by Steve | Nov 24, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: Encountering the Goddess at Church
By Thomas C. Oden
Recently I went to the regular Thursday Holy Communion service at the theological school where I teach. A highly visible feminist leader led the service. She is an ordained United Methodist minister who has for some time had an uncommon fixation on the worship of the goddess Sophia, or Wisdom, poetically described as the agent of creation in a few biblical passages.
I come from a tradition that views Communion as a sacrament that unites the body of Christ. In all my 60 years of participation in the United Methodist Church, I have never seriously considered withdrawing from a Communion service because of a scrupulous conscience. This time I struggled with whether to attend at all. At one point I told myself I should not, because I might be tempted to do or say something rash. (The ugly fantasy of dumping over the Communion table flitted through my mind.) No, that would merely cause a stir and tend toward scandal and disunity. And this is my worshiping community, so I felt I had a right to receive the sacrament duly administered, even if occasionally by an unworthy minister. I decided I must go.
Bad poetry, worse theology
Our first hymn, entitled “Sophia,” sang the praise of the goddess Sophia, who “ordains what God will do.” “She’s the teacher we esteem, and the subject of life’s theme.” This was bad poetry, sung to the tune of Salve Regina, which Roman Catholics sing in honor of the mother of the incarnate Lord.
With this surrogate hymn I began to feel more queasy. I wondered if I was in a place where some Lord other than Jesus Christ was being worshiped.
Then came the homily, addressed solely to feminists and those who readily make concessions to radical feminists’ demands. In the name of inclusiveness, all other audiences were demeaned and excluded.
The sermon focused not on a Scripture text, but on an event in the woman’s experience as a feminist preacher. It was a “victory” story in which a pious United Methodist lay leader and other members were driven out of her church and forced to join another after they challenged her authority to offer the Lord’s Supper in the name of the goddess Sophia. She recounted triumphantly how she had preached on the virtues of doctrinal diversity and invited all members who did not agree with her to look for another church. She was apparently oblivious to the fact that in the name of inclusiveness she was practicing exclusion.
Scripture was imported occasionally into the service, but it was culled chiefly from the Apocrypha, Proverbs, and Psalms. She quoted the apocryphal Sirach, but only passages that seem to reify Wisdom into a deity distinguishable from the triune God. Then, incredibly, she likened the yoke of discipleship to sadistic and masochistic sex.
Could I in good conscience receive Holy Communion under these circumstances? I began to consider how I might inconspicuously withdraw from the service. And I confess that for a brief moment I did ponder a comic response: going calmly to receive Holy Communion while holding my nose. But that seemed out of sync with the very nature of the service of Communion. I prayed for wisdom to know what to do—not to her goddess but to God, who by grace illumines our hearts and minds. The preacher herself gave me the decisive clue. She offered the invitation to come to the Lord’s table, not in the Lord’s name, but in the name of the goddess who was speaking through Christ. We were invited to Christ’s table, but only in Sophia’s name.
That did it. I decided that she was inadvertently correct, that I could not delay in attesting the authority of Christ in the worship service. As we greeted one another before communion was served, I grasped the hands of two or three women nearby, then quietly left. I went down the steps from the chapel, giving hearty thanks to God for his kind counsel of wisdom in a profoundly knotty situation.
Author’s note: It is not my intention that this curious narrative be interpreted as a cantankerous challenge to my own seminary or its leadership or its liturgical planning processes. In my view liturgical life at Drew Theological School is on the whole healthier now than it has been for some time. What happened in this instance was not typical of Drew but extraordinary, and this is what made it memorable and worthy of reflection.
Thomas C. Oden is the Henry Anson Buttz professor of theology and ethics at the Theological School, Drew University. He is a contributing editor to Good News and author of numerous books, including After Modernity … What? Agenda For Theology (Zondervan), and his three-volume Systematic Theology (HarperCollins). Reprinted by permission of Christianity Today, August 16, 1993.
by Steve | Nov 22, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: The Splendor of Truth and the Case against Moral Relativism
by Richard John Neuhaus
Pope John Paul II has issued his 10th encyclical, Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth). The tabloids blazoned that the pope is clamping down on sexual ethics. And yes, it turns out that he hasn’t changed his mind on fornication and adultery, but that is rather to miss the point of this extended (179 pages) and closely reasoned argument about the nature of morality. Other reports focused on his criticism of ethical theories that go by cumbersome names such as “proportionalism” and “consequentialism.” That is closer to the point, but still doesn’t quite get it. Veritatis Splendor is much more than a pontifical salvo in intramural disputes among moral philosophers and theologians.
In this document the pope offers not so much an analysis of the world’s moral condition (which we all know is in a very bad way) as an examination of why we moderns no longer make moral sense to one another. Making sense assumes that there is some truth about the matter in dispute. But when it comes to morality, it is widely assumed today that there is no such thing as truth. Indeed, “moral truth” is thought to be an oxymoron. You have your values and I have mine, and there the discussion comes to a screeching halt. “What is truth?” asked Pontius Pilate. He, like many of our contemporaries, took that question to be a discussion-stopper. John Paul II argues that it ought to be a discussion-starter.
