In light of my last post I thought a reminder was in order.
Remember...hell is NOT a witnessing tool. It is motivation to witness. (Thus says Chemnitz in Formula of Concord. And "this is most certainly true.")
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Free for All?
"It is God's will that men should hear his Word and not stop their ears." Formula of Concord, Epitome, Article 2, Free Will.
"(N)amely...in his purpose and counsel God has ordained the following: 4. That he would justify and graciously accept into the adoption of children and into the inheritance of eternal life all who in sincere repentance and true faith accept Christ."
"On the contrary, as God has ordained in his counsel that the Holy Spirit would call, enlighten, and convert the elect through the Word and that he would justify and save all who accept Christ through true faith, so he has also ordained in his counsel that he would harden, reject, and condemn all who, when they are called through the Word, spurn the Word and persistently resist the Word."
"The reason why all who hear the Word do not come to faith and therefore receive the greater damnation is not that God did not want them to be saved. It is their own fault because they heard the Word of God not to learn but only to despise, blaspheme, and ridicule it, and they resisted the Holy Spirit who wanted to work within them, as was the case with the Pharisees and their party at the time of Christ."
Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article 6, Election. (emphasis added)
When I was in seminary I learned early on that there was a strong strain of universalism (universal salvation) running through the student body. This concerned me; so much so that I chose to write a Master's Thesis to graduate. It was not required for graduation and my degree - I chose it. I wrote 80 page on the human role in justification from a Lutheran perspective as an argument against the doctrine of universal salvation. The chapter on the Book of Concord teachings I entitled, "To Accept Him." The thesis itself was entitled, "Free for All?" Is salvation free for all, or is it only a free for all?
I have noticed two related tendencies in Lutheran circles lately. I think maybe they are related. As I have mentioned below, there is a tendency to minimize or even wipe away any distinctiveness in the Christian faith vis a vis other religions in the name of tolerance, or open-mindedness, or even niceness. The other tendency is to minimize the human role in receiving salvation, thereby minimizing the human role in sharing the message of salvation. If there is no eternal significance to whether anyone will ACCEPT CHRIST (the words of The Formula), then there is no real sense of urgency as to whether anyone believes or not (or in what anyone believes).
But if what we believe, or do not believe, does have eternal significance, then the sense of urgency that sent the Apostles to their deaths to tell the truth about Jesus and share the true and full Gospel Message is also pressed upon us. As I mentioned earlier, the Apostles were willing to die to share the truth about Jesus because they were totally convinced that the people to whom the Holy Spirit sent them were NOT OK. They needed to hear the truth about Jesus. People still do.
Of course we cannot save anyone; nor can we make anyone believe. The Holy Spirit does that.
"I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in truth faith...." Small Catechism, Creed, Third Article.
But God spreads the Good News through US.
If it mattered eternally whether someone "confessed with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believed in their heart that God raised him from the dead" (Romans 10), how would we share the Good News? And how often?
In my reading on leadership in The Church of the 21st Century (not as extensive as many), I have come across four traits that seem to be key for being who God has called us to be in this current cultural climate: HOPE, TRUST, COURAGE and TRUTH. As a disciple of the writings of C. S. Lewis ("disciple" really means student - but active student), I am reminded that the question we need to be asking "in such a time as this" (Esther) is not: Is it popular? Is it progressive (or emergent)? Is it hip or trendy? The question we need to be asking is: IS IT TRUE?
Our Mission Statement at St. John's is a good one: With glad and generous hearts we bring the Good News to all, in gratitude for God's grace.
In general, while joy and generosity are great, as is gratitude, there needs to be a whole lot more bringing of the Good News. It matters.
"(N)amely...in his purpose and counsel God has ordained the following: 4. That he would justify and graciously accept into the adoption of children and into the inheritance of eternal life all who in sincere repentance and true faith accept Christ."
