So what are we to make of Intelligent Design? Perhaps a glimpse at life between two offshoots of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) can give us insight. Take a look at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
These two denominations hold many beliefs in common: adherence to the inerrancy of Scripture, subscription to five point Calvinism, opposition to higher criticism, rejection of women's ordination, repudiation of modernism and post-modernism. Yet they remain separate denominations. Why?
One reason: They do not read the first chapter of the Bible in quite the same way.
While both denominations allow some latitude in interpretation, the PCA leans toward a literal, scientific chronological reading of the six days of creation. Ordination candidates who question whether the world was created in 144 hours about 6,000 years ago risk disqualification.
The OPC takes a less certain view. While some of its clergy and elders hold to six 24-hour periods of creation, "those who hold to the day-age theory or framework hypothesis argue that the biblical text is inconclusive as to the length of the days ..." They add that the Westminster Confession (and its catechisms) does not require exacting agreement, so "there must be latitude in this area." Yes, the OPC allows latitude in interpretation; see their Web site: https://www.opc.org/qa.html?question_id=131 .
Note the two kinds of latitude they affirm. One suggests that each of the six days may constitute an indeterminate length of time. The other, the "framework hypothesis," requires more explanation.
I am a scientist. I am also a Christian. As a scientist, I believe in the laws of nature that govern much -- some might say all -- of what happens. As a Christian, I affirm that God designed and created the universe and its natural laws, although Scripture is vague about the details. In this sense, I believe in God's intelligent design. That is theology, not science.
However the proponents of "Intelligent Design" (ID) claim something different. ID is proposed as a scientifically valid alternative to Darwinian natural selection. It holds that "certain features in the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection" (definition from the Discovery Institute web site). ID is attractive to many religious people because it appears to offer a scientific basis for William Paley's "watch found on the beach" design argument for God. However, trust in ID may be premature.
U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III, in his decision in Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., wrote: "After a searching review of the record and applicable case law, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science" (p.64). Most scientists agree. As commonly understood, an acceptable scientific explanation may use only empirically established universal principles ("laws of nature"). "Design" as understood by ID does not satisfy this criterion. ID proponents argue that science should be redefined to permit non-natural causes for certain kinds of phenomena, which they claim can be identified empirically by normal scientific methods.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to go back to the good ol' days?
Many a Presbyterian totes around a mental sketchbook filled with scenes depicting how the church ought to be. Its pastel pictures strikingly resemble how the church used to be, that is, how we remember it used to be.
A quick comparison to the church of today produces piqued exasperation. The soft pastels have been overwhelmed by glaring, clashing neons. The view has changed and not for the better.
We know we can't blame the church for the accelerated pace of living and for the startling turns in the road. As warned over 35 years ago by Alvin Toffler, Future Shock is our world. However, when we gather with the household of God, we expect to find at least an hour's respite. We want to sense a certain steadiness, a reassurance that "God's in his heaven; all's right with the world." Instead, the church provides disruptions and disturbances not conceived in those good ol' days,
Can't we turn down the conflict? Can't we reclaim the way it used to be? Can't we go back to those good ol' days?
Then again, when are those good ol' days?
Are you one of those miniatures collectors? Do you know any one who is? Back in the days when printing presses would utilize little blocks of wood and metal, with forms of each letter with which they would lay out the type for their newspaper or an advertisement, they would put those letters in printers' boxes. That's how they sorted their As from their Bs, Cs, and so forth.
Today, the letter blocks are long gone, but the printers' trays still sell. You find them in antiques stores and flea markets. They get scooped up by collectors--miniatures collectors. They provide just the right sized cubby holes in which to display tiny cars, tables, chairs, dishes, figurines, and other decorative items that are less than a square inch in size.
Why? What's the value of having unusable tiny imitations of the real thing?
An international team of psychologists is studying this phenomenon, in the hope that an answer to this mystery could lead to solving countless other unanswered mysteries. All kidding aside, one part of the answer may be that collecting small items affords persons the opportunity to get their arms around their world, or literally, get their hands around it. When you look at miniatures, you get to see things more completely. You get a grip--literally--on life.
That may be one of the reasons that so many people have been so taken with the movie "The Passion of the Christ"--which broke attendance records almost everywhere that it has was released--including Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. In just two hours and six minutes, that movie gave people a handle on Jesus. Frankly, it exposes the horrors of violence and evil that thrive in human hearts, but in the process, that movie also provides us a picture of the sacrificial suffering of Jesus.
