by Steve | Jan 2, 1992 | Archive - 1992
Archive: Taking the Task Force to Task
By Thomas C. Oden Critiques the Homosexuality Study
Every General Conference of the United Methodist Church since 1972 has been tested by advocates of the gradual legitimization of same-sex intercourse. During the period between 1988 and the upcoming conference of 1992, a study has been funded to seek a definitive inquiry into the “biblical, theological and scientific questions related to homo-sexuality.” This Committee to Study Homosexuality has now reported its recommendations and solicits dialogue.
The Report appropriately pleads once again, as have Protestants repeatedly pled, for a stop to violence against those who practice same-sex intercourse. The civil rights of those with “alternative sexual orientations” must be vigilantly protected without conceding the moral viability of their claims to social or moral legitimation. “Christian gay-bashing” is no more excusable than the “gay homophobe-bashing” that has recently swept through liberal Protestant seminaries with their politically-correct thought police.
The Skewed Method of the Report
The method of data gathering in this Report was far from fair or evenhanded, as is evident from the reporting of vignettes presented as “typical experiences” of the “human reality of homosexuality.” Only three of sixteen examples are in any way representative of those who follow the Discipline in not condoning same-sex intercourse, and in those three cases dissent is unfairly stereotyped. The other thirteen examples reflect a prevailing attitude of concerned sympathy with standard homosexual arguments, especially the frustrations experienced by the continued delegitimization of same-sex anal and oral intercourse by church members. From their supposed “listening” process in a series of regional panels, one would imagine that it never occurred to any of those testifying before the panels to ask about scriptural mandates. Apparently the regional panels managed to spread the word of their coming to special ideological networks, and not openly to all.
Should the people of God wait for a firm “scientific consensus” that oral and anal same-sex intercourse has adverse effects before teaching it as sin? Most lay persons are not that naive about the possibility of attaining scientific consensus, especially when it is required to have “conclusive replicable results” of those scientists somebody judges to be best informed.
Though the Report feigns standing “in harmony with the doctrinal statements in our Book of Discipline,” it ignores the plain rejection of homosexuality in Wesley’s Notes Upon the New Testament, which the Discipline commends as a reliable “doctrinal standard.”
The theological method of the UM Discipline (often called the quadrilateral method) which affirms the primacy of Scripture along with the collateral authority of tradition, reason, and experience, is blatantly falsified and misrepresented in the Report’s appeal to experience and reason as contemporary arbiters of the hidden meaning of Scripture. The Christian understanding of sexual accountability is not based strictly upon “the present state of knowledge of relevant fields.” Rather, it must be formed from scriptural truth interpreted by consensual ecumenical tradition, as that is made consistent with reason and experience. The Discipline does not ask the laity to sit around waiting for an elusive consensus of hard scientific evidence before confirming or rejecting unambiguous biblical teachings.
That homosexual practice is not a weighty moral matter is arrogantly asserted by the committee as reliable “consensus among Christian ethicists,” yet without any evidence to support this curious assertion. All the great historic Christian moral teachers who have not condoned same-sex intercourse (John Chrysostom, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin) apparently are weighed less heavily than selected modern proponents of moral relativism. The prevailing liberal assumption is that certain selected ethicists have the moral right to issue an absolute decree of final judgment contrary to the whole weight of the two millennia of tradition of Christian teaching. Here the modern chauvinist premise (that newer is better, older worse) of the Report shows through badly. That “few ethicists regard homosexuality as a gravely serious problem,” nothing like the importance, say, of family violence, reveals more about selected hypermodern moralists than the actual, substantive moral reflection of the Christian tradition.
The Report probes the bizarre question of how high or low on the scale of sins most current ethicists rank homosexuality, as if sin were a matter of popular vote. In seeking to measure as slight the relative sinfulness of homosexuality in relation to what the Report calls the core of the faith, what the core of faith turns out to be is a familiar version of cheap grace.
Four Evasions of Biblical Mandates
When the biblical evidence against same-sex intercourse is presented, it is accompanied by four desperate evasions.
The first evasion is that the scriptures in rejecting homosexuality were not referring to same-sex sexual orientation at all, but rather only to sexual practice (supposedly an idea that only modern persons have grasped).