"On the contrary, as God has ordained in his counsel that the Holy Spirit would call, enlighten, and convert the elect through the Word and that he would justify and save all who accept Christ through true faith, so he has also ordained in his counsel that he would harden, reject, and condemn all who, when they are called through the Word, spurn the Word and persistently resist the Word."
"The reason why all who hear the Word do not come to faith and therefore receive the greater damnation is not that God did not want them to be saved. It is their own fault because they heard the Word of God not to learn but only to despise, blaspheme, and ridicule it, and they resisted the Holy Spirit who wanted to work within them, as was the case with the Pharisees and their party at the time of Christ."
Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article 6, Election. (emphasis added)
When I was in seminary I learned early on that there was a strong strain of universalism (universal salvation) running through the student body. This concerned me; so much so that I chose to write a Master's Thesis to graduate. It was not required for graduation and my degree - I chose it. I wrote 80 page on the human role in justification from a Lutheran perspective as an argument against the doctrine of universal salvation. The chapter on the Book of Concord teachings I entitled, "To Accept Him." The thesis itself was entitled, "Free for All?" Is salvation free for all, or is it only a free for all?
I have noticed two related tendencies in Lutheran circles lately. I think maybe they are related. As I have mentioned below, there is a tendency to minimize or even wipe away any distinctiveness in the Christian faith vis a vis other religions in the name of tolerance, or open-mindedness, or even niceness. The other tendency is to minimize the human role in receiving salvation, thereby minimizing the human role in sharing the message of salvation. If there is no eternal significance to whether anyone will ACCEPT CHRIST (the words of The Formula), then there is no real sense of urgency as to whether anyone believes or not (or in what anyone believes).
But if what we believe, or do not believe, does have eternal significance, then the sense of urgency that sent the Apostles to their deaths to tell the truth about Jesus and share the true and full Gospel Message is also pressed upon us. As I mentioned earlier, the Apostles were willing to die to share the truth about Jesus because they were totally convinced that the people to whom the Holy Spirit sent them were NOT OK. They needed to hear the truth about Jesus. People still do.
Of course we cannot save anyone; nor can we make anyone believe. The Holy Spirit does that.
"I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in truth faith...." Small Catechism, Creed, Third Article.
But God spreads the Good News through US.
If it mattered eternally whether someone "confessed with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believed in their heart that God raised him from the dead" (Romans 10), how would we share the Good News? And how often?
In my reading on leadership in The Church of the 21st Century (not as extensive as many), I have come across four traits that seem to be key for being who God has called us to be in this current cultural climate: HOPE, TRUST, COURAGE and TRUTH. As a disciple of the writings of C. S. Lewis ("disciple" really means student - but active student), I am reminded that the question we need to be asking "in such a time as this" (Esther) is not: Is it popular? Is it progressive (or emergent)? Is it hip or trendy? The question we need to be asking is: IS IT TRUE?
Our Mission Statement at St. John's is a good one: With glad and generous hearts we bring the Good News to all, in gratitude for God's grace.
In general, while joy and generosity are great, as is gratitude, there needs to be a whole lot more bringing of the Good News. It matters.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Why share the Good News?
Thank you all for following my blog. My next entry will be on the question: Why share the Good News? At St. John's we have a Mission Statement: With glad and generous hearts we bring the Good News to all, in gratitude for God's grace.
We are working on living into that confession through the guidance of our Vision Statement. But in a world of universalism, relativism and general "tolerance", is there really any point in sharing the Good News? I will look at this topic from the perspective of The Lutheran Confessions "soon."
But for now, I am going on vacation with my wife until mid-July, and will write on this subject when we return.
Yours and His, but not in that order,
Bob
We are working on living into that confession through the guidance of our Vision Statement. But in a world of universalism, relativism and general "tolerance", is there really any point in sharing the Good News? I will look at this topic from the perspective of The Lutheran Confessions "soon."
But for now, I am going on vacation with my wife until mid-July, and will write on this subject when we return.
Yours and His, but not in that order,
Bob
Friday, June 22, 2012
Why I am not emergent / emerging.
