Unfolding My Story: The Dangers of Peacemakers

I said the time had come to start unfolding my story of the last year. It is a tale that added to my vocabulary the phrase “my old church,” as I was given no substantive choice but to leave the church my family had been in for generations. The cost has been painful and severe in numerous ways. The whole generational thing never seemed all that important until all of these events transpired and I realized all that had to be given up.

Why talk about it now or even at all? I have wrestled with that. As I reveal bits and pieces, it will be for two reasons. First, abuses in churches happen far more frequently than I think any of us would like to believe; people need to share these things to help them from happening again and to let those currently going through them know that they are OK, that they are not alone in facing abuse and just because a church is doing these things doesn't call into question God's love for them. It is perhaps one of the greatest scandals of the Church that we attempt to cover the evidence of our failures; I am convinced frank, open communication is far more in line with God's love of truth in the light and would do a great deal to restore the world's view of the Church.

All Councils "May Err and Many Have Erred"

So says the Westminster Confession of Faith (section 31.3), one of the key confessions of Reformed theology. This realization concerning the fallibility of human instruction goes along with ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda (“The Church reformed, always reforming”) to remind us of the church's need to constantly seek the truth of Scripture and never allow our flawed interpretations to override that truth.

Martin Luther realized that when he nailed the Ninety-Five Theses up on the door of Wittenberg Church 492 years ago today. Tradition and the wisdom of men supported indulgences, but the Gospel of Grace condemned it. We should similarly stand against the wisdom of men today, insomuch as it stands against the Gospel and the freedom that comes through union with Christ.

To celebrate the 500th birthday of John Calvin, which occurred earlier this year, Open for Business has offered varying perspectives on the Reformation over the past few weeks. With today's piece written by Steve Braun, the trilogy is complete:

• Biblical Challenges to Church Leadership by yours truly.
• Reformation Day Is a Stupid Holiday by Jason Kettinger.
• Ever Reforming by Steve Braun.

If you're hungry for more, you might also want to check out a very fine piece I stumbled upon over on the PC(USA) web site:

Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda. This motto calls us to something more radical than we have imagined. It challenges both liberal and conservative impulses and the habits and agendas we have lately fallen into. It brings a prophetic critique to our cultural accommodation—either to the past or to the present—and calls us to communal and institutional repentance. It invites us, as people who worship and serve a living God, to be open to being “re-formed” according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit.

That is definitely the lesson we should take away from Reformation Day.

Tullian's Take

I don't claim to be well versed enough in the situation to make a clear statement on who is right in the Coral Ridge conflict, but I like what Tullian Tchividjian said in an op-ed published in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Finally, whenever you see any of us who claim to be “Christ followers” behaving in a manner that is unlike Jesus, please forgive us. And please let that be a reflection on us, and not on Him. As imperfect people, we will continue to let you down and disappoint you, but Jesus will never let you down—he will never disappoint you. This conflict has “given the world the justification they're looking for to disbelieve the gospel”, and I am sorry.

Very true.

Preparing to Preach

I'm trying my first attempt at preaching a Psalm this week. I'm preaching from Psalm 54, which is related to either 1 Samuel 23 or 26. Here's the text of the Psalm (ESV):

TO THE CHOIRMASTER: WITH STRINGED INSTRUMENTS. A MASKIL OF DAVID, WHEN THE ZIPHITES WENT AND TOLD SAUL, “IS NOT DAVID HIDING AMONG US?”

O God, save me by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.
O God, hear my prayer;
give ear to the words of my mouth.
For strangers have risen against me;
ruthless men seek my life;
they do not set God before themselves. Selah
Behold, God is my helper;
the Lord is the upholder of my life.
He will return the evil to my enemies;
in your faithfulness put an end to them.
With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
I will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good.
For he has delivered me from every trouble,
and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.

I'm excited.

Secrets and Shadows

My prayer tonight is that truth can be removed from the shadows of secrecy, for it is not meant to be in the shadows of darkness. May light fill the darkness and expose it. For truth does not fail in the light; it needs no protection from the light. O God, let your light shine so brightly that truth may triumph and end discord.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1.5-7 NIV)

The Covenant Community

One of the first things that is emphasized at Covenant Seminary is the Covenant community. And by that, I am not referring to the students and professors at Covenant (though they are a part), but the one universal Church. We don't talk about this enough, even though beyond his son, the community is one of God's greatest gifts to his people.

In individualist America — or really, simply, the individualist world of today — it seems unnatural to worry too much about community. Doubly so to applaud and yearn for it. But, it is natural and, more importantly, it is Biblical. The community, the Kingdom of God, is not only something we talk about and look forward to as a future hope, but a present reality. It is the communion of saints, living and dead, who hold us up and show us the way. It is the body of Christ.

Sometimes, it exemplifies God's love (as in Acts 6.1-7), such as when the church sets apart people to care for the downtrodden. Sometimes, the community stumbles terribly, as the Corinthian church did. But, it is always an undeniably special blessing. Even with regards to seriously messed up Corinth, Paul offered sincere thanks for the people and the fellowship established there by the Spirit (1 Cor. 1.4-9).

