by Steve | May 3, 1977 | Archive - 1977
From a long-forgotten book by an old-fashioned liberal, some wise counsel about …
Archive: Prayer as communion with God
by Harry Emerson Fosdick
taken from the book, “The Meaning of Prayer”
©1915 by the International committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association (with introduction by John R. Mott)
When a man begins to make earnest with prayer, desiring to see what can be done with it in his life, he finds that one of his first necessities is a fairly clear idea of what praying means. In most lives, behind all theoretical perplexities about this problem, there lies a practical experience with prayer that is very disconcerting. When we were little children, prayer was vividly real. We prayed with a naive confidence that we should obtain the things for which we asked. It made but little difference what the things were—prayer was an Aladdin’s lamp. By rubbing it we summoned the angels of God to do our bidding. Prayer was a blank check signed by the Almighty, which we could fill in at will and present to the universe to be cashed.
Such a conception of prayer is picturesquely revealed in the confession of Robertson of Brighton, the great English preacher. He gives us this paragraph about his childhood:
I remember when a very, very young boy going out shooting with my father and praying, as often as the dogs came to a point, that he might kill the bird. As he did not always do this, and as sometimes there would occur false points, my heart got bewildered. I began to doubt sometimes the efficacy of prayer, sometimes the lawfulness of field sports.
Once, too, I recollect when I was taken up with nine other boys at school to be unjustly punished, I prayed to escape the shame. The master, previously to flogging all the others, said to me, to the great bewilderment of the whole school: ‘Little boy, I excuse you: I have a particular reason for it.’ I was never flogged during the three years I was at that school.
That incident settled my mind for a long time, only I doubt whether it did me any good. Prayer became a charm—I fancied myself the favorite of the Invisible. I knew that I carried about a talisman unknown to others which would save me from all harm. It did not make me better; it simply gave me security, as the Jew felt safe in being the descendant of Abraham, or went into battle under the protection of the Ark, sinning no less all the time.
Many of us can look back to some such experience as this with prayer. But, as with Robertson, serious doubts soon disturbed our simple-hearted trust. How often we rubbed this magic lamp, and no angels came! How steadily our faith in its efficacy gave place to doubt and then to confident detail! As experience increased, we relied not on prayer but on foresight, work, money, and shrewdness to obtain our desires.
Frederick Douglass said that in the days of his slavery he used often to pray for freedom, but that his prayer was not answered until it got down into his own heels and he ran away. In that type of prayer we came increasingly to believe. But where, then, is the old trust that used to look for gifts from Heaven? Indeed, when in anguish we have cried for things on which the worth and joy of life seemed utterly to depend, our faith has been staggered by the impotence of our petition and the seeming indifference of God. We have entered into Tennyson’s crushing doubt:
Mother, praying God will save thy sailor,
Even while thy head is bowed,
His heavy shotted hammock shroud
Sinks in its vast and wandering grave.
This practical disappointment with prayer as a means of getting things leads most men to one of two conclusions: either a man gives over praying altogether; or else, continuing to pray, he seeks a new motive for doing so, to take the place of his old expectation of definite results from God. Men used to put flowers on graves because they thought that the departed spirits enjoyed the odor. Although that superstition long has been overpassed, we still put flowers on graves; but we have supplied a motive of sentiment in place of the old realistic reason.
So men who learned to pray in childlike expectation of getting precisely what they asked, are disillusioned by disappointment; but they continue prayer, with a new motive.
“Never mind if you do not obtain your requests,” men say in this second stage of their experience with prayer. “Remember that it does you good to pray. The act itself enlarges your sympathies, quiets your mind, sweetens your disposition, widens the perspective of your thought. Give up all idea that someone does anything for you when you pray, but remember that you can do a great deal for yourself. In prayer we soothe our own spirits, calm our own anxieties, purify our own thoughts. Prayer is a helpful soliloquy; a comforting monologue; a noble form of auto-suggestion.”
So men returning disappointed from prayer as a means of obtaining definite requests, try to content themselves with prayer as the reflex action of their own minds. This is prayer’s meaning, as they see it, put into an ancient parable:
Two boys were sent into the fields to dig for hidden treasure. All day they toiled in vain and at evening, coming weary and disappointed home, they were met by their father.
“After all,” he said to comfort them, “you did get something—the digging itself was good exercise.”
How many today think thus of prayer as a form of spiritual gymnastics—what Horace Bushnell called “mere dumbbell exercise!” They lift the dumbbell of intercessory prayer—not because they think it helps their friends, but because it strengthens the fiber of their own sympathy. They lift the dumbbell of prayer for strength in temptation, because the act itself steadies them. Prayer to them is one form of mental culture.
But this kind of prayer is not likely to persist long. A thoughtful man balks at continuing to cry, “O God,” simply to improve the quality of his own voice. He shrinks from the process which Charles Kingsley describes in a letter as “Praying to oneself to change oneself; by which I mean the common method of trying by prayer to excite oneself into a state, a frame, an experience.” If he does indulge in such spiritual exercise, he must call what he is doing by its right name. It is meditation. It is soliloquy, but it is not prayer!
When a man indulges in this occasional self-communion for spiritual discipline, there is no sense of fellowship with God to remind one of Jesus’ great confession, “I am not alone, but I and my Father” (John 8:16). His meditation can be called prayer only in the qualified phrase of one of the parables, where a man “stood and prayed … with himself” (Luke 18:11).
Is not this a typical experience of modern men? They find themselves impaled upon the horns of a dilemma. “Either,” they say, “prayer is an effective way of getting things by begging, or else prayer is merely the reflex action of a man’s own mind.” But this dilemma is false. Prayer may involve some thing of both, but the heart of prayer is neither the one nor the other. The essential nature of prayer lies in a realm higher than either, where all that is false in both is transcended and all that is true is emphasized.
To Jesus, for example, the meaning of prayer was not that God would give Him whatever He asked. God did not. That sustained and passionate petition where the Master thrice returned with blood-stained face, to cry, “Let this cup pass” (Matthew 26:39), had no for an answer.
Neither did prayer mean to Jesus merely the reflex action of His own mind. Jesus prayed with such power that the one thing which His disciples asked Him to teach them was how to pray (Luke 11:1). He prayed with such conscious joy that at times the very fashion of His countenance was changed with the glory of it (Luke 9:28, 29). Can you imagine Him upon His knees talking to Himself?
