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  • Divisiveness and Disciples

    By Rev. Dr. Robert R. LaRochelle
    X:/Energion Publications/Bob LaRochelle/9781938434013-cov.slaAnyone who has been following the 2016 Presidential campaign, even on the most elementary level, has been exposed to what can be politely described as a high level of nastiness. For a variety of reasons, the animosity involved in our political discourse has intensified over these past few years and, in my view, has reached, if not an all-time low, definitely a modern one. Name calling, derisiveness toward opponents, supporters of one candidate screaming at and engaging in fisticuffs with supporters of another, have become part and parcel of our current political situation. I also have to say that if one need not be a liberal Democrat to express profound moral concern about the way the presumptive Republican nominee has treated his opponents in this campaign and has created a climate whereby divisive and racist language has become acceptable and even normative to many, including our young.
    Even in writing this, my concern right now is that because I have pointed out my concerns about the way in which a particular candidate has campaigned, as a result, many people reading this will be immediately turned off and dismiss my comments because of what they may assume would be my political leanings, an assumption, I would suggest, that one could not necessarily glean from my comments above. After all, notable Republicans such as John Kasich and Jeb Bush as well as his brother, the former President, and the 2012 GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, (and many more) have expressed the same concerns.
    Here is my issue:  Those of us who profess that we are seeking to be followers of Jesus are disciples of the One who teaches us this about God: God is compassionate, loving, forgiving and engaged in drawing us human beings into a recognition of the inherent value of one another. Jesus was one who broke barriers, who really sought to tear down walls between people who had been divided from one another- Jew and Samaritan, man and woman, righteous from unrighteous. Jesus’ prayer as He approached imminent death was ‘ That they may all be one‘. It is this sense of oneness–  the inherent unity of all that God has created, which is a fundamental tenet of Christian understanding.
    Quite honestly, this approach toward life is antithetical to much of the tone of this campaign. Sadly, the tone of the campaign has made it easier for so many, including our young, to be nasty, prejudicial and downright mean, derisive toward others who are perceived as ‘ Other.’ One would like to think that with all of the horrific examples we know of in the history of the world, we as a society would be well beyond this. Yet, we are not, and instead are at a very perilous point.
    Yet, as always, the message of Jesus presents us with a necessary corrective and with a vision of God that has significant practical implications in our daily lives.

    In a world which needs the bold proclamation of an inclusive Gospel vision of justice, peace and hospitality, it is important that Catholics and Protestants work together both to understand the ‘ecumenical center’ they share and to live out its implications as Christian witness to the bigger and wider world. In doing so, those in this ecumenical center are poised to provide the kind of Christian witness which stands as a necessary corrective to those who have portrayed Christian faith as antithetical to science, reason, and to the bold proclamation that the grace of God is meant for ALL! (Crossing the Street, 193)

    Divisiveness has been too dominant a force in the history of the world and, sadly, within the Christian church. It is the unnecessary tension caused by religious differences among people who love each other, spouses, parents and children, brothers and sisters, and long-term friends that motivated me to try to help people find positive ways of communicating about their religious differences.

    When I speak of a home united, yes, I am speaking as a Christian, but I am also speaking in a pluralistic world wherein organized religion has often contributed to the very opposite of unity and love. I am asking you, the reader, to live lives of love with those to whom you are committed. I am saying this with the conviction I find in my Scripture that, in the very act of real love, the love I profess was made incarnate in Jesus, in that very act of loving those whom we can see, we are loving the God we think we can’t! (A Home United, 65)

    What is it going to take to move beyond this sad and absurd current climate?  It seems to me that you will find people of faith who affiliate as Democrats, Republicans and Independents.  It would be nice if those of us whose faith serves as the underpinning and foundation of our lives could allow it to motivate our political discourse. And, while I have pretty strong opinions about a lot of political issues, I will also affirm with that great bumper sticker distributed by Sojourners that “God is NOT a Republican…or a Democrat.” God is God … the source of unity, love and compassion. Created in God’s image, may we strive to be so as well!!!

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  • Politics Moment: Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. on the Status of the U. S. Election

    Energion owner Henry Neufeld interviewed Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. and asked him about the Clinton email scandal, the chances of the Republicans replacing Donald Trump at the last moment, and what is likely to happen next in general. Enjoy!
     

  • Doris Murdoch: Our New Bodies, Transformed, Transfigured, and Glorified with Christ

    – by Doris Murdoch
    From my recent Holy Land journey: Jesus on the shores of Galilee in the towns of Tabgha and Capernaum, along with Jerusalem, where He manifested Himself before His disciples.

