Thinking the Faith, Praying the Faith, Living the Faith

Farewell to TypePad, Hello to the PCUSA Blogs

We are migrating this blog to the new PCUSA website platform.  Unfortunately, this means a change of URL.  But keep following us on the new site, as we try to explore Thinking, Praying, and Living the Faith.  

The new URL is http://www.pcusa.org/blogs/faith/.  Change your bookmark!

Charles

Why Bother? It's Just Words

In the worst of times, it’s often the smallest of things to which hope clings.  What has saved me is  words.  Well, Word through words, to be exact. 

 Some people, including preachers after awhile, wonder why we bother spending so much time with words, forcing them to line up correctly like a grade school teacher with an unruly group of kids marching off to the cafeteria.  Isn’t this such a colossal waste of time, all this fussing with words?  Why bother?

I am one of the reasons why.  I was a kid whose parents didn’t have much need for the church.  My grandmother read me the Bible stories and prayed and sang Jesus songs with me before going to bed whenever I stayed with her, which wasn’t that much since we lived far away. 

I went to Vacation Bible School between the fifth and sixth grades, probably to give my mother a break as much as anything else.  While there,  I was asked to memorize and recite the 23^rd Psalm the next day.  I did, not knowing the code like the regular churchgoers—i.e. just because the church asks you to do something doesn’t mean you really have to do it.    I won a prize the next day for being the only one to have memorized the 23^rd Psalm.  You’d have thought I’d hung the moon the way everyone went on about it.  I was only doing what I was asked to do.

I don’t remember what the prize was, but I know the real prize was the words I stored up like treasures in the box under my bed filled with rocks and Barbie clothes and other good words I collected from books I’d read.  I wasn’t really sure what the words of the 23^rd Psalm meant, but having memorized them enabled me to reflect upon them as I grew.  And they made me want more God words. 

The first sermon I remember was one on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego preached by a visiting pastor at my grandmother’s church that same summer.  To this day I remember him asking, “Who WAS that fourth figure in the fiery furnace?”  It was Jesus, he said. 

Jesus?  He was the good shepherd in the stained glass window, draped in a shouldered lamb.  He was the baby away in the manger.  He was the man on a cross.  Now he’s showing up in a fiery furnace?  That Jesus sure seemed to get around.  And I wanted to follow to see what he’d do next. 

I haven’t stopped following.  All because of scripture’s and teachers’ and preachers’ words. 

Because I didn’t think to say thank you to them then, I want to say it now to all who continue to futz with words:  Thank you for staying in the struggle.  Though you may not think so, it makes all the difference in the world.

Korean American Theological Reflections

Here are fourteen theological reflections on the defeat of the motion to create a fifth Korean language presbytery at the past 219th General Assembly in Minneapolis.  The Office of Theology and Worship sponsored a Pastor Theologian Program in October 2010.  Eleven Korean American pastors, a hospital chaplain, and two seminary professors, gender and generational representatives of the wider Korean American PC(USA) community were invited to reflect theologically upon this event.  Check out my previous blog for an introduction.

The theological reflections can be found here: http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/theologyandworship/whatwedo-pastor-theologian/

You will notice that there is considerable diversity represented in these reflections both in content and style.  These reflections range from autobiographical narratives, sermons to more formal academic writings.  Not all reflections are direct responses to the GA event; many deal with issues that surround what happened.  I hope that reading these reflections will be one way to "hear voices of peoples long silenced" (Brief Statement of Faith).  You can respond to individual reflections to continue the conversation.

New Life

by Karen Russell  

       So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2Co 5:17 NRS)        

  It happens in the blink of an eye.  One moment you have a life that’s familiar, it’s yours.  The next moment, everything has changed.  The recent spate of tornadoes in Alabama, the flooding in my former home in Western Kntucky (as well as the entire lower Ohio and lower Mississippi valleys), earthquakes, tsunamis, hail, fire, aneurysm, stroke, auto accident – any one of these things can become what a friend once called a “life-quake.”   It throws everything out of kilter and makes mush out of everything you once relied upon.  The life that was is gone.  Without time to be prepared, you have a new life, one you didn’t plan.  I am a survivor of such a moment that resulted in a new life being thrust upon me. But a decade later, I am settled into this new life and can imagine no other.  And the world moves on. 