There is a movement in The Church right now that is gaining momentum. It is alternately called "Emergence" or "The Emerging Church." One problem with the title to this post is that The Emerging Church is hard to define. One observer likened it to trying to nail Jello to a wall. In poking around YouTube I found a description of four (4) senses of Emerging that varied widely.
Now I confess that I have not read Dr. Tickle's (with a last name like mine I never make fun of anyone else's last name) book, "Emergence." But I had the opportunity to view an in-depth interview and discussion around her book on DVD. So I am working with the definition that she provided over the span of this extensive DVD series. She is not the only one who has "written the book" on Emergence, but she is certainly one of the key players. I will also mention Brian McLaren.
Dr. Tickle sets out an impressive history of The Christian Church. She has discovered and shared that there is an upheaval that takes place in The Christian Church once every 500 years (pretty much like clockwork). In this upheaval, traditional understandings of authority are questioned, and rejected, and then over a few hundred years, new authorities are established. As you can imagine, things are pretty "tense" during the time when one authority source is swept aside and and another has not yet taken its place. She posits that we are currently in that time. The authority of Scripture as "inerrent" and "infallible" has been swept aside, and no other authority has as yet risen to prominence. She describes this upheaval as "a rummage sale" or "yard sale" in which some things are sold off while others are retained.
Now I have no reason to doubt her assessment historically, or sociologically. This seems to me to be a fair description of postmodernism in which we find ourselves. (I will not take the time to reflect on whether we are now in post-postmodernism.) The question, of course, centers on what gets "sold off" - discarded.
The first and most obvious is the authority of Scripture. This is definitional to the current time since that is the "outgoing" authority. So the first reason I am not emergent is that I reject the need, the propriety, to assume away the authority of Scripture as "the norm of ... faith and life." (Oh yea, there's that pesky oath again that Lutheran pastors all take to become pastors.) To be sure, emergent pastors say that they honor and apply The Bible. But every post, every article, every video, from Emergence I have seen or read has the qualifier implied "except the parts that we now know better than and make no sense to us."
What else is set aside? Substitutionary atonement "has to go." Earlier in my discussion of substitutionary atonement I quoted Dr. Tickle in her DVD presentation of her book stating that the concept of atonement does not appear in The New Testament. This is nonsense. Also "down the drain" is an actual hell. In a documentary, Brian McLaren, one of the "fathers" of the movement stated that substitutionary atonement is unconscionable and must be rejected, along with a literal hell.
A recent article in The Alban Institute e-newsletter posited that if we would just stop talking about "the exclusivity and universality of the Christ event" (Jesus is The Way and The Truth and The Life and The only way to God) we would get way more young adults in our churches. It's not popular. It's not nice. It's not open-minded and tolerant. (But what if it's true?)
As I mentioned above, there may be many levels of emergence. Emerging Worship as a way of giving glory to God I am all for. Remember Leonard Sweet, "I will put The Living Water into any container from which people will drink. The Living Water never changes; containers change all the time." I am all for ways of worshiping that are engaging to people and connect them to God. But our understanding of the God we worship has boundaries. We are not free to simply accept any opinion regaring who God is. (Interestingly, in the documentary I viewed Leonard Sweet was thrown into the Emerging Church movement, when he wrote personally and directly to me that he believes The Emerging Church movement is a mistake, a turning away from The Church Christ has called us to be. It's complex and confusing.)
An example. Quite a few years ago now I was talking to a young adult friend in Latvia about the challenges of staying committed to Christ through college. When he exited the train a few stops before me, a woman came up and said that she had overheard our conversation and asked if I would read something and tell her what I thought. I agreed and read the passage she indicated in her book. She asked what I thought and I told her I thought it was nonsense. She was taken aback by this, of course, and asked, Why. I said that the passage was all about The Temple and the worship in the temple. There was no discussion of God at all. The Temple is useless apart from The God of the Temple. God is the focus of worship, not the temple. She was Bahai, and as a Bahai was not at all concerned about the God of the temple, but the worship in the temple itself. Bahai can worship whatever god they want in the temple. But we are the Church of Jesus Christ (not Later Day Saints). We do not have that "luxurgy." God has revealed Godself through Jesus Christ, God the Son, and in and through The Holy Bible, by God the Holy Spirit.