The second precarious evasion is that the normative moral force of all biblical texts on same-sex intercourse may be explained away by their cultural context. This leads to the conclusion that any statement in the Bible can be reduced to ambiguity on the premise of cultural relativism. This is a blatant evasion of the normative character of the biblical message.
The third evasion is a fantastic interpretation of Paul’s text in Romans: “For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:26,27 NRSV). On the premise of cultural relativism, the Report argues that this description has “no … lasting ethical significance.” Yet Wesley in commenting on this text spoke of “due penalty for their error” for their burning “with lust toward each other; men with men working filthiness.” According to Wesley, their error is precisely “their idolatry; being punished with that unnatural lust, which was as horrible a dishonor to the body as their idolatry was to God” (Notes Upon the New Testament, p. 522).
The fourth exegetical evasion argues that when Genesis 1:27 declares that God created persons male and female, it has no normative significance for how sexual behavior is to be understood, since it is merely a description with no further moral meaning. Yet the next sentence of Scripture is a divine command that cannot possibly be followed by same-sex partners. Wesley commented: “God having made them capable of transmitting the nature they had received, said to them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth'” (Genesis 1:28; Wesley, Notes upon the Old Testament, I:8). It is not man and his same-sex partner who “become one flesh,” but “man and his wife” who “were both naked, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24,25). “Man and wife” can hardly be stretched to include a same-sex partner. “The sabbath and marriage were two ordinances instituted in innocency,” Wesley writes, “the former for the preservation of the church, the latter for the preservation of mankind” (Wesley, Notes Upon the Old Testament, I:13).
All four evasions show that the biblical scholars who advised the study committee were not only out of touch with the contemporary moral sensibilities of the United Methodist Church, but also with the moral sensibilities of the historic ecumenical interpreters of those passages from Origen (Ag. Celsus VI.5O) to Calvin (Commentary on Romans, XIX, p.79). Such idiosyncrasy in exposition is hardly adequate to fulfill in a fair manner the commission’s mandate to “study homosexuality as a subject for theological and ethical analysis,” specifically including its biblical mandates. Once again we have been let down by theologians, ethicists, and biblical scholars gathered to produce a serious study that has a chance of being accepted by the church.
The Report craftily avoids actually quoting key scriptures it seeks to treat evasively, reducing their number of references to only seven. There are many more than the seven chosen, but if they had allowed the reader to hear them quoted directly, the evasions would have seemed less plausible. The Levitical law, for example, is hardly ambiguous: “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. … The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you” (Leviticus 18:22,26-27).
Fairness in the Use of Language
That words have meanings worth serious dialogue has long been acknowledged by all parties in this discussion. Five words are used insensitively in this Report: monogamy, “gay,” life style, homosexuality, and “safe sex. ”
Lay persons are not ready to concede that monogamy (from monos, single, gamos, marriage) is the moral equivalent of a “stable homosexual union.” Gamos in Scripture is usually rendered marriage, which assumes a heterosexual union. It would be a highly idiosyncratic understanding of gamos to translate it as a “stable homosexual union.” Gamos (marriage, wedding) and gameo (to marry) occur 16 and 29 times respectively in the New Testament, and in no case do they refer to same-sex oral or anal intercourse.
The Christian laity is not ready to concede that “gay” is an adequate adjective to describe the homosexual life, nor can it be concluded that compulsive same-sex practices are to be considered merely as a life “style,” as if style were synonymous with trend, vogue, or fashion, as opposed to alternative views assumed to be dated.
In a hazardous era of rampant sexually-transmitted diseases, the ecclesial blessing of same-sex intercourse is hardly a constructive contribution to a safer form of sex. “Safe” in the Report refers merely to the avoidance of pregnancy, not to the moral strength or spiritual serenity that follows from obedience to the divine command. No sex becomes truly safer if it draws young people into illusory dreams. Distributing condoms to adolescents is like putting a loaded gun in a child’s hand.
Christian marriage is by definition an enduring covenant between one male and one female, since it is grounded in the potential gift of offspring. Anal and oral intercourse between persons of the same sex cannot lead to procreation or natural birth, but only to fleeting narcissistic pleasure that may haunt memory and sear conscience. Classic Christian teaching views it as an oxymoron that persons of same sex could be in God’s presence considered “married,” though they may indeed have enduring friendships and may, like all of us sinners, receive the forgiving grace of baptism and Eucharist.
