorious ministry...
Father, in these reveal thy Son;
In these for whom we seek thy face
                        The hidden mystery make known,
                        The inward, pure baptizing grace...
Eternal Spirit, descend from high,
                        Baptiser of our spirits thou!
The sacramental seal apply,
And witness with the water now![23]       
           
The sacrament of baptism is here spoken of as having been ordained by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rather than simply by Christ, as we might expect.  The Father is asked to reveal his Son in those who are to receive ‘the hidden mystery’ of ‘pure baptizing grace.’  And it is the Spirit who comes down and applies the sacramental seal. In another, ‘Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in solemn power come down,’ the entire Godhead is present, along with the angels, ready to plunge the candidate into a second birth, into ‘the depths of God.’ The divine character that is impressed is not that of any one Person alone. The Father reveals his love, Jesus imparts his name, and the Holy Ghost renews and dwells in the heart. [24]

In the much-neglected Eucharistic hymns of the Wesleys we also see a distinctively Trinitarian stamp. As the believer approaches the Lord’s Table there is the need for a supernatural quickening of the imagination that will make clear the fullness of the Father’s love in giving his Son up to death for our sakes.  It is the Spirit who provides this supernatural assistance. 

                        Come, Thou everlasting Spirit,
                        Bring to every thankful Mind
                        All the Saviour’s dying Merit
                        All His Suffering for Mankind[25]

The objective record of revelation given to us concerning Christ’s redemptive death, and the justifying and sanctifying grace that flow from it, are experienced only through the application of the Spirit’s presence and power. Such a Trinitarian spirituality as we find in the Wesley hymns is a powerful antidote to a certain type of piety, found in both Evangelical and liberal forms, that focuses on human decision and human agency in such a way as to obscure the priority of diving grace and action. Too often individualistic appeals for human decision at an altar of prayer have been allowed to obscure or even replace the communal nature of the Eucharistic feast where we sit down together as sisters and brothers at our Father’s table, the guests of our Jesus our Host, and through the Spirit of Adoption anticipate the heavenly banquet.

Jerry Mercer warns that when ‘the liturgy has the congregation rather than God as its primary referent [it] is a tragedy of unbelievable proportion [for] only when personal and social holiness are understood to be the result of the faithful living out of Word and Table can there be a renewal of the church local and the Church catholic in the spirit of the New Testament.[26]

Tracing the history of the development of sacramental neglect in Methodism makes a fascinating, though tragic, study.  Was it Francis Asbury or another early American Methodist preacher who, in answering the lack of interest in Wesley’s Sunday Service amongst his preachers, stated ‘Our preachers prefer to pray with their eyes closed.’  The rugged frontier and its illiteracy made liturgical worship less suitable in early America.  As Methodists became increasingly influenced by theologies of human agency with their attendant Pelagianising tendencies, sacramental theology became more and more humanly focused.  John Miley’s Systematic Theology (1893) shows early signs of this rationalistic drift in describing the sacraments as means of grace only in so far as they set forth lessons to us, which through our ‘proper mental exercise’ convey the realities they signify.  No longer are they means of grace as that term is classically understood. Instead they have become mere object lessons.

Modern Methodism for all practical purposes must be considered Pelagian, with little spiritual power and very limited intercourse with God in the lives of the individuals.  The sacraments have become ‘empty,’ mere signs...Wesley’s emphasis upon God’s work and initiative, coupled with [hu]man[ity]’s responsibility, will serve as a much needed corrective to our self-sufficient, middle-class work righteousness...In short, without a recovery...of the substance of Wesley’s theology of the sacraments and the means of grace, the future of [Methodism] as the living body of Christ is rather doubtful...There is...no need to set...the Word and preaching in opposition to the sacraments.  Wesley demanded both.  The distinction between ‘evangelicalism’ and ‘sacramentalism’ must never be applied to Wesley.  For him these two aspects were one, and later Methodism has paid dearly for tearing apart what God has united.[27] 

Dr. Hammond closes his paper with the suggestion that Wesley’s high sacramental theology and practice should ‘continue to shape Wesleyan theological reflection and sacramental practices.’ Perhaps during our discussion time we may begin to think through how that might be the case. 



