by Steve | Jan 4, 1987 | Archive - 1987, Archive - 1994
Archive: What Are We To Make of Jesus Christ?
By C.S. Lewis
What are we to make of Jesus Christ? This is a question which has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us. The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is going to make of an elephant has comic elements about it. But perhaps the questioner meant what are we to make of Him in the sense of “How are we to solve the historical problem set us by the recorded sayings and acts of this man?”
This problem is to reconcile two things. On the one hand you have got the almost generally admitted depth and sanity of His moral teaching, which is not very seriously questioned, even by those who are opposed to Christianity. In fact, I find when I am arguing with very anti-God people that they rather make a point of saying, “I am entirely in favour of the moral teaching of Christianity”—and there seems to be a general agreement that in the teaching of this Man and of His immediate followers, moral truth is exhibited at its purest and best. It is not sloppy idealism, it is full of wisdom and shrewdness. The whole thing is realistic, fresh to the highest degree, the product of a sane mind. That is one phenomenon.
The other phenomenon is the quite appalling nature of this Man’s theological remarks. You all know what I mean, and I want rather to stress the point that the appalling claim which this Man seems to be making is not merely made at one moment of His career.
There is, of course, the one moment which led to His execution. The moment at which the High Priest said to Him, “Who are you?” “I am the Anointed, the Son of the uncreated God, and you shall see Me appearing at the end of all history as the judge of the Universe.”
But that claim, in fact, does not rest on this one dramatic moment. When you look into His conversation you will find this sort of claim running through the whole thing. For instance, He went about saying to people, “I forgive your sins.” Now it is quite natural for a man to forgive something you do to him. Thus if somebody cheats me out of £5 it is quite possible and reasonable for me to say, “Well, I forgive him, we will say no more about it.” What on earth would you say if somebody had done you out of £5 and I said, “That is all right, I forgive him”?
Then there is a curious thing which seems to slip out almost by accident. On one occasion this Man is sitting looking down on Jerusalem from the hill above it and suddenly in comes an extraordinary remark—I keep on sending you prophets and wise men.” Nobody comments on it. And yet, quite suddenly, almost incidentally, He is claiming to be the power that all through the centuries is sending wise men and leaders into the world.
Here is another curious remark. In almost every religion there are unpleasant observances like fasting. This Man suddenly remarks one day, “No one need fast while I am here.” Who is this Man who remarks that His mere presence suspends all normal rules? Who is the person who can suddenly tell the school they can have a half-holiday?
Sometimes the statements put forward the assumption that He, the Speaker, is completely without sin or fault. This is always the attitude. “You, to whom I am talking, are all sinners,” and He never remotely suggests that this same reproach can be brought against Him. He says again, “I am begotten of the One God, before Abraham was, I am,” and remember what the words “I am” were in Hebrew. They were the name of God, which must not be spoken by any human being, the name which it was death to utter.
Well, that is the other side. On the one side clear, definite moral teaching. On the other, claims which, if not true, are those of a megalomaniac, compared with whom Hitler was the most sane and humble of men.
Without a parallel
There is no half-way house and there is no parallel in other religions. If you had gone to Buddha and asked him ” Are you the son of Bramah?” he would have said, “My son, you are still in the vale of illusion.” If you had gone to Socrates and asked, “Are you Zeus?” he would have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, “Are you Allah?” he would first have rent his clothes and then cut your head off. If you had asked Confucius, ” Are you Heaven?” I think he would have probably replied, “Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste.”
The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. If you think you are a poached egg, when you are looking for a piece of toast to suit you, you may be sane, but if you think you are God, there is no chance for you.
We may note in passing that He was never regarded as a mere teacher, He did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met Him. He produced mainly three effects—Hatred—Terror—Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.
What are we to do about reconciling the two contradictory phenomena? One attempt consists in saying that the Man did not really say these things, but that His followers exaggerated the story, and so the legend grew up that He had said them.
This is difficult because His follower were all Jews; that is, they belonged to that Nation which of all others was most convinced that there was only one God—that there could not possibly be another. It is very odd that this horrible invention about a religious leader should grow up among the one people in the whole earth least likely to make such a mistake. On the contrary we get the impression that none of His immediate followers or even of the New Testament writers embraced the doctrine at all easily.
Another point is that on that view you would have to regard the accounts of the Man as being legends. Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are, they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly.
Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, as is the life of anyone who lived at that time, and no people building up a legend would allow that to be so. Apart from bits of the Platonic dialogues, there are no conversations that I know of in ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern literature, until about a hundred years ago when the realistic novel came into existence .
In the story of the woman taken in adultery we are told Christ bent down and scribbled in the dust with His finger. Nothing comes of this. No one has ever based any doctrine on it. And the art of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is a purely modern art. Surely the only explanation of this passage is that the thing really happened. The author put it in simply because he had seen it.
