discovering the hope

kim kardashian and the death of marriage

2011-11-02T16:42:00.000-05:00

Much hay is being made over the apparent end of the 72-day marriage of reality star Kim Kardashian to NBA journeyman Kris Humphries. Their engagement was the peak of the season finale of "Keeping Up With The Kardashians," while her filing for divorce is the latest and greatest in Hollywood gossip.

One meme circulating the social networks is that this abrupt divorce somehow demonstrates that the "sanctity of marriage" or the "institution of marriage" is bankrupt. But it doesn't do that at all. Sure, it shows us that Hollywood romance is many times a joke, but that's not a black eye for traditional marriage. It's just another sign that Hollywood is full of self-absorbed fools.

Traditional marriage is done within the context of a pastoral and congregational relationship. When clergy require this before performing a wedding, we do it because we want the marriage to succeed. Any couple that asks me to marry them will go through several sessions of premarital counseling, as well as an in-depth look at the marriage service. A special focus is given to the traditional vows, why we still use them, and what they mean. Oh, and you need to be part of this church as well, because the wedding is just the beginning, and we want to be a community that encourages and supports you in your marriage.

Marriages like that of Kim Kardashian's often fail because, as the saying goes, "after every wedding comes a marriage." Cliché, yes, but clichés are clichés because they're right! Traditional marriage is full of daily challenges and rewards. Though everyone wants the glamour of the wedding and the rewards of wedded life, not nearly enough commit to the daily toil it takes to make marriage work. A broken Hollywood marriage that was seemingly on shaky ground from the beginning doesn't make traditional marriage a failed institution, anymore than a hastily-prepared McDonald's Quarter Pounder slights the fine dining tradition of Ruth's Chris Steak House.

the scandal of the worship leader

2011-05-28T15:26:00.000-05:00

During my summer travels I love visiting different churches. This year I noticed something at an AMiA (Anglican Mission in the Americas) congregation that has become a bothersome trend: calling the music leader the “worship leader.”

What is worship? Is worship singing songs and lifting our hands in the air? Come to St George’s on a Sunday and you will sometimes see me worshiping in this manner. My concern is not a more modern/charismatic approach to worship music, but our understanding of worship itself. What is worship? Is worship, as many churches seem to think, only the music? “After the worship team, our teaching pastor will share a message.” If worship is more than just music, why do we call those who lead music the “worship leaders?”

What does the Bible say about worship?

Worship in the Old Testament is probably best seen through the lens of the Law, in which Yahweh tells Israel, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them…” (from Exodus 20, ESV). The foundational Old Testament understanding of worship (Hebrew shachah) is to subject oneself to another, to bow down before another.

Old Testament worship is frequently linked with sacrifice. In Genesis 22, Abraham and Isaac head to Moriah to offer a burnt sacrifice to God. When they see the place where they will perform the sacrifice, Abraham tells their servant, “I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” Sacrifice was an act of contrition, a way of saying, “God, I acknowledge that your ways are right, and I have acted contrary to your ways. I am sorry that I have done so.”

The New Testament word for worship, proskuneo, has a similar meaning, a focus on reverence and demonstrating respect by physical acts such as bowing or kissing the hand. In Acts 10, Cornelius falls at the feet of Peter in worship. Peter, of course, stands him up and tells him not to do so, since he himself is a man just like Cornelius. But note the posture of Cornelius’ worship: prostrating himself at Peter’s feet, pronouncing himself subject to Peter. The full-orbed, Biblical picture of worship, from Old and New Testaments, is that of subjecting ourselves to God, paying him tribute and respect.

What about worship and music?

So, isn’t that what we’re doing with our music? Don’t we sing in praise of the Triune Creator, giving him the honor due God? Music is an amazing way of connecting on many emotional levels to God in praise of him. It is a gift from God that should be used to give praise and thanks back to him, and it should lift our souls to new levels. The problem is that limiting worship to music truncates our worship. Remember again the Biblical picture of worship: respectful subjection to the God who is Holy Love. If the only time we recognize worship is in conjunction with music, it leaves the real possibility that whole areas of our lives are being left out of being subjected to God.

What if we saw every aspect of our corporate worship truly as worship? Do we worship the Lord when his Word is read? That is, do we subject ourselves to the Truth of Scripture and to the one who is the Truth when we hear his will for us and our lives? Do we worship the Lord when the sermon is preached? That is, do we respond to the exhortations given to follow Jesus more closely? Do we worship the Lord in prayer? That is, do we bow before him, saying, “Not my will but yours be done.” Do we worship the Lord when the offering plates come down the pew? That is, do we give honor and thanks to God for all he has given us? Do we worship the Lord at the Holy Eucharist? That is, do we receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and seek to use the grace imparted to become more like Jesus?

Worship is vital to the life of the believer, yet if we define worship only in relation to music, we potentially lose sight of just how vital it is that every aspect of life is subject to God. When we call the music leader, the “worship leader,” we fall prey to a narrow, one-sided view of worship, rather than the full, robust picture of worship in Holy Scripture.

And the Worship Leader is…

Just as the priest is the leader of worship in the Old Testament, so a priest is our worship leader today. But of course this is not just any priest; it is Jesus, the Great High Priest! The Book of Hebrews makes it clear that Jesus our high priest is the one who leads our worship, again, in the context of sacrifice (see especially Hebrews 10). Jesus’ worship, Jesus’ submission to the Father, is the perfect submission to the Father. Jesus leads our worship.

OK, OK, Jesus leads the worship, but it’s kinda hard to see him on a Sunday morning! Who is the visible worship leader in your church on Sunday morning? In the sacramental context the congregational worship leader is not a musician but the one who represents the Great High Priest: the priest. The priest leads the congregation in its reverential honor of the Holy God. The priest leads the congregation in submitting to Scripture, in admitting and repenting for falling short of God’s commands, and in feeding on the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ offered once for all.

Perhaps non-sacramental congregations are a bit different but similar (this isn’t my area of specialty, as you will see). While the Great Shepherd is the worship leader of the universal Church, in an individual congregation, the under-shepherd, the pastor, is the worship leader. There may be many under-shepherds, depending on the way the church is set up, each of whom could be considered a worship leader.

To name as “worship leader” the music leader reduces our view of giving honor and glory to God to a musical context only. The Bible makes clear that our worship of the Creator must be our whole being subject to him. Only in intentionally seeing Jesus as our Great High Priest, and in rightly naming his representative, the priest/pastor, as worship leader, may we recover a full, Scriptural meaning of worship and its place in the church—not as one element of our service, but as the theme which runs throughout.

quincy ix ballot results

2010-06-12T13:21:00.001-05:00

Ballot 1--need 22 clergy and 33 lay to elect.
Abbot Morales: 18 clergy, 48 lay
Fr den Blaauwen: 10 clergy, 9 lay
Fr Brooks: 13 clergy, 10 lay

Ballot #2 taken 1:20pm. We have an election--thanks be to God!
Morales: 23 clergy, 51 lay
den Blaauwen: 10 clergy, 8 lay
Brooks: 8 clergy, 8 lay

election results for the ninth bishop of the diocese of quincy

2010-06-11T17:02:00.009-05:00

I'm not much of a live-blogger, but I will try to post some results here on Saturday for our bishop election. All I have is my iPhone with no blogger apps; maybe I'll try to find one some I'm not having to use the web. Registration is at 9am, followed by Holy Eucharist at 10am, then we are underway.

Synod is convened 11:15am. Fr. John Spencer is leading, as head of Standing Committee. 40 of 45 clergy present, 65 of 69 delegates present, we have a quorum.

Synod rules allow speeches in favor of candidates. Fr Frank Dunaway is speaking for Abbot Morales. Mr LeRoy Groff with seconding speech.

Kim Benson is speaking on behalf of Fr Ed den Blaauwen. Fr Ed Guill of Nashville now speaking.

Fr Toby Karlowicz speaking on behalf of Fr Michael Brooks. Now Mary Kay Gamage is speaking.

No nominations from the floor--Nominations closed for the first ballot. Now additional speakers are rising in favor of various candidates.

First ballot taken at 1pm.

prayer for the search of the 9th bishop of quincy

2010-05-10T10:42:00.002-05:00

"Most Heavenly Father, Shepherd of Souls, Leader and Ruler of all; with humble hearts we ask this day that You may stir within the hearts of your faithful people the grace to discern your will in the election of him who is to become the 9th Bishop of the Diocese of Quincy. May Your Holy Spirit direct us, and may your wisdom guide us; may the life and mission of this Diocese be continually upheld by the one who is to become your servant bishop; through Christ, our great High Priest, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit in everlasting glory. Amen."

bring them in: three models for evangelism through worship

2010-05-05T10:15:00.002-05:00

by Robert E. Webber
(from here)

There is a story in the Russian Primary Chronicle that tells how Christianity came to Russia. According to this true story Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, sent several of his followers in search of "true religion." First they went to the Muslim Bulgars of the Volga but returned with the report that they found "no joy" but only "a mournfulness and a great smell." Next they went to Germany and Rome, where they found the worship more satisfactory but still lacking in power. Finally they made a trip to Constantinople, where they visited the Church of the Holy Wisdom, and here they found what they were looking for. They went home and reported to Vladimir,

We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendor or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among men, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty. (Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 269) [pg 264 in the "New Edition"].

Evangelism Through Worship
What these seekers experienced in Constantinople was evangelism through worship. In other words, the worship service they took part in allowed them to truly encounter, experience, and believe in God.

Many of us expect such evangelism to occur through our worship services. But does it? Do visitors to our worship services "know that God dwells there among" us? As we prepare for worship, we should keep before us four characteristics of worship that will evangelize those who gather with us.

First, we should recognize that worship itself arises out of the gospel. Worship is not primarily a classroom in which the Scripture is taught, an evangelistic service that preaches for decision, or a psychiatric couch that reaches to the needy. While true worship may accomplish all of this, real, authentic biblical worship is at its fundamental core a celebration of the living, dying, and rising of Christ in recognition that through this historical action the powers of evil have been dethroned and will ultimately be destroyed.

Second, we should understand that worship that would evangelize must grow out of community. The public celebration of the Christ event was never meant to be individualistic. God, through Christ, brought into being an ekklesia, a fellowship of people who are the "people of the event." As people of the event, we now share a common experience that results in a new fabric of social relations. We embody the reality of the new creation as we live our lives out in authentic relationships of love, compassion, friendship, giving, and the like. Such a community has the magnetic power to draw people into faith in a subliminal way.

Third, we should know worship that evangelizes needs to be aware that evangelism is a process. Instant conversions do occur. But more often, conversion and subsequent growth in Christ is a journey that includes various stages of development and growth. Worship that truly celebrates God's saving deed in Jesus Christ in authentic community provides both the impetus and context in which the whole community is continually evangelized.

Finally, we should understand that worship that brings people to Jesus recognizes the complexity of evangelism. Because the gospel speaks to us as whole people, evangelism touches different aspects of the person. Ultimately, evangelism has to do with faith in Jesus as Lord, but people may need to come to that faith in different ways. Some may need their morals or values evangelized; others may need to experience the church as a Christian community; still others may need to encounter the reality of God. All these needs are addressed in a worship that celebrates the Christ event and applies the meaning of that event to the lives of the people.

Fortunately for those of us who wish to evangelize through worship, there are models worth examining. I will refer to three, and develop the third one in particular.