Does the Report Offer a Viable Legislative Option to the General Conference?
The Study argues that “permanent covenantal unions” between same-sex “persons who are exclusively pledged to one another” can be blessed as “a human manifestation of that grace by which we are made whole.” The Report thus repeatedly appeals to grace, which demeans the doctrine of grace that elicits responsible love. Grace does not mean anything goes. A cheap grace that elevates tolerance as the only cardinal virtue is not the grace of God in Jesus Christ, the very One who drove out the money changers from the temple and admonished the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more.
The formula that shows that many believe one way while other believe another way is simply a rehearsal of diverse opinions, and not properly a legislative recommendation. Covertly, however, this formula serves as a ruse for the legitimation of moral relativism.
Is it in accord with classic Christian teaching to grant same-sex partners the same guardianship rights as natural parents have under law? That will be extremely hard to sell to thoughtful delegates who think critically about an ethic of consequences.
The Tradition of Wisdom in the General Conference
Many delegates to General Conference will wonder whether this is an appropriate time for four more years of study on the subject of homosexuality. Many delegates will wonder if ordinary United Methodists are ready to pay for supposed “educational resources” that reflect a viewpoint of absolute moral relativism.
Beginning in 1972, all subsequent General Conferences have been right to seek the protection of the civil rights of persons practicing homosexuality, viewing them as “persons of sacred worth, who need the ministry and guidance of the church in their struggles for human fulfillment,” and to hold that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
Beginning in 1976, all subsequent General Conferences have been right to withhold funds from “any ‘gay’ organization or use any such funds to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.” The 1984 and 1988 General Conferences were correct in adopting as a standard for ordained clergy the commitment to “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness,” and in stating clearly that “self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in the United Methodist Church.” And the 1988 General Conference was right to “affirm that God’s grace is available to all.”
The 1992 General Conference surely will also be wise enough to sustain this stable tradition of interpretation. Delegates must reject the Report’s morally relativistic, presumptuous, and inflammatory phrase that “The present state of knowledge in the relevant fields of knowledge does not provide a satisfactory basis upon which the church can responsibly maintain a specific condemnation of homosexuality.”
By doing so, they will have served the United Methodist Church well.
Thomas C. Oden is the Henry Anson Buttz professor of theology and ethics at the Theological School, Drew University. He is an ordained United Methodist minister and author of numerous books, including The Living God: Systematic Theology, Volume One, The Word of Life: Systematic Theology, Volume Two, and After Modernity … What? Agenda For Theology.
by Steve | Nov 28, 1991 | Archive - 1991
Archive: Charismatics Focus on Worship
By Steve Beard
There were no political pronouncements—no resolutions to bring before General Conference. And the seats in the front were the first to be filled. This was not your everyday, ordinary United Methodist meeting.
Instead, the more than 1,700 charismatic United Methodists at the Aldersgate’91 conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee, enthusiastically worshipped God with uplifted hands and spirited singing, while some even danced in the aisles. Although guitars, drums, and praise choruses are often associated with a younger generation, the primarily middle-aged to older audience seemed to enjoy the contemporary worship as they clapped and shouted “Amen.”
The Aldersgate conference was led in worship by a variety of musical praise groups, including the choir and orchestra from Pine Castle UM Church in Orlando, Florida, and the Made to Praise expressive dance team from the First UM Church in Bedford, Texas.
“The most important contribution that our charismatic renewal has brought to the mainline church is the joyful worship of God, simply for God’s sake,” said keynote speaker the Rev. Dr. Robert Stamps of Park Avenue UM Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “We worship God in this way,” continued Stamps, “because God desires it, deserves it, and delights in it.”
Stamps also credited the charismatic renewal for encouraging a “healthy anticipation for the miraculous in our midst,” and a “restoration of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the gift of healing.”
The mid-August national conference on the Holy Spirit, sponsored by the United Methodist Renewal Services Fellowship (UMRSF), also attempted to educate the church on the work of the Holy Spirit in the world today, provide an encouraging environment for the use of spiritual gifts, and promote spiritual renewal in the denomination.
“Renewal can never come to the people called Methodist unless we are serious about prayer,” said Gary L. Moore, executive director of the UMRSF, as he led the conference in prayer over a distributed list of United Methodist bishops.