[1] The Basis of Union 1992 Edition (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 2003), paragraph 10, pp. 9-10.  All references to the Basis of Union (hereinafter referred to as BoU) are from the 1992 Edition.
[2] BoU, paragraph 1, p. 5.
[3] J. Davis McCaughey, Commentary on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1980), 8.
[4] Robert Bos and Geoff Thompson, Theology for Pilgrims: Selected Theological Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia (Sydney: Uniting Church Press, 2008).  This is my anecdotal reflection, though specific page numbers could be provided.
[5] BoU, Paragraph 6, p. 8.
[6] Albert C. Outler, “A New Future For Wesley Studies: An Agenda for Phase III,” in  Thomas C. Oden
and Leicester R. Longden, eds. The Wesleyan TheologicalHeritage: Essays of Albert C. Outler.  Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 125-142.
[7] Ole E. Borgen, John Wesley on the Sacraments (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972), 271-73
[8] John Wesley, Works (Jackson Edition throughout), VI: 73-74.
[9] Borgen, 57.
[10] Wesley, ‘Treatise on Baptism,’ Works X: 193.
[11] Wesley, Works, X: 192.
[12] Wesley, Works, X: 193.
[13] Borgen, 144.
[14] Matthew 19:13-14; Luke 18:15.  Those churches which dedicate infants recognize the need to incorporate children into the community and provide for it through a service of infant dedication. However, a ‘dedication service’ is of human, not divine, origin. Jesus did not institute a sacrament of infant dedication, but he did institute a sacrament of baptism. Once it is conceded that infants may be baptised, and therefore infant baptism is a legitimate sacrament, a service of infant dedication would appear to be redundant.    
[15] Wesley, Works, X: 147.
[16] Wesley, Works, X 197-98, cited in Borgen, 144-45.
[17] John T. McNeil, John Calvin’s Theological Institutes (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 1362-1381.
[18] Borgen, 67-68.
[19] Thomas Cranmer, ‘Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacraments’ in C.G.E. Duffield, ed.  Works of Thomas Cranmer (Appleford: Sutton Courtney Press, 1964), 45-233.
[20] Borgen indicates that ‘real absence’ was not in fact taught by Zwingli, though this is often leveled at him. But this tantalizing reference is not elaborated upon.  Borgen, 68. Zwingli did teach that Christ was present in the midst of the gathered community of believers when they partook of the Supper.
[21] Borgen, 68.
[22] Borgen, 89-94.
[23] Hymn 464, Works, VII:646-47. 
[24] Hymn 465, Ibid., 647-8. 
[25] Op. Cit. ‘These prayers to the Spirit for power to realize the Passion and Death of Christ must not be confused with the epiclesis, that is to say, the prayer to the Spirit to quicken the bread and wine into means of grace, of which we find examples in later parts of the book.’ J. Ernest Rattenbury, The Eucharistic Hymns of John and Charles Wesley (London: The Epworth Press, 1948), 27. 
[26] Jerry Mercer, ‘The Centrality of Grace in Wesleyan Spirituality,’ Asbury Theological Journal 50:2 (Fall 1995) and 51:1 (Spring, 1996), 233. 
[27] Borgen, 282.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Phantom in the Mines of Death

The Phantom #1580
September 2010
Frew Publications
“The Mines of Death”
Story: Sverre Arnes
Art: Heiner Bade

In this reprint of a Scandinavian story from 1990, The Phantom sells himself into slavery in order to break a human trafficking ring. The story is set up well with a Bengali villager who has suffered the loss of property and livelihood through a hurricane that destroys his village. In order to continue to support his family, Kenneth (a rather odd name for a Bengali villager) must take a job in a ‘sulphur mine.’ Upon being asked to ‘make his mark’ on the work contract Kenneth replies, ‘I can read and write…’ thus rebuking the racist assumption of his white overlord. He soon finds that he has been tricked into slavery in a gold mine, where his wages are held by the bosses and he is forced to work twelve hours a day and receive only the smallest amount of food. All communications with the workers’ loved ones have been cut off. Old, sick and weak miners are dropping like flies and the bosses only work them harder and without mercy.

