T.D. Jakes: Heresy or Hearsay?

The popular American preacher T.D. Jakes has recently come under fire in a number of "apologetics" sites specialising in sniffing out heresy wherever it can be found. A lot of these are "loony" sites that are finding that every man and his dog is a heretic so we have to be careful about evaluating their claims. Probably the best is this one from the Christian Research Institute (the link is broken but follow the prompt to the homepage and do a search on "T.D. Jakes"). Jakes responded to this article which led to the follow up at this link.

There was an article in Christianity Today about Jakes which also seems balanced though I have only read a fragment of it on their website. Jakes did write in response to it to defend his views here.

Jakes grew up in a Oneness (non-Trinitarian) Pentecostal Church, continues to have links with them and has never disavowed Oneness beliefs. You can read Jake's own church's (The Potter's House) belief statement here. Superficially this may seem OK but note that it says, "There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three Manifestations: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." The idea that God exists in three manifestations is the ancient heresy of "modalism." In the CT article Jakes says, "We have one God, but he is Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Spirit in regeneration." This is classic textbook modalism. The "Doctrinal Statement" (also on the Potter's House website) refers to "Three Dimensions of God" - Under that heading we read the following:

"We believe in one God who is eternal in His existence, Triune in His manifestation, being both [sic] Father, Son and Holy Ghost AND that He is Sovereign and Absolute in His authority."

We believe in the Father who is God Himself, Creator of the universe. (Gen 1:1; John 1:1)

We believe that Jesus is the Son of God. (Col 2:9)"

Again, we see that God is said to be "Triune" but only "in his manifestation." Furthermore the Father "is God himself," while Jesus is only "the Son of God." This seems to be a form of monarchianism, wherein only the Father is fully God and the Son holds some sort of subordinate divinity. So, as Lewis Carroll said, "it gets curiouser and curiouser."

There is a difference of course between outright heresy and sloppy thinking on the Trinity. Jakes may simply be guilty of the latter. The Oneness Pentecostal churches hold what I believe to be clearly heretical views. Because Jakes was raised in this church and has never disavowed its beliefs, the influences of Oneness theology on Jakes is obvious. However, his exposure to the wider church because of his high profile may be helping him to see that the language of "three manifestations" or "three dimensions" of God is theologically problematic and he may be revising his earlier views accordingly. Let's hope so. He does stand as a good example however of an attitude in the church that says "correct theology is not that important, so long as we are getting results."

There is no question that Jakes is a powerful personality. He is something of a black icon, having befriended rappers and other high profile African-American entertainers. He preaches a prosperity Gospel, is filthy rich from book, cd and video sales and yet he has poured millions into ministry to the poor. If you've ever seen him preach you know the sway he has over audiences. Black preachers have always been more animated than us whities but this guy is Pentecostalism on steroids! My advice would be to pray for Jakes that the recent attacks may not cause him to be defensive and remain entrenched in Oneness views, but that he may sincerely examine those beliefs and become more orthodox. Time magazine has asked the question of Jakes, "Is this man the next Billy Graham?" If that turns out to be answered in the affirmative, it would be a bit of a worry if there is not a clear break with "Oneness" beliefs. Or are we now at such a late stage of decadence in Christianity that it will not matter to anyone?

Which Theologian Are You?

Apparently I am Karl Barth. Keep in mind however that the first time I did this quiz I was John Calvin (!). I could not live with myself if that were true so I took it again with only slight variations to my very self conscious answers (the questions on these things are woefully loaded of course) I managed to divest myself of my latent Calvinism only to find out I was neo-orthodox. Dang! I really wanted to be John Wesley! Hang on! He's not even on the list. Oh, it's that old chestnut again is it? Wesley was not a real theologian. Right, and Chalres Finney was I suppose?

You scored as Karl Barth. The daddy of 20th Century theology. You perceive liberal theology to be a disaster and so you insist that the revelation of Christ, not human experience, should be the starting point for all theology. Karl Barth 67% John Calvin 67% Jürgen Moltmann 60% Martin Luther 60% Anselm 33% Augustine 33% Friedrich Schleiermacher 33% Charles Finney 27% Paul Tillich 27% Jonathan Edwards 13% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Reading the Empty Tomb (John 20:1-18)

The empty tomb is a hard thing to explain. When Mary came to the tomb that first Easter morning she could not make any sense out of it. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him!” (John 20:2) It remains true today that people do not know what to make of the empty tomb. The story is told of a theologian who had an a priori belief that the resurrection did not take place. An a priori belief is a belief that we set out with before we even investigate a matter. It’s a presupposition that will of course affect our conclusion. When pressed by a student, “Well, then what did happen that first Easter Sunday morning?” he could only reply, “I don’t know but I know it wasn’t the resurrection!”

People still fail to read the signs of Easter correctly. Somebody sent me a greeting card last year which depicted two chocolate bunnies, one turns to the other and says, “Happy Easter,” the second one has had both his chocolate ears bitten clear off, and can only reply, “Pardon?” There is a kind of spiritual deafness that afflicts us so that the words “Happy Easter” and the event that Easter celebrates don’t register with us.

A radio announcer a couple of weeks ago asked callers to phone in and tell him the lies their parents had told them when they were children. Things such as “If you eat your crust you’ll get curly hair,” and “if the wind changes while you’re pulling that face it will stay that way forever (a favourite of my grandmother’s). One caller said that his parents told him that the tune that the Mr. Whippy truck played meant, “Sorry, all out of ice cream.” Now, that’s really mean, but an even greater tragedy is that parents still continue to tell lies to their children about the music the church plays at Easter. We sing “Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!” but people are told the resurrection is only a myth, or it’s a story some people listen to every year but it has nothing to do with us.

I heard two radio announcers mocking Palm Sunday last week. They attended the annual Palm Sunday peace march and when telling their Moslem taxi driver where they had been he asked them what Palm Sunday was. They didn’t know what it was except that it had something to do with Jesus riding a donkey. They didn’t want the told the taxi driver to think they were Christians just because they attended a Palm Sunday march. They joked with the taxi driver, “We wouldn’t want you to think we’re Christians just because we attend a Palm Sunday march, just like you wouldn’t want us to think you were a terrorist just because you’re a Muslim!” Now I’m all for the Palm Sunday peace march but it’s sad that many who attend it are not reading its message correctly.

When I bought a potted palm for Palm Sunday from a local nursery I told the young woman in the shop that I wanted it for a Palm Sunday service. She looked at me quizzically and said, “What’s Palm Sunday?” When I explained she said, “I’ve never heard of that. My partner’s religious, but I know nothing about it. He’s Catholic but he only goes to church for midnight Mass once a year at Easter.” When I asked if she had ever gone with him she said she had, and when I asked if she enjoyed the service she simply said, “It was interesting.” How are those young people interpreting the empty tomb? If the result is a once a year church attendance then they are misreading it as surely as Mary did when she go to the tomb and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him!”