Then we come to the strangest story of all, the story of the Resurrection. It is very necessary to get the story clear. I heard a man say, “The importance of the Resurrection is that it gives evidence of survival, evidence that the human personality survives death.” On that view what happened to Christ would be what had always happened to all men, the difference being that in Christ’s case we were privileged to see it happening.
Not a ghost
This is certainly not what the earliest Christian writers thought. Something perfectly new in the history of the Universe had happened. Christ had defeated death. The door which had always been locked had for the very first time been forced open. This is something quite distinct from mere ghost-survival. I don’t mean that they disbelieved in ghost-survival. On the contrary, they believed in it so firmly that, on more than one occasion, Christ had had to assure them that He was not a ghost. The point is that while believing in survival they yet regarded the Resurrection as something totally different and new.
The Resurrection narratives are not a picture of survival after death; they record how a totally new mode of being has arisen in the Universe. Something new had appeared in the Universe: as new as the first coming of organic life. This Man, after death, does not get divided into “ghost” and “corpse.” A new mode of being has arisen. That is the story. What are we going to make of it?
The question is, I suppose, whether any hypothesis covers the facts so well as the Christian hypothesis. That hypothesis is that God has come down into the created universe, down to manhood—and come up again, pulling it up with Him. The alternative hypothesis is not legend, nor exaggeration, nor the apparitions of a ghost. It is either lunacy or lies. Unless one can take the second alternative (and I can’t) one turns to the Christian theory.
No question
“What are we to make of Christ?” There is no question of what we can make of Him, it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us. You must accept or reject the story.
The things He says are very different from what any other teacher has said. Others say, “This is the truth about the Universe. This is the way you ought to go,” but He says, “I am the Truth, and the Way. and the Life.” He say , “No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me.”
“Try to retain your own life and you will be inevitably ruined. Give yourself away and you will be saved.” He says, “If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and from Me, whatever it is, throw it away. If it is your eye, pull it out. If it is your hand, cut it off. If you put yourself first you will be last. Come to Me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, and I will set that right. Your sins, all of them, are wiped out, I can do that.
“I am Rebirth, I am Life. Eat Me, drink Me, I am your Food. And finally, do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole Universe.” That is the issue.
“What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?” from God in the Dock, copyright ©1970 by C.S. Lewis, Pte Limited. Reproduced by permission of Curtis Brown Limited, London.
by Steve | Jan 3, 1987 | Archive - 1987
Archive: Ed Robb: Orchestrating an Evangelical Renaissance
By Sara L. Anderson
A preacher once said that if the Apostle Peter were alive today, he would be a redneck, wear a cowboy hat, drive a pick-up truck with a gun rack in the back window—and he would have voted for George Wallace for President.
That’s probably not far from some critics’ impressions of UM evangelist and activist Edmund Whetstone Robb, Jr. While the accuracy of that description is highly questionable, it is nearly as hard to be neutral about Ed Robb as it is to stay impartial during a Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins football game.
Some remember Ed fondly as the thundering evangelist under whose preaching they came to Christ, others see him as the Ralph Nader of the UMC, pointing out the structural defects of the church. Yet, for someone who has never been elected to a General Conference, Ed has left a lasting impression on United Methodism. His credits include pastoring growing churches, traveling around the world as a fulltime evangelist and helping establish A Foundation for Theological Education (AFTE), The Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and the Mission Society for United Methodists, not to mention an early Good News connection.
Dr. Steve Harper, who worked with the Ed Robb Evangelistic Association as a student evangelist, determined upon meeting Robb in 1966, “He was a man who had vision, and who had the kind of energy necessary to bring others into that vision.”
But controversy has often nipped at the heels of the products of Ed’s vision, especially when church criticism and reform were involved. Robb’s most recent endeavor, a book written with his daughter, Julia, will be no exception. The Betrayal of the Church, subtitled, “Apostasy and Renewal in the Mainline Denominations,” (see sidebar) deals with political influences of the religious left on mainline churches. It is an extension of an old controversy surrounding the founding of the IRD in 1981 and the resulting probes of the National and World Councils of Churches.
Ed’s high-profile involvement with these issues began in 1980 when UM layman David Jessup, an AFL-CIO employee, began researching the recipients of United Methodist agency funds. In a report prepared for General Conference, Jessup noted that $442,000 in United Methodist funds had been distributed to radical groups openly or tacitly supporting causes such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, the governments of pro-Soviet countries such as Cuba and Vietnam and violence-prone fringe groups.