When it comes to The Emerging Church, the things I am prepared to "sell off" at "the rummage sale" are so few when it comes to God and salvation, that the sale becomes a waste of time and energy.
I am not emergent.
Now I confess that I have not read Dr. Tickle's (with a last name like mine I never make fun of anyone else's last name) book, "Emergence." But I had the opportunity to view an in-depth interview and discussion around her book on DVD. So I am working with the definition that she provided over the span of this extensive DVD series. She is not the only one who has "written the book" on Emergence, but she is certainly one of the key players. I will also mention Brian McLaren.
Dr. Tickle sets out an impressive history of The Christian Church. She has discovered and shared that there is an upheaval that takes place in The Christian Church once every 500 years (pretty much like clockwork). In this upheaval, traditional understandings of authority are questioned, and rejected, and then over a few hundred years, new authorities are established. As you can imagine, things are pretty "tense" during the time when one authority source is swept aside and and another has not yet taken its place. She posits that we are currently in that time. The authority of Scripture as "inerrent" and "infallible" has been swept aside, and no other authority has as yet risen to prominence. She describes this upheaval as "a rummage sale" or "yard sale" in which some things are sold off while others are retained.
Now I have no reason to doubt her assessment historically, or sociologically. This seems to me to be a fair description of postmodernism in which we find ourselves. (I will not take the time to reflect on whether we are now in post-postmodernism.) The question, of course, centers on what gets "sold off" - discarded.
The first and most obvious is the authority of Scripture. This is definitional to the current time since that is the "outgoing" authority. So the first reason I am not emergent is that I reject the need, the propriety, to assume away the authority of Scripture as "the norm of ... faith and life." (Oh yea, there's that pesky oath again that Lutheran pastors all take to become pastors.) To be sure, emergent pastors say that they honor and apply The Bible. But every post, every article, every video, from Emergence I have seen or read has the qualifier implied "except the parts that we now know better than and make no sense to us."
What else is set aside? Substitutionary atonement "has to go." Earlier in my discussion of substitutionary atonement I quoted Dr. Tickle in her DVD presentation of her book stating that the concept of atonement does not appear in The New Testament. This is nonsense. Also "down the drain" is an actual hell. In a documentary, Brian McLaren, one of the "fathers" of the movement stated that substitutionary atonement is unconscionable and must be rejected, along with a literal hell.
A recent article in The Alban Institute e-newsletter posited that if we would just stop talking about "the exclusivity and universality of the Christ event" (Jesus is The Way and The Truth and The Life and The only way to God) we would get way more young adults in our churches. It's not popular. It's not nice. It's not open-minded and tolerant. (But what if it's true?)
As I mentioned above, there may be many levels of emergence. Emerging Worship as a way of giving glory to God I am all for. Remember Leonard Sweet, "I will put The Living Water into any container from which people will drink. The Living Water never changes; containers change all the time." I am all for ways of worshiping that are engaging to people and connect them to God. But our understanding of the God we worship has boundaries. We are not free to simply accept any opinion regaring who God is. (Interestingly, in the documentary I viewed Leonard Sweet was thrown into the Emerging Church movement, when he wrote personally and directly to me that he believes The Emerging Church movement is a mistake, a turning away from The Church Christ has called us to be. It's complex and confusing.)
