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Stay alert, keep awake

Scripture lesson: Mark 13

 

With all due respect to Holy Scripture, this is some great Advent sermon fodder. There is Isaiah 64's cry to come down; Psalm 81's plea to come to save us, and the thrice reiterated restore us," and, I Corinthians 1's invitation to patiently wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But when it comes to interpreting Mark 13's imperatives to stay alert and keep awake from a Reformed theological perspective, we who live after the publication of some 62 million copies of The Left Behind series (not to mention some two-thousand Advents, more or less), have our work cut out for us. The mild-mannered Christianity Today once referred to LaHaye and Jenkins' series as a multi-"volume post-rapture, dispensational soap opera." But this stuff--page-turning intrigue and hair-raising climaxes notwithstanding--is not harmless entertainment. It's theology. 

Editorials

Sucking the Church Dry

Some years ago John Burgess wrote an essay for The Christian Century in which he described the drain on the ordinary life of the PC(USA) by coalitions with "reform" agendas for the denomination. To whichever coalition or covenant group you belonged, the dedication and resources with which you once strengthened the church for mission, service, and witness, now went into lobbies that were hungry for power, for theological dominance, or for political control. Burgess' article was written in the '90s. Has anyone calculated the hundreds of thousands of dollars which, since then, have been contributed to the Covenant Network, the Presbyterian Coalition, PFR, and the Confessing Church movement, and the like -- in staff salaries, speakers' fees, and travel for conferences, phone bills, office equipment, and the like? If those sums of money were prudently managed and spent, they might eliminate AIDS in a medium-sized African nation.

Voices

Seven core callings for Reformed churches

Editor's Note: This challenge to Reformed churches is included in a report to representatives in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) by its president, Clifton Kirkpatrick. It references the 2004 WARC meeting in Accra, Ghana, at which Kirkpatrick was elected president.

 

The Book of Proverbs in the King James Version has a wonderful phrase, "Where there is not vision, the people perish." The most important thing we will do at this meeting is set a vision, purpose, and priorities for the Alliance and begin to shape our life around them. What we need to recapture the hearts of our churches is a compelling vision, purpose, and program so that the message of Accra can renew our churches and through them our world.

The core callings that we are proposing for your consideration for WARC are:

·   To covenant for justice in the economy and the earth.

·   To search for spiritual renewal and renewal of Reformed worship.

·   To foster communion within the Reformed family and unity within the church ecumenical.

·   To interpret and re-interpret the Reformed tradition and theology for contemporary witness.

·   To foster mission in unity, mission renewal and mission empowerment.

·   To build churches that are truly inclusive of all the people of God.

·   To enable Reformed churches to witness for justice and peace.

... We believe these core callings are not only the basis on which we should organize the Alliance but also are the core callings that should be at the heart of every Reformed Church so that WARC becomes a corporate expression of our shared values and our common movement to transform the world to the purposes of God.

Book Reviews

The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Revelation to John

by Barbara R. Rossing. Basic Books, 2004. ISBN 0-8133-4314-3. Pb, 222 pp. $15.00

When the Left Behind series (by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins) began to come out in 1995, many of us wondered "Who would read such stuff?" Now after twelve volumes and a thirteenth, The Rising, which serves as a prequel, we know the answer. A lot more people read them than we would have guessed--enough to keep the books on the best-seller list year after year. They include a sizable percentage of every congregation I know of. The disturbing thing is that while those reading the books know they are fiction, many are nevertheless convinced that what they present is indeed the "biblical view" of God's plan and purpose for the world. We who read Scripture quite differently cannot allow such an assumption to go unchallenged. The use of the Bible and the underlying theology found in the Left Behind series is in many ways antithetical to what many of us are convinced is a more faithful reading of Scripture.

In The Rapture Exposed, Barbara Rossing offers a clear, engaging, and theologically insightful critique of the use of Scripture in the Left Behind series and the dispensationalist theology that lies behind the story line. Rossing, who teaches at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, has written extensively on the Revelation to John and Christian eschatology. She skillfully exposes the theological fiction on which the whole concept of the Rapture is based, the ethic of despair and escapism it fosters, and the extreme political agenda espoused by its main proponents.

Uncategorized

ACSWP reviews draft policy documents being readied for ’06 GA

(PNS) The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) got updates on several proposed policy documents, including four to be presented to next year's General Assembly, during a recent meeting here.

