by Steve | Jul 5, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: The Devil Can’t Blast Us Out of Faith or Ministry
By Boyce Bowdon
The Devil can blast us out of our building, but he can’t blast us out of our faith or out of our ministry,” Craig Groeschel, associate pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, declared on Sunday morning, April 23, 1995.
Spontaneous shouts of “Amen,” and thunderous applause filled the auditorium at Oklahoma City University, where more than 1,000 members and friends of the First UM Church had gathered for worship.
Four days earlier, a 4,800-pound bomb ripped apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing at least 168 persons, injuring more than 500 others, and damaging about 200 buildings. One of the buildings most heavily damaged was First United Methodist Church, located across the street from the federal building.
The church basement—which escaped damage—was now being used as a morgue for bodies and body parts extracted from the rubble and debris of the federal building.
Senior pastor Nick Harris and several other staff members were in the church when the bomb exploded. Flying glass cut a custodian’s leg, but his injury was relatively minor. No one else at the church got a scratch, but there was no way the congregation could worship in their building the Sunday following the bombing, which happened to be the church’s 106th birthday. Not only was the structure unsafe, the property was cordoned off as part of a crime scene. No one, not even the pastor, was permitted to enter it. These circumstances did not keep the congregation from worshipping. “Our beautiful old building is probably damaged beyond repair,” Dr. Harris said at the beginning of the service. “But the building is not the church. The people are the church. And now—in the midst of this crisis—is the time for us to be the church.”
Harris then called on three laymen to lead prayers. Larry Bost, lay leader, prayed for the injured. Bill Spence, chairman of the board, prayed for families who had suffered losses. And then, attorney Don Gutteridge, finance chairman, prayed for the people who were responsible for this mass murder of innocent people—the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the nation’s history.
“If we are to be the church and not a country club,” Gutteridge said emphatically, “we have to remember that the people who did this bombing—whoever they are—are people Jesus Christ died for, just as he died for us. Let us pray.”
After the prayers, a spirited service began. With arms lifted in praise, people sang joyfully. Then Harris preached. His message was clear: “This is a time to remember that our ultimate destiny is in God’s hands, not in the hands of a terrorist.”
Harris knew that God’s hand was on the First UM Church. He had seen plenty of miracles during his 13 years as a pastor of this downtown church. When he came to the church in 1982, average attendance was 140; now it is nearly 1,000. The average age was 72; now it is 30. The 1982 annual budget was $182,000; the 1995 annual budget is $994,000. During the past 8 years, 27 members of the church have entered the full-time ministry, and are now serving in United Methodist churches in Oklahoma and several other states.
Harris had also seen other miracles. In the mid-1980s he had started a Tuesday noon Bible study. Called “Loaves and Fishes,” this was an opportunity for downtown workers to come to the church during their lunch hour for a simple meal and a brief study. More than 500 persons were now attending. They are coming from 42 congregations of 17 denominations, but more than half of them are not active in any church. Many think of Nick as their pastor.
So Harris believed in miracles. He knew God would provide a way for him and his congregation to do what God had called them to do. He was right.
Within minutes of the blast, while the phones were still operating, Harris received a phone call from his bishop, Dan Solomon.
“Bishop Solomon wanted to see if we were hurt. Our conversation meant more to me than I can ever tell you. I knew that he was genuinely concerned for my safety and for the safety of the people on our staff and in our church. He cared about us, and he was praying for us,” Harris said, nearly overcome by emotion.
The afternoon of the bombing, Bishop Solomon invited Harris and other staff members from the First UM Church to come to the conference office for a visit with him and his cabinet, which was in session. For nearly an hour, they met together. Bishop Solomon assured Harris that the conference stood ready to help him and his people. Together they searched for answers to immediate problems. The church had a big singles event scheduled for the weekend. They needed to find a place to have it. And they needed to find a place to worship on Sunday. They needed a place to store equipment and furnishings from the church, and to locate office space. Bishop Solomon and the cabinet reassured Harris that he could count on them and the entire conference to stand by him and his people to help them any way they possibly could.
“I’ve never been more pastored in my whole ministry than I have been by my bishop and my district superintendent since the bombing,” Harris said. “They have cared for me in the midst of all this. And it hasn’t been just because our church pays its apportionments. They have cared for me and my people as human beings. ”
The day following the bombing, Bishop Solomon sent an episcopal letter to Oklahoma Conference churches suggesting that each take an offering for the First UM Church and for ministry to survivors of the disaster.
In response, Harris has received scores of letters from across the state. One was from a fourth grader. She said she was thinking of the people of the church and praying for them; and she included her weekly allowance of five one-dollar bills.
Less than a week after the bombing, Harris received a phone call from Randy Nugent, general secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries.
“I must be honest,” Harris said. “There have been times when I have been critical of the General Board of Global Ministries. But those differences didn’t matter when Nugent called me. I felt his concern for us. And I was touched when Nugent told me the General Board was cutting us a check for $100,000 to help us through this crisis, and that they were also sending out an appeal (Advance Special #982700) for churches across the denomination to help us. What he said to me, the caring that I heard in his voice, just blew me away. ”
Not only United Methodists have come to the aid of Harris and First United Methodist Church of Oklahoma City. For example, First National Center gave the church practically all of the 28th floor of their building in the heart of downtown to use as offices. They also made available a large meeting room on the ground level for the Bible study Harris leads for downtown workers.
Less than a week after the bombing, the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church called Harris, whom he had never met. “Share our building with us!” he said.
St. Luke’s UM Church had made the same offer, but they really didn’t have space in their building since it was being used by the American Red Cross to serve survivors of the bombing.
The First UM Church accepted Trinity’s offer. And they’ve been meeting there ever since. Methodists worship at 9 a.m., while Baptists have Sunday school; then Baptists worship at 10:45 a.m., while Methodists have Sunday school.
There was a slight problem. Trinity didn’t have enough parking spaces for both congregations. But even that did not remain an obstacle. An insurance company a mile away from Trinity invited the United Methodists to use their parking lot. How would members get back and forth from the parking lot? Another answer to prayer: Putnam City UM Church volunteered the use of their large bus to serve as a shuttle.
“I never expected that I would be in a situation where I would need such help,” Harris told me as we sat in his office, reflecting on what he has experienced.
“I’ve always been a pretty independent guy and thought I could handle anything. This has proven to me how unworthy of this kind of love I am, and yet God in his grace has moved on the hearts of people to have compassion.”
He paused for a moment, to regain his composure.
“I must confess that there have been times when I haven’t been this compassionate,” he said. “To see the compassion of people toward me humbles me and makes me re-examine myself as a human being. It’s been a great learning experience.”
I asked him what he had learned.
