The word “evangelical” has taken on negative connotations in many circles. While it has traditionally been used (in the United States) to designate conservative Protestants who are Biblicist in their reading of the Bible (insists that the Bible is inerrant/infallible) and believe that one’s salvation is dependent on affirming Jesus as one’s savior and lord. In recent decades, it has come to designate persons of conservative political commitments, with strong focus on two social issues (abortion and gay marriage). Now, it is used to describe Protestant supporters of Donald Trump (the so-called 81% of White Evangelicals who are alleged to have supported his candidacy). While it is true that many evangelicals are among Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters, I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the development of this stereotypical view of evangelicalism. In my experience, evangelicalism, including white evangelicalism, is much more diverse politically and even theologically than the stereotype would allow.
I am a left-of-center pastor of a mainstream/mainline Protestant church. I am also the graduate of the largest evangelical seminary in the world (M.Div. and Ph.D.). I may be more “liberal” than many evangelicals, but there is something valuable in my background that I want to retain. (Read more.)
This blog was written by Energion Publications’ author, Dr. Robert Cornwall. His published books include Faith in the Public Square, Out of the Office: A Theology of Ministry, Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer, and more which can be found at EnergionDirect.com, Amazon and Barnes and Noble, in written and electronic forms.
[slideshow_deploy id=’2343′]
Category: Christian Unity
-
History, the Confederacy, and Monuments
Recently here on EDN, Robert Cornwall had an excellent article on the need to study history. On that point I completely agree. That said, I thought the view of history in the article he recommended was a bit binary and one sided. To be sure, there is a lot of truth in the description of Confederate monuments being linked to the “the Lost Cause” and when I was younger (i.e., the 1960s and 70s) it was still not all that uncommon to hear at least some of the older southerners refer to “the war of northern aggression.”
While there have been some attempts to remove the issue of slavery from the Civil War, instead trying to find some sort of economic justification, ultimately those attempts have failed. Whatever other factors may have been involved, they were clearly secondary. If one could somehow erase the issue of slavery from the early history of the United States, there would have been no Civil War.
Granted, in the early part of the war, many in the North were focused mainly on preserving the Union. Any such pretext was removed with the Emancipation Proclamation, and in the latter half of the war both sides fought over slavery, the South to preserve it and the North to end it.
Slavery, the original sin of the country, ran deep, dividing the it from its earliest days. It stained the Constitution, dragging it away of the goals of the Declaration of Independence where “all men are created equal” into a 3/5 compromise. It repeatedly plagued the early years of the country as a cancer eating away at its victim. Periodically, it would bubble to the surface, resulting in yet more compromises.
While the Democratic Party was mostly pro-slavery, the Whig party was split between those who wanted to restrict or even end slavery, and those who were willing to accommodate it or did not care. As the abolitionist movement grew, this split among the Whigs eventually destroyed the party and out of its destruction emerged the clearly anti-slavery Republican Party. With the election of the first Republican President, Lincoln, the South, fearing what the anti-slavery Republicans would do, started the Civil War.
The war ended, but the stain remained. While Republicans moved more towards the idea of the Declaration, Democrats continued to view issues through the lens of race. As Republicans began to lose political control of the South, the Democrats began to impose another form of racism: Segregation, which sadly would last until the 100th anniversary of the Civil war. While there are some notable Democratic exceptions, as there were for Republicans as well, for the most part the Democrats were the party of race, first supporting slavery, then of segregation, and the KKK was the base of many Democratic politicians who were often members themselves.
I was recently asked by a young software developer how is it that this was turned on its head? I answered that in many respects it really hasn’t. Democrats still tend to see everything through the eyes of race while Republicans are still the party where the color of one’s skin just is not that important; what matters is what one does and believes.
For many Democrats the focus on races and dividing people into groups is so strong that they have a hard time accepting that Republicans really do not care about skin pigmentation. Instead they take the resistance to dividing people into groups as itself a form of racism, and then create myths such as the southern strategy to project their former evils unto their political opponents.
