by Steve | Jul 23, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By George Mitrovich
Barbara Brown Taylor, a priest of the Episcopal Church and a gifted preacher and writer, sent me an email saying she had gone on a walk one afternoon near her Georgia home when I came to mind. She said she wondered, “How’s my Arminian friend?” I was pleased to receive her note. It’s nice to be thought of, especially by someone I admire as greatly as Barbara.
A few years back she was in San Diego to speak to a national convention of Puritans, more than 2,000 of them (no, really, Puritans). I had the privilege of having lunch with Barbara and during our time together I brought up James Arminius, the Dutch theologian and ultimate contra- Calvinist. I have a habit of doing that, of asking others if they know Arminius.
For 400 years Arminius has been overlooked in Western history. Am I alone in thinking that? No, but the number of those who share that view, weighed against Martin Luther and John Calvin, is small. But, in this context, numbers do not impress me. I am confident of the debt owed by the West to Arminius, who dared to declare, despite the fierceness of his Calvinist foes, that God loves every man, not an elect few. That belief would shake the foundations of both church and state in the Netherlands and, in time, would impact the life of John Wesley, who in turn as a priest in the Church of England would begin a spiritual and social revolution resulting in sweeping changes in English society. As Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said, “The Wesleyan Revival saved England from the blood bath that engulfed the French.”
John Wesley’s remarkable leadership would also bring about the Methodist Church in America, whose origins in 1784 at Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore, would give rise to the nation’s most important Protestant denomination—and in all of this the influence of James Arminius cannot be overstated (although understated it remains).
There are 11 million websites about John Calvin on Google, 98,000 for Arminius. When the 400th anniversary of Arminius’ birth took place (1559) it was barely noted, but during the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth (July 10, 1509), he was remembered worldwide. In America, for good or ill, you cannot escape Calvin—and his influence has been hugely consequential.
As the historian Richard Hooker put it: “Perhaps even more so than Martin Luther, Calvin created the patterns and thought that would dominate Western culture throughout the modern period. American culture, in particular, is thoroughly Calvinist in some form or another; at the heart of the way Americans think and act, you’ll find this fierce and imposing reformer.”
Magisterial study
All of which I note to report I finally read Dr. Carl Bangs’ magisterial study, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (Abingdon, 1971), an engrossing read of 380 pages (bibliography and index included). It’s embarrassing to think how long the book sat on my shelf. Occasionally I would take it down and read chapters here or there, but never the whole of it, until now. True, I’ve read many articles about Arminius, but never the definitive study of his life—as Dr. Bangs’ book assuredly is.
It is not an easy read, but how could it be? The time Dr. Bangs was writing about differs dramatically from ours, as much as horse-drawn carriages differ from Stealth bombers. (If you read it, forget about trying to pronounce Dutch names, it will only slow you down. Unless, of course, Cornelis Cornelisz Heemskerck, rolls easily off your tongue.)
During Arminius’ life, the people of the Netherlands were focused on the war against Spain and the establishment of trade with the East Indies, but a theological conflict between the followers of Calvin and those of Arminius also drew their attention, for it threatened the nation’s stability. The States General repeatedly sought to broker peace between the disputants, but to no avail. It beggars the mind of modernity that a nation’s well-being might depend upon resolving theological differences, that such matters were referred to the civil authorities and not the church, but it did—and by such a clash the distinction between past and present is measured. (In this I may err, since theology drives the abortion/gay marriage debate, but for me it doesn’t rise to the same level.)
Dr. Bangs introduced me to a Latin phrase, Libertas Voluntatia, which means the liberty of the will. It is a phrase that shall mark my days, as it marked Arminius’.
Being Arminian
From the time I became a Christian in my mid-teens under the preaching and influence of Nicholas A. Hull at University Avenue Church of the Nazarene in San Diego, Arminius has loomed large in my life. Reverend Hull, an FDR Democrat from Arkansas, would say to the men in his congregation that to be a “Christian you should vote Democrat and carry a pocketknife.” (I think he was teasing about the pocketknife.) The Nazarenes, unlike most Methodists of my experience, were seriously Arminian/Wesleyan in their theology, and members were expected to know what it meant to be an “Arminian.” (That judgment is a reflection on the fact that I am a United Methodist in the Western Jurisdiction of our church, one overwhelmingly liberal in theology.)
Whether that emphasis among Nazarenes remains true I can’t say, because I’ve been a Methodist for 48 years, but in terms of the theological influences in my life the Nazarenes, by virtue of their fidelity to Arminius, win out.
The great theological divide between denominations today is not over free will and predestination, but between liberal and conservative theology. People join churches for many reasons, but despite a renewed interest in Calvinism, it is unlikely either Calvin of Geneva or Arminius of Leiden factor in their decision. The church world some of us knew growing up is largely over (thanks be to God).
To cite but one example of how Protestantism is different today, I referenced Mt. Pleasant Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, a large independent evangelical church. I’ve read their “What we believe” statement. It consists of seven faith affirmations consisting of 174 words, including Scripture references. By contrast the writings of Arminius alone fill three volumes, and it was not uncommon for him to write 200-page letters in Latin to affirm a theological point. Which is why Bruce Gordon, professor of Reformation history at Yale Divinity School, tells us in his new biography of Calvin, that to understand a time 500 or 400 years distant calls for the suspension of “modern sensibilities.” No doubt.
Studying Calvin
I gave a talk recently on John Calvin to the Koinonia adult Bible class at San Diego’s First United Methodist Church, where I am a member. I did my due diligence, as I wanted to be fair to Calvin.
I read part of Dr. Gordon’s biography, which has been critically acclaimed. I read critiques of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin’s magnum opus. I read The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (adopted in 1563), which in Article 17 endorses predestination (reflecting Calvin’s curious hold on the Anglicans). I read again about the Synod of Dort, which occurred in 1618-19, and whose delegates, from church and state, ruled for Calvin and against Arminius, resulting in a pogrom against Arminius’ followers, including clergy and citizens who were banned by the States General—from both church and civil employment. But it didn’t end there, as some were executed for their heresy for sharing Arminius’ belief that when Christ died on the cross he died for all.