What became known as “The Jessup Report” led to the passing of a resolution on agency financial accountability. When concerned clergy and laity of other denominations became disturbed by similar situations in their churches, the IRD came into existence. The IRD’s criticism of the NCC’s and WCC’s funding of leftist causes led to major probes by the Reader’s Digest and CBS’s “60 Minutes,” on which Ed was interviewed.
Quoted in the Jan. 1983 Reader’s Digest article, Robb said, “The NCC has substituted revolution for religion. I believe that Christians have an obligation to work for social justice. But there will be no justice without freedom.”
Comments like that attracted a barrage of barbs. The IRD and Ed, directly or by association, were accused of promulgating “McCarthyism,” being “self-selected” critics accountable to no one, promoting anti-social justice stands and manufacturing “an arsenal of vague, damaging accusations.”
Then-president of the NCC, former United Methodist Bishop James Armstrong, refused at one point to debate Robb on the issues, saying he would not be part of a “cheap-shot dialogue,” and was quoted in a United Methodist agency news release in a veiled reference to Ed, “I wish the biased critics who are gaining a hearing at the expense of their own church and the ecumenical movement would take more seriously such commonplace words as ‘ethics’ and ‘fairness.’” Christian Century Editor James Wall editorialized, the “The IRD strategy … is to support a Reagan foreign policy.”
“The church ought to be above partisan politics,” Ed countered. “[It should] speak out prophetically on clear moral issues, but not be identified with a particular ideology.” Robb stressed that the IRD did not want to see churches withdraw from the NCC. “We want in. We want to be part of the decision-making process,” he said at the time. “But we don’t think the answer to the suffering of the world is the totalitarian left.”
Still, the poison darts kept flying—as they had in his past identification with reform movements. The criticism stung. “He was working for reform, preaching for reform, writing for reform, and nobody seemed to want it,” Harper observes. Ed admits, “It’s sometimes psychologically disastrous to live in that kind of atmosphere where people accuse you of being disloyal to the church and question your motives.”
To those who have supported him through the years, Ed Robb’s motivation was never a question mark. “I have never known Ed to level a criticism against the United Methodist Church which was not coming out of a heart of deep love and deep pain,” Harper says. “Ed has tried to reform United Methodism into the image he believes John Wesley intended it to have.”
Indeed, Robb is deeply rooted in the Wesleyan tradition. His Whetstone ancestors in North Carolina found Christ through the preaching of circuit rider Francis Asbury and they produced several generations of Methodist preachers.
As a 19-year-old Navy signalman on liberty, Ed attended San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Methodist Church. One Sunday during a missions conference, the preacher, Dr. J.C. McPheeters, asked those who wanted to surrender their lives to Christ to stand. At that moment the six-foot sailor from Marshall, Texas, who had avoided total commitment to God, understood real liberty.
“I walked out of church with my buddy, another sailor, and I took a package of cigarettes out of my pocket and threw them across the street,” Ed recalls. “The guy with me said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m going to preach the Gospel.’ And I’ve never turned back.”
Three months later Ed preached his first sermon in his home church, Summit Street Methodist Church. The place was packed with locals waiting to see this miracle that had come to pass. “I’d been a rather rebellious young man,” Ed recalls with a chuckle. After delivering a 12-minute sermon on “halfhearted Christians,” the novice stepped back as the pastor gave an invitation. Ed remembers, “Most of the people in the church came forward to recommit their lives.” That became a common occurrence.
While Ed studied at East Texas Baptist and Centenary Colleges, he continued to preach, and his direct, evangelistic style drew people to the altar. Church membership expanded like bread dough leavened with fast-rising yeast. In his first, small country church, Robb saw 75 new members brought into fellowship. While pastoring a church in Amarillo, Texas, the membership increased from 285 to 610—in three years and four months. History repeated itself in Midland, where membership doubled (to 1,200) and the budget tripled during Ed’s tenure.
After more than seven years as a conference evangelist (1966-1974), traveling around the globe, Robb asked for another church. St. Luke’s in Lubbock boasted 1,600 members, but morale was low. “In two years and eight months, I received 865 new members into the church,” Ed notes. “We had 15 people go into the ministry. The budget went up 300 percent.”
Ed’s evangelistic preaching and tireless tenacity, not unusual programs, were major factors in church expansion. St. Luke’s, for example, would average 100 visitors on Sunday. Robb saw them all that week if they had not been visited before. “I would always have a prayer with them,” he says. “I would try to give a witness where required.”
And when Ed recites these membership statistics, it is more with a spirit of awe than pride. “He inspires confidence,” says Dr. Kenneth Kinghorn, a compatriot in United Methodist renewal. “He’s not seeking to glorify himself. Therefore people can line up in an enterprise with him knowing that he is not primarily concerned with himself. The task at hand is what is important to him.”