Martin Luther reminded us we live in a world "with devils filled that threaten to undo us." This line from his hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, is a powerful image of the forces that seek to pull us apart. In our church, in our nation and around the world, hostilities and hatreds thrive and the peace and unity for which we yearn seem far away.
Does the church have a word to speak into this racial and political strife? In many times of crisis, the church has borne witness to the life-giving power of the gospel in living that takes up the cross of Christ. It has also borne witness in its confessions. One of those confessions has come to us from the suffering experienced by those in the Dutch Reformed Mission Church during the time of apartheid in South Africa -- the Belhar Confession.
So, before answering the questions why Belhar and why now, it might be better to first ask, "What is Belhar?" In response to the oppression of apartheid in South Africa, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church proposed this confession of the Christian faith in a synodical meeting in the town of Belhar in 1982 and adopted it in 1986. It was not only a stance against the injustices of apartheid, it also provided a theological rationale for a way forward in its aftermath. The process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, which focused on restorative justice rather than punishment, owes much of its motive power to the Belhar Confession.
There is now, in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and in the larger church, a renewed interest in the Belhar Confession. The Reformed Church in America, one of our Formula of Agreement partner churches, is currently considering whether it should be included among their confessional documents.
It's official. Fibbing is OK if it serves a higher purpose. Oprah said so.*
The queen of all media tossed this ethical grenade recently when she called CNN's Larry King to defend his guest, James Frey, author of mega-best-seller A Million Little Pieces. Frey's memoir of addiction and recovery was featured on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" when it was anointed the October selection of the world's most powerful book club.
The champagne went flat in January when The Smoking Gun, a Web site devoted to investigative reporting, posted a damning story with the tantalizing tagline "The Man Who Conned Oprah." What followed was an old-school piece of "gotcha!" journalism that showed how Frey had embellished and, in some cases, fabricated significant events in the account of his life. Frey admitted to King he had taken dramatic license but said he stood by "the essential truth" of his life. As King was about to sign off, Winfrey phoned to say the report outing Frey was "much ado about nothing."
What mattered, Winfrey said, was that millions of people struggling with their own monkey-on-the-back habits had read Frey's book and felt better. In a nation addicted to feeling good, she implied, swallowing a little pill of deception is a small price to pay.
Winfrey's take on lying is not new -- Machiavelli said it first when he wrote, "the end justifies the means," the greatest rationalization for bad acts ever -- and it appears plenty of Americans agree.
It's one thing to obey God. It's another thing to obey God. Or to put it in the words of H. Russel Botman, "In retrospect we learned to decipher a difference between 'simple obedience' and 'complex obedience.'"
Botman was speaking, along with colleague Dirk Smit, at the Sprunt Lectures at Union/PSCE in Richmond, outlining how the theological work of forming and adopting the Belhar Confession had helped his country find its way out of the practice of apartheid. South Africa will never be the same, thanks to these two men and their colleagues who shared the task of writing Belhar--and thanks to the courage of their people who pursued a path of "complex obedience."
What's that? As in most other situations, the text carries with it a subtext. The text here is the Confession of Belhar, a potent application of Christian theology and ethics to the church's life in secular society. The subtext is another document, the Kairos Document, which emerged in the days that intervened between Belhar's composition and adoption.
True to their denomination's policies, Belhar was proposed at a general synod meeting (1982), but it needed to be studied for four years before it could be adopted by the next synod meeting. Three years into that process, the Kairos Document was published as "an attempt to develop ... an alternative biblical and theological model that will in turn lead to forms of activity that will make a real difference to the future of our country." Kairos was an uncompromising, prophetic call to action.
Kairos lamented that, "the Church is divided. ... Even within the same denomination there are in fact two Churches. In the life and death conflict between different social forces that has come to a head in South Africa today, there are Christians (or at least people who profess to be Christians) on both sides of the conflict--and some who are trying to sit on the fence!" Specifically, the document outlines three competing kinds of theology in the church: "'State Theology,' 'Church Theology,' and 'Prophetic Theology.'"
I had just a short time with Courtney, a six-year-old girl who helped me clean up after church school. In a quick fifteen minutes, I needed to finish the job and put on my preaching robe to lead the worship service. I made small talk with her as we gathered the magazine pages and put the glue sticks away. Her parents did not attend the rural church in South Louisiana, but she visited regularly with a friend. I did not know her well, so I was in the middle of asking her those generic grown-up questions. I finished inquiring about her favorite subject in school and moved on to, "Courtney, what do you want to do when you grow up?" I expected the same answers that I usually hear: an astronaut, a ballerina or a teacher.