ACSWP, which develops social witness polices for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), heard presentations on three papers, on energy, economic security for older Americans and lending laws. The documents and recommendations are subject to ACSWP review and revision before they go to next summer's 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala.

During the Oct. 20-22 meeting, the committee discussed a proposed policy statement on ministry to people with disabilities and a referral concerning a study paper on the value of human life.   

ACSWP also welcomed its new coordinator, Christian "Chris" Iosso, and honored Gwen Crawley for her work as interim coordinator of ACSWP

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21st century mission: Shifting center, growing diversity

ATLANTA -- With the center of Christianity shifting south in the 21st century, what can North American Christians learn from what's happening in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

What are the implications of the new alignments -- with pluralism and secularism increasing in Europe and the United States, while evangelical Christianity is booming in many places in the southern hemisphere?

There are many ways to answer those questions, but one common denominator is this: North American Christians need to be ready for change. Things are shifting all around them, whether they're prepared or not, and some of these realignments amount to dramatic reconfigurations. And with every change comes both some pain and new opportunities.

Presbyterians gathered in Atlanta Oct. 20-22 for a global mission conference called "From Everywhere to Everyone," sponsored by The Outreach Foundation, Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship and the Worldwide Ministries Division of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

"From now on Christianity is primarily a non-western religion," said Andrew Walls, a professor from the University of Edinburgh, who traced how shifts in migration patterns have affected missionary activity around the world. "Increasingly it will be shaped by the languages, the cultures, the music, the rhythms, the ways of thinking and choosing and doing things, the structures and networks of relationships of Africa and Asia and Latin America. ...They must increase and we must decrease."

Editorials

Minister Shortage II

I stirred up a controversy with an editorial on Commissioned Lay Pastors and Interim Ministers. I haven't tallied the "Amens" and the "No ways," but I am grateful that discussion has opened on these topics, as well as on the hand-wringing assertion that we have (or are about to have) a minister shortage.

One respondent found my editorial confusing; some of you were "hurt" by what I said. I am not against Interims or CLPs, but there is serious weakness in the church's use of both positions that has led to loss of membership, the demoralization of Ministers of the Word, and confusion about the role of pastors. 

CLPs are particularly useful when such persons emerge from indigenous congregations or communities, receive theological and ecclesiastical training, and then serve in those communities to build up a congregation until it calls a Minister of the Word. On the other hand, I think it is bad policy (and bad faith) to take good elders from strong churches and train them to be lay pastors in churches that cannot afford a "real pastor." Why don't the rich churches in a presbytery give enough so that every congregation (or linked congregations) has (have) a Minister of Word and Sacrament? Are rural churches any less deserving of a Minister of the Word than those large churches that can afford three or four? What is the presbytery's role here; do they continue to be market driven? It takes no imagination to follow a McDonalds strategy of New Church Development. It takes faith and reason for a presbytery to "cover" a region or urban area with the good news of the gospel lived out in Presbyterian congregations. Those who defend the presbyteries for the wrong reasons ought to ask churches of 2,000 members to hire CLPs to lead them.

Voices

Disestablished: The challenge of congregational life today

Editor's Note: This sermon was preached at the 66th meeting of New Hope Presbytery of Rocky Mount, N.C., on October 15, 2005.

 

Scripture texts: John 15:12-17; 1 Peter 2:9-17

Though our U.S. Constitution was produced by a congress consisting mostly of Christians, the first clause of the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of an official religion. The apparent irony goes deeper when we acknowledge the contributions of Christians in the formation of our government, beginning with the revolutionary war itself. This was something particularly true of Presbyterians. Historian Lefferts Loetscher1 said that the fires of the American Revolution were fanned from Presbyterian pulpits sufficient for the British to describe it as "the Presbyterian Rebellion." When King George III asked what the trouble was in the American colonies a member of Parliament replied our "colonial cousins had run off with a Presbyterian parson."  

The organizing pastor of First Presbyterian Church New Bern, John Knox Witherspoon, was the grandson and namesake of the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. (I'm required to say that!)