Dr. Albert Outler, the highly respected Wesley scholar and professor emeritus at Perkins School of Theology, discovered something similar, albeit in an unusual way.
In 1975 Ed delivered a controversial speech at the Good News annual convocation on the state of theological education. In the address, which he still considers one of his best, Robb charged, “Our denomination is suffering from weak, ineffective ministerial leadership. If we have a sick church, it is largely because we have sick seminaries.” And, stirring up the biggest wasps’ nest, he concluded, “I know of no United Methodist seminary where the historic Wesleyan Biblical perspective is presented seriously, even as an option.”
Thinking back on the event, Dr. Outler wrote in a 1980 issue of The Christian Century, “My own indignation was especially ‘righteous’ since I was deeply involved, with others, in a protracted, earnest crusade to recover and re-present John Wesley as a significant theologian and as a fruitful resource for contemporary ecumenical theology. My response was less than conciliatory; after all, what was there to expect but another salvo in reply?”
To Outler’s surprise, Ed responded by showing up at his office. “Instead of wanting to argue the point, he wanted to know what could be done about the situation,” Outler recalls.
Outler convinced Robb that few evangelicals were teaching in United Methodist seminaries because few had appropriate academic credentials. They decided to try to influence and equip scholars who were distinctly Wesleyan and evangelical who could be added to the faculties of United Methodist schools.
So A Foundation for Theological Education was born. So far, 47 scholars have participated in the program and their doctorates have been financed to the tune of $8,500 a year each. (Steve Harper was the first scholar and is now professor of prayer and spiritual formation at Asbury Seminary.) It keeps Ed, the major fund raiser, under constant financial pressure, but he feels it’s worth the stretching. “We are seeing some of our scholars placed in UM institutions. Others are writing significant books and we have reason to believe that several are going to be added to UM faculties in the future,” he says. Yearly Christmas conferences for the scholars, called John Wesley Fellows, have attracted the deans of UM schools like St. Paul, Claremont, Emory, Wesley, Boston and Duke.
Serendipitous products of AFTE were the deep friendship and productive working relationship between Outler and Robb. Outler believes it is a positive sign that the conservatives and moderates can work together effectively within the church.
While all this was going on, Ed, of course, was keeping up his schedule of church and city-wide crusades; publishing his ministry’s newsletter, Challenge to Evangelism Today; visiting his small farm with wife Martha; keeping tabs on his five children and four grandchildren; and working on the book. But last summer he found out the hard way his need to shift into a lower gear and to reassess his priorities.
Twice Ed was hospitalized for strokes and twice he underwent surgery to clear blocked arteries in his neck. “I’ve seldom felt as close to the Lord. It was a unique and precious experience,” he says. “It made me realize anew and in a rather dramatic way how mortal I was.”
Ed’s activism and accomplishments have given him a high profile in the United Methodist Church. His name is recognized—with respect or rancor—more readily than those of most bishops. But, how would he like to be remembered? “As an evangelist. There’s no higher calling than to preach the Gospel and introduce people to Jesus Christ,” he says without hesitation. But he adds, “I would hope that what we’re doing through AFTE would have significance 100 years from now in the direction of the United Methodist Church.”
United Methodists of tomorrow may not remember and revere the name of Ed Robb, but if children recall their grandparents’ stories of conversion under the preaching of a Texas evangelist and seminary students are infected by the zeal of professors who were John Wesley Fellows, Ed’s vision will be fulfilled.
Sara L. Anderson is the associate editor of Good News
by Steve | Nov 4, 1986 | Archive - 1986
Archive: The Great Miracle
By James S. Robb
Having trouble believing in miracles?
Here’s one that will give your faith a shot in the arm.
These are not easy days to be a Christian. The prevailing wisdom tells us Christianity is mostly nonsense. Although there are a great number of believers in the U.S., those who do not believe are less likely than ever before to agree with our basic world view. Thus, we Christians often feel like strangers in our own land.
Still, many (perhaps most) skeptics agree with Christians on two basic points. First, that there is a God (nine out of ten Americans accept this). And second, that God relates enough to humanity to hear and understand our prayers (a majority of Americans pray regularly).
After accepting these concepts, however, unbelievers may not agree with much else. The biggest sticking point is miracles. We moderns are scientific. Carl Sagan tells us the cosmos does not need God to create or sustain the world. Philosophers assure us the universe is a closed system, with outside intervention impossible or pointless. Thought leaders such as journalists and scholars will hardly bother to argue the point. Viewed through non-Christian eyes, miracles are definitely kaput.
This scorn is bad enough corning from outsiders, but hoards of ministers and seminary professors side with the doubters. Worse, they have imported secular skepticism right into the heart of the faith. We are told most ancient writers, including the Biblical ones, made up miracles to bolster their cases. Or that miracles such as the resurrection of Christ were never meant to be taken literally. Rather, they are beautiful, though fictitious, symbols of God’s love.
