....the bridegroom rejoices to revisit the heart’s chamber when He finds it adorned with fruits and decked with flowers—that is, meditating on the mystery of His Passion or on the glory of His Resurrection.

The tokens of the Passion we recognize as the fruitage of the ages of the past, appearing in the fullness of time during the reign of sin and death (Gal. 4.4). But it is the glory of the Resurrection, in the new springtime of regenerating grace, that the fresh flowers of the later age come forth, whose fruit shall be given without measure at the general resurrection, when time shall be no more. And so it is written, ‘The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth’ (Cant. 2.11 f); signifying that summer has come back with Him who dissolves icy death into the spring of a new life and says, ‘Behold, I make all things new’ (Rev. 21.5). His Body sown in the grave has blossomed in the Resurrection (I Cor. 15.42); and in like manner our valleys and fields which were barren or frozen, as if dead, glow with reviving life and warmth.

The Father of Christ who makes all things new, is well pleased with the freshness of those flowers and fruits, and the beauty of the field which breathes forth such heavenly fragrance; and He says in benediction, ‘See, the smell of My Son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed’ (Gen. 27.27). Blessed to overflowing, indeed, since of His fullness have all we received (John 1.16). But the Bride may come when she pleases and gather flowers and fruits therewith to adorn the inmost recesses of her conscience; that the Bridegroom when He cometh may find the chamber of her heart redolent with perfume.

So it behoves us, if we would have Christ for a frequent guest, to fill our hearts with faithful meditations on the mercy He showed in dying for us, and on His mighty power in rising again from the dead. To this David testified when he sang, ‘God spake once, and twice I have also heard the same; that power belongeth unto God; and that Thou, Lord, art merciful (Ps. 62.11f). And surely there is proof enough and to spare in that Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification, and ascended into heaven that He might protect us from on high, and sent the Holy Spirit for our comfort. Hereafter He will come again for the consummation of our bliss. In His Death He displayed His mercy, in His Resurrection His power; both combine to manifest His glory.

--Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), On Loving God, Chapter III

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Spirituality/Prayer • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

Tony DeLLomo is on a mission from God.

In a hard-to-miss motor home covered with biblical passages, “Jesus is God” signs and an offer of a free Bible, DeLLomo has been spreading the Gospel by parking in high-traffic spots throughout central Florida.

“It’s all to glorify God,” DeLLomo said while wearing a sleeveless, white hooded sweatshirt with “Jesus is King” in red letters.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Travel • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

Small wonder, given the harrowing times recently, that news about a long-running property fight over a picturesque church in northern Virginia escaped most people’s notice. But the story of the struggle over the historic Falls Church is nonetheless worth a closer look. It’s one more telling example of a little-acknowledged truth: though religious traditionalism may be losing today’s political and legal battles, it remains poised to win the wider war over what Christianity will look like tomorrow.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Virginia • Global South Churches & Primates • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology • Theology: Salvation (Soteriology) • Theology: Scripture

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Is the Church in the UK as confident in the gospel as it should be?

It appears that while mission is clearly at the heart of what many churches are doing, talking about our faith as Christians is proving increasingly difficult.

Our desire is to see churches throughout the UK have a renewed confidence in the gospel and engaged in creative evangelism which is producing lasting results. This timely campaign is not about providing busy churches with more programmes; rather it is about looking at how we can make small changes that will nurture a gospel-confident culture within our churches.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Theology • Anthropology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

This gospel is one of the most notable that a man can find in the New Testament, and worthy to be commended with all kinds of commendation. But as it is not possible that a man should sufficiently express this sermon of Christ by words ; first let us call unto God, that he will expound these words more plainly in our hearts, than we can by our words and interpretation, and that he will enkindle them, and make them so plain, that our conscience may receive comfort and peace thereby. Amen.

The pith of this excellent sermon is, that God so greatly loved the world, that he delivered his only begotten Son for it, that we men should not die, but have everlasting life. And first let us see who is the giver. He is the Giver, in respect of whom all princes and kings, with all their gifts, are nothing in comparison. And our hearts might worthily be lifted up and exalted with a godly pride, since we have such a giver, so that all who should come unto us by any other liberality, might be counted of no price in comparison of this. For what can be set before us that is more magnificent and excellent than God almighty. Here God, who is infinite and unspeakable, gives after such a manner as passes also all things. For that which he gives, he gives not as wages of desert, or for a recompense, but, as the words sound, of mere love. Wherefore this gift wholly proceeds of God's exceeding and divine benevolence and goodness, as he saith, God loved the world. There is no greater virtue than love, as it may hereby be well understood, that when we love anything, we will not hesitate to put our life in danger for it. Verily, great virtues are patience, chastity, sobriety, &c., but yet they are nothing to be compared with this virtue, which comprises and includes within itself all other virtues. A good man does no man wrong, he gives every man his own ; but by love, men give their own selves to others, and are ready with all their heart to do all that they can for them. So Christ saith here also, that God gives to us, not by right or merit, but by this great virtue, that is by love.

This ought to encourage our hearts, and to abolish all sorrow, when this exceeding love of God comes in mind, that we might trust thereto and believe steadfastly, that God is that bountiful and great Giver, and that this gift of his, proceeds of that great virtue of love. This sort of giving, which has its spring of love, makes this gift more excellent and precious. And the words of Christ are plain, that God loveth us. Wherefore for this love's sake ought we greatly to esteem all things that he gives us.

--Writings of the Rev. Thomas Becon (London, J. Nisbet), pp. 494-495

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology • Anthropology • Atonement • Christology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

This is a very sobering time for ecclesiastically minded Americans. At a steadily growing rate, more and more Americans — especially the young — claim no religious affiliation. The figure has climbed from 15% to 20% of all Americans in the past five years. Pew researchers call the trend “nones on the rise.”

In reaction, Protestants and Roman Catholics are proving that the author of the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes had it right when he wrote that there is nothing new under the sun. In a classic attempt to turn adversity to advantage, Christian leaders who once assumed a cultural dominance (in the beginning of the baby-boom era, Christian identification among Americans was at least 91%; today it’s down to 77%) are now arguing for a double-down strategy. Rather than softening the Gospel message to make it more marketable to an America skeptical of institutions — a frequent reform point of view — what draws the real energy among the faithful is a renewed commitment to what Christians call the Great Commission, the words the resurrected Jesus spoke to his apostles at the end of Matthew: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

At the center of this strategy of unapologetic apologetics stands George Weigel, the papal biographer and prominent Catholic writer who has just published Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church, a handbook for Catholics seeking to keep the church out of the catacombs. “It’s a recovery of the basic dynamic of New Testament Christianity, but that passionate impulse to live the Great Commission and convert the world cooled during centuries when the ambient public culture helped do the church’s job,” says Weigel.

Read it all from a recent issue.

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For many Christians, Brennan Manning and grace are synonymous. Therein lies the scandal, and the triumph.

Let’s start with the scandal. Richard Francis Xavier “Brennan” Manning was an alcoholic and an addict. He hurt those close to him by compulsive lying, mainly due to hide his drinking, or if not, as he put it, to “stay in practice.” He was a former Franciscan priest, who broke his vows to marry. He later divorced.

But then there’s the triumph. Manning was a powerful writer and speaker, beloved and respected for his passionate witness to the expansiveness of God’s mercy and forgiveness, the availability of intimacy and communion with “Abba, Father,” and the inexhaustible grace of Jesus Christ. And he would know.

Read it all.

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Less than a month after sponsoring an event for Virginia Episcopal clergy featuring a speaker who denies both the afterlife and unique divinity of Christ, Bishop Shannon Johnston of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has presided over a service featuring a similarly controversial figure.

In a Good Friday service at historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, retired Bishop John Shelby Spong decried the Nicene Creed as “a radical distortion of the Gospel of John,” asserted that several of the apostles were “mythological” and declared that Jesus Christ did not die to redeem humanity from its sins.

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The story of the salvation of the dying thief is a standing instance of the power of Christ to save, and of his abundant willingness to receive all that come to him, in whatever plight they may be. I cannot regard this act of grace as a solitary instance, any more than the salvation of Zacchaeus, the restoration of Peter, or the call of Saul, the persecutor. Every conversion is, in a sense, singular: no two are exactly alike, and yet any one conversion is a type of others. The case of the dying thief is much more similar to our conversion than it is dissimilar; in point of fact, his case may be regarded as typical, rather than as an extraordinary incident. So I shall use it at this time. May the Holy Spirit speak through it to the encouragement of those who are ready to despair!

Remember, beloved friends, that our Lord Jesus, at the time he saved this malefactor, was at his lowest. His glory had been ebbing out in Gethsemane, and before Caiaphas, and Herod, and Pilate; but it had now reached the utmost low-water mark.

Stripped of his garments, and nailed to the cross, our Lord was mocked by a ribald crowd, and was dying in agony: then was he “numbered with the transgressors,” and made as the offscouring of all things. Yet, while in that condition, he achieved this marvellous deed of grace. Behold the wonder wrought by the Saviour when emptied of all his glory, and hanged up a spectacle of shame upon the brink of death! How certain is it it that he can do great wonders of mercy now, seeing that he has returned unto his glory, and sitteth upon the throne of light! “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” If a dying Saviour saved the thief, my argument is, that he can do even more now that he liveth and reigneth. All power is given unto him in heaven and in earth; can anything at this present time surpass the power of his grace?

It is not only the weakness of our Lord which makes the salvation of the penitent thief memorable; it is the fact that the dying malefactor saw it before his very eyes. Can you put yourself into his place, and suppose yourself to be looking upon one who hangs in agony upon a cross? Could you readily believe him to be the Lord of glory, who would soon come to his kingdom? That was no mean faith which, at such a moment, could believe in Jesus as Lord and King. If the apostle Paul were here, and wanted to add a New Testament chapter to the eleventh of Hebrews, he might certainly commence his instances of remarkable faith with this thief, who believed in a crucified, derided, and dying Christ, and cried to him as to one whose kingdom would surely come. The thief’s faith was the more remarkable because he was himself in great pain, and bound to die. It is not easy to exercise confidence when you are tortured with deadly anguish. Our own rest of mind has at times been greatly hindered by pain of body. When we are the subjects of acute suffering it is not easy to exhibit that faith which we fancy we possess at other times. This man, suffering as he did, and seeing the Saviour in so sad a state, nevertheless believed unto life eternal. Herein was such faith as is seldom seen.

Recollect, also, that he was surrounded by scoffers. It is easy to swim with the current, and hard to go against the stream. This man heard the priests, in their pride, ridicule the Lord, and the great multitude of the common people, with one consent, joined in the scorning; his comrade caught the spirit of the hour, and mocked also, and perhaps he did the same for a while; but through the grace of God he was changed, and believed in the Lord Jesus in the teeth of all the scorn. His faith was not affected by his surroundings; but he, dying thief as he was, made sure his confidence. Like a jutting rock, standing out in the midst of a torrent, he declared the innocence of the Christ whom others blasphemed. His faith is worthy of our imitation in its fruits. He had no member that was free except his tongue, and he used that member wisely to rebuke his brother malefactor, and defend his Lord. His faith brought forth a brave testimony and a bold confession. I am not going to praise the thief, or his faith, but to extol the glory of that grace divine which gave the thief such faith, and then freely saved him by its means. I am anxious to show how glorious is the Saviour—that Saviour to the uttermost, who, at such a time, could save such a man, and give him so great a faith, and so perfectly and speedily prepare him for eternal bliss. Behold the power of that divine Spirit who could produce such faith on soil so unlikely, and in a climate so unpropitious.

–From a sermon of C.H. Spurgeon preached on April 7, 1889

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology

In recent years Luther's teaching on the atonement has been a subject of strong dispute. Some (mostly the Swedish interpreters) have stressed the ideas of "conflict" and "victory" in Luther's discussions of atonement, arguing for a discontinuity between the Reformer's own thinking and the "substitutionary" theory of later Protestant orthodoxy. Others have insisted that at this point Luther's teaching differs in no essentials from that of his successors. One is well advised to tread carefully on entering the field of controversy; nevertheless, I make bold to submit that the interpretation of atonement in both Luther and Calvin can be understood as turning on the central and pivotal conception of a "happy exchange," in which the believer's sins are laid upon Christ and Christ's own innocence is communicated to the believer. From this center, we may say, the Reformers' thinking moves outwards to the various other soteriological concepts, including the two about which modern opinion is chiefly divided, namely, "victory" and "substitution." First and foremost, the Christian is one who has been united with Christ so intimately that an exchange of qualities has somehow taken place.