Modernity, he notes appreciatively, has been very big on freedom. But now freedom has been untethered from truth, and freedom cannot stand alone without degenerating into license. License, in turn, is the undoing of freedom, for then, as Nietzsche and others recognized, all personal and social life becomes simply the assertion of power. If freedom is to be secured, power—and freedom itself—must be accountable to truth. Or, as John Paul puts it repeatedly, “Authentic freedom is ordered to truth.”
Rocks of Relativism
This, the pope emphatically insists, is not a new idea. The central text for Veritatis Splendor is the word of Jesus, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). From the giving of the Decalogue at Sinai, from Aristotle through to the American founders (“We hold these truths to be self-evident …”), it has been thought that there is a necessary connection between freedom and truth. The apparently new thing about our time is the proposal that freedom can get along without truth. That proposal, John Paul argues, is intellectually unconvincing, spiritually incoherent, and morally disastrous.
Clear thinking about moral truth founders on the rocks of relativism and subjectivism. In a radically individualistic culture, we do not discern and obey what is objectively true. Rather, each of us decides what is “true for me.” We create the truth. This, however, is really not so new, according to the pope. It is a way of thinking and acting that began with the unfortunate afternoon in the Garden of Eden and has resulted in herds of independent minds marching toward moral oblivion with Frank Sinatra’s witless boast on their lips, “I did it my way.”
The “post-modernist” twist on this is to argue that all morality is created by culture. We are socially constructed, it is said, “all the way down.” Freedom may be high among your values, but that is only because you are the product of a culture that values freedom. Ergo, your freedom is a delusion. In fact, you are as captive to your culture as somebody else who is the product of a culture that values collectivism, or child sacrifice, or whatever. John Paul knows these arguments inside out, but he is not buying.
The human person, he contends, truly is free. He is created for freedom and, although hindered by the wound of sin, he is capable of freedom. That is the truth about the human person without which all talk about morality makes no sense. John Paul readily acknowledges the insights of psychology, anthropology, and the behavioral sciences into the ways we are conditioned by culture, genes, and factors yet unknown. But deep within each “acting person” (a key phrase in the thought of this pope) is an aspiration toward the good that he either follows or defies.
Veritatis Splendor opens with an extended and intriguing reflection on the rich young man who comes to Jesus and asks, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16). That, says the pope, is the question of every man, no matter how tentatively or confusedly it is asked. And the answer of Jesus is the answer to every man, “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” Life is to know the truth and do the truth. In the Christian account of things, life is ultimately fulfilled in following the One who said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
But, it may be objected, this is impossibly ethereal and off-puttingly religious. Anyway, there is no going back to “simpler days” when it was possible to assert that “We hold these truths” as though there are actually truths to hold, and to be held by. We live in a pluralistic society; there is not agreement on what truths we hold; and so forth. Just so, says John Paul, and that is precisely why we need so urgently to engage in argument about the truth that undergirds human freedom and dignity. Our differences notwithstanding, we can make sense to one another because we have in common our human nature and the capacity to reason, and these are universal.
The pope is keenly aware that in contending for universal nature and reason he is going up against regnant views in many of our elite institutions—views that have metastasized with remarkable virulence in popular culture. As freedom has turned against itself, so also reason has turned against itself, with the result that confidence in what is distinctively human has been severely undermined.
The idea that, at the end of the second millennium, the Catholic Church has turned out to be the premier institutional champion of humanism and reason in the contemporary world will strike many as improbable, if not preposterous. They should read Veritatis Splendor and other writings of this philosopher pope. Or, for that matter, they might consult again, or consult for the first time, Augustine and Aquinas.
John Paul is for sure no friend of secular humanism, nor is his defense of reason to be confused with the truncated and reductionist rationalism of the Enlightenment philosophies. True humanism, he contends, is directed toward the transcendent, toward the ultimate good, who is God. And reason participates in the fullness of truth through revelation. But to those who are made nervous by references to God and revelation, the pope is saying in this encyclical that we still have a lot to talk about. And we had better get on with it before humanity staggers more deeply into the night of moral nothingness.
Some might think John Paul’s sense of urgency slightly apocalyptic. Others, more alert to the intellectual and cultural drift of our time, will welcome his argument as a bracing call to reaffirm reason and human dignity in the face of nihilism both theoretical and practical.
Human rights and duties, says the pope, are “universal and immutable.” That is the position the United States has taken against countries claiming that the idea of universal human rights reflects the “cultural imperialism” of the West. In fact, such countries may have a case. The human rights agenda is no more than an ideological imposition by the West, if the cause of freedom is divorced from the claims of truth.
The contention that there is no objective or universal truth has achieved a measure of official status among us by fiat of the Supreme Court. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, for example, the court declared that it is up to each individual to determine “the concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” John Paul, by contrast, warns against “the risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism.” When truth itself is democratized—when truth is no more than the will of each individual or a majority of individuals—democracy, deprived of the claim to truth, stands naked before its enemies. Thus does freedom, when it is not “ordered to truth,” undo freedom.
Moral truth, evident in a natural law that is accessible to all reasonable persons, includes commands both positive and negative. But it is not for nothing are the “10 words” delivered at Sinai framed in the negative. We cannot always do the good that we would, but we can always refuse to do evil.
Evil Acts
Some acts are intrinsically evil, evil per se—always and everywhere, without exception. As examples, the pope cited homicide, genocide, abortion, slavery, prostitution, and trafficking in women and children. He quotes Pope Paul VI: “Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it.” Evil must never be called good, nor good evil.
