by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019
Artistic rendering of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel.
By Sandra Richter –
The Bible, in all its parts, is intended to communicate to humanity the realities of redemption. Over the centuries, the church has stumbled when it has forgotten this truth, and has thereby, ironically, damaged the authority of the book from which it has drawn its life.
We forget that this book was cast upon the waters of history with one very specific, completely essential, and desperately necessary objective – to tell the epic tale of God’s ongoing quest to ransom his creation. And to, thereby, give each generation the opportunity to know his amazing grace. The Bible is the saga of Yahweh and Adam, the prodigal son and his ever gracious heavenly father; humanity in their rebellion and God in his grace. This narrative begins with Eden and does not conclude until the New Jerusalem is firmly in place. It is all one story. And if you are a believer, it is all your story.
Two-thirds of the story of redemption is known to Christians as the Old Testament. Yet in the decades that I have been teaching Bible, I have found that most Christians, if allowed to answer honestly, might be tempted to dub this section of the Bible the “unfortunate preface” to the part of the Bible that really matters. So why is it that most laypeople struggle with the study of the Old Testament?
1. Most Christians have not been taught that the story of the Old Testament is their story. Rather, they have been encouraged to think that knowledge of the Old Testament is unnecessary to New Testament faith. Worse, many have been taught that the God of the Old Testament is somehow different from the God of the New; that unlike Christ, Yahweh is a God of judgment and wrath. So these folks stick with the part of redemption’s story that seems to include them – the New Testament.
2. The “great barrier.” Since the narrative of the Old Testament happened long, long ago and far, far away, it can be very challenging to get past the historical, linguistic, cultural, and even geographical barriers that separate us from our ancestors in the faith. As a result, to the typical twenty-first-century Christian, the God of Israel seems foreign, his people strange.
If our goal is to know our own story, then we first have to come to understand the characters who populate the Old Testament: who they were, where they lived, what was important to them. The heroes of the Old Testament must be brought into focus so that we can see them as real people who lived in real places and struggled with real faith, just as we do.
3. The Dysfunctional Closet Syndrome. Everyone has a dysfunctional closet somewhere in their lives. The closet is crammed full of clothes slipping from the hangers, accessories dangling from the shelves, shoes piled in disarray on the floor.
The average Christian’s knowledge of the Old Testament is much the same. Dozens of stories, characters, dates, and place names. Years of diligent acquisition. Yet these acquisitions all lie in a jumble on the metaphorical floor. A great deal of information is in there, but as none of it goes together, the reader doesn’t know how to use any of it. Rather, just like the dysfunctional closet, the dates, names, and narratives lie in an inaccessible heap. Thus the information is too difficult, or too confusing, to use.
The end result is that most decide that the Old Testament is just too hard and give their attention to the New Testament where there is some hope of memorizing the characters, places, and dates. Until a believer is able to organize what they know about the Old Testament meaningfully, they cannot use it.
Contrary to popular opinion, the Old Testament is not a hodgepodge of unrelated materials thrown together by some late, uninformed redactor. Nor has it come to us as the result of an empty-headed secretary copying down verbatim some mysterious message. No, the Old Testament writers were themselves theologians, and, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have written for us a carefully formatted and focused piece of literature in which there exists an intentional, theological structure.
Our objective as Christians is to understand the story of redemption, the Bible. More than anything else, we want to hear the words of the biblical writers as they were intended and claim their epic saga as our own. To accomplish this, we need to get past the great barrier – that chasm of history, language, and culture that separates us from our heroes in the faith.
Different Time, Different Place
“Belovedness” by Scott Erickson (wwwscottericksonart.com).
Humans, rather than recognizing the trappings of their own culture (and that their culture may in fact be very different from someone else’s), tend to assume that other societies are just like their own. This is known as ethnocentrism and is a human perspective that is as old as the hills. As regards the Christian approach to the Old Testament, consider for example the standard depiction of Jesus in sacred Western art as a pale, thin, white man with dirty blond hair and blue (sometimes green) eyes.
These portrayals are standard in spite of the fact that we are all fully aware that Jesus was a Semite and his occupation was manual labor. So shouldn’t we expect a dark-haired man with equally dark eyes? So why is he presented in Christian art as a pale, skinny, white guy? Because the people painting him were pale, skinny, white guys!
We naturally see Jesus as “one of us” and portray him accordingly. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Rather, our close association with the characters of redemptive history allows us to see ourselves in their story. And this is as God would have it. But to truly understand their story, we need to step back and allow their voices to be heard in the timbre in which they first spoke. We need to do our best to see their world through their eyes.
The flip side of ethnocentrism is a second tendency I have come to speak of as “canonizing culture.” This is the unspoken (and usually unconscious) presupposition that the norms of my culture are somehow superior to the norms of someone else’s. Like ethnocentrism, this tendency is also as old as the human race.
But history proves to us that it is impossible to diagnose any human culture as fully “holy” or “unholy.” Human culture is always a mixed bag; some more mixed than others. And every culture must ultimately respond to the critique of the gospel.
As we open the Bible, however, we find that the God of history has chosen to reveal himself through a specific human culture. To be more accurate, he chose to reveal himself in several incarnations of the same culture. And, as the evolving cultural norms of Israel were not without flaw (rather, there was a mixture of the good, the bad, and the ugly), God did not canonize Israel’s culture. Rather, he simply used that culture as a vehicle through which to communicate the eternal truth of his character and his will for humanity. We should not be about the business of canonizing the culture of ancient Israel, either. But if we are going to understand the content of redemptive history, the merchandise that is the truth of redemption, we will need to understand the vehicle (i.e., the culture) through which it was communicated. Thus the study of the Old Testament becomes a cross-cultural endeavor. If we are going to understand the intent of the biblical authors, we will need to see their world the way they did.
