"But it is manifest that the Roman pontiffs and their adherents defend godless doctrines and godless forms of worship, and it is plain that the marks of the Antichrist coincide with those of the pope's kingdom and his followers."
Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, The Marks of the Antichrist, written by Philip Melanchthon.
"The common people . . . have no knowledge whatever of Christian teaching, and unfortunately many pastors are quite incompetent and unfitted for teaching. Although the people are supposed to be Christian, are baptized, and receive the holy sacrament . . . they live as if they were pigs and irrational beasts, and now that the Gospel has been restored they have mastered the fine art of abusing liberty....
If any refuse to receive your instructions, tell them that they deny Christ and are no Christians. They should not be admitted to the sacrament, be accepted as sponsors in Baptism or be allowed to participate in any Christiain privileges. On the contrary, they should be turned over to the pope and his officials, and even to the devil himself."
Martin Luther's Preface to The Small Catechism
"Such shameful gluttons and servants of their bellies would make better swineheards or dogkeepers than spiritual guides and pastors." (Referring to pastors.)
"Indeed, even among the nobility there are some louts and skinflints who declare that we can do without pastors and preachers from now on because we have everything in books and can learn it all by ourselves. So they blithely let parishes fall into decay, and brazenly allow both pastors and preachers to suffer distress and hunger." (Referring to lay people.)
Martin Luther's Preface to The Large Catechism (parentheticals added)
These quotes from Philip Melanchthon and Martin Luther have something in common. They are not nice. They were not intended to be. The idea for this post came from a sermon that I did this summer during the five weeks of John 6. It became apparent to me on careful reading (over and over) that Jesus was saying things fairly regularly that were just not nice - and clearly not nice. It was equally apparent that Jesus was not trying to be. Then it struck me that what Jesus was being was KIND. He cared about these people. He loved them. In fact He loved them too much to coddle them when that is not what was best for them. I preached a sermon on John 6 I entitled, "Not Nice, but Kind." It seems to me that the Church is being hamstrung by niceness. Everything is about being nice. But everything NOT about being nice. Niceness is not a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. But kindness is.
Paul cursed a magician and false prophet in Cyprus, making him blind! (Acts 13: 4-12) And Peter cursed a magician who had converted in Samaria. (Acts 8: 18-24) Not nice.
So what's the difference? Here's what I shared with my congregation.
"Nice" does not want to upset anyone.
"Kind" is more concerned with the other’s good, whether they get upset or not. Kind wants the best for the other.
"Nice" wants to be liked. "Kind" wants the other to live well.
"Nice" likes people. "Kind" loves people.
Jesus loved people too much to leave them where they were - to leave them alone. Jesus led them to where they needed to be. Often Jesus was not nice. But He was kind.
Here's the thing. The Christian Faith is based upon a series of truth statements. Many people today try to pretend that is not so. But it is so. We call them Creeds, or also in the Lutheran tradition, Confessions. And in today's culture many people are offended by truth statements. They don't like them.
Now granted, Christianity is a relationship with God in Jesus Christ. But we don't get to just make up who we think Jesus is, or who we want Him to be. We share truth statements. Someone may decide it is not "nice" to make truth statements that exclude other religions or thought. But nice is not the issue. The question is, "It is true?"
A colleague and friend recently wrote (or quoted, I don't remember) that we ought not to say "This is true." Instead we ought to say, "I believe this to be true." My first thought was that Martin Luther made the statement famous: "This is most certainly true." But aside from that, I am willing to start there. Of course the truth claims that make up The Apostolic Creeds and The Lutheran Confessions could possibly be wrong. But I would take it a step further. "This is what I believe. This is why I believe it. (This would take a bit of time because there are LOTS of good reasons.) And this is why if it is true, then a statement contradicting it is not true." That seems fair to me. Now someone may still be offended that I am claiming that something is universally and objectively true irrespective of whether that person chooses to believe it or not. And further, I am claiming that what someone else believes is not true. But I really can't help what might offend any particular person.
Martin Luther had a tendency to name-calling. I laugh at it and enjoy it, but I would not recommend it as a argument technique. We don't have to be obnoxious. In fact, we shouldn't be. But on the other hand, we need not pretend that Christianity is not made up of truth claims, when, in fact, it is.