Here, John Paul II takes on those moralists, including Catholic theologians who say that an evil act may be justified by the end to which it is directed (consequentialism) or by weighing the other goods at stake, (proportionalism). It is never licit to do evil in order to achieve good. To those of a contrary view the question might be put: When is rape morally justified? Or the torture of children? Or an Auschwitz? John Paul’s answer is, “never.” Intentions may be noble, people may claim that they are acting in good conscience, circumstances may mitigate personal responsibility, but the act remains, always and everywhere, evil.
The moral person is prepared to die rather than do evil. The words of the Latin poet Juvenal, says John Paul, apply to everyone: “Consider it the greatest of crimes to prefer survival to honor and, out of love of physical life, to lose the very reason for living.”
The encyclical includes an extended meditation on the meaning of martyrdom, drawing examples from the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament, and the chronicle of courageous resistance to tyranny. Martyr means witness. We are called to bear witness to the truth that makes, and keeps, us free. And that, according to Veritatis Splendor, is the splendor of living in the truth.
Richard John Neuhaus is the editor in chief of First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (156 Fifth Avenue, Suite 400, New York, NY 10010). Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal© 1993: Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
by Steve | Nov 21, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: The Problem of Grunt and Groan Spirituality
By Robert G. Tuttle Jr.
Just before I walked into the pulpit of a large midwestern church, I was introduced to a distinguished looking gentleman who was described as the most spiritual man in the church. Quite frankly, he looked pretty spiritual to me.
As I gave the invitation at the end of my sermon, the first ones to the communion rail requesting prayer were the “most spiritual man in the church” and his wife. Immediately the wife leaned across the rail and whispered, “You’ve got to pray for me; I’m carrying a horrible secret.” I prayed for her as best I knew how. As she returned to her pew, her husband, the most spiritual man in the church, remained behind. He leaned across the rail and whispered: “You’ve got to pray for me; I’m her secret. I’m an alcoholic and you’ve got to pray that I get will power.” In a heartbeat I said to him, “Dear brother, you don’t need will power, you need the Holy Spirit!” I then explained to him some principles of basic spirituality that are so easily forgotten. Here is essentially what I said.
The Law of Sin and Death
Romans 8:1-2 insists that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” Quite simply, the law of sin and death is the law without the Spirit, without the power or inclination to obey it. Read straight through the Bible and you’ll see that one sin keeps occurring and reoccurring throughout—self-reliance. Will power has to do with self-reliance. We need to get beyond the law that is self-defeating. Law, in and of itself, brings condemnation. When we sin, repent, and sin again under law we are incapable of believing in the kind of good God who would hear such feeble repentance. Our sin is simply compounded. Just try to stop sinning by trying to stop sinning. Left to your own resources, you will be consumed by your sin. Any idea how big a bottle is for an alcoholic? Just try to take your eyes off temptation by trying to take your eyes off temptation. Again, without help from the Holy Spirit, we tend to wallow, we flop around in our own muck.
How many times have I met well-meaning Christians whose spirituality is seemingly two or three steps forward and then two or three steps back. I’ve known Christians whose spirituality has been grunt and groan for 30 years—what Walter Walker calls the “ditch to ditch” theology. There is a better way.
The Law of the Spirit of Life
The law of the Spirit of life is the same law as the law of sin and death. Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). The law of the Spirit of life is the law now empowered by the Spirit so that we have both the power and the inclination to obey it. It is no longer a burden, but a reminder of the consequences of sin. It is the needle that pulls the thread of the Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life is grace—now there’s a word. Under grace, when we sin, repent, and sin again we are still capable of believing in the kind of a good God who would hear even our feeble repentance. Every time we repent and are willing for God to take from us that which causes separation, and then renew our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, it is a fresh start, a new beginning. Note! I did not say every time we are willing to give our sin to God. If we could give our sin to God we would not need God. Will power would suffice. Grace says that God must take it from us and empower us, so that the next time we are tempted our first inclination would be to resist it. Grace says that genuine repentance and faith leads to a disposition of the mind and heart that makes it easier to obey God than to disobey. Most of us do not want to sin. We sin out of habit. It happens to be the right time of the week or the month. But, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. We become new. In Christ Jesus we become righteousness-prone. There is a theology for this. Let’s look at it briefly.
High Pressure, Low Pressure
Sometimes theology can best be taught by analogy. The parables of Jesus set a precedent for that. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for wind is ruach, translated in the Greek by the word pneuma, or spirit. Spirit translates as wind. That is no accidental metaphor. Most know that wind moves from high pressure to low pressure—the point of least resistance. The same thing is true for spirit. Spirit moves from high pressure to low pressure—the point of least resistance.
Ephesians 2:8 states that “by grace you have been saved through faith.” Grace is the work of the Holy Spirit wooing us from the time of conception, preventing us from moving so far from the Way that when we finally understand the claims of the gospel upon our lives the Spirit guarantees our freedom to say yes. Faith is what I call the “I give up.” I give up on my own righteousness and place my faith and trust in the righteousness of Jesus Christ—low pressure. One does not have to convince wind to move from high pressure to low pressure, that is what wind does. Neither does one have to convince the Holy Spirit to move from high pressure to low pressure, that is what the Spirit does. Again, spirituality is not grunt and groan; it is repent and believe. Repentance and faith create low pressure so that the Spirit of God moves to the very ground of our being, granting us both the power and the inclination to obey. Once God has taken from us the condemnation (our propensity to sin), once God has refreshed and renewed, the law of the Spirit of life sustains us so that we can anticipate victory over those things that would attempt to swallow us.