Manifest Presence Evangelism
Manifest Presence, our first model, may be described as the experience of being grasped by the overpowering presence of God in worship. Karen Howe writes of her experience of manifest presence in an Episcopal church:

I became a Christian sitting in a pew, experiencing worship. It wasn't the sermon that did it. No one presented me with the plan of salvation or led me in a prayer of commitment (though that did come later). I simply basked in the presence of God as the worship service progressed around me, and when I left the church, I knew that God had entered my life. He was alive. I had encountered him. That day I was born again in my spirit.

Being "grasped by God" in worship may occur in many different ways. It may "happen" through the hospitality of the community, through the proclamation of the Word, through singing (God inhabiting the praises of the people), or through the presence of Christ in the bread and wine.

Seeker-Service Evangelism
A second model of evangelism through worship (or a kind of worship) is the seeker service (see "The Seeker Service," p. 7). This approach, pioneered by Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois (the second largest church in the US), separates the seeker service (designed for non-Christians) from believers' worship (designed for Christians). The seeker service is held on Saturday night and Sunday morning, while believers' worship takes place midweek.

The seeker service fits into an overall sevenfold strategy of mission at Willow Creek Church. In summary, the steps are as follows:
Every member should
1. take part in evangelism.
2. be able to give a verbal witness.
3. bring the person he/she is witnessing to to the seeker service.
4. bring converts (after their conversion and baptism) to believers' worship.
Converts will then
5. attend a small group in which they can be discipled.
6. discover their personal gifts and put them to work in the church.
7. learn stewardship of money and life.

The seeker service is designed as a nonthreatening service for secular people who, because a member of the church has entered into relationship with them, wish to be exposed more fully to the faith. It is not like a church-service, although it contains elements of Christian worship.

The Willow Creek Church auditorium, where seeker services are held, is more like a theater than a church. It contains no Christian symbols, and provides a neutral context in which an unchurched person can feel comfortable and unassailed. Also, both the music and the message at seeker services are subtle and deal generally rather than specifically with spiritual themes.

In a seeker service I attended recently, for example, the theme was parenting: How do you raise children in a world full of turmoil and temptation? One of four points was, "Don't neglect the spiritual side of the child," but nothing specific was said about Jesus Christ. Witnessing about Christ and his work is rather the responsibility of the friend who brought the "seeker."

Liturgical Evangelism
The third model of evangelism through worship is a third-century model that has been resurrected by the Roman Catholic Church. Among Catholics it is called the Rites for the Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). I like to call it Liturgical Evangelism.

This kind of evangelism may be defined as follows: Liturgical evangelism calls a person into Christ and the church through a conversion regulated and ordered by worship. Services that span the church year order the inner experience of repentance from sin, faith in Christ, conversion of life, and entrance into the Christian community.

In the third-century church, evangelism was based on seven progressive steps that took place over a period of three years:
1. Inquiry
2. The Rite of Welcome
3, The Catechumenate
4. The Rite of Election
5. The Period of Purification and Enlightenment
6. The Rite of Initiation
7. Mystogogue

Note that of the seven steps, four are periods or times for growth and development (Inquiry, the Catechumenate, The Period of Purification and Enlightenment, Mystogogue) while three are rites of passage (the Rite of Welcome, the Rite of Election, the Rite of Initiation). Each of these steps can be tied to a place in the church year in a very meaningful wayóby Protestants as well as Catholics.

Inquiry
The point of beginning is Pentecost Sunday. On that day you may celebrate a special commissioning service for those in your community of faith who are called to the work of evangelism. These persons will now seek to fulfill their calling in a special way in the months of the season after Pentecost. They will invite friends and neighbors to church and will engage with them and possibly other members of the church or elders in discussions about the gospel and its meaning for their lives. During these months, some of these people will consider a deeper commitment. We can speak of them as "converting persons."

The Rite of Welcome
The next step, the first passage rite, is the rite of welcome, a ritual that is celebrated today on the first Sunday of Advent. As part of this rite in the early church, the converting person renounced false gods, received the sign of the cross on the forehead, and was received into the church as a catechumen. Similar symbols may be used today. Each church may develop symbols that express a renunciation of the old way of life and the embracing of the new life in Christ.

The Catechumenate
The catechumenate is the longest stage. In the early church it spanned two or three years, depending on how certain the church leaders were of the spiritual formation of the converting person. During this stage the converting person is instructed in the Scripture, in prayer, and in holy living. Today this period of learning stretches from the first Sunday of Advent through the Epiphany season. Some churches extend it for another full year, but that is not typical.

The Rite of Election
Once the instruction of the catechetical period is complete, the converting persons gather in public worship for the second passage rite, the rite of election. This ritual takes place on the first Sunday of Lent. In the ancient church and again today the primary symbol of this ritual is the dramatic moment in which the converting person, in response to a question such as "Do you choose the one who has chosen you?" will step forward, say "yes," and then write his or her name in a book placed in front of the pulpit.

The Period of Purification and Englightenment
This fifth stage, which occurs during Lent, is a time for intense spiritual preparation for baptism. It is a time to wrestle with the "principalities and powers" that seek to control life. In the ancient church the converting person came to the church for daily exorcisms during this stage. Today, a church may instead lay hands on the catechumens and pray for them in the struggles they have with the powers of evil that continue to knock on their door and bring temptation into their lives. In this way catechumens may learn that the Christian life is a life of struggle, a life that demands constant attention to the ways in which the church offers God's help in times of temptation or distress.

The Rite of Initiation
The sixth state is then the act of baptism itself. In the early church and again today, converting persons are baptized on Easter Sunday morning in the context of the great Paschal vigil. As part of the early church rite, those to be baptized renounced the powers of evil, received the baptism of water in the name of the triune God, were washed with oil, exchanged the kiss of peace, and for the first time celebrated the Lord's Supper with the faithful. Today the adaptation of these rites for the converting persons places special emphasis on the completion of one phase of the journey of faith and the beginning of another.

Mystagogue
The continuation of the converting person's lifelong experience of faith is expressed in the final stage, the period of mystagogue, an old term that means "learning the mysteries." Today, as in the early church, the stage of mystagogue occurs during the fifty days of the Easter season. In the early church's mystagogue, new converts were instructed in the meaning of the Eucharist and were incorporated into the full life of the church. Today, churches use this time to discern the new convert's gifts and to enroll the fully converted person into an active membership wherein his or her gifts are used in the life of the church.

While you may not have heard of Liturgical Evangelism, let me assure you that it is a form of evangelism used quite effectively by renewing Catholic churches around the world and by an increasing number of Protestant liturgical churches (especially the Episcopal Church).

But a congregation does not have to be strictly liturgical to use this form of evangelism. Any church that celebrates the pilgrimage of the Christian year can use this form of evangelism effectively both for converting persons and for bringing new life into the present congregation. In this approach the whole church is aware of the process and can even be involved in a continual process of conversion ordered by the meaning of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost.

Three Steps to Change
These three approaches to evangelism through worship demonstrate that there is no one way to do evangelism through worship. If your congregation is not engaged in any form of evangelism through worship, I suggest you take three steps.

First, discuss these three approaches to evangelism and decide which one is most suitable for your congregation.
Second, having chosen one or the other, study it. Read books. Attend a conference. Bring someone in who can present the approach to the entire congregation.
Finally, do it. You may find yourself faltering at first, but as you continue to experiment and perhaps fail, pick yourself up and try again. The approach will take shape in your congregation and will stimulate you to be an evangelizing community of worship.

AUTHOR
Robert E. Webber
Robert Webber (rwebber@northern.seminary.edu) is Myers Professor of Ministry at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois, and president of the Institute for Worship Studies, a distance education school in Jacksonville, Florida. He is author of many books, including the Ancient-Future series (Baker), Younger Evangelicals (Baker), and editor of the eight-volume Complete Library of Christian Worship. These resources and a monthly "Ancient-Future Talk" newsletter are available at www.ancientfutureworship.com.

whatever has been rightly said by the heathen, we must appropriate to our uses

2010-01-20T16:37:00.002-06:00

"Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said aught that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it.

"For, as the Egyptians had not only the idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and garments, which the same people when going out of Egypt appropriated to themselves, designing them for a better use, not doing this on their own authority, but by the command of God, the Egyptians themselves, in their ignorance, providing them with things which they themselves were not making a good use of; in the same way all branches of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which every one of us, when going out under the leadership of Christ from the fellowship of the heathen, ought to abhor and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the worship of the One God are found among them. Now these are, so to speak, their gold and silver, which they did not create themselves, but dug out of the mines of God’s providence which are everywhere scattered abroad, and are perversely and unlawfully prostituting to the worship of devils.

"These, therefore, the Christian, when he separates himself in spirit from the miserable fellowship of these men, ought to take away from them, and to devote to their proper use in preaching the gospel. Their garments, also,—that is, human institutions such as are adapted to that intercourse with men which is indispensable in this life,—we must take and turn to a Christian use."

--St Augustine, On Christian Doctrine

preaching and beer

2009-12-23T17:30:00.003-06:00

Some church growth methods should be avoided...

"It happened to Ambrosius. He was once told by his parishioners, after they had been admonished to hear the Word and the sermon: The truth is, dear pastor, that if you were to tap a keg of beer in the church and call us to enjoy it, we would be glad to come."

--Martin Luther

truer words about evangelism were never spoken...

2009-11-19T19:08:00.001-06:00

When I was Minister to Youth at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Lafayette, Louisiana, Bishop Robert Hargrove, at his annual visitation, was speaking to us about evangelism. "The Bible tells us that we are to be fishers of men. In the Episcopal Church, we think evangelism means hanging a sign out front that says, 'Fish Wanted.'"

c.s. lewis on devotional books and doctrinal books

2009-11-19T19:04:00.002-06:00

"For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."

From his Introduction to On the Incarnation

vatican releases "anglicanorum coetibus"

2009-11-09T07:24:00.004-06:00

A few weeks ago, the news came out that Pope Benedict XVI would be releasing an "Apostolic Constitution" (the highest level of declaration from the Holy Father) concerning the acceptance of Anglican bodies into full communion with Rome. The actual document is now available at the Vatican website.

Read the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus here.

As Bishop Iker stated last weekend at Diocesan Convention, we Anglicans who are truly concerned with the unity of Christ's Church must seek reconciliation with both Rome and the Orthodox tradition. From the bishop's speech:

'[I]f we are to work and pray for the unity of Christ’s Church throughout the world, it must involve all three bodies – Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics. These are the three great churches of the catholic tradition, East and West, who though divided for centuries, have maintained the historic faith and order of the Church as expressed in the Holy Scriptures, the apostolic succession of ordained ministry, the sacraments and the creeds. When the New Testament speaks of the need for unity and truth among believers, it is for all members of the Body of Christ. When Jesus prays for the unity of his disciples, it is “that they all may be one.”'

the unchurched prefer cathedrals to modern buildings

2009-11-04T09:25:00.003-06:00

"People who don’t go to church may be turned off by a recent trend toward more utilitarian church buildings. By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio over any other option, unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral than what most think of as a more contemporary church building."

This is from a study by Lifeway, the Christian Education folks for the Southern Baptist Convention. My favorite part of the article is a quote from church planting expert Ed Stetzer: "Quite honestly, this research surprised us. We expected they’d choose the more contemporary options, but they were clearly more drawn to the aesthetics of the Gothic building than the run-of-the-mill, modern church building."

I hope and pray that the modern church building craze will fade away. Many with far more aesthetic sense than I have noted that the more modern a building's architecture, the more quickly it become out-of-date. Classical architecture for churches is always timely, and I believe does a better job of pointing us to God rather than drawing attention to itself (as the trendy always does). It is indeed telling that the unchurched, yearning for God, or at least for something bigger than themselves, find more fulfillment in spires than in the latest architectural fashions.