An apologist is one who defends the Christian faith. There is no need to apologize about being an apologist. (Sorry; couldn't resist.)
Two reminders as I close. The first is that to confess is "to agree with God." That is, to agree with God about WHAT IS TRUE! Second, and last, all Lutheran pastors have taken an oath to teach and preach the truth statements that are included within The Creeds and The Lutheran Confessions. It's not an option, although many treat it as if it were. That is why I have tried not to just spout my opinions in this blog project. There is WAY too much of that on internet blogs already. I have quoted The Lutheran Confessions, including The Creeds, to bring us back to the truth claims which have formed our faith.
“Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
C. S. Lewis
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
The Bread of Life and the blood of God.
"It is taught among us that the true body and blood of Christ are really present in the Supper of our Lord under the form of bread and wine and are there distributed and received." Augsburg Confession, Article X The Holy Supper.
"Now what is the Sacrament of the Altar? Answer: It is the true body and blood of the Lord Christ in and under the bread and wine which we are commanded by Christ's word to eat and drink. As we said of Baptism that it is not mere water, so we say here that the sacrament is bread and wine, but not mere bread and wine such as is served at the table. It is bread and wine comprehended in God's Word and connected with it." Large Catechism, Martin Luther, Part V.
As Lutherans we believe that the bread and the wine become for us the body and blood of Christ. And since Jesus Christ is God, then it can be said that the bread and wine become for us the body and blood of God. We are currently working our way through John 6 in the Lectionary. I will be preaching on the end of John 6 this Sunday. Jesus tells the people in Capernaum that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood to have eternal life. To a Jew this was even more offensive than it sounds to us. Jews were not allowed to touch a dead body. To do so made them ritually unclean. Eat human flesh! And to be Kosher, of course, means to drain the meat of all blood (because the blood is life). To drink blood! The Greek word used by Jesus to describe the reaction of even His own followers is "scandal!"
In a way we cannot fully describe or define - thus the mystery - the bread and wine become for us the true body and true blood of God in Christ . . . because He said so.
As Lutherans we do not believe that the bread and wine merely represent or symbolize His body and blood, because if Jesus meant that, He would have said it. He said "IS." As Lutherans we also do not believe that the bread and wine change physically into flesh and blood. Here's the reference:
"In addition to the words of Christ and of St. Paul (the bread in the Lord's Supper 'is true body of Christ' or 'a participation in the body of Christ'), we at times also use the formulas 'under the bread, with the bread, in the bread.' We do this to reject the papistic (Roman Catholic) transubstantiation and to indicate the sacramental union between the untransformed substance of the bread and the body of Christ." Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article VII, The Lord's Supper.
The Lutheran understanding has been termed "consubstantiation" which I take to mean that the bread and wine do not change physically, but they become in a spiritual but not merely metaphorical way, the body and blood of God.
It is this mysterious truth that makes communion so powerful and meaningful for Lutherans. It IS the body and blood of God which we take inside us. Luther called it, essentially, tasting forgiveness. We refer to it as "the foretaste of the Feast to come." It really is a taste of heaven.
There are some ramifications to such a high understanding of the body and blood of God. One is "the ban." There has been some discussion and controversy regarding whether NOT serving someone is ever appropriate. While Luther said more about this elsewhere, the Confessions are not without references.
"So everyone who wishes to be a Christian and go to the sacrament should be familiar with them. For we do not intend to admit to the sacrament and administer it to those who do not know what they seek or why they come....
"For this reason we must make a distinction among men. Those who are shameless and unruly must be told to stay away, for they are not fit to receive the forgiveness of sins since they do not desire it and do not want to be good....
"The only exception is the person who desires no grace and absolution and has no intention to amend his life."
Large Catechism, Martin Luther, Part V, The Lord's Supper.
The most amazing (to me) example of this is Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who exercized "the ban" against The Emperor! He was admitted to The Lord's Supper when he had confessed and repented before Ambrose!
There are ramifications that are a bit more mundane but are very telling. Unconsumed wine is never poured back. It is also never dumped down the sink (unless it is a special sink that goes straight into the ground). It's not just wine anymore. And bread that has been consecrated is never thrown away. It's not just bread anymore.
Sure it's a mystery. But sometimes the beginning of understanding what something is, is to understand what it is not.