An example. Quite a few years ago now I was talking to a young adult friend in Latvia about the challenges of staying committed to Christ through college. When he exited the train a few stops before me, a woman came up and said that she had overheard our conversation and asked if I would read something and tell her what I thought. I agreed and read the passage she indicated in her book. She asked what I thought and I told her I thought it was nonsense. She was taken aback by this, of course, and asked, Why. I said that the passage was all about The Temple and the worship in the temple. There was no discussion of God at all. The Temple is useless apart from The God of the Temple. God is the focus of worship, not the temple. She was Bahai, and as a Bahai was not at all concerned about the God of the temple, but the worship in the temple itself. Bahai can worship whatever god they want in the temple. But we are the Church of Jesus Christ (not Later Day Saints). We do not have that "luxurgy." God has revealed Godself through Jesus Christ, God the Son, and in and through The Holy Bible, by God the Holy Spirit.
When it comes to The Emerging Church, the things I am prepared to "sell off" at "the rummage sale" are so few when it comes to God and salvation, that the sale becomes a waste of time and energy.
I am not emergent.
Monday, June 4, 2012
You and I were made for worship....
The Third Commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."
"What does this mean? We should fear and love God, and so we should not despise his Word and the preaching of the same, but deem it holy and gladly hear and learn it."
Luther's Small Catechism
"Secondly, and most especially, we keep holy days so that people may have time and opportunity, which otherwise would not be available, to participate in public worship, that is, that they may assemble to hear and discuss God's Word and then praise God with song and prayer....
Places, times, persons, and the entire outward order of worship are therefore instituted and appointed in order that God's Word may exert its power publicly."
The Third Commandment: Luther's Large Catechism.
Sorry it took so long for me to get to this. This post was a bit harder for a different reason than others. It was difficult for me because it has been self-evident since I came into The Church 38 years ago, 2 months before my 18th birthday. I am a modern. I am learning to speak and present "postmodern" but I will always remain a modern. As an 18 year old beginning the experience of regular worship, it was not about how it moved me (though it did); nor about what I "got out of it" (though I did); but rather because it was TRUE. Gospel Truth that powerful demanded a response. And public worship of The One was the appropriate response. So I am old enough (as I write this on my birthday) to not "get" the postmodern (Gen X, Gen One / Next, Gen 3) calculation and processing, "Should I go to church tomorrow or not? Why yes? Why no?"
But I am also a realist. Somewhere along the way worship became like Cod Liver Oil. For those who are not 56 or older, Cod Liver Oil is exactly what it sounds like, and it tasted exactly as you'd expect. My parents did not ladle it down my throat while I held my nose. Actually I used it for turtle bait. It was that nasty. But many remember holding their nose and taking a ladle full as quickly as possible to get it down. Why this torture? It was good for you. So you did it no matter how nasty it was. For many in the older generations worship has become like Cod Liver Oil. (It is that way for the younger generations too, but they simply choose NOT to drink it.) Many go to worship because "it's good for you" whether or not they feel they really got anything out of it.
Not everything in postmodernism is bad. "Because it's good for you" is a reason to go to worhsip, but not the only reason. Worship should never have become that, and never needed to. It certainly does not need to be that today.
The worship wars rage on - only the form and tactics of battle have changed. I read a blog recently about worship in which the writer was bemoaning and criticizing the tendency of churches to offer multiple worship services. He was arguing that different worship services appeals to the consumer mentality of worshipers, which should be avoided, and that different styles separates and even polarizes the congregation into different worshipping bodies. I laughed (it was not a merry laugh) and thought, "OK, let's do ALL services as contemporary praise and worship services then." To which he would doubtless have responded, "No, not that. That is not what I meant." LOL, no doubt. (He provided an example on youtube of his "right" way to do worship. <sigh>)
Chris Tomlin is correct. "You and I were made to worship. You and I were born to love (God)." Worship IS the appropriate response to an Almighty, All-loving, Creator and Savior. John Calvin wrote that the purpose of life is "to glorify God, and to enjoy God's presence forever." Amen.
I close with a quote (loosely rendered) from Dr. Leonard Sweet's "Aqua Church" that changed the direction of my ministry and drove me to the Doctor of Ministry program in Preaching.
"I will put The Living Water into any container from which people will drink. The Living Water never changes. Containers can change all the time."
Worship is a VERB. "Just do it." (Sorry. It slipped.)