“Some things that are very precious,” he replied. “For example, I’ve learned that all true Christians are connected. We don’t exist outside of community. Sure, we have different views about certain areas of our theology, but we all agree about what matters most—Jesus Christ is Lord. ”
Harris says many have asked him why God permitted innocent people to be killed by the bomb. “I reply that I don’t know,” Harris explained. “I am not God. But I teach my people that ‘why’ is not the right question. The right question is ‘what.’ What does God want us to do in response to this disaster?”
He believes the bomb can be a wake-up call if the church faithfully proclaims God’s message.
“This is a priceless moment for the church,” Harris said. “People are more receptive to our message right now than they have been in a long time. It’s a time for us to speak boldly and clearly, to help people get their priorities straight, to encourage them to take time to enjoy life, to savor every moment, to love their children more, and to quit clinging to things and start clinging to Christ.”
Yes, Craig Groeschel, the associate pastor, summed up the situation accurately that Sunday morning following the bombing. “The Devil had blasted the people of First United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City out of their building. But the Devil has not blasted them out of their faith or out of their ministry.”
Boyce A. Bowdon is the director of communications for the Oklahoma Conference of the UM Church. Dr. Bowdon is the author of Selling Your Church in the ’90s: A Public Relations Guide for Clergy and Laity (Koinonia).
by Steve | Jul 2, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Lessons from the School of Intercession
By Stephen Seamands
An “off-the-wall experience” opens the door to a new dimension of spiritual power and authority—
The last thing I heard him say was, “Lord, let the spirit of intercession fall upon your people.” What happened next changed my life.
It was May, 1990. I was in Ypsilanti, Michigan, attending the Allies for Faith and Renewal conference on the Power of the Spirit. Fifteen hundred people were gathered in a gymnasium on the first evening of the conference for a time of worship and ministry. John Wimber of Vineyard Ministries International was leading the service. After he preached, scores of people responded to his invitation, and when they had all gathered at the front, Wimber began to pray.
I was sitting between my father and a close friend, intently observing what was happening, sensing God’s presence in our midst. Then came Wimber’s words: “Lord, let the spirit of intercession fall upon your people.” Up until then the farthest thing from my mind was the seminary where I teach. Indeed, one of my reasons for attending the conference was to get away from the seminary and the end-of-semester busyness. But as soon as John Wimber spoke those words, I found myself thinking about the seminary—particularly about the bitter conflict and division that had arisen among our faculty over a particular issue.
Before I knew it, there were tears in my eyes. I wasn’t just thinking about the situation, I was crying about it. Then I found myself not just crying, but crying out so loudly that people all around could hear me. There was such a deep groaning within that I couldn’t contain myself. “Oh, God,” I kept crying. “Oh, God!” I couldn’t stop. The groaning and crying went on for several minutes.
When I finally quieted down, the Lord seemed to whisper to me, “Steve, I know the conflict at the seminary is upsetting to you, but you have no idea how upsetting it is to me. It’s breaking my heart.”
A Deep Breath
A few days after I returned from the conference, I was talking with several faculty colleagues. They were expressing their concern about a faculty meeting I had missed while attending the conference. During that meeting the underlying conflict and division had erupted again. I took a deep breath and said, “May I tell you about something that happened to me recently?” Then, with considerable hesitation, not sure of what they would think of my “off-the-wall” experience, I described what had happened to me that evening at the conference. When I finished, my colleagues seemed to be taken aback. “Since I’ve come back from that conference,” I pressed on, “God has placed a burden on my heart simply to pray for our situation. Would you like to join with me sometime next week for a time of intercessory prayer for the seminary?”
They all agreed. So we got together—about seven of us—and for more than an hour we prayed. We didn’t analyze the problem or propose solutions—something we seminary professors are so good at doing. We simply prayed about it, like King Jehoshaphat at the point where all he could say was, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (II Chronicles 20:12).
Over the summer months I went to about 20 other faculty members, told them about my experience at the conference, and invited them to what became a monthly faculty intercessory prayer meeting that continued for the next two years. In the fall we witnessed a major breakthrough in relation to the conflict that had torn our community. Of course, we still bear some scars from that conflict. But ever since that breakthrough the situation has been noticeably different.
That experience marked my initiation into the school of intercession. Since that time intercessory prayer has taken on meaning and importance it never had for me before. Here are some of the lessons I have been learning.
Co-laboring with Christ
I knew that intercession—prayer which focuses on the needs and concerns of others—was important. So I always made sure that a portion of my prayer time was devoted to it. I prayed for my family and friends. I prayed for our nation. I prayed for the worldwide advance of the gospel. When I was a pastor I prayed for the church I was serving and the individual members of the congregation. But I must confess that most of the time my intercession was half-hearted and usually done from a dry sense of duty. I knew I should do it, so I did it. But I found it much easier to pray for myself than for others. My enthusiasm for intercession was generally quite low.
Now, however, I’ve discovered a scriptural truth that has changed everything. True intercession is simply a participation in the ongoing intercession of the risen and ascended Christ. Having ascended into heaven and sat down at the Father’s right hand, the exalted Christ is now engaged in the ongoing work of intercession. As Paul declares, “It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who intercedes for us” (Romans 8:34, NRSV). Likewise, the writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus, our eternal high priest, “always lives to make intercession” (Hebrews 7:25, NRSV).
Christ, then, is the principal actor in intercession, not we. The burden of intercession is his, not ours. “Unless he intercedes,” said Saint Ambrose, “there is no intercourse with God either for us or for all saints.” Consequently, we are not called to bear the burden of intercession ourselves, but to piggyback upon Jesus’ intercession—to be co-laborers with him in his ongoing intercession in heaven.
Participation, Not Initiation
What I experienced that evening at the conference brought this truth home to me in a dramatic way. In reflecting on what happened, I realized that as I cried out I was caught up in something much bigger than I was, in something that I hadn’t initiated. For just a few moments I had experienced a measure of the intensity of Christ’s intercession. In some mysterious way, I was caught up in the intercession of the Son at the Father’s right hand.
Of course I don’t usually experience the reality of Christ’s intercession in such a dramatic fashion. Often when I intercede for others, I feel very little. That doesn’t discourage me as it once might have done. Realizing that my intercession is a participation in Christ’s intercession, I find myself simply inviting Jesus to pray in and through me for that particular person or situation. I also invite the Holy Spirit to come as the spirit of intercession to show me how to pray for others and to pray in me on their behalf (see Romans 8:26-27). And he does!
Too often we take the burden of intercession upon ourselves—as if we, ourselves, must make it happen. We feel guilty because we don’t care enough and pray enough for others. “Lord,” we plead, “help me to pray more for so-and-so.” When we realize that we are called to intercede with Christ rather than for him the burden is no longer heavy, but light.