Surely when the Master prayed, He met Somebody. His life was impinged on by another Life. He “felt a Presence that disturbed Him with the joy of elevated thoughts.” His prayer was not a monologue, but dialogue; not soliloquy, but friendship. For prayer is neither chiefly begging for things, nor is it merely self-communion; it is that loftiest experience within the reach of any soul, communion with God.
Of course, this does not answer all questions about prayer, nor exhaust all its meaning. Definite petition has its important place. But the thought of prayer as communion with God puts the center of the matter where it ought to be. The great gift of God in prayer is Himself. Whatever else He gives is incidental and secondary. Let us, then, consider in particular the significance which this truth has for our idea of praying.
For one thing, the thought of prayer as communion with God makes praying an habitual attitude, not simply an occasional act. It is continuous fellowship with God, not a spasmodic demand for His gifts.
Many people associate prayer exclusively with some special posture, such as kneeling, and with the verbal utterance of their particular wants. They often are disturbed because this act gives them no help, because it issues in no perceptible result at all. But even a casual acquaintance with the biographies of praying men makes clear that praying is to them a very different thing from saying prayers. One who all her life had identified with prayer certain appointed acts of devotion, properly timed and decently performed, exclaimed, ” Prayer has entirely left my life.” Yet when asked whether she never was conscious of an unseen Presence in fellowship with whom she found peace and strength, she answered, “I could not live without that!”
Well, that is prayer—”not a mechanical repetition of verbal forms,” as A. C. Benson puts it, “but a strong and secret uplifting of the heart to the Father of all.”
Let any of the spiritual seers describe the innermost meaning of prayer to them, and always this habitual attitude of secret communion lies at the heart of the matter. They are seeking God Himself, rather than His outward gifts. As Horace Bushnell says: “I fell into the habit of talking with God on every occasion. I talk myself asleep at night, and open the morning talking with Him.”
Jeremy Taylor describes his praying as “making frequent colloquies and short discoursings between God and his own soul.”
Sir Thomas Browne, the famous physician, says, ” I have resolved to pray more and to pray always, to pray in all places where quietness inviteth, in the house, on the highway, and on the street; and to know no street or passage in this city that may not witness that I have not forgotten God.”
Ask a monk like Brother Lawrence what praying means to him. He answers, “That we should establish ourselves in a sense of God’s presence, by continually conversing with Him.”
And ask the question of so different a man as Carlyle, and the reply springs from the same idea, “Prayer is the aspiration of our poor, struggling, heavy-laden soul toward its Eternal Father, and with or without words, ought not to become impossible, nor, I persuade myself, need it ever.”
To be sure, this habitual attitude is helped, not hindered, by occasional acts of devotion. Patriotism should extend over all the year, but that end is encouraged and not halted by special anniversaries like Independence Day. Gratitude should be a continuous attitude, but all the months are thankfuller because of Thanksgiving Day. “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy” is a great commandment, and to keep one day each week uniquely sacred makes all days sacreder.
So if all hours are to be in some degree God-conscious, some hours should be deliberately so. The biographies of praying men reveal regularity as well as spontaneity. One would expect John Wesley to undertake anything methodically, and prayer is no exception. In addition to his voluminous Journal, Wesley kept diaries, scores of which have been preserved. On the first page of each this vow is found: “I resolve, (1) to devote an hour morning and evening to private prayer, no pretense, no excuse whatsoever; and (2) to converse face to face with God, no lightness, no facetiousness.”
The greatest praying has generally meant habitual communion with God. And this expressed itself in occasional acts that deepened the habitual communion. But whatever the method, alike the basis and the end of all was abiding fellowship with God.
There is a viewless, cloistered room,
As high as Heaven, as fair as day,
Where, though my feet may join the throng,
My soul can enter in, and pray.
One harkening, even, cannot know
When I have crossed the threshold o’er;
For He alone, who hears my prayer,
Has heard the shutting of the door.
The thought of prayer as communion with God relieves us from the pressure of many intellectual difficulties. To pray for detailed gifts from God … to ask Him (in the realm where the laws of nature reign) to serve us in this particular, or to refrain in that—this sort of entreaty raises puzzling questions that baffle thought.
To commune with God, however, is not only prayer in its deepest meaning; it is prayer in its simplest, most intelligible form. Here, at least, we can confidently deal with reality in prayer, undisturbed by the problems that often confuse us. For the standard objections to prayer—the reign of natural law making answer impossible, the goodness and wisdom of God making changes in His plans undesirable—these objections need not trouble us here. When a man sits in fellowship with his Friend, neither begging for things, nor trying to content himself with soliloquy, but instead gaining the inspiration, vision, peace, and joy which friendship brings through mutual communion, he does not fear the reign of natural law.
The law of friendship is communion, and prayer is the fulfilling of that law. So fellowship in the Spirit may be free and unencumbered; theoretical perplexities may be left far behind. We may range out into a transforming experience of the Divine friendship, when we learn that prayer is not beggary, not soliloquy, but rather that it is communion with God.
This interpretation of the innermost nature of prayer as the search of the soul for God rather than for His gifts, has, to some, a modern sound, as though it were new—invented, perhaps, to put the possibility of praying out of reach of this generation’s special difficulties. But to call this view “modern” is to betray ignorance of what the choicest people of God in all centuries have meant by praying.
Recall St. Augustine’s entreaty in the fourth century, “Give me Thine own Self, without whom, though Thou shouldest give me all that ever Thou hadst made, yet could not my desires be satisfied.” Recall Thomas a Kempis in the fifteenth century praying, “It is too small and unsatisfactory, whatsoever Thou bestowest on me, apart from Thyself.”
And then recall George Matheson in the nineteenth century, “Whether Thou comest in sunshine or in rain, I would take Thee into my heart joyfully. Thou art Thyself more than the sunshine; Thou art Thyself compensation for the rain. It is Thee and not Thy gifts I crave.”
This view of prayer is neither peculiarly modern nor ancient. It is the common property of all Christian seers who have penetrated to the heart of praying. The intellectual puzzles are found in the fringes of prayer; prayer, at its center, is as simple and profound as friendship.