No one should underestimate the destructive power this doubt has had upon the Christian faith in our time. The difference between Moses parting the Red Sea and merely leading his followers over a shallow marsh is staggering. For many Christians the question is no longer whether a single miracle did or did not occur, but whether miracles can occur.
Such loss of faith has built the liberal wing of Christianity. For liberalism is, at root, little more than an attempt to form a faith which needs no supernatural intervention—miracles. Not surprisingly, liberal Christianity is in serious decline. What young person would be attracted to a faith which teaches that its holy book is unreliable and that its deity is no more powerful than the people in the pew?
What does all this have to do with evangelical believers, you might ask? We certainly affirm that God can perform miracles and that He does so with some regularity.
Yet, we are creatures of our time. We have no automatic immunity to modern thinking. Moreover, a little incredulity is a good thing. When someone tells us God “healed” their automobile (i.e., a minor problem cleared up), we often have mental reservations. But healthy questioning can drift to serious doubt. We are not above looking for a natural explanation for miracles described in the Bible. (Was Jesus the first hypnotist, healing with the power of suggestion?) Sometimes in our insecurity we even wonder, Could the liberals be partly right?
This creeping agnosticism can make life very unpleasant. Reading the Bible can lose its relish (who knows what really happened?). Praying can become torture (for God to do anything would require a miracle). More than any of this, how can you worship Jesus when you are unsure He ever left the tomb? Without miracles, our faith cannot stand.
Is help available, other than pious injunctions to try harder and be stronger? I think so.
Doubt about the reality of miracles has been an unwanted part of my Christian life. For several years, therefore, I have been looking for proof that miracles really happen. I decided if I could ever find a miracle which could not be mistaken for anything else, it would solve my dilemma. I would then know that miracles occur because I would have found one.
Recently I found it, and it was right under my nose. I discovered not just an authentic miracle, but what I now call The Great Miracle.
Think back to what I said nearly every American can affirm. Namely, that there is a God and that He hears our prayers. Christians of every theological stripe (and even many nonbelievers) accept this.
If you are among them, do you know what you’ve assented to? You have just affirmed your faith in The Great Miracle. Let me explain.
There are five billion human beings living on our planet. More than a billion of these claim to be Christians. Perhaps 500 million of these actually practice their faith. This means they pray.
Would it be an exaggeration to suggest that at least 500 million Christian prayers are said each day? Maybe you’re picky as to what kind of prayer God will hear. Cut the number down to 100 million if you wish.
All right. You’ve already conceded the key points. God exists. He hears our prayers. So refer to the little drawing I have made and figure out how God is supposed to hear and assimilate 100 million conversations a day. That’s 4 million an hour, 70,000 a second!
The ability to hear 4 million prayers every hour impressed me a great deal more than feeding 5,000 men or giving sight to one malformed set of eyes. For me, The Great Miracle settles once and for all the question of Christ’s resurrection. If God has the desire and power to do the one, surely He is capable of doing the other.
The Bible doesn’t drag out the arithmetic of God hearing prayers the way I have, but Jesus did urge His disciples to pray. Paul recommended we “pray without ceasing”—need I explain the logistical complications for God in that? The news gets better. According to Jesus, God not only hears the 100 million prayers a day, He meticulously answers them.
Should any of this surprise us? Not really. There is nothing odd about a deity acting divine. The only strange thing I can discern is that so many of our contemporaries believe in God without granting Him any godly powers. Christianity, miracles and all, is either true or it is not. Halfway houses of partial belief make much less sense than either orthodox faith or atheism. Let’s be consistent. Since we are already convinced about God’s reality, miracles are a cake walk.
When people who affirm God but deny miracles challenge your faith, remember that it is they, not you, who are on shaky ground. You’re just giving God His due.
Cherish the Great Miracle as you talk to your Maker today. Remember that even as God bends His ear close to your lips, weighing each syllable, so He does also for countless others that very hour. It is with good reason we call Him the God of Miracles.
by Steve | Nov 3, 1986 | Archive - 1986
Archive: My Dog the Methodist
by William Willimon
The idea everyone is talking about
At the United Methodist Church’s most recent General Conference, we voted to make nine million new United Methodists by 1992. Southern Baptists scoffed; how could a denomination that has managed to lose about 65,000 members every year somehow come up with many millions of Methodists in the next few years? Last year we couldn’t even find more than 200,000 new Methodists. So where do we expect to find the other nine million?