Of course, this understanding of Luther's thought would not settle present-day controversies, for it is not incompatible with either of the two main rival theories, nor even with a combination of both. Neither is it incompatible with Calvin's threefold scheme of "Prophet, Priest, and King" (a scheme of which, in any case, he makes very little use), since Christ does not exercise these offices in any "private capacity," but rather communicates their benefits to believers. Perhaps we may say that the notion of "exchange" belongs to the presuppositions of atonement, as the Reformers understood it, whilst the detailed outworking of the doctrine demands the use of further categories.

That the notion is indeed fundamental to the Reformers' thinking could be demonstrated by many passages from the works of both.

Luther speaks explicitly of this "happy exchange" (fröhlich Wechsel) in the German version of the Treatise on Christian Liberty. The soul and Christ are united like bride and bridegroom. They become one flesh, and everything they possess is shared in common. "What Christ has is the property of the believing soul, what the soul has becomes the property of Christ." A similar passage occurs in the Larger Commentary on Galatians (though worded differently in Rörer's MS.): "So, making a happy exchange with us (feliciter commutans nobiscum) he [Christ] took upon him our sinful person, and gave us his own innocent and victorious person." These passages can readily be matched in Calvin's Institutes: "Who could do this [i.e., win salvation for men], unless the Son of God should become also the Son of Man, and so receive what is ours as to transfer to us what is his?" And again: "He was not unwilling to take upon him what was properly ours, that he might in turn (vicissim) extend to us what was properly his." The same pattern of thought recurs in both the Reformers when they speak of the Lord's Supper; as, for instance, in Luther's Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, and the fourth book of Calvin's Institutes. What exactly it is that is "exchanged" is made perfectly clear in each of these passages: namely, Christ's righteousness is exchanged for the believer's sin.

--Brian A. Gerrish

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology

In the end, repentance, not love, has come to symbolise Cranmer himself, his life's work being interpreted by his last days. In the eyes of his critics, Cranmer's recantations prove that at best he was weak and vacillating. In the hearts of his admirers, however, Cranmer's last-minute renunciation of his recantations proved his true commitment to the Protestant faith. But what of Cranmer himself, how did he interpret his last days and the meaning they gave to his life? According to a contemporary account, having previously been distraught, Cranmer came to the stake with a cheerful countenance and willing mind.

Fire being now put to him, he stretched out his right Hand, and thrust it into the Flame, and held it there a good space, before the Fire came to any other Part of his Body; where his Hand was seen of every Man sensibly burning, crying with a loud Voice, This Hand hath offended. As soon as the Fire got up, he was very soon Dead, never stirring or crying all the while.

His Catholic executioners surely thought Cranmer was making satisfaction to his Protestant God. Yet his doctrine of repentance would have taught him otherwise, for the God he served saved the unworthy.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Theology • Anthropology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

"On one occasion I was travelling with the late lamented Bishop Weeks, then a simple minister. I went with him on a visit to a friend in the country. While I was in the railway carriage with him, a gentleman attacked him, knowing that he was a friend of missions. The gentleman said, 'What are the missionaries doing abroad? We don't know anything about their movements. We pay them well, but we don't hear anything about them. I suppose they are sitting down quietly and making themselves comfortable.' Mr. Weeks did not say anything in reply, I having made a sign to him not to do so. After the gentleman had exhausted what he had to say, I said to him, 'Well, sir, I beg to present myself to you as a result of the labours of the missionaries which you have just been depreciating;' and I pointed to Mr. Weeks as the means of my having become a Christian, and having been brought to this country as a Christian minister. The gentleman was so startled that he had nothing more to say in the way of objection, and the subsequent conversation between him and Mr. Weeks turned upon missionary topics. On the banks of the Niger, where we have not been privileged to be ushered in by European missionaries, native teachers have maintained their footing among their own people. Their countrymen look upon them as very much superior to themselves in knowledge and in every other respect, and listen to them with very great attention when they preach to them the Gospel of our salvation."

On St. Peter's Day, 1864, perhaps the most important event of his life took place, when in Canterbury Cathedral Samuel Crowther was consecrated as the first Bishop of the Niger. The scene was a memorable one, and is not likely to be forgotten by those who stood in the vast crowd which filled every aisle of the grand cathedral that day. The license of Her Majesty had been duly promulgated in these terms:--

"We do by this our license under our royal signet and sign manual authorise and empower you the said Reverend Samuel Adjai Crowther to be Bishop of the United Church of England and Ireland in the said countries in Western Africa beyond the limits of our dominions."

When the service began it was an impressive sight to see the Archbishop of Canterbury, attended by live other Bishops, enter the choir; and following them the three Bishops to receive the solemn rite of consecration, viz: the new Bishop of Peterborough, the new Bishop of Tasmania, and the new Bishop of the Niger. Remembering, as doubtless many did, the touching history of his childhood and early struggles as a slave, not a, few in that vast building were moved to tears as [118/119] the African clergyman humbly knelt in God's glorious house to receive the seals of the high office of Shepherd in His earthly fold. Most of all must one heart have been affected, that of Airs. Weeks, the missionary's wife, at whose knee he received his first lessons in the way of the Lord.

No one could fail to see how God had called forth this native from the degradation of a boyhood of slavery, to become a chosen vessel in His service. He had proved himself as a true-hearted standard-bearer of the Cross in much toil and patient endurance, and it was meet that to him should be committed the spiritual interests of the district in which he had spent hitherto nearly the whole of his life since he became a Christian.

On his immediate return to the Niger, the work began afresh with renewed energy. Special attention was given to the Delta, for King Pepple, having been on a visit to England, made an application to the Bishop of London to send missionaries to his dominions. A more degraded district was not to be found in Africa. Although its trade was very flourishing, being one of the chief markets for palm oil, the people were sunk in the lowest vices and superstitions. At the time of which we speak, when Bishop Crowther was forming the Christian Church there, the shocking practice of cannibalism was not yet wholly given up, and the people were entirely under the power of the priests of the Juju or fetish worship. As in Dahomey, no regard for human life seems to have existed; men were sacrificed at every high festival, and at the burial of any of their chief men a number of poor creatures would be slaughtered. The ghastly spectacle of their temple, paved and elaborately decorated with human bones, showed the ferocity of their religion.

In the midst of this awful darkness came Bishop Crowther and his fellow-helpers, bearing the light of the Gospel, and in due time many believed and were saved. It was as in the early Church of the first centuries, the adherents of the new religion were mostly slaves, and to escape their persecutors had to meet for worship and counsel in retired places.

--Jesse Page, Samuel Crowther: The Slave Boy Who Became Bishop of the Niger (London, 1892), Chapter Ten (emphasis mine)

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • Church of Nigeria • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Missions • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

It's interesting that our culture is rarely scandalized by this preaching of the Cross. That's probably because it is a rare theme of Christian preaching these days. Instead we have been smitten with practical preaching that helps people become successful in life and business, and with ethical preaching that tells people how to live better. This is done for the noblest of reasons—to show the gospel relevant to people's daily needs, but one can see where this has gotten us. When the Cross is preached, it is often preached in a way that falls on deaf ears. It's seen as a theme for theologians to wax eloquent about with strange words like propitiation and justification, or something comforting to guilt-ridden religious types—but meaningless to regular human beings.

Need-driven preaching—even of the highest order, that is, our search for significance—communicates that Jesus is just another way to solve our problems. It is no wonder that the culture looks at us, pats us on the head, and says, "But we've found other, equally valid ways to solve our problems, thank you." We tend to think that postmoderns have brought relativism down upon us, but it seems, we Christians have been the culprits the more we make our message about meeting people's needs.

The most needful and difficult task of the church today is to again preach the message of the Cross, and to do so in a way that alarms, surprises, scandalizes, challenges, invigorates, and inspires a 21st century world. What that would look like exactly is hard to say; our theologians and pastors need to help us here. In the most general terms, it has to be about Christ first and last. It has to be about the Christ who came into the world not to improve generally good people, but to resurrect the dead, not to bolster our self-esteem but to forgive us, not to make people successful but to make them loving, not to win the culture but to establish a kingdom without end.

Read it all.

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Just after World War II, Henry, then a young rising star in the Christian firmament, issued a jarring manifesto calling for a theologically-informed and socially-engaged evangelicalism. [Carl] Henry warned that American Christianity, on the Right and on the Left, was headed for irrelevance, toward being the equivalent of a wilderness cult. His agenda wasn’t simply an updating of style and presentation (although he had written a book on church publicity). The issues at root were about misguided views on the kingdom of God.

He was right. And he still is.

Henry was concerned about two fronts: detached fundamentalism and social gospel liberalism. The liberals, Henry insisted, had replaced the gospel with a political program. Instead of seeing the primary mission of the church in terms of God’s reconciling work in Christ to forgive sins, the liberals were busy grinding out policy papers on nuclear policy. Liberals saw the kingdom as a program for public righteousness, often enacted legislatively.

At the other extreme, though, Henry warned, conservatives over-reacted to the social gospel. They spoke of the kingdom of God, but acted as though it were wholly future.

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Someone told me recently, “I just don’t get all caught up in theological dogma.” As the days of our lives slip by, it is possible that a person might not get all caught up in the true theology behind this “most wonderful time of the year.” And with eggnog in hand still want his or her Christmas to be a time for proclaiming peace and good will (not peace because of the birth of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away our sin giving us peace with God; not that, just “peace and good will”, a kind of mantra for postmodern America.)

So it is possible, at least for a while, to ignore the real meaning of Christmas. That is, as long as the internal and external events of my life proceed according to my plans; as long as I can keep at bay all forms of guilt from years of things done and left undone; as long as I can gloss over the world’s darkness to which the prophet Isaiah has alluded; as long as I can fend off the awareness that one day I too will die. For that long I can get by in this world without concerning myself with the truest meaning of Christmas.

But as soon as anything breaks through my delusional reality; as soon as guilt robs me of my peace, as soon as death threatens me, then absolutely nothing will matter more than the theological truth behind the Nativity.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

Is the primary problem TEC faces today a “structural problem?” While we clearly have structural issues, I do not think we have yet come up with the right diagnosis. I would point to two issues that are symptomatic of our situation.

First, we have been involved in serious conflict for the past decade that has held the attention of our leadership, led to an acceleration of our decline and costs us millions of dollars in litigation. Like it or not, this conflict is related directly to our theological and missional identity, namely who are we and what we are called to do. I would caution that just because one side in the conflict seems to have won, this does not mean that we have determined an identity and way forward, especially a way that is significant to our wider cultural context. If the Episcopal Church is to have a future other than shrinking numbers, budgets, and congregations, we must be able to reach people in our society and draw them into this part of the body of Christ.

Second, there continues to be a major disconnect between our corporate structures and the local congregation. We continue to hear from denominational leaders that recent decisions have made us more viable to new generations and new ethnic groups which is making us a more inclusive and multi-cultural church. However, the numbers of declining congregations and the reality in the field is that local congregations are not, nor are most becoming, the kind of church that General Convention and the Executive Council say we are. Of course, we have some congregations that reflect this, but they are far from the norm of our local congregational life. I have spent much time over the last ten years visiting Episcopal Churches and making presentations on congregational development. I observe that many of our congregations are struggling with basic survival issues.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Data • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

Listen to it all if you so desire.

Filed under: * By Kendall • Sermons & Teachings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology

....one could learn a great deal from the question, “What do you hope to get for Christmas?” For if you know our hopes, you fairly well know us. If you want to know who a person really is, and plans to be, inquire into what that person is hoping for.

What are you hoping for?

I expect that is what most of us think religion is about, the fulfillment of our hopes. We hope to find peace in our anxious lives. So we come to church on Sunday morning hoping that the music of the hymns, the words of scripture and preaching may fill us with a sense of peace.

We hope for thoughtful, reflective lives. So we come to church on Sunday morning hoping for an interesting sermon, something that will help us to use our minds, something that will test our intellects, make us think about things in a way we haven’t thought before.....