    Sea of Galilee Shoreline next to the Church of the Primacy of Peter, Tabgha, Israel Where the Resurrected Jesus Served Breakfast to His Disciples
    Sea of Galilee Shoreline next to the Church of the Primacy of Peter, Tabgha, Israel
    Where the Resurrected Jesus Served Breakfast to His Disciples
     
    In John 20:14-17, we read about the first person to see the resurrected Jesus before He ascended into heaven. In this scripture, we read that Mary of Magdala did not recognize the voice or physical being of Jesus. Mary thought Jesus was the gardener. Jesus tells Mary not to touch Him for He had not ascended to “My Father and Your Father and My God and Your God.” Jesus confirms Himself as the Son and Mary as a child of God. Had Jesus received a “new body” prior to ascending to heaven? Did His “new body” change in the tomb as he awoke from death? When will this “new body” occurrence happen for a Christian believer? When Mary did recognize Jesus, was there familiarity in His voice tone or inflection as Jesus said her name, “Mary!” or did she understand His confirmation as the Son? Was Jesus and His spirit still bound by His earthly body? Did He receive His heavenly or divine body after ascending to His Father in heaven? I Corinthians 15:20-26 tells us Jesus is of the first fruits as a human being resurrected from the dead and all believers will come alive through Jesus Christ. As I continue through the 15th chapter of Corinthians, I understand that we must be human first, then spiritual, and last through the life-giving spirit of Jesus Christ, we become heavenly and imperishable, completely transformed and transfigured.
    After ascending into heaven, Jesus manifested Himself on earth. In Luke 24:13-35 (Mark 16:12-13), we read about two followers encountering Jesus on the road to Emmaus on the same day as His resurrection. The men did not recognize Jesus physically or by His voice. This recognition happened when their eyes were opened upon the breaking of the bread by Jesus. They returned to Jerusalem to share about the visit and to testify to Simon’s sighting of the risen Jesus found in Luke 24:34.
    John 20:19-20 shares this:

    19 So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week (Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection), and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 

    In this scripture of manifestation, Jesus proves his identity by revealing His nail-scarred hands and spear-wounded side. Otherwise, this scripture does not identify that they did not know Him. Verse 20b says, “they saw the Lord”. In this body, Jesus could make himself recognizable or unrecognizable at His will. We do know from this scripture that the new body could walk through walls or doors. Since the scripture states that the doors were shut, this fact is significant. In verses 26b-29, we read that Jesus returns to the house when “Doubting Thomas” is present. Again, Jesus proves His identity through His nail-scarred hands and spear-wounded side. Jesus even allows Thomas to touch the wounds as proof of His reality. Jesus uses man’s senses to help them identify Him. His body is visible, but it can travel through walls; the scripture emphasizes this again by saying “doors having been shut”. His body wounds are healed but still remain visible and touchable. In the new body, will we be recognizable? Will scars of the past life be visible? Will our voices remain the same? Will we be capable of traveling through walls?
    In John 21: 1-14, we read again of Jesus manifesting Himself before His disciples beside the Sea of Galilee near the town of Tabgha. The disciples did not know or recognize Jesus on the beach. Jesus calls them children; is this word “children” a hint for recognition? After the net full of fish, John whom Jesus loved, recognized the manifestation of Jesus through the act of catching the fish in the net. John recognized the works or acts of Jesus! Peter now knows Jesus because John identifies Jesus as the Lord. Even after offering breakfast to the disciples, they do not truly know Him. They were afraid to say, “Who are you?” The statement that follows, “knowing that it was the Lord” tells me Jesus had been identified by name but not by His visual or spiritual appearance. In this transfigured body, was Jesus able to change characteristics for different types of recognition (sight, touch, voice, and acts)?
    After that Jesus was seen by over five hundred followers at once (Galilee Region, possibly on the mountain where Jesus fed the 5000 or the Mount of Beatitudes). We still read of eye-witnesses doubting Jesus’ resurrection from death. In Matthew 28:16- 20, it states:

    16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

    We know Jesus returned to the Jerusalem area with His disciples before ascending into heaven (Luke 24:47-49, 52). Luke 24:50-51 tells us that Jesus ascended into heaven from Bethany, the town of Lazarus.
    Revelation 3: 5 says, “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” The newly transformed bodies will be clothed in white garments, much like we envision angel appearance. White garments could also be like a karate suit, not an angelic gown and cloak (The word garments is plural.)!
    In physical death, the body goes to the grave and the spirit or soul goes to heaven. According to John 5:28-29, the separation of body and spirit is in effect until the resurrection: “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment”. Right now the souls of believers who have died are in heaven. Eventually, their bodies will be resurrected and join their spirits.
    Jesus’ resurrected body was the same body as before, not a completely new body. Sometimes He was recognizable. After Jesus was resurrected, the tomb was empty. So body and soul or spirit left the burial tomb. This will not happen to man; our physical bodies will remain on earth in burial tombs or graves. For Jesus, His wounds from His crucifixion were still evident. One could touch Him so He wasn’t a ghost as we might imagine. He looked human in every way; we are made in God’s image. Jesus could speak, eat, walk, etc. After His resurrection, Jesus’ body had divine or mystical properties beyond man’s understanding. He could pass through solid walls and doors. He could appear in different forms so His identity was not immediately recognizable. In Luke 24:36, we read that Jesus could suddenly appear out of nowhere. In Luke 24:51, we read that Jesus was capable of going directly into heaven in bodily form. In Acts 1:9, Jesus ascends into heaven on a cloud.
    Our heavenly or resurrected bodies will be real, concrete human bodies, yet wholly perfected and glorified. We will be much like the resurrected body of Christ. I Thessalonians 4:16-17 describes how the earthly bodies of believers are reunited with their spirits. At the trumpet of God, “the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord”. The new bodies will join or unite with each of our perfected, waiting spirits and the new heavenly body will be complete. In completeness, these heavenly bodies will be transformed and transfigured, and glorified with Christ.