Most notable among those tried for the crime of “heresy” was van Oldenbarnevelt, who for 33 years had faithfully served Holland as the state’s Grand Pensionary, but was beheaded at The Hague for his Arminian sympathies. Still others were hounded from the Netherlands and found refuge across the English Channel in Lincolnshire County—where on June 28, 1703,
John Wesley was born (the juxtaposition of which is critical).
If the responsibility of someone “teaching” an adult Sunday school class is to enlighten his or her hearers, to broaden their knowledge, I’m afraid in this instance I failed. I simply got too caught up in too many synods and confessions and controversies. I sought fairness in outlining Calvin’s life, but this whole history is complicated, and some have given their lives in study to unravel its complexities, as Dr. Bangs did with Arminius.
The greater man
Nothing that I read, either from John Calvin or about John Calvin, including Dr. Gordon’s mostly sympathetic biography, changed my mind on the merits of Arminius vs. Calvin. To the contrary, I came away more certain than ever that James Arminius was by far the greater man—and, because one’s humanity toward one’s fellow humans matters greatly to me, that Arminius was by far a better person than Calvin. There was about Calvin an arrogance that found its greatest manifestation in his theological certainty (you decide which preceded which, arrogance before certainty or certainty before arrogance?). His habits of life demanded of others conformity of thought and contrasted dramatically with Arminius’ gentleness of spirit and acceptance of others.
I concede in advance that it may be unfair to say that Calvin’s only display of humanity and tolerance was allowing his congregants in Geneva to sing during night services (Calvin believed music had no place in the church). But, in a spirit of Christian charity, I should allow that his arrogance and certainties were God’s doing and therefore we should hold God accountable for Calvin being Calvin not Calvin for being Calvin. Why? By Calvin’s own reasoning God predestined all things and thus Calvin was in consequence innocent of his actions and helpless to do otherwise (so he gets a pass on his role in the burning of Michael Servetus at the stake).
If Calvin was right, then all that’s transpired since Adam’s transgression is God’s doing. Think of all the terrible acts committed by humans against humans, from Auschwitz to Afghanistan; of all the terrible acts of nature, from Pompey to Katrina, and tell me how God gets a pass if Calvin is right? This goes to the fundamentals of Calvin’s theology, which places God as first cause and thereby the causation of all things—both good and ill.
Arminius believed Calvin was wrong and that God’s love is all encompassing. You may deconstruct John 3:16 any way you choose, but in the end it either affirms what it says or it doesn’t; either Jesus died on the cross for all or he didn’t; either he came to save the world or Calvary was a hoax. Even Jacques Derrida, the late great French deconstructionist, could not have interpreted John 3:16 otherwise. (It should be noted, however, that one of the major disputes between Arminius and the Calvinists, was over Romans 7, not John 3:16.)
Sovereignty of God
Am I saying then that those who embrace Calvin, who hold tightly to his doctrine of predestination, who count themselves eternally saved and others eternally dammed, have believed a lie? No. They believe and believe sincerely, as did Calvin, but they like him believe in error. I do not judge them harshly for their beliefs. Their state of grace is wholly God’s and they are by Arminius’ reckoning no less worthy of God’s love in Christ than we. The contrary edicts of Calvin are not true, but ultimately they are inconsequential because our one shared certainty, whether Arminian or Calvinist, is the sovereignty of God, and by his decree all else is secondary, including the most overly wrought and expansive of theological disputations—and such disputations were dominant in the world of ideas for 1,000 years and more (there was a reason why theology is known as the “Queen of the sciences”).
But to concede the last point is not to overlook what I deem, in the context of history, the damning consequences of Calvinism. It goes to the very core of why Arminius’ belief in free will (Libertas Voluntatia) and Calvin’s denial of it reverberates down the years. The former affirms liberty and God’s free grace and the latter rejects such sentiments—not in part but the whole thereof.
If those anxious as to their state of grace under Calvin’s teachings wondered if they fit in God’s plan, those in places of authority had the benefit of knowing they ruled by God’s will. How reassuring to kings and queens, to princes and magistrates, to lords and ladies of the realm, to bishops and vicars, that they had God’s favor. And if that was true, so too then was the opposite equally true. If you were numbered among the masses whose sole reason for existence was to bow your knee before your betters and serve their needs while denying your own, then that too was God’s will.
How comforting to believe that while you dined in splendor and others fought for scraps from your table, that it was all God’s doing. How liberating to know whatever the fate of others it is not your fate. How reassuring to believe God had worked it out before the foundation of the world—and you were the beneficiary of his favor.
The gifted preacher
James Arminius (the Latinized name of Jakob Harmenszoon) was born in 1569 in Oudewater, the Netherlands. In his early life, he experienced more than his share of hardship, beginning with his father’s death, when James was but an infant. His mother struggled mightily to raise and care for her children. While a student in Germany, Arminius lost his mother and siblings, who were murdered in 1575, when the Spaniards overran Oudewater, massacred its inhabitants, and destroyed the town.
Even as a child, many saw Arminius as possessing extraordinary intelligence. After completing his studies, he entered the ministry and would later become Amsterdam’s favorite and most gifted preacher. He would close out his life a highly respected and affectionately revered member of the theological faculty at Leiden, where his academic colleagues elected him Rector Magnificus in 1605.
He was highly respected and revered, that is, save for his fierce Calvinist critics, who were unrelenting in their attacks and continued to savage his reputation beyond the grave. They said he was a papist and in league with the Jesuits. They said he did not believe in the Trinity. But those were merely attacks upon his theology and church sentiments. The attacks upon his person and character were infinitely more outrageous and no less baseless in their lies. Why? For one reason and one alone—because Arminius believed contrary to Calvin.
It should be here noted that Arminius himself held a very high view of John Calvin. Of the Genevan, Arminius would write: “For I affirm that in the interpretation of Scriptures Calvin is incomparable, and that his commentaries are more to be valued than anything handed down to us in the writings of the Fathers—so much so that I concede to him a certain spirit of prophecy in which he stands distinguished above others, above most, indeed, above all.”