Even though the empty tomb is a hard thing to explain, attempting to do so can lead to curiosity. Even with Mary’s lack of insight her word of testimony to the other disciples led Peter and John to run to the cave to see for themselves (vv. 3-10). In verse 13, Mary repeats the same words she had used earlier, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him!” this time to two angels who ask her why she is crying. Then she turned and saw Jesus but she didn’t recognise him. He asked her the same question as the angels, but he added, “Who is it you are looking for?” (v.15) Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” She is still not reading this situation clearly, even when Jesus is standing right in front of her. Only the reality of the risen Christ fully explains the empty tomb.

It was only when Jesus spoke her name, “Mary!” that her eyes were opened and she knew it was the Lord. She replied to his single word exclamation also with a single word – “Rabboni!” an Aramaic word meaning “teacher.” He says “Mary” and she says “Rabboni” and a world is spoken in just those two words.

We are confused by the signs of God’s presence in the world until we hear him speak our name and then our eyes are opened. Jesus is not merely alive because he lives in our memory. We often speak of famous people as being immortal or we say that they will “live forever” because of the contribution they made to the arts and sciences or to society. The famous comedian and Hollywood director Woody Allen was once asked whether he wanted to achieve immortality through his work. He replied, “No. I want to achieve immortality by not dying.” Which is it? Is Jesus alive because there are those who remembered and cherished the fact that once we walked this “vale of tears” or he alive because he has once and forever battered down the gates of death? Gerald O’Collins has said, “In a profound sense, Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without its final chapter. It is not Christianity at all.”

Mary went from “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him!” in v. 2, to her final exclamation in v. 18, “I have seen the Lord!” perhaps today we can take her journey and arrive at the same place. The empty tomb brought us to church again. After all it is Easter and you go to church at Easter right? You had your explanations perhaps about the meaning of the empty tomb or maybe you just figured it was a mystery too deep to explain and had put it in the too hard basket. But this Jesus is speaking your name. Perhaps with Mary, you will call out his name in reply and be able to say, “I have seen the Lord!”

The King of the Hill Goes to Church

Palms or Passion?

Worship leaders are told that we have the option on this day of celebrating the Liturgy of the Palms that focuses on Jesus’ triumphal entry or a Liturgy of the Passion that focuses on his impending suffering and death. It’s a hard decision to make. Obviously the Liturgy of the Palms is more of a celebration but this seems somehow out of step with the more solemn services of Holy Week.
We don’t want to get to Easter Sunday too soon.

They call the walk from the condemned prisoner’s cell to the place of execution, “The Green Mile.” Jesus is not quite there yet but that time is approaching. All the more wonderful too him, therefore, knowing he had not much time left, must the joyous shouts of praise have been – “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” This is the focus of the Liturgy of the Palms. But the story has within it hints of the Liturgy of the Passion also.

One of the great westerns is the 1952 film High Noon starring Gary Cooper as embattled Marshall Will Kane who one by one loses the support of the townspeople so that he has to face the outlaws alone. They are coming into town on the noon train having sworn to kill the sheriff when they arrive. The film is shot roughly in real time and the director Fred Zinnemann masterfully builds the suspense by returning to two shots – the clock on the wall approaching twelve and the long railroad track stretching off into the distance and which will convey the bad guys into town. Every one has deserted him – his deputies, all the menfolk of the town, even those who boasted early that they could help him face the bad guys even his new bride has left him. One of the great lines in the film is when Kane replies to the question of why he has to go the final showdown he says, “I've got to, that's the whole thing.”

Well Palm Sunday is the last hurrah before people start deserting Jesus and he will have to face his High Noon alone just like Will Kane. Only here the stakes are much higher. Kane was facing his fears to protect his own dignity and self respect and for the protection of a small frontier town. But Jesus was facing his High Noon alone for the salvation of the world. Barclay reminds us that this…"was an act of glorious defiance, and of superlative courage. By this time there was a price on Jesus’ head (John 11:57). It would have been natural that, if He was going into Jerusalem at all, He should have slipped in unseen and hidden Himself in some secret place in the back streets. But he entered in such a way as to focus the whole lime-light upon himself, and to occupy the centre of the stage. It is a breath-taking thing to think of a man with a price upon his head, an outlaw, deliberately riding in to a city in such a way that every eye was fixed upon him. It is impossible to exaggerate the sheer courage of Jesus.” [William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke: Daily Study Bible (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1953), 249.] This was a well planned dramatic prophetic action in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets who sometimes acted out their prophetic messages in dramatic action. Barclay again…"Jesus entered Jerusalem in a way that deliberately set himself in the centre of the stage and deliberately riveted every eye upon himself. All through his last days there is in his every action a kind of magnificent and sublime defiance; and here he begins the last act with a flinging down of the gauntlet, a deliberate challenge to the authorities to do their worst."

In one sense Jesus is walking into a trap but it isn’t really a trap because he knows what will take place. “No one takes my life,” he says, “I give it.” Jesus started this journey to Jerusalem with a crowd, but he will end it alone, or all but alone, with only his mother and the beloved disciple staying by him.

Do you find when you watch a favourite movie, even though you know the outcome, you feel like you want to influence the players toward a different one? You know Rick is going to say to Ilsa in the final scene of Casablanca that she should get on that plane and leave with her husband. When Bogie says “it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” You know what’s coming; you’ve seen it all before. She’s going to get on that plane just the same as she has done every time you’ve watched the film. But there’s a part of you that wishes she wouldn’t.

In the same way the story of Easter is familiar to us. We know there is an inevitability to it and yet it still draws us in. There may not be real suspense any longer, because we’ve seen the ending, but there is still involvement and dramatic power. But there is one sense in which we can affect the outcome of the story – in our response to it. What if we were to walk with Jesus and share these experiences to some degree with him this week? Yesterday and today we have enjoyed time with friends and family – with the community of believers. This is what Jesus did before entering jeruslanm, he was with his friends at Bethany. We all have our Marys, Marthas and Lazaruses. Today we shout “Hosanna” and wave our Palm branches welcoming the King. What if tomorrow we were to drive out some money changers of our own as Jesus did when he went up to the temple? Perform some act of righteous indignation – sign a petition, write to our local member, challenge some injustice. During this last week Jesus taught several parables including the parable of the talents. On Tuesday we could ask ourselves whether we are utilising the talents we have been given, and whether we are ready to give our account to God. Charles Wesley wrote in 1762 -

A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify,
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.

To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill:
O may it all my powers engage
To do my Master’s will!

Arm me with jealous care,
As in Thy sight to live;
And O Thy servant, Lord, prepare
A strict account to give!

Help me to watch and pray,
And on Thyself rely,
Assured, if I my trust betray,
I shall for ever die.