Read the whole article here.

Thanks to my friend Andy Stoddard (twitter @atstod) for pointing me to this study

st augustine on the task of being a bishop

2009-10-27T09:14:00.004-05:00

"In the life of action...what is to be treasured is not a place of honor or power in this life, since 'everything under the sun is vanity' but the task itself is to be achieved by means of that place of honor and that power--if that achievement is right and helpful, that is, if it serves to promote the well-being of the common people...

That is why the Apostle says: 'Anyone who aspires to the episcopate aspires to an honorable "task."' He wanted to explain what episcopate means: it is the name of a task, not an honor...Bishops who have their heart set on a position of eminence rather than an opportunity for service should realize they are no bishops."

Amen, St Augustine--and may I suggest that the principle holds for all in Christian leadership. The moment we forget that our calling to ministry is first and foremost about the task of ministering, rather than the honor of being a minister, we are not ministers.

Preaching to myself this morning...

miroslav volf on forgiveness

2009-10-26T13:42:00.003-05:00

Hillcrest Medical Center holds an annual clergy seminar, and this year they brought in a big gun: Miroslav Volf, a theology professor at Yale. The topic was "Forgiveness." A few of my notes from the day:

+ Our culture has three modes of existence: Taking, Trading and Giving. These correlate to Revenge, Retributive Justice and Forgiveness.

+ Our culture has been stripped of grace--we don't know how to give or forgive well -- forgiving is an art. Forgiveness is a power that one has over another, and it is necessary to set that power aside in true forgiveness. When we forgive, are we actually using it as a tool to blame and condemn the offender, to hold the offense over him or her?

+ Two essential elements of forgiveness: 1) name the wrongdoing and condemn it; and 2) don't count the wrongdoing against the offender -- separate the person from the act.

+ At two different points during the seminar he said, "A consistent feature of sin is that it doesn't want to be sin." True on many levels--I take it primarily in the sense that sin wants to be accepted as it is, as holy. But I think there is almost a wistfulness to sin: while on one level it wants to be accepted as it is, on another level it wishes to be undone, cleansed and remade into holiness.

rome sweet home (well, for some)

2009-10-21T11:05:00.008-05:00

The big Anglican news this week is that the Roman Catholic Church has made it easier for large groups of Anglican Christians to reunite with the Bishop of Rome, a relationship officially severed by Henry VIII in 1534. Rome has established Personal Ordinariates, where groups of Anglicans (presumably a diocese or province) could come into full communion with the Pope. It allows married and celibate Anglican priests of that group to be ordained as Roman Catholic priests.

Many elements of this announcement are not new. Anglicans have always been invited to “convert” to Rome. Pope John Paul II created a “Pastoral Provision” in 1980, which allowed individual married Episcopal priests who convert to become Roman Catholic priests. It also allowed “Anglican Use” parishes, Roman Catholic parishes that retain Anglican distinctives in worship, vestments, etc.

The key difference in this announcement relate to Ordinaries. An ordinary, in this ecclesiastical context, is the man who has jurisdiction over a territory or group. Usually this person is a bishop. An Anglican bishop may be married, but Rome retains, with the East, the celibacy of bishops. Were a married Anglican bishop to convert, he would not be allowed to be ordained as a bishop in a Personal Ordinariate (an unmarried Anglican bishop could be made a Roman Catholic bishop). He could still have an administrative leadership role with that group as a priest, and be the Ordinary in that manner. However, he would not be able to carry out the sacramental duties of the bishop; a bishop would have to be brought in for ordinations, etc.

This news brings a new area of consideration for a number of Anglicans worldwide. The downward spiral of the Anglican Communion and the lack of strong, decisive leadership from the Archbishop of Canterbury make this option desirable for many. On the ground here in Tulsa, this announcement changes nothing—we are not now a Roman Catholic parish, nor are we now part of a Roman Catholic diocese. We maintain our utmost love and respect for our elder brothers in the Roman Catholic Church. We strive for the unity of Christ’s Church. Yet we also believe and trust that we are a part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, fractured and broken though it might be.

Links of interest:
+ The actual announcement from the Vatican
+ A response from Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church in North America
+ A response from Bishop Jack Iker of the Diocese of Fort Worth
+ A brief reflection on what this announcement says about the current state of Anglicanism, by Diocese of South Carolina Canon Theologian Fr. Kendall Harmon
+ The perspective of a former evangelical Anglican priest, now Roman Catholic priest, on some challenges presented by this news
+ Picture above is from an Anglican Use parish, Our Lady of the Atonement, in San Antonio, Texas

a figural reading of “david and goliath”

2009-10-19T10:49:00.002-05:00

All of Holy Scripture points to Jesus Christ. I’ve thought for some time that an interesting way to teach a 1-year Bible introduction would be to start with the Gospels and move outwards from there. The Old Testament looks forward to Christ. The New Testament looks backward to Christ.

While the Old Testament’s witness to Christ is primarily seen in the prophecies of Jesus’ birth, suffering, death and resurrection, the Church has historically also seen in the OT a secondary, more narrative witness to Christ, a witness typological or figural in nature.

For example, Numbers 21 has the story of the people of Israel being bitten and killed by snakes. Yahweh instructed Moses to create a bronze snake and raise it on a pole. Any Israelite who had been bitten by a serpent could look up at the snake and live.

The Church has understood this story on one interpretive level as a foreshadowing, or prefiguring, of Christ and his work on the Cross. St Augustine wrote, “As then formerly he who looked to the serpent that was lifted up, was healed of its poison, and saved from death; so now he who is conformed to the likeness of Christ's death by faith and the grace of baptism, is delivered both from sin by justification, and from death by the resurrection: as He Himself said; That whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. What need then is there that the child should be conformed by baptism to the death of Christ, if he be not altogether tainted by the poisonous bite of the serpent?” (quoted in St Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea)

Note that this very patristic hermeneutic is focused on Christ, not on contemporary concerns. Many exegetes today will look to the Old Testament primarily for transferable principles, such as “the Lord helped Moses and he’ll help you.” While that method is certainly legitimate, figural interpretation explores another layer in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, looking for pictures of our Lord and his life on Earth.

Here, I want to pursue a figural reading of the story of David and Goliath. Elements of my exegesis are reflected in various patristic writers, but I have yet to find a systematic figural interpretation of 1 Samuel 16 & 17 such as I offer here.

I begin with the actual battle of David and Goliath, then move to the secondary characters of David’s brothers and King Saul, and conclude with a “practical application” that moves beyond an exercise in exegesis to good news for the modern follower of Jesus Christ.

David & Goliath
The primary opponents of 1 Samuel 17, David and Goliath, foreshadow the true opponents of the Gospels: Jesus and Satan.

David is the preeminent Old Testament character associated with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is of the line of David (Matthew 1:1). The Gospel of Matthew includes no less than nine references to Jesus as “Son of David.” David can easily be seen as prefiguring Jesus Christ.

Goliath is the enemy of Israel, bent on terrorizing, defeating and ultimately enslaving the people of God. While these qualities do not make him unique in the Old Testament, he is certainly the epitome of evil in this story. Goliath prefigures the Adversary.

David attacks and defeats Goliath with two weapons: a sling, and Goliath’s sword. As David approaches Goliath in the field of battle, 1 Samuel 17:40 tells that he put “five smooth stones” into his pouch for use with his sling. There is nothing in the immediate context to indicate why the writer gives this unusual detail of the number of stones.

From a Hebraic numerological perspective, the five stones could represent the five books of the Law. Other Old Testament parallels of five include the number of several materials used in the building of the Tabernacle (e.g. Exodus 36:10, 16, 31-22, etc.). More closely might be the few times in the historical books where groups of five kings opposed to Israel are mentioned, such as five kings of Midian (Numbers 31), or five Amorite kings (Joshua 10), both groups of which were eventually executed. Each of these possibilities has potential hermeneutical value in a non-Christological interpretation of the “David and Goliath” story.

For this essay, viewing the Old Testament through the lens of the Gospels, let us look to the life of Christ, more specifically, the five wounds suffered at his crucifixion: two in the hands, two in the feet and one in the side. The wounds of Christ, signifying his death, were certainly the means by which Christ defeated Satan on the Cross. As five smooth stones were gathered by David to conquer Goliath, so five wounds were suffered by Jesus as he defeated Satan.

The second element of David’s victory over Goliath was Goliath’s own sword, which David uses to cut off Goliath’s head. The prefiguring continues: just as David used Goliath’s own weapon to completely defeat, so Christ used Satan’s own weapon to completely defeat him: by death he destroyed death.

David and his brothers
1 Samuel 16:1-13 opens with God instructing the prophet Samuel to go to Jesse of Bethlehem, to anoint one of his sons as king of Israel. Each of David’s brothers is rejected by the Lord, despite their appearance of being perfect candidates. Finally Jesse calls David, who is away tending sheep. Yahweh instructs Samuel to anoint David king, which he does, in front of his brothers.

In 1 Samuel 17, the three oldest brothers are part of the army of Israel facing Goliath and the Philistines. They react with anger at David’s appearance at the battle (1 Samuel 17:28), even though David is only there following the bidding of his father, bringing them gifts of food (Caesarius of Arles sees in Jesse a type of God the Father sending his Son).

Let us consider David’s brothers as prefiguring the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. They would have been considered the presumptive favorites for leading Israel, just as David’s brothers. Just as David’s brothers saw themselves rejected in the anointing of David as king, so the Pharisees would have seen themselves passed over at the baptism of Jesus (for which they were present, and which clearly signified God's favor upon Jesus). The Pharisees and Sadducees then respond in anger and jealousy to the Son who had simply been bringing them gifts from the Father. David’s brothers, in their presence, rejection and anger and jealousy, prefigure the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day.

Saul
Saul’s importance to the story comes in 16:31. He has heard that David is questioning why Israel allows Goliath to speak about Israel the way he does, and sends for him. When he finally allows David to go fight Goliath, he clothes him in his own armor, which David cannot use. David instead needs to fight Goliath on his own terms, not as an armored warrior, but as a shepherd. The people of Israel try to clothe Jesus in their own conception of what a Messiah should look like, seen especially in the disciples’ numerous queries about when Jesus will restore Israel, as well as the shouts of Hosanna to the Son of David at the Lord’s entrance to Jerusalem. Saul, the King of Israel representing the people of Israel, also prefigures the people of Israel in the time of Jesus.

Application
So let’s say you buy it. The question now: so what? Surely it is an interesting hermeneutical exercise, but is there nothing more? At least two applications come to mind.

On one level, it is encouraging for the Christian to gain perspective on Christ’s victory over sin and death. Any time that we reflect on what Jesus did for us on the Cross, we can grow in our love for the Lord and our commitment to obedience to his will for our lives. That ought to be enough for any faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

However, there is another interesting applicative layer, for which we go to the verses of 1 Samuel 17 immediately following the slaying of Goliath—the decapitation does not end the story. The Philistines see that Goliath is dead, they flee, and the Israelites, with a shout, take chase and pursue the Philistines as far as Gath and Ekron.

Here is where the believer can take great courage today. It is clear in the New Testament that Israel prefigures the Church. Just as the battle with the Philistines was won by David conquering Goliath, so the battle with sin, evil and death was won by Jesus conquering Satan and the grave in the Crucifixion and Resurrection. We, the Church, are like Israel routing the Philistines—we’re in the mop-up of the battle against evil. Let us never retreat from a defeated foe; let us remember that the battle has been won, the victory has been secured by Christ’s victory on the Cross.

stop karen armstrong!