The inevitable effect of this sort of communion is that God becomes real. Only to one who prays can God make Himself vivid. Robertson of Brighton has already described for us his crude ideas of prayer in his boyhood. Listen to him, however, as at the age of 25 he writes:
It seems to me now that I can always see, in uncertainty, the leading of God’s hand after prayer, when everything seems to be made clear and plain before the eyes. In two or three instances I have had evidence of this which I cannot for a moment doubt.
An experience like this makes God vivid. But to many people, God is only a vague Being in whom they have no dealings. They have heard of Him in the home from childhood and never have entirely escaped the influence of their early teaching about Him. They have heard of Him in the church. They have heard of Him from the philosophers. And when a scientist like Sir Oliver Lodge says, “Atheism is so absurd that I do not know how to put it into words,” they see no reason to dispute.
All this is like the voice of many astronomers saying that there are rings around Saturn. Men believe it who never saw the rings. They believe it, but the rings have no influence upon their lives. They believe it, but they have no personal dealings with the object of their faith. So men think that God is, but they have never met Him. They never have come into that personal experience of communion with God which says, “I heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee” (Job 42:5).
Nothing is real to us except those things with which we habitually deal. Men say that they do not pray because to them God is not real, but a truer statement generally would be that God is not real [to them] because they do not pray. Granted a belief that God is, the practice of prayer is necessary to make God not merely an idea held in the mind, but a Presence recognized in the life. In an exclamation that came from the heart of personal religion, the Psalmist cried, “O God, thou art my God” (Psalm 63:1).
To stand afar off and say, “O God,” is neither difficult nor searching. We do it when we give intellectual assent to a creed that calls God, “Infinite in being and perfection; almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will.” In such a way to say, “O God,” is easy—but it is an inward and searching matter to say, “O God, Thou art my God.” The first is theology, the second involves vital experience; the first can be reached by thought, the second must be reached by prayer; the first leaves God afar off, the second alone makes Him real.
To be sure, all Christian service (where we consciously ally ourselves with God’s purpose) and all insight into history (where we see God’s providence at work), help to make God real to us. But there is an inward certainty of God that can come only from personal communion with God.
“God,” said Emerson, “enters by a private door into every individual.”
One day in Paris, a religious procession carrying a crucifix passed Voltaire and a friend. Voltaire, who was generally regarded as an infidel, lifted his hat.
“What!” the friend exclaimed, “Are you reconciled with God?”
Voltaire with fine irony replied, “We salute, but we do not speak.”
That phrase is a true description of many men’s relationship with God. They believe that God is; they cannot explain the universe without Him. They are theists, but they maintain no personal relationship with Him. They salute, but they do not speak. They believe in the church. And especially in sensitive moments when some experience has subdued them to reverence, they are moved by the dignity and exaltation of the church’s services. But they have no personal fellowship with God. They salute, but they do not speak.
When men complain, then, that God is not real to them, the reply is fair, How can God be real to some of us? What conditions have we fulfilled that would make anybody real? Those earthly friendships have most vivid reality and deepest meaning for us, where a constant sense of spiritual fellowship is refreshed occasionally by special reunions. The curtain that divides us from the thought of our friend is never altogether closed, but at times soul talks with soul in conscious fellowship. The friend grows real. We enter into new thankfulness for him, new appreciation of him, new intimacy with him.
No friendship can sustain the neglect of such communion. Even God grows unreal, ceases to be our Unseen Friend and dwindles into a cold hypothesis to explain the world, when we forget communion with Him.
by Steve | May 1, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: Some ABC’s of World Hunger
by Rev. Dr. Robert W. Sprinkle Director, Community Outreach Ministries, St. Petersburg, Florida
former member, Good News Board of Directors
The world’s food crisis is not, in any simple sense, an “act of God.” It has taken several centuries of careful human ingenuity to produce it. Even the hungriest part of the world—also, of course, the poorest—has nonetheless been the recipient of at least the rudiments of modern technology. The technology has lowered infant mortality rates, curbed some diseases, made whole nations dependent on imported fertilizer, and otherwise made the underdeveloped nations part of a worldwide interdependent economy.
Now it becomes clear that the promises implicit in the technology we have exported (promises proclaimed worldwide via electronic media) are only one side of the coin. Humankind’s techniques and systems, used and controlled as they are on spaceship earth, are now having the unwanted effect of making starvation and malnutrition possible on a far grander scale than ever before.
Today’s scenario of starvation is a profoundly human product. We each and all are responsible because, in spite of our wonderful technology, millions starve while others grow fat. Answers—solutions—are hard to come by, even for those who can brave the mountains of facts to reach their own conclusions. Solutions are not clear and agreed upon, and there is the growing doubt whether any of our political and economic systems have the will, the vision, or the mechanisms to implement such solutions. This is especially doubtful where such solutions entail significant sacrifices on the part of people who now enjoy abundance and power.
Our situation, then, in all its promise and despair, is precisely that of fallenness. We see in ourselves, individually and collectively, a twisted divine image and bondage to both self-interest and apathy. Our responsibility to have dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:27,28), confronts our failure even to provide food for our world’s children. Therefore who is free of condemnation?
But a sentence of “guilty” should not be the final verdict when Christians deal with any problem. That is not where we stand, because in Christ is the possibility of solution to all problems.
Not only can the world’s food shortage and oversupply of people teach us about abdicated responsibility and human fallenness; it can also show us how better to live by God’s grace and grace alone. And in the freedom that grace provides, in the new creation that Christ brings, perhaps we can grasp the power provided by the Holy Spirit to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers … and feeders.
Grace, as Bonhoeffer taught us, is costly. Discipleship (following Jesus) is not simply a guilt-trip. After our guilt is faced honestly and dealt with through the Cross, the pardoned one finds the freedom to obey and serve the life-giving Lord. One dimension of that obedience and service has to do with our relationship to the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters: in this case, those who are hungry.
Our Lord gave Himself completely for us—and for those who hunger now. Scripture dares to claim that His grace is sufficient for every human need (II Corinthians 12:7-10). He makes us instruments of that grace, in practical ways witnesses to His power and love. Our money, our time, our vision, our commitment—these can be the means of fulfilling His words and promises to the world. Our disobedience, our apathy, are not simply failures to feed an empty stomach, worst of all they are failures to obey God’s call to compassion and to make the love of God real and tangible to other people.