 The four lane highway in Tuscaloosa, AL that served as my transition from one life to another a decade ago is now flattened, as gone as that old life.  The scene of my own life-quake is now the scene of an entire city’s life-quake.  That four lane highway was the beginning of a journey from the life that was to the life that is.  And now that highway is on a journey of its own, bringing along thousands of others to places where a new life was thrust upon them, brought by raging wind and funnel clouds. 

New life doesn’t always come easily, isn’t always welcome, and the transition often isn’t smooth.  But as someone who has made that difficult journey down a four lane highway into a different life, I can testify that this new life has an element of joy and thankfulness that the old life did not.  And as the old continues to pass away and is made new things I used to take for granted are treasured.  Conversely, things that were highly valued no longer seem worth my time and energy.  Priorities have re-aligned in ways I find useful and fulfilling.  Things that travelled with me from the old life to the new now serve different purposes.  Things I once treasured have been gladly given away.  I stopped longing for the old life quite some time ago, which allowed me to live this new life.  But new life is hard.

 My brother and his wife just welcomed a new baby.  This newest addition to our family arrived via an emergency C-section, five weeks early and after months of bed rest by her mother.  Preparation for this new life was hard; delivery of this new life was hard; the first weeks after the arrival of this new life is hard, and life is very different than if this determined young girl arrived in a more traditional way.  But as they take one day at a time, adjusting to the rhythm of their new life that includes visiting their daughter in a neo-natal intensive care unit, the joy in this new life is already apparent.  And they do not long for the way life was without her.

 New life is hard.  A new life in Christ asks us to re-align our priorities, give up things we value and surrender our claim on every aspect of our life.  To remember the way things were only so we can appreciate the way things are – and anticipate the way things will be.   

           

             

The "I Am" in the Ordo

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the doors of the church, including one of Jesus’ “I am” statements from the gospel of John: “I am the gate” (John 10). Our gathering and sending, our going out and coming in, are – like Christian prayer itself – “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In subsequent reflection on this topic, it has dawned on me that the whole order of worship (or ordo) might be understood as a living out of the question “Who is Jesus Christ?” To put it another way, Christian liturgy is an enacted Christology.

This ought to be an eye-rollingly, forehead-slappingly obvious statement. Unfortunately, however, this kind of theological reflection often doesn’t enter in to the way we think about the structure and flow of worship. We tend to approach the order of worship as an agenda, a checklist: just one thing after another. Planning for worship is all too often cluttered and consumed with questions like and “when will we do the announcements?” and “who does what part?” and “where will the anthem(s) go?” and “are there too many prayers?” and “will it end in time for lunch?”

What if we could get back to basics, seeking to understand the structure of worship as, first and foremost, a way of encountering Christ?

It's probably easiest to see what I’m talking about in the order of worship for the Easter Vigil, which has four movements:

1. Service of Light: light of the world (John 8, 9)
2. Service of Readings: Word of God (John 1)
3. Service of Baptism: living water (John 4)
4. Service of the Eucharist: bread of life (John 6)

But one can apply the same kind of thinking to Sunday worship in the Service for the Lord’s Day. First, there is the setting of the service: the first day of the week, the day Christ rose from the dead. This points to the fundamental affirmation of faith that Christ is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11). Beyond that, there are a number of connections one might make within the ordo itself:

1. Gathering. We meet in the holiness of the Triune God, known to Moses as “I Am Who I Am” (Exodus 3). We respond to God’s holiness and majesty with an “I am” statement of our own, confessing: “Woe is me! I am lost” (Isaiah 6:5). But we gather, thanks be to God, in the grace of Jesus Christ, who said, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20, italics added).
2. Word: We hear the Word of God read and proclaimed, and in so doing come to know the “Word of God” (John 1) who is our “way and truth and life” (John 14). We respond in faith and faithfulness, seeking to share the light of Christ with all the world (John 8, 9) through our own words and actions.
3. Table: At the Lord’s Supper, we eat and drink with the one who said: “I am the bread of life; come to me and never be hungry, believe in me and never be thirsty” (John 6). We are joined together by the one who said: “I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15). We are strengthened to serve others in Christ’s name, sharing the bread of life and the fruit of the Spirit.
4. Sending: We go forth following our Good Shepherd, who is himself the gate for the flock (John 10). We go into the world to baptize and make disciples in the name of the one who said: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, italics added).

Please note that I’m not trying to force any kind of one-to-one correspondence between the “I Am” statements and the elements of the Service for the Lord’s Day. Nor am I interested in the “I Am” statements of John alone. You could mix these up in a variety of ways, and add any number of other biblical images and accounts (OT and NT) of the God we know in Christ Jesus.