In this instance, as in many others, we see Arminius’ soul and character at work, the ability to rise above even the most profound theological differences and to otherwise “concede” to Calvin his due. This entry by Dr. Bangs speaks to Arminius’ deeply admirable traits of character, of his transcendent decency and caring for others.
Remembering a giant
James Arminius died on October 19, 1609 in the university town of Leiden. His funeral took place three days later in the Pieterskerk across the way from his home and near the university. At the service were his grieving admirers, friends, and family (Lijsbet Reael Arminius bore her husband many children, nine of whom survived childbirth and were living when their father passed).
Later that day in the Great Auditorium of the university, Petrus Bertius delivered the principal eulogy before faculty, students, curators, and burgomasters from The Hague, as well as friends and relatives from Amsterdam and Oudewater, who had journeyed to pay tribute to their greatest son. Of Arminius, Bertius would say near the end of his eulogy:
“There lived in Holland a man / whom they who did not know / could not sufficiently esteem / whom they who did not esteem / had never sufficiently known.”
Bertius then closed with the words from John’s Gospel, “Beloved, let us love one another.”
As I endeavor to understand my life, to account for my views, both as a person of faith and as a person who believes in a citizen’s duty to practice the ethic of civic engagement and to recognize the equality of every person, I do with gratitude allow that James Arminius, a man who lived more than 400 years ago, has immensely influenced my life and thinking—in ways beyond my accounting.
As a Christian and a Methodist, I cannot forget that absent Arminius the life and great deeds done by John Wesley would never have evolved as they did—and England and America would surely have been the lesser for it. This is an incontrovertible fact of our shared histories and the ignorance of it by secularists and non-believers in both Britain and America neither alters, changes, nor diminishes its undeniable truth.
George Mitrovich, a member of First United Methodist Church in San Diego and active in Wesleyan renewal efforts, is president of The City Club of San Diego and The Denver Forum, two leading American public forums.
by Steve | Jul 23, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Rob Renfroe
The bad news, as you know, is that the United Methodist Church is declining. Membership, attendance, and giving have all decreased. In fact, membership in the United States is at its lowest point since The Evangelical United Brethren and The Methodist Church merged in 1968.
The good news is that many of our denominational leaders are now talking about the decline openly and honestly—and it seems they are committed to doing something about it. They are to be commended. Of course the question is: What is to be done?
Several groups have been commissioned to address the issue, most notably the World Wide Nature of the Church task force and The Call to Action Committee. The WWN team has focused primarily on renewing the church through structural change. The CTA, which has only met twice and is still determining its direction, seems inclined to work on structural issues and to determine a list of metrics by which churches and pastors will be held accountable for being vital and vibrant congregations.
We are grateful for all who love our church enough to care about its vitality and its future. No doubt the structure of the church needs to be re-thought and reformed to be effective in reaching a changing world for Christ. John Wesley took the structure of the early Methodist movement seriously, as did Francis Asbury when he came to the American colonies. Because of their organizational genius, Methodism became more than a powerful but brief revival. It became an enduring force for spiritual renewal and social holiness on both sides of the Atlantic.
Believing that churches should grow and developing criteria by which congregations and pastors can be held accountable is not only justifiable—it’s important. Too much emphasis can be placed on numbers. But in the 8,200-member congregation I serve, we look at numbers all the time. Our senior pastor Ed Robb often says, “We count people because people count.” And we count how many people join every year; how many attend church, Sunday school, and small groups; how many are going on mission trips and serving the poor in our own community; and how many give regularly to God’s work, because all of those markers provide some indication of whether people are growing in their faith.
Structural change—certainly necessary. Markers to determine growth—important. But the United Methodist Church and its future will not be transformed by either.
What is required for United Methodism to become a powerful movement of God again cannot be engineered by task forces, boards and agencies, or denominational leaders. They can remove some barriers to growth and they can hold local churches accountable for growth. But they cannot produce the movement of God that will produce real growth and they cannot create the dynamic spiritual leaders who will lead local congregations in effective ministry.
The United Methodist Church will never see dynamic growth again until our pastors and our congregations:
Believe that people are lost without a saving faith in Jesus Christ. John Wesley instructed his preachers that they had nothing to do but to save souls. Of course, he was committed to helping the poor and transforming his culture. But his primary task for his preachers was to bring people to faith in Christ so that their souls could be saved from judgment and hell. I once sat in a meeting of 30 UM preachers who were asked why we need to take the gospel to people outside the church. Many answers were given but they all had a common theme—so people can have a better, more meaningful life. Not one said because their sins have separated them from a holy God and unless they come to faith in Christ they will spend eternity apart from his love. When the pastors believe that the main reason people need Christ is a quality of life issue—it does not create the passion or the urgency found in Wesley’s early preachers who believed that eternal souls were at stake.
Experience the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The work of the church is spiritual work. In fact, it is spiritual warfare. It will not be won in the flesh, no matter how well-meaning or how well-structured or how well-measured we are. When Jesus began his public ministry, in Luke chapter 4, he proclaimed, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me….” He did not begin his ministry until he was empowered by the Holy Spirit. Likewise, after his resurrection he told his disciples not to begin their ministry until the Holy Spirit had come upon them and they had received his power (Acts 1:8). God is free to anoint his preachers and his churches with the Spirit whenever he chooses. But the pattern we see in Scripture is that the power of the Holy Spirit most often comes when persons have committed themselves to times of prayer, worship, and fasting. Personal revival among our pastors, I believe, will be required before we see a revival in the true effectiveness of the church.
Increase their vision for ministry. Some of us by our inherent nature are more visionary than others. But all of us can become more visionary than we are at present. How do we do this? First and foremost, we get our eyes off ourselves and spend time contemplating a God who is sovereign, omnipotent, and passionate about lost people. He is a God who can overcome every obstacle we face and inadequacy we possess. Second, we must spend time looking at a world that is lost. When local congregations focus on themselves and their needs and their problems, they die. When they look at the world God loves and Christ died for, when they care about the lost and the hurting, and when they believe that others are more important than themselves (Philippians 2:3), their hearts and their vision are enlarged. And as a result, their mission increases in impact and effectiveness.