Put It to the Test
As my friend, the most spiritual man in the church, listened to all of this I could see some hope beginning to dawn. I challenged him to put it to the test. I asked him, “As far as you know your own heart, are you willing to renew your faith and trust in Jesus Christ (low pressure) and act upon the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to give you both the power and the inclination to obey God, so that the next time you are tempted to take a drink your first inclination will be to resist it”? He responded immediately, “With all my heart!” I then prayed, “God, move to this low pressure. Baptize my friend with your Holy Spirit. Take his eyes off the problem that is consuming him and place them firmly on Jesus. By your grace set him free from the law of sin and death. Give him a new heart filled with a new hope that anticipates a new beginning.” Through glistening eyes, I saw the man begin to change, as I sensed the Spirit of God doing a new thing. I am convinced that he was baptized by the Holy Spirit.
My friend then returned to his pew. His wife later told me that she hardly recognized him. There was a brief period when temptation led to setback, but he did not despair. He did not have to go back to the cross and start over; he was still able to believe in a good God and simply renew his repentance and faith until, by the Spirit, he was a conqueror. The last real battle was several years ago. He’s been sober ever since.
Robert G. Tuttle Jr. is the E. Stanley Jones professor of Evangelism at Garret-Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. He is a contributing editor to Good News magazine and, most recently, the author of Sanctity Without Starch: A Layperson’s Guide to a Wesleyan Theology of Grace (Bristol).
by Steve | Nov 16, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: Here Comes Jesus
Mission & Evangelism in South India
By Carroll Ferguson Hunt
It is Sunday morning in Madras. Sixteen ceiling fans stir the heavy coastal air as people choose their places on the wooden benches that fill the sanctuary of the Tamil Methodist Church. Gothic shaped windows framed by blue-gray painted woodwork let in light and humid air while two musicians—an organist and a violinist—lead hymns as worship gets under way. Pastor Samuel Royappa, whose vibrant pink shirt and clerical collar compliment the atmosphere of his church, as well as the climate of his city, calls some 50 children and young people to the altar rail where prayers are offered on their behalf. During the coming week each person kneeling there will face school exams, and their pastor wants them to know that God cares about such common things.
Beyond the front door, framed in a rectangle of color and sunshine, India passes by as the service progresses. There are rickshaws, lorries, women dressed in bright saris, bicycles, head loads, heart loads. Meanwhile, a spotted dog with thin legs and comical ears set at right angles to his head, meanders down the center aisle and across to the side door. A pair of birds swoop in and perch on steel rafters beside the swirling fans.
Peaceful, placid, predictable. Just another Sunday morning in a warm corner of God’s beloved world. Or so it seems.
But there is much, much more to the life and outreach of Madras’ Tamil Methodist Church. Since 1981, Pastor Samuel’s church has given itself to mission and evangelism. What does that mean? How do Christians involve themselves in missions in a land physically racked by poverty, and spiritually oppressed by three million Hindu gods?
Messiah Dhas
Dhas, an ordained minister sponsored by the Tamil church, is responsible for 21 villages in India’s South Arcot district. He grapples with caste problems among his people, with their alcoholism, and their lack of education. The caste system in India prevents hereditarily distinct Hindu social classes from dealing with one another.
In 1989, a Methodist church was established in Kallakurchi, the main town in his area, and now there are 500 Christians among the 25,000-person populace. Only low caste people attend worship (held in a house), however, because high caste people will not come to the neighborhood in which they gather.
Dhas shepherds eight centers of worship, where he teaches baptism preparation classes among his Hindu converts. Persecution against Christians is on the rise in the area, mainly from militant Hindu political groups. High caste people dislike Dhas because of his aid to the lower caste people whom they have traditionally controlled like serfs.
But through his loving, caring ministry, Dhas represents the Master in the eyes of the villagers. When they see him walking along their dusty paths, the people say to one another, “Jesus is coming.”
Selvaraj
Himself a Hindu convert, Selvaraj has been a Tamil Methodist Church missionary since 1989. One of the two churches he pastors is the only Christian lighthouse among 25 villages. “The people are poor,” he explains. “The women, for example, earn about six rupees per day” (mere pennies in U.S. currency).
Selvaraj’s shepherding in his region includes praying for the sick, sparking youth meetings and children’s open air rallies, and distributing gospel tracts. His 41 church members are farmers who attend nights of prayer on Fridays and Mondays. “Thirty to forty people attend,” he says, “including even children.”
The work of evangelism is going quite well for Selvaraj. His congregation owns the land on which their church stands. The sanctuary itself is a mat shed, woven straw mats laid over a superstructure of poles. They dream of building a proper church some day soon, a bigger space than the present group needs so they will have room to grow. About ten young people attend confirmation class, and the congregation backs Selvaraj’s ministry in three other outreach centers.
John Joshua
The Tamil Church’s third missionary representative graduated from Madras Bible Seminary, and is an experienced evangelist. He and his two co-workers specialize in training young Christians for evangelism ministry, aware that they are future leaders under formation.