Amy Carmichael, who worked among the temple girls of South India, tells about a time when the opposition to her work became so intense, and the evil which bound the girls seemed so strong, that she wondered if she could carry the burden any longer. She writes:
At last a day came when the burden grew too heavy for me; and then it was as though the tamarind trees about the house were not tamarind, but olive, and under one of these trees our Lord Jesus knelt alone. And I knew that this was His burden, not mine. It was He who was asking me to share it with Him, not I who was asking Him to share it with me. After that there was only one thing to do; who that saw Him kneeling there could turn away and forget? Who could have done anything but go into the garden and kneel down beside Him under the olive trees?
Christ is looking for those who will join him in his great work of intercession. Realizing this fact has changed my whole attitude toward intercession. What a privilege it is to be able to join him!
Identification
Intercession not only joins us with Christ in his intercession, it also joins us with those we are praying for. We identify ourselves with them even to the point of being willing to suffer and sacrifice on their behalf.
There are many illustrations of such identification in Scripture. For example, when Nehemiah heard the news that the walls and gates of Jerusalem were in ruins, he “sat down and wept” and for days he “mourned and fasted and prayed” (Nehemiah 1:4). Although he was a righteous man, in his prayer of confession he acknowledges the sins of his people as if they were his own: “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you” (Nehemiah 1:6b-7).
Daniel’s intercession is similar. He also pleaded with God on behalf of the people “in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). Few were more righteous than Daniel, yet he prays, “We have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and rebelled” (Daniel 9:5). Both these great intercessors identified themselves with the people they were praying for. They didn’t pray, “Lord, forgive them,” rather they said, “Lord, forgive us. “
Following my experience at the conference when God placed a burden upon my heart for the situation at the seminary, I often found myself doing the same thing. I could no longer point my finger at other members of the faculty and blame them for the conflict. I saw as never before that the very attitudes I despised in others were lodged in my own heart as well. At one prayer meeting in particular, I suddenly found myself weeping and confessing the sins of the seminary on behalf of the seminary, even while I confessed them as my own sins.
On another occasion, I was praying for one of my teenage sons. He had said, in relation to some persons who were in authority over him, “I’ll submit to them outwardly, but never with my whole heart.” His attitude disturbed me and so I began to pray that God would change it. But one day while I was praying the Lord said to me, “Where do you think he learned that attitude? Your son is just like you! You do the very same thing in relation to certain people in you life. Outwardly you go along with them, but your heart is seething with anger and rebellion. Before I change that attitude in your son, I first want to change it in you.”
Fasting
Like Nehemiah and Daniel, I have also found God moving me to fast for persons and situations for which I am praying. In fact, it was during the summer following the conference that I first began to fast.
I knew there were numerous references in Scripture which commended fasting. As a United Methodist, I also knew what an important part fasting played in the life of John Wesley and the early Methodists. When I was ordained, I had affirmed the 19 historic questions which Wesley had put to his lay preachers. The 16th question reads, “Will you recommend fasting and abstinence, both by precept and example?” Yet, I must confess, I had never done either.
In the past few years that too has changed. As I pray for persons and situations, I find God often puts within me a desire to fast for them. I don’t understand how it works, but I believe that when we are willing to identify with others even to the point of sacrificing on their behalf (whether through fasting or some other means), God’s power is released in their lives and circumstances.
Battle
Like it or not, all Christians are engaged in spiritual warfare—a violent battle with Satan in which we seek to reclaim enemy territory that rightfully belongs to God. As Paul reminds us, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood” but against “the powers of this dark world” and “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). Intercessory prayer is our primary offensive weapon. Engage in it with any degree of seriousness and you will soon find yourself in the heat of battle.
From the world’s point of view, intercession appears weak and ineffective. If you want to change a person or situation, doesn’t it make more sense to take a direct, hands-on approach? But again, as Paul points out, the weapons of our warfare are spiritual, not worldly. They have divine power to demolish strongholds, arguments, and pretensions, and to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ (see II Corinthians 10:3-6).
What makes intercession such a powerful spiritual weapon? Earlier, I said that when we intercede we are united with the ascended Christ in his great work of intercession at the Father’s right hand. Understanding this relieves us of the burden of intercession. It also reveals why there is such power in intercession. Throughout the Scripture the right hand of God is synonymous with God’s power and authority. For example, following God’s deliverance of his people from Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea, Moses sang “Your right hand, O Lord, was majestic in power. Your right hand, 0 Lord, shattered the enemy” (Exodus 15:6).
The fact, then, that Jesus is ascended and seated at the Father’s right hand signifies that he possesses all divine power and authority. The power and authority to carry out the work of redemption and to bring it to consummation are now in his hands.
A young boy said to his father as they were watching a breathtaking sunset, “God must have painted that with his left hand.”
“Why do you say that?” asked his father. “Why do you say God painted it with his left hand?”
“Well, he must have used his left hand,” answered the boy. “After all, every week in church we say that Jesus is sitting on his right one!”
No, Jesus is not sitting on the Father’s right hand. But because he is ascended and sitting at the Father’s right hand, all power and authority has been given to him. The Father has said to him, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet” (Psalm 110:1; Hebrews 1:13). His enemies are being scattered. They are being fashioned into a footstool for his feet!
Seated in the Heavenlies
Because we are in Christ, we too have been raised up and seated in the heavenlies with him (see Ephesians 2:6). His power and authority have been conferred upon us. As I have begun to engage in serious intercession, I have discovered the power and authority I have as a believer in Christ who is seated in the heavenlies with him. As I intercede, I reaffirm my position in him, and from that position I exercise the power and authority that has been given to me. Christ’s enemies are being shattered. They are being fashioned into a footstool for his feet. Through intercession I am privileged to wage war alongside the Lamb and hasten the outworking of that process.
But Christ’s enemies are stubborn and resistant. They submit and yield territory only when they are forced to do so. So as we engage in the battle of intercession, we must be patient and persistent. Often, as we pray for persons or situations, there is no apparent change in them. Sometimes they even seem to get worse! After a while it is easy to stop praying. But if we keep praying for them on the basis of faith in what the Spirit of God is doing, eventually it begins to make a difference.
I have been challenged and encouraged as I engage in the battle of intercession for others by a statement of Oswald Chambers:
When we pray for others the Spirit of God works in the unconscious domain of their being that we know nothing about, and the one we are praying for knows nothing about, but after the passing of time the conscious life of the one prayed for begins to show signs of unrest and disquiet. We may have spoken until we are worn out, but have never come anywhere near, and we have given up in despair. But if we have been praying, we find on meeting them one day that there is the beginning of a softening in an inquiry and a desire to know something. It is that kind of intercession that does most damage to Satan’s kingdom. It is so slight, so feeble in its initial stages that if reason is not wedded to the light of the Holy Spirit, we will never obey it, and yet it is that kind of intercession that the New Testament places most emphasis on.