Jesus spent Wednesday alone in prayer. What if on Wednesday we set aside some special time to be with God and to think about Jesus’ betrayal, and what ways we continue to betray him in our own lives? The early church fasted every Wednesday and every Friday, and John Wesley adopted this practice also - Wednesday in commemoration of Jesus’ betrayal, and Friday in commemoration of his death.

On Thursday we will have the opportunity to gather with the Lord and remember the institution of the Lord’s Supper in our Maundy Thursday service.

Friday will be a day of mourning, a day of deep agony, when sorrow and love will flow mingled down upon the most perfect brow of the Son of God. Will we be with Mary and John watching with them at the cross or will be trembling in hiding with the other disciples? I’m not asking, “will we be in church?” but something much more important, will we watch with Jesus, standing by him?

On Saturday the tomb will be sealed shut. Will we stand vigil and allow ourselves to let the tragedy of the death of Jesus really sink in?

When Sunday comes, we will be back here as we are each Sunday – but it will be a Sunday with a difference because the story has a twist. From Palms to Passion, and then...what?

Palm Sunday at Spring Street

This is a photo taken last Sunday by Liselle Gonsalves of our altar table after members of the congregation had laid down their palm branches in honour of Christ the King during Eucharist. Thanks Liselle. There are also some great Eucharistic images, such as the one below, to be found at Rev. Melissa Powell's blog Pensees. Thanks Melissa.

Don't Look Back

Here's Bob Dylan behaving very badly indeed at a press conference. From the cinema verite classic Don't Look Back (1967), D. A. Pennebaker's take on the 1965 tour of England. Spare a thought for the poor bloke trying to do the interview! Megan may wish to differ from Dylan's opinion of himself as a singer, stated about 20 seconds from the close of the interview.

If you enjoyed this post you might also like Thunder On the Mountain, Bob Dylan in Melbourne 1966, The Concert for Bangladesh, The Magic of the Black Disc, and iPod Therefore I Am.

Revisiting Hellenism

One of my Kingsley students has entered the following interesting comment on the Intro to Theology blog.

This week I have been reading ‘The Shaping of Things to Come’ by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, anyone read it? On pages 119-123, the authors present an interesting discussion on the topic of Hebrew and Hellenistic thinking in early Christian doctrines and their impact upon Christendom throughout the History of the Church. I have found the authors comments to be interesting and am keen to hear anyone’s comments in response to what they have to say. In summery, they argue that early Christian doctrine and thinking, including the creeds were largely and inappropriately influenced by Hellenistic thinking; an imbalance which could have been avoided had the early church fathers stuck to a more ‘Hebraic Spirit’ when interpreting scripture and discussing Christian dogma. They also perceive that when discussing Christology, early theologians focused too much on speculative doctrines, topics such as the Trinity, rather than ‘…the very elements that are stressed in scripture; ethics, discipleship, life and mission…[while also there being] no mention at all of Jesus the revolutionary, the subversive, the activist.’ As you have been reading through theology this semester, what do you think? Too much speculative theology, not enough practical? If so, has this had a profound impact of Christendom? In ‘Christian Theology, an Introduction’ on page 276, the ‘History of Dogma’ is introduced in relation to the topic of a suffering God. In this case, recent theologians seem to have altered their theology on this topic due to them having discovered an inappropriate leaning toward Greek Philosophy by earlier Christian theologians. Is there a danger of the same being the case in numerous other topics of Christian theology? I suppose, in view of Church history and theology, such questions have been the very heart of those who have gone before. Thomas Aquinas, an advocate for Greek philosophy, and Tertullian of Carthage, a strong advocate against the merging of theology and philosophy would be examples of this. Maybe I’m asking questions that too big for our little theology class. None the less, I feel it doesn’t hurt to ask and ponder.

Here is my reply: Certainly we need to be careful that we don’t allow our theology to be unduly influenced by philosophy (Hellenistic or otherwise) and the example you gave about the rediscovery by contemporary theologians of a suffering God is an excellent case in point. However the simplistic Hebraism good/Hellenism bad typology can be pushed too far. After all, the New Testament itself was written in Greek and the Old Testament Bible of Jesus and the Apostles was the Greek Septuagint translation, a product of Hellenised Judaism.

According to Cyril C. Richardson, “It was the Greek, rather than the Jew, who became the inheritor of the Christian message - a fact which should give pause to those who unduly exaggerate the importance of Hebrew over Greek thinking.” Christianity both inherited and displaced the older Greek philosophical system. When the Christian Emperor Justinian closed the philosophical school in Athens in 529 it was in one sense a sign of the victory of Christian theology over earlier modes of thought, but also a sign that the older views were no longer captivating the human heart and mind. Pelikan reminds us that the closing of the school was “more the act of a coroner than an executioner.”

Yet this “victory” over Greek philosophy was not complete “for the theology that triumphed over Greek philosophy has continued to be shaped ever since by the language and the thought of classical metaphysics.” A good example of this is the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation with its reliance on Aristotle’s distinctions between “substance” and “accidence.”

The so-called “Hellenization” of Christianity continues to be viewed as a subversion of genuine Christian teaching. This may be too simplistic but it remains true that in struggling to overcome pagan thought Christian thinkers often accommodated its terms in such a way that a high price was paid. Clement of Alexandria, for example, was heavily influenced by Middle Platonism. Even Tertullian, who asked what Jerusalem had to do with Athens, applied philosophical categories in his very attempt to distance himself from philosophy! The continuing influence of Greek philosophy on Christian theology is evidenced in part by the latter’s keen interest on the twin themes of the “absoluteness of God” and the immortality of the soul. Christian theologians typically asserted the Greek concept of the impassibility of God (his inability to experience feelings) as a given without providing much biblical proof for the idea, a concept which, as you have pointed out, has come under increasing attack in more recent theology.

Still, we should not press this “Hellenization” theory too far as if Christianity were not making an entirely new contribution or did not have its own unique voice. Chadwick comments on the paradox of Clement of Alexandria being “Hellenized to the core of his being, yet unreserved in his adhesion to the church.” The Fathers very often modified Greek philosophical ideas in light of Scripture. Indeed, Pelikan has argued that the theology of the creeds may well be seen a result of the “dehellenization” of earlier errors and that the real place to find Hellenism is among the heretics!

It could also be argued that Hellenized Christians were living in a Greek-speaking, Greek-thinking culture, so that Hellenising its message was simpy being missional! They utilized the thought forms of the very air that the church was breathing, in order to speak the truth of the gospel to a watching world. Indeed, it could be argued that if the church had failed effectively to Hellenize its message it would have remained a Jewish sect, exerting little influence on the surrounding world.