During my first year in seminary, I found I was repeatedly assigned projects that sent me to the book of Hebrews, a book I had far less familiarity with than I should have. It has become a very refreshing book to me, because it reminds me of the support God offers us through his covenant community. We do not run the race alone, but with a faithful cloud of witnesses provided by a gracious God (Heb. 12.1-3).

Seminary is a hugely humbling, sometimes painful experience. That's why more than ever, upon entering it, I needed those words. Those experiences remind one to lean on and rejoice in the support that God has provided in his community. And, when things are going well, all the more to rejoice in his bountiful provision.

A few weeks ago, I was having coffee with a dear friend from seminary. We talked about this very subject and rejoiced over the community God gives us. We both noted how we had come to realize how important the close friendships we have from seminary are as we seek to do ministry. They insure we will always have people to turn to for prayer and advice. I am awed by the amazing support God offers me — my family, my mentors, my church family, my friends — and how he has worked in sometimes surprising ways to place them in my life. Why should I receive such wonderful blessings?

Of course, this extends as well to those who went before us — both in Scripture and church history — leaving treasure troves of faithful acts and writings to encourage us to faith. We would be remiss to forget those whom God has sent before, scouts leading the way as we move forward. God sends us out to do his work, but not without enforcements.

Sure, everyone yearns for the rightness of Eden. Everyone yearns for the day when God will restore the world to his creational intent. But, in the mean time, it is pure joy that we experience a very real part of that intent through the communion of saints.

Scriptural Authority and Challenges to It

One of the interesting things about the Bible is that it never is keen on presenting authorities as those who are always right. As a matter of fact, we see repeatedly that the worst offenses, the worst problems — the problems that lead the Israelites into spiritual and physical wildernesses — come from those in authority.

Even two of the best leaders, the two humans perhaps closest to God, Moses and David, committed grave offenses. The interesting thing is that at these times of failure it was appropriate, indeed, obedient for the godly to challenge the wrongs of their leaders. The prophetic voice, it is clear, is not the voice of a fortuneteller but the voice of moral judgment from God. Given the limited access to the Spirit in the Old Testament times, necessarily that place of judgment was limited to a few appointed prophets.

The prophetic mantle is more widely spread within the church than in the Old Testament, like all of the offices bestowed by the Holy Spirit and ultimately worn by our Covenant representative, Jesus. It is in this mode that Peter and John rightly note their allegiance not to the authorities over them but to God (Acts 4).

Of course, the Bible emphasizes the importance of leadership, but as each believer is called into leadership roles at various times and seasons, it is imperative that we remember that we are fallible — and it is not wrong for those under us to call us out. Insubordination is rarely a problem in the Bible, but abuse of power is a major problem. A leader who worries about insubordination ought to instead worry about him or herself. Leaders in the church should seek to foster an environment that is open and honest, that encourages challenges to their actions.

Obviously, these challenges need to be Biblical and respectful, but so long as they are, leaders need to practice control over typical human reflexes that might bring a chill to openness. All the more so as one goes higher up in leadership. The power is too great, the temptation to use that power too strong; for our own good, we should be checked constantly by people unafraid to say, “no.”

When leaders seek too much power it is like those who misread the Bible's commands for husbands and wives. When people read Ephesians 5, too often the focus is set on how wives are to submit, but with little care for v. 25, which gives husbands the command to love their wives as Christ loved the church — that is, unto willing death. If the husband is not perfect in that, how dare he concern himself with whether his wife submits? First, he ought to work to be more like Christ with fear and trembling.

Clearly, any leader that tries to argue for authority in sich from the Bible is missing the point. And, when that occurs, it is right that godly people such as Martin Luther and John Calvin sought reformation… divorce from those doing wrong. Ultimately, Biblical authority means to represent to the people the truths of the Bible and to live those truths as well as a human can. When leaders fail to do so, and fail to be willing to concede their failures, that authority is forfeit.

As Peter and John said in Acts 4.19, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.”

Meditation

HE IS RISEN!

I've been meaning to post more regularly on my blog, but the last few weeks have been — to put it mildly — rough. Both with my schedule at seminary as I've been juggling five group projects and some other matters I can't hash out in full just now, it's been a long, hard haul.

In any case, I meant to post a link yesterday to my annual Good Friday meditation. Resuming a tradition of past years, I was blessed with the opportunity to deliver it as part of the Good Friday service at St. Paul's. The link goes to an adaptation of that meditation into essay form.

But, that was yesterday. The grave has not only been filled, but also emptied. It is Easter morning. “O Death, where is thy sting?” Christ the Lord is RISEN today. Alleluia! Amen!

Happy Easter, my friends!

Liturgy, the Husk and the Worm

The postmodern winds of change are blowing. Postmodernism is nothing if not an utter rejection of the utilitarian ethic of the last few centuries. It looks at contemporary services, and even the Evangelical “traditional” service, and yearns for something more. It yearns for the ancient. It is intellectual, yes, but it wants the emotional, spiritual, sacred connection to the communion of the saints that comes out of the ancient words of the Church. It values tradition even as it tramples it, finding an odd synergy with the Glori Patri and Doxology, with the liturgical year and the cathedral.