Courtney stopped. A smile began in the corner of her mouth that told me she was bursting with the news. "I want to be...um. I want to do what you do. I want to be a pastor."
"You do?" My excitement brimmed so that I was the one bursting. We stood in a tiny classroom in a country church, but it felt like Courtney and I had passed by a huge milestone and changed history. It caused me to look back to see the long stretch behind us and made me resolve to finish the road ahead.
I grew up in the seventies, when little girls were told that they could do anything. I clearly remember when I was Courtney's age and my grade school teacher informed me that I could become the president of the United States, if I wanted to. But I did not want to be president; I, like Courtney, wanted to be in the ministry. Of course, during that time women struggled to have it all and I saw glass ceilings shatter every day in boardrooms, on the Supreme Court, and in Congress. Yet I had never seen a woman pastor before, so I could not conceive of leading a congregation. I did not know that it was an option.
In October, 1955, fifty plus years ago, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A voted in General Assembly to ordain women to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. In 1956, the Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery in New York ordained Margaret Towner, the first women clergyman of the denomination. In 1965, the Hanover Presbytery in Virginia ordained Rachel Henderlite the first woman to be so recognized in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. These ordinations marked a climax in the history of Presbyterians among whom the role of women in the church had been growing for well over a century. Lois A. Boyd and R. Douglas Brackenridge* told this story in Presbyterian Women in America, Two Centuries of a Quest for Status (1983) published by the Presbyterian Historical Society. On the fiftieth anniversary of the extension of this ordination right to women it is appropriate to recall the women's progress in the life of Presbyterians.
Over the centuries in our male-dominated country, women have been identified and treated in different ways in both society and the church. Early on they were considered mostly "ornamental," as it was put. But males could not do without females. In those early days, a woman named Mary Wollstonecraft published the explosive A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1772), printed in Philadelphia shortly before Americans had adopted a Declaration of Independence in 1776. A Presbyterian woman (turned Unitarian), Elizabeth Cady Stanton, helped write the "Declaration of Sentiments" (1848) based on 1776 male-oriented document. Stanton published The Woman's Bible (1895) in which she and other women celebrated the noted females whose contributions may be found throughout the Scriptures.
In August 1920, Presbyterian President Woodrow Wilson signed into existence the XIX Amendment to the Constitution of the United States granting women the right to vote. At the same time women were gaining ground in public matters, they gained ground in ecclesiastical affairs. In the nineteenth century they had started women's organizations apart from males. Women became deeply involved in the support of and participation in educational endeavors such as Sunday Schools, home and foreign mission work. They formed their own societies to further causes that interested them.
Moreover, because of the "unrest" in the churches, the PCUSA granted the right of women to serve as "brother deacons" (as they were called) in 1922-1923, and "brother elders" in 1930. Ruling elder and mission executive, Robert E. Speer, together with Katherine Bennet and Margaret Hodge, played important roles in this movement in the PCUSA, demonstrating a kind of "de facto" equality in the process. Later on Eugene Caron Blake led the movement in the General Assembly to ordain women as ministers of "Word and Sacrament."
Enter Margaret E. Towner. Towner, a New Yorker, left a career as medical photographer at the Mayo Clinic to study education at Syracuse University prior to assuming the call of Christian education at the East Genesee (N.Y.) Church. Towner then pursued the three-year Bachelor of Divinity Degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She believed such training would be helpful to her in Christian Education. And she flourished as Christian Educator in Allentown, Pa.
Special to The Tampa Tribune, used by permission
Editor's note: Derek Maul, a Presbyterian free-lance writer who has written for the Presbyterian News Service and Presbyterians Today magazine, wrote this piece shortly after a church camp supported by Peace River and Tampa Bay presbyteries was forced by threats of violence to cancel a leadership event for Muslim youth (see news story on page 6.) -- Jerry L. Van Marter, coordinator of Presbyterian News Service.
TAMPA, FLA. -- (PNS) My friends run a church camp. You remember church camp? Campfires, marshmallows, best friends, starlit nights. "Kum Ba Yah," holding hands, cookouts, rain every day.