So I am learning not to lose heart, and to persist in spite of what I see. As I patiently engage in prayer through the power of the Holy Spirit, I am amazed at how God works. When we intercede, he intervenes!
Stephen Seamands is professor of Christian Doctrine at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and author of A Conversation with Jesus: Renewing Your Passion for Ministry (Victor). Reprinted with permission of Faith & Renewal.
by Steve | May 26, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: New Oden book causes stir
By the time it was released in late January, a book by self-described “orthodox evangelical” Thomas C. Oden had prompted widespread criticism across the church and a defense by executives of Abingdon, the book publishing arm of the United Methodist Publishing House. The 208-page Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements offers a critique of, among other things, modern theological education and liberal mainline Protestant church bureaucracies.
Oden, a widely known traditionalist, is professor of theology at the Theological School at United Methodist-related Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, and one of the key leaders in the “Confessing Movement” within United Methodism.
According to Publishing House officials, most of the pre-publication criticism came from individuals who had either read advance manuscripts provided by the House or had seen articles in publications such as Good News magazine. (Oden is a contributing editor to Good News.)
In a January statement, two senior Abingdon executives defended their release of the “unquestionably controversial” book by calling for “intellectual diversity.”
Robert K. Feaster, chief executive officer of the Abingdon Press and the United Methodist Church’s publisher, and Neil Alexander, editorial director of the press and the denomination’s official book editor, said two books will be released soon that reflect other viewpoints on theological education.
The two officials note that “the voice heard in Requiem is that of its author, not its editor or publisher.”
“I regret the [Oden] book was published,” said the Rev. Neal F. Fisher, president of UM-related GarrettEvangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. “It is grossly unfair. Any of us could find anecdotes for anything but the book doesn’t wash as a picture of theological education.”
“There’s enough truth in the book to make you wince,” he said, “but basically it is a very skewed view of theological education. His description of theological education is not as I have experienced it in two seminaries.”
Fisher expressed concern at the portrayal of seminary faculties as being unconcerned about the core of the Christian faith or interested only in their own careers. “This doesn’t represent the professors I have known,” he said.
Fisher expressed concern that the Abingdon imprint will cause readers to think it represents the official position of the church.
Feaster and Alexander respond to that and other criticisms in eight pages of “background information.”
“Discerning readers will recognize that Dr. Oden speaks for himself and perhaps others who are also part of our diverse family,” the Abingdon officials said. “If some mistake publication of his work for editorial endorsement, it is because they neither understand the role of publishers nor read widely enough from the publications of this publisher.”
Acknowledging that decisions are made by Abingdon about what to publish, the two men say “our agreement with the positions of each writer is not a primary concern.”
The Rev. G. Douglass Lewis, president of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington and president of the Association of United Methodist Theological Schools, declined to comment on the book, saying the association had discussed it but had not taken an official position. The association meets twice a year and is largely made up of the deans and presidents of the 13 UM-related seminaries.
The Rev. John E. Harnish, Nashville, Tennessee, staff executive for the Division of Ordained Ministry of the churchwide Board of Higher Education and Ministry, says he can accept Oden’s book as a “personal lament or diatribe” but not as a “reasoned analysis of the life and work of the 13 United Methodist theological schools or theological education in general.”
He said Oden raises some questions that need to be discussed, but observes that the book is “so loaded with personal diatribe there is no room for dialogue or conversation.
“I don’t find it to be a helpful book. He asks legitimate questions, such as the role of tenure. That’s a fair question but he uses that as an attack on the whole of theological education. The institutions themselves are asking that question.” Harnish also objects to Oden’s description of seminaries as “tradition-impaired.”
“How the tradition is being examined, explored, passed on and what is the role of tradition in theological education—that’s a valid question,” he said. “I think there are good answers. On the whole our seminaries are trying to approach that question very creatively. He [Oden] doesn’t ask the question in a way that invites exploration. He makes attacks that tradition has been lost.”
In his book, Oden says the Requiem title refers to “a laying to rest and an attempt to celebrate a life’s passing.” In this instance, he’s referring to the “passing of a culture—my generation of modernity.” More specifically, he points to passing of forms of life “spawned by liberal ecumenism and liberated theological education.”
His “lament” or “expression of deep sorrow” is for “once-vital ethos of liberal learning and institutional establishments of old-line bureaucratic ecumenism.”
After a lifetime of teaching in what he describes as “orthodoxly retrogressive seminary settings,” Oden says he is “convinced that the present system is practically irreformable.”
Trustees of church-related educational institutions are ‘increasingly demanding the right to know why clergy leadership is so prone to political indiscretions, bizarre experiments, and ideological binges,” he says.
In his book, Oden writes of “neopagan ultrafeminist conferences,” and “failure to move the bureaucracy out of the Interchurch Center at 475 Riverside Drive (in New York) and back to America.”
In the last decade, he says the curriculum of seminaries has been liberated for “sexually permissive advocacy, political activism, and ultra-feminist hype.”
The study of ethics, he writes, has become the study of “political correctness”; the study of liturgy “an experiment in color, balloons, poetry and freedom”; and pastoral care “a support group for the sexually alienated.”
Oden decries what he calls the “McGovernization of ecumenical gridlock.” He defines ecumenical gridlock as the “institutional paralysis felt in liberated establishment ecumenism, resulting from loss of support and failure to gain the trust of church moderates and traditionalists.”
In an appendix to the book, Oden asks, “Is anything at all incompatible with Christian teaching?”
“Like fornication, homosexuality is expressly forbidden by scriptural teaching,” he says. “But we see no one urgently petitioning the church to legitimize fornication, as is the case with homosexuality.”
Abingdon officials say the Oden book came to them as an unsolicited manuscript.
Adapted from United Methodist News Service
by Steve | May 23, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: C.S. Lewis on Holiness
By Jerry L. Walls
It would be hard to overestimate the impact that C.S. Lewis has had on the Christian world through his popular apologetic writings. Consider the great ministry of Chuck Colson and the fact that his reading of Lewis was one of the main factors in his conversion to Christianity. Or consider the testimony of the well-known Christian philosopher Peter van Inwagen: “I first discovered what Christianity was from reading Lewis … I saw that the picture I had been given of Christianity by my Unitarian Sunday School teachers … was self-serving, frivolous, and wildly inaccurate. I saw that Christianity was a serious thing and intellectually at a very high level … I lost at that time, and for good, any capacity for taking any liberalized or secularized version of Christianity seriously” (God and the Philosophers, Thomas V. Morris, ed., p. 33). Such stories could be repeated by countless others who have been introduced to Christianity, or influenced to accept it, through the writings of Lewis.