Joshua is also aware of his leadership role in dealing with untutored villagers. “People come to us for deliverance from evil,” he says. To make clear the difference between Christianity and India’s traditional religions he says, “I tell them ‘no mantras, no sutras, only prayer and fasting.’”
This missionary pastor knows that prayer is of crucial importance in the spiritual maturation of those in his care, as is knowledge of God’s Word. In Sunday school his people take yearly exams, and he gives prizes to those who excel. Each Thursday he offers Bible studies; and early in the morning on the first day of each month, Pastor Joshua gives his people a promise verse for the month—some biblical truth to memorize and incorporate into their daily lives.
Joshua is equally creative in his evangelism efforts, utilizing magic shows and dramatic skits, along with more prosaic methods of tract distribution and open air meetings. His methods work. In recent months, Christian workers in Joshua’s district baptized 53 people from 10 villages.
This glimpse of work and workers sponsored by the Tamil Methodist Church contradicts our Western assumption that mission work in the rest of the world is carried out exclusively by those we send to the “unchristianized.” It also alerts us to the fact that in south India, some Methodists are committed to telling their world about Jesus.
“Personal, holy living and evangelism are two sides of our Methodist coin,” says Pastor Samuel Royappa. “People come to our church because it is reaching out. They say, ‘Let us go to the Methodist church and let us give.’” By “giving,” they mean not only finances, but time, energy, and witnessing skills as well.
Royappa claims that there are no caste problems in south India among Methodists in established fellowships—a remarkable feat, since for centuries the Hindu caste system has divided and oppressed Indians to a degree impossible for a non-Indian to comprehend. But at the Tamil Methodist Church in Madras, people of all castes attend services together. Some members are poor and uneducated, but they participate—even in giving toward the church’s mission outreach. They are partners along with the wealthy contractor who, from his affluence, gave land on which to build a daughter church.
“Pray for us,” Pastor Samuel asked; and then he sketched out the petitions that he holds before the Almighty.
- The Tamil Methodist Church supports nine other churches, three of which expect to become self-supporting next year.
- Six missionary pastors also draw financial sustenance from the TMC in order to evangelize and shepherd in twenty-four target rural areas.
- A new industrial/residential colony in Coimbatore is requesting Methodist evangelists to come and evangelize, with an eye toward planting churches.
- Christian education is needed for poverty-ridden children; also, land upon which fledgling groups of believers can build their sanctuaries, and more leaders to show them The Way.
Along with his other responsibilities as city church pastor and district superintendent, Pastor Samuel is training 19 people to be lay preachers. It is no wonder this remarkable Madras congregation is successful in spreading Christ’s redemptive love into the pockets of misery that afflict India—they put feet and hands to their faith.
Slum Reclamation
Madras, like most of the world’s great cities, is afflicted with dreadful slums where people struggle to survive on marginal incomes in extremely poor housing. Filth and disease abound. Most parents cannot afford to send their children to school; so the boys and girls idle their lives away in the squalid alleys and open sewers of their neighborhood.
The lay Christians of the Tamil Methodist Church, in seeking to light lamps of knowledge and faith in the restricted, untended lives of these children, sought ways to help. So, every weekend you can find several men and women on a rented Samuel and Shanti with Dhas, Selvaraj, and Joshua rooftop teaching songs and Scriptures to a noisy, wriggling batch of kids who have nothing else to do.
It is a wonder second to none, when the volunteer teachers put their pupils through their paces. A teenage girl with smooth black braids welcomes those who come to visit, while the children present them with flower garlands—a gracious Indian custom. Then, tiny boys and girls quote in unison memorized verses from the Psalms; and shout out at the top of their lungs the words of gospel choruses, embellishing them with all of the motions.
Older children pause long enough in their whispering and pushing for a better view, to repeat whole Psalms (after all, they’re older and are not allowed to settle for just a few verses); and then sing their songs, longer and louder (if that’s possible) than the little ones.
Washed, combed, and intensely focused, these precious, underprivileged children gallop through the paces set by their volunteer teachers, illuminating the biblical truths they are learning—truths that the people of TMC pray will come to govern and inspire their lives always.
Samuel Royappa and the Christians he shepherds, ignoring slum dirt, rural privation, and limited funds, are doing their best before God to tell their neighbors and their nation about Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life; for they know that no one comes to the Father without a relationship with his Son.
Carroll Ferguson Hunt is a freelance writer and author of Absolutely! and From the Claws of the Dragon. She and her husband were missionaries with OMS international in South Korea for 20 years.
by Steve | Nov 15, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: The Joy of Serving Others
By Boyce A. Bowdon
About 2:30 in the morning on December 14, 1989, a car driven by Dale Bowser veered off the road, knocked down a gas meter, hit a tree, crashed into a cement culvert, and finally came to rest in a ditch.
Fortunately, Dale lived to tell what happened.
“My belly was full of booze,” he told the 1993 session of the Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church. “I had passed out at the wheel again. When I came to, I heard gas spewing from the severed pipes. My car couldn’t move, and neither could I. I saw lights pop on at houses in the neighborhood. Pretty soon the police came and took me to jail.”
He paused to regain his composure. “When I started sobering up, I felt lonely, scared, lost. Somehow, though, I knew this night was going to be different from all the rest. And it was. A few hours later, in a chemical dependency unit for alcoholics, I got down on my knees and asked Jesus to save me. And he has saved me.