Church camp. You know, the place that's all about people coming together, prayer, hugs, surmounting barriers, spiritual breakthroughs, learning to listen to God. It's about as far away from politics as you can get. Or at least it should be.
Last week my friends had their lives and their children threatened and their patriotism questioned. They had to close the church camp and take their children to a safe place. They had to make other arrangements for a group of -- this is ironic -- international students, visitors from overseas celebrating Christmas and learning about America.
So why did my friends and their guests have to leave in such a hurry? Because their safety and their lives were threatened by Americans who wanted to carry a political agenda into the realm of marshmallows and "Kum Ba Yah."
"If we leave the PC(USA), where are we going to go?" The troubled question came from an evangelical woman, a young leader and emerging scholar in conservative circles. At issue was the possibility of a split in the denomination, likely to be led by disaffected conservatives. "We know where the women stand in the PCA [Presbyterian Church in America]," she said. "The EPC [Evangelical Presbyterian Church] said women's ordination is optional, and they've opted to 'just say no.'" Then came the clincher. Referring to the testosterone-driven conference she and I were attending, she added, "Frankly, I hear these men saying they will do things differently, but I don't know if I can trust them."
How tragic it would be if, in the midst of a grand two-year celebration of women's ordination in the PC(USA), a long-threatened split occurred that would launch another denomination where women's leadership role could possibly be diminished.
What celebration? Well, one hundred years ago (1906) a woman was first ordained a deacon in the UPCNA. Seventy-five years ago (1930) a woman was first ordained a ruling elder in the PCUSA. Fifty years ago (1956), the first woman was ordained a minister of word and sacrament. This convergence of anniversaries makes 2006 a fitting time to celebrate the ways we Presbyterians have promoted gender equality in a century long to be remembered for Women's Suffrage, gender-inclusive language, and The Feminine Mystique.
In his timely article this past June, Cliff Kirkpatrick confronted the statistics of our shrinking membership. He offered some practical tips to respond effectively, and his emphasis upon outreach is on target. He points out what we have been neglecting; now let us consider why we have neglected it.
About a year ago, chest pains and breathing troubles prompted me to see the doctor. The diagnosis proved to be minor and the course of treatment easy. But the diagnostic process was memorable, to say the least.
The family doctor determined to run some tests. He marked a few items on his page-long checklist, placed the clipboard on a door hook, and while walking out, said, "I'll check back with you after the tests."
A few minutes later the nurse marched me to the x-ray department where the technician took a few photographs. She took me to another room, where I blew into a clear plastic thing that looked like an inverted saxophone. Then she took me back to the examination room, looked at the checklist, twisted her nose a bit, looked at me, twisted her nose again, shrugged and then asked, "Are your ears feeling plugged?"
"Not really, but maybe a little in my right ear."
She pulled out an otoscope, studied both ear canals, and commented, "Well, I see a little extra wax in your right ear." One warm water ear rinse later, she made a few markings on the chart, placed it back on the door hook, and walked out.
Upon his return the doctor looked at the first chart. "You're x-rays look good. The lungs are clear." He looked at the next chart. "Your breathing is strong." He looked at the third chart. He twisted his nose a bit, looked at me, twisted his nose again, and then with a most puzzled look, asked, "Did the nurse flush out your ears?"
"Yes, sir."
"She was supposed to give you an EKG, not an ear flush." He looked at the checklist, saw that his mark was a bit off the mark, and said, "I'll send her back in to do the EKG." He shrugged and smiled. "For what it's worth, you just got a free ear flush. Hope it felt good."
A sheepish nurse returned, rolling in an EKG machine. Her embarrassment quickly turned into our shared laughing.
As I left the office my laughing turned reflective. Dumbstruck, I realized that in the spiritual life, plugged ear canals cause sick hearts.
What hardened the heart of Pharaoh? What hardened the hearts of Israel's enemies, and at times the hearts of the Israelites themselves? What hardened the hearts of Jesus' detractors? One simple answer: their hard-hearts grew out of their deaf ears. Referring to that history, three times the book of Hebrews warns believers, Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the day of rebellion.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has received intense criticism since July of 2004 when it passed a resolution calling for "phased selective divestment" from companies that are profiting from the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in Israel/Palestine. Most of this criticism has accused the church of being anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism is a problem throughout the United States and throughout the world, so the question of whether the PC(USA) is contributing to such an evil needs to be taken seriously. Yet some of the harshest criticism has come not from outside the church but from within it.