To respond faithfully to God in a world that hungers both physically and spiritually is to sense that one’s life in Christ can be a part of God’s strategy for dealing with these hungers. In john’s Gospel, Jesus says that the bread God gives for the life of the world is the life of His Son (6:35-59). As Christians, we are bold to reckon ourselves to be a part of His ongoing life. Are we too, then, not consecrated in some sense as God’s means for making bread available to the world through our discipleship? And is not that Bread Jesus Christ Himself, the answer to soul hunger, as well as bread which meets the hunger of our stomachs?
“Give them something to eat,” Jesus said to His disciples. He fed the multitudes with nourishment both physical and spiritual.
By itself, what they had (or what we have) is not nearly enough to go around (Matthew 14:13-21). But by miracles multitudes can be fed. We need only to put what little we have into Jesus’ hands, without reserve, simply trusting and expecting that He will multiply it miraculously, now as long ago. In His hands, by the power of the Spirit, what we have can be more than sufficient. I suspect that this is as true for the church on a global scale in feeding millions as it was for the twelve in feeding thousands (Mark 6:30-44).
Grace cost God the death of His Son (Romans 5:6-11). In response, we have the privilege of giving our lives in His service (Romans 12). To do this is to experience God’s love flowing through us, meeting both the spiritual and the physical needs of a hungering world. His love cannot be held selfishly by us—or stored; it can only be shared.
Jesus fed people on two levels—first he provided soul food (Mark 6:34), then food to keep alive the body (Mark 6:35-44). In our times it is tempting for us Christians to miss this balance-to want to concentrate on either spiritual OR physical feeding. The truth is, each is incomplete by itself. It must be both/and, not either/or. For Jesus was utterly clear that God cares for both the body AND the spirit of every person. Our temptation is to encourage some unbiblical split that would have us trying to feed one part of the person only. For example, could the starving children in Bangladesh live what God means their lives to be if we put only bread and milk on their table (if indeed they have a table)? Or if we placed Bibles in their hands (if they can read) and ignored their malnutrition? No, our model is Jesus, who offers more than enough to meet every human hunger.
In the light of the world hunger crisis, what disciplines, what programs, what personal life-style changes should the Christian community consider? There are no simple or easy answers. We have been given much in the way of technology, mobility, and freedom to choose how we will use our wealth. The basic issue is to realize that all of these resources are at God’s command to be used in ways and for purposes pleasing to Him. If we are clear at this point, we will put our resources at God’s disposal. Thus we can become part of His solution to the world hunger crisis instead of remaining part of the problem.
by Steve | Mar 4, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: All That Glitters…
A firsthand account of one man’s experience visiting the notorious Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco.
by Robert Wood, Good News Contributing Editor
“The color of wet sand,” I mused as Glide UM Church rose before me. It was a mid-October Saturday morning, bright with sunlight and unwontedly warm for San Francisco at that time of year. I was approaching the building from the south, the “tenderloin” section of town that runs right up to the church. Beyond it lies the better hotel district.
Along the street faded signs offered rooms for rent beginning at $3 without bath. Porno shops were here and there; one extolled itself for having the largest selection of “appetizers” in the Bay area, while across the street and down a few doors another was going out of business.
As I passed the entrance to an alley, I noticed two drunks asleep in the shadows, their empty bottles around them. Pages of old newspapers scudded up the avenue ahead of the wind … thrift shop employees unlocked their doors … a woman in a rumpled bathrobe emerged from a cluttered doorway to check out the daylight. Somewhere in the distance I heard the wail of a police siren.
Infamous Glide! I expected to see the marks of degradation and consequent ruin everywhere. Ceiling paint will be flaking off, restrooms will be dirty and well-provided with colorful graffiti, I fancied. Without a doubt, I’ll run into some shocking perversion in a back corridor.
But it was not so. The outside appeared to be freshly stuccoed. Inside I found the restroom not only spotless but without a mark on the walls. This in spite of the fact that the facility is available to the passerby, and so helpfully advertised on the street for the non-English speaking by photographs of a bathroom stool and a lavatory.
“Nice,” I said to myself, regarding it.
Approaching a desk near the entrance, I inquired whether any activities were scheduled for the day. None. But I heard voices down the hall, and bent on unearthing some evidence of Sodom come to church, I headed in that direction. The man keeping the desk barked at me, “Come back here. You can’t go in there.”
Aha! So it was Sodom! I explained again that I had some time to kill and was hoping the church would have something planned. He told me gruffly that that meeting was not open to me but that I was welcome to return the next day, Sunday, when things were planned to run from 9:00 till 1:00.
With that I left. As I did, I stopped to read an announcement on the window: “Glide is a church of the people that works for social change by joining the community struggles day to day and in the streets.” Next to that was a poster inviting me to the Coyote Hookers [prostitutes] Masquerade Ball to be held across the street at the Hilton. Queen Ida and her Bonton Zydeco Band were to be featured.
Disappointed at not finding Glide resembling the mouth of hell, I returned to my car. But tomorrow! Ah! Surely the Sunday service would give me something to write home about.
Reasoning on Sunday morning that the more unusual I appeared the more anonymity I would enjoy in an assembly of oddities, I wore a poncho I’d purchased a year earlier in Ecuador. It was comfortable in the chilly building, and I snuggled into a corner of a pew near the back where I could see well.
That was a warm, cordial greeting the young black gave me as I came in, I thought (“Welcome to Glide. The celebration is just beginning”). I recognized an usher who had been part of pastor Cecil Williams’ roadshow at General Conference in Atlanta in ’72. In fact, it was he to whom I’d pointed out former Glide pastor, Dr. J. C. McPheeters, who sat across the church from me that spring afternoon in Atlanta. The usher had hurried off to get Cecil and introduced the two men.
The “celebration” began with the band or whatever, electric piano, electric guitar, etc., banging out a “prelude” while slides were flashed onto what had been the chancel wall. Most of the pictures were of human need or of Cecil Williams preaching. Here was a picture of Mao; there one of Angela Davis. Blacks behind fences and blacks with pol ice suggested oppression and brutality.
“Nothing is more important,” one slide read, “than freedom and independence.”