The participants from 40 states not only prayed for the leadership and direction of the church, but also for one another. Pastors in attendance were asked to stand at the Saturday evening service, as those nearby laid hands upon them and joined in prayer.
At the conclusion of each service, specially trained counselors ministered to the sick by praying and anointing them with oil. Afterward, Moore reported that “there were many testimonies of people accepting Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit; and healings—spirit, soul, and body—were plentiful.”
Aldersgate offered 27 different workshops dealing with subjects such as evangelism, Transforming Congregations, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, emotional healing, and spiritual warfare. Speakers included well-known United Methodists such as evangelists Cecil Williamson and Wesley Putnam, as well as professors Robert Tuttle of Garrett-Evangelical Seminary and Seth Asare of Boston Theological Seminary.
Attendance at this year’s Aldersgate conference was a first of its kind for many evangelicals. In his seminar on “Wesleyan Theology and the Charismatic Experience,” UM evangelist Ed Robb, Sr. said that he was taught that “the gifts were only for the apostolic age.” To the audience’s delight he responded, “This is the apostolic age.”
While Aldersgate offered an encouraging environment for the use of the spiritual gifts outlined in the New Testament, participants were also asked to use discernment. Since there are often misunderstandings about some of the gifts—particularly speaking in tongues and healing—Bible teacher Joe Harding cautioned the charismatics “not to divide the body of Christ in the name of the Spirit.” Instead, Harding, the director of Vision 2000 for the Board of Discipleship, encouraged them to study the spiritual gifts, pray for their pastors, and faithfully serve their churches.
Steve Beard is the editor of Good News magazine.
by Steve | Nov 27, 1991 | Archive - 1991
Archive: Mary
A Model for Us All
By Dick McClain
Growing up, I don’t recall having heard a sermon on Mary, the mother of Jesus. She did get dusted off every December for the Christmas pageant. But apart from her annual appearance reincarnated in the form of a budding young thespian, she hardly existed. Perhaps the folks in my evangelical Protestant circle felt that the Catholics went a little too far.
While I’ve never been accused of tilting toward Rome, somewhere along the line I began to suspect that we were being robbed by our silence about Mary. After all, the woman God chose to become the mother of our Lord just might have something to say to us today.
Which brings up another point. Not only did I not hear much about Mary; I didn’t hear much about any of the women of the Bible. When they were presented it was only in the context of their being a model for women, never for men. The implication was that the male heroes of the faith—Moses, Joshua, David, Peter, and all the rest—were role models for all Christians, men and women alike. But the female heroes of the Bible—Deborah, Naomi, Ruth, and Priscilla—were only models of Christian womanhood.
I ditched that idea.
All of this leads me to suggest two things. First, Mary’s life is worth studying and emulating. And second, she is a good model for my entire family, both male and female. I hope you’ll see Mary in that same light.
Luke offers some fascinating insights into the quality of Mary’s life and faith. Her godliness was evident in a number of traits which we would do well to pattern. (If you want to check the record out for yourself, read Luke 1 and 2.)
1. Faith in God
Who comes to mind when you think of biblical examples of faith? I’ll bet you immediately thought of Abraham. Not a bad pick, considering the fact that he believed some rather unbelievable things God told him. But have you thought about the message Gabriel brought to Mary?
Mary was a teenage girl from a poor family who lived in an obscure village in a tiny nation which itself was under subjection to a foreign power. One day an angel came to her with a message from God. She had found favor with God; she would give birth to a Son whom she was to name Jesus; her baby would be called the Son of the Most High and would sit on David’s throne forever; His kingdom would never end; and all this was going to happen without her ever having sexual relations with a man.
Now, be honest. Would you have believed that?
The remarkable thing is that Mary did! In fact, her cousin, Elizabeth, greeted her as “She who believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished” (Luke 1:45, NIV).
That’s real faith! She was willing to take God at His word, even when what He said didn’t square with anything her experience told her to be true.
We too must choose to believe God if we are to be godly people.
2. A Surrendered Life
Perhaps you have read Mary’s story, sensed the unparalleled excitement of what she was experiencing, tried to put yourself in her place, and concluded, “Wouldn’t it have been glorious to be Mary!”
But stop and think about it. How could she tell Joseph, to whom she was already legally betrothed? Although they had not yet begun living together, they were considered married and could be separated only through divorce. Don’t you think the prospect of suspicion flashed through her mind? It must have. Under similar circumstances, most of us would have asked the Lord to find someone else to do the job.