Redemption
The very term redemption is culturally conditioned. It had culturally-specific content that we as modern readers have mostly missed. In fact, redemption is one of several words I have come to refer to as “Biblish” – a word that comes from the Bible, is in English, but has been so over-used by the Christian community that it has become gibberish. So what does the word redemption mean, and where did the church get it? The first answer to that question is obvious; the term comes from the New Testament.
• “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people” (Luke 1:68).
• “Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19).
• “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law” (Galatians 3:13).
Okay, so the word comes from our New Testament, but what does it mean? And where did the New Testament writers get it? A short survey of the Bible demonstrates that the New Testament writers got the word from the Old Testament writers. The prophet Isaiah declares:
“But now, thus says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel, ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!’” (Isaiah 43:1).
And where did the Old Testament writers get the word? Contrary to what we might assume, they did not lift it from a theological context. Rather, this word and the concepts associated with it emerged from the everyday, secular vocabulary of ancient Israel. “To redeem” (Hebrew gã’al) in its first associations had nothing to do with theology, but everything to do with the laws and social customs of the ancient tribal society of which the Hebrews were a part. Thus if we are to understand the term – and what the Old Testament writers intended when they applied it to Israel’s relationship with Yahweh – we will need to understand the society from which the word came.
Israel’s Tribal Culture
Israelite society was enormously different from contemporary life in the urban West. Whereas modern Western culture may be classified as urban and “bureaucratic,” Israel’s society was “traditional.” More specifically it was “tribal.” In a tribal society the family is, literally, the axis of the community. An individual’s link to the legal and economic structures of their society is through the family.
In Israel’s particular tribal system, an individual would identify their place within society through the lens of their patriarch’s household first, then their clan or lineage, then their tribe, and finally the nation. Even the terminology for “family” in ancient Israel reflects the centrality of the patriarch. The basic household unit of Israelite society was known as the “father’s house(hold),” in Hebrew the bêt ‘ãb. This household was what Westerners would call an “extended family,” including the patriarch, his wife(s), his unwed children, and his married sons with their wives and children. (An example of this is Rebecca’s marriage to Isaac in Genesis 24. She left her father’s household in Haran and journeyed to Canaan to marry.)
Modern ethnographic studies indicate that the Israelite bêt ‘ãb could include as many as three generations, up to twenty persons. Within this family unit, the “father’s house(hold)” lived together in a family compound, collectively farming the land they jointly owned and sharing in its produce. And those who found themselves without a bêt ‘ãb (typically the orphan, the widow, and the resident foreigner [Hebrew gēr]) also found themselves outside the society’s normal circle of provision and protection. This is why the Old Testament is replete with reminders to “care for the orphan and the widow.”
God’s way of doing things often stands in opposition to the cultural norms of our native society and redemption’s story critiques every human culture. The choice of David is particularly telling. As the eighth-born son of Jesse, David’s inheritance would have fit into a backpack. But after surveying all of Jesse’s sons (eldest to youngest, of course), God’s spokesman says “no” to those David’s society would have chosen (the eldest and the strongest) and “yes” to the one least likely in the eyes of his own community: “For I have selected a king for Myself among his sons” (1 Samuel 16:1). Indeed, “people look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). This choice of the unlikely leader is rehearsed many times in the Scriptures.
Jesus and his culture
Israelite culture and the concept of the family compound survived into New Testament times and serves as a backdrop to many of Jesus’ stories and teachings. Consider John 14:1-2. Just after the meal, Jesus begins telling his disciples about his impending departure and the troubles that will follow. Of course, the disciples are confused and upset. Peter asks the question on everyone’s heart: “Where are you going … and can we go with you?” (John 13:36-37). Jesus responds as follows:
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many dwelling places, if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3, NASB).
Did you notice Jesus’ vocabulary? “In my father’s house there are many dwelling places.” For generations we in the West have imposed our cultural lens upon this passage such that we have whole songs dedicated to the “mansion up over the hilltop” that is awaiting us in heaven. But what Jesus is saying to his disciples and to us is so far superior to the objectives of a consumer culture that it takes my breath away – our ultimate destination as the newly adopted children of the Father is the family compound! And Jesus, the firstborn of his Father’s household, is going back to heaven to get your four-room pillared house ready. Why? “So that where I am, there you may be also.” The goal of redemption is not a marbled mansion, but reincorporation into the bêt ‘ãb of our heavenly Father.
Restoration
In Israel’s tribal society redemption was the act of a patriarch who put his own resources on the line to ransom a family member who had been driven to the margins of society by poverty (Ruth and Boaz), who had been seized by an enemy against whom he had no defense (Lot and Abraham), who found themselves enslaved by the consequences of a faithless life (Gomer and Hosea).
Redemption was the means by which a lost family member was restored to a place of security within the kinship circle. This was a patriarch’s responsibility, this was the safety net of Israel’s society, and this is the backdrop for the epic of Eden in which we New Testament believers find ourselves.
Can you hear the metaphor of Scripture? Yahweh is presenting himself as the patriarch of the clan who has announced his intent to redeem his lost family members. Not only has he agreed to pay whatever ransom is required, but he has sent the most cherished member of his household to accomplish his intent – his firstborn son. And not only is the firstborn coming to seek and save the lost, but he is coming to share his inheritance with these who have squandered everything they have been given. His goal? To restore the lost family members to the bêt ‘ãb so that where he is, they may be also.
This is why we speak of each other as brother and sister, why we know God as Father, why we call ourselves the household of faith. God is beyond human gender and our relationship to him beyond blood, but the tale of redemptive history comes to us in the language of a patriarchal society. Father God is buying back his lost children by sending his eldest son, his heir, to “give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28), so that we the alienated might be “adopted as sons” and share forever in the inheritance of this “firstborn of all creation.”
