Theology is a Practical Road Map

These days we hear an awful lot about "new ways of being church." After 2000 years, you would think that the history shelves might be the best place to explore those new ways before foisting them on us pewsitters.

Some of those "new ways" that we in T.E.C. have been exploring were addressed by St. Paul in todays reading: Colossians 3:1-11,

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).

On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life.

But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

Sounds a lot like the right way of "being Church" doesn't it? But it sounds so old fashioned. Hasn't theology found a way more in keeping with modern lifestyles?

The C.S. Lewis Institute sends me periodic e-mails. The July Update contained this pearl (for the complete text click here).

"In other words, Theology is practical: especially now. In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: Touchstone), pp.135-137

Lewis writes about personal religious experience being an inadequate guide for a Christian life. Many of us have been blessed with deeply spiritual experiences. If these experiences were all that I had to go on, I would be lost. Every seeker needs a road map in order to reach their final destination.

As far as life goes, there is but one end. For the Christian, that destination is so wonderful that the Narrow Way (Matthew 7:13-14) is a perfectly fine road to travel. As we encounter new side roads along the way, with their promises of new sights and adventures, and their ability to bypass all those traffic jams caused by issues, we have the road map of theology to keep us headed in the right direction. For there is but one right direction and a whole lot of wrong ones. Theology has studied most of the wrong ways. Theology serves as a handy field supplement to your Bible's road map when you encounter what appear to be novel side roads.

There is an old saying that goes,

"Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment."

So tap into Theology (link to Alister McGrath's text) the next time you see a new road sign tempting you to take a side trip along the Way.

The Price of Freedom

While I know that there are days set aside to remember our veterans, and to remember those who have died for us, the July Fourth holiday is more typically used as a day to celebrate our independence. Independence comes at a price, and because that price was paid by others for me, the holiday seems bittersweet to me. We have been gifted freedom from the tyranny of foreign king, freedom of self determination, freedom to elect our own scoundrels, and freedom to blog. Of all these things, the freedom to practice religion must be considered the greatest freedom. Our religious freedom comes at a price as well. The past couple of week's journey through Romans (in the daily lectionary) tells us as much with words and ideas that a modern blogger could never come close to expressing.

Romans 8:12-17 (King James Version)

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Freed from bondage, we should not fear anything earthly, even if it means that there is a chance that we might have to pay the price too.

Baaa...hd Omissions

Today's blog is dedicated to the One Good Shepherd. May we be bold enough to declare His name.

Today's sermon was provided by the Rev. Mary Cat Young (probably because Fr. Foss is recovering from the flu). On a Sunday when the readings included Psalm 23

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
3 he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

And Acts 4:5-12 where Peter claimed:

"This Jesus is
'the stone that was rejected by you, the builders;
it has become the cornerstone.'
12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved."

And 1 John 3:16-24 where we hear,

23 "And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us."

And John 10:11-18 where the Lord says,

14 "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."

we heard a sermon that focused on our sheep-hood. There was a little in there about the shepherd's job, and a bit on the importance of the upcoming Bishop search and selection in our Diocese (Upper SC), but not one word on the issue of exclusivism which is what these lessons led me to consider.

There are four basic ways to handle the claims that Jesus is the One Good Shepherd. One is the way of exclusivism. This seems to be the claim of Peter, and he was bold enough to proclaim this even though it would eventually lead to his own death crucified upside down in Rome.

Another approach is inclusivism. This approach would have us believe that God, somehow will lead all to salvation.

The next approach is pluralism where there is an underlying reality to which all religions lead.

Pluralism seems to be the majority position among Christians that Jesus is only one way by which people are "saved."
According to the Pew Forum survey 83 % of members of "mainline" protestant churches along with 79% of Catholics feel this way.

And then there is parallelism where each religion stands as saving in its own context(this reminds me of the jokes about separate heavens for each religion).

No discussion would be complete without mentioning Universalism. This would be to say that a good a good Wiccan, or even a good agnostic, can have everlasting life.

There are elements of universalism in pluralism, parallelism and even in inclusivism. I myself have wandered into these territories. They are very tempting, but today's lessons lead me out of my "inexclusivism" (Jesus can make himself known to those who do not have the chance to know Him in this lifetime hinted at in John 10:11-18) and towards exclusivism.

Did I hear anything in today's sermon to lead me out of the pasture of mainstream universalism?

Have I gone astray?



Baaa...men!

Does This Make Zense to You?

(Image From Ann Huey's website)

In the most recent case of Episcopalian strange bed fellows, the Diocese of Northern Michigan elected a man as Bishop who is both an Episcopal priest and a "lay ordained" Buddhist. There are also procedural questions about the election which our EDUSC Bishop and Executive Council have to consider before issuing a consent to the election.

I have read with interest the blogging going on about this story. Read Anglicat's take here, or the opinion of the rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Pine Bluff Arkansas,

More to the point is the text of the Rev. Forrester's Trinity Sunday sermon that the people at StandFirm transcribed. Here is an illustrative sample,

“That’s what we heard today, right? All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Well, we could slightly rephrase that and keep it, keep its true meaning, I think, if we would say: Jesus realized that all that He is, He had received from God. Jesus is the one that realized all He is, “all I am, I have received from God.” And in response, we read in the gospels later on His response, to having received everything from God is that, “into Your hands I commend my spirit and Thy will be done.” He receives everything from God and He returns everything to God. That is what it means that everything has been given to Jesus, all the power. His very center, the center of His heart, of His body, of His mind, is the living God. All things come from the divine source for Jesus—who He is, His self identity, His soul, that just means His understanding of who He is, He has come to realize and it’s key in that baptismal moment, that He is the very presence of the living God. That is who He is. He is one who is unified with God. That’s what the Syrians are getting at. Jesus realizes that God dwells in His very being, He is one with God, and He is one with you and me. And because He is one, He is the lifegiver. He can show us the path of life, which is the path to realizing that we are one with God. We are one with one another.”