The trouble is that the Gospels seem to engage in a continual debate with people’s hopes and expectations. Jesus came, light into our darkness. But the problem with Jesus was he was not the sort of light that we expected. That is where the trouble started. Jesus was the hope of the world. But he was not the hope for which the world was hoping!


Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Christology • Eschatology • Soteriology

In an essay in The Times’ Sunday Book Review this week the writer Paul Elie asks the intriguing question: Has fiction lost its faith? As we are gathered here today, let us consider one of the most oddly faithful of all fiction writers, Fyodor Dostoevsky. More specifically, I’d like focus pretty intensely on what some consider to be the key moment in his greatest novel — arguably one of the greatest of all time — “The Brothers Karamazov.” (Elie himself notes the 1880 masterpiece as an example of the truly faith-engaged fiction of yore.) I speak in particular of the “Grand Inquisitor” scene, a sort of fiction within a fiction that draws on something powerful from the New Testament — Jesus’s refusal of Satan’s three temptations — and in doing so digs at the meaning of faith, freedom, happiness and the diabolic satisfaction of our desires.

Read it all. Be warned--this is not short and it is not light bed-time reading; it is, however, well worth the time--KSH.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Philosophy • Poetry & Literature • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Russia • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology • Theodicy

...if we put aside the necessity of the Virgin Birth, can we not see the congruity of it? In other words, does the Virgin Birth not fit into a kind of biblical logic once you accept the Bible’s overall Trinitarian framework?

Since God was in the business of re-starting creation in the sending of his Son, might we not expect him to create “out of nothing” the second time, just as he did the first? Karl Barth, the greatest theologian of the 20th Century, thought so. Just as the Spirit brooded over creation the first time, so again in the birth of Jesus the Spirit “brooded” over the virgin Mary. Also, just as creation was totally initiated by God the first time, so creation (the second time, in Jesus) gets to be totally initiated by God. The Virgin Birth tells us that Jesus was not born “of the will of man”, but wholly of the Father’s initiative. God chose to by-pass the normal male role in the work of redemption, in part, so the logic goes, to signal his own headship. “Man as a creating, controlling, self-assertive, self-glorifying being was set aside in favor of a woman who listened, received, and served.” (From, A Step Further, by the author)

We honor the Virgin Birth, of course, because Scripture teaches it. But we can also see the logic behind it. God’s sovereign action is a challenge to the human psychological need to contribute to our own salvation, to be co-creators with God. Mary is a witness against the drive, push, and self-assertion that men especially (though not exclusively) associate with a healthy self-image and by which men often mask their own impotence.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Advent • Ascension • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

What has caused the rust? The easy answer: the church lost the gospel. Waves of pragmatism, liberalism, and "Anglo-Catholicism" (a blend of Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism) have swept through the church, leaving wreckage in their wake.

But the actual cause is slightly more subtle. Anglicans still talk about the gospel, a lot. And mission. And even about being evangelical---the new archbishop self-identifies as an evangelical, though he certainly wouldn't recognize the definition of the term Don Carson and Tim Keller give in TGC's Gospel-Centered Ministry booklet.

The denomination never lost the words. But it lost the biblical content. In order to keep unity among people who differ over essentials, Anglicanism has increasingly emptied key concepts of their content. So you can sit in a room with 10 Anglican ministers and talk for half an hour about "the gospel" without ever defining the term and always knowing there are probably ten (or eleven!) different views.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Commentary • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

You seem to be doing very little good at present. The use of his "love" to distract his mind from the Enemy is, of course, obvious, but you reveal what poor use you are making of it when you say that the whole question of distraction and the wandering mind has now become one of the chief subjects of his prayers. That means you have largely failed. When this, or any other distraction, crosses his mind you ought to encourage him to thrust it away by sheer will power and to try to continue the normal prayer as if nothing had
happened; once he accepts the distraction as his present problem and lays that before the Enemy and makes it the main theme of his prayers and his endeavours, then, so far from doing good, you have done harm. Anything, even a sin, which has the total effect of moving him close up to the Enemy, makes against us in the long run....

Your affectionate uncle

SCREWTAPE

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Letter XXVII (emphasis mine), also quoted by yours truly in yesterday's sermon

Filed under: * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Soteriology • Theology: Holy Spirit (Pneumatology)

(In the 16th chapter of this book Nathaniel Wyeth (who goes by Nat), engineer and inventor, responds to the interviewer and tells a story about on his brother, artist Andrew Wyeth--KSH)

Andy once did a picture. This is sort of an extension of what we've been talking about, but it's indicative of the kind of training I'm talking about....Andy did a picture of Lafayette's headquarters which is down here on Route One near Chadds Ford [a town in Pennsylvania]. It's a beautiful, old building, built before the Revolutionary War, and in his picture was a huge sycamore tree coming up from behind the building with all its beautiful branches. You could see part of the trunk coming up over the roofline.

When I first saw the painting, he wasn't quite finished with it. He showed me a lot of drawings of the trunk and the gnarled roots going into the ground, and and I said, "gee whiz, where's that in the picture?" "It's not in the picture, " he said. And I looked at him.

“Nat," he said, “for me to get the feeling that I want in that tree, the part of the tree that's showing, I've got tounderstand and know very thoroughly how that tree is anchored to the ground in back of the house." It never showed in the picture. But he could draw the part of the tree above the house with a lot more authenticity because he knew exactly the way that thing was anchored in the ground. Isn’t that remarkable?

To me, this was all very indicative of what my father [the illustrator N.C. Wyeth] trained into us in whatever we were doing: to understand what we were doing.

--Kenneth A. Brown, Inventors at Work: Interviews with 16 Notable American Inventors (Redmond, Wash.: Tempus Books, 1988), pp. 374-375, quoted by yours truly in yesterday's sermon

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Advent • * Culture-Watch • Art • History • Science & Technology • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

This Free Church has a work to do. All around us are men for whom Christ died, and yet many only use that name to swear by. In sorrow and sickness, in pollution and sin, there are men who live as though they thought they could die like oxen in the stall. Our Master's work is our work. "The poor ye have always with you, and when ye will ye may do them good." Will the day ever come when our eyes shall be opened to believe with all our hearts in the brotherhood of Jesus? when we shall see the name of the Lamb written on the poor man's forehead? Beloved, it is not alms alone that he needs; he needs a brother's hand and a brother's heart—cheerful words to make him braver in his sorrow—wise planning to lift him out of trouble—a God speed—a welcome; these, with alms, are blessed: without this, alms to-day needs alms to-morrow, and the poor sink deeper in poverty and woe. This city has thousands of young men: a stranger notices this as he walks the street. The clear eye and commanding step, the young man hopeful of the future, are with us. They have no homes. To many the Sunday comes without a thought of God. If they were sought after, this would be their home; for, beloved, there are few young men who do not remember a mother, and when at unlooked-for times they catch the tones of that mother's voice, they feel that they ought to go where that voice would lead them, and become Christian men. This city is full of craftsmen, those workers in wood and iron, men of strong frames and busy brains—they are the very life of the nation. On every railway, in every shop, on our inland seas—they meet us everywhere. They have warm hearts, and are generous to a fault; they are men of the very best intellects; they belong to the thinkers of the age—quick to grasp a truth and ready to fulfill. Why are they not the Sons of the Church? The fault is not in the invitation. Read the sentence on these walls: "The Spirit and the Bride," which is the Church of Christ, "say come; and let him that heareth, say come; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him come and drink of the water of life freely." The fault is ours. There is only one place to learn how to do this work. It is at the foot of the Cross.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

In Sexual Sanity for Men, David White of Harvest USA writes a book for men about their struggles with sexual immorality. White’s book is needed in the midst of a culture with expanding opportunities for sexual sin and a church whose skills to address those temptations have, at times, appeared weak. As White seeks to expand the church’s wisdom to address men’s sexual struggles, there is much to commend.

The most important thing that can be said of White’s effort is that he repeatedly emphasizes the importance of the gospel of Jesus Christ for change. The most significant element of the church’s approach in the battle against sexual immorality does not consist in any process or procedure, but rather in a person whose name is Jesus.

White not only understands the importance of Christ’s power, he also underlines the necessity of connecting that power to the tangible categories of life in the midst of powerful enemies in the culture, the dark desires of humanity, and the prince of the power of the air. Furthermore, White explains that, in his great gospel, God not only forgives us but also gives us actual power to change (91).

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Men • Pornography • Sexuality • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

With all of the recent news about the Diocese of South Carolina and the Episcopal Church in the newspaper, there has been a growing misunderstanding about the nature of the crisis. As our bishop has put it so eloquently on several occasions, our profound disagreement with the Episcopal Church is over theology, morality, and polity (how the church is organized and governed). Yet what continues to be printed in the newspaper is that this whole separation is over homosexuality and the narrow view of the Diocese in contrast to the welcoming and inclusive view of the national church. This is a gross mischaracterization of the truth and represents a lie that Satan would like to sow in the minds of faithful members of our church to cause them to abandon their biblical faith and their current affiliation....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Anthropology • Soteriology

But I am besides my purpose when I fall to bewail the cold affection which we bear towards that whereby we should be saved, my purpose being only to set down what the ground of salvation is. The doctrine of the Gospel proposeth salvation as the end, and doth it not teach the way of attaining thereunto? Yes, the damsel possessed with a spirit of divination spake the truth: "These men are the servants of the most high God who show unto us the way of salvation" [Acts 16:17] -- "a new and living way which Christ hath prepared for us through the veil, that is, his flesh," [Heb 10:20] salvation purchased by the death of Christ.

--Learned Discourse on Justification (my emphasis)

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

It was my pleasure and privilege to preach for nine Sundays in Canada, in Toronto, in 1932. I well remember being welcomed on the first Sunday morning by the minister of the church who, though on vacation, was still not out of town. He introduced me, and in responding to the welcome I thought it would be wise for me to indicate to the congregation my method as a preacher. I told the congregation that my method was to assume generally on Sunday morning that I was speaking to believers, to the saints, and that I would try to edify them; but that at night I would be preaching on the assumption that I was speaking to non-Christians as undoubtedly there would be many such there. In a sense I just said that in passing. We went through that morning service, and at the close the minister asked if I would stand at the door with him to shake hands with people as they went out. I did so. We had shaken hands with a number of people when he suddenly whispered to me saying, 'You see that old lady who is coming along slowly. She-is the most important member of this church. She is a very wealthy woman and the greatest supporter of the work.' He was, in other words, telling me to exercise what little charm I might possess to the maximum. I need not explain any further! Well, the old lady came along and we spoke to her, and I shall never forget what happened. It taught me a great lesson which I have never forgotten.

The old lady said, 'Did I understand you to say that in the evening you would preach on the assumption that the people ljstening are not Christians and in the morning on the assumption that they are Christians?' 'Yes,' I said. 'Well,' she said, 'having heard you this morning I have decided to come tonight.' She had never been known to attend the evening service; never. She only attended in the morning. She said, 'I am coming tonight.' I cannot describe the embarrassment of the situation. I sensed that the minister standing by my side felt that I was ruining his ministry and bitterly regretted inviting me to occupy his pulpit! But the fact was that the old lady did come that Sunday night, and every Sunday night while I was there. I met her in her house in private conversation and found that she was most unhappy about her spiritual condition, that she did not know where she stood. She was a fine and most generous character, living an exemplary life. Everybody assumed-not only the minister but everybody else-that she was an exceptionally fine Christian; but she was not a Christian. This idea that because people are members of the church and attend regularly that they must be Christian is one of the most fatal assumptions, and I suggest that it mainly accounts for the state of the Church today.

--Martyn Lloyd Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), pp.147-149 (emphasis mine); used by yours truly in a recent sermon

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Theology • Anthropology • Soteriology

“The Christian is not a seeker; the Christian is one who has found. “Come, see a man…” (John 4:29); “We have found the Messiah…” (John 1:41); “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth…” (John 1:45). Christians are men and women who have found; they have found something to give; they are not merely seeking…By definition Christians have something; they have something to say… So the great question we must all ask ourselves is this: do we have something to give to people who are in need? I like to think of it like this. Imagine that tonight when you are in your home, somebody knocks at your door or rings the bell. You go to the door, and there you find a messenger. What is the message? Well, it is a request, an appeal, from a man whom you have known for years; perhaps you have known him since you were children together. Unfortunately, poor fellow, he has gone wrong in life, he has lived a godless life, and yet you somehow liked him. Whenever you met him, you were glad to see him, you always spoke to him, and you often tried to urge him to come with you to listen to the gospel. But he would not come; he laughed it off, as such people often do.