Whatever you may think of the disestablishment clause, the biblical wisdom and Reformed theological stamp that shaped our Constitution is unmistakable. Its principal author, James Madison, was educated at Presbyterian Princeton where he was a student of John Witherspoon. Remembered as "The Father of the United States Constitution," Madison helped produce what Lutheran historian Martin Marty has called "a thoroughly Calvinist document." Marty claims that the Constitution supplies the checks and balances any Presbyterian would love, for the unspoken implication found throughout, "is the conviction that while humans have a great capability, self-interest would always turn them against the common good if left to themselves."2

Book Reviews

Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to Persons of Faith

by George McGovern, Bob Dole, and Donald Messer, with a forward by Bill Clinton. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8006-3782-8.  Pb.,114 pp. $12.00

 

These are the facts: More than enough food is produced to feed every man, woman and child on the planet. We have technology sufficient to deliver that food to all those people. Given some tweaking of priorities, there is global capital available to pay for this food and its delivery. Alleviating hunger will contribute toward inhibiting the spread of AIDS, reducing poverty, and diminishing the discontent that creates an environment conducive to war and terrorism. Every major world religion places a significant emphasis on feeding the hungry. More than 850 million people worldwide are malnourished, among them approximately 300 million school-aged children, another 100 million young mothers, infants, and pre-school children, and 7 million citizens in the United States of America; 210,000 persons die each week of starvation and malnutrition. 

These empirically verifiable pieces of data lead to a set of profoundly disturbing questions: How can we allow this to be? Why are there so many hungry people today? How can there be so much apathy in the lives of the well fed? Why aren't people of faith obsessed with ending hunger? 

These questions, once asked, demand our attention and a response. This book is a response.

Outlook Features

Former senators take on needs of hungry: Outlook Q & A with George McGovern

This Thanksgiving, as Americans sit to break bread and count their blessings, Bob Dole and George McGovern want them to think about the men, women and children all over the world who do not have enough to eat.

These men -- one a Republican, one a Democrat, both former U.S. Senators and presidential hopefuls -- have written a new book called "Ending Hunger Now."

Their basic argument is this: There is enough food being produced in the world. Millions do not need to go hungry, while others gather around tables piled with food, if governments and individuals have the political will to spend enough money to make it stop.

Dole was traveling out of the country and could not be reached for comment. But McGovern, now 83 and living in South Dakota, took time for an interview. "I'm trying to live to 100," he said. "There are so many things I still want to do."

Outlook national reporter Leslie Scanlon interviewed McGovern and Donald E. Messer, a professor of practical theology and president emeritus at The Iliff School of Theology in Denver, where he directs the Center for the Church and Global AIDS.

Here are excerpts from those conversations.

Voices

A Fowl Bawl

The Book of Order, so far as I can determine, does not allow for retroactive revocation of ordination.  I think this means I can probably safely admit now that I do not like chicken. Left to me the colonel from Kentucky would still be a corporal from Tennessee.  I have never made a big issue of this situation because I am not trying to feather my nest.

Voices

Going to the Mat

Every time I deliver a sermon people come up in wonderment and ask where I learned to preach.  However, I never get to tell them because they immediately fall to the floor laughing and roll away.  I am, of course, glad to see people being happy, but I would like to answer that question.

Book Reviews

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology

by Eugene Peterson. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005. ISBN 0-8028-2875-2, 368 pp., $ 25.

 

Eugene Peterson's writings are well known to many if not most Outlook readers. No doubt there are dog-eared copies of Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, Under the Unpredictable Plant, and now The Message on many a Presbyterian pastor's bookshelf. I am confident that Peterson's latest book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology, will also find its place among these rich resources. Just make sure to leave room: Christ Plays is the foundational book in a planned five-volume series on spiritual theology. This means we have much to look forward to from this vigorous writer who is both pastor and professor.

One might begin by asking just what spiritual theology is. According to Peterson, the words belong together. "Theology" is the attention we give to God, to knowing God as revealed in the Scriptures and in Jesus Christ. "Spiritual" is the insistence that everything that God reveals is capable of being lived by ordinary people. "Spiritual" keeps theology from degenerating into thinking and talking about God from a distance. "Theology" keeps spiritual from being just about our own thoughts and feelings about God. These two words should be yoked if our study of God is to have anything to do with how we live and if the way we live is to have anything to do with the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ. For Peterson, spiritual theology is the attention we give to the details of living life in the way of Christ.