“I thank God every day for the love and prayers of my family. They were the earthly intercessors for my salvation. I thank God for Amy, my wife. She loved me and never left me or gave up on our marriage.”
Dale is aware that God has used many people to help him. He is especially grateful to the owner of the auto repair shop in Tulsa where he was working at the time of his near fatal accident.
“My boss really wanted to see me get my life straightened out,” Dale said. “He suggested that I go to First United Methodist Church and hear the pastor, Jim Buskirk, preach. Jim was one of our customers. He was always friendly and cheerful when he came to our shop.”
The next Sunday, Dale went to the church. He recalls leaving the worship service filled with hope. He and his family began attending regularly.
“Members of the congregation opened their arms to me,” he said. “Because of their warmth and support, I became more aware that God loves me and is at work in my life. Before long, I was on my way to recovery.”
During the worship service one Sunday in the fall of 1990, Dale listened to Jessica Moffatt, minister of community ministries, tell about ministries that lay people of the church provide for individuals and families who desperately need help.
“Jessica encouraged us to think of how God could use our skills and strengths in his service. There was a sheet of paper in the pews listing our various ministries, and there was a place to sign up for any ministry we wanted to serve in,” recalls Dale.
“I felt so compelled. What better way was there for me to express my gratitude for what God was doing in my life than by helping others? When I looked down the list, the used-car ministry caught my eye. I had no idea what it was, but since I was in the automotive industry, I thought I might have something to offer. I knew I wanted to give, so I signed up.”
Dale did have something to offer the used car ministry. He quickly became a key member of the team, and now directs it.
“We take cars our members have donated, fix them up the best we can with the money and talent we have available, and give them to people who have a serious transportation problem,” he explains.
The ministry donated 30 cars last year. Applicants are carefully screened to confirm their need for an automobile and their ability to pay for insurance, license, and the title transfer.
“We try to make sure a car is mechanically sound so it’s not likely to be a burden. After all, we want to help a family get out of the transportation bondage they are in, not get them into deeper trouble. And we have helped a lot of folks. Some have been out of work because they couldn’t get a job or keep a job without a car. Having a dependable vehicle has helped them get into a position to earn a decent income.”
Dale and his crew also do minor auto repairs for persons in financial crisis. “We don’t want to end up being a free repair shop for the city of Tulsa, but when we can, we want to help people who are in a bind.”
He now dreams of helping the church establish a bicycle ministry. “We will ask members to donate bikes they no longer use. Then we will repair them and give them to needy children. Besides making some kids happy, our team will get a lot of satisfaction out of it.”
What satisfaction will they receive?
“Being kind to others is the best way I know of to praise God for the kindness and mercy he has shown me,” Dale replies.
Dale is one of more than 800 members of First United Methodist Church in Tulsa who serve in community ministries. Males and females—teenagers to senior adults—participate. Regardless of skills and interests, there’s a task for anyone who feels led to serve.
Here are some of the more than two dozen ministries the church provides:
- Card Ministry: Creates and distributes about one hundred personalized cards each week to persons who have special joys or concerns.
- Transportation Ministry: Takes persons to and from church, medical clinics, or shopping centers.
- Aviation Ministry: Transports by private planes those who have emergencies such as out-of-state surgeries or funerals.
- Moving Ministry: Helps persons who can neither move themselves nor hire a mover.
- Prison Ministry: Visits those in jails and prisons.
- Unemployment Ministry: Works with job hunters—matches skills with openings, prepares resumes, helps set up appointments, gives tips on how to make good impressions during job interviews.
Attorneys, accountants, doctors, dentists, teachers, and other professionals also volunteer regularly, offering consultation and care without charge to persons in crisis.
To avoid duplicating services, the church works closely with other providers of care in the community. For example, after it was suggested that the church open a home for unwed mothers, a team explored the need and found that Tulsa had enough homes for unwed mothers. However, several homes reported that they needed maternity clothes for clients. So the church ministry team focused on helping provide clothing.
“We asked every woman who had ever had a baby to look in her closet and pull out all her maternity clothes and give them to the church,” Jessica says. “There was a great response, and we set up a wonderful closet. When the homes refer an unwed mother to us, we give her several nice outfits; and then spend time with her, talking about babies, developing relationships, quietly sharing God’s love.”
First UM Church in Tulsa became intentional about developing community ministries in the mid-1980s, under the leadership of Jim Buskirk, the senior pastor. In 1985, Jessica Moffatt joined the staff as the first director of community ministries.
The Community Ministries program at First UMC in Tulsa is based on a model developed at Candler School of Theology. It was done as a three-day-weekend program in local churches from 1968 through 1984. During the first half of that period, it was a field component of the Department of Evangelism under Dr. Buskirk, who was then professor of evangelism at Candler.
When Buskirk was appointed to the Tulsa church, he continued to do missions in local churches. Jessica Moffatt, along with other associates on his staff, accompanied him as Candler students had earlier to other local churches. “Principles that were developed at many sites have been employed at our church under Jessica Moffatt’s effective direction,” says Buskirk.
Jessica explains that Motivation for Ministry has three basic thrusts: Christian commitment, enrichment of Christian fellowship, and the ministries of lay persons within and beyond the walls of the church. Lay persons are imaged as ministers; clergy, teachers, and leaders are imaged as enablers and equippers of lay persons for their ministries.