What can our leaders do to help the United Methodist Church grow? Yes, address structural concerns and the issue of accountability. But every bit as important, if not more so, they need to speak to us as if people without Christ are lost and souls matter; call us to prayer and worship and fasting—that we might experience the anointing of the Holy Spirit; use the resources of the church to bring us in contact with the most effective pastors in the country, men and women who are passionate visionaries whose love for God and the lost is inspiring and infectious.
Our leaders also need to pray for us. I’m sure they do already. But they need to pray for our pastors and our churches. This battle for an effective United Methodist Church that reaches the lost and impacts our culture will not be won by power or might, but by his Spirit.
Rob Renfroe is the President and Publisher of Good News.
by Steve | Apr 23, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By N.T. Wright
The whole New Testament assumes that Israel was chosen to be the people through whom the creator God would address and solve the problems of the whole world. Salvation is of the Jews. The early Christians believed that the one true God had been faithful to that promise and had brought salvation through the king of the Jews, Jesus himself. Israel was called to be the light of the world; Israel’s history and vocation had devolved on to Jesus, solo. He was the true Israel, the true light of the whole world.
But what did it mean to be the light of the world? It meant, according to John, that Jesus would be lifted up to draw all people to himself. On the cross, Jesus would reveal the true God in action as the lover and savior of the world. It was because Israel’s history with God and God’s history with Israel came to its climax in Jesus, and because Jesus’ story reached its climax on Calvary and with the empty tomb, that we can say: here is the light of the world. The Creator has done what he promised. From now on we are living in the new age, the already-begun new world. The light is now shining in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
This means that the church, the followers of Jesus Christ, live in the bright interval between Easter and the final great consummation. Let’s make no mistake either way. The reason the early Christians were so joyful was because they knew themselves to be living not so much in the last days (though that was true too) as in the first days—the opening days of God’s new creation. What Jesus did was not a mere example of something else, not a mere manifestation of some larger truth; it was itself the climactic event and fact of cosmic history. From then on everything is different.
But it would be equally mistaken to forget that after Easter, after Pentecost, after the fall of Jerusalem, the final great consummation is still to come. Paul speaks of this in Romans 8 and 1 Corinthians 15: the creation itself will receive its exodus, will be set free from its slavery to corruption, death itself will be defeated, and God will be all in all. Revelation 21 speaks of it in terms of new heavens and new earth.
In all of these scenarios, the most glorious thing is of course the personal, royal, loving presence of Jesus himself. I still find that among the most moving words I ever sing in church are those in the old Christmas carol “Once in Royal David’s City”: And our eyes at last shall see him, Through his own redeeming love.
Blessed, says Jesus, are those who have not seen yet believe; yes, indeed, but one day we shall see him as he is and share the completed new creation that he is even now in the process of planning and making. We live, therefore, between Easter and the consummation, following Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and commissioned to be for the world what he was for Israel, bringing God’s redemptive reshaping to our world.
Christians have always found it difficult to understand and articulate this, and have regularly distorted the picture in one direction or the other. Some suppose God will simply throw the present world in the trash can and leave us in a totally different sphere altogether. There is then really no point in attempting to reshape the present world by the light of Jesus Christ. Armageddon is coming, so who cares about acid rain or third-world debt?
That is the way of dualism; it is a radically anti-creation viewpoint and hence is challenged head on by (among many other things) John’s emphasis on Easter as the first day of the new week, the start of God’s new creation.
On the other hand, some have imagined we can actually build the kingdom of God by our own hard work. This is sorely mistaken. When God does what God intends to do, this will be an act of fresh grace, of radical newness. At one level it will be quite unexpected, like a surprise party with guests we never thought we would meet and delicious food we never thought we would taste. But at the same time there will be a rightness about it, a rich continuity with what has gone before so that in the midst of our surprise and delight we will say, “Of course! This is how it had to be, even though we’d never imagined it.”
So I send you.
Right at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, in verse 58, Paul says something that could seem like an anticlimax. Rather than a shout of praise at the glorious future that awaits us, which would be appropriate, Paul writes: “Therefore, my beloved family, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, inasmuch as you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
What is he saying? Just this: that part of the point of bodily resurrection is that there is vital and important continuity as well as discontinuity between this world and that which is to be, precisely because the new world has already begun with Easter and Pentecost, and because everything done on the basis of Jesus’ resurrection and in the power of the Spirit already belongs to that new world. It is already part of the kingdom-building that God is now setting forward in this new week of new creation.
That is why Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 of Jesus as the foundation and of people building on that foundation with gold, silver, or precious stones, or as it may be, with wood, hay, and stubble. If you build on the foundation in the present time with gold, silver, and precious stones, your work will last. In the Lord your labor is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that is soon going over a cliff.
Nor, however, are you constructing the kingdom of God by your own efforts. You are following Jesus and shaping our world in the power of the Spirit. And when the final consummation comes, the work that you have done—whether in Bible study or biochemistry, whether in preaching or in pure mathematics, whether in digging ditches or in composing symphonies—will stand, will last.
The fact that we live between, so to speak, the beginning of the End and the end of the End, should enable us to come to terms with our vocation to be for the world what Jesus was for Israel, and in the power of the Spirit to forgive and retain sins. The foundation Paul writes of in 1 Corinthians 3 is unique and unrepeatable. If you try to lay a foundation again, you are committing apostasy.
The church has so often read the Gospels as the teaching of timeless truths that it has supposed that Jesus did something for his own day, and that we simply have to do the same—to teach the same truths or to live the same way for our own day. Jesus, on this model, gave a great example; our task is simply to imitate him. By itself that is a radical denial of the Israel-centered plan of God and of the fact that what God did in Jesus the Messiah was unique, climactic, and decisive. People who think like that sometimes end up making the cross simply the great example of self-sacrificial love instead of the moment within history when the loving God defeated the powers of evil and dealt with the sin of the world, with our sin, once and for all. That is, once more, to make the gospel good advice rather than good news.