Editorials

Disestablishing Distortions

The paragraphs below begin a sermon by William L. Hawkins on Christian disestablishment, preached at a meeting of New Hope Presbytery on October 15. In a time of increasing, irreversible religious pluralism, Hawkins exalts the value of congregational life.  He argues that because we have long been unable to rely on the institutions of government or education to under gird a Protestant or Christian culture, the congregation has become the place where everything we do matters as it never has before. You will read this engaging, inspiring sermon next week in the Thanksgiving issue of the Outlook. But it is the origin of our nation and Constitution, described here, which illumines the present religious divide that troubles our nation's soul. 

Though our U.S. Constitution was produced by a congress consisting mostly of Christians, the first clause of the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of an official religion. The apparent irony goes deeper when we acknowledge the contributions of Christians in the formation of our government, beginning with the revolutionary war itself. This was something particularly true of Presbyterians. Historian Lefferts Loetscher said that the fires of the American Revolution were fanned from Presbyterian pulpits sufficient for the British to describe it as "the Presbyterian Rebellion." 

Uncategorized

‘Godcasting’ on MP3 players makes religious messages portable

 

The radio preacher is finding new life in cyberspace.

"Godcasting" is the latest advancement in online religion, in which preachers convert their sermons to audio to be heard on portable digital audio devices.

Using iPods, or any portable MP3 player, "podcasting" lets people download audio programs that can be listened to whenever they like. It's a form of audio syndication that musicians, businessmen, tech talk show hosts and political commentators like Al Franken have already adopted.

There's lots more God on iPod than jazz, theater or movie reviews. Pod preachers, including Christians, Buddhists and pagans, are among the most prolific users of the new technology. Just as sermons were among the first type of broadcasts when radio caught on in America in the 1920s, podcasting is creating a new form of wireless parson.

Voices

Shortage of pastors?

Click here to read Ben's editorial, 'Minister Shortage'

Ben Sparks has written thoughtfully in these pages about the response of our denomination to the apparent shortage of ordained ministers. His words are wise, and his description of a program to enhance the commitment and skills of younger, and more recent seminary graduates leads me to think that the time has come for such an approach. May that work increase.

If I am correct in my understanding of what Ben says about the role of interim pastors, I agree with him at this point. In my opinion, while interim pastors provide useful services, they may also slow down the process of "filling pulpits" more quickly, since having a temporary pastor can seem, to the congregation and its committees, to keep the status quo. No matter that competent, trained persons who do this worthy work are encouraged to assist the church in embarking on a program of re-visioning, there is the possible perception that the interim pastor can hold the fort, visit the sick, celebrate the sacraments, and provide other services. And, they can.

Book Reviews

Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation

 

edited by William C. Placher. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005.  ISBN 0802829279.  Pb., 452 pp.  $24. 

 

Lilly Endowment Inc. has given another gift to the Church. Lilly's "Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation," which have prompted students and scholars at 88 colleges and universities to consider the concept of vocation, has likewise prompted Dr. Placher to edit Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation. This book will be a valuable resource in both academic and congregational settings for years to come.

William C. Placher is the Charles D. and Elizabeth S. LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Wabash College. He has gathered fifty-seven readings from fifty different authors and has placed them chronologically in this reader. As the book title indicates, these readings span twenty centuries of the Christian tradition. Placher acknowledges in his introduction that his collection stops fifty years short of the present. His rationale is that to include the important diversity within the last five decades would have added significantly to this already substantive volume (452 pages). While some will miss these modern voices, Placher's choices give plenty of food for thought for those considering the concept of calling.

Book Reviews

Church History 101: An Introduction for Presbyterians

by William M. Ramsay. Louisville: Geneva Press, 2005. ISBN 0-664-50277-6. Pb., 144 pp. $14.95.

 

History--that enigmatic subject. Everyone living seems to have had at least one unutterably boring history teacher. And yet, new members in our congregations and older ones need something to help ground them in the history of the church as they learn about current worship, education, and polity practices, and begin to tackle the foundational theological questions of our faith. A classic description of what such education should be in our Reformed tradition calls for materials and programs that are "Biblically grounded, historically informed, ecumenically involved, socially engaged and communally nurtured."

Retired minister and teacher William Ramsay has given us a wonderful tool to help our congregations become "historically informed." As Ramsay puts it in his foreword, the story begins in Eden, continues with Abraham and Jacob and Isaac, with Moses and the Exodus, and climaxes in the life of Jesus. But the story of the church does not end there. From the church in Acts to the present day, we are witness to the ways God continues to act in our history.