One Presbyterian minister who has been outspoken about the PC(USA)'s actions wrote what many other pastors have expressed from their pulpits, "We are profoundly disturbed by our leaders and by the delegates who favored these anti-Israel, anti-Semitic actions." (https://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0 /module/displaystory/story_id/23583/edition_id/468/format/html/displaystory.html ) In an e-mail correspondence, one pastor went so far as to say, "The Presbyterian church must come to terms with the fact that it is an unrepentant denomination of anti-Semitism and hubris in its pronouncements." Ouch.
Yet even if most critics within the church aren't willing to go as far as this pastor, many more are concerned that while the church may be well intentioned, our actions may yet be perceived to be anti-Semitic. Those of us who are involved in Jewish-Presbyterian dialogs find this criticism puts us in a bit of a pickle because, while we are attempting to accurately represent the church's position, such criticism certainly lends credence to the expressed concerns of our Jewish partners. So the question that begs to be addressed is what might it mean for the PC(USA) or the actions of the church to be anti-Semitic?
"I want to transfer to the Presbyterian Church because in this denomination children matter." I don't remember the name of the speaker. It has been 20 years or so. But his words left their imprint.
We were proceeding through routine approvals of minister transfers in a stated presbytery meeting. Interest picked up when this longtime military chaplain, a Baptist, shared how his journey of faith had led him to the Reformed theological camp. "In my former tradition, we dedicated infants and educated children in the hope that they someday would profess faith in Jesus Christ. Upon their profession, they would get baptized and thereby be welcomed into the body of Christ. In the Reformed tradition you all baptize them into the body and educate them into personal faith. I think that's the right sequence."
As a fairly recent convert to Presbyterianism at the time, I found his words reassuring, especially so, since the one theological sticking point for me had been the practice of infant baptism. Exercising my office under the Presbyterian Church's constitution, I had learned well how to present to parents the covenantal concept of baptism, rooted as it is in the practice of infant circumcision dating to the eighth day of Isaac's life. But I still harbored some doubts about such a practice. This chaplain helped convert me into a passionate advocate of our denomination's sacramental theology.
It is Vacation Bible School planning time in many churches. This year's curricula from the following publishers are included:
Augsburg Publishing
Cokesbury
Concordia
Congregational Ministries
Cook Communications
Group Publishing
Standard Publishing
Editor's Note: This guest viewpoint is a critique of stories and an editorial in the Outlook relating to torture. It originally appeared on Presbynet and is used by permission.
As I read the allegations and accusations of torture and abuse posted by Jack Haberer, editor of The Presbyterian Outlook, Princeton Seminary professor George Hunsinger, and the Moderator of General Assembly Rick Ufford-Chase, I felt weary; a weariness born of reading the same tired arguments repeated endlessly.
Jack Haberer, in "Clichés and truisms," an editorial appearing in The Presbyterian Outlook, first asks if the United States of America as the world's "lone superpower" has "sufficient character and courage to contain the corrosive effects of unchecked power in this new world"? He then lauds the US for "withdrawing" after the completion of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. This, according to Haberer, encouraged "the hope of other nations that we would not over-assert our power."
Mr. Haberer should be aware that the objective of Operation Desert Shield/Storm was to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait, not remove the regime of Saddam Hussein. Effecting regime change subsequently became US policy during the Clinton administration. Furthermore, while the bulk of US ground, air and sea forces were re-deployed, a significant US and Allied presence remained in the Persian Gulf to maintain the "no fly zones" and deter any further aggression by Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, after 1992, the Clinton administration increased the military's operational tempo by 300-percent with humanitarian and peacekeeping missions to Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans and Rwanda while maintaining an active presence in Europe and South Korea as well as the Persian Gulf. Throughout the 1990s, on any given day, US Army forces were deployed in approximately seventy countries world-wide accomplishing missions as varied as keeping Serbians from murdering Muslim Albanian Kosovars, removing landmines and other explosives from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and helping the Vietnamese identify their missing-in-action from nearly thirty years of war between 1946 and 1975.
Editor's Note: This guest viewpoint is a response to Earl H. Tilford Jr. (printed this issue) and Dean Waldt, who had written a critique of stories and an editorial in the Outlook relating to torture. These materials were written before two meetings on torture in mid-January. This story originally appeared on Presbynet and is used by permission.