2009-10-13T16:29:00.005-05:00

Researching Islam the last year or so, one of the books I've read is Karen Armstrong's Islam: A Short History. I wasn't expecting much, but the book was worse than I thought it would be.

In the (short, thank God) book, rather than actually detailing the promised "history" of Islam, Armstrong instead seems more motivated to demonstrate that Islam is actually the progenitor of human rights in the West, a model for all to follow in religious and cultural tolerance.

The entire book was more of an op-ed piece for modern religiosity than an actual account of the historical development of Islam.

Unfortunately, Armstrong's religious writing goes far beyond deconstruction of Islam only, but covers much of the face of contemporary religious thought. Her influence is both widespread and unfortunate.

"Stop Karen Armstrong!" is a brief, enjoyable article penned by one of my favorite contemporary preachers, Fleming Rutledge:

'Karen Armstrong and others like her are "religious" without a clue as to the Subject of theology. If she really understands the Church Fathers at any level, one seeks evidence in vain. If she has ever heard of the Reformation she does not indicate it. If she has ever had any serious dialogue with any major Protestant theologian her writing does not show it. If she has ever heard of the doctrine of revelation she shows no sign of it. She is a walking, talking, writing exhibit for Freud's basic thesis: God is what we have made up out of our own wishes and needs.'

Read the whole article,"Stop Karen Armstrong!", at generousorthodoxy.org

prayer as product of the church

2009-10-12T13:18:00.002-05:00

"Even if [the Christian] does not use a traditional formula like the Lord's prayer or the 'Glory be to the Father', he prays within a whole framework of Christian ideas received from others. When his prayer is most spontaneous and from his own heart, the belief according to which he prays, the general type of his prayer and much--probably most--of his actual phrasing are actually drawn from what he has learned from others--his teachers, Christian services he has attended in the past, his mother, his Bible, many different sources. Ultimately it all comes to him, even the use of his Bible, from the tradition of prayer evolved in the worshipping church."

-Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy

the pastor as physician of souls

2009-09-28T14:57:00.002-05:00

From the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, from no later than the 4th century:

"You are to be like a compassionate physician: heal all that have sinned. Make use of all available saving methods of cure: not only cutting and searing, or using corrosives, but binding up, and putting the patient in a safe place, and using gentle healing medicines, and sprinkling comfortable words. If it be a hollow wound, or great gash, nourish it with a suitable salve, that it may be again knitted together and become smooth with the rest of the surrounding flesh. If it be foul, cleanse it with corrosive powder, that is, with words of correction. If the wound is due to the swelling up of proud flesh, cauterize it down with a sharp plaister [sic]--the threat of judgment. If it spreads further, sear it, and excise the decaying cells--with fasting end the plague...You must not be overly ready or hasty to do radical surgery. Do not quickly have recourse to the saw, with its many teeth. First use a lancet to lay open the wound, that the inward cause from which the pain is derived may be drawn out."

you troubler of israel

2009-09-11T09:15:00.003-05:00

Yesterday's Morning Prayer OT reading brought to my mind the current state of the American Anglican/Episcopal disaster:

When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, "Is it you, you troubler of Israel?" And he answered, "I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals..." (1 Kings 18:17-18, ESV)

Enough of the Episcopal Left accusing the orthodox of splitting the church.

the sacramentality of creation

2009-08-20T11:46:00.002-05:00

"If in baptism water can become a 'laver of regeneration,' if our earthly food-bread and wine-can be transformed into partaking of the body and blood of Christ, if with oil we are granted the anointment of the Holy Spirit, if, to put it briefly, everything in the world can be identified, manifested and understood as a gift of God and participation in the new life, it is because all of creation was originally summoned and destined for the fulfilment of the divine economy-'then God will be all in all.'"

-Alexander Schmemann

john wesley on the law and the gospel

2009-08-15T14:32:00.003-05:00

"There is, therefore, the closest connexion that can be conceived between the law and the gospel. On the one hand, the law continually makes way for, and points us to the gospel; on the other, the gospel continually leads us to a more exact fulfilling of the law. The law, for instance, requires us to love God, to love our neighbour, to be meek, humble, or holy. We feel that we are not sufficient for these things; yea, that 'with man this is impossible:' But we see a promise of God, to give us that love, and to make us humble, meek, and holy: We lay hold of this gospel, of these glad tidings; it is done unto us according to our faith; and 'the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us,' through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

(from Sermon XXV, "Upon our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, 5)

biblical illiteracy

2009-06-05T21:22:00.005-05:00

Another poll from The Living Church: "How would you rate the level of Biblical literacy in your parish? Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor or Awful."

This website caters to Anglicans/Episcopalians, so I didn't have high hopes. Sure enough: of 65 votes cast (as of Fri eve.) 63% responded "Poor" or "Awful." Equally scary: no one chose "Excellent."

UPDATE: 6/9, 8am, 100 people have now responded, and three of them have selected "Excellent." 54% marked "Poor" or "Awful."

good friday

2009-04-10T10:22:00.002-05:00

"By allowing himself to be taken captive, he overpowered his opponent. By submitting, he overcame him. By his own execution, he penalized his enemy, and by dying he opened the door to the conquest of death for his whole flock. And so the good Shepherd lost none of his sheep when he laid down his life for them. He did not desert them but kept them safe. He did not abandon them but called them to follow him, leading them by the way of death through the lowlands of this passing world to the pastures of life."

--Peter Chrysologus

john wesley & unconditional election

2009-03-17T11:30:00.005-05:00

“With regard to…Unconditional Election, I believe, That God, before the foundation of the world, did unconditionally elect certain persons to do certain works, as Paul to preach the gospel: that He has unconditionally elected some nations to receive peculiar privileges, the Jewish nation in particular: that He has unconditionally elected some nations to hear the gospel…that He has unconditionally elected some persons to peculiar advantages, both with regard to temporal and spiritual things: And I do not deny (though I cannot prove that it is so), that He has unconditionally elected some persons [thence eminently styled ‘the Elect’] to eternal glory. But I cannot believe, That all those who are not thus elected to glory must perish everlastingly; or That there is one soul on earth who has not, [nor] ever had a possibility of escaping eternal damnation.”

From a 1743 exchange with George Whitefield, as quoted in John Wesley's Scriptural Christianity, by Thomas C. Oden

tulsa islamic adventures

2009-03-13T21:28:00.003-05:00

In my Humanities I class at TCC, we spend a week covering Islam (we also go over Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity), and today we spent two hours at the Islamic Society of Tulsa, with a tour of the mosque, a Powerpoint presentation and lots of questions and answers. They were very gracious, even bringing in pizza and drinks (we met at 11am). When I asked the woman guiding us about recommending a good translation of the Qur'an with commentary, she disappeared into the back and brought me out a 2000+ page hardback Qur'an with the Arabic, English translation, and explanatory notes, and gave it to me-wow.

It seems that one thing they are very interested in is combating mass media coverage of Islam, and they answer all the Jihad and terrorism questions with a bit of a smile. In fact, my favorite story from today is that one of my students came in 30 minutes late--he had apparently got lost in the neighborhood, finally found the Center, but went into the school connected to the mosque (a Muslim school, Peace Academy). When he asked about our group, the man responded that he would take him to the building where they were holding us hostage!

An 8th century critique of Islam, by St John of Damascus.

russian media teases clinton over "reset" button

2009-03-07T11:53:00.001-06:00

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian media has been poking fun at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after she gave her Russian counterpart a "reset" button with an ironic misspelling.

Clinton's gift to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at their meeting in Geneva on Friday evening was meant to underscore the Obama administration's readiness to "to press the reset button" in ties with Moscow.

But instead of the Russian word for "reset" (perezagruzka) it featured a slightly different word meaning "overload" or "overcharged" (peregruzka)...

READ IT ALL AT YAHOO! NEWS

st athanasius

2009-03-03T05:56:00.002-06:00

"[I]t was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression that called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and to appear among us."

--On the Incarnation

oh yeah

2009-02-19T08:55:00.002-06:00

thomas l. friedman: the open-door bailout

2009-02-11T22:13:00.002-06:00

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”

While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best: “Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”

Read it all at the New York Times.

Thanks to titusonenine.

life: imagine the potential

2009-01-22T10:10:00.003-06:00

or see it on YouTube.

st hilary of poitiers on evangelical conversion

2009-01-14T09:34:00.003-06:00

Through the relationship with his flesh, access to Christ is open to all, on condition that they divest themselves of their former self (cf. Eph 4: 22), nailing it to the Cross (cf. Col 2: 14); provided we give up our former way of life and convert in order to be buried with him in his baptism, in view of life (cf. Col 1: 12; Rom 6: 4).

-St Hilary of Poitiers, as quoted by His Holiness Benedict XVI

reflections on polygamy in genesis

2009-01-07T17:42:00.002-06:00

(artwork is Lamech and his Two Wives, by William Blake)

For a number of years, I assumed that polygamy, while not condoned in the Old Testament, was at least considered relatively normative by the OT writers. A number of men in the history of Israel had multiple wives (e.g. Jacob, David, Solomon, etc.).

A recent study of Genesis has changed my mind concerning just how normative polygamy was seen to be by the writer(s) (not interested in an authorship debate here!). I believe that Genesis, long before the giving of the Law, spells out that polygamy is an unnatural state of affairs, and sets a tone of dissonance for polygamy in the rest of the OT.

To begin, Adam and Eve. It seems rather facile to start here, but it’s important to note that God did not create a second wife for Adam (extra-biblical legends of Lilith not withstanding). One can assume, I believe, that God’s pattern for creation can be seen as a Scriptural standard.

The first mention in Genesis of a man taking more than one wife is 4:19: “And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah” (ESV). Because Genesis does not normally name the woman in these early genealogies, this naming of the two wives is unique, and therefore, important. Lamech himself is not a shining example of humanity. First of all, he is a descendant of Cain. Secondly, he seems to have a capricious, violent temper: “Lamech said to his wives: ‘Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold’” (4:23-24, ESV). Lamech is the first of Cain’s descendants that Genesis tells any details about, and to include in these details that he had two wives does not seem intended to mollify the reader.

It is relevant that Noah and his sons each had only one wife. Gen. 7:1 notes God’s command that Noah and his entire household are to go into the ark. V. 13 says, “On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark.” Four men, each with one wife, the household of the righteous Noah. Had there been other wives, would they not have been included in the “entire household”?

Abram is where it gets interesting. It is clear that he marries Sarai as his only wife. Genesis 11:29 reads, “And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah” (ESV). It appears that Hagar is taken as a wife, but only at Sarai’s insistence, where the Scriptures tell us that she gave Hagar to Abram “as a wife” (16:3, ESV), for the purposes of childbearing. However, Hagar is never again mentioned as a wife of Abram. Whenever she is given a title, it is “servant of Sarai/Sarah” (16:8; 25:12). It seems significant that 16:3 uses the phrase, “as a wife,” perhaps indicating that Hagar was given to fulfill the role of a wife in childbearing, but nothing else. I am not an OT scholar, so I would hate to make that claim, but it seems worth exploring.

Genesis 25 tells that Abraham took another wife, Keturah, after the death of Sarah. It also notes that Abraham had sons from concubines; at least one whom we can probably assume was Hagar. It is interesting that 1 Chronicles 1 lists Keturah as a concubine, rather than a wife. It could be argued from the context of Gen. 25 that “concubines” includes Keturah, in that vs. 4-6 is a discussion of Abraham’s children, separating Isaac from all other offspring. It seems that there are enough data to avoid naming Abraham a polygamist, at least a polygamist in the same sense as those before him.