Sandra L. Richter is Robert H. Gundry Chair of Biblical Studies at Westmont College and a member of the Committee for Biblical Translation for the NIV. She is best known in the church for her work The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (IVP) and her DVD curriculums (Seedbed) designed for those serious about their faith. Taken from The Epic of Eden by Sandra L. Richter. Copyright ©2008 by Sandra L. Richter. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA. www.ivpress.com.
The Epic of Eden is available for purchase here.
Companion video sessions to supplement her book, are also available here.
by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019
What Does it Mean to be a Wesleyan Christian?
By David F. Watson –
John Wesley (1703-1791) believed that God had raised up the people called Methodists to “reform the nation, particularly the church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land” (“Minutes of Several Conversations”). The core of the Wesleyan/Methodist tradition is holiness.
What is holiness? It means different things to different groups of people. For Wesley, however, holiness was about transformation. We human beings, he believed, are broken, sinful creatures. Left to our own devices, we will not live in ways that honor God. In fact, we can’t honor God with our lives – at least not consistently – because we stand under the power of sin. The world is not as it should be. Human beings are not as we should be. Our minds, our hearts, our desires are disordered.
In his great mercy, God has given us a savior in Jesus Christ. When he died on the cross, Jesus made it possible for us to have peace with God and to escape the power of sin over our lives. We receive Christ into our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit comes to us most readily as we seek him through practices such as reading Scripture, praying, and receiving communion. To be holy means that we are “set apart” from the world by the transforming power of God.
In many cases and places, our zeal for holiness has flagged. A renewed expression of Wesleyanism will require concerted work of retrieval. In other words, we need to recommit ourselves to some of the core beliefs and practices that characterized early Methodism. For Wesley and his followers, the Methodist movement involved a commitment to holiness lived out in several ways. Holiness was rooted in Scripture. It was lived out in community. It was facilitated by the means of grace, and it was expressed in solidarity with the poor.
Holiness was rooted in Scripture
In his Complete English Dictionary, Wesley defines a Methodist as “one that lives according to the method laid down in the Bible.” Wesley did recognize other sources of knowledge, even religious knowledge, but he believed Scripture to be God’s definitive revelation. Tradition, especially that embodied in the teachings of the Church of England, could help to illuminate the meaning of Scripture. Reason was simply necessary in order to make sense of Scripture at all.
Wesley believed that it was also important to have a personal experience of salvation. Such experiences confirmed Scripture’s primary message, that we are saved from sin and death by the work of God through Jesus Christ. These other resources were important, but Wesley believed Scripture to be definitive for Christian faith and life in ways that other sources of knowledge were not.
For Wesley, the whole content of the Bible, that great narrative of salvation from Genesis to Revelation, was about salvation. Today we have all but lost a sense of Scripture’s unity and coherence. There are many reasons for this. The emphasis in biblical scholarship on studying Scripture in bite-size parts (or pericopae), a loss of trust in divine revelation, and even postmodern skepticism toward the idea of “truth” itself have undermined the idea that the Bible is a single work with an overarching message.
As we look to the future of the Wesleyan movement, we would do well to recover a framework whereby we understand Scripture as a book about salvation. It begins with creation, takes us through the fall, and narrates the pendulum swings between human faithfulness and sinfulness. In Christ, God acts once and for all to deliver us from sin and death, and we anticipate the fullness of redemption when God will bring together a new heaven and a new earth. To read Scripture as a Wesleyan is to read it as a book about salvation meant to lead us into salvation.
Holiness was lived out in community
We United Methodists often hear talk of “holy conferencing” and “social holiness,” but in many cases Wesley would not have recognized our use of these terms. As he used them, both referred to Methodist “class” and “band” meetings – two distinct small group meetings in which Christians came together to build one another up in the faith and hold each other accountable for living in ways consistent with the will of God.
The people called Methodists were to “watch over one another in love.” In particular, people in classes were held accountable to the General Rules: do no harm, do good, and attend upon all the ordinances of God (discussed below). Members of classes were also required to give money toward relief of the poor if they were able.
Over time, both class and band meetings fell out of common use, replaced in large part by the Sunday school movement. Sunday school, however, has never had the same purpose as class and band meetings. At first its function was primarily educational. In many cases it is now primarily social. The highly personal interactions of class and band meetings and their focus on holy living and accountability are largely missing from our churches today. To recover the power of early Methodism, we will have to recover the discipline of “social holiness”: a godly life formed in deep community with other believers.
Holiness was facilitated by the means of grace
Early Methodism involved an openness to the work of the Holy Spirit and a reliance on the supernatural power of God to replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. Wesley believed in an active and living God, a God who loves us and wants to draw us closer to himself. He knew that God could work through anything and anyone, but that there were certain practices that God had specifically given us for growth in faith and holiness. This is why the third of the General Rules requires that we should attend upon “all the ordinances of God, which it spells out specifically as:
• The public worship of God
• The ministry of the Word, either read or expounded
• The Supper of the Lord
• Family and private prayer
• Searching the Scriptures
• Fasting or abstinence
In other words, Wesley believed that Methodists should attend to worship, Scripture, the Lord’s Supper, prayer, and self-denial. These practices are not just beneficial; they are commanded in Scripture. There are other practices, such as participating in class and band meetings, that aren’t commanded in Scripture, but are beneficial (“prudential”) nonetheless. Through each of these practices, we come to know and love God more fully.
Wesley was quite clear that these practices themselves do not save us. They do not and cannot make us righteous before God. Rather, through these practices we grow closer to God, who offers us grace by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is that grace that saves us, through our faith in Jesus Christ. Yet the more we partake of the means of grace, the more we will experience the fullness of salvation in the present.