Before you can say “as Jesus to Israel, so the church to the world,” you have to say “because Jesus to Israel, therefore the church to the world.” What Jesus did was unique, climactic, decisive.
Receive the Spirit.
But once the foundation is laid, it does indeed provide the pattern, the shape, the basis for a building to be constructed. Our task is to implement Jesus’ unique achievement. We are like the musicians called to play and sing the unique and once-only-written musical score. We don’t have to write it again, but we have to play it. Or, in the image Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 3, we are now in the position of young architects discovering a wonderful foundation already laid by a master architect and having to work out what sort of a building was intended. Clearly he intended the main entrance to be here; the main rooms to be on this side, with this view; a tower at this end; and so on. When you study the Gospels, looking at the unique and unrepeatable message, challenge, warning, and summons of Jesus to Israel, you are looking at the unique foundation upon which Jesus’ followers must now construct the kingdom-building, the house of God, the dwelling place for God’s Spirit.
In case anyone should think this is all too arbitrary, too chancy, we are promised at every turn that the Spirit of the master architect will dwell in us, nudging and guiding us, correcting mistakes, warning of danger ahead, enabling us to build—if only we will obey—with what will turn out to have been gold, silver, and precious stones. “As the Father sent me, so I send you…receive the Holy Spirit.” These two go together. Just as in Genesis, so now in the new Genesis, the new creation, God breathes into human nostrils his own breath, and we become living stewards, looking after the garden, shaping God’s world as his obedient image-bearers. Paul, indeed, uses the image of the gardener alongside that of the builder in 1 Corinthians 3. We are to implement Jesus’ unique achievement. This perspective should open the Gospels for us in a whole new way. Everything that we read there tells us something about the foundation upon which we are called to build. Everything, therefore, gives us hints about what sort of a building it is to be. As Jesus was to Israel, so the church is to be for the world.
But, you say, the people we minister to, the people we work with in the laboratory or the fine arts department, the people who serve us in the grocery store or who work in the power station, are not first-century Jews. How can we summon them as Jesus summoned his contemporaries? How can we challenge them in the same way? What is the equivalent? What is the key to help us to translate Jesus’ message into our own?
The key is that humans are made in the image of God. That is the equivalent, on the wider canvas, of Israel’s unique position and vocation. And bearing God’s image is not just a fact, it is a vocation. It means being called to reflect into the world the creative and redemptive love of God. It means being made for relationship, for stewardship, for worship—or, to put it more vividly, for sex, gardening, and God.
Human beings know in their bones that they are made for each other, made to look after and shape this world, made to worship the one in whose image they are made. But like Israel with her vocation, we get it wrong. We worship other gods and start to reflect their likeness instead. We distort our vocation to stewardship into the will to power, treating God’s world as either a gold mine or an ashtray. And we distort our calling to beautiful, healing, creative, many-sided human relationships into exploitation and abuse.
Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud described a fallen world in which money, power, and sex have become the norm, displacing relationship, stewardship, and worship. Part of the point of postmodernity under the strange providence of God is to preach the Fall to arrogant modernity. What we are faced with in our culture is the post-Christian version of the doctrine of original sin: all human endeavor is radically flawed, and the journalists who take delight in pointing this out are simply telling over and over again the story of Genesis 3 as applied to today’s leaders, politicians, royalty, and rock stars. Our task, as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to the world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to the world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to the world that knows only exploitation, fear, and suspicion.
Humans were made to reflect God’s creative stewardship into the world. Israel was made to bring God’s rescuing love to bear upon the world. Jesus came as the true Israel, the world’s true light, and as the true image of the invisible God. He was the true Jew, the true human. He has laid the foundation, and we must build upon it. We are to be the bearers both of his redeeming love and of his creative stewardship: to celebrate it, to model it, to proclaim it, to dance to it.
N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England, and the author of dozens of books on New Testament scholarship. This article was taken from The Challenge of Easter. Originally found in The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was & Is by N. T. Wright. Copyright (c) 1999 by N. T. Wright. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com.
by Steve | Apr 23, 2010 | Magazine Articles
For the Cause of Unity
On November 5, 2009, twelve representatives of renewal and reform groups within the United Methodist Church met with the Bishops’ Unity Task Force. The same task force had previously met with a group representing the Reconciling Ministries Network and the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA).
The wide-ranging and forthright discussion focused on matters that threaten the unity of the United Methodist Church. In this issue of Good News, we excerpt a portion of the statement dealing with unity and division within the United Methodist Church that was presented to the Bishops’ Unity Task Force by the renewal and reform group leaders. This was excerpted from the beginning and conclusion of their presentation. In the May/June 2010 issue of Good News, we will offer the middle section, highlighting the group’s specific concerns surrounding the way General Conference activities are conducted.
For the Cause of Unity
We are grateful for the opportunity to have this discussion and appreciative of the initiative the Council of Bishops has taken to explore the critical issue of unity. It is crucially important to us to lift up the unity of the church. We love the United Methodist Church, are committed to it, spend time defending it, and have served and supported it throughout our professional lives. We have come both to listen and to speak, and to seek to keep our hearts open to the Holy Spirit throughout this dialogue—for division within the Body of Christ breaks the heart of God and weakens our witness in the world.
We have come to be honorable partners in this process. Whether this conversation goes beyond this day or not, we seek to open ourselves not just to the Spirit but also to you, our Bishops. We want to be as honest with you as we can possibly be about tension points we see within the denomination, about dangers our church may face if they are not addressed, and about ways forward through them. We do this for the sake of working together so that these points of difficulty can be addressed. We also know that you have perspectives you would share with us, and we will be honest and thoughtful in our responses.
We also think it important to say that we do not perceive ourselves as representing fringe elements of the church. As we think of the people we serve, they form the core of the people in the pews, who pay the bills, build new congregations, support missions, love the Lord, and love his church. While they form a working majority at General Conference, the numbers they represent in the local church are even more significant. Therefore, it is doubly important to us that we are here, so that we can reflect to you with a significant degree of accuracy the feelings and thoughts of much of the heart of the membership of the United Methodist Church.