Esau is the next true polygamist in Genesis, and once again there is a strong negative: “When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah” (26:34-35, ESV). While it seems that perhaps part of the bitterness for Rebekah seems to be that these women are Hittites (27:46), Genesis doesn’t seem to have the negative view of Hittites seen elsewhere in the OT. Up until this point in Genesis, the Hittites have been favorable to Abraham and his family, and Esau’s wives are the first Hittites mentioned unfavorably, so from an authorial perspective it does not seem that the distaste is simply because the women are Hittites.

Jacob seems to be the first true polygamist mentioned sympathetically in Genesis, though of course his situation was one where he was tricked into marrying Leah when he sought after Rachel. Jacob also had two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah, but these were given to him by their mistresses when they were unable to have children (Leah thought she could have no more and Rachel was barren), giving birth on behalf of Leah and Rachel (for example, Rachel calls Bilhah’s son Dan her own in 30:5, though the lists of ch. 46 name Zilpah and Bilhah as mother of their children by Jacob). This situation parallels that of Sarai giving Hagar to Abram for the express purpose of bearing children. Rachel does seem to have pride of place as a wife (for instance, she and Joseph are last to meet Esau upon Jacob’s reconciliation to his brother in 33:2, placed by Jacob after Leah and her children). There is no record in Genesis that Jacob took another wife when Rachel died in childbirth (35:19), which means that Leah remained as his only wife (interestingly, it is Leah, not Rachel, who is buried with Jacob at Machpelah (49:31) with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah).

CONCLUDING QUESTIONS
The taking of more than one wife by a man is not explicitly forbidden in Genesis. Yet Genesis seems, at the very least, to discourage it. Moreover, Genesis seems to indicate that polygamy was not a natural way of life, even in the earliest days of history. The pattern is given at Creation: the male is given one female as a helper. Noah and his sons each have one wife to start the world again. Lamech, the first named polygamist in Genesis, is an evil man, the first of Cain’s descendants about whom we are given any details. Esau brings bitterness to his mother in marrying two women (and he goes on to marry a third). No indication is given with Lamech or Esau as to why they take multiple wives, as far as justification in the light of childbearing.

Abram and Jacob seem to be different instances of men taking more than one wife, in which Abram takes Hagar as a wife, but Genesis does not record Hagar fulfilling “wifely duties” again to Abraham after Ishmael is born. Jacob is tricked into marrying Leah, intending to marry Rachel. Jacob does have a number of children through Zilpah and Bilhah, servants of Leah and Rachel, respectively. Scripture does not indicate that he had children with them other than when it was believed that their respective mistresses could not bear children.
The commission to Adam and Eve, and Noah and his wife and Noah’s sons and their wives, was to be fruitful and multiply (1:21; 9:1,7), yet each had only one wife. If the purpose of God’s command was simply to reproduce, isn’t it more logical for each man to have more than one wife. This contrasts to when Abram and Jacob “go in” to women other than their wives in order to have children.

Questions:
· How significant is it that Adam, Noah, and Noah’s three sons (Creation and the “new” Earth of the Noahic covenant), each have only one wife?
· How significant is it that the two named outright polygamists in Genesis are evil men?
· How significant is it that Sarai gives Hagar to Abram as a wife for the purposes of childbearing, and that Genesis never again mentions Hagar as Abram’s wife?
· How significant is it that Jacob was tricked into marrying Leah, and had two wives against his will, and that he also “went in” to his wives servants solely for the purpose of childbearing?

hawkeyes going to the outback bowl, january 1, 2009

2008-12-07T20:12:00.001-06:00

quote of the day

2008-12-03T11:12:00.003-06:00

"If I had been a priest I would have made a thorough study of Hebrew and Greek so as to understand the thought of God as he has vouchsafed to express it in our human language."

--St Theresa of the Child Jesus
(quoted in the front pages of A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament, 3rd Rev. Ed., by Max Zerwick, S.J.)

quote of the day

2008-12-02T17:33:00.001-06:00

"[Plato's] father Ariston traced his descent from Codrus, the last king of Athens, and the family of his mother Perictione was connected with Solon, who, as Field remarked (Ρ. and Contemps. 4), might be of less venerable antiquity but at least had the advantage of having really existed."

--from WKC Guthrie's A History of Greek Philosophy

new anglican province coming to north america in december

2008-11-16T20:08:00.003-06:00

It has been confirmed: the new Anglican province in North America will be officially established on December 3.

See the announcement by Bishops Duncan and Murdoch.

I am working on my commentary--we have a lot of hard work ahead, and I believe some of our parish experiences at CHS can illustrate the challenges ahead. Exciting? Yes! Fulfilling? Yes! But a challenge (you should have heard the boss-man preach today--it rocked us all)!

if sarah palin was your mother...

2008-11-16T00:47:00.002-06:00

...what would she name you?

Go to this website and input your real name to find out what your name would be if Governor Palin was your maternal unit. Apparently, she would have named me "Copper Catfish Palin."

Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

c.s. lewis on authority

2008-11-13T16:19:00.003-06:00

Do not be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

anglicans: listen up!

2008-10-31T22:09:00.005-05:00

What attribute do you most frequently associate with the faithfulness of a saint?

A. Piety
B. Heroism
C. Mysticism
D. Sacrifice
E. Wisdom

This was the poll question at the website of The Living Church. The questions change frequently, so it probably won't even be there tomorrow, but when I clicked on my response, I was dismayed to learn which answer had over 50% of the vote.

Sacrifice.

Look, I understand the politics of Anglican Christianity in North America these days, so I understand that peole might want to think "sacrifice" because a lot of people are making big sacrifices in order to maintain the Faith Once Received. But to say "sacrifice" is such a basic biblical error that I want to shake some people!

1 Samuel 15:22--And Samuel said, "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." (ESV)

The correct answer is "A".

ha ha ha

2008-10-27T11:49:00.004-05:00

Gas prices are dropping steadily all over--coming to the church this morning, gas was $2.12. It will probably be lower when I go home!

As nice as it is to have the prices going down, I laughed out loud this weekend over the gas prices in the movie Die Hard, which I think was showing on TNT or some other basic cable channel. Here, apparently, are the gas prices in California in 1988:

debate: is abortion morally justifiable in a free society

2008-10-25T00:20:00.003-05:00

I am using this debate on abortion in my intro to philosophy class, in the section on ethics. The debate is between Prof. David Boonin (Affirmative), of U. Colorado-Boulder, and Prof. Peter Kreeft (Negative), of Boston College. If you know which of these men I greatly admire, you know who I'm agreeing with in this debate.

Check out the debate in either video or audio, held at Yale University. Note that this debate is over 90 minutes long--not for someone looking to kill a few minutes on the internet!

Just for kicks, I was going to post my five-page outline of the debate that I prepared for my students, but I don't see how I can do that on blogger. If you want a copy, let me know in the comments.

the hour of holiness

2008-10-23T11:33:00.004-05:00

A great teaching program that been on AFR (which I can't get in Tulsa) is now available online: The Hour of Holiness, from Wesley Biblical Seminary. Dr. Bill Ury, theology prof at WBS, teaches these 30-minute lessons, rich in content and incredibly pastoral. Dr. Ury was the reason I went to WBS, was my thesis advisor, and his work in the early Church and Trinitarian thought has deeply influenced me and scores of his other students.

www.hourofholiness.com

romans 1 is not about temple prostitution

2008-10-09T11:25:00.003-05:00

I know of no serious biblical scholar, even prohomosex biblical scholar, who argues that Paul had in mind only or primarily temple prostitution (not Nissinen, not Brooten, not Fredrickson, not Schoedel, not Bird, not Martin, etc). There are many reasons why this view has not found a welcome in serious biblical scholarship. I shall limit myself to fifteen such reasons, without making a pretense that the list is exhaustive.

1. Rogers' historical anachronism regarding temple prostitution in Corinth. Rogers' trip to Corinth convinced him that Paul's views on homosexual behavior were profoundly influenced by the alleged existence of seven thousand prostitutes, male and female at the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth in Paul's day. As it happens, the only ancient account that refers to cult prostitutes at the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth is a brief mention by Strabo in Geography 8.6.20c:

And the temple of Aphrodite was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple-slaves, prostitutes, whom both men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was on account of these women that the city was crowded with people and grew rich. (Text and commentary in: Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, St. Paul's Corinth: Texts and Archaeology [GNS 6; Wilmington: M. Glazier, 1983], 55-57)

Any critical New Testament scholar knows that Strabo's comments (1) applied only to Greek Corinth in existence several centuries before the time of Paul, not the Roman Corinth of Paul's day; (2) referred to more than a thousand prostitutes, not seven thousand; and (3) mentioned only female (heterosexual) prostitutes, not male (homosexual) prostitutes. Scholars agree that there was no massive business of female cult prostitutes, to say nothing of male homosexual cult prostitutes operating out of the temple of Aphrodite in Paul's day; and that there may not have been such a business even in earlier times (i.e., Strabo was confused). This is not particularly new information, which makes it all the more surprising that Rogers was taken in, apparently, by an ill-informed tour guide. For example, Hans Conzelmann made the following remarks in his major commentary on 1 Corinthians written some thirty years ago:

Incidentally, the often-peddled statement that Corinth was a seat of sacred prostitution (in the service of Aphrodite) is a fable. This realization also disposes of the inference that behind the Aphrodite of Corinth lurks the Phoenician Astarte. [Note 97:] The fable is based on Strabo, Geog. 8.378. . . . Strabo, however, is not speaking of the present, but of the city's ancient golden period. . . . Incidentally, Strabo's assertion is not even true of the ancient Corinth. (1 Corinthians [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1975 [German original, 1969], 12)

This continues to be the view held by scholars. As Bruce Winter notes in a recent significant work on 1 Corinthians,

Strabo's comments about 1,000 religious prostitutes of Aphrodite . . . are unmistakably about Greek and not Roman Corinth. As temple prostitution was not a Greek phenomenon, the veracity of his comments on this point have been rightly questioned. The size of the Roman temple of Aphrodite on the Acrocorinth ruled out such temple prostitution; and by that time she had become Venus, the venerated mother of the imperial family and the highly respected patroness of Corinth, and was no longer a sex symbol (After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001], 87-88; similarly, Murphy-O'Connor, St. Paul's Corinth, 55-56)

The scholarly consensus that there was no homosexual prostitution at the Corinthian temple of Aphrodite in Paul's day is enough, all by itself, to dispense with Rogers's theory and show Rogers's unreliability as an exegete of the biblical text. But we continue anyway.

Read it all--good stuff.

jesus is a friend of mine: sonseed & david crowder band

2008-09-27T17:27:00.003-05:00

The world changed in September 2008, with the return of the melodic stylings of Sonseed. Thanks to William Brown for pointing to this video for "Jesus is a Friend of Mine":

This weekend I ran across David Crowder Band in their setting at University Baptist in Waco with their own version of the Sonseed instant classic:

iowa 17, iowa state 5 (3-0)

2008-09-18T08:04:00.003-05:00

Another week, another win. Some detractors might add, another weak team, another win. Yes and no. The Hawks are playing convincingly good football, and the victory over Iowa State shows they can win. ISU is not a good team, but it is our in-state rival, and both teams are always geared up for the game, as is the entire state of Iowa. The field was brutal, with standing water and awful conditions, so I'll take a 17-5 win. RB Shonn Greene is looking good.

Big Ten Network has the highlights of the Iowa-Iowa State game.