Holiness was expressed in the world
Wesley was deeply concerned for the poor and vulnerable. As noted above, members of class meetings were expected to contribute money to the poor, excepting those who could not afford to do so. In his book The Radical Wesley and Patterns for Church Renewal (Wipf and Stock, 1996), Dr. Howard Snyder writes, “From the beginning [Methodism] was a movement largely for and among the poor, those whom ‘gentlemen’ and ‘ladies’ looked on simply as part of the machinery of the new industrial system. The Wesleys preached, the crowds responded and Methodism as a mass movement was born” (33).
When Wesley converted the abandoned Royal Foundry in London to a Methodist meeting place, he included there a free school that could educate up to sixty children at a time, a shelter for widows, and a free dispensary (an office for the provision of medical supplies and services). In an age when it was commonplace for the wealthy to purchase a pew in the church, Wesley insisted that all seating in the Foundry’s chapel consist of common benches. There was no difference in seating for rich or poor (see Snyder, 48).
Wesley had housing on the second floor of the Foundry. “I myself,” he wrote, “as well as the other Preachers who are in town, diet with the poor, on the same food, and at the same table; and we rejoice herein, as a comfortable earnest of our eating bread together at our Father’s kingdom.”
By contrast with churches in many other parts of the world, many American churches are unbelievably wealthy. In parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, for example, churches scrape by on meager resources, and many Christians live in poverty or on its very edge. I have witnessed with great admiration and appreciation the work of churches in the U.S. to address poverty both domestically and abroad. But we can do more – much more. The resources are there. What is required is an awareness of poverty and the will to address it. To be a Wesleyan Christian today will mean a renewed focus on ministry with the poor, which will include the willingness to have less so that others may have enough.
To live as Wesleyan Christians today will involve a self-conscious process of recovery. It won’t be easy. Not everyone will like it. Then again, not everyone liked Wesley’s vision and methods in his own day, but he launched a movement that has changed countless lives across the globe. Wesley worried that the people called Methodists would someday become a “dead sect,” having the form of religion without the power.
In many places his warning has proved prophetic. Perhaps God will once again fill us with the power of those early days of the Methodist movement if we seek his face like those who went before us.
David F. Watson is the academic dean and professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He is the author of Scripture and the Life of God: Why the Bible Matters Today More than Ever (Seedbed).
Art: A Staffordshire bust of John Wesley at the World Methodist Museum at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. Photo: Steve Beard.
by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019
Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles by Meister des Hausbuches, 1475
By Philip Yancy –
It began with a gathering at Denver’s snazzy Convention Center. I had agreed to host a forum with sixty business leaders before the Colorado Prayer Luncheon, but as a freelancer with precious little business experience, I had to search for something worth discussing. Fortunately, I had just read the new book by New York Times columnist David Brooks, The Second Mountain.
Brooks describes the journey on which successful people embark: enrolling in prestigious schools, climbing the corporate ladder, accumulating tokens of wealth and success. Then one day, some of these achievers wake up with a hollow feeling, wondering, “Is that all there is?” Others are gobsmacked by some event – the death of a loved one, a fractured marriage, bankruptcy – and find themselves in free fall. Now what?
I had listened to Brooks describe his own fall in an interview on Good Morning America. As a famous columnist and best-selling author, he reached an enviable summit. Yet when his 27-year marriage ended in divorce and depression set in, he realized he needed to climb another mountain, one that offered community and meaning. A friend told him, “I’ve never seen a program turn around lives. Only relationships turn around lives.” Hearing about a family who welcomed neighbors for a weekly dinner, Brooks showed up in his business suit one evening and rang the doorbell.
One of the neighbor kids opened the door, and Brooks stiffly extended his hand for a formal handshake. The kid looked him over, said, “We don’t do that here. We hug here,” and gave him a bear hug. Inside, Brooks found a household led by a warm, loving couple who hosted an average of 26 visitors from the neighborhood for dinner. For five years Brooks joined them on most Thursday evenings, and in time that diverse, lively community helped heal the loneliness in his soul.
To the business leaders, I read aloud Brooks’ conclusion: “The natural impulse in life is to move upward, to grow in wealth, power, success, standing. And yet all around the world you see people going downward. We don’t often use the word ‘humbling’ as a verb, but we should. All around the world there are people out there humbling for God. They are making themselves servants. They are on their knees, washing the feet of the needy, so to speak, putting themselves in situations where they are not the center; the invisible and the marginalized are at the center. They are offering forgiveness when it makes no sense, practicing a radical kindness that takes your breath away.”
David Brooks began exploring a second mountain, one in which ascent begins with apparent descent.
After the meeting with business leaders, we all moved to a huge ballroom. More than a thousand guests had assembled for the annual prayer luncheon, where Christian groups and individuals are encouraged to invite their nonreligious friends. As the speaker, I sat at the head table with the governor and mayor and several dignitaries from the city council. The elite of Denver, many of whom were busily checking their cell phones for last-minute messages, filled 140 tables around us.
The tone was somber for, just two days before, a suburban school had experienced a fatal shooting, a few weeks after the twentieth anniversary of the Columbine tragedy. The mayor, an African-American man who rose from homelessness to head a major city, practically preached a sermon, quoting Isaiah and urging us to care for the poor and the suffering. Meanwhile the governor, the first openly gay and the first Jewish person to hold that office, probably wondered who had scheduled him for an event among so many Christians. He responded with thoughtful remarks about the power of prayer in times of crisis. I tried to address both audiences: the Christian core, and their skeptical friends and colleagues who may have attended out of curiosity or civic obligation.