But not Mary. Her answer to the angel was a model of submission. “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said” (Luke 1:38).
Why was she so ready to submit? Because she understood herself to be God’s servant. Maybe the reason we’re so prone to resist God is that we see Him as Our servant. We’ve got it backwards. We need to come to see, as Mary did, that God is GOD and not just some spiritual genie who we hope will magically fulfill our every whim.
3. A Life of Unassuming Humility
One thing about Mary in those Christmas pageants which always struck me was her willingness to go without complaint to the stable.
Not me! If l had been Mary, I probably would have said, “Listen here, buster! This baby I’m about to have is no ordinary child. He is God’s Son and your King. We deserve better than this!
In Luke’s version of the Sermon On the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor” (Luke 6:20). Mary was poor. We know that because of the sacrifice she and Joseph offered when they presented Jesus at the temple. Since they fell below the poverty line, they qualified to give a pair of doves or two young pigeons, rather than bringing the customary lamb, (see Luke 2:24 and Leviticus 12:8).
I don’t buy into the notion that God loves poor people and hates rich folks, or that the impoverished are constitutionally spiritual while the wealthy are hopelessly ungodly. But I do know that amidst our affluence we have adopted an inflated sense of our own importance, rights, and prerogatives. Consequently, we have concluded that the world owes us a lot; other people owe us a lot; and God also owes us a lot. We have a bad case of inflated expectations.
The answer is not quitting our jobs and signing up for welfare. But if we are serious about godliness, we, like Mary, must relinquish our rights, surrender our demands, and accept whatever God gives.
4. Faithfulness in Spiritual Disciplines
Unlike many people today, Mary didn’t treat spiritual things casually.
When it came time to present Jesus at the temple, Joseph and Mary headed for Jerusalem, (Luke 2:22). Only after they “had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord” did they return home (2:39). And when Passover season came, they went up to Jerusalem “every year” (2:41).
The implication is that Mary wasn’t one to shirk her spiritual responsibilities. It’s easy for us to neglect spiritual disciplines. Average annual worship attendance in the United Methodist Church typically limps along at less than half the membership. Many Christians would recoil at the suggestion that we should actually part with 10 percent of our income. I’m reminded of a cartoon that pictured a church sign which read:
“The Original Lite Church … Home of the 3 Per Cent Tithe and the 45 Minute Worship Hour … 50 Per Cent Less Commitment Required.”
Sincerely godly people don’t neglect the Word or worship, prayer or tithing. They don’t treat spiritual disciplines cavalierly.
5. Spiritual Sensitivity
Read Mary’s song, recorded in Luke 1:46-55. It’s more than magnificent. It is the overflow of a heart that was accustomed to communion with God.
How did Mary come to be so spiritually alert? Luke gives us a clue.
Following the shepherds’ visit, we are told that Mary “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (2:19). And when Mary and her family returned to Nazareth from their trip to Jerusalem for Passover when Jesus was twelve, we read that she “treasured all these things in her heart” (2:51).
Mary managed to carve out of her busy lifetime to ponder the deeper significance of what was taking place. She took time to pray, to meditate, and to reflect on what God was doing.
Most of us do not decide one day that we don’t want to be in tune with God. We don’t decide not to pray. We just let the priceless treasure of communion with God slip unnoticed through our fingers.
Spiritual sensitivity is not inherited, it is acquired through spending time with God. To borrow pastor Terry Teykl’s phrase, Mary “prayed the price.” If we want to experience true godliness, we must do the same.
In trusting God, surrendering her life, giving up her rights, and learning to listen to the Spirit, Mary set an example for us all to follow.
Was she a super saint? No. Did she demonstrate sinless perfection? Not likely. But a devoted follower of God? You can be sure of it.
We can be the same.
Dick McClain is the director of missionary personnel for the Mission Society for United Methodists, an elder in the West Michigan Conference, and a pastor for the past 11 years. Dick is a member of the Good News Board of Directors, a husband, and father of three children.
by Steve | Nov 25, 1991 | Archive - 1991
Archive: Communion on the DMZ
By Carroll Ferguson Hunt
We trooped up the barren hill squinting against sun on snow, not yet feeling the cold. Our guides, U.S. Army chaplains, warned us against gestures or loud talk, anything that could be noticed, photographed, and twisted into adverse propaganda by hostile forces stationed on three sides of Guard Post Ouellette crouching on the summit above us.