The amorphous thing that postmodernism is, I think, is well represented by two bands I like: Engima and Evanescence. Both are notable for their combination of somewhat disjointed, even existentialist themes intermixed with Classical influence. Engima pulls in the Latin chants of the medieval period, for example; Evanescence draws influence from composers such as Mozart.

This is not a rapid, radical shift, but rather one that has been coming for a century. It is shown in Karl Barth's engagement with the Church Fathers and Catholic theologians unlike almost anybody else in the modernist era. Barth's work is engaging in part because he holds a conversation with the Church historic rather than acting as if his own time was so enlightened as to render it moot. Likewise T.S. Eliot's powder keg of “Modernist” poetry (which fits into cultural postmodernity) is constantly hungry for tradition, rejecting the realist ideals of the pre-War era.

As postmodernism continues to encroach on the popular psyche, I expect that what these “prophets” of the change saw fifty, seventy or ninety years ago is now being felt — even if people do not have the vocabulary to explain it — in the inner depths of the average person. Not, perhaps, in the Baby Boom generation or even that following, but in the ones succeeding from there. Cut “free” from the benefit of having been nurtured by tradition, many are willingly returning to it.

We need more of the richness of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis and less of Rick Warren and Pat Robertson. We are an malnourished church, starved of that which fortifies us in the midst of an orgy of information. Worse, like the Corinthians, we parade around thinking we are being spiritual and ascendant as we slowly pummel our culture to death.

The Journey is a St. Louis-based church that has a tendency to shake things up. It has grown astronomically in the few years it has existed. It is notable in that it seems to have an awareness of what the culture needs so as to be ministered to that is incredibly accurate thus far. They just launched a liturgical service.

The past 30 years in American evangelicalism have seen the rise of the contemporary, non-denominational church. Because of the noted success of these churches in reaching Baby Boomers, many church leaders today automatically equate being “relevant” or “missional” with a hip service with a rock band that sings contemporary choruses instead of hymns, complete with swirls of tie-dye eye candy decorating large screens instead of stained glass, crosses, and icons. What many have failed to grasp, however, is that these slick contemporary worship gatherings that meet in big auditoriums are often unsuccessful in connecting with newer generations. Churches like these build their philosophy of ministry on the fact that “we are not like your parent’s church.” In a post-Christian culture, however, people don’t generally care as much about not going to a church like their parents, simply because they didn’t grow up going to church at all. In addition, when newer generations do in fact venture out to try a Christian worship service, they look for and expect many of the elements that ironically the seeker churches have taken out of their services… Christian symbols, sacred spaces, and liturgical forms.

Does this invalidate those who want a contemporary service? No, of course not. What the postmodern air we are now breathing suggests, however, is that the era of the one-size fits all modernizing project has ended. The carcass of the Enlightenment Project needs finally to be tossed into the ocean. In a disconnected, disjointed world, many people want to worship God in a way that is set apart from the world, that is a sanctuary from the world. Not to escape the non-Christians, rather, this is precisely the thing that the unchurched yearn for. They don't need another rationalist explanation of anything, what they feel is missing is the sacred. The church does its duty when it provides that which the world cannot, not when it tries to provide precisely what the world can.

Matthew Arnold, in mourning the loss of faith that he felt as a modernist, wrote:

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

His poems, in a sense, offer insight from someone who was aware of the sacred but felt it was lost. He did not rejoice in that loss; it was not a loss that was merely the enlightened progression to perfection in human nature. In successive decades, we have forgotten that this loss was one that many early modernists felt was worth mourning even as they chose to abandon it. We seemed to think we ought to eliminate the sacred rituals too, even if we clung to the kernel inside that husk; those of us who had the theological structure to justify keeping that which Arnold mourns ironically rejoiced as we threw away what others would give everything to possess.

Maybe we need to realize that the husk is not always good to discard. Arnold, Tennyson and others — whatever conclusion they arrived at concerning faith in general — may have been better attuned than we to what even the faithful were discarding. They had the sense of the majesty contained in a true encounter of God through the sacred rituals of the Church. The rituals were not the cause of lost faith — the idea that rituals are what kill faith is absurd. Rather, those that abandoned the rituals did so because the church did not adequately hold on to the basis for those rituals.

Later, people misplaced the blame and felt it praiseworthy to discard the husk that “obscured” the the true kernels of faith, unaware that the true problem has not been that husk, but the worms eating away at the very kernels. But stripping away every husk only exposes the kernels to more and more worms.

Maybe the husk is worth reclaiming.

Happy Reformation Day

I hope all of you had a happy Reformation day. I forgot to wear red today, but I did find myself thinking of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” throughout the day. It's always a good day to look up the 95 Theses as well, and use that as an opportunity to contemplate our own failings as the modern church. How often do we inadvertently suggest that if only you would help with this expansion project or that dinner that it will somehow help salvation? Sure we don't do it directly, but I suggest that as Christians today we do this all the same.

Four hundred and ninety one years ago today, the Reformation began.