Next week at Pitt will be a crucial game for the year and the door to the conference schedule. Iowa is on a disastrous 1-for-7 streak for away games. The game will be on ESPN2 at 11am, so I've already got the couch reserved!

Speaking of football, my NFL FF team is 0-2, even though I was projected to beat my dad's team by thirty-some points. One of his WRs was setting franchise records, so what was I to do???

the brits have gone mad

2008-09-14T23:31:00.000-05:00

Revealed: UK’s first official sharia courts

come to penn state!

2008-09-12T09:46:00.002-05:00

If you're fortunate enough not to be a Big Ten football fan like me (it's been rough lately), you may not have seen the ad for the Big Ten Network. It's a good 60 seconds of coaches trying to recruit players, but the best part is the very end, with Joe Paterno's, "Come to Penn State." The ad is worth the watch just for JoePa.

theology is not for everyone

2008-09-11T14:56:00.007-05:00

From St Gregory of Nazianzus:

"Discussion of theology is not for everyone, I tell you, not for everyone--it is no such inexpensive or effortless pursuit. Nor, I would add, is it for every occasion, or every audience; neither are all its aspects open to inquiry. It must be reserved for certain occasions, for certain audiences, and certain limits must be observed. It is not for all people, but only for those who have been tested and have found a sound footing in study, and, more importantly, have undergone, or at the very least are undergoing, purification of body and soul. For one who is not pure to lay hold of pure things is dangerous, just as it is for weak eyes to look at the sun's brightness."

Gregory speaks to a number of challenges for today's church, which I hope to address in separate posts, though I welcome any comments now:
1) Theology is not simple.
2) Theology from everyone, by everyone, is killing the Church. Many think they have a "right" to be heard, to have a place at the table, when shaping the way the Church talks about interpreting God's revelation of himself. Not necessarily so!
3) Theology rightly belongs to the Church.
4) Theology is not solely intellectual, but a spiritual undertaking.

iowa 42, florida international 0 (2-0)

2008-09-08T14:35:00.006-05:00

Week two of another game the Hawks should win easily--and they did. Score at halftime was 35-0, but Kirk Ferentz has more class than to run it up. Running back Shonn Greene had 130 yards on 13 carries, but even more exciting is a genuine quarterback controversy! Christiansen or Stanzi??? Christiansen was the starter last year and also game 1, but Stanzi started this second game of the season and outshone Christiansen. Big Ten Network has the highlights. Iowa State is next week, so it's anyone's game.

Speaking of football:
--condolences to my friend and boss, Dr. Briane Turley. His WVU Mountaineers got beat badly. Ugh.

--"condolences" to my brother, Nathan, who just a few weeks ago took Tom Brady with the #5 pick in our Fantasy Football league. Jon Kitna is my backup QB--I'm willing to talk trade...

iowa 46, maine 3

2008-08-31T22:45:00.004-05:00

Great to get to see some Hawkeye football this weekend, as we beat Maine 46-3. Yes, I know Iowa is a Big Ten school and Maine is D-II, so we should have beaten them like that. The Hawks looked much better in this opener than last year's opener, when they won 16-3 against a lousy Northern Illinois team that ended the season 2-10.

The Big Ten Network has a five-minute video with highlights from the Iowa-Maine game and the post-game press conference with head coach Kirk Ferentz. Check it out.

how many countries can you name in five minutes?

2008-08-29T00:37:00.002-05:00

Stumbled on this fun quiz surfing some Anglican blogs...

56

greg hahn comedy

2008-08-27T10:36:00.002-05:00

st ephrem the syrian on christ's victory over death

2008-08-18T11:43:00.003-05:00

At a Eucharist before a recent memorial service, I read a portion from an Easter sermon by St Ephrem the Syrian (I did my master's thesis on him). I've had at least two people come up to me since asking for copies of that, so I thought I would put it here as well.

Death trampled our Lord underfoot, but he in his turn treated death as a highroad for his own feet. He submitted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this means he would be able to destroy death in spite of itself. Death had its own way when our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a loud cry from that cross he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was powerless to prevent it.

Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying our Lord, death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural human life, but was itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man.

Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he received from the Virgin; in it he invaded death’s fortress, broke open its strong-room and scattered all its treasure.

At length he came upon Eve, the mother of all the living. She was that vineyard whose enclosure her own hands had enabled death to violate, so that she could taste its fruit; thus the mother of all the living became the source of death for every living creature. But in her stead Mary grew up, a new vine in place of the old. Christ, the new life, dwelt within her. When death, with its customary impudence, came foraging for her mortal fruit, it encountered its own destruction in the hidden life that fruit contained. All unsuspecting, it swallowed him up, and in so doing released life itself and set free a multitude of men.

He who was also the carpenter’s glorious son set up his cross above death’s all-consuming jaws, and led the human race into the dwelling place of life. Since a tree had brought about the downfall of mankind, it was upon a tree that mankind crossed over to the realm of life. Bitter was the branch that had once been grafted upon that ancient tree, but sweet the young shoot that has now been grafted in, the shoot in which we are meant to recognise the Lord whom no creature can resist.

We give glory to you, Lord, who raised up your cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living. We give glory to you who put on the body of a single mortal man and made it the source of life for every other mortal man. You are incontestably alive. Your murderers sowed your living body in the earth as farmers sow grain, but it sprang up and yielded an abundant harvest of men raised from the dead.

Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us offer our Lord the great and all-embracing sacrifice of our love, pouring out our treasury of hymns and prayers before him who offered his cross in sacrifice to God for the enrichment of us all.

ken lee

2008-08-17T20:07:00.001-05:00

From "Music Idol" in Bulgaria.

hermeneutics & children's curriculum

2008-08-11T06:54:00.004-05:00

An interesting piece...

Seminaries and grad programs that train pastors, and the academics who teach in those programs are very concerned about proper hermeneutics. We want pastors to have the very best training so that God’s word is handled properly and that preaching proceeds from the authoritative teaching of the text rather than from human cleverness or tangential ideas. This is as it should be since we seek to teach with the authority of God’s Word. My question is, why do we not show the same interest in assuring that children are taught with the same care?

It has been my practice over the years to work with the Children’s education program in my church to evaluate curriculum and train teachers for the pre-school through elementary grades. What I find in curricula is consistently shocking from a hermeneutical standpoint. I should hasten to say that curricula are often excellent from an educational standpoint—for that is the expertise of those producing curriculum. In the area of hermeneutics, however, the violations of sound method are frequent and obvious. I have identified five basic fallacies that appear repeatedly:

1. Promotion of the Trivial: The lesson is based on what is a passing comment in the text (Josh 9:13, they did not consult the Lord), a casual observation about the text (Moses persevered in going back before Pharaoh over and over) or even a deduction supplied in the text (Joshua and Caleb were brave and strong). The Bible is not being properly taught if we are teaching virtues that the text does not have in focus in that passage. We would like children to be virtuous, but we dare not teach virtues rather than the Bible. The plague narratives are not teaching perseverance nor is the feeding of the multitude teaching sharing (as done by the little boy in one of the accounts).

2. Illegitimate extrapolation: The lesson is improperly expanded from a specific situation to all general situations (God helped Moses do a hard thing, so God will help you do a hard thing. But the hard thing Moses was doing was something commanded by God whereas in the lesson the hard thing becomes anything the child wants to achieve). In these cases what the text is teaching is passed by in favor of what the curriculum wants to teach and biblical authority is neglected.

3. Reading Between the Lines: This occurs when teachers or students are asked to analyze what the characters are thinking, speculate on their motives, or fill in details of the plot that the story does not give. When such speculations become the center of the lesson, the authority of the biblical teaching is lost because the teaching is centered on what the reader provided.

4. Missing important nuance: This occurs when the curriculum pinpoints an appropriate lesson but misses a connection that should be made to drive the point home accurately. It is not enough, for instance to say that God wants us to keep his rules—it is important to realize that God has given us a sense of who he is and how we ought to respond in our lives. It is not just an issue of obeying rules—God wants us to know him and respond to him by following in his ways and being like him.

5. Focus on people rather than God: The Bible is God’s revelation of himself and its message and teaching is largely based on what it tells us about God. This is particularly true of narrative (stories). While we are drawn to observe the people in the stories, we cannot forget that the stories are intended to teach us about God more than about people. If in the end, the final point is “We should/shouldn’t be like X (= some biblical character)” there is probably a problem unless the “X” is Jesus or God. Better is “we can learn through X’s story that God . . .”

If we are negligent of sound hermeneutics when we teach Bible to children, should it be any wonder that when they get into youth groups, Bible studies and become adults in the church, that they do not know how to derive the authoritative teaching from the text?

We all have a working hermeneutic, even though most have never taken a course. Where do we learn it? We learn it from those we respect. For many people this means that they learn their hermeneutics from their Sunday school teachers. Teachers in turn teach what is put into their hands. Perhaps we ought to be more attentive how Sunday school curriculum is teaching our children to find the authoritative teaching of God in the stories.

From the Zondervan blog, by Wheaton prof John H. Walton.

a tale of two car repairs

2008-08-09T17:01:00.007-05:00

It was the best of vacations, it was the worst of vacations...

No, actually, we had a great vacation--just got back from a week of travels. We spent most of the time with my parents in IL, but also saw our friends Ben and Krisanne in IL and Rebecca's grandmother in MO.

The troubles started last Saturday--as we were leaving the home of some friends that evening, the van took several times to start. Rebecca has been warning me about this problem, but the van never seems to act up when I'm driving. I still have my keys and alarm code to my father-in-law's mechanic shop where I used to work, so after dropping the family off I went to the shop and checked the charging system. Battery: good. Alternator: bad. Ugh. It was now 9:45 on Saturday evening, and we were planning on leaving early the next morning.

I had one trick up my sleeve from my shop management days, and still knew the wholesale number to the local O'Reilly auto parts store. They were open until 10pm during the week--what about Saturday? Sure enough, they were open for fifteen more minutes, and they had one alternator in stock that fit our car. So I went after it, took it back to the shop and prepared to install an alternator on my wife's van, which is absolutely hilarious, because I am the black hole of auto repair. I can sell the repair, but the most I had ever done before was an oil change.

Fortunately, Tony, my father-in-law, showed up as I was printing instructions on how to install the alternator, and he said he would help. Which of course meant that he installed it and I "helped," which itself means that I held the flashlight. He did it in about 45 minutes--would have taken me over two hours. So, thanks to my sales background at the shop and my father-in-law's gracious work, we were on the road the next day, rather than waiting until Monday for a repair.

On the way home, our left rear tire separated, losing a nice chunk of tread, so I got to put the spare on at the side of the OK Turnpike, as trucks whizzed by at 85mph. Check it out--yes, this tire is the one from our car. During my time at the shop I had seen so many people that couldn't deal with a flat, because they didn't know how to get their spare, never checked the air in the spare, couldn't find the wheel lock key, etc. so I learned from their mistake, knew all my details and it was a relatively quick process. Which probably seems like a minor deal to most people, but to me, that was pretty cool.

These were minor issues compared to what could have happened, but we are grateful to be home. We found gas for $3.36 in Missouri--how awesome was that? How ridiculous was it that were were excited about $3.36 gas? Rebecca and I also got a good deal of time to discuss something that we have been talking about for some time, and made two pretty big decisions during this trip. More on those later, probably next week.

video interview with gregory venables, anglican primate of the southern cone

2008-08-02T13:47:00.004-05:00

AnglicanTV interviewed Archbishop Gregory Venables near the close of the Lambeth Conference. The archbishop is our primate at CHS, and his evangelical spirit is a joy to experience.