In four years at my previous parish—despite my earnest efforts to apply the principles of the Church Growth Movement—I found only about 150 new United Methodists, and some of them weren’t any better at being Methodist than they were being Baptist or Presbyterian or whatever they were before I found them.
Then in the course of my scholarly duties, I came upon a brilliant but neglected monograph by Charles M. Nielsen of Colgate-Rochester Divinity School titled Communion for Dogs. Building upon the groundbreaking work of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (Avon, 1977) and basing his thesis on all sorts of footnotes from Biblical, patristic, medieval and Reformation sources, Dr. Nielsen makes a convincing argument that dogs should be admitted to the Lord’s Table in reformed churches:
Reformed churches used to stress discipline, but now it is clear that we train our dogs far better than we train our children. … They are loyal, adorable, loving and caring, and clearly should be allowed to receive communion.
It is fair to say that Communion for Dogs gives all dogs a new leash on life, so to speak.
Being a Methodist, my concern is not who should come to the Lord’s Supper (which we don’t celebrate that often, anyway) but where in the world we expect to find nine million new members. But after reading Nielsen, I knew: right in my own home, sleeping even now in my garage, is a willing convert—Polly, a black terrier of uncertain parentage and quixotic disposition.
All over this fair nation there are many millions of Polly’s compatriots who have been neglected, ignored and even scorned by evangelistic efforts. Yet they already possess all of the characteristics for membership in one of today’s most progressive denominations: openness, spontaneity, affirmation, inclusiveness, love, righteous indignation, sexual freedom, gut reactions.
Here are our nine million new Methodists!
Why has the Christian church heretofore overlooked dogs as fit recipients of the Good News? The answer is simple: bigotry, close-mindedness and prejudice. No doubt many of you immediately call to mind Revelation 22:15, which lists those who are refused admission into the eternal bliss of heaven: “Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and the idolaters …”
But what does that prooftext prove? I’ve served churches where murderers may have been scarce, but fornicators were not. Besides. we have learned to jettison so much of Scripture with which we don’t agree. why should we preserve the obviously anti-canine sentiments of Revelation 22:15?
All Scripture must be read by dog lovers with a “hermeneutics of suspicion”: the Bible simply gives dogs a bad rap. Even though Genesis 9:8-10 asserts that covenant is established “with every living creature … and every beast of the earth…, all that comes out of the ark,” traditional exegesis has acted as if every beast and creature were on the ark except for Polly’s ancestors. If her ancestors hated water as much as Polly does, I can assure you that no ark would have left port without dogs on board.
You will no doubt say that this anti-canine prejudice merely reflects the culture-bound nature of Scripture and that we have at last overcome the bias. Don’t be so sure! When Billy Graham preached at our chapel last year. I asked him how many dogs he had converted. This man-who has gone to the ends of the earth to preach-looked at me as if I were crazy. I guess that I shouldn’t have expected better of someone who admires the likes of Charles G. Finney, who wrote in his Lectures on Revivals of Religion:
People should leave their dogs and very young children at home. I have often known contentions arise among dogs … just at that stage of the services, that would most effectually destroy the effect of the meeting …. As for dogs, they had infinitely better be dead. than to divert attention from the word of God.
Even the so-called Inclusive Language Lectionary—while making such a fuss over the sexism and patriarchal nature of Scripture and going to such extreme efforts to delete it from the hearing of modern, more enlightened Christian congregations—totally ignores the Bible’s anti-canine bias. The Inclusive Language Lectionary prides itself on its reworking of such passages as Hebrews 11 to read: “By faith Abraham [and Sarah] obeyed when [they] were called to go out to a place … and [they] went out, not knowing where [they] were to go.” But what about Abraham and Sarah’s dogs? Did the dogs who faithfully followed them into an unknown land know the route any better than Abraham and Sarah? Did their following require any less faith? No! In fact, the dogs had to have more faith than Abraham and Sarah since they were following human beings who admittedly had no idea of where they were going.
Of course, there will always be those who object to such hermeneutics because the original text doesn’t say that Abraham (or Sarah) had a dog. But their very objection proves my point. In telling the story, backward, conservative, bourgeois people have completely and intentionally overlooked the contributions of dogs.
For the intractably reactionary, other texts must also be considered. For instance, is not my thesis that Polly is a potential United Methodist vitiated by Matthew 7:6: “Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw pearls before swine”? Careful exegesis shows that this text cannot be taken seriously. Kusin is a metaphor for wicked people. Dogs here are simply not dogs.
Then there is that unfortunate slip by Paul in Philippians 3:2: “Beware of the dogs.” Dr. Nielsen notes that the “dogs” here were possibly Jewish Christians. Therefore, rather than being a term of opprobrium, “Beware of the dogs” is an early reference to fellow Christians. “You old dog, you,” is a term of endearment.