Outlook Article Links:
"Clichés and truisms," editorial by Jack Haberer
"Why the torture abuse scandal matters" by George Hunsinger
"No2 Torture" by Rick Ufford-Chase
"Americans have tortured prisoners in several locations around the world, the U.S. government has moved prisoners to countries where torture is practiced by American allies, the Bush administration has at times sought to justify torture, and all of this is the tragic fruit from a war that violates traditional Christian "Just War" doctrine. Presbyterians and all people of faith need to be concerned and actively working to change our governmental policies."
The recent Presbyweb writings of Earl H. Tilford Jr. and Dean Waldt, and the notes by their supporters, have been very critical of some church leaders who are concerned about torture being done by Americans. The thoughtful leaders being attacked include the popular PC(USA) General Assembly moderator, the new evangelical editor of the independent The Presbyterian Outlook magazine, and a professor of theology at Princeton Seminary.
Dean Waldt is critical of the GA moderator's concern about torture and asks, "Where is this clear and compelling evidence? I've been reading the newspapers and watching cable news along with everyone else. How did I miss this?"
Today's news (December 30) is that "the number of Guantánamo Bay prisoners taking part in a hunger strike that began nearly five months ago has surged to 84 since Christmas Day, the U.S. military said on Thursday. ... The detainees began the strike in early August after the military reneged on promises to bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva Conventions, their lawyers said. Detainees are willing to starve to death to demand humane treatment and a fair hearing on whether they must stay, the lawyers said."
The New York Times had previously reported that "The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion ''tantamount to torture'' on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba."
The annual summer tradition of Christian education called Vacation Bible School or Vacation Church School began at the end of the 19th century with a clear vision and mission. An enterprising Baptist laywoman, whose idea was to get children off the streets in New York City and teach them something about the Bible, rented a beer hall on the East Side of the city and held her Bible School. The entire summer for the next two years was filled with activities, Bible Stories, memory verses, and snacks. According to my research, her venture was very successful for those years. Then her pastor insisted the program be moved into the church building. This was done for several weeks but participation dropped so drastically that the program was moved back to the beer hall, where it continued as an example of a church reaching out into the community to share its faith.
What began as a social program to get children off the streets has grown in many denominations to be a primary educational/evangelistic summer endeavor that takes many forms.
People often make the mistake of thinking all that is involved in planning Vacation Bible School is going to your local Christian bookstore, buying packets of material, recruiting a few leaders with the famous words "there won't be anything to it," putting up posters, waiting for the beginning date to roll around and anticipating the arrival of the kids. That buy-the-resource approach misses an important first step. The CE Committee, the Educator, and others concerned about the overall educational ministry in a congregation need to answer a few questions.
These are acutely trying times for the Christian remnant residing in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority. Tens of thousands have abandoned their holy sites and ancestral properties to move abroad, while those who remain do so as a beleaguered and dwindling minority. Christians, who used to comprise the vast majority of the residents in the Bethlehem area, will fall past a critical point -- and their community will no longer be viable.
Palestinian Christian leaders who should be protecting their co-religionists are instead abandoning them to the forces of radical Islam. Muslim religious law (Sharia) is an enormous influence on the inner workings of the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, the Palestinian Constitution states, "the Sharia will be the paramount source of legislation." By granting Islamic law primacy over every other legal source, including international human rights conventions, the minorities living in the Palestinian Authority are denied proper redress via the courts.
In fact, the Christians have little protection at all from any source, and have faced virtually uninterrupted persecution during the decade since the Oslo peace process began. They live amid a dominant (greater than 98 percent) Muslim population that is increasingly agitated and xenophobic. Intimidation is directed at Christians who dare question the political, economic and social agenda of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups.
During my student days, an elderly Pentecostal pastor came to address us one day in Chapel. He told the story of an occasion in his ministry when, after he preached a sermon challenging all present to dedicate their lives to Christian service, people streamed forward to offer themselves to serve the Lord. As they prayed, the "glory fell" on them, and the whole throng was "lost in wonder, love and praise," to borrow a phrase from Charles Wesley.
The preacher was quite pleased to see this obvious evidence of God's blessing on his ministry, when abruptly, he said, the Holy Spirit caught him short: "I'm blessing these people not because of what you said, but in order to help them forget what you said."
Some years later I was pastor of a congregation that included an elder who had a stock line for me most Sundays as I greeted the people departing the sanctuary: "That was a great sermon this morning! I don't remember a thing you said, but it made me feel good." It was good medicine for me to be reminded that in the grand scheme of things, who I am and what I have to say aren't all that important after all. I was discovering the truth of Eugene Peterson's and Marva Dawn's marvelous book title, The Unnecessary Pastor.