Now here is the message – this afternoon that poor fellow had a sudden heart attack, and he is desperately ill; in fact, he is dying. The doctor can do no more for him. He has told the family, and this man realizes the truth – he can see it in their faces. And suddenly he has come to himself. He sees that his life is finished, and he is going to the unknown and to darkness. He has nothing – nothing to lean on in his past life, nothing to lean on in the present. Nobody can help him. He is absolutely alone, as we all shall be sooner or later, as our soul passes from time to eternity and into the presence of God. He does not know what to do or where to turn; he is in agony of soul. But suddenly he has thought of you because he thinks of you as a Christian and as a member of a church, because you have invited him to go with you to church. So he has sent for you – that is the message. Of course, you have no choice; you must go. And when you arrive in the room, there is your friend lying on his back in bed.

This is the test as to whether or not we are Christians. Do you have something you can give him that will make all the difference in the world to him? What is the point of telling this man that you are also a seeker and a searcher after the truth – he will be dead before midnight? What is the point of saying to him, “I hope that my sins are going to be forgiven sometime, I’m doing my best, I’m living a good life”? Does that help him? That puts him into hell while he is still alive. Or how does it help him if you turn to him and say, “Well, at last you see it. How many times have I told you that the life you were living was wrong? If only you had live as I live!” What is the value of that? That is sheer cruelty. That, again, is putting him in hell while he is still alive. It is of no value at all.

No, no; that is not the Christian way. Christians are not seeking truth or seeking forgiveness. They are not trying to make themselves Christians by living good lives; they are not merely church members. What are they? Well, in the end it just comes to this: they are men and women who, like the woman of Samaria, have met Christ, the Son of God. They are able to tell this poor fellow that it is not too late, that it is not hopeless, that no one is justified by their works or by their lives, that we are all sinners, and there is no ultimate difference between us at all, but that this is the message: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever [even he] believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Christians can tell this man not about their own experience but about Jesus Christ. There is no time to give experiences; there is no time to go through your drill and mechanically quote this or that. All they can say is, “Jesus Christ – look to him!” They just tell the dying man about him, who he is, what he has done. And that is the only way this man can be helped, the only way he can find peace and rest for his soul.”

--Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), Living Water: Studies in John 4, quoted by yours truly in yesterday's sermon

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

We are in a place and time of growing evangelistic opportunity and obligation....Our secure, wealthy and beautiful region is alive with people, especially new people. Many of these people know nothing about Jesus and they need to hear about the way to eternal life. We are here for them. It is as simple as that....

You could say [after looking at the statistic profile of Australia's spiritual landscape], don’t fret: Our business is to look after the religious needs of the descendants of the English. We are a declining chaplaincy church. Christianity is a religion of consolation rather than salvation.

You had better say: The gospel itself utterly forbids us to think like that. The gospel addresses all men and women without exception in the same tone of voice, with the same demands and the same promises, the same Lord and the same Saviour. It is a matter of salvation, not consolation: of salvation, not of growing our numbers. Any gospel church is aptly described as One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, universal words which embrace all nations and peoples and languages. If our denomination, will not accept the challenge posed by the new and increasingly different world which has come to us, we are not being faithful to the gospel which has formed our churches and saved our souls.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Australia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

What do Charles and John Wesley have to teach Catholics in the United States about the New Evangelization? With the release of Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization (USCCB, 2012) and the Catholic Church’s upcoming synod on the “New Evangelization,” these two ministers seem as relevant as ever to how we think about evangelization in the modern world.

Charles and John Wesley were ordained in eighteenth century England, a time when the sacrament of Holy Communion was often regarded with indifference or neglect. Church historian John Bowmer remarks that the sacraments and Christian life were widely disparaged in this “new age of reason,” and most people in the Church of England aimed for the minimums of religious practice—receiving the Eucharist three times a year and treating it as an historic custom, rather than encounter with the living God. Unsurprisingly, most in the Church of England were not looking outward to form disciples or share the Gospel. In fact, many clergy and laity in the Church of England believed that England’s growing urban masses were beyond influence and simply had “no taste” for Christian liturgy and sacraments. Christianity was on its way to becoming a fruitless cultural niche.

This creeping indifference characterizes many U.S. Catholics today....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Methodist • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Soteriology

5. The history of Christian mission has been characterized by conceptions of geographical expansion from a Christian centre to the “un-reached territories”, to the ends of the earth. But today we are facing a radically changing ecclesial landscape described as “world Christianity” where the majority of Christians are either living, or have their origins in the global South and East.[2] Migration has become a worldwide, multi-directional phenomenon which is re-shaping the Christian landscape. The emergence of strong Pentecostal and charismatic movements from different localities is one of the most noteworthy characteristics of world Christianity today. What are the insights for mission and evangelism – theologies, agendas and practices – of this “shift of the centre of gravity of Christianity”?

6. Mission has been understood as a movement taking place from the centre to the periphery, and from the privileged to the marginalized of society. Now people at the margins are claiming their key role as agents of mission and affirming mission as transformation. This reversal of roles in terms of envisioning mission has strong biblical foundations because God chose the poor, the foolish and the powerless (1 Corinthians 1:18-31) to further God’s mission of justice and peace so that life may flourish. If there is a shift of the mission concept from “mission to the margins” to “mission from the margins”, what then is the distinctive contribution of the people from the margins? And why are their experiences and visions crucial for re-imagining mission and evangelism today?

7. We are living in a world in which faith in mammon threatens the credibility of the gospel. Market ideology is spreading the propaganda that the global market will save the world through unlimited growth. This myth is a threat not only to economic life but also to the spiritual life of people, and not only to humanity but also to the whole creation. How can we proclaim the good news and values of God’s kingdom in the global market, or win over the spirit of the market? What kind of missional action can the church take in the midst of economic and ecological injustice and crisis on a global scale?

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Psychology • Religion & Culture • * Theology • Soteriology

As I sat looking at my computer screen at the title I’d written for this article, I was somewhat bemused by the fact that a defense of conversion and revival was even necessary. But so it is. There are quarters of the church now questioning whether or not conversion, the new birth, giving oneself to Christ, etc., are topics that should even be raised. Conversion, and its corporate expression, revival, are thought to be manifestations of Western individualistic thinking. Better simply to call people to join the life of the Body of Christ by inviting them to be baptized and share in the community of believers.

While certainly acknowledging the taint of individualism which has infected the modern church, it seems to me undeniable that the scriptures have always used the language of “both…and” rather than “either...or” as regards individual conversion, revival and community life.

Just as a reminder to myself, I went through some key passages regarding this topic. I want to share them with you as a “pastoral preventative,” lest anyone lead you astray on this subject. Good writers and preachers, who I respect when they speak on other subjects such as the resurrection, have, I believe, taken a wrong turning in pitting corporate Body Life against revival and conversion.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

"We are facing more obstacles than we ever have before, but this is no surprise. This believer represents the very first person who wants to be baptized in this place. Satan's not just going to give that up easily," [John]Costa said.

For [Aaron] Juergens, that's no reason to quit, but encouragement to persevere, even in sickness and freezing temperatures atop a mountain.

"I'm up there, wearing six jackets and three gloves and five socks and I really just kind of want to sit in a bed," he said. "But then you think about those people (who haven't heard yet). If we turn around, who is going to come next? I mean, how many people have turned around? The world is getting smaller. The day is coming when everybody is going to have no excuse whatsoever for not hearing. There's no excuse for turning back.

"We keep going."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • South America • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists • * Theology • Soteriology

In your recently published autobiography, Wherever I Wind Up, you're explicit about how God saved and changed your life. Journalists have interviewed you a lot over the past several months. What percentage of the interviewers have asked about your Christian faith? Probably 15 to 20 percent.

The subject didn't come up in your NPR interview. I brought it up. They edited it out. I always look for opportunities to talk about my faith in a way that is congruent with the story or the question that they ask, because it is important to me that people know. Most of the time it will be edited out.

Your description of the knuckleball—"The pitch has a mind of its own. You either embrace it for what it is—a pitch that is reliant on an amalgam of forces both seen and unseen—or you allow it to drive you half out of your mind"—seems like a metaphor for the mysteries of God's providence in the Christian life. To a certain extent it is, at least for me. An element of surrender has enabled me to get to the next place with the knuckleball. An element of surrender in my own life has helped me get to the next place in my faith and relationship to Christ. I didn't necessarily draw the parallel intentionally, but as a Christian there were so many times in my life where I wanted to control things and I would hold on to them so tightly that God couldn't get anywhere near them—or so I thought.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Men • Religion & Culture • Sports • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

The influx of foreign-born people into North America gives Southern Baptist churches a unique opportunity to reach the nations, a veteran International Mission Board worker said at the 2012 Send North America Conference.

Most churches, though, are failing to take advantage of the opportunity, he said at the conference sponsored by the North American Mission Board.

"We need to look at some other models and methods when we start churches among people groups," IMB representative Bryan Galloway said during a conference breakout session on "Reaching the Nations in North America." "We're just not doing that."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

[David] Boudia's emptiness after the 2008 Olympics continued through his freshman year and into his sophomore year at Purdue. He jumped into the college party scene. He made a lot of friends and a lot of self-described "silly choices."

One day, the depression got so severe he couldn't even get out of bed.

"I woke up from a nap and felt like I'd hit a wall," Boudia said. "I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what my purpose was. I didn't know why I was feeling the way I was feeling."

A diving teammate at Purdue directed Boudia to his coach, of all people. Boudia called Adam Soldati and went over to his house, where he sat and listened to Soldati and his wife Kimiko talk about the Lord.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Sports • * Theology • Soteriology

This is from yesterday from yours truly if you have an interest. It was preached at Saint Andrew's, Mount Pleasant, S.C. and is based on Articles 12-14 of the 39 articles and readings from Ephesians 2:1-10 and Matthew 25:31-46. The link included downloadable options as well as sermon notes and questions.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * By Kendall • Sermons & Teachings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * South Carolina • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

Bookmark it and then follow the links and read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Anthropology • Ecclesiology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Sacramental Theology • Eucharist • Soteriology

The challenge is not that we have a ministry of the baptized and Communion as our central act of worship – the challenge is that we have clergy ill-trained in Sacramental theology administering them. We have laity that we have failed to form in Sacramental living. We now have a wide body of our priests that do not believe anything much actually happens in the Sacraments.

Do you believe the Holy Spirit descends upon a person and transforms their very being in Baptism so that they are united with Christ? Do you believe that Christ is truly present in the Body and Blood we receive at the Altar? Are the Sacraments God’s action or ours? I have heard far too many talking of Baptism as an entry rite rather than as transformation just as I have heard too many speak of Communion as a “meal” alone rather than the very Presence of Christ among us.

If you have a clergy addicted to modernism and reformation charged with carrying out the catholic Sacramental life of the Church then you will, indeed, have tension. But the tension should not between upending the Sacraments or administering them faithfully as they have been across the centuries. The tension should be between doing or not doing them. You can choose other ways of ministry that do not involve undoing the historic Sacraments of the Church if you are not comfortable with the faith and order we have been welcomed into as both baptized and ordained leaders.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology • Anthropology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Soteriology

It is not be an overstatement to say that evangelicals are experiencing a "sea change"—a paradigm shift—in their understanding of conversion and redemption, a shift that includes the way in which they think about the salvation of God, the nature and mission of the church, and the character of religious experience. Although there is no one word to capture where evangelicals are going in this regard, there is a word that captures what they are leaving behind: revivalism.