Rev. Dr. Robert C. Castro (Bob)
"What does this mean? We should fear and love God, and so we should not despise his Word and the preaching of the same, but deem it holy and gladly hear and learn it."
Luther's Small Catechism
"Secondly, and most especially, we keep holy days so that people may have time and opportunity, which otherwise would not be available, to participate in public worship, that is, that they may assemble to hear and discuss God's Word and then praise God with song and prayer....
Places, times, persons, and the entire outward order of worship are therefore instituted and appointed in order that God's Word may exert its power publicly."
The Third Commandment: Luther's Large Catechism.
Sorry it took so long for me to get to this. This post was a bit harder for a different reason than others. It was difficult for me because it has been self-evident since I came into The Church 38 years ago, 2 months before my 18th birthday. I am a modern. I am learning to speak and present "postmodern" but I will always remain a modern. As an 18 year old beginning the experience of regular worship, it was not about how it moved me (though it did); nor about what I "got out of it" (though I did); but rather because it was TRUE. Gospel Truth that powerful demanded a response. And public worship of The One was the appropriate response. So I am old enough (as I write this on my birthday) to not "get" the postmodern (Gen X, Gen One / Next, Gen 3) calculation and processing, "Should I go to church tomorrow or not? Why yes? Why no?"
But I am also a realist. Somewhere along the way worship became like Cod Liver Oil. For those who are not 56 or older, Cod Liver Oil is exactly what it sounds like, and it tasted exactly as you'd expect. My parents did not ladle it down my throat while I held my nose. Actually I used it for turtle bait. It was that nasty. But many remember holding their nose and taking a ladle full as quickly as possible to get it down. Why this torture? It was good for you. So you did it no matter how nasty it was. For many in the older generations worship has become like Cod Liver Oil. (It is that way for the younger generations too, but they simply choose NOT to drink it.) Many go to worship because "it's good for you" whether or not they feel they really got anything out of it.
Not everything in postmodernism is bad. "Because it's good for you" is a reason to go to worhsip, but not the only reason. Worship should never have become that, and never needed to. It certainly does not need to be that today.
The worship wars rage on - only the form and tactics of battle have changed. I read a blog recently about worship in which the writer was bemoaning and criticizing the tendency of churches to offer multiple worship services. He was arguing that different worship services appeals to the consumer mentality of worshipers, which should be avoided, and that different styles separates and even polarizes the congregation into different worshipping bodies. I laughed (it was not a merry laugh) and thought, "OK, let's do ALL services as contemporary praise and worship services then." To which he would doubtless have responded, "No, not that. That is not what I meant." LOL, no doubt. (He provided an example on youtube of his "right" way to do worship. <sigh>)
Chris Tomlin is correct. "You and I were made to worship. You and I were born to love (God)." Worship IS the appropriate response to an Almighty, All-loving, Creator and Savior. John Calvin wrote that the purpose of life is "to glorify God, and to enjoy God's presence forever." Amen.
I close with a quote (loosely rendered) from Dr. Leonard Sweet's "Aqua Church" that changed the direction of my ministry and drove me to the Doctor of Ministry program in Preaching.
"I will put The Living Water into any container from which people will drink. The Living Water never changes. Containers can change all the time."
Worship is a VERB. "Just do it." (Sorry. It slipped.)
Rev. Dr. Robert C. Castro (Bob)
Monday, May 14, 2012
I know you're out there....
"I know you're out there. I can hear you breathing."
As I have mentioned, many of my ideas for posts come from discussions / strings on the ELCA Facebook Group. I was considering a post on Repentance. But then I had another idea. I have made posts on topics that I thought very important based upon discussions taking place among pastors. But I have not asked you to chime in on what you think is important. Are there topics that you would like to see covered? If I were not able reflect on the topics of interest to you directly from The Lutheran Confessions (Not everything is covered, although they are pretty comprehensive.) I would certainly be willing to reflect based upon how I read The Bible. (And my last post was a summary of how I read Scripture.)