The theology of unity
We come here representing a network of renewal groups, some of which have been in operation since the 1960s. … We are committed to the mainstream generous orthodoxy of the church catholic and of classical Methodism. The focus of renewal movements varies, of course, according to the renewal movement. We have worked diligently for a deeper commitment to—and immersion in— Scripture, to the retrieval of our doctrinal heritage in the Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith, to the development of comprehensive mission that includes evangelism, disciple-making, church planting, social engagement, and to a fresh and continuous Pentecost in our midst. More specifically, we are committed to the transmission of the Christian faith as bequeathed to us through the Wesleys and Methodism. We believe that Methodism has inherited a viable and precious version of the Gospel (in its doctrines and in its practices) that was birthed of the Spirit and that is vital to the church catholic in the future. Of course, some may disagree on what that legacy is, but we cannot but be faithful to the light as we see it.
We have no interest in dividing the church. Our aim is the renewal of the church, not its division. It is daft to seek to fix or renew something in order to divide it. On the contrary, division would be a very messy and unmanageable development. It would consume precious energy and massive resources that we want to use in sustaining healthy churches, in renewing the denomination, and in carrying out mission and evangelism. We have, in fact, been vital in enabling many United Methodists to stay within our church, especially those who have felt alienated for various reasons (some healthy and some unhealthy). We love our church—warts and all—and have absolutely no interest in causing schism.
We believe that our unity is both a gift and a task. It is a work of the Spirit, and it demands constant effort. Unity is fragile today. The evidence from other mainline Protestant traditions (Episcopal, Lutheran, and Presbyterian) is obvious and compelling on this front. We support both the teaching and canon law of our Book of Discipline on homosexual practice. Contrary to what is often thought, this is not the primary issue for us. It has been made a primary issue by those desiring to change our teaching and discipline; we cannot ignore it because it simply keeps recurring again and again. Our primary commitments are scriptural, doctrinal, and missional. We place these in a theological vision of the Methodist tradition that is committed to the divine revelation enshrined in Scripture. So the bigger issues are those of faithfulness to our Lord and to the church as a community of Word and Sacrament rightly ordered in faithfulness. These are not matters that can be resolved by political slogans like “the extreme center” or “the middle way” or “inclusivism.” Theological and missional integrity under the authority of divine revelation are vital to us.
Tension points
As we in the renewal and reform groups seek what will make for unity in the church, we find a number of tension points that we believe are disruptive of the unity that we all seek.
1. Some leaders of the church seem to be promoting an agenda of changing the United Methodist Church’s position on human sexuality. This is being done both overtly and more subtly. Examples include the following:
• Bishops who speak at Reconciling Ministries events, including celebrations at Reconciling Congregations within their annual conferences.
• Bishops who participated in an “extraordinary” ordination of a self-avowed practicing homosexual person who was denied acceptance into ministry in the UM Church.
• A bishop taking the microphone on the floor of General Conference and haranguing the delegates about how our votes on this issue were contrary to the will of God.
• The utilization of “testimonies” by self-avowed practicing homosexuals during worship services and other programs sponsored by boards and agencies and annual conferences, in an attempt to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.
• Placing self-avowed practicing homosexuals or vocal proponents of the acceptance of homosexual practice in positions of high visibility in the church, for example, music leaders at General Conference.
• Articles printed or promoted by general boards and agencies contradicting United Methodist positions, such as a recent article on the General Board of Church and Society website that promoted the acceptance of sexual relationships outside of heterosexual marriage, with no commitment or covenant expected.
These and many similar activities are corrosive to the unity of the United Methodist Church. They represent a minority of the church attempting to force its agenda on the majority. We believe the leaders of the church, including its bishops, should promote and defend the church’s position on issues, not a minority agenda that alienates people in the pews and fosters division in the church.
2. On the flip side of the coin, there is often a deafening silence when it comes to promoting and defending the United Methodist Church’s position on doctrinal and social issues that are controversial in the church. There have been times when a bishop has spoken out in defense of the church’s position, but then has been pressured by colleagues into subsequent silence. It seems that it is acceptable for bishops and others to speak out against the church’s position, but it is not acceptable for bishops and others to promote the church’s position.
3. It is our perception that the renewal group constituency—theologically orthodox, evangelical, or conservative—is not adequately represented on boards and agencies and other denominational decision-making bodies. Several general boards have fewer than 10 percent of their directors voting in a theologically conservative direction, whereas recent Barna surveys and other studies have identified that over 50 percent of United Methodists consider themselves to be conservative theologically. Numerous surveys over the past 20 years have demonstrated that General Conference delegates, general board members, and agency staff are not (as a group) representative of the opinions of grassroots United Methodists. The Byzantine nominations process used to constitute boards and agencies, including the Connectional Table, are so convoluted that it is nearly impossible for us to gain fair representation on these decision-making bodies. Even within various boards, classically orthodox members are often excluded from strategic committee assignments.
There is great concern about diversity of externals, such as race, gender, age, or those differently abled, but there is very little attention paid to ensuring the presence and participation of those committed to the historic doctrines and mission of the UM Church. This lack of proportional representation leads denominational decision-making bodies to speak and act in conflict with the beliefs and values of many grassroots United Methodists, resulting in a widespread lack of trust by laity in these church bodies. Inasmuch as bishops are heavily involved in the nominations process at the Jurisdictional level and at the various boards and agencies, we believe that bishops could exercise leadership in assuring that orthodox United Methodists are proportionally represented at the various tables where the current and future ministry of our church is being set.
4. To us, there seems to be a misuse of the principle of accountability within the covenant of ordained ministry. On the one hand, there is little or no accountability exercised over bishops, elders, or deacons who contradict the church’s doctrinal standards or moral positions. On the other hand, there have been instances over the past ten years of leaders using the complaint process to silence or expel classically orthodox voices in some annual conferences. While we sympathize with the desire to eliminate the guaranteed appointment, we are afraid that its elimination will provide one more tool for the marginalization of solid, loyal, classically orthodox clergy within annual conferences.