Meanwhile The Phantom makes a visit to Kenneth Landola’s home village of Lando to survey the damage wreaked by the hurricane. Kenneth’s wife Roza asks The Phantom to investigate her husband’s situation as she has not heard from him since he took the job in the mine. (Is there a slight Scandinavian dig at the Americans as the Phantom muses, ‘I’ve heard rumours about the Americans who run this mining company before!’) The Phantom visits his old friend Luaga, President of Bengali, and they plan to make an official inspection of the mine. The mine bosses put on a good show but The Phantom, as Kit Walker, is suspicious. He returns to the mine alone, disguised as ‘John Smith’ looking for work. As The Phantom and with a little bit of help from his trusty wolf Devil, he busts open the slavery ring. President Luaga appropriates the mineral wealth of the mine and distributes the proceeds equally among the workers (is Bengali then a socialist state?). Kenneth is able to return to his family, purchase a new fishing boat and start afresh, in the final two panels enthralling his wife and children with stories of The Ghost Who Walks, who moves even ‘faster than lightning itself’ to establish justice.

The translation seems clunky at times. Surely, as an expression of mischievous laughter, “Hee Hee Hee!’ would be preferable to ‘Hi Hi Hi!’ There are problems with punctuation, including missing full stops and unwanted question marks. Here and there the lettering fits oddly into the speech balloons. It seems the Scandinavian speech balloons have been left and the English translation made to fit into the same spaces, resulting in some speech balloons having excess space and others being overly crowded. The interior art by Heiner Bade is well executed. Bade’s Phantom is particularly menacing. Strangely, though, the skull from the triangle on The Phantom’s belt is missing in most panels. The cover art by Antonio Lemos is not up to the same high standard. His front and back painted covers look amateurish and poorly rendered. Not a bad issue overall – three stars from me.

Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Rise of Popular Christianity in AmericaTaking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Rise of Popular Christianity in America by John H. Wigger


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book, along with Wigger's more recent biography of Francis Asbury, is American Methodist history at its finest. Tracing Methodism's emergence and development until the mid-nineteenth century it provides a thoroughly researched and eminently readable account. It's all here - the circuit riders, the itinerancy, camp meetings and their 'boiling hot religion,' slavery, and an excellent chapter on women in Methodism. The Methodist 'croakers' who decried the decline of the movement from about the 1820s were not concerned about statistical decline (with a few slumps Methodists growth continued to meet or exceed aggregate national population growth until the 1950s) but about decline in spiritual fervour. From the first decade of the nineteenth century Nathan Bangs argued that Methodism was right to enter into the mainstream of American life and laboured to this end, in an ironic twist claiming that his cause came to him in a prophetic dream. But Peter Cartwright and many other aged itinerants mourned in their published memoirs the loss of an earlier frontier experience. One of the great religioous dramas of the modern era, the story of American Methodism continues to fascinate and enthrall. Anyone serious about the study of American Methodism will already have read this book. Those who are yet to discover it are in for a treat.




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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

'Listening to John Wesley' in the Uniting Church

 

Paragraph 10 of the Basis of Union calls upon the Uniting Church to ‘listen to the preaching of John Wesley in his Forty-Four Sermons (1793)’ (along with the ‘witness of the Reformers’) and commits its ministers and instructors to ‘study these statements, so that the congregation of Christ’s people may again and again be reminded of the grace which justifies them through faith, of the centrality of the person and work of Christ the justifier, and of the need for a constant appeal to Holy Scripture.’[1] 

It is sometimes difficult to say too much about one of the precedent traditions of the UCA since to do so might seem to be privileging the contribution of one tradition over the other two. There are those who feel that hearkening back to Wesley’s Sermons would be a backward step when the UCA is called to be a new, dynamic, and forward-looking Church.  Yet the Basis of Union calls us to pay close attention to such formative voices of the past.    