Three hours later I entered a federal prison. I had agreed to speak there as well, to honor ten men who had completed a rigorous four-year seminary program. The contrast in settings could not have been starker. Whereas the prayer luncheon was a fancy, dress-up affair, the prisoners all wore drab uniforms, with their names and numbers stenciled on the front. They lived behind bars and razor wire, ate institutional food each day, and were defined by their failures, not their successes. In David Brooks’ image, they had fallen off the first mountain, spectacularly.
I learned details of some of the graduates’ lives. One inmate started reading the Bible while in solitary confinement, and spent the next four years in the seminary course while also translating a German novel by Gerhart Haupmann called The Fool in Christ. Another had earned degrees in Biblical Studies and Theology and was working on a Masters in Divinity. Another said, “It was not until I came to prison that the Lord found me. I was the one that was lost and could not see. I was not only found but was able to see just how much the Lord loves me.”
One of the graduates wiped away tears as the recorded strains of “Pomp and Circumstances” filled the room. He later told me that his mother, who traveled from Nebraska to visit him every chance she got, had died that week. She would be buried back in Nebraska on Mother’s Day, and officials had denied his request to attend the funeral.
Although we were celebrating graduation from the seminary program, mostly the men spoke of another “graduation,” the day in 2021 or 2024 or whenever they would be released to resume life outside the prison walls. One inmate admitted addiction to some form of drug or alcohol from the age of nine. He had five drug-related felonies on his record, and was serving a 15-year sentence for distribution of meth resulting in a person’s death. He was using the time in prison to lose weight (75 pounds so far!) and hoped someday to work with kids in Teen Challenge, guiding them away from the path he had taken.
Another confessed that, after no more than seven years in school, he was barely literate and never read books. In prison he was working on his education and trying to “grow as a child of God.” He hoped in the future – “when I get out, God willing” – to return to prison as a teacher, training others. The seminary program, he said, “has helped me so much I must tell everyone about it.”
At the Colorado Prayer Luncheon we had enjoyed a full meal at tables set with cloth napkins and china. The prison served slices of carrot cake on paper plates with plastic forks. Though delicious, the cake had an unusual flavor of spices I couldn’t identify (“We have to improvise in this kitchen,” the chef admitted with a grin).
I left the prayer luncheon with a stack of business cards. I left the prison with empty pockets – we had to lock all belongings in our cars before entering – yet inspired by the stories of redemption I had heard. A late-spring snow was falling as the electric gate clanged shut and I walked out with a group of volunteers who have been coming for years, without pay or fanfare, to bring hope and renewal to the inmates locked inside.
The prisoners, volunteers and, yes, David Brooks have all learned the same lesson, that to climb the second mountain, ascent begins with apparent descent.
Philip Yancey is the author of innumerable books, including best-sellers such as Disappointment with God, Where is God When it Hurts?, The Jesus I Never Knew, What’s So Amazing About Grace? and Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? This article first appeared on his website (philipyancey.com) and is reprinted here by permission.
by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019
Bishop Kenneth H. Carter gives the sermon during opening worship for the 2019 United Methodist General Conference in St. Louis. UMNS file photo by Kathleen Barry.
By Kathy L. Gilbert (UMNS) –
Several United Methodist annual conferences meeting this summer looked at plans for a new Methodism centered around how to divide The United Methodist Church.
More than 20 of the regional gatherings rejected the Traditional Plan approved by the 2019 General Conference and voted to remove the phrase “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” from the denomination’s lawbook. The United Methodist Church has 54 U.S. regional conferences that meet in May and June.
Other conferences had passionate discussions about the future of The United Methodist Church but stood by the action of the 2019 General Conference.
The Book of Discipline, the United Methodist policy book, says that the practice of homosexuality “is incompatible with Christian teaching,” and bars “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from ordination. Despite passage of legislation during General Conference 2019 that retains church bans on ordaining gay clergy or same-sex marriages and strengthened enforcement measures for violating those bans, resistance has been strong.
The Greater New Jersey Conference has a 35-member team working on a way “to help congregations thrive in different expressions of an emerging era of Methodism.”
Action steps by the Greater New Jersey Way Forward Team include launching 75 congregations in one of three pilot programs:
• Congregations that hold a scriptural view that same-gender weddings should not be performed in churches and that LGBTQ persons should not be ordained.
• Congregations that hold different scriptural views about LGBTQ people and can be together recognizing there will be different practices and understanding of the LGBTQ community.
• Congregations that hold a scriptural view that Jesus invites everyone to participate fully in the church and that all churches should allow same-gender weddings and be open to appointment of an LGBTQ clergyperson.
Eastern Pennsylvania declared by a narrow margin to be a One Church Plan Conference “in spirit.” During the heated debate, Bishop Peggy Johnson was challenged for letting the resolution proceed despite its disagreement with church law. She called the measure “aspirational” and thus admissible according to a recent United Methodist Church Judicial Council ruling. Conference members voted to appeal her decision to the Judicial Council.
The North Carolina conference approved a task force to study pastoral care for LGBTQ people. The Rev. Laurie Hays Coffman proposed the task force citing rising gay teen suicide rates, increasing murder rate for transgender people and many requests from clergy and lay people asking for guidance on how to care for LGBTQ people. The task force will meet over the next year and report back to the 2020 North Carolina Conference.
The Michigan Conference supported the creation of a central conference in North America. Pacific Northwest also called for the formation of the United States as a central conference. Central conferences, the regional church bodies in Africa, Europe and the Philippines, can adapt parts of the Book of Discipline, the church’s lawbook, for their specific missional context.
Minnesota delegates voted to adopt a vision that commits to the full inclusion of LGBTQ people.
Mountain Sky, Desert Southwest, Upper New York all formed teams to explore options to move forward. Western Pennsylvania called for the Connectional Table to create a task force to prepare a process for dividing the denomination. New England approved commissioning the Open Spirit Task Force to examine how United Methodists might create a new church body.