When Cecil came (not nearly so dramatically as I had thought his entrance might be, nor so bizarre his clothing) we sang “The Battle Hymn of The Republic” which Cecil topped off with a vigorous jitterbug. The Glide Ensemble, a troupe of about 17 men and women in their early and mid-twenties, I judged, sang, “Lord, take me back to when I first believed,” which I found at once well-sung, wondrously rhythmical, and extremely poignant in its rendering.
The ensemble followed that with something whose words escaped me (though I sat through both morning services), but whose frenzied tempo shook the building. Growing increasingly unhinged, the soloist seemed almost frenetic, and at the 11:00 celebration, any number of people were in the aisles in a spirited transport.
Cecil’s sermon surprised me. It was not so much what he said as it was that he said it at all. “I declare to you,” he began, “that this is no longer a church. It is a liberated zone, a liberated space, a liberated place.” That means, he explained, that he (and we) can do there what he has to do when he has to do it. Subsequently he developed his message on the words “feel,” “say,” and “be.” He concluded by asserting that here he is free to be nonreligious when he has to be, by which he meant to have done with piosities. I couldn’t have agreed more.
We are free, he declared, to be whatever we are or want to be. ” If you want to be gay, be gay,” etc. (At the 9:00, he had, in his opening greeting, told us that we were all welcome regardless of who we were, why we were there, or how we were dressed. Just then an usher tapped me on the shoulder and motioned me to the rear. Over the din of the band, I heard him saying something about security in a place like that and did I have anything hidden under my poncho. I invited him to search me, which he didn’t. Later, between services, he apologized.)
The thing about Cecil’s sermon that impressed me was, as I stated above, not what he said but that he said it at all. Why, after 12 years and after building a reputation as an iconoclast, should he pick a random Sunday morning to affirm what everyone already knew about him? I wondered whether he rang the changes on that theme every Sunday. To preach an introductory credo after a dozen years seemed incredible.
Well, what about it? What were my impressions of Glide UM Church and its pastor?
I could remark about the absence of all Christian symbolism. The room (dare I call it a sanctuary?) had been stripped of anything that would identify it as a Christian church. Gone were the cross, altar, pulpit, Bible, chancel rail, hymnals, organ, candles, etc. Nor was there prayer, though we were invited to use a time of silence as we chose (“there is a force among us stronger than the chains that bind us”). But we were not told what that force is.
I could remark about Cecil’s declaration that he had ceased any reference or appeal to the Bible because he couldn’t understand what all those “begats” mean anyway (the fellow behind me obligingly explained its meaning in the vernacular to his companion).
For me it was uncommon to see men wearing their hats during a worship service and to have another saunter down the aisle with a lighted cigarette in his hand midway through the sermon. And it was unusual, between services, to have offered for sale literature on a variety of what are often regarded by many as revolutionary causes. Cecil was available to autograph the current copy of the San Francisco magazine on whose cover he was featured as “San Francisco’s spiritual revolutionary.” Sociological and psychological studies on homosexuality, farm labor propaganda, and celebration T-shirts were among other items available.
I could remark about Cecil’s statement that people don’t need to be “saved,” they need to be liberated, and that he was going to liberate Ian Smith (applause and cheering). Or about his announcement that the next Sunday Senator Frank Church would be present to talk about the CIA (laughter) and, hopefully, Caesar Chavez would be there, too (thunderous stomping).
But I can’t really comment about any of that. There is no doubt that Cecil Williams and Glide UM Church are a long way from historical Christianity. Reports have circulated for years of his espousal of causes of doubtful propriety (didn’t the prostitutes of the country meet in that building?). He made it clear enough that he has abandoned the Bible as the authoritative standard, and he has, I should suppose, made it equally clear that he doesn’t give a hang about ecclesiastical authority.
But for the life of me I couldn’t find the experience, the service, the motivation and theological underpinnings behind it, one whit different from that of any liberal/humanist United Methodist preacher and congregation. Well, yes, there is a difference. Cecil is honest about it, and he does it with more flair. And he also has hearing him those who would never set foot in either a traditional liberal or a traditional evangelical church.
The tragedy of Glide UM Church, it seems to me, lies right there. While only 60 were in the 9:00 service, several hundred filled the pews at 11:00. Here was a pithy, full-toned cross-section of humanity. Multi-racial, multi-cultural; people highly educated, and I suspect, the nearly illiterate; the straight, the gay; the depressed and deprived, the privileged. They were all there. But what were they offered? About as much as in the traditional liberal church and in the evangelical church that has lost its fire. But the ordinary church is not so strategically located.
San Francisco is one of the key cities of the earth, with its port facilities bringing people from around the globe. The cosmopolitan character of its residents makes it one of the most zestful of places. Besides that, Glide UM Church, as I mentioned, stands on the very edge of the tenderloin. It ministers to both the smart set and the “other half,” an extraordinary opportunity for any church. Except that Cecil Williams declared, “This is no longer a church. It is a liberated zone. …” A liberated zone seems to have lost contact with the power to change lives. It merely affirms that we are free to be what we have to be when have to be it.
The Apostle Paul was pastor to a similar congregation in a similar city. To the Corinthians he wrote back to say that thieves, murderers, whores, and gays have no part in the kingdom of God. BUT, he added, “such were some of you.” The implication is that under his preaching people were not left merely free to be what they had to be when they had to be it; they were changed to be what they could be under God, what the best of humanness is meant t be. J. B. Phillips in his book Ring of Truth, calls Paul’s assertion of the contrast between what the Corinthians were presently, and what they had been “an astonishing piece of Christian evidence.”
The heart of Glide beats for humanity. They care about people. They accept each other. The fault lies, it seemed to only a seven-hour exposure, not so much in what is asserted and done, aberrant and sometimes bizarre as this may be, as in what is not asserted. To offer people merely friendship, moral support, financial aid, and whole-hearted acceptance, commendable and wonderful as these may be, is not really all that is to be said. However, a liberal church that offers no more, and an evangelical church that displays no evidence of concern or power are scarcely in a position to criticize.
That night and across the Bay I happened upon an evangelical church (not United Methodist) just as the service was commencing. They were all “properly” attired. All the customary things were done. When we sang, mournfully enough, “Make Me A Blessing,” I shuddered, especially through the first stanza, because the “weary and sad” from “the highways and byways of life” had been dramatically real to me that morning at Glide, while noticeably absent here.