J. Davis McCaughey, in his Commentary on the Basis of Union, reflects on the Uniting Church’s readiness, expressed in Paragraph 1 of the BoU, to ‘go forward together in sole loyalty to Christ, the living Head of the Church.’[2]

There is an exhilaration and a loneliness about this. The reader ought to catch his breath. It would have been easier to say, ‘we shall go forward loyal to the best of our traditions as Calvinists and Wesleyans…And…we would neglect what Calvin and Wesley have to teach us to our peril. But at the beginning the Basis of Union reminds that our loyalty is not to them but to Christ.[3] 

There is wisdom in these words.  The ancestors are not to be followed blindly or uncritically and our loyalty is first to Christ. Yet to neglect Calvin, Wesley and other fathers and mothers of the faith is to be imperilled. It is worthy of note that it is the Standard Sermons that are singled out from Wesley’s many writings as having a level of special importance and that these focus on the dynamics of Christian experience. Their selection perhaps reflects their official status in Australian (and British) Methodism, along with Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, as constituting a doctrinal standard.[4] However, a collection of sermons is very different from a formal Creed or Confession.[5]  When a selection of Wesley’s sermons were chosen for inclusion in a book of ‘Historic Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia,’ those chosen were focused on Christian experience – Salvation by Faith, Justification by Faith, The Witness of the Spirit, The Means of Grace and Christian Perfection.[6]  When the Uniting Church listens to these sermons it will be listening to preaching ‘aimed at awakening and reviving faith, not to faith declaring what it believes nor to systematic instruction in the faith.’[7]

The study of the Standard Sermons and other important historical documents must of course be carried out with the recognition that they are bound to a great extent by their historical context and particularity. ‘That is at once their glory and their limitation.’[9]  John Wesley was a man of his time and we cannot simply restate his formulations as though no further thinking were needed.  When earlier this year I read Bos and Thompson’s Theology for Pilgrims, it was interesting to note the tendency in the documents selected to appeal to John Wesley and the Methodist tradition when wishing to affirm the ongoing significance of Evangelicalism and evangelistic activity in the Uniting Church.[8] The idea that Wesley’s thought may be an important theological resource for the Uniting Church was less evident.  I think it is fair to say that the renaissance in Wesley studies that was initiated in the second half of the twentieth century and continues to the present, has made it much clearer than the framers of the Basis of Union could have foreseen, how valuable a theological resource is the thought of the founder of Methodism.

While the Christocentric features of the Basis of Union make the document profoundly Evangelical in the broadest sense of that term, there is one particular place in the BoU where the characteristically Wesleyan emphasis on sanctification is identified.  Paragraph 6 confesses that Christ, by the gift of the Spirit, ‘awakens, purifies, and advances in [us] that faith and hope in which alone [the] benefits [of new life and freedom] can be accepted.’[10] Giving close attention to Wesley’s theology can continue to be one way that the Uniting Church can live out of that freedom which is made ever new by the Spirit. 


[1] BoU, paragraph 10, pp. 9-10.
[2] BoU, paragraph 1, p. 5.
[3] J. Davis McCaughey, Commentary on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1980), 8.
[4] To these American Methodists had added the 25 Articles (Wesley’s abridgment of the Anglican 39 Articles). See Thomas C. Oden, Doctrinal Standards in the Wesleyan Tradition rev. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008). 
[5]‘They are perhaps best thought of as doctrine tested in preaching: they are expositions of the map, rather than the map itself.’ J. D. McCaughey, Commentary, 56.
[6] Michael Owen, ed. Witness of Faith: Historic Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1984), 175-223.
[7] Owen, ed. Witness of Faith, 177.
[8] Robert Bos and Geoff Thompson, Theology for Pilgrims: Selected Theological Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia (Sydney: Uniting Church Press, 2008).  This is my anecdotal reflection, though specific page numbers could be provided.
[9] J. D. McCaughey, Commentary, 52.
[10] BoU, Paragraph 6, p. 8.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Church and State in the Uniting Church's Statements to the Nation















This post was co-written with Berlin Guerrero as part of a Uniting Church Studies Intensive in which we both participated in July 2012.

What relationship should the Christian church have with the State? The earliest Christians had no formal relationship with the Roman Empire and the church was often persecuted. With the conversion of Constantine in 312CE a process of change was initiated which led eventually to the Church being co-opted by the state and placed at the centre of European society and culture as well as the cultures and peoples that Europeans colonised. It is a very real question whether the church best fulfils its mission by ‘calling the shots’ for the wider society, or whether it functions better as a radical alternative community. There are many examples of how badly the church behaved when it dominated society.  On the other hand, the Church has insights as a prophetic community that need to be heard by the wider society.  How do we find the right balance?   