Are there questions you would like to discuss or see discussed? I will check back from time to time to see if one is posted here as a comment. But feel free to send suggestions to my e-mail as well. You can use lauva1956@gmail.com. But I think it would be better to use my Yahoo address: lauva_1@yahoo.com. The Yahoo account I check every day; the gmail account only periodically.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Rev. Dr. Robert C. Castro (LOL, Bob.)
As I have mentioned, many of my ideas for posts come from discussions / strings on the ELCA Facebook Group. I was considering a post on Repentance. But then I had another idea. I have made posts on topics that I thought very important based upon discussions taking place among pastors. But I have not asked you to chime in on what you think is important. Are there topics that you would like to see covered? If I were not able reflect on the topics of interest to you directly from The Lutheran Confessions (Not everything is covered, although they are pretty comprehensive.) I would certainly be willing to reflect based upon how I read The Bible. (And my last post was a summary of how I read Scripture.)
Are there questions you would like to discuss or see discussed? I will check back from time to time to see if one is posted here as a comment. But feel free to send suggestions to my e-mail as well. You can use lauva1956@gmail.com. But I think it would be better to use my Yahoo address: lauva_1@yahoo.com. The Yahoo account I check every day; the gmail account only periodically.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Rev. Dr. Robert C. Castro (LOL, Bob.)
Friday, April 27, 2012
The Sword of the Spirit / The Word of God
1.We believe,
teach, and confess that the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New
Testaments are the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and
teachers alike must be appraised and judged, as it is written in Ps. 119:105,
“Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” And St. Paul says in
Gal. 1:8, “Even if an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary
to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.”[1]
3…In this way
the distinction between the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments and
all other writings is maintained, and which as the only touchstone all
doctrines should and must be understood and judged as good or evil, right or
wrong.
Epitome of the
Formula of Concord, Rule and Norm, Part
I. Articles 1, 3
[1] The Book of Concord the confessions of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church. 1959 (T. G. Tappert, Ed.) (464). Philadelphia:
Mühlenberg Press.
This is another one of those posts which one would think would be self-evident. So I feel like apologizing, but I'm not going to, because in our culture today it is not self evident.
What is the role of The Holy Bible in our Faith? If you ask any ELCA Lutheran pastor if he or she teaches in accordance with the Bible, he or she will answer, "Yes, of course." But it is axiomatic that the Bible must be interpreted. The lense through which we read the Bible is call a Hermeneutic. Most ELCA theologians and pastors, including myself, do not apply a hermeneutic of literalism. Not everything in the Bible was intended to be taken literally. Given that, to take everything literally is actually not a faithful application of Scripture. But the danger is obvious. What in the Bible should be taken literally and what ought not to be?
A related issue is the question of "infallibility" and "inerrancy." The professors at Lutheran School of Theology presented an excellent case for taking the position that infallibility and inerrancy asks the wrong question. When I first began seminary in August of 1994, we were assigned an article by the late Dr. Joseph Sittler. It was an excellent argument for the place of Scripture in faith. I do not recall a better one. (And I used to get paid to make and analyze arguments.) He argued that making the issue "infallibility" or "inerrancy" (These are virtually synonymous, meaning totally without error of any kind.) not only asks the wrong question, but presents a danger to faith. By basing faith upon these concepts, if it is demonstrated to someone that there is an error (even if the demonstration is incorrect) the faith of the person is at risk. Dr. Sittler proposed an excellent definition of the place of the Bible in our faith.
The Bible is the incomparable testimony of the nature, the work and the will of God.
(Emphasis added. I did not place the statement in quotes because I have been unable to verify the exact words from the article. The Archivist of Dr. Sittler's works at LSTC is graciously researching to find the exact reference to confirm the quote. If any word is in error, I will gladly make the correction in a future post as this is a very important definition of the place of Scripture for Faith.)