These are some of the items we have identified as leading to a fracturing of our United Methodist body and increasing the tensions that lead to disunity among us. They are reflective of the polarization of our church and society at large. They also reflect a struggle for power within the church that seems to be more about a certain agenda or vision of the church, than about promoting the unity and mission of the church. We are alarmed that some pursuing this power and control agenda disregard the consequences of their approach to the unity and vitality of the church. It seems as if they would rather have their way in the church, even if it leads to widespread membership losses or even outright separation.
Worst case scenarios and how to avoid them
Our intent is not to be caustic, hostile, or divisive; but simply to be honest. We acknowledge that our major problem within our local congregations is not with the practice of homosexuality, but with heterosexuality run amuck.
Nevertheless, we strongly support our current stance on this issue. Simply put, we welcome all people, but we do not affirm all behavior.
If there was a change in the position of our denomination in regards to the practice of homosexuality no longer being incompatible with Christian teaching, it obviously would have a devastating impact on the United Methodist Church. The experience of the Episcopal Church in America is an example and should serve as a warning to us. Very serious and dire consequences would in all likelihood ensue for the United Methodist Church as well. Membership and worship attendance loss, apportionments withheld and unpaid, and litigation would occur in local congregations and within entire annual conferences. It is not only large congregations that would be adversely affected by a change in our stance, but churches (and conferences) of all sizes.
At a meeting in August 2009, the senior pastors of 92 of the 100 largest United Methodist Churches in the United States had a discussion about this matter in relationship to General Conference. These churches have over 150,000 in weekly worship attendance, and pay between $45-50 million in apportionments each year. While those in attendance vary significantly in ministry and theological styles, they left that meeting with a definite consensus that it is imperative that the 2012 General Conference focus on our pathways in worship, prayer, and mission planning, and to defer all legislation concerning human sexuality.
In the strongest possible language we can use, we would ask that the bishops actively work to help avoid changing the current stance on sexuality.
The center of God’s will and a way forward
Again, we want to thank you for the invitation to dialogue and to discuss issues that are dear to all of our hearts.
Hopefully, you have heard how much all of us and those we represent love the United Methodist Church and our Wesleyan heritage. We are committed to preserving the wonderful gift God gave the world through the Wesleyan revival—its doctrines, disciplines, and spirit.
How do we move forward as a church together in mission?
One way that we are convinced will not work for the long term is finding “middle ground.” We disagree with that concept theologically and practically.
1. Theologically, the goal should not be to take a poll of all views within the church and land somewhere in the middle of the most extreme views—mistakenly thinking that such an approach is unity. It is not. It’s little more than a politically expedient way to ignore the deep issues that divide us.
The goal is to be faithful to what God has revealed. Where we in the renewal movements are wrong, we want to be corrected. Where we are right, we cannot deny what God has said simply because others see matters differently.
Though our disagreements as a church often center on sexuality, we know that the real issues that divide us are much deeper and more important — issues such as the authority of the Scriptures, the present work of the Holy Spirit, and the uniqueness of Christ (whether his work on the cross is the sole means of salvation for all the world). Even on matters we consider essential, we know that United Methodists are not of one mind. And our differences on these issues do raise the question of what kind of unity is truly possible for the people called Methodist.
We can disagree amicably and with respect. We can look for points of agreement and celebrate those. And we can believe the best about each other. But our goal is not to find a middle ground. Our goal is for the church, theologically and missionally, to be faithful to what God has revealed and to live in the center of God’s will.
2. Practically, we are uncomfortable with the concept of finding middle ground because we don’t believe that’s what the other side desires. In Pittsburgh the motif that was chosen by the Reconciling Movement was “like water on a rock.” It’s a great metaphor and one that is telling. The goal of the Reconciling Movement is not to agree to disagree—it’s to wear away at least some of the long-standing, traditional Christian beliefs regarding human sexuality. Simply stated, it is to change the views that have been in The Discipline for decades and in the Church for centuries.
Any movement away from the current positions and towards what some might describe as middle ground will simply create a new starting point for further dialogue—again with the stated goal of trying to reach new middle ground. Only this time, we will begin even further from where the Church has always been theologically, and closer to a view that the majority of United Methodists hold to be incompatible with Christian teaching.
Practically, finding middle ground will become nothing more than a series of steps, with the goal of each time taking us further from traditional beliefs and closer to views that the Church has rejected. Like water on a rock, the ultimate goal is to wear away our resistance to a cultural flood that rejects traditional Christian teaching. And the other side will not be satisfied until this end has been reached.
We don’t fault those with whom we disagree for promoting their beliefs. They have every right to do so. But we’re not naive. “Middle ground” is only a step toward changing the Church’s views, and it is best to admit so at present and acknowledge that we can’t take that journey together.
How do we move forward?
One way is to watch our language. It’s hard to believe we can move forward together when we are likened to the KKK by persons representing the other side. It’s hard to believe we can work together when we are called racists, as we were at General Conference, or when bishops refer to us as sinners because we have voted our conscience.
We respectfully ask that if leaders of our renewal groups have ever used derogatory language to refer to persons whose beliefs or practices differ from ours that we be given that information. We will personally ask them to apologize and make whatever amends are necessary.
How can we move forward together?
The best way we know is to agree that The Book of Discipline will be our guide, and for our bishops not only to enforce it but also to promote it. It should not fall upon the renewal groups to defend and promote the position of the church regarding sexuality or any issue. That is the charge given to our episcopal leaders. And yet, when have we ever heard our bishops give a thoughtful, substantive defense and rationale for our views? The loudest voices are those that speak in favor of changing the church’s position. That does not create unity, and it does not assure our church members that the leadership of the church represents them and their beliefs.
Again, we are grateful for the invitation to meet with you. And we pray God’s wisdom and courage for you as you move forward.
Bishops’ Unity Task Force
• Sally Dyck, Chairperson (Minnesota)
• Mike Lowry (Central Texas)
• Minerva Carcaño (Desert Southwest)
• Peter Weaver (New England)
• Daniel Arichea (The Philippines)
• Joao Machado (Mozambique)
Renewal delegation
• William J. Abraham is the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Theology and Wesley Studies and Altshuler Distinquished Teaching Professor at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. He is widely known as a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of Methodism, most recently as co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies (Oxford University Press 2009).