Besides, even if these texts do say nasty things about canines, we have been so successful at removing Jesus’ strictures against divorce, riches, violence and adultery, why can’t we dispose of Matthew 7:6 and Philippians 3:2 as well?
Fortunately, the exclusivistic and humanistic bias of these text must be balanced with that beloved remark by our Lord in Mark 7:28. Nielsen is quite right in basing his central argument on Jesus’ command that dogs under the table should have the children’s crumbs.
Speaking of sacraments, there is clear Biblical warrant for dogs as fit subjects for baptisms—even though Polly hates baths. In defending infant baptism, scholars such as Oscar Cullmann and Joachim Jeremias give weight to what is called the “oikos formula” (from the Greek word for “household”), noting that, at a number of places in Acts, someone is baptized “and his whole household with him.” Even though children are not explicitly mentioned, these great scholars assume that children were also members of the household and were therefore baptized at an early age.
We talk to dogs, kiss them, cuddle them and toilet train them (more rapidly than we can train our children). So if children can be baptized, so can dogs. What is more, we have now progressed to the point where our dogs eat and dress like us, have beauty parlors, cemeteries, psychologists and birth control devices—and we have become like them in our sexual behavior. So I see no Biblical objection to any congregation receiving them as full communicants.
Historically, dogs like Polly have received great support from some of our best theologians. Luther, in his Table Talk (No. 5418), praises two dogs that performed a perfectly natural (but socially unacceptable) breakthrough, one over the grave of the bishop of Halle and the other into a Catholic holy water pot. Dogs have been Lutherans (or Lutherans have been dogs) long before we Methodists ever considered the idea.
It was also Luther who said of his little dog, Toelpel, “Ah, if I could only pray the way this dog looks at meat” (Table Talk, No. 274). How often do you hear Luther admit that another human is a better Christian than he?
I’ll admit that at present, Polly is not exactly the moral exemplar for our neighborhood. She bitterly detests all members of the feline community, tried recently to do damage to the leg of the urologist next door when he went out unannounced to retrieve his morning paper and seems utterly unconvinced of the value of monogamy.
But already, on any evening when the moon is full, she fulfills the invitation of Jonah 3:8: “… let man and beast … cry mightily to God.” She cried so mightily one Tuesday evening last week that my neighbor, the urologist, threatened to do what he has heretofore declined to do: talk to an attorney. Thus Polly effected reconciliation between two adversaries, doctors and lawyers.
In short, Polly already has all of the characteristics that would make her a wonderful Methodist.
Studies within the Church Growth Movement indicate that theology isn’t an important factor in evangelism. Far more significant are warmth, enthusiasm and feeling—all of which are so beautifully expressed by Polly and her kin.
Was it not the great theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher who defined religion as a “feeling of absolute dependence” rather than “an instinct craving for a mess of metaphysical and ethical crumbs”? Methodists are not too big on theological speculation. Similarly, I have never seen Polly bothered by metaphysical or ethical speculation. (She may indulge in such in the privacy of our garage, but I doubt it.) She knows that she is absolutely dependent on me to keep my neighbor from killing her for chasing his cat.
G. W. F. Hegel countered saying if religion were merely a feeling of absolute dependence, “then the dog would be the best Christian.”
If we United Methodists give Polly the right hand of fellowship and a pledge card, we’ll be well on our way toward that goal of nine million new members. On second thought, let’s forget the right hand of fellowship and just tell her how glad we are to have her in the church. Polly may have the heart of a Methodist, but she still has the teeth of a pagan.
Dr. William H. Willimon is minister to Duke University and professor of the practice of Christian ministry. This article, copyright 1986 Christian Century Foundation, was reprinted by permission from the July 16-23, 1986 issue of The Christian Century.
by Steve | Nov 1, 1986 | Archive - 1986
Archive: The Best Gift of My Life
By Gus Gustafson
Estelle, I feel awful.” I said to my wife. “I can hardly hold myself up.” Suddenly, I was very ill. Eight hours earlier, the day had started with great promise and anticipation. Friday, December 21, 1979. Estelle and I had planned to take an international family Christmas shopping. Then we’d take Christmas gifts to our children Bob and Gwen Hill. and their family at Winder, Ga .. about 75 miles from home. And, on Saturday night, with other children and grandchildren, we anticipated a Christmas celebration in Winder. We were as excited as the kids.
But, unknown to me, a rare, priceless gift awaited. Had I been given an advance peek at the “wrappings,” without knowing what was inside, I would have pushed the gift away.
Estelle had last minute Christmas baking and package-wrapping to do. I had to be in Atlanta on business, so we decided she would come later. Everything was going fine, except for one ominous feeling I didn’t understand. At my last stop downtown, I had an attack of chills that left me so weary that I sat down to rest. It seemed as though I’d never get to my car less than a block away.