I emphasize the word "incomparable" because this is the word upon which all turns. Y'all know what that means. Nothing compares. Nothing rules over scripture. Nothing is its judge. Not psychology or sociology, not science (or pseudo-science), not any form of criticism - nothing. (I get that we do not worship The Bible; we worship the God of the Bible. And Jesus Himself IS The Word of God. But the reference here at in the oath of ordination refers to The Bible.)
When I entered seminary our two children were in LCMS School. As a lawyer we could pay the tuition and did. As a pastor we could not. A friend of my daughter called her to tell her about the new church they were attending. If you were a member, then there was no tuition. So with the consent of my pastor and the consent of the LCMS senior pastor, my wife and children became Missouri Synod the four years I was in seminary. The senior pastor was well known in LCMS circles and eventually went on to a professorship at Concordia, Fort Wayne. We talked. He asked me one time about historical criticism. This was the main issue that divided the LCMS at Concordia, St. Louis, resulting in the formation of The Seminary of Jesus Christ in Exile (Seminex). My response was this (having been recently taught the historical method). (Many of my professors at LSTC were the ones who had left in protest.) The historical method is a tool. Like any tool it can be used, or it can be abused. A hammer can pound a nail or a skull. A screwdriver and push a screw or pierce a heart. When the historical method is used to help us understand and apply Scripture to our lives, it is a tool being used for its intended purpose. When it is used to "tell us" which verses in the Bible we are free to ignore, it is being abused.
If I had a dollar for every time I shared The Bible on a particular issue and had the retort given, "We don't proof text", well...you know. In the Church there is a dangerous tendency to find "reasons" (translate excuses) to not apply The Bible in what Luther called "its plain meaning" or plain sense. There are many reasons for this, I think. Our culture has things it does not want to believe. So there is a temptation to interpret those very things away when they appear in Scripture.
I also love the quote attributed to Mark Twain. When asked if it bothered him that so many things in The Bible are so hard to understand, he responded, "Actually, to tell the truth, I am much more troubled by the parts that are very clear."
This unwillingness to apply the plain sense impacts all of the questions that I have addressed below. The deficiency, as I have argued it, in almost every case comes from being unwilling or unable to apply The Word of God in its plain sense.
Of course Jesus is God (whatever Dr. Dominic Crossan, Dr. Marcus Borg, and Dr. Bart Ehrman may argue otherwise to their disciples).
Of course the New Testament includes the concept of atonement.
Of course I believe in angels and demons.
Of course I cannot teach that everyone goes to heaven (even if in God's sovereignty and love and grace it turns out that all will). God in Christ has told us what Good News to preach.
When teaching on The Bible in my beloved Latvia, I came up with 5 principles for reading and applying The Word of God that I have found helpful. I have used them in presenting The Alpha Course as well. I list them here without the refences and discussion. If you are interested I am happy to provide the examples used to demonstrate the points. They are:
1. Everything in The Bible is true, but not everything is in The Bible.
2. We need to use our God-given reason when reading The Bible.
3. We need to read The Bible in its context (historical and literary).
4. Not everything in The Bible is for us; and not everything in The Bible is forever.
5. Not everything in The Bible was meant to be taken literally.
I close by reposting the oath that I took, that all ELCA pastors (and I assume other Lutheran pastors).
It's not a word game. It's not a battle over opinions.
The Bible is the incomparable testimony of the nature, the work and the will of God.
Amen.
The church in which
you are to be ordained
confesses
that the Holy Scriptures are the word of God and are the norm of its faith and
life.
We accept, teach, and confess the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds.
We also acknowledge the Lutheran Confessions
as true witnesses and faithful expositions of the Holy Scriptures.
Will you therefore preach and teach in accordance with the Holy Scriptures
and these creeds and confessions?
Each ordinand responds: I will, and I ask God to help me.
We accept, teach, and confess the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds.
We also acknowledge the Lutheran Confessions
as true witnesses and faithful expositions of the Holy Scriptures.
Will you therefore preach and teach in accordance with the Holy Scriptures
and these creeds and confessions?
Each ordinand responds: I will, and I ask God to help me.
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