The Constantinian Christendom Myth

Many popular books on church renewal perpetuate the myth that the early church worshipped in homes in a simple non-ritualized style much like the house churches of today, and that things began to go terribly wrong when the emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity and adopted a “Christendom” model of church-state alliance. The problem with all of this is that the scholarship on the early church doesn’t really bear this explanation out. The early Christians borrowed the pattern of Jewish synagogue worship, with its simple public ritual of prayer, praise, singing (or chanting) and scripture reading and exhortation, and then added its distinctively Christian content, most uniquely the Eucharist. Though many people today tell us that “we need to get back to worshipping the way the early church did” one is struck by reading accounts of worship in the first few centuries with how very similar it all seems to what still takes place in the typical suburban church in today’s world. In addition to the elements alrready listed above, an offering was taken, and there are words of greeting to commence and blessing to conclude the service, all of which is being overseen by an “up-front” leader. The degree of continuity found in these elements across time is quite striking.

It is true that the early Christians often met in homes, and the house church movement of today sees this as a worthy pattern to be followed. There is certainly nothing wrong with meeting in homes and it may well be a preferred mode of gathering in certain situations. However, it should be noted that meeting in homes was a practical matter for the early Christians, not a theological one. Until they could be sure that they would not be subjected to further imperial persecution they needed to meet discreetly in private. Often the homes in which they met were the homes of wealthy members of the Christian community who had large enough rooms to accommodate crowds. Archaeological finds have uncovered evidence of the demolition of walls to create auditorium-like spaces within these homes. So the space within an early Christian “house church” functioned much more like that in a typical suburban church today than a “house church” meeting marked by informality and a relaxed “homey” atmosphere. (One major difference is that there were no pews. Not until much later did churches begin installing pews. People stood throughout the entire liturgy, and this is still the practice in most Orthodox churches today). Once the state gave them freedom to build their own public meeting halls they quickly adopted the Roman basillica model and went public.

Many writers of popular books on church renewal continue to perpetuate the myth that the age of “Christendom” begins with the conversion of Constantine in 312 AD. Poor old Con gets the blame for a great deal of things he probably wasn’t responsible for! He’s a favourite whipping boy of the Adventists who say he invented Sunday worship which is nonsense since Christians had worshipped on Sunday since the day Jesus rose from the dead. Constantine gave Christianity legal status but he did not create a “Christian Empire” - though he dreamed of it. It was Theodosius I (emperor from 379-395), not Constantine, who first made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Even then this by no means meant that the church had a monopoly on the late antique world of the first few centuries. Constantine simply gave Christians legal status alongside of other religions including the old Roman paganism. If by “Christendom” we mean a situation in which the church and state are closely aligned and the church completely dominates society, we really do not see this prevailing until 700 years or so AFTER Constantine - at the height of the Medieval period. For centuries before that was accomplished, the church existed in a cosmopolitan world of religious ideas much like our own, without special privileges or carte blanche state sanction. Even cities we think of as Christian centres, such as Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople, were by no means fully Christianized, as Christian bishops charged with the task of evangelising them knew all too well. Once barbarian tribes such as Goths, Vandals and Huns began to impinge upon and ultimately invade and conquer the Empire, the church was on the backfoot again. It had a good amount of success converting the barbarians - a missional activity if ever there was one - (though the Arians seemed to fare better than the Orthodox on this score), but you can be assured the church often had a very tenuous hold on the populace of any given urban area for at least the first thousand years of its existence. Hardly the Christendom model. If nothing else, all this demonstrates is that people who write books on what the church should be in the future need to seriously engage with people who write books on what the church actually has been in the past so that popular myths are not perpetuated.

HALT

The Boy Wonder's latest project is seeking funding. It's about Zombies on a train. Yes, that's right, Zombies...on a train. Need I say more? Actually I do need to say more because the zombie side of it is really just a vehicle for exploring marital fidelity, family ties, and living up to one's responsibilities. The film needs at least $12000 to make it viable, which is a miniscule amount for a short film like this. To visit the web site and see a promo short go to www.visioneerfilms.com/halt It's quite a large file so you might want to let it load for a while before you hit play. Some of my regular blog visitors have had a bit to do with Jesse's projects in the past. Maybe you guys would be willing to do a post on your own blogs to try to get the word out and the money raised. You never know, you might get thanked in the Oscar speech!

How I was Converted to Christmas (Again)

I used to be one of those Christians who didn’t think much of Christmas. That might seem strange – a Christian less than enthusiastic about the festival of Christ’s birth. It might surprise you how many Christians feel that way. Sometimes it’s because of pagan associations with certain Christmas traditions, such as December 25th having once been in ancient times the birthday of the sun, or the Christmas tree being a pre-Christian European symbol of fertility. At other times it’s the materialism they object to – all the madness of the silly season, the commercialization and the singing of such theology-lite songs as Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. A third objection is an odd one for those concerned for mission, but some Christians complain about those who attend church only at Christmas and Easter and never at any other time of year. (Well, two days of the year is better than none!)

I used to feel this way too, but I was converted to Christmas. I was converted to Christmas by reading the Bible, by hearing the passages we read at this time every year - the promises of the ancient prophets and the story of the Nativity that fulfilled those promises. For me the fact that there are pre-Christian origins to some of our Christmas traditions, only tells me that the Christian faith overcame and sent into obscurity all of those inadequate belief systems that predated it. The good news of the love of God through Jesus Christ just has no competition.

The three wise men were pagan magicians – astrologers, magi, dabblers in the occult sciences. But when they saw the Christ child, they worshipped. So there will be many people in church on Monday who haven’t been to church since last Christmas. That’s fine by me – some will see the Christ child and worship him. So Carols by Candlelight will swing from the sublime to the ridiculous in its musical programme as it always does – from O Holy Night to Santa Claus is Coming to Town. That’s okay – Jesus came for the foolish as well as the wise - for the three stooges as well as the three wise men.

Perhaps the most famous Beatles album cover is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It depicts a large crowd of very famous people all standing in a group with the Beatles at the centre. It’s fun to see how many people you can identify correctly. I think a great Christmas card would be one modelled on the Sgt. Peppers cover but instead of people gathering around the Fab Four they would be gathered around the manger scene with the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph at the centre. Instead of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Marlon Brando and the Rolling Stones would stand many of the great Christians of history – some famous for having been Christian – Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, John Wesley – as well as others perhaps not as well known for their Christian faith.

Along with the three wise men there may be some other threes. Perhaps the three stooges to represent the simple and “foolish” people who have a simple faith that needs no intellectual supports. Perhaps the three blind mice to represent the disabled people whom the world might disqualify but who find that they are as whole as anyone else and more whole than some because of Jesus. Each one would bring their gifts – perhaps not gold, frankincense or myrrh but precious things nonetheless, to show their love and gratitude to God for the giving of this child. Let everyone come to the manger this Christmas – pagan, Christian, Moslem, atheist – let them all look at this wonderful scene and marvel. We don’t have to control it. We don’t have to get everything theologically watertight. So there weren’t three wise men (the scripture just says "wise men' without giving a number), so Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 25th. There’s a time and a place for getting those factual details right but Christmas is a time to lay aside those scruples and welcome and rejoice with all who come to see this miracle baby.