I drove to our meeting place, arriving ahead of Estelle. Ah, I thought to myself, a little rest, and I’ll be ready to go again. So, I stretched out on the reclining seat of my car and fell into a deep sleep.
A knock on the window awakened me. There was Estelle asking, “What’s the matter?” The sleep hadn’t helped much and I gave her the bad news. We decided that I should return home. Estelle would go shopping, then go on to Winder with the gifts and return home to Griffin Saturday morning.
Secretly I was worried about driving alone for 45 miles, but not wanting to trouble Estelle, I prayed, Lord, will you give me strength for a mile at a time?
About five miles from home, I momentarily faded out. With a sudden start I came to, discovering my car was speeding along on the left-hand side of the heavily-trafficked road. With another prayer I finally arrived home.
As I entered the house, a siege of chills gripped me. Aching and cold, I climbed into bed still wearing my clothes. I put my overcoat on top of the covers and fell asleep.
Suddenly, in the dark hours of the night, chills shook me. Mustering the effort, I got up to find more blankets, and my shirt, wet with perspiration, told me something was dangerously wrong. God, what are You doing to me? I felt like saying. The night dragged on with a mixture of chills, perspiration, nightmares, dozing and waiting for daybreak.
Estelle arrived in the morning and found my fever registered 102. The doctor diagnosed pneumonia, but facing Christmas, avoided a hospital admission and prescribed home treatment.
But the thermometer went up to 104. Estelle and I prayed for relief.
That night my nightmares brought on one frantic struggle after another. Times of tossing and turning were punctuated by minutes of sleep. Wrenching chills followed burning skin and showers of perspiration.
Relief didn’t come, and in desperation I whispered, “Oh God, is this my end?” My mind and heart responded, Oh no! Don’t let it be. I’m not ready. There’s so much left to be done.
Then the haunting, even mocking thought came, Are you afraid to die? Where’ s your faith? Where’s your Cod?
I tried to recall my memory Scriptures. Nothing came to mind. There seemed to be nothing to hold on to. Suddenly I remembered those special Scriptures I’d learned. (“Spirit chargers,” I call them.) If I’m going to die, I thought, I want to go holding on to one of God’s promises.
Weaving into the study, I dropped into my rocker and fervently read one Bible promise after other, like trying to catch a floating plank in the ocean. Then a verse stopped me. I read it and reread it. The sacred Word spoke to me as never before. “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage and He shall strengthen thine heart … ” Psalm 27:14 (KJV).
I turned off the light and found my way back to bed. Those words “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage …” did something grand for me. There was an indescribable, comforting assurance that if I were to die. it would be OK. The future, whatever it held, would be better. I felt God’s presence. The dread of chills were gone. Confidence returned. I went to sleep.
Sunlight woke me up. Estelle took my temperature. It was still 104.
That’s strange, I thought. How can I feel so much better this morning when my fever is just as high as it was last night? I feel so peaceful and restful compared with last night’s tempest.
Then came the discovery—the Gift—that changed my life. By putting my life in the Lord’s hands, waiting on Him and trusting Him with the outcome, my spirit became stronger than my physical condition. My worry and fear, more devastating than the burning temperature, was gone, pushed aside by trusting the Lord.
Finally, on Tuesday, Christmas day, my fever subsided. The next day Estelle took me to a friend’s guest home in Mobile, Ala., for recuperation—and more gifts. There, alone for 17 days, except for doctor calls and family mealtime visits, the related gifts began to unfold.
To capture a blessing out of sleepless, distressful nights, I prayed for positive, upward thoughts. My Scripture verse, “Wait on the Lord … ” opened my mind and heart-focused my thinking heavenward.
The Lord talked to me about the publisher of the book I had started before getting sick. Night after night, 11 p.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m., whenever I heard the Lord, I turned on the light, picked up my pencil and paper and roughed out ideas on a Discovery Weekend.
One year later, January 13, 1981, I signed the contract to publish I Was … Called To Be A Layman.
Two years later I spent 30 days doing The John Wesley Great Experiment, seeking God’s guidance on writing Discover God’s Call, a home search and retreat program for laity (updated version of Discovery Weekend).
In August 1982, Discover God’s Call was approved by The United Methodist General Board of Discipleship, with the sponsor being The Foundation For Evangelism of The United Methodist Church.
God’s gifts come in strange packages. Given an option that Friday night of going home or going to Bob and Gwen’s, obviously my choice would have been Christmas with my family. Instead, God had a special gift for me, unexpected, unrequested, but the greatest gift of my life!
Gus Gustafson, a UM layperson from Griffin, Ga., is the founder of the Discover God’s Call program.