We had a 30-minute discourse, soundly orthodox, on the attributes of God without a word about what difference they make to me in my situation. There were no youth, blacks, or Orientals, no Chicanos, no joy, no expectancy.
Are God’s thoughts regarding that congregation greatly different from what He must think of Glide? I wondered.
by Steve | Mar 3, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: the camp meeting …
Where Two Centuries Meet
by Eddie Robb, Associate Editor Good News
In our country there exists a movement unknown to most people. Though it is widespread and thriving, no attention is given to it by the news media. You see, camp meetings are simply a part of forgotten America.
Camp meeting? the very words conjure vivid thoughts from our past. Screaming evangelists … spirited singing … seekers wailing at the mourners’ bench—and all these under a crowded tent on a hot summer night in the South.
Few people, even church folks, realize camp meetings are not dead. In fact, several hundred camps are still held each year.
This past summer I traveled to six camp meetings in four states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Georgia} to feel the pulse of this movement that won’t go away. Some of what I found I had expected; much I hadn’t.
At one camp in the eastern hills of Ohio, a sheriff stood guard at the entrance gate 24 hours per day. It reminded me of days gone by when ruffians took delight in breaking up camp meetings.
As I drove through the gate of that 138-year-old camp, it struck me that Peter Cartwright could have just as easily been there for all I knew. Time seemed stopped.
In many ways camp meetings today are like they always have been. Only they are more subdued.
Early American frontier camp meetings were characterized by emotional exhilaration. It was common for men and women to be suddenly swept up in various “exercises.”
Jerks, a spasmodic twitching of the entire body, became a regular occurrence. Sometimes the movement would be so quick and violent that the kerchiefs on women’s heads would fly off.
There were other “evidences ” of the Holy Spirit’s presence, too—the “laughing exercise, ” when uncontrollable guffaws exploded in the congregation; the “singing exercise, ” in which the worshipers chanted melodiously; and the “barking exercise, ” when the smitten gathered on their knees at the foot of trees, barking and snapping in order to “tree the Devil.”
Though today’s camp meetings don’t reflect frontier emotionalism, some characteristics continue. Schedules, for example, remain much like they were 50 years ago.
Regimentation: one, two, three, four! Up at 6:30 for morning prayer. Preaching services three times each day. Lights out at 10:30. Bells, bells, bells. And you’d better know what they mean!
I remember one day after lunch walking through Stoutsville Camp with my wife. Suddenly I got the eerie feeling that everyone was staring at us. I then realized everyone was quiet, except us! People were stopped in their tracks, sometimes in funny positions. It was as though they were instantly frozen.
I didn’t know what was happening, so I shut up and froze, too. After a couple of minutes people began moving again—and talking.
Later I found out that each day at one o’clock there are three minutes of silence for prayer. Alas, another bell!
The life of every camp meeting centers around the tabernacle. Here people gather for preaching services three times per day, youth included. Lively singing is followed by exuberant preaching.
Most camps have three guest evangelists, plus a music team. The evangelists rotate services.
To my delight, I found the preaching in the 20-plus services I attended remarkably good. Perhaps psychology was not a part of old-fashioned camp meeting preaching, but it is today. Preachers were seriously attempting to redefine the classical camp meeting message of holiness in a contemporary context, without losing its reality.
All my life I have heard of “shouting Methodists,” but I’ve never seen any. In fact, at most United Methodist churches I’ve attended, the only shouting is done by kids in the nursery.
But this summer I saw some real shouting Methodists! They got happy! Right in the middle of a sermon, at one of those places where I so much wanted to say, “right on,” but didn’t, a man jumped up from his seat and began hollering. I thought he must have fallen asleep and had a nightmare. I was terribly embarrassed for him and his poor wife … and for the preacher!
To my astonishment the evangelist kept right on preaching as though nothing were happening. And the congregation continued listening as though nothing were happening.
Suddenly I realized, this was a shouting Methodist in real life! ” Hallelujah! ” (I exclaimed under my breath).
Camp meetings are strangely alike. Most are interdenominational, have strong holiness ties, and are John Wesley-conscious. In fact, many camp meetings are attended mostly by United Methodists.
Missions is a central emphasis in the camp meeting tradition. Usually camps devote an entire day to it and have guest missionary speakers.
God has apparently honored America’s camp meetings. Over the years, hundreds of young people have gone forth from camp meeting grounds to mission fields and pulpits all over the world.
One such person was Dr. E. A. Seamands who served as a Methodist missionary in India for 40 years. ”
It all began 65 years ago,” he recently told me. “I was a student in the Engineering College of the University of Cincinnati, and ran out of money. So I wrote my Uncle John for urgent aid. He wrote back saying that he would be at Camp Sychar in Mount Vernon, Ohio, for 10 days and invited me to come up and talk the matter over personally. ”
So Earl Seamands left for Camp Sychar thinking he would get to spend a few days at a recreation resort. To his horror and disgust he discovered that Camp Sychar was a holiness camp meeting!
“I wanted to turn around and head back to Cincinnati, but I needed financial help from my Uncle John, so I gritted my teeth and stayed.
” Little did realize,” Dr. Seamands continued, “that when I would walk out of that camp eight days later my life would be changed.”
Dr. Seamands, like so many youth through the years, received his call on “missionary day ” at a camp meeting.
OMS International and World Gospel Mission dominate the camp meetings’ missions emphasis today. Many camps even include these missionary organizations in their budgets. (Unfortunately, the UM Board of Global Ministries is no longer supported by camp meeting people because of the board’s non-evangelical direction.)
Camp meetings certainly are not in their heyday anymore, but they’re not ailing either. Some, in fact, are thriving. A key reason for their vitality is youth participation. That may surprise you, considering their stringent rules, rigorous schedule, and frequent lack of recreational facilities. But it’s true. And perhaps what’s most surprising is that the kids love it. They come in large numbers to many camp meetings.
A leader of Cherry Run Camp in Pennsylvania told me, “We don’t have much in the way of recreation facilities for the kids, but we do have results.” He meant conversions to Jesus Christ, spiritual growth, and calling of many into Christian service.