Sightseeing, we were along the demilitarized zone that sunders the Korean peninsula north from south. Seminary students and their professors peered over part of the parish for which these United Methodist ministers accept responsibility. Solemn-faced young men uniformed in khaki camouflage steered us through their hilltop workplace, but the tour didn’t take long. So much was closed to us, so many questions remained unanswered. They couldn’t even tell us the length of their tour of duty. Security risks? We?
Apparently.
One blond boy, however, who looked as if he should be studying pre-law in California, was a fountain of information compared to the others. We wondered if he was the public relations officer for the post.
“Look through here if you like,” he offered, gesturing at an impressive scope aimed at the North Korean guard house just down the slope from the glassed-in room where we clustered.
We looked and saw more khaki-clad men, North Koreans, looking back at us from just an arm’s reach away … or so it seemed when viewed through the powerful lenses. They looked better, more distant and less threatening, without the scope.
“Part of my job, should it be necessary,” our talkative guide explained, “is to call in coordinates for the artillery. Back south of here are the big guns … ”
We knew. We saw them.
What were we seeing on this snowy hilltop? A military assignment for a handful of men. What kind of men? A tumble of adjectives: brave, vulnerable, stalwart, lonely, friendly, isolated, warm and cheerful, silent and uncommunicative. All these traits were required, it appears, of the soldiers who man Guard Post Ouellette.
What, then, of the chaplains who shepherd these keepers of the line? How do they minister to men whose vigilance and daily choices mean life or death to a nation?
They looked just like any other officer out in the field, which means they don’t look much different from the ordinary soldiers. They were outfitted with khaki fatigues, helmets hung about with webbing, and warm olive-drab layers protecting them from the cold.
Can these chaplains reach through and touch the souls of the young warriors committed to their care—and having reached, touched even—can they warm and nurture those souls in the love of the Lord Jesus?
They can, and they do. We watched it and felt it, for they touched us, too.
As our tour group trooped out of the observation post where we had looked through the telescope, the rising winter wind made us eager to head down the hill toward the vehicles. But no, our chaplain hosts had a better idea. Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Joe Miller, a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and a member of the West Ohio Annual Conference, herded us up onto what the army calls a marksman’s nest—we would call it an observation deck. Raised, exposed, and visible, we turned our backs to the bitter wind and found ourselves facing an altar.
A tactical map of the demilitarized zone bridged a corner of railing on the marksman’s nest. On it were a small open Bible resting on a brass easel. Flanking the Bible were communion elements; wafers in a small brass container and wine in the curved metal cup that in the field dangles from a GI’s belt.
Curving round these simple items lay a chaplain’s stole; black with gold crosses embroidered near the fringed ends which fluttered in the wind. An altar, a table in the frigid wilderness.
Conversation died away as Chaplain (Captain) Steve Zinzer, another UM minister and Asbury seminary graduate, handed small cards containing a short communion ritual to the visitors and to the dozen or so men of Guard Post Ouellette who gathered with us.
The sun sank low in the sky, its red glow offering no warmth. We could see flags, South Korean, and one across the border in the north, whipping in the wind. North Korean soldiers stood outside their guard posts and watched our gathering through binoculars. What were they thinking as we grew still and bowed to pray? Did they have any idea what we were doing?
As they watched, we—visitors and soldiers together—listened to Chaplain Joe read Psalm 23.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures … ”
Green pastures? In the midwinter snow? Can anyone dare to “lie down ” in this political hot spot?
“He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul … ”
It’s true, though. The gentle imagery reminds us that green pastures and still waters sometimes have to be a condition of the soul, unrelated to and unruffled by external circumstances. And God is not limited by man’s disputed boundaries. His power to restore, to love, reaches through barbed wire, blunts blades, stills artillery.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil … ”
For you are with me, Lord. You comfort me.
“Thou dost prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies … ”
We stood before that table spread at the edge of hostility, danger, and death—a table He prepared using the hands and the hearts of His shepherds—and the powerful, almost palpable presence of God closed in around us like heat from a glowing fire.