  • Robert Martin: Homecoming — A Story

    Recently, Energion author Robert Martin [The Caregiver’s Beatitudes] gave this review of Jude Lee‘s new book, House Calls with Jesus: Stories of Redemptive Love:
    In this world, there are few sacred spaces left. However, the space around and surrounding the severely ill and dying is one such space. There is something holy and special that happens when one enters a hospice room, or an ICU, or the bedroom chamber of a terminally ill person. We approach in silence, in reverence, sometimes in fear. For many of us, it is difficult to navigate this space and to know what should be said, what needs to be said, and when to simply be silent and let the space dictate the response.
    On his own blog, Abnormal Anabaptist, Martin shares a personal story that can bring a picture of hope and peace. Take five minutes to read Homecoming – A Story by Robert Martin.

  • Ruth & Esther: What Can We Learn from Immigrant Women in an Patriarchal Society?

    Dateline: July 5, 2016, Energion Pulications’ Tuesday Night Google Hangout with host, Henry Neufeld, and Dr. Bruce Epperly, author of Ruth and Esther: Women of Agency and Adventure.

  • Tony Mitchell: How is Freedom Guaranteed?

    Tony Mitchell, author of the forthcoming book Creation: The Science, asks how one finds freedom and gets some thoughts from the lectionary texts:

    What happens when the majority of money is spent on weapons of war and the maintenance of power? What happens to meeting the needs of individuals, both at home and abroad? Perhaps the solution to finding freedom comes when one looks at the problem differently.

    Creation: The Science

  • D. Kevin Brown: We Don't Know History

    Credit: OpenClipart.org
    Credit: OpenClipart.org
    Kevin Brown suggests we, as Americans, don’t know history. He also believes this has an impact on how we live in society as Christians:

    Many Christians have been duped into believing that we must somehow compartmentalize our faith.  Therefore, we have a compartmentalized view that allows us to express faith and values in church but then divorces that same faith and values from the civil arena.  The teachings of the Bible reject this compartmentalized approach to life.  We are called to be salt and light in all areas of life.  We must not hide our light under a bowl.  And what we are seeing today is that indeed, our history demonstrates that for generations Christians embraced a viewpoint that we must assert the principles of Christ in all facets of life.

    Kevin Brown is author of Rite of Passage for the Home and Church and To Date or Not to Date.

     

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  • Subversive Spiritualtiy

    —  Dr. David Moffett-Moore
    “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
    These are the words that began all of our school days as we grew up in elementary school. I am confident that each and every one of us would agree, regardless of what area of the country we lived in, we knew these words by heart. A pledge of allegiance is a declaration of loyalty and devotion, as a citizen toward one’s country. To what do we give our allegiance?
    It is just before the Fourth of July week-end as I write this, our great patriotic celebration of our nation. We are all proud, glad and grateful to be Americans, to live in the greatest, richest, free-est, most powerful country on earth. What could be better?
    Jesus lays claim to being first in our life, “Whoever does not give up even mother and father, brother and sister, son and daughter, cannot be a disciple of mine,” Doesn’t Jesus make a claim of prior allegiance, even over our country? Isn’t this subversive, a challenge to our loyalty and commitment?
    Dr. Bob Cornwall has a recent Energion book, “Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer,” that certainly makes this claim. We cannot give first commitment to both Christ and country; there can only be one number one.
    ManifestoIn the Lord’s Prayer we ask for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done, for God to rule in human hearts, on earth as in heaven. We pray for the supplanting of the rule of God over the rule of our democracy. Surely God would be the ultimate benevolent dictator! This supplanting is also a subverting, a turning over of human will to God’s holy will.
    The Lord’s Prayer is a regular part of our daily lives. Every worship service includes it. The Didache, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, of the early church, recommended reciting it three times a day. I expect many of us include it in our daily devotions; we can recite the words without giving thought to their meaning.
    My reading of Dr. Cornwall’s book inspired my approach to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in The Jesus Manifesto. Jesus speaks powerful, provocative words and challenge as much as they inspire, yet in their familiarity it is easy for us to gloss over their confrontation of our status quo. I encourage us to pick up Ultimate Allegiance and let its words wake us up to the boldness with which our Lord still speaks in our time and place.

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  • Politics Moment: British Labour Party

    This is the second politics moment for this week, in which I ask Chris Eyre about the nature and logistics of the leadership turmoil in the British Labour party.
     

  • Politics Moment: Brexit for Americans

    Global Christian Perspectives will be on break for the next 3-4 weeks, so during that time I will be posting some short interviews of political interest with the various participants in the GCP discussions.
    On Friday, July 1, 2016, I interviewed Chris Eyre in two parts, the first on understanding Brexit and the referendum and political process involved, the second on the current leadership turmoil in the British Labour party. The first part, on Brexit, is embedded below.

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