There is a formal separation of church and state in Australia, in the sense that no religion shall be the test of any political office and any established religion is ruled out. There has been a relatively harmonious relationship between church and state in the sharing of such functions as education and welfare. The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) has issued two Statements to the Nation (1977 and 1988).  They were deemed significant enough to be included along with the Basis of Union and other formative documents in the 2008 collection, Theology for Pilgrims.[1]  This paper will examine these Statements to see what they reveal of the way the UCA sees itself in relation to the state.


It should be remembered that the Statement to the Nation is not a statement to the government as such but to ‘the nation’ including but not limited to ‘the state.’  It is addressed collectively to ‘the people of Australia.’ Nonetheless it reveals a certain stance toward the ‘powers that be’ that helps us to understand the Uniting Church’s relationship to secular governments.

There is an acknowledgment in paragraph 2 that the Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches had each in its own way ‘contributed in various ways to the life and development’ of the nation.  Furthermore, it is affirmed that ‘a Christian responsibility to society has always been regarded as fundamental to the mission of the Church’ and that the new Uniting Church will see continued involvement in ‘social and national affairs’ as part of its response to the Christian Gospel. In its thirty-five year history the Uniting Church has not been afraid to ‘mix religion with politics or, as Rollie Busch (Moderator of the Queensland Synod in 1977-78) put it, challenge governments with the brilliant insights of the Bible and the radicalism of Calvin, Knox, and Wesley.’[3]

This makes it clear that the Uniting Church does not take a stance of withdrawal from ‘the world,’ such as is found for example in some expressions of the Anabaptist tradition which see the church as an alternative society called to withdraw from the polluting influences of the ungodly. Rather believers are to be ‘citizens of two worlds.’ The fact that the Uniting Church’s first President, J. Davis McCaughey also served as Governor of Victoria indicates that there is no necessary incompatibility between ecclesial and civil loyalties.[4] 

It is clear however, that the Uniting Church does not align itself exclusively with one particular national government, nor with one particular side of politics. Paragraph 3 speaks of the Church’s ‘responsibilities within and beyond this country.’[5] It has particular responsibilities as ‘but one branch of the Christian church within the region of South-East Asia and the Pacific.’ This means that the Church’s witness in the political exigencies of neighbouring nation states is also the concern of the UCA. For example the UCA has recently expressed its deep concern over the military control of the Methodist Church of Fiji and stood in solidarity with its fellow Christians there. 

Paragraph 4 speaks of ‘the need for integrity in public life, the proclamation of truth and justice’ and ‘the rights for each citizen to participate in decision-making in the community.’  Again this shows that the Uniting Church declares itself more than ready to participate in the political process and to bring distinctively Christian insights into public discourse. 

Of great significance for the focus of this paper is the affirmation in paragraph 7 that ‘the first allegiance of Christians is God, under whose judgment the policies and actions of all nations must pass. We realise that sometimes this allegiance may bring us into conflict with the rulers of our day.’ This means that the Uniting Church recognises that its members may at times be called to acts of civil disobedience when Gospel priorities conflict with government policies. Provision for such civil disobedience is explicitly made in the UCA’s present Code of Ethics.[6]

The Uniting Church’s partnership with State and Federal governments in the provision of welfare, health care and education through its various agencies might be seen by some as a ‘cosy one’ that reflects a Constantinian relationship between church and state.  However it is clear in the 1977 Statement to the Nation that this is not the case. The Christian’s first allegiance is to God ‘under whose judgment the policies and actions of all nations must pass.’ This opens up the very real possibility of conflict between the Church and the powers that be. This may be illustrated in the Church voicing concern, for example, at the Federal Government’s treatment of asylum seekers or the current attempt to continue the Intervention into Indigenous communities by enshrining new and potentially destructive legislation.