Then Joe, assisted by Chaplain (Captain) Joe Fleury, a Marianist priest, served us bread and wine, symbols of the Master’s body and blood. The chaplain murmured the blessed old words to each visitor and, more important, to each GI who stood with bowed head. As he repeated “do this in remembrance of me,” he touched and warmed each pair of receiving hands, thereby saying “As He cares, I care. You are not alone.”
One of the students, bursting with joy, could not contain her awe any longer. “I want to sing,” she whispered. “I have to sing!”
Sing she did, into the face of the lowering winter sun, in an overflow of praise and gratitude to God that gave voice to what we all longed to express.
“The blood that Jesus once shed for me,
‘way back on Calvary,
the blood that sets the prisoner free,
will never lose its power.”
Time had come to move down off the mountain, to leave the men of Guard Post Ouellette to their maps, their telescopes, their weapons, and their isolation. We hugged, we wept, we fumbled for words in trying to express our encounter with God that icy afternoon. And we took a last look at the forms of the North Korean soldiers silhouetted against the snow such a few short yards away.
What did they make of our behavior in the marksman’s nest? How will they interpret their photographs, if they took any? When they report our visit to Pyengyang, what will they say about our bowed heads and our loving hugs?
Christianity was once a powerful force among the people in North Korea, even as it is now in the south. Communism claims, however, that all such superstition has been set aside, that atheism reigns. One is left assuming that the young soldiers watching our communion service know nothing of Christian worship and beliefs.
But what about old North Korean grandmothers in their seaside villages who found the Savior as young girls? Though their churches are closed and the government orders them to forget God, who knows how many of them walk along empty beaches with their grandsons teaching them with low voices about the creator God and about the love of His Savior Son, Jesus.
If so, isn’t it possible that one or two of those straight-backed, disciplined, North Korean soldiers understood our love and wept inside with joy at the sight of a fellow follower of The Way?
And if so, the American chaplains who prepared the Lord’s table, did so unaware that they fed and comforted other members of His flock that winter day.
Carroll Ferguson Hunt is a freelance writer and author of Absolutely! and From the Claws of the Dragon. She and her husband were missionaries in South Korea for 20 years with OMS International. Illustrations by staff artist Roselyn Cooper.
by Steve | Nov 24, 1991 | Archive - 1991
Archive: In Search of a Down-to-Earth Jesus
The Meaning of the Incarnation for Today
By Robert G. Tuttle, Jr.
The more that I travel around the country speaking to Christian groups, the more I worry that we are losing track of the biblical Jesus. I get nervous every time someone describes Jesus as if he were Superman, with superhuman strength and X-ray vision. This is not the time to lose sight of our biblical Jesus.
No doctrine is more precious to the Christian than the Incarnation—God become flesh. This is the season to celebrate a God who loved us to the point of being emptied into human flesh so that we might know God and, equally important, that God might know us, save us, and teach us how to live our lives in communion with God’s already continuing intercession. By becoming human, God’s sympathy for humanity was turned to empathy. The Creator experienced creation in a brand new way. For a moment let us take a look at the full significance of a most important aspect of this Advent—an incarnation indeed!
Fully human, fully God
Over the summer I read two books which wrestled with the divine/human aspects of Jesus Christ. One spoke of God and Christ as interchangeable but struggled with Christ’s humanity. The other spoke of Jesus and humankind as interchangeable but struggled with his divinity. Obviously, there is truth in both. Historically the Church has affirmed through her creeds and the consensus teaching of her most influential theologians that Jesus of Nazareth was fully human as well as fully divine. Do not be embarrassed if you cannot get your “gray matter” around that thought. Our brain cells simply begin to short circuit when contemplating such matters. Logically they will not compute. Someone has said that “heresy is born when little minds attempt to solve big paradoxes.”
Nonetheless the doctrine of the incarnation is absolutely essential. I am not asking you to check your brain at the door of the church. I am simply asking you to consider the significance of such a teaching for your own salvation. The alternatives are frightening.
Some have attempted to resolve the issue of the two natures of Jesus Christ with talk of a mutant mixture—the mythical centaur, half and half. Others have painted Christ so heavenly bound that we cannot identify with Him, nor He with us. Please do not give me a Jesus with his feet off the ground! Jesus Christ as God incarnate left behind all the divine attributes fully resident in the pre-existent Son but not available to flesh and blood. He had no “supercharger” while bound to his earthen vessel. He had no fifth gear unavailable to the more conventional human vehicle. Admittedly no analogy will carry the weight of such a thought, so why is it so critical to insist that the part of God that became human flesh was fully human—incarnate indeed? There are several reasons.