Yet a Republican can, as many did, oppose Obama and yet enthusiastically support Ben Carson because of their policies and positions not their skin color. For Democrats, Republican opposition to Obama is frequently portrayed as racism, and the explanations for Carson, when offered, range from the incoherent to the disgusting (i.e., portraying Carson as an Uncle Tom).
So where do I come down on Confederate monuments? While, my mother was from North Carolina, my Dad was from Wyoming and I grew up as an Air Force brat, an Air Force that had been desegregated by Harry Truman, a Democrat, seven years before I was born. Most of my memories as a child come from Pennsylvania and California. I now live in Wisconsin. So I am basically a northern Republican and do not view the Civil War as a lost cause or a war of Northern aggression. After all, the South started it by firing on Fort Sumter. I view the Civil War as two things: A Victory, and Over.
Something common among the military, but not always understood by civilians, is the way that true warriors can fight so hard during a war, but then see those on “the other side” as fellow warriors after the war is over, even getting together to commemorate those fallen in battle. Thus, I can read a book like Rod Gragg’s “Covered with Glory: the 26th North Carolina Infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg” and not be rooting for my side to win and them to lose, but instead seeking an understanding of what they went through and suffered.
Towards the end of the first day of fighting, a federal solder, Corporal Charles H McConnell of the 24th Michigan was falling back. He took his last bullet, and aiming at a large man in gray 30 yards away, pulled the trigger. The large man was Colonel John R Lane, of the 26th North Carolina. The bullet hit Lane in the back of the neck exiting out through his teeth. It was a horrendous wound that nearly killed him. Yet 40 years later, at the anniversary of battle, Lane and McConnell met again and became friends. How is this possible?
Ultimately, it is because warriors realize, better than most, that in war those on both sides are caught up in something larger than themselves. Once the conflict is settled, it is time to move on and turn swords into plowshares. I can admire as tragic figures “those on the other side” like Lee and Stonewall Jackson. I can get a glimpse of the internal struggle that some faced as they came up against good friends in battle like Armistead and Harrison at Gettysburg. In short, I see them as people who suffered, and not part of an issue to be fought over.
In this light, when it comes to monuments in cemeteries or places like Gettysburg, I would be very strongly opposed to their removal. As for the others, I see them as much more problematic. I do believe that some of these celebrate the military tradition of the South, something that is much stronger than it is in the North, and it is a part of who they are, or at least were. Note that what is often called the Confederate flag was not actually the flag of the confederacy but a battle flag. Like it or not it is their history. But I can also understand the difficulty in separating this from the reason for which the war was fought, the preservation of the evil of slavery.
The love of history in me would hate to see their blanket removal as something akin to how Islamic radicals seek to purge the areas they conquer of any vestige of the things they oppose. Ultimately, I wish those involved would learn to be more like Lane and McConnell and I wish we could look back on the Civil War as a tragedy which engulfed the nation, caused by our compromise with the evil of slavery.
Frankly it should be much easier for us than it was for Lane and McConnell, after all no one alive today actually fought in the Civil War. Maybe a solution is that, rather than remove the Civil War monuments, we should focus on the positive endeavor of building more monuments to those who fought so hard to end the legacy of segregation in the Civil Rights movement.
Elgin Hushbeck, Jr., Engineer, teacher, Christian apologist, and author of Preserving Democracy, What is Wrong with Social Justice?, A Short Critique of Climate Change, Christianity and Secularism, and Evidence for the Bible.
[slideshow_deploy id=’2411′] -
Time to Study History
History is a subject we all take in school. Sometimes it’s taught well. Sometimes it’s not. Either way, the study of history is often viewed as irrelevant to daily life. History is about the past, and while we’re told at times that if we fail to learn the lessons of the past, we’re fated to repeat them, I’m not sure that’s true, but we can learn a lot from history about context and the way things have evolved.
Many of the issues of our day have roots in the past, none more serious than the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, two legacies of our past that are enshrined in monuments remembering and even celebrating the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. (Read more.)