The Uniting Church describes itself in its 1977 Statement to the Nation not as a state church but as ‘an institution within the nation’ called to ‘stress the universal values which must find expression in national policies if humanity is to survive.’ Its stance therefore is a prophetic one, but prophetic within rather than separated from national life.  There may the need to adjust our perspective even further.  We tend to think of the state as a ‘given’ – something to which the church must respond or in relation to which it must define itself. But what if we were to think of the Reign of God as the ‘given’ reality to which both church and state are called to respond?[7] 
 
President Rev Prof Andrew Dutney and Rev Rronang Garrawurra lead the prayer vigil on the steps of South Australian Parliament, Wednesday 18 July 2012

The second Statement to the Nation was issued eleven years after the first, during the Bicentenary of European settlement (1788-1988). It is not incidental that in such a year there would be a focus on Indigenous Australians (whose presence is recognised as existing ‘40,000 years’ before Europeans) and the need for Reconciliation. Three years prior, another statement, The Uniting Church is a Multi-cultural Church was adopted by the 2005 General Assembly.

Like the 1977 Statement the second is again addressed not to the government alone but ‘to our fellow Australian citizens.’ It expresses thankfulness for ‘those times when the Australian society has established justice, equality, and mutual respect among people;…placed care for the people who have least…welcomed new migrants and refugees; exercised solidarity and friendship …and has engaged constructively with the peoples of Asia, the Pacific and the rest of the world as peacemaker.’[9] It does not describe how ‘society established justice, equality etc.’ but it is of significance that the Uniting Church recognises, if not asserts, that it is the Australian society, not the state by itself, which establishes what is considered valuable and beneficial to the people.

The fourth paragraph needs to be studied critically especially the phrase ‘all of us are beneficiaries of the injustices that have been inflicted…’[10] What are the benefits of injustice to which it refers other than the land and material bounty derived from colonization? It is like saying we benefited from the ‘first sin’ and the ‘fall.’ Should the end justify the means, so to speak? However, for the church to say ‘we all contribute to, and perpetuate those injustices’ is a mark of a confessing church.

Indirectly, the 1988 Statement calls on the state and social institutions such as the educational system, legislature and media to strive for ‘the integrity of our nation’ (mentioned three times) and the requirements and actions necessary to achieve it.

In declaring solidarity with the Aborigines and in cooperation with ‘Australians of goodwill’ the Uniting Church commits itself to the work of justice…etc. and ‘in obedience to God’ to ‘struggle against all systems and attitudes which set person against person, group against group, or nation against nation.’ This commitment is repeated and made even stronger in subsequent paragraphs which pledge to ‘seek to identify and challenge all social and political structures and all human attitudes which perpetuate and compound poverty,’ and ‘seek to identify and challenge all structures and attitudes which perpetuate and compound the destruction of creation.’ 

The UCA Statements to the nation reflect the church’s view and attitude towards the nation and the world, present the various issues and concerns of the nation and the world, and affirm obedience to God.  They do not address any particular government administration either in the past or in power at the time the Statements were adopted.

The UCA has strong commitment to the plight of the poor, Indigenous peoples, victims of injustices, refugees, etc. and on the basis of this commitment recognises that at times it can be in conflict with the state’s policies. The Constantinian ‘marriage’ between church and state is no longer in effect in Australia, though on the whole, the UCA’s relationship with the state can be said to be one of ‘critical collaboration.’ The church must always remain aware, however, that its loyalty is first to Christ, and that this loyalty must always take precedence over state-like institutions or worldly authority.


[1] Robert Bos and Geoff Thompson, Theology for Pilgrims: Selected Theological Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia (Sydney: Uniting Church Press, 2008.)
[3] William Emilsen and Susan Emilsen, The Uniting Church in Australia: The First 25 Years  (Melbourne: Circa, 2003), p. 2.
[4] For a collection of J. Davis McCaughey’s writings see Peter Matheson and Christiaan Mostert, eds. Fresh Words and Deeds: The McCaughey Papers (Melbourne: David Lovell, 2004). See also J. Davis McCaughey, Commentary on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1980).
[5] Emphasis ours.
[6] According to Paragraph 6.2 of The Uniting Church in Australia Code of Ethics and Ministry Practice for Ministers in the Uniting Church in Australia (Whether in Approved Placements or Not) Approved by the 12th Assembly July 2009, ‘It is unethical for Ministers deliberately to break the law or encourage another to do so.  The only exception would be in instances of political resistance or civil disobedience.’  
[7] We are indebted to Randall Prior for this insight given during feedback on our class presentation. 
[9] Italics ours.
[10] Italics ours.

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