The Necessity of the Blood
Some have difficulty with any mention of blood. In my opinion their argument is with Scripture, not with me. “The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22, NIV). Still, why mention the necessity of the blood in the Advent season; isn’t that a topic for Lent? The answer is fairly straightforward.
The blood became obvious in the very advent of a Messiah who, though fully God, emptied Himself and became as we are in every respect. I once heard a television evangelist exclaim: “Don’t give me a Jesus in a hair shirt and sheep under his arm. He now rules at the right hand of glory.” A glorified and powerful savior is much easier to preach about and rely upon than a poor and peaceful servant.
Don’t give me a yuppified, success-oriented Jesus in a pinstriped suit and Wall Street Journal under His arm. The Jesus Christ of glory still bears the marks of the Incarnation, not only in His bands, side, and feet, but in His navel, because the passion began not on “the night in which He was betrayed,” but in the manger. It had to hurt God to be squeezed into human flesh and implanted in a real mamma, to be born a real baby, who cried real tears, who experienced real temptation, the fatigue of real ministry, the agony of a real cross, the shedding of real blood. All of this was done because our salvation is secured by a real sacrifice sufficient for a real covenant eternal in the heavens.
We must also remember that Jesus was not turned into human flesh. Jesus became human flesh. To use a rather crude analogy, if I were suddenly turned into a frog, I would still have my own mentality (some folks do not think this old frame is far from frog anyhow). If I were to become a frog, however, I would have the frog mentality. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, took on our mentality as well as our frame so that a real atonement for real sin would deliver us from real darkness into forgiveness and light-incarnate indeed!
Empathy, not just sympathy
As a result of that emptying, that identification, God does not have to imagine bow we feel when we hurt inside; God knows because God has been here. Argue with that and again argue with Scripture: “He [God’s own Son] had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order … that He might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because He himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:17-18, NIV). That is the difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy can only imagine how one feels because it has never really been there, but empathy knows how one feels because it has been there in every respect.
I once had a neighbor who had been burned badly in a fire but who had survived against all odds. Some years later he was asked to visit a man who was dying of burns. As he walked into the hospital room he simply spoke to the man: “Sir, get your ‘buns’ [rough translation] out of bed; you’ve got no right to die; you’ve not been burned nearly as badly as I was burned.” Within fifteen minutes the man was on his feet and within two weeks he was out of the hospital. Not long afterwards, my neighbor was introduced to the man’s doctor who said: “Without your empathy my patient probably would have died.” My neighbor had been there. God has been here, as well. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people” (Luke 1:68, RSV)—incarnate indeed!
If Jesus was fully human, how did He perform the supernatural?
If the Son of the living God emptied Himself so that he had no superhuman advantage while he walked the dusty roads of time and space, then how did He do the things that He did? How did He remain sinless? How did He perform the marvelous “signs and wonders”? How could He “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but make himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and become obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8, NIV) Again, the answer is fairly straightforward—by the Holy Spirit. This brings us with a rush to one of the most significant points of all this. If Advent celebrates a real Incarnation, then Jesus Christ as fully human had to depend upon the power of the Holy Spirit to sustain and empower Him.
One of the biggest sins mentioned time and again throughout the Bible is the sin of self-reliance. If Jesus Christ had to rely upon God’s Holy Spirit how much more must we rely upon God’s Holy Spirit. Fortunately, the same sustaining power of the Holy Spirit available to Jesus and His disciples is available to us.
In effect, we as the Church are called to do the things that Jesus did (in fact, even “greater works” if we believe the Scripture, John 14:12). As the Church we are the body of Christ. That is no metaphor. We are not like unto the body of Christ, we are “the body of Christ” (I Corinthians 12:27, NIV). Faith in the incarnate Son of God teaches us about God, it saves us as our sins are covered by His blood, and it makes available the sustaining power of the Holy Spirit as we are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ—incarnate indeed. Let God arise!
Robert G. Tuttle, Jr. is the E. Stanley Jones professor of Evangelism at Garrell-Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, Illinois and a contributing editor to Good News.