Moreover, the popularity of Lewis shows few signs of declining. To the contrary, a fresh wave of interest in him and his work was recently stimulated by the film Shadowlands. The film is a powerful account of the remarkable story of Lewis’ marriage late in life to an American woman, and of his subsequent grief when she died of cancer just a few years later. Viewers of the film are treated to an intimate glimpse of Lewis the man, particularly as he related his theology to his own painful experience, and struggled with doubt and anger in the process.
While Lewis is best known as an apologist for the faith in an age of unbelief, many of his writings are extremely valuable for persons who are already believers and who want to grow and mature in their faith. In this connection, I believe Lewis is particularly helpful in articulating a doctrine which historically has been a special concern of Methodists—namely, the doctrine of holiness or sanctification. Indeed, Lewis could be a very rich resource for Christians of any tradition who want to recover this vital component of biblical faith.
In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis communicates the significance and value he places on holiness as he recounts the impact he felt reading Phantastes, a fantasy novel written by George Macdonald, a 19th century Christian writer. Lewis was a teenager at the time—atheistic in his beliefs, but searching for a meaningful philosophy of life. He was deeply interested in classical fantasy and mythical literature because of its ability to arouse in him a longing or desire for a dimension of reality beyond the material. Macdonald’s novel had this effect on him, but it did more. For the first time in his life, he was attracted by the quality of holiness, although he says he did not realize what it was that was attracting him at the time. Lewis also described the importance of the experience in The Great Divorce, as he imagines meeting Macdonald in heaven: “I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the New Life. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I tried not to see that the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness.”
It is surely significant that Lewis, in retrospect, identified holiness as the quality which first captivated him in Macdonald’s writings, and it is equally significant that he also confesses that he was reluctant to admit its connection with Christianity. This is a common theme in Lewis’s writings. Christianity is powerfully attractive at a profound level, yet it repels us at another level. The quality of holiness is both beautiful and fascinating in its supernatural dimension, and it stirs the hope in our hearts that there is more to life than the material and physical. But at the same time, it is disconcerting in its moral dimension, because it exposes our sinfulness and calls us to a thorough transformation which is at times threatening—even painful.
Lewis develops this point many times in his writings, perhaps nowhere more clearly and eloquently than in Book IV of Mere Christianity, chapters 4-11. It is very important to notice that Book IV as a whole is about the doctrine of the Trinity. This is precisely where the idea of salvation and sanctification should be located. The doctrine of the Trinity is not a matter of abstract speculation which has little to do with the daily business of Christian living. Rather, it is the essential content as well as context in which the Christian life makes sense. It illumines the reason the Son of God became a man and gives insight into how this affects our salvation. Lewis puts it as follows: “Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ…Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us … Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”
Lewis had little patience with the modern tendency to trivialize Christianity by reducing its extraordinary claims to mundane, ordinary ones. Christianity is about a real relationship with a real, supernatural God. It is about nothing less than being brought into the eternal life of the Trinity through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. And this is what sanctifies us and makes us holy. Notice what Lewis says happens when we share in the life of Christ. “We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us.” This is an excellent summary of sanctification which John Wesley would have applauded.
Lewis is quite emphatic that salvation is not merely about the forgiveness of our sins, as crucial as that is. As we grow in our Christian life, he observes that: “We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are” (my emphasis).
Particular sinful acts can be forgiven, but our sinfulness itself, which is the root of particular actions, needs different treatment. For our sinfulness to be cured, we need radical moral and spiritual transformation.
Lewis recognizes that our natural tendency is to rest content with forgiveness, or with merely a measure of progress in the moral arena. We would like God to help us with some of our more embarrassing or annoying sins, and then we would be satisfied. But God has other plans in mind. Lewis drove this point home in several passages in which he employed a number of vivid and memorable images, such as the following: “He [Jesus] never talked vague, idealistic gas. When He said, Be perfect, He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder—in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”
What this means is that ultimately we have only two options: either the literal perfection which results when our sanctification is complete, or damnation. Damnation is the mirror image of sanctification. It is the consequence of thoroughly refusing to love God—closing ourselves off entirely from the Holy Spirit. These are our only two choices. “We must be hatched or go bad.” This is not to endorse the extreme views of some who have preached “holiness or hell” in such a way as to assert that if one is not entirely sanctified in this life, then he will be lost. God is a gracious and merciful Father who patiently and lovingly pursues his project of perfecting us. If we have opened our life to God, we can trust him to finish the job.
The only thing which can prevent God from completing his work of perfection in us is our unwillingness to allow him. Lewis is quite emphatic about the fact that we remain free in the process of sanctification and that our perfection goes forward only as we cooperate with God’s grace. This often requires definite acts of faith and surrender on our part. Lewis illustrates this graphically in The Great Divorce. In a famous scene, Lewis describes a ghost who shrinks back from the life of heaven because of the interference of a little red lizard on his shoulder. The lizard (which represents lust) whispers in his ear to discourage him by telling him that he cannot possibly be happy without him, or even go on living. An angel offers to silence the lizard. Initially the ghost agrees, until he learns that the angel means to kill it. Then the ghost retreats: “Honestly, I don’t think there’s the slightest necessity for that. I’m sure I shall be able to keep it in order now. I think the gradual process would be far better than killing it.”
The angel assures him, however, that the gradual process will be of no use in this case and says: “I cannot kill it against your will. It is impossible. Have I your permission?” Eventually, after a dramatic struggle, the ghost agrees to allow the angel to kill it. When he does so, a remarkable thing happens. The lizard is transformed into a shining stallion, on which the ghost, likewise transformed into a substantial person of radiant beauty, rides off into the glory of heaven. Lewis draws the following lesson: “Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death … Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.”
This underlines the crucial point that holiness represents our true satisfaction and fulfillment, just as sin represents our destruction and misery—despite its seductive promises. Wesley had a clear grasp of this point, and I am convinced that this was one of the keys in his powerful preaching on sanctification. In his sermons he repeats again and again the unbreakable link between holiness and happiness. For instance, in “The New Birth” he wrote that “it is not possible in the nature of things that a man should be happy who is not holy” (Works, 1985, 2:195).
What lessons can be learned from Lewis by those who wish to recover the biblical doctrine of holiness? First, we cannot begin to appreciate the depth and power of this concept unless we see it in its larger theological context. Too often the idea of holiness has been construed as a relatively peripheral matter or a doctrinal distinctive of certain sectarian denominations. It is worth emphasizing that in a book about “mere Christianity”—the classical faith of the Church—Lewis insists that Christianity is about nothing other than God’s offer to make us like Christ. Moreover, he explains the great doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation in just these terms. Holiness is not a side line issue or the concern of only those with esoteric interests, but rather, it is the heart of the faith.