A week from Sunday (we do not have communion every Sunday) we will gather with the saints throughout time and space and receive the gift of grace present in the body and blood God.
Amen.
"Now what is the Sacrament of the Altar? Answer: It is the true body and blood of the Lord Christ in and under the bread and wine which we are commanded by Christ's word to eat and drink. As we said of Baptism that it is not mere water, so we say here that the sacrament is bread and wine, but not mere bread and wine such as is served at the table. It is bread and wine comprehended in God's Word and connected with it." Large Catechism, Martin Luther, Part V.
As Lutherans we believe that the bread and the wine become for us the body and blood of Christ. And since Jesus Christ is God, then it can be said that the bread and wine become for us the body and blood of God. We are currently working our way through John 6 in the Lectionary. I will be preaching on the end of John 6 this Sunday. Jesus tells the people in Capernaum that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood to have eternal life. To a Jew this was even more offensive than it sounds to us. Jews were not allowed to touch a dead body. To do so made them ritually unclean. Eat human flesh! And to be Kosher, of course, means to drain the meat of all blood (because the blood is life). To drink blood! The Greek word used by Jesus to describe the reaction of even His own followers is "scandal!"
In a way we cannot fully describe or define - thus the mystery - the bread and wine become for us the true body and true blood of God in Christ . . . because He said so.
As Lutherans we do not believe that the bread and wine merely represent or symbolize His body and blood, because if Jesus meant that, He would have said it. He said "IS." As Lutherans we also do not believe that the bread and wine change physically into flesh and blood. Here's the reference:
"In addition to the words of Christ and of St. Paul (the bread in the Lord's Supper 'is true body of Christ' or 'a participation in the body of Christ'), we at times also use the formulas 'under the bread, with the bread, in the bread.' We do this to reject the papistic (Roman Catholic) transubstantiation and to indicate the sacramental union between the untransformed substance of the bread and the body of Christ." Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article VII, The Lord's Supper.
The Lutheran understanding has been termed "consubstantiation" which I take to mean that the bread and wine do not change physically, but they become in a spiritual but not merely metaphorical way, the body and blood of God.
It is this mysterious truth that makes communion so powerful and meaningful for Lutherans. It IS the body and blood of God which we take inside us. Luther called it, essentially, tasting forgiveness. We refer to it as "the foretaste of the Feast to come." It really is a taste of heaven.
There are some ramifications to such a high understanding of the body and blood of God. One is "the ban." There has been some discussion and controversy regarding whether NOT serving someone is ever appropriate. While Luther said more about this elsewhere, the Confessions are not without references.
"So everyone who wishes to be a Christian and go to the sacrament should be familiar with them. For we do not intend to admit to the sacrament and administer it to those who do not know what they seek or why they come....
"For this reason we must make a distinction among men. Those who are shameless and unruly must be told to stay away, for they are not fit to receive the forgiveness of sins since they do not desire it and do not want to be good....
"The only exception is the person who desires no grace and absolution and has no intention to amend his life."
Large Catechism, Martin Luther, Part V, The Lord's Supper.
The most amazing (to me) example of this is Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who exercized "the ban" against The Emperor! He was admitted to The Lord's Supper when he had confessed and repented before Ambrose!
There are ramifications that are a bit more mundane but are very telling. Unconsumed wine is never poured back. It is also never dumped down the sink (unless it is a special sink that goes straight into the ground). It's not just wine anymore. And bread that has been consecrated is never thrown away. It's not just bread anymore.
Sure it's a mystery. But sometimes the beginning of understanding what something is, is to understand what it is not.
A week from Sunday (we do not have communion every Sunday) we will gather with the saints throughout time and space and receive the gift of grace present in the body and blood God.
Amen.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Bread of Life
It has been awhile since my last post. I realized when I started this blog that topics would come pouring out at the beginning and tend to trickle as I moved along. These past weeks we have been working our way through John 6 "The Bread of Life." I decided that a blog on what The Confessions teach about communion, The Lord's Supper, Eucharist, would be timely. So I am working on it and hope to have it up soon. This coming post will be "very Lutheran" as the Lutheran perspective on communion is somewhat unique.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
BTW, Remember...
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.")
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.")
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.
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