Check out the video here.

summer teaching

2008-07-28T11:13:00.003-05:00

I work full-time at our church, but the powers-that-be allow me to do some teaching on the side at Tulsa Community College. This summer it has been a history class. It was quite stressful--it was a four-week class, four days a week, in an area (US History) that is certainly not my specialty. I would go to class at nine, then go to the office until early evening, plus pastoral calls or whatever, since for three of those four weeks the rector was out! Then it was home, eat supper, and start preparing for the next day until the wee hours of the morning.

One neat thing about the summer class that I didn't experience during the school year was students of other schools trying to earn some credits. One such student was a young man named Jonah who attends Berklee College of Music in Boston. Check out his video (he's on the piano):

lambeth report from bishop peter beckwith

2008-07-23T20:22:00.001-05:00

The Rt. Rev. Peter Beckwith, Bishop of Springfield (IL), speaks strong words about the Lambeth Conference:

“In my Bible study group I apologised for the behaviour of our province that has brought us to the brink of schism. Two hundred and seventy bishops are not here because they refuse to sit down with people who refuse to repent. Gene Robinson is a nice guy, but his lifestyle is not appropriate for a leader of the Church. Sure he’s a bishop, we ordained him. But that says something about our integrity. On the second day of our retreat, I had the feeling we were on the edge of a 10-storey building and the Archbishop of Canterbury was trying to talk us down without a safety net. He’s a wonderful guy, with a lot of integrity but he assumes everyone else has integrity too. The Episcopal Church is not representing the scriptural authority of Christ. In the Episcopal Church, the biggest lie of all is that sexual morality doesn’t matter, or that it’s changing, that God is doing a new thing. Yet prophetic voices in our history have always taken us back to basics. It will be very interesting to see how things develop here. Will enough be done to preserve the integrity of the Communion? We won’t hold together if we continue like this. It will end with a lot of fragments if this conference isn’t able to give a strong confident way forward. In the meeting with the Southern Cone, they were concerned to send a strong signal from this gathering that the Anglican Communion is going to stand for Orthodoxy. It was said in that meeting that the Western Church says things that are not Anglican and not Christian. But, as the Archbishop of Sudan has said, we can’t predict the future. We have to wait and see. The proof will be in the pudding. The time for procrastination and equivocation is over. ”

From here.

x-files--i think i want to believe

2008-07-23T12:45:00.002-05:00

This weekend sees the release of the movie, The X-Files: I Want To Believe. When I first heard that this film was coming out, my immediate reaction was, "who called for an X-Files movie?" I have heard no hue and cry about the need for this movie, nobody lamenting the absence of Mulder and Scully on the TV, much less on the big screen. The show has been off the air for 6 years (with Mulder hardly involved the final two seasons), and the first film, which was released in 1998, wasn't great.

X-Files is a phenomenon that worked on the small screen, as episodes, but, in my opinion, did not work well on the large screen. At least when they released the first movie, the TV show was still being produced and the film fit into existing story lines. What now? They have to reintroduce the characters, catch us up, and only then can they tell a story. I don't know--I even found the trailer underwhelming.

And I liked the X-Files television show. The relationship of Mulder and Scully was really well done, especially when they didn't give it the old "Moonlighting" treatment and bury the show! More interesting was that Mulder and Scully harbored mirror versions of a skepticism/faith dialectic. Scully was a skeptic concerning aliens and the paranormal but had a deep Catholic faith. Mulder eschewed traditional religion but believed heartily in the existence of UFO's, psychics, etc. This double paradox was, in my mind, one of the best aspects of X-Files. It's hard to live that in a 90 minute film after being gone for several years.

when the lambeth hits the fan

2008-07-22T11:53:00.002-05:00

At the Lambeth conference today, Sudanese archbishop Daniel Deng Bul spoke openly about the necessity of Gene Robinson's resignation as Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire.

Here is a portion of the statement:

"He should resign for the sake of the church," Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul told reporters at a once-in-a-decade summit of Anglican leaders.

"God is not making a mistake creating Adam and Eve. He would have created two Adams if he wanted," he said.

A quarter of the world's Anglican bishops have boycotted the Lambeth Conference in an angry war of words between conservatives and liberals over the ordination of Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the 450-year-old church's history.

"We are for the Anglican world and we want the Anglican world to remain united," the Sudanese archbishop said.

"Over 300 bishops have stayed away from this conference because of Gene Robinson," he added. "The norms of the Anglican communion have been violated."

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, decided not to invite Robinson to the Lmabeth Conference -- but he still came to the cathedral city on Monday to meet supporters on the fringes of the summit.

In a joint statement, Sudanese bishops accused North American church leaders of ridiculing Anglicanism and destroying its credibility by ordaining gay American clergy and blessing same-sex unions in Canada.

"We appeal to this Lambeth Conference to rescue the Anglican Communion from being divided," they said.

summer pictures

2008-07-22T01:00:00.003-05:00

At Rebecca's birthday party July 4: Jonah, Elijah, Lily

Being Daddy to a baby girl is kinda awesome

Lily: 4th of July

for greek geeks only

2008-07-21T14:51:00.005-05:00

Back in ye olde HSBC days, Matt Johnson and I were mercilessly ridiculed as "Greek geeks." OK, maybe it wasn't so merciless [except for Julia--she was especially brutal :) ], but the label fit--you know we were geeked for it--NT Greek was at 6:40am, MWF--and, just to make it interesting, I had security duty Sunday night until 3am Monday.

Anyway, after several years of studying Classical and New Testament Greek, I'm still a Greek geek--use it all the time. So I was especially geeked to learn about the online Codex Sinaiticus Project. What is Codex Sinaiticus, you ask. Glad you asked. It is a 4th century Greek manuscript of much of the Bible, and is the oldest manuscript extant of the entire New Testament. Now these pages will be available to all for study and making huge posters for your wall.

Run, don't walk, to The Codex Sinaiticus Project -- goes online Thursday, July 24!

silly americans...

2008-07-20T22:32:00.005-05:00

When you go to Quiktrip for a fountain drink, you have a choice of crushed or cubed ice.

A choice. You can pick. Little ice or big ice?

Is it a sign that I am a true American that I have a preference? that I will wait in line to get cubed ice rather than crushed, even though my Pepsi is right next to the crushed?

11:59

2008-07-19T13:11:00.003-05:00

The Anglican Communion appears to be passing the point of no return towards real schism. The Lambeth Conference, the meeting of Anglican bishops once every ten years, has publicly stated it will not pass any resolutions concerning the current disaster, and all reports from inside say that it is the liberals drawing the conservatives further from orthodoxy, and not the other way around. For continuing coverage of Lambeth, I recommend especially TitusOneNine and Stand Firm.

Dean Robert Munday, of Nashotah House (an Anglo-Catholic/Evangelical Episcopal seminary in WI), offers this analysis:

Certainly, the Episcopal Church has been in a state of declining membership and increasing departures from historic, biblical Christianity for virtually the whole time I have been a member. But I always thought that the Anglican Communion would be the Episcopal Church's salvation, not that the Episcopal Church would be the cause of the Anglican Communion's destruction. I really never thought it would come to this.

Please read it all. Pray for the Anglican Communion--it will take nothing less than a sizeable miracle to stop the divorce proceedings.

it's an ordination picture!!!

2008-07-17T13:35:00.004-05:00

I've mentioned that one event during my blog vacation was my ordination to the priesthood in April. Despite the fact that we had been working toward this for years (almost a decade for me, and Rebecca has been right alongside for most of that), we walked away with virtually no pictures. We had given our camera to a parishioner who was there, but we had left the setting on "close-up," which meant that all our pictures were blurry (not his fault, of course). No fear, my grandfather had his camera. However, when I contacted him to see if we could get copies, he had lost his camera! AAAAAHHH!!!

Thanks be to God, Grandpa found his camera a few weeks ago and sent me the pictures he had. So here are Rebecca and me right after my ordination.

my least favorite picture of the archbishop of canterbury

2008-07-16T16:54:00.003-05:00

H/T Ruth Gledhill

another gafcon reflection (fr. gregg riley of western louisiana)

2008-07-14T11:48:00.002-05:00

Bobby Jackson Kennedy is a parishioner of Grace Church, Monroe (in the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana, where Rebecca and I used to live and where I was Minister to Youth at the Church of the Ascension, Lafayette, for several years). He has interviewed his rector, Fr. Gregg Riley, who, like our rector, was a GAFCON pilgrim.

Here's a taste of the interview:

BJK: What is the next step for the Diocese of Western Louisiana and Grace Church?

GR+: Our Diocesan Convention meets in October and I sit on the executive council of the diocese. The Bishop has told me personally that after Lambeth, the executive council will meet in August. He will then give us his opinion concerning where things are and the options we have for the diocese. It is his desire that IF the diocese chooses to do something that we do it as a whole. I would also prefer that. Being realistic, whatever decision the diocese makes, if we decide to move as a diocese, there will be certain clergy, parishes, and laypeople who will want to remain in TEC. Likewise, if we don’t move as a diocese, there will be clergy, parishes, and lay people who don’t want to stay. That will be a reality after October. The bishop is wise enough, and intelligent enough, to know that is going to happen. No matter what happens at the convention in October, someone will not be happy. There is going to be movement, but the question is where.

Read the whole interview here -- a number of interesting things to hear about the reflections of that diocese and its leadership -- thanks for the interview, B.J.!

the top 50 most influential figures in the anglican communion

2008-07-13T14:02:00.006-05:00

The Telegraph, in the UK, has published a list of who they believe to be the 50 most influential figures in the Anglican Communion. Starting at #50 with The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, an Anglican Communion Insitute fellow and professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College in Toronto, to #1, who else, the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, Dr. Rowan Williams, the list includes a wide variety of Anglicans from every theological stripe.

Of course there are many who would question persons and their ranking in this list, or who got left out--such as the lack of former heavy hitters across the theological gamut, like John Stott or Louie Crew. My personal favorites are the comments section that we all must endure in these uber-interactive days, where individuals lash out because Jesus isn't on the list (bad, bad Christology, but who said we Anglicans are theologians anyway), or they mention someone local that no one fifty miles away from there has heard of.

But the real bombshell in this poll comes in the Top Ten. The Telegraph, no friend of theological conservatives, testifies itself to the giant rift that liberal Anglicans in North America claim is only the schism of a few, when half of those listed in the Telegraph Top Ten attended GAFCON (#9 +Nazir-Ali, #8 +Jensen, #7 +Venables, #5 +Orombi, #3 +Akinola). 5 of the top 10 most influential Anglicans attended the conference designed to provide theological conservatives a viable place in Anglican Christianity.

For those who say that the GAFCON group is leaving Anglicanism, this poll demonstrates that the GAFCON adherents are not just a splinter group. For those who say that the GAFCON group is destroying Anglicanism, it is instead the actions of the "inclusive" "progressives" doing just that, shown once again in the recent CofE decision to consecrate women as bishops without providing safeguards for a significant minority in the church that does not believe women can be bishops. The other members of the Top Ten include radical liberals like +Jefferts-Schori and +Robinson, demonstrating that the most influential are by and large the most disparate in their views of Jesus, the Scriptures and the Church. No wonder we're in such a mess.

You know what Jesus said about a house divided against itself...

the meaning of the jerusalem declaration (gafcon)

2008-07-10T09:03:00.005-05:00

Dr. Briane Turley is an Anglican priest with a Ph.D. in Religious History who attended the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem. Oh, he's also my boss--he made me put this on my blog (just kidding--it's on most of the major Anglican sites already). To read the GAFCON final statement, go here.