Book Reviews

The Worshiping Life: Meditations on the Order of Worship

 

by Lisa Nichols Hickman. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2005. ISBN 0664227597.  Pb., 162 pp., $14.95. 

 

Years ago, a professional book reviewer told me that when you read a book you should always begin with the acknowledgements. With that instruction still in my mind, I opened up the first pages of The Worshiping Life: Meditations on the Order of Worship by Lisa Nichols Hickman. Imagine my delight to see names of pastors I actually knew and at least one church listed where I have worshipped! I felt at home with this book right from the start knowing that a number of Lisa's mentors were folks grounded in down-to-earth pastoral ministry.

The Worshiping Life is a collection of twenty-five meditations, each one reflecting upon a different aspect of worship. Hickman begins with the Gathering and goes right on through to the last Amen. While many books written on worship these days seem to discuss the pros and cons of traditional, contemporary, or blended service styles, Hickman's emphasis is on the elements of Reformed worship. She divides her meditations into the main parts of the service: Gathering, Proclaiming, Responding, Sealing, and Bearing Out. Following introductory remarks on these aspects, she delves more deeply into each line of the bulletin, including the Call to Worship, Opening Hymn, Confession and Assurance of Pardon, Prayer for Illumination, Scripture Readings, Affirmation of Faith, Sacraments, and even the Middle Hymn! 

Voices

Courage, fear, and the future of the Church

Following the terrorist bombings this summer in London a website came to international attention. Its message was simple: "I am not afraid." One would be hard pressed to find a more defiant and timely message of hope for a conflict battered world. I have begun to wonder what it might mean for our church to affirm this message too in the midst of its own conflicts.

There is a kind of holy fear, of course. George MacDonald writes: "Where it is possible that fear should exist, it is well it should exist, cause continual uneasiness, and be cast out by nothing less than love." MacDonald sees fear as a kind of provisional reverence that eventually will evaporate in the presence of the purifying fire of God's love. 

Uncategorized

Board of Pensions reorganizes; to eliminate 22 jobs

(PNS) The Board of Pensions (BOP) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has implemented a plan to consolidate member services, centralize oversight of third-party providers, and provide for "succession management" in key leadership positions.

"Stewardship -- of people and financial resources -- is so important," BOP President and CEO Rob Maggs told the Presbyterian News Service (PNS) on Oct. 19. "It is critical to have strong management -- the right people doing the right jobs."

In his Oct. 13 weekly letter to board members and other church leaders, Maggs acknowledged that financial pressures were a factor in the reorganization. "We must keep our ... annualized increases in budgets at about 3 percent or less," he said, adding that the board's operating costs will show a year-to-year decline in 2006.

Uncategorized

Kathleen Norris to Covenant Network: Bask in the mystery

MEMPHIS --  "We do not know, but we are not lost."

That's a line from a poem that Kathleen Norris's husband wrote, after the two of them sat talking at the kitchen table one night about what she thought about angels and he thought about numbers and what all that might say about truth.

That question came from a man who Norris described as a "recovering Catholic;" a man she knew was ready to talk about religion when he would say things to her such as, "Doesn't it matter that none of it is true?"

But Norris persuaded her husband to think a little as she does, that mystery may be at the heart of Christian discipleship. Our most important relationships all involve mystery, she said -- when people vow during a wedding to stick together for better and for worse, for example, the promise is made without knowing much at all about what surprises that journey will bring.

But we can approach these mysteries as disciples, Norris said -- as people of faith, willing to learn.

Uncategorized

Montreat: Preserving Southern church heritage deeply felt issue

For some folks, sitting on a rocking chair on a front porch in Montreat, N.C. calls back a lifetime of memories and connections. They hear in those hills the footsteps of Presbyterians from their own families and others they know and revere, saints of the church who served God in congregations throughout the southern United States and on mission assignments around the world.

What's the value of someone being able to come to the archives at Montreat and find her grandmother's name listed as a Sunday school teacher in the records of her childhood church?

It's hard to know how to put a dollar value on that.  What's the right amount to pay to preserve such memories? When does that price become too much?

That bone-deep love for a place and a heritage is whipping up a storm in Montreat, where the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) has decided that, for economic reasons, for the sake of other priorities in the financially-struggling Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Montreat Historical Society should shut its doors.

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