• Larry R. Baird is in his seventh year as District Superintendent for the Cornerstone District of the Western New York Conference. He has served on the General Board of Discipleship, the Northeastern Jurisdiction Episcopacy Committee, and New ACT—the body responsible for enabling leaders in four Annual Conferences to create a new upstate New York Conference.
• Eddie Fox is one of Methodism’s foremost evangelists. He has been the World Director of Evangelism for the World Methodist Council since 1987. A member of the Holston Annual Conference, Dr. Fox has served as a General Conference delegate on several occasions.
• Tom Harrison is in his seventeenth year as the Senior Pastor of the 7,600-member Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dr. Harrison has been a General Conference delegate and alternate. He currently serves as chairperson of the Oklahoma Annual Conference Council on Finance and Administration.
• Liza Kittle is a member of Trinity on the Hill United Methodist Church in Augusta, Georgia, and is the current President of the Renew Network, the women’s ministry program arm of Good News.
• Tom Lambrecht is an ordained minister in the Wisconsin Annual Conference and former Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Good News. He served as the coordinator of the Renewal and Reform Coalition efforts at the 2008 General Conference.
• Senator Patricia Miller has been the Executive Director of The Confessing Movement within the United Methodist Church since 1997 and has served as a General Conference delegate from South Indiana five times. She became a State Senator in Indiana in 1983 and continues to serve in that capacity.
• Rob Renfroe is the President and Publisher of Good News and previously served as the Chairperson of The Confessing Movement Board of Directors. He is the Pastor of Adult Discipleship at The Woodlands United Methodist Church, north of Houston, Texas.
• Chuck Savage is the Senior Pastor at Kingswood United Methodist Church in Dunwoody, Georgia. He has been in full-time ministry for sixteen years and was elected as a delegate to the 2008 General Conference. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Board of Church and Society.
• Steve Wende is the Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Houston, one of our denomination’s leading congregations. He is a member of the Texas Annual Conference and has served as a General Conference delegate five times.
• Alice Wolfe has served as a pastor in the West Ohio Conference for twelve years and is currently serving as Senior Pastor of Anna United Methodist Church in Anna, Ohio. She served as a delegate to the 2008 General Conference and to the North Central Jurisdictional Conference in 2004 and 2008.
• Steve Wood is the Senior Pastor of Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church, a 9,000-member congregation in the Atlanta area. He has served as a church planter, the pastor of a multi-ethnic church, and as a delegate to both General Conference and Jurisdictional Conference.
by Steve | Apr 23, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Liza Kittle
The purpose of Renew has always been two-fold. On one hand, this organization has engaged in a twenty-year spiritual battle for the integrity of the gospel, the historic tenets of Methodism, and the need for Christ-centered women’s ministry within our denomination. But just as importantly, we have been engaged in ministries of love, hope, and healing to the lost and broken.
In his devotional book This Day with the Master, Dennis Kinlaw writes about how Paul’s letter to the Philippians gives a wonderful example of “the attitude Christians ought to have toward those to whom they minister.” This book reveals Paul’s passionate and tender love for others—the love of a father, brother, and friend—even in the midst of great personal suffering. Paul writes, “I thank God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy” (Philippians 1:3-4). Just thinking of the Philippians brings an indescribable joy and sense of gratitude to Paul due to their kinship in Christ. This bond results in a supernatural ability to love each other. Paul also says, “It is right that I should think this way about you, because I carry you in my heart” (Philippians 1:7). The intimacy of his relationship with Jesus manifested in his relationship with those he was called to serve. Kinlaw challenges the reader to ask, “Are you loving like Paul did? Are you carrying the people God has given you in your heart?”
God has given Renew an opportunity in ministry that I believe has produced this joyful and grateful spirit of love and kinship in Christ. Last summer, a young pastor from Uganda emailed me inquiring about resources for a women’s conference he was holding at his church. As we began to correspond with one another, I was struck not only by his great knowledge of the Bible, but also by his tremendous heart for the women and families of those he served. His name is Paul Mabonga and the church he planted is the Magamamba Healing Centre, located in Iganga, Uganda, East Africa.
Like many local pastors in Uganda, Paul completed a one-year course of study through a ministry of the Nazarene Church, a church with early roots in the Methodist holiness movement. Pastors are equipped through a network of regional training centers, which enable them to be trained locally for Christian ministry. Against incredible monetary and physical constraints, the Lord has blessed this young congregation with fruitfulness and joy. They worship in a room rented from a local school, with a few plastic chairs and a dirt floor. They hold women and youth conferences and all-night prayer vigils, praising God with songs of joy and thanksgiving. The members of Paul’s church have heard the Word preached, accepted the gospel offered, and experienced lives transformed.
I believe this young pastor Paul shares many characteristics with the great apostle Paul—passionately devoted to Jesus Christ and to the souls of the Ugandan people. As Paul’s letter to the Philippians explains, he “carries them in his heart.”
Paul Mabonga also carries Renew in his heart. His family and congregation have “adopted” Renew and pray for this ministry. We are their “spiritual moms” and their love for us in emails Paul writes can be felt across the many miles between us. At the end of each email, Paul always closes with a blessing and a thanksgiving. He asks God to bless Renew abundantly and to expand our borders, and Paul thanks Renew for loving him and his church and “carrying them in our hearts.”
Our partnership with this young church in Uganda is just one of the exciting areas of ministry God is developing for the Renew Network. Initial plans are beginning for a national leadership conference to be held in 2011 where women from all across our denomination will be able to come together for praise and worship, biblical teaching, and leadership training. There is much on the horizon as God enables and equips Renew to “expand our borders.” Please join us as a member of the Renew Network and experience the love, joy, and gratitude made possible through a relationship with Jesus Christ and service to his kingdom. Let’s “carry each other’s hearts” in ministry together.
Liza Kittle is the President of the Renew Network (www.renewnetwork.org), P.O. Box 16055, Augusta, GA 30919; telephone: 706-364-0166.