During a weekend in the fall of 1985, the church launched its first community ministries event with small group meetings and colorful worship services. Members were asked, “What needs do you see in the city of Tulsa to which you wish members of our church were ministering? ” They were invited to write answers on cards that were placed in the pews.
“We received nearly 1,600 suggestions for ministries,” recalls Jessica. “When we sorted them, they fell into 49 ministry categories. During our worship service on the last night of our event, we distributed a list of the ministries with room numbers beside each ministry. At the close of the service, we invited members to go to the room of the ministry that interested them most. That night we began 39 ministries!”
Every six months, participants have an opportunity to change ministries, create new ministries, or take a break from this form of ministry altogether. However, they don’t have to wait until six months is up. They can stop any time. And there’s no limit to the length of time they can serve in the same ministry. They can continue for years if that’s what they want to do.
“What you want to do is what matters,” Jessica reminds those who are thinking about serving in community ministries. “Volunteer for a ministry because you want to do it. And quit when you no longer want to do it. ”
To keep everyone informed about needs and opportunities, a Community Ministries Network meets monthly. Representatives from ministry groups and adult Sunday school classes attend. The network also helps organize two community ministries events each year. At these events, community needs are reviewed and brainstorming gets underway.
“Actually, we never stop brainstorming,” says Jessica. “All year long, all of us look for needs; and ways to develop ministries that will address them.”
Jessica and others on the church staff make sincere efforts to avoid manipulating members into ministering; and they also try to protect the dignity of all who receive help. Their objective is to help people break free from dependency as quickly as possible.
What does it take for a church to establish community ministries? First UM Church in Tulsa has approximately 7,200 members, 7 appointed ministers, and an extensive support team; but Jessica says you don’t have to have a huge membership and a big staff to begin ministering to the community. You must, however, have two components:
- A group of lay people sensitive to the needs of individuals and families, eager to do what Jesus taught his followers to do–wash feet, feed the hungry, and nurse the wounded.
- A supportive pastor who is enthusiastic and able to motivate and equip lay people to do what they believe God is calling them to do.
Jessica sees convincing evidence that community ministries benefit those who receive services. And she’s convinced that lay people who minister also benefit. “Serving helps them keep spiritually fit and growing as Christians,” she says. Dale Bowser and hundreds of other volunteers at First UM Church in Tulsa agree. They also know that serving is the best way to thank God.
Boyce A. Bowdon is the director of communication for the Oklahoma Conference of the UM Church. He is also the author of Selling Your Church in the ’90s: A Public Relations Guide for Clergy and Laity (Koinonia).
by Steve | Nov 14, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: Matching Our Walk with Our Talk
By Kenneth Cain Kinghorn
Kenneth Cain Kinghorn recently received a letter from a bishop of the United Methodist Church in which the bishop lamented the inconsistent lives of professing Christians. He invited Dr. Kinghorn—vice president-at-large of Asbury Theological Seminary—to respond to the theory that theological beliefs do not make much difference in peoples ethics and conduct. What follows is Dr. Kinghorn’s response to the bishop.
Your letter raises the important question of the relationship between one’s theology and one’s behavior. Ideally, of course, orthodoxy and holiness go hand in hand. But as you pointed out, the links between theology and ethics are not always consistent. You wrote that you had “about concluded that all our theological posturing about who is and who is not correct seems to have very little impact on personal holiness.” I certainly understand your disappointment.
I agree that some who make high claims of holiness do not always show honesty and integrity in their lives. In fairness, however, we must say that the theological left also produces its share of ethical disappointments. The lack of common courtesy surfaces all across the theological spectrum. (I am reminded of John Dryden’s evaluation of Jeremy Collier: “I will not say ‘The zeal of God’s house has eaten him up’; but I am sure it has devoured some part of his good manners and civility.”) We are saddened when moral and ethical inconsistencies appear in the church.
Theological imbalance may be part of the problem. Some sincere people contend that the best theology consists of the most narrow or the most broad position. In my thinking, the narrowest or the broadest theological position is seldom biblical. For instance, the narrowest theological stance that one could take regarding sanctification is to insist that God extracts original sin, as a dentist removes a rotten tooth, and the sanctified never sin. I knew one who held this view, and he objected to praying the Prayer of Confession in the liturgy for the Lord’s Supper. He said in my hearing, “I haven’t sinned in 17 years!”
The broadest interpretation of God’s grace, on the other hand, leads to universalism. I know those who interpret God’s love so expansively that they deny that Jesus Christ provides our only means of salvation. Consider a different example: The strongest position that one can take on God’s sovereignty would lead to a denial of free will and a belief in double predestination, either to salvation or damnation. Let me reiterate: the most extreme view on any theological issue is seldom correct, whether conservative or liberal, the most narrow or most broad. Theological extremes usually distort the truth.
I was interested in your comment, “I was never able to make much connection between personal holiness and where a person happened to be on the theological continuum.” In my view, we sometimes measure sanctity by the wrong canons. I am sure that you would agree that good manners, intellectual achievement, and tolerance—while admirable qualities—do not spell Christian holiness. Some of the most tolerant church leaders that I know hold views repeatedly rejected by the ancient creeds and councils of Christendom. Recently I heard one of your colleagues say that it is “not loving” for Christians to pronounce Buddhism wrong or to seek the conversion of a Muslim to Christianity. I regard the notion of unlimited tolerance as not loving—if Jesus was who he claimed to be and if Scripture is trustworthy in what it teaches. We cannot confuse tolerance with holiness.