Second, Lewis very effectively reminds us that the process of sanctification will not go forward without our cooperation, and that moral change requires some painful choices on our part. If heaven is our goal, there can be no compromise with the various lizards on our shoulders.
Third, Lewis shows that the holiness which God requires of us is far better than anything we might, in our shortsightedness, vainly prefer to it. If we are to recover the power of the message of holiness in our generation, this is an essential key. Like Wesley and like Lewis we need to understand and exemplify the attractiveness of holiness in all of its splendor. It is worth remembering that Lewis first encountered holiness in reading imaginative literature. Might we employ more creativity and imagination in our efforts to display holiness in all its splendor? Certainly this includes the moral renewal which we desire, but it is more than that. It is also a vision of the beauty and meaning of life which answers to our deepest longings for happiness and satisfaction.
In our age, as in every age, people are longing for happiness, not realizing that what they are looking for is holiness. Like C.S. Lewis when he first read Macdonald, they typically do not know the name of what they are looking for. It is our evangelistic and theological task to help our generation name its deepest longings. A fresh reading of Lewis would be a good step in that direction.
Jerry L. Walls is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is the author of The Problem of Pluralism: Recovering United Methodist Identity (Bristol) and Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame Press). Dr. Walls is also among the featured scholars in God and the Philosophers (Oxford Press). He is an elder in the United Methodist Church.
by Steve | May 22, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Reaching Generation X for Christ
By James H. Steele
In what has become almost a wintertime ritual, United Methodist teens and counselors descend each January on Gatlinburg, a tourist town nestled in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains. The omnipresent 15-passenger vans with the familiar cross and flame bear the names of churches in Knoxville and Chattanooga, Kingsport and Johnson City, Tennessee; Oak Ridge and Big Stone Gap, Virginia.
The event is “Resurrection,” and since it’s beginning in 1986 this enormous group youth retreat has become so popular it has to be held on two consecutive weekends at the Convention Center here. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the gathering. On two weekends, January 13-15 and January 20-22, more than 7,350 people representing some 400 churches attended. Never has the event failed to increase in attendance and “Resurrection X” was no exception, topping last year’s turnout by nearly 600. The theme: “Christ, Our Friend.”
Described by the denominational magazine Youth! as “one of the best kept secrets” in the church, the weekends of prayer, song, celebration, and fellowship have grown to become what is believed to the largest youth event now taking place within United Methodism.
According to the Rev. Steve Blakemore, chaplain of UM-related Hiwassee College in Madisonville, Tennessee, “Resurrection” operates on four firm convictions: “That young people need the grace of God in Jesus Christ; that human responsiveness to that grace is critical; that we, as planners never shy away from insisting that retreat speakers call young people to respond; and that we package it in such a format that it appeals to youth.”
The much-anticipated annual confab is an effort of the Council on Youth Ministries of the Holston Conference of the UM Church. With 12 districts, the region includes eastern Tennessee, along with a portion of western Virginia and a small part of northeast Georgia.
Young people taking part include middle schoolers, junior and senior high students, and a smattering of college age. And while they come in all shapes and sizes, one finds the usual similarities of teen attire—jeans, hiking boots, and sweatshirts bearing various insignia. Topping off the ensemble is the ever-present baseball cap (usually worn with brim backwards) which may espouse any one of a number of products or team loyalties.
Churches are required to have at least one adult counselor for every seven youth.
In one sense it’s a big family reunion. Instead of going separate ways, local church youth groups come together in one place for their winter retreat.
Inside the convention center contemporary Christian musician James Ward rocks the youth with his particular sound—described as soulful, spiritual, and energetic. The Rev. Rodney Smothers, senior pastor of Atlanta’s Central United Methodist Church, inspired the group this year with a down-to-earth message about God and Christian living.
Quality is stressed throughout according to the planners, not only in the people on stage, but in the technical aspects such as audio and the indescribable lights. State-of-the-art video equipment provides close-ups of stage participants via images projected on large screens suspended at various points from the auditorium ceiling, not unlike a rock concert.
Other parts of the program include a touring conference youth choir, a drama event, and evening group devotions providing intimate settings for youth to make new faith commitments. A Sunday morning service of praise, worship, and Holy Communion concludes the weekend. In earlier years the retreat included workshops, but now the program focuses on the main sessions. Workshops are done at other district and conference events.
There are also generous amounts of free time, including all of Saturday afternoon. Youngsters roam streets of downtown Gatlinburg, taking in the various eateries, tourist attractions, shops, and video games at the Space Needle arcade.
But once the stage is dismantled and the youth pile into cars and church vans to make the trek home, what then? Has “Resurrection” made a real difference in the faith journey of participants or has it been simply a time to converge in a kind of religious pep rally?
While no one denies the retreat’s fun aspect, team members are quick to emphasize the deeper aspects of “Resurrection.”
“This is more than just a feel-good thing,” commented the Rev. Hugh Kilgore, pastor of Mount Vale (Virginia) UM Church. “It’s a focused event calling for commitment and renewal. And we see results in our local church where youth are beginning to worship in their own language. That’s the primary purpose of ‘Resurrection.’ It brings the Gospel in language that youth speak. They then take this renewal experience back to their local church.” Kilgore is one of the original team members who conceived the event back in the mid-80s.
“In my opinion, the reason for the event’s success is because of the very reason it was started,” explained Blakemore, also an original team member. “We perceived there were many wonderful things happening in the conference, but there was no event designed and designated as an evangelistic retreat for youth. We wanted an event with a clear-cut, definitive call to discipleship in Jesus Christ, especially for youth who might be involved in a church, but who had not experienced the gift of faith for themselves.”
The third remaining member of the original design team is the Rev. Don Thomas, pastor of the Lafollette (Tennessee) UM Church. Previously, he notes, conference youth directors were “going in all different directions” trying to find some kind of winter event. “So, we decided to combine our efforts and invite others to be a part of a quality, evangelistic initiative. And over the years, we’ve learned what works—especially the blending of technology (the lights, and sound, and overhead television) with spirituality. Plus we’ve had speakers capable of communicating the gospel to a large group of people.”
“It has made such a difference in the lives of youth I have brought,” explains Patty Robbins, youth director of Trinity UM Church in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. “Ours is a rural area, and we’re especially thrilled to be here to sing and hear an outstanding speaker.” Robbins said that a favorite time is when youth and adults join in their rooms at night for devotions. “I can’t say enough of what this has meant. We have bonded closer to God and closer to each other. The youth talk about it all the time.”