Some camps are better equipped for recreation than others. A family from Indian Springs in Georgia, for example, recently built a private lake just for the camp’s kids. Now they have swimming, sailing, skiing, and boating-along with other excellent facilities. However, none of the camps make “entertaining the kids ” a primary goal.
One facility all camps do have is a youth tabernacle. Here they conduct their own services, special activities, and vespers. Many camps even have evangelists for the youth.
Evangelism and new birth are not the primary emphases of camp meetings. After all, most people who attend are already Christians, so the camps traditionally focus on Christian growth … the deeper life … holiness … sanctification.
Perhaps that’s why the camp bookstore is always such an important place. Reading is emphasized, and so people stock up on good books for another year.
Camp meetings, I noted, have a strong emphasis on ethics. They are not, as you might suppose, mainly experience-centered. How you live is more important to them than what you feel. Maybe that explains the prevalence of camp meeting rules. (John Wesley himself stressed “General Rules ” for all the early Methodists. These still appear in our Discipline, pages 67-70.)
Above most pulpits hanging high on the tabernacle wall is a sign proclaiming “Holiness Unto the Lord.” Other camp meetings have banners instructing “Mind God.” Camps take people’s behavior seriously; thus, no drinking, no smoking, no obscene language, no visiting during services, etc. And many camps also define what type of dress is acceptable.
Legalism? Maybe. But camp meeting people simply call it “discipline.”
Contemporary camp meetings tend to be ingrown. They have become a kind of Christian sub-culture—knowing little beyond the holiness movement and known only faintly by the outside Christian world.
Camp meeting people don’t readily trust outsiders because of the prevailing humanism in so many churches. As a result, certain preachers are re-cycled year after year. At one camp I visited, the two guest evangelists had preached there a joint total of 20 times.
Over and over I found myself asking, “Why do all these people come in spite of regimentation … often rustic facilities … stringent rules … long preaching services?”
Then one night it dawned on me while I was listening to another sermon. The evangelist remarked: “Christians are a minority, yes. But show me a kingdom where the royal family is not a minority.”
That’s it! Of course camp meetings are a sub-culture … of course they’re a minority. Though the facilities aren’t plush like the Holiday Inn and though Christian expression in camp meetings is often outdated, lots of people come back year after year. Why? Because they are a part of the royal family … because they love the King.
by Steve | Mar 2, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: Our Master’s Mind
Reflections on the atoning death of Jesus Christ
by Rev. Dr. John N. Oswalt, Associate Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky
Elder, Kentucky Annual Conference, United Methodist Church
Today, at every turn, we meet the sign of the Cross. We see it on coat lapels, on slender, golden chains about girls’ necks, on church steeples, even on ball point pens. There is something clean about it, something geometrically satisfying, something lovely.
Yet, the Cross (as a cross) was the exact opposite of these. It was not clean but degrading … not satisfying but horrifying … not lovely but gruesome. It was an instrument of torture, devised to produce the slowest, most excruciating death the ancient world could inflict. Yet it was to such a death that the Lord of Glory went—consciously, purposefully. Why? What was it which impelled Him there—to that stake?
It was His mind. No, not His mental capacity … not His brainpower, but His outlook on life, His basic approach to living. It was His servanthood. Both Philippians, chapter 2, and Isaiah, chapter 52, proclaim this truth.
What was the nature of Christ’s servanthood? The famous servant passage, beginning with Isaiah 52:13, depicts several facets of Jesus’ attitude.
First, Jesus’ servanthood is rooted and grounded in triumph. The outcome was sealed from the beginning. Jesus knew who He was; He knew whence He had come. More than that, He knew where He was going. Any identity crises He may ever have had were resolved in His abiding faith in His Father and in the certainty of the triumphant conclusion of His mission. He had no need to exalt Himself, to fight for status. He knew who He was.
But immediately, one is brought face to face with the jolting results of servanthood: astonishment and rejection. From the heights of promised triumph one is dashed down by the memory that although the world longs for the balm of true servanthood, none of us likes the scarred, twisted face of it. (53:1,2) Who could believe that salvation would look like that? Where are the accouterments of divinity? Where at least is the charm of physical beauty?
What did we expect—a costumed drum major to lead our triumphal parade? No, but at least we expected a sign so that we could know He was on the winning side before we decided to join with Him!
How astonishing that He should grow up so quietly and naturally, like a plant—no fireworks, no glittering bodyguard, none of that satisfying royal pomp. No, His divinity was in His character, not His bearing. He loved people, common, ordinary people, and it was a divine love. He desired to serve people with their hurts and their sorrows, and it was a divine desire.
But most of all, through it all, He was a good man, maddeningly, unconventionally good. That’s why we reject Him—His absolute goodness condemns us! Nobody can be that good. Nobody ought to be that good! Away with Him!
Legalistic goodness—totaling up its points, toiling upward on the weary path—that we understand. That we like. But goodness for its own sake? Plain, unadulterated unselfishness? It’s embarrassing, it’s indecent. It is as if someone were walking around naked, unprotected! It’s contrary to human nature. That is why “we hid as it were our faces from Him.” (53:3)
The results of Jesus’ servanthood were astonishment and rejection. “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” (53:3) Whose? His own? No. “He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows … He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.” (53:5)
Whose twisted, scarred, broken face is that I see upon the Cross? It is the face of all the world. All the injustice, all the greed, all the hopelessness, all the insane hatreds look out at me from those eyes. My God, it is my face I see! That terrible, broken, despised face there on the Cross is mine.
And yet—and yet—we saw Him suffering and we did not think much of it. Perhaps He deserved it. Perhaps He brought it upon Himself. If only He had been a little less prodigal, a little more restrained, a little wiser, a little more conventionally pious, perhaps then He would not have died nailed to a cross between two thieves.
We cannot admit to ourselves that this should be our end, the end of our selfishness. We dare not admit that through the Cross He has taken upon Himself our own nature and has thus transformed it.
Yet, “All we like sheep. have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way.” (53:6) In us it is that quiet, stupid, thoughtless willfulness which leads us , like sheep, from one clump of grass to the next, following our noses, refusing to be led by Him. But He has taken our sheepliness upon Himself and in Him it is transformed. “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is dumb before her shearers, so he opened not his mouth.” (53:7) He has taken our nature and our fate, and taking them He has shown us all that we were meant to be.