Last Friday I drove by Como Park just down the road from where I live in Prahran, and saw a crowd of thousands leaving the annual Carols night, perhaps the biggest event on the City of Stonnington’s calendar. Some of these people were Christians, but I would say most were not. As I saw these people, young and old, single and married, straight and gay, coming away from their annual pilgrimage to carols on the lawn, touched once again by the mystery and the wonder of it all, I was converted to Christmas again.

Thunder on the Mountain

Here's Dylan's great new video of the opening song from Modern Times. There's no new footage here but it's a great montage of video from across most of his career. Enjoy! That means you too Megan!

Coke paid me nothing for this commercial!

Shadow of a Doubt

Alfred Hitchcock said that of all of his own films, Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was his personal favourite. Its easy to see why. He takes a small American town in northern California and into it brings the darkness of "Uncle Charlie." Charlie (Joseph Cotton) is all smiles and charm on the surface but not far below that thin veneer he is a cynic, a confidence trickster and a hater of the human race. But is he a murderer? His niece and namesake Charlie (Teresa Wright) will have her naivete shattered as she learns more about her uncle than she ever wanted to know. In a rivetting scene at the family meal table Uncle Charlie's dark side comes out in Thornton Wilder's crisply written dialogue:

"You think you know something, don't you? You think you're the clever little girl who knows something. There's so much you don't know, so much. What do you know, really? You're just an ordinary little girl, living in an ordinary little town. You wake up every morning of your life and you know perfectly well that there's nothing in the world to trouble you. You go through your ordinary little day, and at night you sleep your untroubled ordinary little sleep, filled with peaceful stupid dreams. And I brought you nightmares. Or did I? Or was it a silly, inexpert little lie? You live in a dream. You're a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Wake up, Charlie. Use your wits. Learn something."

Here we see the nihilism that will lead a person to commit multiple murders because he has first depersonalised his victims and removed himself from the realm of moral accountability. In an other scene Uncle Charlie pontificates: "What's the use of looking backward? What's the use of looking ahead? Today's the thing - that's my philosophy. Today." The one who lives entirely in the now need not worry about judgement, retribution or accountability. A heinous act may be committed and then moved on from without guilt or qualm of conscience.

The naive childlike innocence of the younger Charlie is slowly replaced by a harder realism. At the outset of the film the idea that such evil could exist in the world is unthinkable, and certainly could never come from her uncle whom she idolises. It's sad to see her lose that innocence but at the same time we know that she needs to do so if she is to develop an adult moral conscience.

There is an almost paedophilic relationship between the two as the older Charlie takes advantage of the adoration his niece shows him to ingratiate himself to her so that she will not unmask his dark past. As the younger Charlie realises his true identity the touch she once so dangerously coveted from him is something from which she now recoils. With courage she says no to his advances, unmasks his pretensions, and finds herself having to protect herself from becoming his next victim before, in a final showdown, he meets the fate we know he must meet if justice is to be served.

This is a first rate thriller as only Hitch could make them. The innocence and charm of small town America has a shadow cast over it that will make you wonder what evil may lie in the heart of the seemingly innocuous. As with all the titles in Universal's Hitchock Collection, there is a great half-hour documentary on the DVD with many of the original cast of the film being interviewed as well as usual suspects such as daughter Pat Hitchock and Peter Bogdanovitch. Highly recomended. Four stars.

The Concert for Bangladesh

On Sunday afternoon I sat down and watched the 1971 "Concert for Bangladesh" on DVD. Afterwards I wrote this review for the Bigpond movies site.

This a wonderful slice of rock history with some really fine performances. The band is tight and George Harrison's gentle presence anchors the band as it stages a free concert to raise money for famine-stricken Bangladesh. And what a band! Ringo Starr AND Jim Keltner on drums, Eric Clapton on guitar, Leon Russell and Billy Preston on keyboards. Preston's performance of "That's the Way God Planned It" is an absolute revelation as his gospel roots take hold of him and he starts to shimmy and strutt across the stage like a pentecostal holy roller. It's great to hear Harrison perform Beatles tunes of his own composition such as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Something," and "Here Comes the Sun" as well as his classic solo numbers such as "My Sweet Lord." Bob Dylan comes on at the end for a four-song set including "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall," "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Just Like a Woman." He's in fine form in his denim jacket and his 1971 "country Bob" vocal stylings. I even enjoyed Ravi Shankar's Indian music set (though admittedly I skipped it at first and then went back after I'd viewed the rest of the concert). If you're old enough to remember the cinema release of the concert this will be a nostalgia trip for you. If not, here's a chance to get educated on the first ever "Make Poverty History" style benefit concert.

Trinity and Mission (2)

Not THAT Trinity! How'd that get uploaded to my Blogger dashboard?

I received the following comment on The Trinity and Mission via email from Dr. Jon Case, Associate Professor of Theology at Houghton College, New York and thought I'd post it here.

"Think of the Trinity in doxological terms: Do you worship Jesus Christ? Do you worship God the Father? Do you worship, and pray to be filled with, the Holy Spirit?
If you answer yes to all of the above, then the question arises: just how many gods do you worship?

As a minimum, the doctrine of the Trinity attempts to maintain the tension that keeps you away from thinking of 3 gods and from thinking that Jesus, his Father and the Holy Spirit are not three distinct identities. If you say that they are not, then good luck to making sense of the NT. Father Son and Spirit interact with each other. Is that just a charade? If it is, then the text of the NT is no reliable guide to God.

Of course, if you answer 'no' to any of the above opening questions re Father, Son or Holy Spirit - you're in real trouble (and btw, you probably shouldn't be praying to be filled with a spirit that is not God's spirit).

If you answer: I just worship 'God' -and don't pay particular attention to the persons- then you have taken yourself right out of the pages of the NT. The earliest Christians worshipped Jesus --without denying worship to his Father-- by the infilling and power of the Holy Spirit. The worship came first - the theological precision followed a bit later.

If you say: 'Well of course I worship Father, Son and Holy Spirit and believe in only one God, but I don't want to use the term "Trinity" - let's use another term;' -- then in response I'd say you are showing poor theological judgement (a bit like trying to reinvent the wheel) and are needlessly causing confusion in the body of Christ.

So what difference does the doctrine of the Trinity make to mission? We are not calling people to merely follow Jesus (which by itself can be simply an ethical pursuit); we are calling them to worship Jesus. That activity, as the church has acknowledged, lands you in the middle of trinitarian considerations (in other words, just how many gods are we worshipping here?) And if you're not calling followers of Jesus to worship him, I'd say the whole idea of mission is in trouble."