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This ultimate solidarity is the final point and the goal of that first 'descent,' so clearly described in the Scriptures, into a 'lower world' which, with Augustine, can already be characterised, by way of contrast with heaven, as infernum. Thomas Aquinas will echo Augustine here. For him, the necessity whereby Christ had to go down to Hades lies not in some insufficiency of the suffering endured on the Cross but in the fact that Christ has assumed all the defectus of sinners...Now the penalty which the sin of man brought on was not only the death of the body. It was also a penalty affected the soul, for sinning was also the soul's work, and the soul paid the price in being deprived of the vision of God. As yet unexpiated, it followed that all human beings who lived before the coming of Christ, even the holy ancestors, descended into the infernum. And so, in order to assume the entire penalty imposed upon sinners, Christ willed not only to die, but to go down, in his soul, ad infernum. As early as the Fathers of the second century, this act of sharing constituted the term and aim of the Incarnation. The 'terrors of death' into which Jesus himself falls are only dispelled when the Father raises him again...He insists on his own grounding principle, namely, that only what has been endured is healed and saved.

That the Redeemer is solidarity with the dead, or, better, with this death which makes of the dead, for the first time, dead human beings in all reality- this is the final consequence of the redemptive mission he has received from the Father. His being with the dead is an existence at the utmost pitch of obedience, and because the One thus obedient is the dead Christ, it constitutes the 'obedience of a corpse' (the phrase is Francis of Assisi's) of a theologically unique kind. By it Christ takes the existential measure of everything that is sheerly contrary to God, of the entire object of the divine eschatological judgment, which here is grasped in that event in which it is 'cast down' (hormemati blethesetai, Apocalypse 18, 21; John 12; Matthew 22, 13). But at the same time, this happening gives the measure of the Father's mission in all its amplitude: the 'exploration' of Hell is an event of the (economic) Trinity...This vision of chaos by the God-man has become for us the condition of our vision of Divinity. His exploration of the ultimate depths has transformed what was a prison into a way.

--Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter [emphasis mine]

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Now that the Anglican Covenant is dead in the water, those who seek to revise what it means to be the Church have no need to worry about the process set out in the fourth section of that document (assuming that they would have needed to worry if the Covenant was adopted anyway). Regardless, the drive for CWOB is a manifestation of commitment to an "autonomous ecclesiology" rather than "communion ecclesiology."

Read it all and yes, follow all the links.

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Check it out if you wish to listen to this recent sermon.

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Check it out if you wish to listen to it.

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“Follow me, and I will made you fishers of men.” Fish for people.

We see and experience this moment of course as a familiar and recurring theme and pattern of the whole Biblical story. God calls Abraham to leave the land of his Father and to come to a new land, where he will establish a new nation loyal to God alone. God calls Moses at the burning bush to leave his father-in-law’s homestead in the Sinai and to return to Egypt and to lead his people from slavery to freedom again, renewing their covenant with him and to be restored in their loyalties and to return again to the Promised Land. God calls Samuel as he goes to sleep in the shrine at Shiloh. David from the sheepfolds of his father Jesse. The great prophets. Elijah and Elisha. Jeremiah. Again and again through the Old Testament. And of course as we think through the New Testament we would remember as well the dramatic vocational experience of Paul as he is thrown from his horse on the Road to Damascus. God calls.

The compilers of our lectionary give us the contrast this morning as we remember what happened with the Prophet Jonah. We remember how he is called at first by God and commanded to carry the message of repentance into foreign territory, the capital city of the ancient enemy. Fearful of what might happen to him if he were to attempt that mission, Jonah hightails it out of town in exactly the opposite direction, finally getting on a ship and sailing away. And of course we remember that story. The storm, the great fish. And then we see the second part of the story this morning. Amazingly, improbably, Jonah’s mission is successful. He gets there. He calls the enemy to repentance. And they hear the message and immediately turn away from their corrupt and evil ways to experience God’s mercy and forgiveness. But then this odd twist: Jonah isn’t satisfied. He apparently has his own agenda. It’s almost like he’s embarrassed.

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Regarding the Church, therefore, we must not allow evangelism to be reduced to a ‘part’ of mission. It is sad to see as distinguished a theologian as Moltmann quoted saying that mission is “not merely evangelization” — as if there were anything ‘mere’ about the proclamation that Christ is Lord and the calling on people to obey his kingship. In the Church of England today as whole, however, that is often how evangelism is seen, and it is not long before it is reduced from being a part of mission to being an optional extra in mission.

But equally, we must not allow evangelism to be reduced to a personal call to change our views as to whether or not we believe in God and what we believe about ourselves and about Jesus dying for our sins. We cannot have Christ as Saviour if we will not have Christ as Lord. And his lordship must extend into every area of the lives of those whom he saves. There is a challenge here for the more conservative evangelical. But the conservative evangelical is also entitled to ask what has happened, institutionally, to the call to personal conversion.

Once again, nothing less than an institutional transformation is required, which needs a deliberate and conscious strategy. And therein lies our problem. Evangelicals will generally go on evangelizing, whatever happens in the wider institution. But this will not lead to a programme suitable to the conversion of England. That needs a bolder and more ambitious approach, yet at present there is no sign of that coming from the official, hierarchical, leadership. Given where we are today, then, how can we address the need for the transformation of the Church?

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The homily at Friday’s service could not have been more appropriate. Mark Greene, now executive director of the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC) that John Stott founded, summed up Stott’s unwavering commitment to Biblical teaching on the calling, convictions and lifestyle of all those who would claim Christ as their saviour.

“He yearned not only for the conversion of medics, lawyers and factory workers, he yearned for the transformation of medicine, law and manufacturing,” said Greene. Stott’s emphasis was on whole-life disciple-making, on the supreme transformative power of the gospel in the individual and through the Christian individual into the workplace. He longed for lay Christians to be biblically envisioned and equipped for that mission in their daily lives.

“What would Stott’s emphasis on whole-life disciple-making say to us today in areas such as the moral and directional crisis in our economy ? “ Greene asked the assembled congregation, an audible silence falling across the great church, as he referred to both to the bankers of the city and the Occupy protesters in their tents still spread across the churchyard outside.

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God with us means more than God over or side by side with us, before or behind us. It means more than His divine being in even the most intimate active connection with our human being otherwise peculiar to Him. At this point, at the heart of the Christian message and in relation to the event of which it speaks, it means that God has made himself the one who fulfills his redemptive will. It means that He Himself in His own person —at His own cost but also on His own initiative—has become the inconceivable Yet and Nevertheless of this event, and so its clear and well-founded and legitimate, its true and holy and righteous Therefore. It means that God has become man in order as such, but in divine sovereignty, to take up our case. What takes place in the work of inconceivable mercy is, therefore, the free overruling of God, but it is not an arbitrary overlooking and ignoring, not an artificial bridging, covering over or hiding, but a real closing of the breach, gulf and abyss between God and us for which we are responsible. At the very point where we refuse and fail, offending and provoking God, making ourselves impossible before Him and in that way missing our destiny, treading under foot our dignity, forfeiting our right, losing our salvation and hopelessly compromising our creaturely being—at that very point God Himself intervenes as man.

--Church Dogmatics (IV.1) [E.T. By Geoffrey Bromiley and Thomas Torrance of the German Original] (London: T and T Clark, 1956), page 12

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In one of the original episodes of Law and Order, some 15 years ago, I’ll never forget the scene of the three cops doing an all-night stake out from their parked car. It’s 3:00 AM or so and over black coffee they’re talking about the regrets of their lives. The guy in the front under the wheel said he regretted being a jerk to his wife most of their married lives before she died. The cop riding shotgun said he regretted chronically stealing money as a teenager from this hard-working father’s wallet. The third cop is in the back with his eyes closed, half-asleep. And they said to him, “Hey sergeant, what do you regret?” And he finally mumbled out, “I regret everything.”

There’s just a little part of me that can identify. I have my share of sin and regret that stem from a self-centered heart. And the message of the angel, that “to you is born a Savior who is Christ the Lord”, is the most wonderful news I ever heard. Would you agree?

I don’t care how low you’ve sunk, there is no reason to give up or think only somber, gloomy thoughts. I’m with you in that I cannot undo my past. But I am privilege to point to a Savior that can wash us clean. Jesus never once in the narrative of the New Testament turned away a helpless sinner who fled to him....

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The Diocese of Atlanta has been asked to rehabilitate Pelagius.

Delegates to the diocesan convention will be asked to reverse the condemnation of the Council of Carthage upon Pelagius, and to explore whether the Fifth century heretic may inform the theology of the Episcopal Church.

Resolution R11-7 before the convention states in part:

“Whereas the historical record of Pelagius’s contribution to our theological tradition is shrouded in the political ambition of his theological antagonists who sought to discredit what they felt was a threat to the empire, and their ecclesiastical dominance, and whereas an understanding of his life and writings might bring more to bear on his good standing in our tradition;”

“And whereas his restitution as a viable theological voice within our tradition might encourage a deeper understanding of sin, grace, free will, and the goodness of God’s creation, and whereas in as much as the history of Pelagius represents to some the struggle for theological exploration that is our birthright as Anglicans, Be it resolved, that this 105th Annual Council of the Diocese of Atlanta appoint a committee of discernment overseen by our Bishop, to consider these matters as a means to honor the contributions of Pelagius and reclaim his voice in our tradition....”

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From here:

Whereas the historical record of Pelagius’s contribution to our theological tradition is shrouded in the political ambition of his theological antagonists who sought to discredit what they felt was a threat to the empire, and their ecclesiastical dominance, and whereas an understanding of his life and writings might bring more to bear on his good standing in our tradition, and whereas his restitution as a viable theological voice within our tradition might encourage a deeper understanding of sin, grace, free will, and the goodness of God’s creation, and whereas in as much as the history of Pelagius represents to some the struggle for theological exploration that is our birthright as Anglicans, Be it resolved, that this 105th Annual Council of the Diocese of Atlanta appoint a committee of discernment overseen by our Bishop, to consider these matters as a means to honor the contributions of Pelagius and reclaim his voice in our tradition And be it further resolved that this committee will report their conclusions at the next Annual Council.

Submitted by the Rev. Benno D. Pattison, Rector, the Church of the Epiphany

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St. John’s Vancouver Anglican Church, the largest Anglican congregation in Canada, will begin Sunday services at a new location after moving from its historic location on Granville Street and Nanton Avenue. The congregation, through a lengthy legal action, chose to leave their buildings rather than compromise their beliefs.

St. John’s Vancouver, which had been meeting at the Granville Street location for almost 100 years, will begin Sunday services on September 25 at Oakridge Adventist Church, at West 37th Avenue and Baillie Street in Vancouver.

Disagreement over basic Christian beliefs has separated Anglican congregations around the world into two camps, usually labeled orthodox and liberal, with those holding to historic, Bible-based values and beliefs in the vast majority. The St. John’s Vancouver Anglican congregation has aligned itself with the mainstream global Anglican Church, rather than continue as part of the local, more liberal Diocese of New Westminster.

“It is remarkable to be part of a Christian community which is putting faith into action in a way that seems inexplicable to those who love the world,” explained Canon David Short, Rector of St. John’s Vancouver. “We are doing something countercultural and counterintuitive for the truth of God’s word, losing something very valuable for the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ, holding the unity of faith by acting together as one, and joyfully accepting the confiscation of our property.”

The underlying, central issues of belief are: the authority of God’s Word in the Bible, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and the need to be saved by Him. St. John’s, along with the majority of Anglicans worldwide, joyfully upholds the historic biblical faith, expressed in the founding Anglican affirmations.

The move was the result of a court action to determine whether the Diocese of New Westminster or the St. John’s Vancouver congregation was conducting the ministry for which the buildings were intended, and is a result of an on-going world-wide upheaval in the Anglican Communion, the 80 million member Christian Protestant denomination formed 500 years ago.

St. John’s Vancouver’s final Sunday services at the Granville Street location on September 18, attended by over 1,100 congregants, included prayers to bless the Diocese of New Westminster and those that would occupy the buildings after the congregation had left. Congregation members both wept and smiled as they left the church to travel the short distance to the new location. There, they joyfully sung hymns and prayed together.

“It is inexpressibly sad that we are forced to choose between God’s final word and these wonderful buildings,” said Canon Short, “but we feel relief and much joy in God’s faithfulness and provision for us.”

St. John’s Vancouver will continue to be led by its present clergy, Canon David Short, Rector, Venerable Daniel Gifford, Associate Minister, Rev. James Wagner, and Rev. Aaron Roberts, assisted by Canon Dr. J.I. Packer, Honorary Assistant Minister and a world-renowned published theologian, a staff of 15, and by the Trustees of St. John’s Vancouver Anglican Church.