What is the result of Christ’s servanthood? To be misunderstood … rejected … loaded with unbearable burdens … killed. Even the final irony, to be buried with the thoughtless, self-sufficient rich! Worst of all, He was cut off without children. (53:8) To those of the ancient world, no worse fate than a childless death could be imagined. For children provided the only certainty that one’s name would live on after one had died. Resurrection could be hoped for—but in children there was a certainty of living on. To die childless was to be as if one had never lived. (53:8)
But there are offspring from Jesus’ servanthood—a numberless host. “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou was slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priest to our God.’ ” (Revelation 5:9, 10a) “Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)
Because Jesus dared to trust His Father’s promise, all the world will fall down in honor of that Name above every name. Jesus—Savior. Immanuel—God with us.
How many times must Satan have whispered in Jesus ear, “This is crazy! You’re going to die and it’s going to be all over. You’ll be forgotten in six months.”
Suppose—impossible thought—Jesus had succumbed. Suppose He had not had the faith to see beyond the present. Had this happened, then His real posterity—you and I—would have been lost.
This brings us to the final aspect of Jesus’ servanthood—the nature of it. It sounds trite and simple, especially here, but His servanthood was redemptive. No place in the Old Testament is the process of Christian redemption more clearly stated than here in Isaiah 53. The hurts, the agonies, the iniquities of the world cannot be ignored, they cannot be whitewashed, they cannot be pushed under the rug. They must be faced. They must have the poison drained out of them.
The Cross stands out on the highest hill of time, a lightning rod attracting to itself all that we have made of ourselves. In this sense it pleased God to bruise Hirn. (53:10) He was glad to lay all of that upon His Son—Himself—in order to save us from the consequences of ourselves.
But He forces this gift on no one. A servant does not command, He offers. He offers, and offers, and offers. He offers Himself to us in order that we might, in turn, offer Hirn to God: His transformed nature in place of our deformed nature. It is so terribly embarrassing: that a person should give Himself to us without reserve or condition! It is frightening … it is unbelievable … but it is true!
This is the glory of redemption: it is not an “it ” or a “process,” but Him. (53:11b) Real life is knowledge of Him—that is, intimate acquaintance with Hirn. This is what it started out to be one morning several millennia ago. And unless the atonement results in fellowship, unless Jesus continues to serve us and we Hirn, then the purpose of the Cross is frustrated. This is not a cultic matter, the correct performance of certain religious acts. The Hebrew prophets 3,000 years ago, were trying to convey to their people that God wants us, not our church services or our devotions or our abstinences. If He has us, then these others may be of value, but not as substitutes.
How easily we fall into the trap of thinking that because we do certain things for God, He will do certain things for us. Or, if we don’t do certain things, God will not do certain things for us. Redemption is not a mechanical tit-for-tat affair. It is a relationship! This is why marriage is so commonly used in the Bible as a figure of speech describing the redemptive relationship. If my wife, Karen, were measuring me in terms of perfect performance as a husband, it would have all been over a long time ago. But she loves me and she knows that I love her. That makes all the difference!
What is the result of Jesus’ redemptive servanthood? Triumph! The Servant is the King. Had Jesus clung to that equality with God which was rightfully His, He certainly would have lost it. But because He rejected His “rights,” choosing instead the path of service, the Name above every name was given to Him. This, then, is the mind of Christ—revealed most of all by His death upon the Cross for undeserving sinners. What does this mean for us? What does it call for in us?
First, the mind of Christ in us calls for a continuing sense of triumph. In this darkening world, where increasing numbers of people are con vi need that there is nothing beyond the natural realm, it is only a sense of God’s eventual triumph which will allow us to deny the inner scream for self-protection and to take up the cross of service. This knowledge of God’s triumph makes it possible for us to lay ourselves down in the road and to become a bridge, as Jesus did on Calvary.
And indeed, the person who lays himself down will be walked on! Thus, the mind of Christ in us calls for the willingness to bear rejection, to be misunderstood, to be maligned. Let me add, however, that to be rejected is not proof positive that we have the mind of Christ. Some of us are rejected because we deserve to be! We are selfish, headstrong, tactless. Some of us are like porcupines—interesting to watch but not someone you want to get close to! Peter warns us to make sure that we are being persecuted for righteousness’ sake and not because we deserve it. No crowns are handed out for deserved persecution! (I Peter 2:20)
But suppose rejection is not deserved? What then?
One of the most basic human drives is to be accepted. People lie, steal, or kill to gain the acceptance of those whose opinion they value. One of the major causes of mental illness is a sense of rejection, of being unwanted. How can one face such a thing? How did Jesus?
One certainty was uppermost in His mind: God had accepted Him and it was God’s acceptance which mattered most. This can be our rock as well: God has accepted me! I am His, He is mine. Even when I fail Him, He knows the intent of my heart and He does not reject me. No, we are not Christ. We do sin. But even then, discipline does not mean rejection. Rather, God’s discipline demonstrates the completeness of our acceptance (Hebrews 12:5-7) “in the beloved.”
The mind of Christ in us calls for a sense of triumph and for a willingness to face rejection. It also calls for us to bear griefs and sorrows. Oh, this is hard! Judging is easier than bearing. Pronouncing is easier than grieving.
What did Jesus’ bearing mean? It meant sharing. It means taking upon myself another person’s sins and failures, becoming intimately involved. It means breaking down my self-built protections which wall out other people’s pain. It means to invite pain and upset.
This is hard. But it is the only safe path for you and me. Any other pathway ends in a whitewashed tomb. We need to live in horror of Pharisaism’s dead orthodoxy. In our worst nightmares we need to see ourselves lifting spotless hems lest they be defiled by the griefs and sorrows and sins of the world.
The mind of Christ, then, calls for redemptive servanthood. Not that we can redeem the world, but that we may be agents of Christ’s redemption.
How carefully we protect ourselves. We are so wise. Luke said, “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none.” (Luke 3:11) But when we see a skinny derelict clutching a ragged jacket around his shoulders against a bone-chilling winter wind and we have on a $70 topcoat, “how dwelleth the love of God in us?”
“He wouldn’t appreciate it. Why, he’d probably sell it for $5 to buy some whiskey.” Yes, those things are very probably true. But I’ve still got my coat, don’t I? How redemptive is our servanthood anyway?
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