It is vital that we, as God's servants, neither take our vocation too lightly, nor our ministry too seriously. God will get done what God purposes to get done -- whether we are part of the program or not. God calls pastors to play an active, particular role in the grand drama of the Kingdom of Heaven breaking into this world. Ultimately, however, our ministry and the Gospel cause we serve do not rise or fall on whether we get it exactly right -- on whether we work long hours, on the level of our pastoral and management skills, or for sure on how "spiritual" we are.
My father died November 7. He was 90 years old, almost 91, and had served as an ordained minister for 64 years, all in Texas. After graduating from seminary, he was called to a congregation in Eliasville, a windblown West Texas town barely on the map these days. Most of his ministry, however, took place in the growing suburbs of Ft. Worth, Dallas, and Houston. In the 1950's he wrote a book entitled Our Cities for Christ, which was a call to the Southern Presbyterian Church to pay attention to the rapidly urbanizing South and to be about the work of organizing new congregations for a post-war America.
This impulse toward evangelism was deeply rooted in my father's theological make-up and represented his most consistent response to the gospel's claim. Stephen Webb, in his book, The Divine Voice, has argued that we show we understand the gospel's claims most truly when we preach its good news, an insight my father would have understood instinctively and with which he would have agreed.
The formative influence upon my father's theology was the Student Volunteer Movement (which he encountered through the YMCA) and its aim "to evangelize the world in this generation." The theological problems with that motto, and indeed, with that movement are almost self-evident to us today even though our achievements seem paltry when compared to those of the generations inspired by such a slogan. My father's heroes were people like John R. Mott and later, Robert E. Speer and before them, Sheldon Jackson.
Show me a major city that has a significant African-American population, and I'll show you a school called "Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary (or Middle or High) School." Its students will be nearly, or 100 percent, African-American. Wasn't MLK promoting racial integration?
Show me a denomination that has spoken prophetically against race hatred, against apartheid, against segregation, and against all kinds of social injustice, and I'll show you any one of thousands of Presbyterian churches, where nearly 100 percent of each congregation's members come from the same race. Aren't we promoting racial integration?
In his recently released book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, author and educator Jonathan Kozol says that America has gone from desegregation to re-segregation. Walls set up by the power of the law came down only to be replaced by walls set up by social and economic class distinctions. Result: Our schools are more segregated in 2005 than at any time since 1968.
The Presbyterian Church has taken some baby steps toward greater racial diversity, in pursuit of a goal to have 10 percent of our members come from non-western European races by 2010. But the operative term here remains "baby steps." We have much further to go.
Why should we care?
A woman who lives near the church likes to walk her dogs in the Rockwood State Forest. One day her two Labs disappeared into the brush and a minute later one of them came flying through the air, collapsing in a whining heap on the trail. He had encountered a mother bear and her two cubs in the blackberry bramble and she was not happy to make his acquaintance. The dog survived after all the puncture wounds in his neck healed. Truly he was well shaken and stirred.
This story reminded me of the old saying I used to hear a lot as a youngster: "It is easier to catch bees with honey than with vinegar." It is hard to know where it comes from, but it makes a lot of sense.
Of course, it is also possible to snare bears with honey and we all know how to be tough on people we meet when necessary. Personally, I prefer honey when I have the choice.
New Year's Reflections: Luke 2:22-40
I have often thought how nice it would be, how much more inclusive we would be, if some year we cast Anna and Simeon in the Christmas pageant along with all the children. Simeon and Anna remind us, with the kind of wisdom and eloquence that come with age, that even though the focus of Christmas is a child, Christmas is not only for children.
For after choruses of angels have lit up the night sky, and shepherds have scurried across fields of promise to see this thing that has happened, the magi have arrived bearing gifts from the nations, these senior adults enter the story when life is getting back to normal for the holy family. From the posture of long years waiting, they reveal to us how large and awesome this tiny baby really is.
Luke presents this chapter of the infancy narrative in the whispers and hushed tones of people who know how to make room for a baby, and of those who understand that their own future is somehow embraced by the child they behold. "Long ago," the Letter to the Hebrews begins, "God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son." Somehow Simeon and Anna seem to know instinctively that the presentation of this baby in the Temple is God speaking. This child is the very Word of God whose tiny hands hold out salvation for the world.
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