Youth aren’t the only ones. Robbins said more and more adults want to come from her community, even the local high school principal.
One of Robbin’s fellow church members is Amy Sadler, now a college freshman and former youth council president in the Big Stone (Virginia) District. This was her fourth year to attend. “It brings our youth group much closer to each other and to God,” Sadler remarked. “The music is wonderful and the speakers are always amazing; it’s a really great experience. Many of my friends have had the same experience.”
Sadler says attendance at the annual events has made it easier for her to talk to others about Christianity. “I’m more comfortable and open with it.” She is pursuing a career in education and hopes to be a local church youth director.
Also sharing her experience is a high school sophomore from Signal Crest, Tennessee. “I had lost four family members in as many months and I blamed God for it,” she said. “I found it hard to cry, but when I went forward for prayer with my counselor I did cry, and it was then I felt the hug of Christ. I’m back this year and ready to dedicate my life to him.”
Scott Gillenwaters is director of youth ministries at First United Methodist Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is one of the newer design team members. “One of the key things for ‘Resurrection’ is representing the Gospel in a context youth can understand,” he said. “You’ll never find youth at home spontaneously interrupting their minister to applaud. It’s neat that they gain strength from each other.
Angie Woody of Johnson City, Tennessee, headed the design team this year. She is an associate council director at the Holston Conference headquarters. “Part of what’s important, and meaningful, and life-changing is what happens after they leave this place,” she notes. “They don’t come here as individuals; they come with their youth group, so there’s opportunity to love and nurture one another and follow up on the experiences they’ve had. … They learn to care for one another in a wholly different way.”
Accounting for the steady increase in attendance (600 the first year to more than 7,000 now), Chaplain Blakemore says success has bred success. “This is not simply a ministry to youth, but a ministry to youth groups,” he said. “On Saturday night when a young person walks down the center aisle, that person’s counselor is going to see him or her and make the walk with the person. And when they get back to their rooms at night, their youth group is going to help them process that experience.”
Asked what’s different about “Resurrection,” Blakemore looks back to his experience as a baby-boomer who came of age in the late ’60s and early ’70s. “We had plenty of youth ministry gatherings in which we’d ‘celebrate,’ but I’m not sure the Gospel was ever clearly presented,” he commented.
“I truly believe the success of this event is because the power of the Gospel comes to bear in young people’s lives when Christ is presented clearly as Lord, with an invitation to participate in God’s kingdom rather than an expectation that they ought simply to do the right thing. That’s the crucial difference between now and my experience growing up as a teenager.”
Blakemore feels “Resurrection” is even more important because youth culture today is not very optimistic. “None of the young people I work with at the college see their lives being better financially than their parents. None of them think we can cure the ills of society,” he said. “There’s a great deal of despair that’s settled in on this Generation X culture. And for us, I think that’s the big difference between youth ministry in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and even into the ’80s. Back in the ’60s, we were rebellious, but we were optimistic there was something worth rebelling against.
“But I think the Gospel as presented at ‘Resurrection’ addresses these issues for youth—hope in the face of despair, possibility in the face of impossibility, and life in the face of death,” Blakemore concluded.
James H. Steele is publisher of Hospital News of Alabama and formerly edited United Methodist regional newspapers in Missouri, Indiana and Alabama. Adapted from United Methodist News Service.
by Steve | May 21, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Trial By Fire In Havana
By J. Lee Grady
In the darker days of Fidel Castro’s regime, many Cubans were afraid to set foot in a church. Christians did not fit into Castro’s plan for a communist utopia, so his government severely restricted religious activities and even banished pastors to prison camps. But anyone who visits the isolated island today will discover that things have changed: evangelical churches are growing, Cuban youth are embracing Christianity, and the Bible is the top-selling book in state-run stores.
And, for the most part, Castro is not interfering.
Just ask Rinaldo Hernandez, 37, a passionate preacher who pastors the Vedado Methodist Church in downtown Havana. During his days in seminary, Hernandez was sent to a labor camp for so-called “moral deficiencies.” In recent years, however, especially since Castro revised his official posture toward the church in 1990, the government has left Hernandez alone.
A charismatic like most other Methodist pastors in Cuba, Hernandez has won many atheists and communists to Christ in recent days. He says his country is in the midst of a spiritual transformation.
“We are facing a great opportunity here,” he said. “There is a growing church in Cuba, a powerful and dynamic church.”
One evening last September, Hernandez preached to about 125 people in the front yard of a modest concrete-block home in Cojimar, a Havana suburb. Since it is next to impossible for Cuban Christians to build new church structures or renovate old ones, this so-called “house church” has been meeting outdoors for months.
Most people walked or rode bicycles to the worship service—the clearest indication that a fuel shortage has crippled the country. A kerosene lantern provided the only light for the meeting because the neighborhood was experiencing a blackout. Cubans have come to expect power failures at least once a day.
But no one seemed to mind the darkness or the crude seating arrangements, which consisted of wooden benches and stone steps. Adults stood for the first half-hour, clapping and lifting their hands as they sang spirited praise choruses in Spanish. Children and a few dogs lounged on the dusty pavement to stay cool.
“Aleluya! Aleluya! Gloria a Dias!” several people shouted, while others whispered in tongues. A young man, the church’s lay leader, shook a tambourine as Hernandez strummed his guitar frantically.
The music was loud, but no one seemed to worry about disturbing the neighbors. “Most of the neighbors are here,” Hernandez explained. Pointing to various houses on the street, he recounted when and how various residents had experienced conversions after visiting the outdoor meetings.
The people who gathered for church in Cojimar exhibited the telltale signs of stress that all Cuban faces wear today. Many of these Christians owned only a few items of clothing, and maybe only one pair of shoes.
Many of them were hungry, too. They may have eaten some rice or bread that day, but no meat or eggs. Life has been extremely difficult in Cuba ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union—when the island’s only supply line for gasoline, wheat, and consumer goods was cut off.
But the people who gathered for worship at the Cojimar church seemed eager to rise above their deplorable circumstances.
The meeting lasted past 10 p.m. During a lengthy series of testimonials, one young woman told how she had abandoned a life of prostitution after members of the church shared the gospel with her while she was in the hospital.
“The doctor said my tumor was gone,” she said, declaring that Jesus Christ had healed her of cancer. She added that she destroyed a collection of idols and fetishes after her conversion. This woman had been a follower of Santeria, the African spiritist religion that is practiced by a quarter of all Cubans.
Hernandez used the woman’s story to illustrate a sermon point as he preached from the Gospel of Luke about miracles. “The Lord has not only given us His Word, but His power,” he said. “He has given us the power to perform signs and wonders.”