The point is this: Deep in the bones of the order of worship is this singular, saving purpose: to proclaim Christ, light of the world, Word made flesh, living water, bread of heaven and true vine, resurrection and life, great I AM.

Unity and Our Denominational DNA

At least two elements of our PC(USA) denominational DNA shape what we mean when we say "the unity of the church."  

One element (one gene, to follow the metaphor) of our denominational DNA is directed especially outward, to our place amongst an array of denominations in the church, each built around distinct and differing ways of living the Christian faith.  This element of our denominational DNA is embodied especially in our Full Communion Agreement with the Reformed Church in America, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the United Church of Christ.  

In our full communion agreement we acknowledge that the partner denominations adhere to and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, that they live that proclamation in valid sacraments and patterns of ministry.  They are in the church, the Body of Christ.  But at the same time, we acknowledge that we have differing understandings of that common gospel.  We have different ways of living that common gospel.  Indeed, our differences, lived out in our different denominations, are necessary, to provide multiple and different witnesses to the gospel.  Each witness is incomplete without the others. Our differences are not contradictions. There is an open generosity in our full communion agreement, acknowledging that we are but one way of living the Christian life, and that there is room within the church for different understandings to find their way in denominations that are distinct from the PC(USA). 

 Let us note: this gene in our denomination DNA represents our insistence that it is legitimate for us to exist as a separate denomination in the church, separate from the vast majority of Christians.  We make our own judgment about what justifies our existence as a denomination separate from all others.  We also extend legitimacy to those with whom we disagree (at least, to some of them).

 A second element of our denominational DNA that shapes our understanding of unity is directed more inward, to the kind of unity we expect the PC(USA) to have internally.  It insists on a high level of commonality.  This element of our denominational DNA is embodied especially in the way we settled the question of the ordination of women to all ordained offices of the church, a settlement reached in key Permanent Judicial Commission cases in the 1970s.  Given our strong affirmation of the ordination of women, it’s interesting to reflect on how we worked this out in our denomination, and what that tells us about what we think it means to be a denomination in the church.

Perhaps the most famous of these cases is the “Kenyon” case, named for Walter Wynn Kenyon.  Kenyon was a Candidate for ordination to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in Pittsburgh Presbytery.  He objected to the ordination of women as a matter of conscience.  He would not stand in the way of ordaining a woman to ordained office, but because of his scruple on this point he would ask another minister to preside at the ordination.  The presbytery voted in favor of ordination.  This decision was appealed, and our Permanent Judicial Commission (Synod and GA) overturned the vote to ordain.  In the matter of the ordination of women, we decided, there is no room within our denomination for differing ways or views.  We decided against allowing room for significant difference of opinion.  We insisted that in this matter there will be like-mindedness internal to our denomination. 

This is not necessarily a surprise.  As a denomination we have to have agreement about some things.  We’ll never have like-mindedness about everything, of course.  But there has to be agreement about some things, enough things to hold us together as a coherent denomination in the breadth of the church.  There has to be enough gravitational pull from some gravitational center to hold us all together, to keep us from just drifting off from one another (I touched on this in “Why Be A PC(USA) Presbyterian?” and “The Unity of this Denomination”).

Faced with conflict in the present moment, one of the questions before us as a denomination is who we will be as we carry forward from our past.  Will we follow the vision of unity that recognizes the need for and legitimacy of a variety of ways of and institutional structures for living our common faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?  Will we instead decide to add to the list of things about which we must have agreement? 

Or, will we fashion another way?  Denominational DNA need not determine our present or future.  Perhaps we will develop additional ways of being a denomination, combining some things that hold us together and allowing room for high levels of disagreement, and even forthright contradiction among us.  (The Middle Governing Bodies Commission and the GA Committee to Study the Nature of the Church for the 21^st Century are energetically exploring possibilities.)

Scientists in Congregations

We generally don't do promos on this blog, but I'll make an exception for Scientists in Congregations.  This is a really exciting opportunity for congregations to deal substantively with issues around science and faith.  We are partnering with a new initiative, Scientists in Congregations, to help engage congregations (including PCUSA congregations) in working through issues of science and faith.  Here is a message from the Co-Project Leader, Greg Cootsona.

“Scientists in Congregations” (www.scientistsincongregations.org) is a grant program funded by the John Templeton Foundation designed to give up to $30,000 to help congregations develop the dialogue of science and theology.