The new location secured by St. John’s Vancouver is at West 37th Avenue and Baillie Street and belongs to Oakridge Adventist Church, which has graciously offered to share its building. St. John’s Sunday services will start in Oakridge on September 25, 2011 and all other mid-week activities are planned to continue as normal in the new location.

All those who visited St. John’s Granville Street location in the past, new neighbours in the Oakridge location, and all visitors and residents in Vancouver are welcome at the services, prayer times and church events. Special events are planned during the transition period and special welcoming services will be held. (My emphasis--KSH)

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An Anglican congregation in Vancouver is abandoning a historic church...after losing a court case spawned by divisions within the church over same sex marriages.

The St. John’s congregation says it's giving up the Granville Street church, which it's used for almost 100 years, and moving its Sunday services to another location.

Read it all.

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As the Diocese of Central Florida searches for its fourth bishop, seven nominees reflect its primarily evangelical identity. Both Anglo-Catholic and broad-church piety also are evident, but the nominees’ answers to questions posed by the diocese’s standing committee leave few doubts on what they believe about blessing same-sex couples or offering the elements of Communion to the unbaptized.

The standing committee asked all nominees to answer five questions [PDF] (including those on sexuality, Eucharistic practice, and how the diocese relates to the Episcopal Church). It also asked nominees to choose three of seven questions that dig deeper on theology and pastoral skills. Most nominees chose to answer this optional question: “How might you respond if a friend who was not a practicing Christian approached you and said, ‘What would I have to do to be a Christian, and why would I want to do it?’” Most of the nominees cite specific and tangible moments of becoming Christian or deepening their relationship with God.

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O God, who by the passion of thy blessed Son didst make an instrument of shameful death to be unto us the means of life and peace: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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One of the great themes of the Hebrew Scriptures is that God identifies with the suffering. There are all these great texts that say things like this: If you oppress the poor, you oppress to me. I am a husband to the widow. I am father to the fatherless. I think the texts are saying God binds up his heart so closely with suffering people that he interprets any move against them as a move against him. This is powerful stuff! But Christianity says he goes even beyond that. Christians believe that in Jesus, God’s son, divinity became vulnerable to and involved in - suffering and death! He didn’t come as a general or emperor. He came as a carpenter. He was born in a manger, no room in the inn.

But it is on the Cross that we see the ultimate wonder. On the cross we sufferers finally see, to our shock that God now knows too what it is to lose a loved one in an unjust attack. And so you see what this means? John Stott puts it this way. John Stott wrote: “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” Do you see what this means? Yes, we don’t know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, but we know what the reason isn’t, what it can’t be. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us! It can’t be that he doesn’t care. God so loved us and hates suffering that he was willing to come down and get involved in it. And therefore the Cross is an incredibly empowering hint. Ok, it’s only a hint, but if you grasp it, it can transform you. It can give you strength.

And lastly, we have to grasp an empowering hope for the future. In both the Hebrew Scriptures and even more explicitly in the Christian Scriptures we have the promise of resurrection....

Read it carefully (noting especially the original setting as described) and read it all.

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Gathering each week, we reenact the horror of Jesus' sacrificial death. In baptism, we see the flood of God's judgment against sin (1 Pet. 3:20-21). At the Lord's Table, we swallow and digest the sign of our Lord's torn skin and spattered blood.

The preaching of sin and judgment is traumatic, to be sure. There's some danger of presenting the gospel as mere condemnation—exactly what Jesus says it's not (John 3:17). And an overwhelming emphasis on sin can breed a morbid obsession with one's own wickedness. This, of course, leads not to repentance but to despair, which is exactly where the satanic powers want us.

At the same time, censoring the gospel's painful realities doesn't lead to tranquility. Like our children with the wild things out there, we know intuitively that a Day of Judgment is coming, even as we try to keep the fear submerged.

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The Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut
June 30, 2011

Dear Colleagues in Ministry:

We are writing to remind you as sisters and brothers in ordained ministry that the new Title IV disciplinary canons go into effect this coming Friday, July 1. For the past year we as a diocese have been preparing for the new Title IV. At our diocesan convention last year we voted in members of the new committees needed to support the Title IV process. Robin Hammeal-Urban has been leading educational offerings throughout the Diocese and in Province One, helping all of us to understand the new process and intent of the canon.

Further information on the new Title IV can be found on the Diocese of Connecticut website at:
http://www.ctepiscopal.org/Content/Clergy_Disciplinary_Process_Title_IV_.asp

The goal of the new Title IV is to embrace a form of clergy discipline based on restorative justice rather than retributive justice. We have moved away from a model of discipline based on the code of military justice (on which the outgoing Title IV was based) hoping to embrace more a process of collegiality and accountability amongst peers.

The new Title IV both broadens the guidelines of what needs to be "reported" with respect to actions that contravene the doctrine and discipline of The Episcopal Church and also includes more participants in disciplinary process. It thus requires that offenses to the doctrine and discipline of The Episcopal Church be reported by clergy to the Diocesan Intake Officer when they arise. Lay people may also report offenses, but since they are not "in orders" they are not required to do so. Robin Hammeal-Urban will be serving as our Intake Officer as an extension of her role as the Diocesan Pastoral Response Coordinator for the next year as we live into this new model.

One topic which has come up at almost all of the trainings and educational offerings that Robin has lead is the question of Open Communion. Canon 1.17.7. restricts eligibility to receive Holy Communion to persons who are baptized. The new Title IV presents us with the circumstance to consider what we believe about "open communion" in light of what the doctrine and discipline of The Episcopal Church is at this time. Some deaneries and delegates in the Diocese of Connecticut are thus looking at offering a resolution to our Diocesan Convention that will ask us to engage in a diocesan-wide conversation around "Open Communion". In the meantime, your bishops are called to uphold the canons of the church as outlined in the Constitution and Canons voted at General Convention 2009.

The implementation of the new Title IV might cause some anxiety as we learn to live with the new canons. Still, if we can stay centered, open, and as well informed as possible, we trust that in time the new Title IV will serve all of us well as we seek always to be faithful to our ordination vows.

Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas
The Rt. Rev. James E. Curry
The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens

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How can the Christian Church, and more specifically Anglican churches, best make disciples in the 21st century through catechesis? That topic was the subject of the second Ancient Wisdom—Anglican Futures conference June 16-18 at Trinity School for Ministry.

“We need much more depth and breadth in the way we think of making disciples,” Philip Harrold, associate professor of Church history at Trinity, told The Living Church. “We need to rediscover ancient ways of reading Scriptures from the Fathers and the Reformers, and also the revivalists. We need to recover new ways of being the body of Christ formed around that Scripture.”

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Bishop Michael's homily focused on the Resurrection narratives (noting his early sighting of a Pittsburgh road sign proclaiming Resurrection Avenue - "you can't get better than that!") Calling the post-Resurrection appearances "spine-tingling" and "out of this world, in every sense of that term", he expressed his puzzlement as to why the Apostle Thomas has had such an unfavorable press, given that he is a model for Christians and Christian community. It is he who acknowledges Jesus with the stunning declaration "My Lord and My God". From Thomas, members of the Church - and future clergy - should learn to point always to Jesus and our Lord's encounter with Thomas may be understood in liturgical terms, as both acknowledgment and acclamation.

Bishop Michael decried the tendency of contemporary evangelical revivalism to emphasize the person making the decision to accept Christ, almost to a Pelagian level, when the truth is that such decisions can only be a response to God's choosing and calling. Everyone will have a different story - as it should be - and the call of today's graduating class has been tested and matured and will now be evidenced in ministry. Companionship - not just of God but of mentors - will be important on their present journey.

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You can find the whole thing online here.

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The Holy Father asked what this "my" and "your" consist of.

The "my" -- the human will -- is to avoid death, to be "spared this chalice of suffering: It is the human will, of human nature, and Christ feels, with all the consciousness of his being, life, the abyss of death, the terror of nothingness, this menace of suffering."

In fact, the Pontiff added, Christ feels more than us the "abyss of evil."

And, he said, "He also felt, with death, all the suffering of humanity. He felt that all this was the chalice he must drink, that he must make himself drink, accept the evil of the world, everything that is terrible, the aversion to God, the whole of sin. And we can understand that Jesus, with his human soul, was terrified before this reality, which he perceived in all its cruelty."

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There is... no escaping the fact that Jesus speaks in the Bible of a hell for the "condemned." He sometimes uses the word Gehenna, which was a valley near Jerusalem associated with the sacrifice of children by fire to the Phoenician god Moloch; elsewhere in the New Testament, writers (especially Paul and John the Divine) tell of a fiery pit (Tartarus or Hades) in which the damned will spend eternity. "Depart from me, you cursed [ones], into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels," Jesus says in Matthew. In Mark he speaks of "the unquenchable fire." The Book of Revelation paints a vivid picture — in a fantastical, problematic work that John the Divine says he composed when he was "in the spirit on the Lord's day," a signal that this is not an Associated Press report — of the lake of fire and the dismissal of the damned from the presence of God to a place where "they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever."

And yet there is a contrary scriptural trend that suggests, as Jesus puts it, that the gates of hell shall not finally prevail, that God will wipe away every tear — not just the tears of Evangelical Christians but the tears of all. [Rob] Bell puts much stock in references to the universal redemption of creation: in Matthew, Jesus speaks of the "renewal of all things"; in Acts, Peter says Jesus will "restore everything"; in Colossians, Paul writes that "God was pleased to ... reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven."

So is it heaven for Christians who say they are Christians and hell for everybody else? What about babies, or people who die without ever hearing the Gospel through no fault of their own? (As Bell puts it, "What if the missionary got a flat tire?") Who knows? Such tangles have consumed Christianity for millennia and likely will for millennia to come.

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Soteriology is the study of salvation, coming from the Greek word σωτηρία (sōtēria). As such the very word implies the name of our Lord himself, inasmuch as Jesus 1 (Ἰησοῦς) comes from the Hebrew word for salvation, (yĕshuw`ah). The name Joshua, or Jesus, is a form of the very word itself. In fact, if you meet someone named Salvatore, his name means the same thing. In short, this matters because human salvation is only through Jesus Christ, and without him there is no hope. Salvation is not available through a process, and cannot be manufactured from below. It had to come from above. 2 Although some religious teachers may say that life on this earth is a test, the fact is that life on this earth is not a test. If this life were a test, we would all receive an F, and go to Hell. This life is a shipwreck, and we are all in need of the Rescuer, without whom we would be lost to sin and death.

A while back, I heard an Episcopal priest who is better known for talk radio in Maryland (where I used to live) than for ministry, staunchly defending his disbelief in the Virgin Birth (and using the Bible with all the deft precision of a bull- a raving bull at that- in a china shop). And yet this same man openly professes his faith in the resurrection of Christ, having no problem with miracles. Yet, on two very important doctrines concerning our salvation in Christ he is completely without understanding. He does not believe that Christ died for our sins, and he does not believe in the Virgin Birth. What these two doctrines have in common is that they require our humility as well as our faith. Man could not create or even beget his own salvation, but needed God to intervene by sending his Son through the miracle of the Incarnation, as the Seed of the woman, 3 having no earthly father, coming as God of God the only and eternally begotten Son, and also being sent into the world (two very different facts). This forever teaches our impotence in this matter; we cannot keep ourselves alive. We had no strength from within ourselves to produce our own salvation. The fact that we needed to have our sins taken away by this same Savior, himself free from the defects of sin and death in every way, by giving his life, giving up his spirit in order to die, is equally humbling to an honest mind. Both doctrines, the Virgin Birth and the Atonement, put us in our place. It is only by the gift from the Father, and not by our own power.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Soteriology

My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable. In some cases, these writers may be unconsciously infected with the Manichaean spirit of the times and suffer the much-discussed disjunction between sensibility and belief, but I think that more often the reason for this attention to the perverse is the difference between their beliefs and the beliefs of their audience. Redemption is meaningless unless there is case for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause.

The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.

--Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969) pp. 33-34 [my emphasis]

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • History • Philosophy • Religion & Culture • * Theology • Anthropology • Soteriology

The New Testament Reign of God welcomes non-Christians as common seekers after a truth fully revealed in Jesus Christ but experienced in different historical settings by other religions as well. The Kingdom was consistently made available to outsiders. Jesus said to a Roman centurion, “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” (Mat.: 8:10) To a Canaanite woman he declared in healing her daughter, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” (Mat. 15:21-28). Jesus conversed with a foreigner, a Samaritan woman, (Jn. 4:7-15) who sought “living water” and elsewhere cited the example of the “good Samaritan” who had pity on a wounded robbery victim (Lk. 10: 29-37). Pagans, outsiders, or foreigners were consistently welcomed by Jesus, and at the final Passover dinner he told his followers he would not eat the Passover again “until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” (Lk 22: 16).

This, in broad outline, is a reading of what the Reign of God means. Many world theologians of recent decades understand the kingdom to be freely offered to both believers and members of other religions. If their lives and beliefs reflect what Jesus preached, they too are witnesses to the Kingdom in global settings. This moves considerably beyond Rahner’s “anonymous Christians” and the classic confines of Exclusivists and Inclusivists, and affirms that God’s loving reach extends to other religions, most of which the earthly Jesus would not have encountered in the Middle East of his time.

Read it all.

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This is the topic for the 2011 Mere Anglicanism Conference in Charleston, South Carolina in January.

Consider coming and make plans now.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * South Carolina • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

Check it out.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Christology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

Anyone who is justified on the basis of the Law . . . has within himself the power to acquire righteousness....If this is true, then it necessarily follows that Christ died to no purpose. For what need would a man have of Christ who loves him and gives Himself for him [if] he is able to obtain grace and eventually do good works and to merit eternal life. . . or surely be justified by performing the Law? Therefore let Christ be removed togetherwith all his blessings because he is completely useless. But why is Christ born, crucified and dead? Why does He become my High Priest, who loves me and gives an inestimable sacrifice, Himself, for me? Why does he do all this? Simply to no purpose at all if the
meaning of justification which the [false teachers] set forth is true, because I find righteousness in the Law or in myself, outside grace and outside Christ.


--one of the many passages I cam across preparing for this morning's sermon on Galatians 2 the second half from Luther's Galatians

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • * Theology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

There are several aspects of Ruth Gledhill's argument that demand response. In the first place, it is shocking that she asserts with such breathtaking ease that the conservatives in the Anglican Communion — those who stand on clear teachings of the Bible, must give way to the liberals. There is no acknowledgment that this means the growing churches of the Anglican Communion surrendering to the agenda of the dying churches.

Second, the argument that an insistence on the importance of biblical sexuality means that these teachings are held to be more important than "the Resurrection, the Crucifixion, the Virgin Birth, and the Trinity," is nothing less than ludicrous. The issue of homosexuality may now function to place persons "on the Christian spectrum," but this is only because the liberal churches have forced the issue. Conservative Anglicans from Africa and South American did not raise the issue of sexuality — the Episcopal Church did.

One other aspect of this particular issue cries out for acknowledgment. One additional reason that the issue of homosexuality (and biblical authority) now functions so decisively is precisely because the liberal churches have already allowed liberal denials of everything mentioned by Gledhill on her list. It so happens that the churches that hold fast to those theological essentials are, almost without exception, the same churches that maintain biblical teachings on human sexuality. No real surprise there.

Third, the argument that the historic creeds and confessions and liturgies of the church do not mention homosexuality is obvious and simple — they did not need to.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Los Angeles • Global South Churches & Primates • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • Windsor Report / Process • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

From here:

Last night we celebrated Good Friday. As always, it was a paradoxical night, an unhappy celebration. It is a day of intense sadness mixed with intense thankfulness. It was both uncomfortable and convicting as we saw the depth of our sin in light of the amazing love of God who died for us. Tomorrow we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead on Easter. In the words of Graeme Goldsworthy, “The resurrection was the Father’s ‘Amen’ to the finished work of Christ.” Therefore, for all who repent of their sin and receive Jesus as their Lord, Savior and chief treasure you are now…

…victorious over Satan, sin and death (1 Cor 15:57; 2 Co 9:15; Ro 7:23-25; 2 Co 2:14)
…adopted by God (Eph 1:5; Rom 8:15) as God’s children (Jn 1:12; 1 Jn 3:1,2).
…made friends of God (Jn 15:15) and saints (Eph. 1:1).
…complete (Col. 2:10).
…hidden with Jesus in God (Col. 3:3) .
…seated with him in the heavenly kingdom (Eph. 2:6).
…established, chosen and made holy (2Cor. 1:21-22).
…forever in the love of God (Rom. 8:35-39).
…free from any charges against you (Rom. 8:31-34).
…assured that all things work together for good (Rom. 8:28).
…forever free from being ruined (Rom. 8:1-2).
…saved from and forgiven of all your sins (Col. 1:14).
…able to go freely and confidently (Eph 3:12) to God the Father through the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:18)
…a recipient of grace and mercy in time of need (Heb. 4:16).
…fully reconciled to God (2Cor 5:18)
…able to do all things through him who strengthens you (Phil. 4:13).
…bought with a price and belong to God (1 Cor. 6:19-20) and
…free from the devil (1John 5:18) with authority over him (Col 2:14-15; 1 Jn 3.8)
…at peace with God (Rom. 5:1)
…in one spirit with God (1 Cor. 6:17).
…God’s co-worker (2 Cor. 6:1; 1 Cor. 3:9), God’s temple (1 Cor. 3:16) and personal witness (Acts 1:8).
…chosen to bear fruit (John 15:16) as a branch of the true Vine (John 15:1-5)
…a member of his body (1 Cor. 12:27; Ro 12).
…called to bring people together for God (2 Cor. 5:17-21)
…able to participate in his unfolding story of redemption (Mt. 28:18-20)
…sent as Jesus was sent (John 17:18).
…perfectly and completely loved. (Rom 5:7-8; Jn 3:16; Eph 1:7, 5:2, 5.25)
…no longer under God’s wrath (Gal 3:13; Rom 3:25; 1 Jn 4:10)
…declared “Not Guilty!” (Rom 5:9, 3.24, 3.28)
…reconciled to God and others. (Rom 5:10; 2 Cor 5:28; Eph 2:16; Col 1:20)
…entirely cleansed and forgiven. (Eph 1:7; Mt 26:28; Ps 103:12)
…free from the fear of death. (Heb 2:14-15)
…part of God’s people, the church. (Lk 9:23; Mt 10:38; Rev 5:9; Jn 10:16)
…free from slavery to sin (Rev 1:5-6; Heb 13:12)
…brought home to God (Rom 5:10; 1 Peter 3:18; Eph 2:13; Rom 7:4; 1 Cor 6:19-20; Acts 20:28)
…declared 100% righteous (2 Cor 5:21; Rom 5:19; Phil 3:9)
…a recipient of eternal life…which is knowing him. (Jn 3.16; John 17:3)

We call this the Gospel. Good news, in fact world-altering, history-shaping, eternity-securing news, to sinners.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Christology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

In recent years Luther's teaching on the atonement has been a subject of strong dispute. Some (mostly the Swedish interpreters) have stressed the ideas of "conflict" and "victory" in Luther's discussions of atonement, arguing for a discontinuity between the Reformer's own thinking and the "substitutionary" theory of later Protestant orthodoxy. Others have insisted that at this point Luther's teaching differs in no essentials from that of his successors. One is well advised to tread carefully on entering the field of controversy; nevertheless, I make bold to submit that the interpretation of atonement in both Luther and Calvin can be understood as turning on the central and pivotal conception of a "happy exchange," in which the believer's sins are laid upon Christ and Christ's own innocence is communicated to the believer. From this center, we may say, the Reformers' thinking moves outwards to the various other soteriological concepts, including the two about which modern opinion is chiefly divided, namely, "victory" and "substitution." First and foremost, the Christian is one who has been united with Christ so intimately that an exchange of qualities has somehow taken place.

Of course, this understanding of Luther's thought would not settle present-day controversies, for it is not incompatible with either of the two main rival theories, nor even with a combination of both. Neither is it incompatible with Calvin's threefold scheme of "Prophet, Priest, and King" (a scheme of which, in any case, he makes very little use), since Christ does not exercise these offices in any "private capacity," but rather communicates their benefits to believers. Perhaps we may say that the notion of "exchange" belongs to the presuppositions of atonement, as the Reformers understood it, whilst the detailed outworking of the doctrine demands the use of further categories.

That the notion is indeed fundamental to the Reformers' thinking could be demonstrated by many passages from the works of both.

Luther speaks explicitly of this "happy exchange" (fröhlich Wechsel) in the German version of the Treatise on Christian Liberty. The soul and Christ are united like bride and bridegroom. They become one flesh, and everything they possess is shared in common. "What Christ has is the property of the believing soul, what the soul has becomes the property of Christ." A similar passage occurs in the Larger Commentary on Galatians (though worded differently in Rörer's MS.): "So, making a happy exchange with us (feliciter commutans nobiscum) he [Christ] took upon him our sinful person, and gave us his own innocent and victorious person." These passages can readily be matched in Calvin's Institutes: "Who could do this [i.e., win salvation for men], unless the Son of God should become also the Son of Man, and so receive what is ours as to transfer to us what is his?" And again: "He was not unwilling to take upon him what was properly ours, that he might in turn (vicissim) extend to us what was properly his." The same pattern of thought recurs in both the Reformers when they speak of the Lord's Supper; as, for instance, in Luther's Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, and the fourth book of Calvin's Institutes. What exactly it is that is "exchanged" is made perfectly clear in each of these passages: namely, Christ's righteousness is exchanged for the believer's sin.

--Brian A. Gerrish

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

The doctrine of atonement receives little attention these days because its controlling concepts (substitutionary suffering, blood sacrifice, victory over Satan) appear to the modern, not to say post-modern, mind to be both immoral and fantastical.

--Alexander McKelway

Filed under: * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

From a letter to the editor here:

The full-page ad in the March 2 Post and Courier by The Episcopal Forum of S.C. begs for a response.

Some may respond by becoming members, others by raised eyebrows. My response is bemused and unpersuaded.

As a life-long Episcopalian, former dean of one of the Episcopal Church's 11 seminaries, ordained priest for 49 years and author of several books including "A Church To Believe In," I am less enthusiastic about the current state of the Episcopal Church (TEC) than members of the forum appear to be.

And I say this as someone who has visited nearly every diocese in this church, including Alaska and Hawaii, and preached or spoken in most. Also, I am a convinced Anglican with a deep loyalty to our Anglican heritage.

In its description of "I am an Episcopalian" the forum touches on many issues with which I have great sympathy: the dignity of every person, our ancient liturgy, women's ordination, lay involvement and the world-wide body of 70 million members of which we are a part.

What it does not say as clearly as it ought is that this worldwide body, the Anglican Communion, is profoundly upset with the current activities of the Episcopal Church, to the point that a majority of its Primates (chief bishops in each international province) consider themselves in broken communion with it, and increasingly are officially recognizing the newly-formed Anglican Church of North America as a more authentic representative of true Anglicanism in this continent.

Why?

-- Leading bishops and theologians of the Episcopal Church, including the presiding bishop, will not affirm Jesus Christ as the unique Son of God and the only way to salvation.

-- While the Bible is mined for interesting theological ideas, TEC is unwilling to submit to the clear teaching of Scripture on many issues, including those of marriage and sexuality.

-- TEC has consistently sided in its affirmations with the pro-abortion forces within government and society.

-- Far from honoring differences, as the forum says, TEC is involved in more than 60 lawsuits against its own churches and dioceses whom it considers unEpiscopalian because they cannot follow present leadership of TEC because of its lack of adherence to traditional Christian beliefs.

-- TEC's presiding bishop has consistently assumed powers that are uncanonical, and thereby unlawful under TEC's own laws and constitution, and freely removes bishops and clergy who openly differ with her.

-- In flagrant refusal to submit to worldwide Christian opinion, it has ordained a noncelibate homosexual as a bishop and is poised to ordain others as bishops who similarly live in relationships that disregard the biblical norm for sexuality.

-- TEC's House of Bishops will not discipline fellow members who widely disseminate outrageously unChristian views with impunity.