The following was received by Dr. Mike Walters, Professor of Christian Ministries, at Houghton College:

"My daughter just had been asking me some questions about the Trinity for her cell group and I cobbled out a 3 page response...I'm very interested in the emergent church, for a number of reasons, but your response further down the page was appropriate. I once had a friend who left our mutual denomination (not the Wesleyans) who told me, "once the chicken leaves the egg, he/she then has to decide, "what will be my relationship to the shell? Will I disdain it as that which kept me bound, or will I gratefully acknowledge that it birthed me, protected and nurtured me, until I could walk on my own?"

Thanks for your comments guys.

The Trinity and Mission

This is a continuation of the very lengthy discussion in the comments section of my blog entry An Open Letter to My Friends in the Emerging Church. If you want to follow that interesting discussion, start there first and then continue on here.

The Trinity is not just (as Chris puts it in the earlier comments section) "a very useful concept to understand what God's trying to tell us." The Trinity is God. Of course the doctrine of the Trinity is a construct of language and of the mind, but so is all speech and all thought. Anything we say about God is metaphorical, not just what we say about the Trinity. Nobody claims, least of all the Trintarian theologians of the Nicene era, that the human mind can fully comprehend the being of God. All is mystery to us except what has been revealed. In Luther's language the only God we see is the God who is clothed in Jesus Christ. But what the appearance of Jesus Christ drives us to inevitably is a God who is Triune. What the church confesses about the Triune nature of God is not something spun out of the air by rampant Hellenism. It was religion before it was theology. All formal theology has as its precedent the actual experience of God in the Christian community and in the world. It's not something begun in the rarified atmosphere of abstract thought (though it sometimes may end up there). That Trinitarian language (like all language about God) is limited is simply a given in all theological discourse. As Augustine put it, "When the question is asked, What three? human language labours altogether under great poverty of speech. The answer, however, is given, three ‘persons,’ not that it might be (completely) spoken, but that it might not be left (wholly) unspoken.” So it is a straw man argument to say that the Trinity is something not very important because no one can completely wrap his or head around it. To follow this line of reasoning would be to confess nothing about God at all, since we cannot do so comprehensively.

Chris says that my "fascination with [theology] is more academic than practical. Does knowing the trinity exists make you do your mission work better?" My response to the first part of the sentence is, brother, you couldn't be more wrong about that. My answer to the question about the Trinity and mission is a resounding "Yes." On the first point - Theology is a discrete academic discipline in many universities and other institutes of higher learning, yes. And though I teach theology in one such place, and am involved in the academic discourse of the discipline, my primary commitment to theology is as a Christian for whom it matters to think seriously about God. Theology is the business of every Christian, not just academics and professional theologians. Michael Jinkins helpfully reminds us that theology is reflection upon all of life, not just upon “religious” matters, when he says "Theology is the essential business of faithful reflection on human life lived consciously in the presence of God." (Invitation to Theology, 17.) Nothing could be more practical than this.

Now to the question, "Does knowing the trinity exists make you do your mission work better?" Absolutely it does yes. The most significant (re)discovery of twentieth century theologians was that God's existence as a "Being-in-Communion" (and not simply a divine Monad) is the fundamental beginning point of all Christian thought and action. This rediscovery of the Trinity as the beginning point of all theology and practice, beginning with Karl Barth, was the single most influential insight in the development of theology in a post-modern (please note the hyphen) world. Chris, as one who hopes one day to be a professor of theology, familiarity with this direction in theology should be of crucial importance to you. No-one hated philosophical theology more than Barth (with the possible exception of Luther), but he didn't find the Trinity in the philosophers. He found the Triune God in the Bible and inescapably in the Person of Jesus Christ. It is because God is in Godself a Being-in-relation, and we are made in the image of the Triune God, that we are called to reflect that same image in all of our interaction with others. We are called to be open to God and to others in outgoing, self-forgetting, love. The trinitarian relations within the Godhead whereby the Father gives his Son for the life of the world, the Son gives glory to his Father through unstinting, though costly obedience, and the Holy Spirit is given to glorify, not himself, but both the Father and the Son, provide the model for our relationships to others. Believers, in their relationships with one another, and with the world, are caught up into the “ecstatic” fellowship of the Divine Family. The believer is called to be one who shares with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in an “others-focused” orientation. Surely this is the only proper foundation for mission.

Modern Trinitarian theology has helped us to see that the doctrine of the Trinity begins with a focus, not on God’s ontological being, but on God’s saving activity. It centres on Christ’s birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity, rather than being a doctrine derived from philosophical reflection on the nature of Absolute Being (a reflection which always tilts toward sheer monotheism or monarchianism), is rather the result of rational reflection on the saving activity of God in Christ. These divine occurrences confront human reason with the realization that only a triune God can account for them.

Eric Macall wrote in Whatever Happened to the Human Mind (1980) : "The Trinity is not primarily a doctrine, any more than the Incarnation is primarily a doctrine. There is a doctrine about the Trinity, as there are doctrines about many other facts of existence, but if Christianity is true, the Trinity is not a doctrine, the Trinity is God. And the fact that God is Trinity - that in a profound and mysterious way, there are three divine Persons eternally united in one life of complete perfection and beatitude - is not a piece of gratuitous mystification, thrust by dictatorial clergymen, down the throats of an unwilling but helpless laity, and therefore to be accepted, if at all, with reluctance and discontent. It is the secret of God’s most intimate life and being, into which, in his infinite love and generosity, he has admitted us; and it is therefore to be accepted with amazed and exulted gratitude."

In the so-called postmodern world, it is more or less a given that individuals are not lone atoms but persons in relation. There is no longer any "autonomous man" (now a thankfully debunked modernist myth). Each person is who that person is because of intimate connections with other persons. The doctrine of the Trinity speaks profoundly to this realization, for it tells us that God’s own being is constituted in precisely this way - God is a being in communion. This communion is, moreover, a loving communion. As Robert Wilkin has it, “The doctrine of the Trinity reaches to the deepest recesses of the soul and helps us know the majesty of God’s presence and the mystery of his love. Love is the most authentic mark of the Christian life, and love among humans, as within God, requires community with others and a sharing of the deepest kind.”

After all, to which God are we introducing people when we engage in mission? Not Plato's Unmoved Mover, or the Absolute Monad of Arianism or of Universalism, but the God whose Name is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is not some vague Higher Power or Supreme Being, but a Particular God - a God with a history. This is the God whose Name we all received at our Baptism, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (yes, and of Athanasius too), who brought our ancestors through the Red Sea, who transformed the world through the cross and the empty tomb. Chris says we can learn a lot from Buddhists and Mormons, and of course we need to be respectful listeners to all people. We cannot say we disagree until we can first say we understand and the church has not always been good at this. But what will happen if we lose the distinctiveness of the God we confess, what if we forget God's Name, what if we forget our Story, what will we have to offer in the dialogue? If emergent/missional churches are going to sit loose on the Trinity I truly fear for them.