Out of the fiery furnace
Rinaldo Hernandez’s life could be considered a miracle of sorts. A fourth-generation Methodist, he was only two years old in 1959 when Castro led the revolution that deposed military dictator Fulgencio Batista. Castro promised to turn Cuba into a socialist paradise, and those who opposed him fled or were jailed.
By the time Hernandez was in college, he sensed that God had called him into the ministry. He was troubled that 85 percent of the Cuban pastors had left the island during the 1960s. At one point the Methodist Church had only 12 ministers to serve 120 congregations.
Hernandez’s father, who spent five years in prison for political subversion, wanted the family to escape to Miami, But Rinaldo Hernandez decided that staying in Cuba was a cross he must bear. “I remember my father told me that I would pay a high price for that decision,” he said.
Before he would be asked to pay that price, however, Hernandez had an unusual encounter with God. In 1979 a visiting professor at the seminary he attended told students in a chapel service how she had been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Within weeks, Hernandez and his wife—along with other seminarians—prayed for a fresh infilling of spiritual power. They also began speaking in tongues. Hernandez did not know at the time that Methodist ministers all over Cuba were being introduced to that same experience. Today, more than three-fourths of all Methodist leaders could be classified as charismatic or Pentecostal.
“I knew from that experience that God was preparing me.” Hernandez said.
The big test came a year later when the government interrupted Hernandez’s seminary education and assigned him to compulsive military service at the Cuabalejo work camp near the city of Matanzas. Hernandez had to leave his wife, Maggly, who was pregnant at the time.
“I became a pastor in that work camp, not in seminary,” he said. Conditions were primitive, and most of the 100 men assigned to the camp were hardened criminals.
But eventually he and seven other Christians began meeting secretly at night in a sugar cane field to pray and read the Bible. They supported each other throughout the ordeal.
“To the communists, a Christian could not be trusted,” Hernandez said, explaining why Castro’s forces persecuted him. “They know we have a different philosophy.”
The difficulties of life in that humid hellhole at Cuabalejo did not deter Hernandez from pursuing his call to ministry. Upon his release, he earned his seminary degree and began his first assignment with the Methodist Church in the eastern part of Cuba.
A turning point
Opinions vary about when the Cuban church actually began to experience renewal. Within Methodist churches, it certainly could be traced back to the early 1950s, when a pastor named Emilio Gonzales had a Pentecostal experience, even though he had never talked with anyone about it or read about it in books.
But everyone agrees that Cuban churches began to grow rapidly in 1990 when Castro issued an apology to Christians in a nationally televised address. The Communist Party leader admitted that his regime was guilty of religious discrimination, and he invited Christians to join his party to help build a better Cuba.
Castro’s policy shift did not lure any Christians to join the Communist Party. In fact, it had the opposite effect: it convinced many communists that it was okay for them to return to church.
After Castro’s announcement, Hernandez said communists and atheists began showing up at his worship services. One woman who taught scientific atheism at the University of Havana visited the church and was converted. Another woman who had a high-level position in the government quit her job to choose between being a Christian and being a communist.
“The spiritual needs of these people are greater than the fear they have lived under for so long,” Hernandez said.
Many followers of Santeria have also been converted at his church, Hernandez said. He has grown accustomed to casting out demons associated with the religion, and he is convinced Santeria is Cuba’s most serious spiritual problem. “It is the stronghold. It’s almost the official religion here,” he said.
The increasing spiritual hunger in Cuba could be measured by the government’s recent venture into Bible sales. According to members of Cuba’s Ecumenical Council—a government-sanctioned group of denominational leaders—Cubans stated in a recent poll that they wanted a copy of the Bible more than any other book.
Taking a cue from that survey, Castro’s government arranged to stock the shelves of state-owned bookstores with copies of the Scriptures to test response.
“Six hundred Bibles sold in 40 minutes at $10 each,” said Jose Lopez, a Baptist pastor who serves on the Ecumenical Council.
So far, about 400,000 Bibles—most of them supplied by the United Bible Societies—have been distributed to churches and the government’s 335 bookstores. More Bibles were imported into Cuba in 1992 than in the previous 23 years.
Hernandez, an incurable visionary, says he expects Cuba’s spiritual surge to intensify as more people realize they are free to believe.
Seated in his office at the Vedado Church, with volumes of John Wesley’s writings filling the shelves behind him, he shares his dream for his country: “We are going to see the same kind of reformation in Cuba that England saw [in the 19th century] when the Methodists encouraged spiritual awakening there.”
Ready for change
Fidel Castro’s remarkable change of heart toward religion is certainly not the only reason Cubans are exploring their spiritual options. Another reason is obvious: these people are desperate after years of empty promises.
Throughout Havana the failure of socialism is conspicuous. The city is falling apart. There is no paint or mortar to renovate crumbling schools and apartment buildings. Government-controlled hospitals and doctors’ offices lack basic supplies like aspirin and rubber gloves. Cars sit idle on the street for want of spare parts and fuel. Stores are empty. State-run restaurants often have nothing to serve but tea. On the black market, one can buy a plate of rice, beans, and fried pork for $5, but few Cubans can afford it. The government has an official term for the hardship Cuba has faced since the Soviet Union collapsed: El periodo especial, the special period. Party loyalists hope that citizens will rally together in honor of their beloved Fidel and make the nation great again. There does not appear to be much enthusiasm in the streets of Havana for a new political campaign. Most people are hungry and tired of being without basic necessities. And some blame Castro for running the country into the ground.
Many church leaders agree that Cuba has indeed entered a special period—but they use the term to denote a time of spiritual renewal. “Scarcity has led the Cuban people to seek a deeper spirituality,” Hernandez said.
If one wants to find a hint of enthusiasm anywhere in Havana, it will not be at the neighborhood communist committees located on every street corner. Most of the enthusiasm in Cuba today is in its churches.
At a Wednesday night service at the Vedado Methodist Church, the atmosphere was electric as 100 young people jammed into the main sanctuary to praise the Lord. For more than an hour they clapped and sang choruses. Then Rinaldo Hernandez opened his Bible and presented a message titled “Qualifications of a Christian Leader.”
The men and women in the crowd seemed eager to put Hernandez’s teaching into practice. At the sermon’s conclusion, they stood to their feet and belted out the same rousing anthem they sing at every meeting at Vedado:
“Cuba is for Christ! Cuba is for Christ! He will change my country! He will make it better!”
From his seat on the front row, Hernandez grinned as he watched his young flock. He was looking at the future of the Cuban church.
“We are not praying for a revival. We are in a revival,” he said. “This movement is quiet, but strong.”
J. Lee Grady is the news editor for Charisma. He traveled to Havana in September 1994 to compile this report. Reprinted with permission by Charisma, January 1994. Strang Communication Co.
