Is Christ Revealed?

 I came home from a sermon by an associate pastor at the church I was attending just a week or so before Thanksgiving, 2019 and began to think about it. I began to draft an alternative version of his roughly 35-minute sermon into something more like 15 minutes. By about Thanksgiving, it had pretty much taken shape, then sat around for another few years until I recently resurrected it. Following is my version of the sermon. (You can get hints of the content of the AP’s original in some of my comments.)

. . . . .

Mask Mandates Unmask a “Christian Nation”

(I know that some will insist this is more political than Christian. But the thrust of the argument is aimed at Christians who shun the very things that we say are the foundations of our faith.)

Jayson D Bradley writes a blog called “Honest to God” at Patheos. In mid-May, 2020, he took on the Christian Nation myth in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. You can read his post here (assuming it is still active at Patheos).

Like Bradley, I have noticed how many of the people I know through church, both current and prior affiliation, are more concerned with their “rights” as Americans than they are the commandments of the God that they claim to follow as part of a “higher calling.” Parts of this higher calling are to follow, to love all, and to become servants to others — many distinctive actions that seem to always put someone else ahead of ourselves.

The Kingdom of God is Like Leaven

Right before Christmas 2019 I took a look at facebook — something I had done very rarely in the years up to then — and was greeted with a post by a niece (my brother’s daughter) of her roughly 7 month old daughter. She had the cutest face and smile, and a bow in her hair with a very out-of-focus tree and lights in the background. Maybe a professional photo but I suspect that her dad is more than capable of the feat.

But as I looked at the photo, while I am not that good at seeing resemblances, I realized that this face I was seeing is a combination of particular genes flowing forward from numerous family lines that came together in my niece and her husband, and then just those that surfaced in my great niece.

And I was reminded of the rather brief analogy Jesus gave to describe the Kingdom of God.

God Does Not Have a Plan For Your Life

This morning, I awoke to the sounds of the “Jeff and Rebecca” on a local Christian radio station. (I admit that classic rock would be more productive for getting me out of bed, but my wife wins.) This morning, Rebecca said something that I have waited from someone other than me to say.

“God does not have a plan for your life.”

Probably not those exact words. But close enough. She elaborated further that God has a plan, and that we have a part in that plan, but it is not a plan for our individual lives.

What is Salvation

A fairly recent series on Calvinism in a podcast that I have been following for some time raises an interesting issue. Much of the evangelical community leans to a “Calvinist” view of salvation/atonement while certain portions of the community follow an Arminian view. The two views are not exactly what most of us think they are, and it might be argued are not as far from each other as the average follower of either thinks. In fact, outside of the question “what is predestination?” there is really only one issue in the minds of the average believer. That is the assurance of salvation. And that assurance is often stated in terms of “once saved, always saved,” or it is stated conversely that salvation can be lost.

But if you ask a true Bible scholar, and card-carrying, 5-point Calvinist, “once saved, always saved” is a misrepresentation of the Calvinist position.

If this is the case, how do the New Testament writers refer to assurance, and to the “joy of your salvation” if it is not a certain thing?

Pluralism

While my first reaction to this word when used in the context of Christian theology is to recoil in terror, I have heard it used in a way that is enlightening. And that enlightenment came from a source that I did not expect.

The discussion was about the dichotomy of the “we have it right and everyone else is wrong” and “to each his own” ways of thinking about religion and God. My source suggested that there is a middle ground that looks like pluralism to the “my way or the highway” crowd, but approximates what he believes is the real teaching of the Bible. This middle ground is not concerned with arguing the heathen into belief in Christ, chanting religious slogans, or proclaiming judgment upon sinners. It is tasked to live as Christ lived on the earth. It is to carry out the Great Commandment — love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Returning to Focus

Sort of been MIA for a while. Much of source of material has changed. For various reasons, we are now part of a different Bible church (I have nothing but praise for our former assembly). And I have not found the usual background of postmodern/emerging/emergent material lately.

Oh, it is still there. Mars Hill (Seattle, not Grand Rapids) caught-up in controversy over excessive discipline of members. John Piper declaring Christianity to rightly be a male-dominated religion.

But these just have not gotten my juices flowing.

But while I definitely consider myself in the Bible church wing of the evangelical camp, there is something beginning to nag at me about evangelicalism as a whole. The problem is not that I think that their positions are wrong. Rather that they are out of balance. But I don't know how to think about it because I do not know how to arrive at any kind of more "correct" balance.

Parables Revisited

As I have been continuing to study the Emerging Church movement, controversies surrounding Brian McLaren seem to be a never-ending topic. In late November, 2010, I found one on my own. The following were my immediate thoughts:

I admit that I do periodically read McLaren’s blog. Since his recent book A New Kind of Christianity has been a source of many questions and comments on which he writes, I noted a new one that discussed “Violent God.” The question comes from someone who is having trouble accepting that God could really do all the violent things that are recorded in scripture. In response, McLaren points to a book by William Herzog entitled Parables as Subversive Speech. McLaren proceeds to give Mr. Herzog’s reading of the parable of the talents as being about the nature of the kingdom of the world and not the kingdom of God. It is about an unjust economy that “reaps quick exploitative profits off his fellows.”

McLaren writes “When I first read this book some years ago, I thought, ‘He can't be right,’ but now I think he's spot on in most of his reinterpretations.”

Is There God?

As part of a study on the theological problems of accepting the notion of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving being — God — in the face of pain, even significant pain, of both the physical and emotional kinds, a member of the group provided a link to an article written by Roger Ebert, the film critic, posted on the Chicago Sun-Times web site on March 30, 2011. The link is here.