Finally (if you've got this far you're probably one of the few), Chris thinks I'm mistaken when I say my church is "traditional" and that in fact we are "missional" but don't know it. I think we are using the word "traditional" in completely different senses (which is a very bad basis for dialogue). Chris, you seem to use it to mean something like this (correct me if I'm wrong) - "evangelical churches who are unfaithful to the Gospel because they are so consumed by running their own programmes that they are not engaged in mission beyond their own four walls." You see, to me there is nothing traditional about that at all. Some churches (of all kinds) are stuck in this pattern and some churches are not. I would suggest that far fewer are as dead in this respect as the emergent/missional churches claim. How then might I define my church as "traditional" and thus different from a typical emergent approach?

We believe that God calls us to gather together on the first day of each week in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It's not a sabbath - it's the Lord's Day - a mini-Easter every Sunday (or if you like every Easter is a Big Sunday). Emergent/missional churches don't think it's all that important on which day they meet or indeed if they meet weekly at all. Any day or time of the week will do; it's all the same to the Lord.

When we gather we enact a liturgy that narrates the story of what God has done in Christ. We enjoy preaching and we like it to be from the pulpit, a symbol, not of the minister's authority, but of the authority of Holy Scripture. We take up an offering each week because we think Christians should discipline their love of money and because we want to support and enable the church, including the pastor, in its ministry. We don't think it's absolutely necessary to sing hymns or any other kind of songs, but we embrace music (especially hymnody) gratefully and enthusiastically. Emergent/missional churches don't typically think too much of these patterns of worship, though some will do them. But worship is just as valid if it's meeting with a Christian friend down at the local cafe and having a talk about Jesus. We love to meet our friends at the cafe too but we wouldn't feel, like we had worshipped or "been to church." That's one of the things that makes us "traditional."

Like emergent/missional churches we wholeheartedly believe that ministry belongs to the whole people of God and that the church should do its utmost to equip and enable all of its members to fulfil their task in ministry. However, we still believe God calls men and women to a Ministry of Word, Sacrament, and Order - to have a shepherding responsibility over a Christian congregation. It would certainly be wrong for our pastors to big note themselves or lord it over their flocks, but we want to honour them and respect them as the Scriptures command us. We believe that a ministry of preaching, teaching, and pastoral care requires a high level of professional skill and knowledge development, so we want our ministerial candidates to have a degree in theology as well as whatever other specialised training helps them in their ministry. Just as we want the members of our congregation who are doctors, plumbers, or garbage collectors to give themsleves wholeheartedly to their life's vocation, to be recompensed fairly for their labours and to have safe and just workplace conditions, so we want our pastors to have the same. In keeping with this, a large proportion of our budget goes to pastoral support and we are unapologetic about this. This makes us "traditional." Emergent/missional churches tend to frown on professional clergy as a waste of money and resources and feel (again correct me if I'm wrong) that the system obscures the priesthood and ministry of all believers, so that the pastor does all the work and nobody else does anything. It's okay to operate without paid pastors of course, but it cannot be the only way. We (and millions like us) are happy with the traditional model of pastoral supply and apparently still reasonably "missional" as well.

To me "traditional" just means doing things pretty much the way the church has always done it, and "emergent" means trying something different. By that definition our congregation is "traditional" and emergent churches are not. One can be just as effective in mission as another.

An Open Letter to My Friends in the Emerging Church

Recently I attended a seminar during which an emergent church leader reassured his audience that the movement supported more traditional types of churches and was not making the claim that the emergent model was the only way to go but simply one of many possible configurations. "We are here to help. We believe in what you are doing. We want to affirm you and also share with you the insights of our particular model." Well that sounded pretty good to me. Later that week I went to the website of the ministry he represented and the first image I saw was of a traditional suburban church with a large "Detour" sign pointing away from it! What's going on here guys? Excuse the politically incorrect language but does the emergent church speak with forked tongue? Are you guys in solidarity with the whole of the church or not?

Off I went to another emergent church website, one belonging to the same denomination as my own, and found the image you see here, captioned "The Missional Church, turning the established church on its steeple..." Can I just say as the pastor of a more or less traditional church that I am a little offended by such images and by the anti-traditional-church rhetoric that seems to be a part of the emergent church's mandatory discourse. I think some of the emergent churches are doing great things, especially those who are identifying with the poor and the marginalised, in ways that would make some evangelical churches bow their heads in shame. I applaud the recovery of sacramental life that is evident in some quarters. Who could object to an emphasis on a missional presence in communities hitherto unreached by the church? Certainly not me. My general impression of the traditional evangelical church's response to the emergent church movement has been "Go for it; If you can reach people we can't, more power to ya. In fact. we'll give you money and personnel and prayer support and other resources to help make it happen." (At least this has been the case in my own denomination.) But what do the more traditional churches get in reply - we are mocked, ridiculed, and made the butt of jokes. We are told that we are hopelessly behind the times, that our methods are ineffective, that we aren't missional, that we don't care about reaching unreached people, that the wave of the future is with the emergent church and unless we get on board, we'll miss what God is doing.

This is particularly galling when you reflect on the fact that the leadership of the emergent church is made up of people birthed in, nurtured in, trained by, and supported by the traditional church you seem called to bag out. Please brothers and sisters I urge you not to bite the hand that feeds. We are your own family. We prayed for you, loved you, wept with you, rejoiced with you, and encouraged you to give your all in service to Christ and the Gospel. Now that you are doing that (albeit in a little different way than some might have expected) it hurts to be told we are redundant.

It is also hurtful (and myopic) to assume that the traditional church is not missional because it meets in a chapel and not in a pub or in a cafe and it sings hymns and preaches sermons and passes the plate in the good ol' fashioned way. My congregation averages about 25 people from all walks of life. Typically between Sundays, members do such things as volunteer in a cafe that ministers to street people, counsel marginalised youth, provide marriage counselling, volunteer construction help in a primary school in an impoverished area, talk to their neighbours about Jesus and the list goes on. Do people in the emergent church think they are the only ones who undertand this principle of incarnational presence in the world? Or that any of this is in any way new? What is "emergent" about this kind of living? (Does any body remember the Jesus movement. Maybe not; it was after all 30 years ago). Extending and completing the church's gathered worship by going out and serving the wider world is as old as the church itself and church history provides any number of examples of people who modelled this in magnificent ways, whether Francis of Assisi, William Booth, or St. Columba of Scotland! Little suburban churches all over the country live like this, but they are not interested in dispensing with their regular gathering on the first day of the week. They gather around Word and Sacrament each Sunday. They sit in pews. They drink coffee and chat over morning tea. It isn't hip, it isn't sexy. There's nothing emergent about it. But it's church and it's been going on for two millennia and it will continue to go on until Jesus comes again. The discipleship of these people is just as real and just as genuine, and in some cases more so, than some more hip emergents for whom these grey headed little old ladies and gents are the target of ridicule.