In his watershed analysis of the rapidly emerging Christian movements in the Global South titled The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, religious sociologist Philip Jenkins discerned that, regardless of the paternalistic interpretations that Christian observers in Europe and North America may nurture, "the emerging Christian world will be anchored in the Southern continents."

A careful scholar, Jenkins relied upon the best available data while weaving his thesis. And it is for this reason that his work serves as one of the premiere harbingers of what has, seven years after he wrote, come to pass. Those of us familiar with Jenkins' work who attended the GAFCON in Jerusalem were very much aware that the event served, in many respects, as a sign that the future Jenkins so accurately described is now present with us.

GAFCON was a uniquely global experience. During my week in Jerusalem as I served as a delegate or "pilgrim" to the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), I often reflected on Jenkins' analysis. Individuals whose skin is darker than mine dominated every meeting, every worship service, and every foray into the Israeli countryside. Organized and orchestrated primarily by Christian leaders representing third-world Anglican Provinces, the conference and its place in history should not be underestimated by revisionist or orthodox Christians. The nearly 300 bishops representing 25 nations who turned out for the gathering oversee more than half the Communion's adherents and perhaps more than 2/3rds the active Communion. Much more than a demonstration of support for orthodox Anglicans in North America, GAFCON is emblematic of a Global South Christianity come of age.

The ironies surrounding GAFCON's issuance of its highly controversial Jerusalem Declaration are manifold. Consider, for example, the movement's affinities with liberation theology. Phillip Berryman recognized liberation theology in broadest terms as "an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor."

For decades, Western liberals saw in the Global South a tool and an ally to help advance their radical social/political agenda. Third world churches that received the West's "generous subsidies" were, the liberals thought, duty bound to embrace Marxist inspired liberation theologies that would abet their own cosmology. A remarkably paternalistic class, these same liberals now feel betrayed by a Global South Christianity that has rejected Marx in favor of a conservative theological position.

Recent commentary regarding the "GAFCON rebels" published by Anglicans in the United Kingdom and North America indicates that the gloves have come off and that a head-on collision between what remains of well-monied Western revisionist Christians and the economically poor, disfranchised emerging Southern orthodox is inevitable.

Why, precisely, have Global South Christians rejected Western ecclesiological neopatrimonialisms? In effect, at Jerusalem the South declared that the colonialist methods of maintaining the Anglican Communion represent a catastrophic failure. Heretical Western bishops openly teach with impunity that Christ was a sinner and that he was not raised from the grave while theologically faithful bishops like Dr. William Jackson Cox are publicly disciplined and then jettisoned from the church. All the while, the Archbishop of Canterbury observes what is happening in silence or, on occasion, calls on Anglicans to continue "listening" or to participate in "gracious conversation."

Lean southerners have been "listening" to their well-fed, tony neighbors for a long time and as a matter of courtesy will continue to do so in the future. But as Episcopal Church leaders deposed priests by the score and drove biblically-focused congregations from their buildings, the Global South bishops grew steadfastly aware that the calls for gracious conversation, for bringing their "exuberance to the larger party" while their deadlines for clarity were being ignored were red herrings, obfuscatory techniques designed to buy time and hopefully fatigue the opposition.

The Western scheme has failed. Now fully empowered, well-educated, and shrewd, our third-world counterparts are serving notice that they are no longer willing to sit idly while Lambeth continues to engineer decadal stall tactics ( e.g., boundless gracious discussion sessions) designed ultimately to protect the worldly interests of an aggressively anti-orthodox American Episcopal Church.

The Western liberals seem incapable of recognizing the rapidly shifting paradigm occurring in their midst. Their ears now appear dull, their eyes dim (Isaiah 6). Having sloshed through their plans for the colonials over cocktails, few seem all that interested in listening to the narratives of their Global South neighbors. Few seem inclined to consider even the stories of martyrdom that many in Africa and Asia are able to share. Western liberals now find themselves in the unenviable position of explaining why they are unable to abide the third world's critique and the liberation they discovered in the Gospel. They must find ways to explain to them that they are not, indeed, the oppressors.

Whether they are heard or no, the economically poor of the third world have broken their shackles and will, in time, play a dominant role in the Anglican Communion. As Jenkins predicted, Christendom is increasingly finding its anchor in the Global South. Following GAFCON, it now seems plausible that, in due course, it will find its compass there as well.

reading the bible in 90 days

2008-06-30T00:06:00.004-05:00

While wandering around the Mardel Christian bookstore this past week, I saw a "90-Day Bible," and that grabbed my attention. I've never thought about reading the entire Bible in 90 days!

However, instead of buying another Bible, I decided to look on the internet, and, of course, found the 90-day plan. It works out to about 12 pages in their edition; the first day, for example, is just over 13 pages in Rebecca's ESV leatherbound.

I plan to begin reading on Sunday, July 6, and each day will post something here, a reflection or a comment or whatever. Would anyone like to join me? It might be fun to do something like this with others.

Here's the schedule.

nfl commissioner calls rookie salaries ‘ridiculous’

2008-06-27T18:28:00.003-05:00

It's about time someone is calling the NFLPA on the absurd money guaranteed to high draft picks before they even play a down. For instance, Jake Long, who was the number one pick in the draft this spring, signed on the dotted line for a five-year contract over $57,000,000, with $30 mil guaranteed. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says it's "ridiculous;" what is even more ridiculous is that they're not talking about it until now--even the last collective bargaining agreement, in 2006, didn't address the problem.

Here's the story at Yahoo.

brave new world

2008-06-25T17:22:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to get back into blogging. I took the site down for a couple of months, and my life has changed drastically since then. I was ordained a priest (finally--the picture on the left was the one on the cover of my ordination bulletin, on the Feast Day of St Mark the Evangelist), finished my thesis and graduated from seminary. Life is completely different from three months ago. I'm so busy (a good, no, a great busy) that the blogging that I did before is different than what I would do now. It's not that nothing has happened worth blogging about; for example, I finally implemented my long-dreamed interactive sermon in a Eucharistic setting.

I decided to re-up my blog because I saw things that I wanted to reflect on, but I'm still figuring out exactly how this is going to work! For now, I've decided that, in addition to posting new stuff, I will re-post occasional entries from the last go-around, so anything you see with "blast from the past," that's from the old blog.

blast from the past: egregious greekin'

2008-06-25T17:14:00.006-05:00

(From 11/2007)

Watched a few minutes of Pastor Melissa Scott on the TV last night, and boy was it bad! It caught my attention because she was working on a big whiteboard with the Greek text of the New Testament, and I've always enjoyed my Greek.

I got a hint that she didn't know what the hell she was talking about when she pronounced a psi in a word as a pi several times. But then she pulled a ridiculous stunt.

"Pastor" Melissa Scott had two Greek words on the board, euangelisasthai (a form of the word "to tell the good news") and iasasthai (a form of the word "to heal"). Then, emphatically circling letters, she showed how the words both end in -sasthai, alleging that the commonalities made it impossible to "spell 'the Gospel' without 'healing'!"

Her website claims that she knows 20 languages, but I can testify that Greek is not one of them. The -sasthai ending has nothing to do with the root meaning of the word. It is an aorist infinitive ending and does not control the meaning of the term itself. It would be like saying that "helped" and "opened" are similar because they both end in "-ed".

In the Greek words that she was trying to dovetail, the parts of the respective words that govern their core meaning are the first part, not the last part, of the words. The root of iasasthai is ia-, not -sasthai. And the same principle holds for euangelisasthai.

The sad part was that her audience actually stood and applauded her when she demonstrated this nonsense. Some people know just enough Greek to be dangerous.

buried treasure

2008-06-17T16:00:00.001-05:00

Earlier this week I was invited by our boys to play pirates with them--we were searching for buried treasure (in their bedroom). As we finally made it to our destination (sitting on the bed), Jonah jumped off and found the buried treasure.

"Look!" he said, his hands opening to reveal a pretend treasure. "Birthday cake!"

chrysostom on jonah

2008-06-16T15:46:00.001-05:00

I'm working on a four-part sermon series on the Book of Jonah, and in my studies ran across a quote from St John Chrysostom:

'They threw overboard the wares that were in the ship into the sea; but the ship was not getting any lighter,' because the entire cargo still remained within it, the body of the prophet, the heavy cargo, not according to the nature of the body but from the weight of sin. For nothing is so heavy and onerous to bear as sin and disobedience.

new blog

2008-06-16T14:37:00.001-05:00

New blog--same title as before!

"unresting death" meets its master

2008-06-16T14:28:00.000-05:00

While I was in Louisiana, our parish brought the Rev. Fleming Rutledge in for a weekend, for a retreat and to preach on Sunday. She is a marvelous preacher (with a number of books publishing her sermons), who told us that she wasn't as interested in congregations thanking her for her sermons as she wanted them to say, "that was the Gospel."

The Rev. Rutledge preached an extraordinary sermon, "'Unresting Death' Meets Its Master" at the National Cathedral earlier this year. I highly recommend it, available in video, audio, or text.

discovering the hope

kim kardashian and the death of marriage

the scandal of the worship leader

quincy ix ballot results

election results for the ninth bishop of the diocese of quincy

prayer for the search of the 9th bishop of quincy

bring them in: three models for evangelism through worship

whatever has been rightly said by the heathen, we must appropriate to our uses

preaching and beer

truer words about evangelism were never spoken...

c.s. lewis on devotional books and doctrinal books

vatican releases "anglicanorum coetibus"

the unchurched prefer cathedrals to modern buildings

st augustine on the *task* of being a bishop

miroslav volf on forgiveness

rome sweet home (well, for some)

a figural reading of “david and goliath”

stop karen armstrong!

prayer as product of the church

the pastor as physician of souls

you troubler of israel

the sacramentality of creation

john wesley on the law and the gospel

biblical illiteracy

good friday

john wesley & unconditional election

tulsa islamic adventures

russian media teases clinton over "reset" button

st athanasius

oh yeah

thomas l. friedman: the open-door bailout

life: imagine the potential

st hilary of poitiers on evangelical conversion

reflections on polygamy in genesis

hawkeyes going to the outback bowl, january 1, 2009

quote of the day

quote of the day

new anglican province coming to north america in december

if sarah palin was your mother...

c.s. lewis on authority

anglicans: listen up!

ha ha ha

debate: is abortion morally justifiable in a free society

the hour of holiness

romans 1 is not about temple prostitution

jesus is a friend of mine: sonseed & david crowder band

iowa 17, iowa state 5 (3-0)

the brits have gone mad

come to penn state!

theology is not for everyone

iowa 42, florida international 0 (2-0)

iowa 46, maine 3

how many countries can you name in five minutes?

greg hahn comedy

st ephrem the syrian on christ's victory over death

ken lee

hermeneutics & children's curriculum

a tale of two car repairs

video interview with gregory venables, anglican primate of the southern cone

summer teaching

lambeth report from bishop peter beckwith

x-files--i think i want to believe

when the lambeth hits the fan

summer pictures

for greek geeks only

silly americans...

11:59

it's an ordination picture!!!

my least favorite picture of the archbishop of canterbury

another gafcon reflection (fr. gregg riley of western louisiana)

the top 50 most influential figures in the anglican communion

the meaning of the jerusalem declaration (gafcon)

reading the bible in 90 days

nfl commissioner calls rookie salaries ‘ridiculous’

brave new world

blast from the past: egregious greekin'

buried treasure

chrysostom on jonah

new blog

"unresting death" meets its master

st augustine on the task of being a bishop