The essential design for this grant is this: For a scientist in a church congregation to team with a pastor and create ideas for sermons, designs for education classes, or any number of other projects. The funds could offer release time to a scientists, historian or philosopher of science so that she could take time away. It might pay for retreats with you and a scientist or several scientists to create materials for your church.

 The grant is funded by the John Templeton Foundation “serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. It encourages civil, informed dialogue among scientists, philosophers, and theologians and between such experts and the public at large, for the purposes of definitional clarity and new insights.”

As Eugene Peterson commented on this program: “A surprisingly innovative strategy to bridge and maybe close the gap between science and faith. And in a congregation of all places.”

They have streamlined the proposal so that it’s reasonably easy—just six brief items: proposal cover letter, information form, co-director’s qualifications, budget, contact info, and a brief description of your congregation. The deadline is July 1. So you have enough time.

 

Contact Greg Cootsona if you have any questions.  This is a great opportunity.

 

Charles

Love Wins

Love Wins seems like a particularly appropriate subject for the day after Easter, the day we celebrate the triumph of Jesus Christ (warning:  YouTube link).

I finally got around to reading Rob Bell’s Book, Love Wins (if you haven’t heard of the hubbub about this book see this and this and this and this).  Bell is the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI and is a significant younger leader in American evangelicalism.  

The Math

Bell begins with a story of an art show at his church where an artist included a quotation from Ghandi in the piece.  Someone pinned to this work a piece of paper that read, “Reality check:  He’s in Hell.”  The certainty of the statement disturbed Bell, raising profound questions about the nature of God and the role of our beliefs in our relationship with God:  is it our profession of belief in Jesus Christ that secures our salvation?  This raises for Bell what I like to call “the math question.”  Evangelical leaders from John Stott to Billy Graham have puzzled over how many would be saved.  The math question arises from two claims:  1) that salvation only belongs to those who explicitly accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; and 2) The God of Christian faith is a generous expensive God and it is inconceivable that only a small minority of human beings throughout history will be saved. 

 Bell asks the question in a particularly poignant manner: 

 If there are only a select few who go to heaven, which is more terrifying to fathom:  the billions who burn forever or the few who escape this fate?  How does a person end up being one of the few? 

Chance?

Luck?

Random selection?

Being born in the right place, family, or country?

Having a youth pastor who “relates better to the kids”? (p. 3)

 Bell’s framing of the issue puts him squarely in that part of evangelicalism that has emphasized “making a decision for Christ.”  This is not the dominant expression of evangelicalism in the PC(USA) where a more Calvinistic strain has emphasized conversion, but not so much a time and place decision.  So, in one sense reading Love Wins is for Presbyterians, evangelical or not, a window into another part of Christ’s church.  And for us, it can be easy to dismiss this preoccupation with whether or not we go to heaven or hell as so twentieth century. 

But Bell’s book is a readable and helpful exploration on that character of God and Christian discipleship.  Bell is especially helpful at taking words like eternal life, hell, and heaven and reexamining them in biblical context.  And any of us in the PC(USA) would be well-served by paying attention to Bell’s serious treatment on heaven, hell, salvation, and the Christian life.

I’ve noted a healthy number of passages as particularly interesting.  If you want to work through some of these together, let me know in a comment.   

Charles

p.s. You have to read a book that has a line such as:  “It’s as if Thomas Kinkade and Dante were at a party, and one turned to the other sometime after midnight and uttered that classic line ‘You know, we really show work together sometime . . .’” (p. 22)

 

On Voting for Unity...

The post that appeared under this title on April 19, 2011 was seen by some in our denomination as potentially influencing (whether intentionally or inadvertently) one or more debates currently before of our presbyteries. While not at all my intention, I respect the concern that has been raised and so am withdrawing my reflections until after all the presbyteries have completed their voting.

It is up to each of our presbyteries to debate the issues and make decisions apart from the opinions of denominational staff, and I regret if I inadvertently crossed that line in my attempt to encourage the church to reflect theologically an important issue before us.

Remembering September 11

In a few months we'll observe the tenth anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001. This year, that anniversary happens to fall on a Sunday. Several of us at the Presbyterian Center have been meeting to collect and prepare resources for congregations to use on and around that date. 

What did your congregation do on Tuesday, September 11, or Sunday, September 16, 2001? What Scriptures did you read? What did you sing? How did you pray? 

And what (if anything) do you plan to do this year to mark this tenth anniversary?