I have no problem with the church "scattering" into its community for mission. But I do have a problem when this scattering is set over against the church's "gathering." The church is, or should be both "scattered" and "gathered." I do not believe that sitting with a mate down at Starbucks and talking about Jesus can be called "having church." It's a great thing to do, and I wish I could do it more often, but it isn't church and it isn't the church's liturgy. The church's gathering is something concrete and identifiable. We are welcomed into a specific community through our baptism. We, the baptised, gather to narrate the story of God's saving work in Jesus Christ. We gather to be guided and taught by Holy Scripture, to hear the stories from our family album (I almost said "family history" but "history" might sound too traditional.) We gather to make Eucharist (give thanks), to break bread together in remembrance of Christ. These things have a concrete, local, specific and particular manifestation in real space and time. There is a circumference to our circle. We are those called by and named by Christ. Mission means the circle is always enlarging (or should be) but the church is not some amorphous (shapeless) thing with no boundary or identifiable limit. It is incarnate (embodied) not gnostic (reified). Our weekly liturgy, held to commemmorate the day upon which God raised Christ from the dead, is a celebration of God's saving work in Christ participated in by those who by the Spirit have been made his people. Admittedly it's not always done well or faithfully and perhaps this is why many of you in the emergent church have left more traditional churches. But it has been going on since the first Pentecost and I don't see it being replaced any time soon.

Look, pardon my passion in all this but I guess what I want to say here is that we are brothers and sisters together in the one church. We may differ from each other in certain ways and in this post I have been critical of certain blind spots I believe the emergent church has. But I believe in your right to exist. I applaud your efforts to emulate Jesus and reach people with the good news of God's love. I celebrate the grace of God at work in your faith communities. All I ask is that you return the sentiment.

Kingsley chapel message: Romans 15:23-33

I’m not sure what you think of when you hear of Spain. Maybe you think of bullfighting, flamenco dancing, or conquistadors. A lot of people think of clubbing because Spain is one of, if not, the biggest nightclub country in Europe. But when the Apostle Paul thought of Spain he thought of only one thing – the thousands there who had not heard of Christ. To get as far as Spain and to preach the Gospel was the goal and destination of his missionary endeavour. His destiny instead was imprisonment, chains, and death in Rome. (The image in this post is Rembrandt's Paul in Prison)

He had already stated in verse 20-22 that he wanted to preach Christ where he was not already proclaimed (vv.20-22). In order to do this he planned to visit the church in Rome en route to Spain (vv.23-24). But first he had a detour to negotiate as is clear in verses 25-29. He was on his way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there. The Macedonians and Achaians had made a contribution to the famine-struck Jewish believers and Paul wanted to deliver this aid, before he went on to pursue his Spanish vocation. Paul seems to have been a person who was open to God’s purposes in any detours that he might meet with along the way.

You may have seen the ad on TV where a group of twenty-somethings jump onto a train somewhere in Europe and they are all excited about getting to Paris or somewhere and the conductor calls out “All aboard the express train leaving for Berlin”! They all look at each other with shocked expressions as if to say, “Berlin! We’re on the wrong train!” But then just as quickly they dissolve into laughter and excitement again, “Oh well, Berlin it is then; It’ll probably be just as much fun!”

If only we could deal with the disappointments and detours of life so well. I don’t know about you but when I have a goal in life that I don’t reach I feel like a failure. I have had a number of pretty major disappointments in life and ministry and I am sure you have also. But would you say Paul was a failure because he didn’t ever get to Spain? I don’t think so. God had other plans for him, plans which were not known to him at the time that he wrote to the Roman believers. By the time he wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:6-7 he had greater clarity on his destiny. Assuming Paul wrote the Pastoral Epistles (I’m sure you won’t mind me assuming that) they were probably written between the end of his first Roman imprisonment and his likely execution under Nero (A.D. 63-67). By this time he was able to write, “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” In Romans he is coming to Rome via Jerusalem and en route to Spain. In 1 Timothy he has come to Rome to die and he never will see Spain. The missionary trip to Spain was a straightforward plan, all laid out and fully in keeping with Paul’s vocation as a missionary. But it was not to play out the way he expected.

What is your Spain? What has God called you to do? Keep heading toward it. But be aware that God may have something else in mind. Paul never did get to Spain, but he sure went a long way in the attempt and he sure did a lot of good along the way. So we haven’t met our life goals yet. So we are not today where we thought we would be five, ten, or twenty years ago. So what? This will only feel like a failure to us if we are self-made, self-directed, career-focused success mongers. But we are not that; we are servants of God and of Christ. We go where God disposes and we do as much good as we can wherever we find ourselves. Have we failed because we felt God called us to a certain thing and we never did get there? I’m not talking about those who are in disobedience because they don’t follow God’s call. But there are those who wholeheartedly set the course of their life in one direction and end up somewhere else. This is not failure at all. It’s simply reassignment.

I was recently reading of a man who left the Catholic priesthood and felt shame and guilt because he had left his vows. While he was still a Jesuit, because he had taken a vow of poverty, he could not give or receive personal gifts, even at Christmas. His niece said to him, “Uncle I bought you a present this year but I can’t give it to you because Mummy said you aren’t allowed to own anything.” “That’s right darling,” he answered. “And that’s because you’re a priest isn’t it?” “Yes sweetheart that’s right.” “Well, that’s OK,” she assured him, “I’ll just keep it and give it to you when you’re a man again.”

To come to the realization that one is allowed to be “just a man” without other identifying or legitimizing features is a liberating thing and if it is God’s appointment that we move from one thing in life to another there need be no sense of shame or failure involved. If your Spain becomes your Rome just remember your God is still your God, you are still his child, and your life remains where it has always been – in his hands.

Quote of the Week

"Postmodernism, at least as applied to history, is an intellectual dead end which will one day be equated with pseudo-sciences such as phrenology ["reading" the bumps on people's heads] in the early nineteenth century and the study of the paranormal later...[It] will be seen - sooner one hopes rather than later - for an 'emperor's clothes' phenomenon, and...there will be wonderment that so many clever people wrote, believed, and applauded so much manifest nonsense, and were promoted for doing so; and that it it inspired the writing of so much ugly, pretentious, jargon-ridden English."
- R. M. Thomson reviewing K. Ashley and P. Sheingorn, Writing Faith: Text, Sign and History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999 in The Journal of Religious History 30:3 (October 2006): 375.

The same issue of the JRH has an excellent article by Joanna Cruickshank, "Appear as Crucified For Me: Sight, Suffering, and Spiritual Transformation in the Hymns of Charles Wesley," of which you can read an abstract here. For a lengthier synposis you can visit the August 1st entry on Joanna's blog.