California-Nevada recommended creation of a structural change task force.
Alaska, Great Plains, Central Texas, and Western North Carolina affirmed the four commitments that came from the UMC Next meeting held at United Methodist Church of the Resurrection May 20-22. These include:
• To be passionate followers of Jesus Christ, committed to a Wesleyan vision of Christianity.
• To resist evil, injustice, and oppression in all forms and toward all people and build a church that affirms the full participation of all ages, nations, races, classes, cultures, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities.
• To reject the Traditional Plan approved at General Conference 2019 as inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ and resist its implementation.
• To work to eliminate discriminatory language and the restrictions and penalties in the Book of Discipline regarding LGBTQ individuals.
One resolution came before the Missouri Conference to provide $30,000 from which congregations can submit grant applications to assist ministries for the LGBTQ community or to lift up persons from that community into missional leadership. According to the Book of Discipline, the church is still called to be in ministry to the LGBTQ community. Funds from the Missouri resolution would go toward fulfilling that mandate.
Alaska, one of the denomination’s missionary conferences, discussed the next expression of Alaska Methodism. Two alternatives were presented – become a mission district of another conference or withdraw from the denomination.
Four of the seven conferences in the Western Jurisdiction – Oregon-Idaho, California-Pacific, Desert Southwest, and California-Nevada – voted to petition the jurisdiction’s College of Bishops to convene a special conference to consider separating from the denomination.
Meeting after the close of the California-Nevada conference, Bishop Minerva Carcaño and her cabinet met and released a statement that said, in part, that disaffiliation “would not fulfill the promise of the Wesleyan spirit and Methodist ethos, or the calling to leadership as a jurisdiction.”
LGBTQ people were commissioned, ordained, or licensed in the California-Nevada, Baltimore-Washington, Michigan, New York, Northern Illinois, Oregon-Idaho, Desert Southwest, Mountain Sky, and North Texas conferences. North Texas Bishop Michael McKee said the openly gay pastor ordained in his conference is single and does not violate the Book of Discipline.
Conferences that rejected the Traditional Plan included: Oregon-Idaho, Pacific Northwest, Northern Illinois, Great Plains, California-Pacific, Desert Southwest, Upper New York, Minnesota, California-Nevada, Iowa, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.
Conferences calling for removal of incompatibility language from the Book of Discipline: Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina, California-Pacific, New York, Dakotas, Upper New York, and California-Nevada.
Among the conferences that stood by the action of the 2019 General Conference was Holston. The Holston Conference approved a ‘commitment’ resolution that fell short of disagreeing with the Traditional Plan. It resolved to “join hands as one, united through our prayers, our gifts, our service, and our witness as we work together toward God’s hope for the people of Holston and grieve for the harm caused to the body of Christ and its witness in the world.”
Indiana left in the language “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” but added language calling for strict global enforcement of laws prohibiting the sexual exploitation of children and for adequate protection, guidance, and counseling for abused children. Another amendment to the petition added, “The Church should support the family in providing age-appropriate education regarding sexuality to children, youth, and adults.”
A petition to remove the current qualifications for ordination failed to pass the Indiana Conference.
In East Ohio, two resolutions to realign the church to allow both traditional and progressive understandings of LGBTQ clergy and same-gender weddings and to adopt the four tenets developed by UMC Next were defeated.
The Kentucky Conference concluded with an “emotional and sometimes painful” debate over whether to remove the incompatibility language, said Alan Wild, ministry assistant to the director of new church development for the conference. The effort was voted down 458-283.
The Rev. George Strunk, one of the sponsors of the resolution, struggled with composure during the debate, his voice breaking at times. “Being Methodist has never felt so difficult as it does today,” Strunk said.
The Rev. Bill Arnold, one of those who spoke against the measures, said that approving the petition would be “a major break with Christian tradition.” The church must not become a window into the larger culture, he said.
At one point, Bishop Leonard Fairley admonished the delegates not to clap. “No applause. We are going to do this in the spirit of Christ. This is not about winners and losers.”.
Kathy Gilbert is a news writer for United Methodist News Service.
by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019
Hemedi Ndjadi, age 17, has been part of the Kindu United Methodist Orphanage in East Congo for three years where he is learning carpentry skills to become a workshop manager. Photo by Chadrack Tambwe Londe, UM News.
By Chadrack Tambwe Londe (UMNS) –
KINDU, Congo – The United Methodist Church in East Congo continues to have a heart for orphans in the region. Since 2012, the church has been taking orphaned children under its wing at Kindu United Methodist Orphanage, which has more than 100 orphans in its care.
“In the beginning, the orphanage started with 22 children, but today, we are supervising 104, of whom 98 are staying with host families,” said Furaha Tshoso, head of the orphanage. The church tries to place children with foster families as quickly as possible. “When they are in foster care, children can sometimes forget that they are orphans, because they can stay and play with other children,” Tshoso said. The orphans range in age from 5 to 25. The younger children attend school, while the older ones learn job skills such as sewing, baking, soap making, and carpentry. Young women learn trades at the Mama Lynn Center, a United Methodist sanctuary for sexual violence survivors in Kindu, and the young men learn carpentry skills at local workshops.
Philomène Nyande, who supervises the children at the orphanage, said that teaching them trades is a way for the church to prepare them for adult life and financial independence. “Thanks to the apprenticeship of the few trades, adult orphaned children managed to become financially independent and provide for their (younger) brothers and sisters,” she said.
Tshoso said the orphanage doesn’t have the money to buy the newly trained young people their own tools at the end of the training, but they are able to earn money through the skills they’ve learned. The hope is that they can save enough to open their own workshops, she said.