For approximately 1,700 words, Ebert ponders the existence and purpose of man, and concludes that he finds “the Theory of Evolution a great consolation.” Following are a few of the passages and my comments and questions.

What we are left with are the cosmic shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. Ultimately the images from Hubble will give us a glimpse of conditions that existed an infinitesimal instant after the Big Bang. There will never be an image of the Big Bang itself, because it had no image. There was Nothing, and then there was Something, and all we can hope is to see that Something as soon as possible after it became.

And with this, evolution, the principle of taking what is and morphing it into something else that is, but was not before, is set in motion by an event that took Nothing and made that Nothing into Something. That is an insufficient explanation.

Argument From Silence — What Does Brian McLaren Believe?

I mentioned that I had some topics "on the burner" so to speak.  One reason that I delayed this is that it refers to a blog that I no longer have the reference to locate.  I have tried for some time and have failed.  So I leave it to you to accept or reject my characterizations below.

-----

I have been struck over some period at the number of times that Evangelicals have questioned Brian McLaren with respect to certain points of belief. While claiming orthodoxy in belief, he responds by being surprised at the responses of those Evangelicals while he never answers their questions.  Some have taken this silence on position as evidence of a problem in McLaren’s belief.  Some defenders suggest that the purpose in the vagaries is to keep from scaring off the unbelievers before they get a chance to understand for themselves.  But McLaren says nothing, at least in any place that I have seen.

The Church and Homosexuality

First, this post is not about answering the question. But I periodically visit IBC’s discussion forum, Table & Fire, and found a new topic introduced by one of the more thoughtful forum regulars. I say forum regulars loosely. In the past, T&F had a fairly significant following. But its server crashed in a serious way, and the entire thing had to be rebuilt. And in the midst of that, the person who had been responsible to maintain it moved and was could no longer do so. So when it finally reemerged a few months later, only a paltry few signed back up. It has been fairly silent for a while until this friend opened the hottest topic yet. And it was viewed, but no response for 10 days. Here is the opening post:

I thought I'd see if T&F was completely dead. I think that IBC should re-evaluate its approach to gay people.

I would argue that God desires loving relationships and that committed same-sex couples should be allowed to enter those relationships without fear of condemnation from our church. Rather they should be encouraged as would any heterosexual couple desiring to marry. I wondered if anyone else felt the same at IBC or if I was just way off here. I'm fairly certain I'm one of a handful (if that) of IBC'ers who may feel this way. I wanted to see if there were others.

That's all. Simple, right?

Being the man of way more than a few words, I have now responded as follows:

The Church of Tomorrow Revisited

For years we’ve heard how students are the church of tomorrow. To be honest, I hate this statement for all kinds of reasons. First of all it assumes a definition of the church that is inaccurate. If the church is a group of people following Jesus and living life together, would we dare say anyone under 21 isn’t a part of that experience?

Saying students are the “church of tomorrow” assumes students will lead someday, not today. Middle school and high school students who are growing in their faith are ready to lead now. We simply have to challenge them and give them space.

Those are the opening lines of a short article “The Church of Tomorrow” posted August 4, 2010 on the IBC website. I first want to say that the article was excellent and shows to me, one of the older members of IBC, that the next generation of “church,” while possibly different than during my day, will continue its grand march through time. But these opening lines lead me in a different direction of thought. I do not diminish or disagree with what the original writer said, but look at a different way to understand that comment about the church of tomorrow.

Immigration Politics and the Christian

A response to several discussions on the immigration issue predicated upon reading “Christian Immigration”

Over the past couple of years there have been occasional articles concerning the immigration issue in America and proposed positions that Christians might take.

The first of these that I saw concerned the New Sanctuary Movement that began in the 1980s in response to the flood of refugees from Central American countries. A prominent web site with information on the movement — "allies," links, etc. — is found at the link in the footnotes [1]. It opens with the following paragraphs:

In the early 1980's, thousands of Central American refugees poured into the United States, fleeing life-threatening repression and extensive human rights violations by their governments.

At the time, federal immigration policy would have denied the majority political asylum simply because their governments were allies of the U.S. Many of these refugees had actively participated in the liberation theology movement and naturally sought protection from congregations.

The discussion that brought the New Sanctuary Movement to my attention related to the desire of a friend to at least consider this as a way to help in obeying the command to care for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, and the alien. The premise is that it is much easier to help them when they are nearby than when they are at some distance, such as in remote parts of distant countries.

And the article that was presented at the time concerned a particular case in which a mother and father were to be deported as illegal aliens but their child (of uncertain age) was not required to leave with them. As I cannot at this time find the article that started the discussion (it was on a forum that crashed and the old files not recoverable) I probably do not have details completely accurate. But I believe that the underlying premise was that the mother desired the child to remain in America, and would prefer to stay with the child, so had sought refuge in a church that was part of the New Sanctuary Movement.

In the same time frame, there was an article by Keith Giles in THEOOZE titled “Christian Immigration” (repost from "Christian Immigrants" in his personal blog, Subversive1) that speaks somewhat to a position on immigration politics. While THEOOZE is no longer online, the article is archived within Mr. Giles' blog.[2] Some paragraphs that show Mr. Giles' position on the subject are as follows:

Atonement of Christ

Do you need to believe in the atonement of Christ to obtain the salvation that He offers?

The question is both simple and complex. There are a number of things that long-time Christians believe. Some of those may be required for salvation. Others may not. Is the atonement of Christ on the “must” list or is it not required.

When I say atonement, I am referring to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as the ultimate substitutionary death in our place as the result of the original sin in the Garden of Eden.