I named this "Buddhistic Adoptionism."

The same StandFirm post included the service Bulletin which had this interesting bit of information at the end,

AN UPDATE FROM THE EPISCOPAL MINISTRY DISCERNMENT TEAM
May 13, 2008
The discernment process is moving along on schedule. Our first few sessions were led by Marcia Franz, Kevin Thew Forrester, Fran Gardner and Hazel Satterly. Formation and team building were on the agenda for the first few meetings. Kevin led us through a brief oversight of the Enneagram showing us how our personality traits impact group process, how we receive and give information and how we make decisions.

So the Rev. Forrester was in on the discernment team for the next Bishop which may very well wind up being himself.

It will be interesting to see how our Executive Council and Bishop in Upper South Carolina handle this.

I advise all to write to Bishop Henderson and the members of D.E.C. and let them know your opinion.

As for me, I will meditate, and pray for the Diocese of Upper Michigan that they will find a clear minded Bishop who can lead them through the spiritual minefields ahead. I pray that they have also seen this video,

Faith...the nounverb problem

Noun: according to Bob Jones, Northside Bible Church, Jacksonville Florida
http://www.biblefood.com/form.html

Verb: is preferred according to Rev. Steven B. Smethers DD

Both (transitive verb and noun): Merriam-Webster and the Rev. Charlie Foss.

Today's sermon was on Faith. If you where not there, you will have to take it on faith that we heard a good sermon, 12 minutes in length, which brought in all the readings for today and an anecdotal story to boot. The only weakness was when Charlie said he didn't know if his story was a Christian one. I have faith that it was.

The story involved a spontaneous act of pastoral kindness occuring in a healing service at a Christian church. The pastor was moved to hug and cry along with a man who was in pain. Okay, the location, the people involved all sound like Christians. The act sounded a Christian response to me, but some might argue that it is a human response to another suffering human. This type of response may be an uncommon one as evidenced by this video of the old man struck by a car.



Most people did not rush to his side. Doesn't it take a leap of faith to forget yourself for a moment and care for another person. Does faith in God have anything to do with it? Does one have to be a Christian? Couldn't one be a Samaritan?

My question is this, if the Samaritan was a good neighbor, is the Samaritan saved?

Leaving the Temple of the King

Today's sermon was given by Mary Cat. We were given another personal story, this one based loosely on the wise men's journey to Bethlehem. It was the story of her first trip to Washington D.C. ten years ago with her High School History quiz bowl team. She went to Washington as no fan of our country. I suspect she was taught and raised in the modern liberal method, and she had come to believe that American was the land of the oppressed, the discriminated against, and the homophobic (yes she did throw in a line about the oppressed GLBTs). Were things that bad in 1998? Maybe she didn't listen to President Clinton's "Things are Great" State of the Union address. Alas, I am afraid that her history team had studied a revisionist history of the United States. It grieves me to think that our youth are still being raised to believe that such negative things are at our nation's core.

Mary Cat's personal epiphany came when she visited (don't roll in your grave Col. Cadwallader Jones)
the Lincoln Memorial and read “In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.” I guess she came to understand that America is a place where people struggle for and achieve liberty and justice. I wish she had seen and said that America is the place where we can struggle for liberty and justice as "one nation under God." I also wish her epiphany had been somewhere else, like...,


Fat chance there! I ask too much.

Frankly, I think the sermon was short on God-talk and long on an earthly Kings/Presidents feeling. The hope for "change" with the upcoming inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama was evident in her sermon. Quite frankly, I fear that people are guilty of putting Obama on the throne in the temple of the King. We should remember the history of Politics and Presidents: "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

I was also reminded of the Gospel reading from today. The wise men also went to the temple of an earthly King, Herod. Their personal epiphany was when they saw the writing on the wall and took a different route home. This of course after bowing before the real King in the person of the Christ child. In my humble opinion, that is the route today's sermon should have followed. Leave behind your earthly Kings. Start with Christ the King, and follow Him. Oh, the places you will go. The things that you will see. The person you will become. That is the change I'm looking for.



Anyone out there have a problem with "wise men?" I think that might be another thing to "change." How about wise "persons?"

Knocking on Heaven's Door

Mary Cat delivered today's sermon and had the task of elucidating Amos, Thessalonians, and the parable of the bridesmaids.
Amos' day of the Lord is darkness, and Paul's is being caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. These contain enough to chew on, but Jesus' parable with the unwise bridesmaids coming up against the closed door, and hearing the tough reply, "Truly I tell you, I do not know you," is scary stuff. I think Mary Cat soft pedaled through this a little. What if she had said what one of my professors said when he announced to our large incoming freshman class,

"Look at the person to your left and then look at the person to your right. I tell you, in four years time one of those students will not be around"?

And how did I get through those four years? Through my own hard work, my own perseverance, and my own commitment? I did not make it on my own then, and I am certain that the way of Jesus is another task that I cannot accomplish without Him. As I alluded to in the comment section last Wednesday,

The words may be harsh, but I am reminded that Jesus tells me the Good News of salvation, but I learned the bad news is that the way is through the Via Dolorosa...

God, grant us the courage, and strength to follow in Your way, help me along the way, please open the door for me, and when I knock, hear my cry.

Don't leave me "Knocking at Heaven's Door."

Eric Clapton's version is one of my favorites,

Mama, take this badge off of me
I can't use it anymore.
It's gettin' dark, too dark for me to see
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.

Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door

Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can't shoot them anymore.
That long black cloud is comin' down
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.

Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
-Bob Dylan