The church also offers health care and psychological support to the children. “Some young children do not understand the death of their parents. They have trouble digesting this, hence the need to provide psychological support. We talk to them about what happened. We encourage them to pursue life by studying,” Tshoso said. She said the East Congo Episcopal Area cares for the children through local means and financial support from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and the Tennessee and Memphis annual conferences.
“Under the leadership of Bishop Gabriel Yemba Unda, we mentor these children to enable them to have a bright future. That’s why the church provides their schooling and supports their needs,” Tshoso said.
Members of First United Methodist Church in Martin, Tennessee, have been helping to provide scholarships for the orphans since 2014. The Memphis Conference church has a partnership with the East Congo Episcopal Area.
“Our church has been in relation with East Congo for several years,” said the Rev. Randy Cooper, pastor at First United Methodist Church. “We have donated money for scholarships for schoolchildren for over five years. I am sure we have provided more than 100 scholarships … People need to know that $50 can send a child to school for a year.” He said his church also has provided money to build eight churches in the East Congo Episcopal Area, and this summer, members are raising money to build two more.
The scholarship money helps send the orphaned children to United Methodist schools, rather than public schools. The foster families also often contribute to the school fees, when the scholarships aren’t enough, said the Rev. Paul Ketoka Lokondo, treasurer of the East Congo Episcopal Area.
Nyande said that apart from schooling and psychological care for the orphans, the home also organizes entertainment and fellowship activities. “We organize banquets to allow the children to have fun and show them that they have a family in Christ despite what has happened to them. We share meals together to show them our brotherly love,” Nyande said.
Enoka Ndjadi Lubwende, 21, is one of the orphans supported by the United Methodist Orphanage. “I have been an orphan of father since 2006. I suffered a lot after the death of my father and I had to give up my studies and resume with a lot of difficulties. My father’s family had to take everything we had.”
When Lubwende was in his third year of high school, he was placed in foster care after his mother remarried and her new husband rejected the teenager. The orphanage helped him continue his studies and he’s currently in his third year at the Higher Institute of Education in Kindu studying geography and environmental management. “We will have a lot of work to do for orphaned children,” Lubwende said. “As God has given us the grace to be cared for, we also plan to give other orphans a chance.”
His story is similar to that of the dozens of other children in the United Methodist orphanage. Hemedi Ndjadi, 17, has been a part of the center for three years. “My father died in an accident when I was 12 years old. I stayed with my mother who died two years later. I live with a member of the church who has agreed to host me. I did not succeed at school, (so) I preferred to come and learn carpentry to prepare me in life,” he said.
The orphanage reached an agreement with a local woodworking shop where he is being taught how to manufacture lounge chairs. He hopes one day to open his own workshop.
Ali Mbaruku, who is teaching Ndjadi, said he has become a good carpenter. “Hemedi is learning fast. I am sure he will be a great workshop manager,” Mbaruku said. “The Methodists have already brought me two other young people like him. Hemedi teaches them quickly. He already knows how to make chairs and is still learning about upholstery.”
The Rev. Celestin Lohalo and his wife have been raising another orphan, 9-year-old Henriette, as their own daughter. “My daughter does not know that we are not her biological parents. We consider her our own daughter. One day maybe, we will tell her the truth about her parents, but for the moment, we do not want to disturb it,” he said.
“Orphans are in the category of people whom God defends. Widows are part of it, too. It is in the Book of Deuteronomy. The Lord God recommends us to give even tithing to this category of person. If you do that, God will repay you to the cent,” he said.
Chadrack Tambwe Londe is a communicator for the East Congo Conference. Donations to Kindu United Methodist Orphanage can be made through Advance #15138N.
by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019
Blaise Pascal studying the cycloid. Sculpture by Augustin Pajou. Louvre Museum. Creative Commons.
By Michael DeVito –
What would be the criteria for someone to be considered amongst the greatest intellectuals of all time? In the same league as Einstein, Newton, and Aristotle? Would inventing the first calculator or designing Europe’s first transportation system be enough? How about inventing the mathematical study of probability theory and decision theory? What if someone were to do all of those things and pen some of the greatest French literature ever written?
Clearly any one of these accomplishments would qualify them as one of the greats. Yet, the 17th century mathematician, philosopher, apologist, and theologian Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is often left off the list of history’s greatest thinkers.
That has been an epic oversight.
Born in France, Pascal had anything but a conventional upbringing. With the death of his mother only a few years after his birth, Pascal’s father (Etienne) was forced to quit his lucrative job as a lawyer in order to take on his new role as sole caretaker of his family. While it’s almost certain that young Blaise would have benefited greatly from his mother’s influence, the shift in his father’s focus from his vocation to caring for his son (specifically, Pascal’s education) provided the care and nourishment needed for the seeds of genius to blossom and thrive.
Etienne’s approach to homeschooling Blaise was considered, both then and now, to be truly unique, focusing on creative, hands-on problem solving, as opposed to a traditional approach which focused more on lectures and reading. Etienne also challenged Blaise by setting the level of difficulty of his studies a notch or two above what was required for someone his age.
Being himself a trained mathematician, Etienne would regularly hold discussion groups with world class scholars (including Rene Descartes and Pierre de Fermat), who would present cutting edge ideas to the group and, in turn, receive feedback and critique. Blaise was included by his father in these discussions early on in his life and would present his first mathematics essay on conic sections to the group at age 16. It was the combination of these factors that fostered and accelerated Blaise’s intellectual growth.
Pascal’s resume is in a league of its own and would require its own book to analyze sufficiently. In order to help his father, who had been reassigned to the position of tax collector (an occupation that was extremely time consuming at this point in history), Pascal designed the first mechanical calculator. Also known as the arithmetic machine, it dramatically sped up the process.