I believe that the vast majority of Episcopalians in the Diocese of South Carolina question the forum's understanding of the Faith and Order to which we all have pledged allegiance.

Rather, we stand firmly and lovingly with our bishop and those clergy and laity who carry on effective ministries in Christ's name throughout this Diocese.

THE VERY REV. PETER C. MOORE, D.D.
Ponsbury Road
Mount Pleasant

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • Global South Churches & Primates • Instruments of Unity • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

Southern Baptists need to repent of their pride, boasting and disunity and return to God and His vision.

That was the sobering call Dr. Ronnie Floyd made Monday as he presented a highly anticipated report charting out a new course for the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

"We (task force) have been gripped by the reality of the lost condition of our world and about our condition as a denomination, but through this journey we have also been set on fire by the call of God to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ," Floyd, chairman of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, stated in a progress report. "Surely Southern Baptists can agree that we need a new and compelling vision for the future."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists • * Theology • Soteriology

From an Evangelical perspective, the statement by Tiger Woods points to the radical distinction between Christianity and Buddhism -- between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the dharma of the Buddha.

Christianity speaks honestly of desire and affirms that wrongful desires can and do lead to sin, destruction, and death. Nevertheless, Christianity does not teach that all desire is wrong. Indeed, the Bible affirms that God made us to desire Him. Even in our sinful state, something within us cries out for our need -- and desire -- for divine forgiveness and redemption.

Christianity does not teach that we should (or could) empty ourselves of all desire, but rather that we should desire the salvation that Christ alone has accomplished for us -- the salvation that leads to divine forgiveness and the restoration of relationship we should surely desire. Once we know that salvation, our desire for God is only increased and pointed to eternity.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • Other Faiths • Buddhism • * Theology • Anthropology • Soteriology

Gerry Adams's appearance on Channel 4, in a programme following the footsteps of Jesus in the Holy Land, won't be screened for a week but it's already caused a stir. Victor Barker, who lost his son in the Omagh bombing, is aggrieved, on the grounds that it makes the Sinn Fein leader seem like a "genuine, peaceful person". That's understandable. Yet there will be lots more people with no connection to the Troubles who simply don't like the idea of someone with IRA connections talking about Christ at all.

You have to wonder whether they've ever come across that remark by the Man Himself, to the effect that he came for sinners, not the righteous.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Movies & Television • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Ireland • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

The Presbyterian Church USA's statement of faith says God through Jesus Christ delivers followers "from death to life eternal."

But one in three members of the nation's largest Presbyterian denomination seem to believe there's some wiggle room for non-Christians to get into heaven, according to a recent poll.

The Presbyterian Panel's "Religious and Demographic Profile of Presbyterians" found that 36 percent of members disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: "Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved." Another 39 percent, or about two-fifths, agreed or strongly agreed with the statement.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • Other Churches • Presbyterian • * Theology • Christology • Eschatology • Soteriology

Listen to it all--very encouraging.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Christology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

The tendency to look for a saviour is hard to curb. People want a superhero. From football to Presidents they are looking for the special one who's going to change everything. Which is why it's helpful to be reminded that leaders are just people. I found it a relief when Mr Obama fluffed his lines at his inaugural address. It's only when a man stops being a superhero that people start thinking: "Hang on. I want you to lead but you can't save the world on your own and nor should you try".

In the book of Samuel, when the people of Israel - fed up with a lack of leadership - asked for a king, God wearily agreed but warned them that it would end in tears. "A king," God said, "will send your sons to fight wars, tax you heavily, and spend your hard-earned wealth on their own houses until you cry out for relief." Despite the warning the people got their kings. Some were just; most were just awful. In the end, God was proved right.

Read or listen to it all

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

And so to you, beloved of God at the church of the Good Shepherd:

The apostolic ministry has lost standing in the Episcopal Church, even in Virginia where it used to be very highly valued. Here in this parish, however, you have responded to it, and that is a cause for great thanksgiving and great hope. There is no greater need in the church today than that of feeding the flock with the full, concrete, biblical, Trinitarian content of the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and risen. Ross Wright has spent his entire life studying that full content. In your embrace of him to be your rector, you have an idea of what you are receiving, and that is therefore part of your calling also, your service also. That reception of the gospel translates into the good works that identify Christ’s life in the world. Christ’s life, not ours. The transcendent power belongs to God and not to you, to God and not to me, to God and not to Ross.

It will cost Ross a good deal to bring you this message week in and week out, as it costs every parish priest, but you will receive life from it. The transcendent power of God is defined by Paul in Romans as the power that raises the dead and calls into existence the things that do not yet exist (Romans :17). And as you receive that divine life, you will be moved, invigorated, and sustained by it. It will send you out to serve his needy, broken, suffering world—the world for which he poured out his life, the world for which he gave himself in surpassing love, for which he conquered death, and for which he came again in the fulness of his resurrection power to bear you up in all your trials and bring you into his everlasting kingdom.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology • The Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit • Theology: Scripture

Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power - it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realized that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God....I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it beings in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Filed under: * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

My point is not that we shouldn’t be good stewards of the earth. We ought to be. The problem is that for two years running, green politics has eclipsed any mention of the whole pattern of human sin and redemption that forms the core of orthodox Christian belief. What we are seeing is the creation of a new, green religion, under the rubric of Christianity. Christianity includes Schori’s concern for the earth. The question is whether Schori’s green religion includes Christianity, with its broader sense of human sin and disability and its willingness to discuss how sin separates people from God.

The New Testament does not read, “God so tolerated the world that he sent his only begotten son.” The word is “loved.” That love did not include tolerating sinful conduct, but rather the destruction of sin as a barrier to God, so that human beings could become capable of love. By substituting tolerance and inclusivity for love, and largely ignoring sin as a problem, the Episcopal church is creating another “Christianity,” and another reality.

I am afraid the new Episcopal Church will replace the sometimes angry and urgent Jesus of the Bible, who invited his followers to take up their crosses and follow him, with an idea of general benevolence and personal holiness. Jesus will be portrayed as a pop-culture Buddha. I hope this doesn’t happen. Although a Roman Catholic, I was more involved in my wife’s Episcopal Church, over the last decade, than my own, and I learned to value the Episcopal Church’s contribution to the world. I am afraid it will turn into what Flannery O’Connor, in The Violent Bear It Away, called the church without Christ, “where the lame don’t walk, the blind don’t see, and what’s dead stays that way.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Conflicts • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

…[T]here must be no weakening or obscuring of the saving truth that the nature which God assumed in Christ is identical with our nature as we see it in the light of the Fall. If it were otherwise, how could Christ really be like us? … God’s Son not only assumed our nature but He entered the concrete form of our nature, under which we stand before God as men damned and lost….

--Karl Barth (1886-1968)

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology

The message of Christmas for you from Christ this morning is that what is good and precious in your life need never be lost, and what is evil and undesirable in your life can be changed. The coming of the eternal Son of God into the world as the God-Man, Jesus Christ, is a fact of history. But thousands of Americans fill out Gallup Poll religious surveys that they believe this fact but then live just like everybody else. They have the same anxieties that good things will be lost and the same frustrations that crummy things can't be changed. Evidently there is not much power in giving right answers on religious surveys about historical facts.

That's because the coming of the Son of God into the world is so much more than a historical fact. It was a message of hope sent by God to teenagers and single parents and crabby husbands and sullen wives and overweight women and impotent men and retarded neighbors, and homosexuals and preachers and lovers and you. And since the Son of God lived, died, rose, reigns and is coming again, God's message through him is more than a historical fact. It is a Christmas gift to you this morning, December 25, 1983, from the voice of the living God. Thus says the Lord: the meaning of Christmas is that what is good and precious in your life need never be lost, and what is evil and undesirable in your life can be changed. The fears that the few good things that make you happy are slipping through your fingers, and the frustrations that the bad things you hate about yourself or your situation can't be changed -- these fears and these frustrations are what Christmas came to destroy. It is God's message of hope this morning that what is good need never be lost and what is bad can be changed.

There are many in our church family who because of age or sickness will inevitably ask themselves the question today: "Is this my last Christmas?" Life is good and precious and we don't want to lose it. We can talk all we want about the good things of life, but if we don't have life we don't have anything. "What does it profit if you gain the whole world and lose your life?" O, how precious is our life. If you don't feel it now, wait 'till you get very sick. Then you will know why Hezekiah wept bitterly with his terminal illness and pled for added years (2 Kings. 20:1-7). The message of Christmas to you who see your death on the horizon is that you need never lose your life. It is good to live. Your life is precious and can be saved.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • Parish Ministry • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Christology • Soteriology

Hark, how all the welkin rings,
“Glory to the King of kings;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”

Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say,
“Christ the Lord is born to-day!”

Christ, by highest Heaven ador’d,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb!

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus! Our Immanuel here!

Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.

Mild He lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.

Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

Now display thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp Thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.

Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner Man:
O! to all thyself impart,
Form’d in each believing heart.

You can find the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal version here (the 5th stanza is missing). The 1982 Episcopal Hymnal only includes the first three verses (with modified language)--KSH

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Theology • Christology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

To sum up, then, we may say that, according to the general consensus of New Testament teaching, a gospel is not a gospel when—

1. it is detached from the Jesus of history;

2. it gives little or no place to the passion;

3. it exalts human achievement in place of the grace of God;

4. it adds other conditions to the one which God has declared acceptable (even if those additions be things good and desir­able in themselves); or

5. it treats righteousness and purity as things which the truly spiritual man has outstripped.

On the other hand, a gospel is a gospel when—

1. it maintains contact with the Jesus of history, affirming that “this same Jesus “who came in the flesh and died is the vindicated and exalted Lord;

2. it embraces and proclaims “the stumbling-block of the cross”;

3. it extends the grace of God to men for their acceptance by faith;

4. it relies upon the power of the Spirit to make it effective in those who hear it; and

5. it issues in a life of righteousness and purity which is sustained and directed by the love of God.

--F.F. Bruce, "When is a Gospel not a Gospel?" Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 45 (1963): pp.319-39

Filed under: * Theology • Christology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

In blogs, journal essays, and books, there has been quite a lot written recently about what “the gospel” is....

For the moment... I’d like to underscore...[a] distinction that is still worth making [on the subject of the meaning of "the gospel"]. It was understood better in the past than it is today. It is this: one must distinguish between, on the one hand, the gospel as what God has done and what is the message to be announced and, on the other, what is demanded by God or effected by the gospel in assorted human responses. If the gospel is the (good) news about what God has done in Christ Jesus, there is ample place for including under “the gospel” the ways in which the kingdom has dawned and is coming, for tying this kingdom to Jesus’ death and resurrection, for demonstrating that the purpose of what God has done is to reconcile sinners to himself and finally to bring under one head a renovated and transformed new heaven and new earth, for talking about God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, consequent upon Christ’s resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Majesty on high, and above all for focusing attention on what Paul (and others—though the language I’m using here reflects Paul) sees as the matter “of first importance”: Christ crucified. All of this is what God has done; it is what we proclaim; it is the news, the great news, the good news.

By contrast, the first two greatest commands—to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves—do not constitute the gospel, or any part of it. We may well argue that when the gospel is faithfully declared and rightly received, it will result in human beings more closely aligned to these two commands. But they are not the gospel. Similarly, the gospel is not receiving Christ or believing in him, or being converted, or joining a church; it is not the practice of discipleship. Once again, the gospel faithfully declared and rightly received will result in people receiving Christ, believing in Christ, being converted, and joining a local church; but such steps are not the gospel. The Bible can exhort those who trust the living God to be concerned with issues of social justice (Isa 2; Amos); it can tell new covenant believers to do good to all human beings, especially to those of the household of faith (Gal 6); it exhorts us to remember the poor and to ask, not “Who is my neighbor?” but “Whom am I serving as neighbor?” We may even argue that some such list of moral commitments is a necessary consequence of the gospel. But it is not the gospel. We may preach through the list, reminding people that the Bible is concerned to tell us not only what to believe but how to live. But we may not preach through that list and claim it encapsulates the gospel. The gospel is what God has done, supremely in Christ, and especially focused on his cross and resurrection.

--D. A. Carson [Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School], Themelios 34, 1 (April 2009)

Filed under: * Theology • Soteriology