C.S. Lewis contended, in his Reflections on the Psalms, that tolerance often stems from a lack of profound convictions about religion. Some within our church have a greater interest in what seems “lovingly inclusive” than in what Scripture clearly teaches. As I see it, a homosexual, whose disclosed behavior creates scandal, harms the Christian cause less than a seminary professor or prominent church leader who lobbies for United Methodism to accept homosexual behavior as a valid expression of sexual love.
Some in the church confuse holiness with good manners and intellectual acumen. Many 19th-century American church members praised the lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and some clergy invited him into their pulpits, although most confessed that they could not understand much of what he said. With winsomeness and compelling intellect, he spread his mystical idealism throughout the churches. Of course, he uttered some truisms. Yet his religion of transcendentalism contradicted Christianity at every vital point. There are some who excel in tolerance, wit, and intellect, whose theology is pernicious and destructive.
As you point out, there are those who hold unorthodox theological opinions and yet who live more sacrificially than their orthodox critics. I think, for example, of Albert Schweitzer who left careers in medicine and music to do charitable work in Africa. I contend that, despite his sacrificial labors, his Christology was completely unacceptable. His ministry does not erase his defective Christology and poverty of Christian doctrine. His was a ministry of practical deeds, devoid of theological specifics. Christianity could not long survive on that sort of fare.
Over the years, I have observed a theological herd instinct that causes some to praise currently popular theologians, even when their views supplant the doctrinal standards of the church to which they subscribed at their ordination. One can always find a parade of admirers lined up behind theologians who introduce doctrinal and ethical innovations. It is not uncommon to meet people who seem to think that the more difficult it is to understand a theologian, the more profound the theologian must be. Others are impressed with theological innovation. Apparently some regard the most outlandish view as the most “courageous.” I hold to the time-honored truism articulated by Princeton’s Charles Hodge: If a doctrine is new it isn’t true, and if its true it isn’t new.
You mentioned Paul Tillich. He said in his Systematic Theology (Vol. I, 205) “God does not exist. … To argue that God exists is to deny him.” I can’t make sense out of that view, any more than I can understand someone saying, “To argue that my wife exists is to deny her,” a formula Tillich applied to God. How could Abraham Lincoln have being if he did not exist? Of course, Tillich said some interesting things, and he said them with phrase-making elegance. Nevertheless, I cannot accept any theology as being Christian when it rejects Christ’s resurrection and the doctrines of heaven and hell—to say nothing of denying God’s existence. Not every theologian who attracts a train of admirers writes Christian theology.
The principle point of your letter was that some orthodox Christians do not live up to their theology. This reality continues to perplex and grieve us both. Martin Luther, too, agonized over certain religious leaders whose morals failed to square with what they taught. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because the theologically orthodox Pharisees placed their self-serving agendas before the love or service of God. Never mind their high claims of holiness—primarily, they loved cash and control.
To this day, some people use theological orthodoxy as a means by which to gain material assets and acquire power. I suspect that those you mentioned belong in this category. They lusted for money and power. They may not have started their Christian journey as double-minded disciples; yet somewhere along the line, secular tares choked the good seed.
A variation of this theme surfaces in the lives of some who give unconditional allegiance to an institution. Some folks permit religious organizations to take precedence over everything—even truth, people, ministry, and God. I would argue that the best church members put Jesus Christ ahead of all else, including the religious system with which they have affiliated. It seems, however, that some who are not serious about holiness of heart and life enjoy being around those who are. They find it gratifying to associate with committed Christians who genuinely put the needs of neighbors ahead of personal needs. These camp followers give a bad name to the good people in whose territory they lodge.
Despite exceptions to the contrary, it has been my observation that balanced Christian orthodoxy produces the best examples of Christian character. I know several Christian saints. They all hold orthodox theological views. I contend that orthodoxy also produces the lion’s share of enduring Christian ministry. Personally, I do not know any “secular saints” or “holy heretics.”
I recently spoke with a friend who had just returned from a meeting of the Christian Management Institute (CMI). This organization consists of 3,300 Christian organizations, all holding orthodox theological views. The CMI includes some of the most respected and effective ministries in the world. My friend reported that he was surprised at the vast number of ministries to the homeless carried on by the member groups. They say little about their social work, but their ministries to soul and body are astonishingly impressive. It’s important to recognize that orthodox religion at its best does more than talk about the need for ministry. Orthodox congregations and organizations can and do carry on remarkable social ministries.
The inconsistent correlation between people’s theologies and their moral lives remains a conundrum to me. God alone will unravel the mystery in his own good time. Yet, I think we can make some headway in our efforts to change things for the better. The formula has not altered since apostolic days: we must unite right thinking and right living. Nothing substitutes for a long obedience in the same direction, provided the Bible informs the way. Your letter encourages me to strive to stay close to Scripture and, as Bishop Stephen Neil would have said it, “to live Christianly.”
Kenneth Cain Kinghorn is vice president-at-large of Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is an ordained UM minister and an author of numerous books, the most recent being The Gospel of Grace (Abingdon, 1992).