Pascal’s innovative scientific mind also challenged and upended conventional thought in physics and probability theory. “You cannot walk ten feet in the twenty-first century without running into something that Pascal’s thirty-nine years of the seventeenth century did not affect in one way or another,” writes James A. Connor, author of Pascal’s Wager: The Man Who Played Dice With God (HarperCollins).
Night of Fire. Pascal’s upbringing, along with being highly academic, was also one of strict religious commitment. He lived a life mostly characterized by piety and devotion to God. Yet like many of those brought up in a religious household, Pascal experienced a time of “worldliness” in his late twenties, which lasted for a couple of years. Historians believe that this period in Pascal’s life was prompted by the death of his father, as well as by being apart from his two sisters (despite strong opposition from her brother, his sister Jacqueline became a nun). Somewhat depressed, Pascal indulged in a number of activities that were not consistent with his religious upbringing.
Everything changed for Pascal on the night of November 23, 1654. Not much is known as to exactly what happened due to the fact that Pascal never told anyone about the event, but what can be said is that he had a profound religious experience that not only brought an end to the worldly indulgences, but drastically changed the trajectory of his life. Historians have referred to this experience as “The Night of Fire” because of Pascal’s only written reference of the event, a piece of parchment was found sown to the inside of his coat pocket after his death:
“From about half-past ten in the evening until about half-past midnight,
“FIRE.
“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob not of the philosophers and of the learned. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace. God of Jesus Christ. My God and your God. Your GOD will be my God. Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God.”
Two aspects of this note shed light on the change in Pascal’s life and his work. First, the phrase “Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God” explains Pascal’s motivation to put an end to a lifestyle of worldly pleasure and refocus his attention towards God. Secondly, we see that Pascal praises the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and dismisses the god of the philosophers. Prior to this event, much of Pascal’s work had been in academia. However, after this experience, Pascal would leave most of his academic endeavors behind him and shift his focus specifically to the realms of theology and apologetics.
Heart and reason. Pascal’s theological writing reflected his understanding of the role of the heart, which he argued was foundational to humanity’s ability to reason and to assent to knowledge about God. Thus, much of Pascal’s theological and apologetic writing is focused on persuading the heart first, then the mind. It was this brand of theology that Pascal set out to defend after his recommitment to the Christian faith.
Pascal began working on a theological and apologetic treatise but unfortunately, due to the poor health that had afflicted him for the majority of his life, Pascal died before he was able to finish (at the age of 39). Pascal’s unfinished work was compiled and published two years after his death as a book titled The Pensées (or “Thoughts”), which is considered to be one of the finest works in all of French literature.
Original artwork by Sam Wedelich (www.samwedelich.com).
Pascal’s Wager. Pascal lays out a number of apologetic arguments for Christianity within The Pensées, but one of his primary arguments (one that is still engaged and utilized by philosophers and apologists today) is what has been called Pascal’s Wager.
The Wager is not an argument for the existence of God; rather, it is an argument that one is rationally compelled to believe in God regardless of whether or not he exists. Foundational to this argument is the mathematical reasoning known as decision theory, which one would utilize when trying to decide between competing courses of action where, ultimately, the outcome is uncertain. “God is, or God is not…. Reason cannot decide nothing here…. What will you wager?”
The illustration on page 30 portrays the basic idea of Pascal’s argument. Each box represents an outcome resulting from a given decision on the truth of a correlating state of affairs. The top left box represents the outcome if one were to wager that God exists and if God did in fact exist. Here one receives an infinite gain – namely, an eternity in heaven (not to mention a number of finite gains such as answered prayer).
The top right box represents one’s decision to wager that God exists and the possible outcomes if God did not actually exist. Traditionally the outcome assigned to this box has been a finite loss because one would have spent their time going to church, praying, tithing, etc., for seemingly no reason. (However, recent work in psychology and sociology has shown that those who believe in God tend to live happier, more fulfilled and, on average, longer lives. It is because of this that recent defenders of the Wager have argued that the outcome of the top right box should be seen as a finite gain.)
The bottom two boxes represent the possible outcomes if one were to wager that God does not exist. In the bottom left box, we see the outcome if one wagers that God does not exist and they are wrong. Pascal doesn’t mention hell as the outcome for this scenario in The Pensées. However, whatever the consequences are for wagering against God’s existence and being wrong, we can reasonably conclude, at a minimum, that this outcome is a substantial loss.
Lastly, the bottom right box shows the outcomes for wagering that God doesn’t exist and being correct. With the recent studies showing the benefits of belief in God, this box can arguably still be seen as a finite loss, even taking into account the fact that one wouldn’t waste time or resources on the church.
Based on this very basic analysis of the Wager, we can see that in all possible outcomes it is more rational to wager that God exists as opposed to not. Pascal summarizes this point: “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is” (Pensées, 272).
Here the word “wager,” according to Pascal, does not mean that one can force themselves into believing that God exists, rather Pascal submits that one should live the Christian life (go to church, pray, fellowship, etc.) regardless of their unbelief in hopes that they will come to believe.
As one might expect, a number of objections have been raised to Pascal’s Wager over the past 400 years. Yet, in spite of these criticisms, the Wager continues to have a number of contemporary proponents within the philosophy of religion and is still a reliable argument in the apologist’s toolbox.
Pascal’s life and achievements were truly remarkable. In only 39 years of life, this 17th century Christian thinker radically advanced both academic and religious thought, and much of his work still has a major influence in today’s society. To my fellow believers and non-believers alike, I would strongly encourage you to spend some time studying the rich work of the great Blaise Pascal. What do you have to lose?
Michael DeVito received his MA in Philosophical Apologetics from Houston Baptist University and is currently working on his MSc in Philosophy, Science and Religion at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to his academic career, Michael played nine years in the NFL with the New York Jets and the Kansas City Chiefs. He currently lives in Bangor, Maine with his wife and two sons.