This blog was written by Energion Publications’ author, Dr. Robert Cornwall. His published books include Faith in the Public Square, Out of the Office: A Theology of Ministry, Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer, and more which can be found at EnergionDirect.com, Amazon and Barnes and Noble, in written and electronic forms.
[slideshow_deploy id=’2343′] -
A Different Kind of Liberal
Allan Bevere posted a link to three posts by Roger Olson, in which Roger successively defined Fundamentalist, Evangelical, and Liberal. Now Energion author, United Church of Christ pastor, and theologian, Dr. Bruce G. Epperly, responds to Roger Olson’s definition of Liberal.
A growing number of liberal Christians are rethinking what it means to be liberal. Many of us are choosing to call ourselves “progressive” as testimony to our dynamic, energetic theological naturalistic vision of reality. We don’t see ourselves or our theologies as “shallow, insipid, plastic, and fuzzy,” as Olson suggests. In fact, despite the inherent limitations of every theological vision, theology is important to us – a lively, well-articulated theology that privileges the love of God, the partnership of God and humankind in healing the world, original wholeness rather than original sin, the affirmation of science, interdependence, and spiritual practices that are both heavenly minded and earthly good.
For the most part, we are universalists, but our universalism joins heaven and earth and this world and the next and joins grace and judgment in a realm where “love wins.” What we do matters as we seek God’s vision “on earth as it is in heaven.” God will not rescue us, nor can God violate the laws of nature just to get us out of a jam, personally or institutionally. The world process is such that God cannot stop nuclear warheads originating in either North Korea or the United States.
God needs us to be companions in healing the earth. We don’t wait passively for a long-expected Second Coming nor do we create universally-mistaken time tables of Jesus’ return. God comes to us – and all creation – in every moment, inviting us to choose life for ourselves and our descendants. We look forward to the afterlife, but affirm the holiness of embodiment, the non-human world, and the creative process. To progressive Christians, these this-worldly affirmations are at the heart of historical dynamism of biblical theology.
And, we affirm the spiritual, miraculous, and paranormal without reliance of supernatural interruptions of the predicable patterns of nature! While “old school” liberals may have minimized – even denied – anything spiritually-oriented, such as the healings of Jesus, contemplative practices, or accounts of interactions with angels and demons, our naturalistic theism sees divinity embedded in every moment, joins spirit and flesh, and affirms leaps of energy often identified with the miraculous. In contrast to the three-story universe, still affirmed in much popular theology and its historical antecedents, our world is multi-dimensional and spirit-filled. We can affirm the existence of “higher beings,” both positive and negative in spirit, just as we recognize in everyday life beings less complicated than ourselves. Our faith tells us that although we are created in God’s image, we are not the crown of creation.
Old school liberalism is often accused of being purely horizonal, with no room for dramatic acts of God. While both liberals and progressives see God’s presence as primarily contextual, immanent, and relational, many of us believe that there are also decisive moments – often identified with spiritual and physical healings and mystical experiences. These moments are not “supernatural,” that is, disruptive of the trustworthy patterns of nature, but reflective of the gentle, and sometimes lively providence of an ever-present, always active God, whose power is relational rather than coercive. In certain moments, there is a congruence between God’s graceful aim at wholeness and our openness to divine healing and inspiration. While answers to prayer may be unexpected and surprising, our prayers, or better yet, God’s prayers within us in terms of “sighs too deep for words,” create a field of force in which God’s “working for good” can be fully realized. The healings of Jesus involve life-transforming manifestations of what is present at the depths of creation.
I have tried to articulate a robust, open, well-grounded, and clear theological vision throughout my teaching and writing career. I believe that progressive Christianity, with its vision of naturalistic theism, divine-human partnership, and global interdependence can be a catalyst for personal and social transformation, inviting us to expect great things from God and great things from ourselves as God’s companions in healing and wholeness.
(For more on this progressive vision, I recommend a number of my books – Angels, Mysteries, and Miracles: A Progressive Vision; Healing Marks: Spirituality and Healing in Mark’s Gospel; From Here to Eternity: Preparing for the Next Adventure; Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus; The Energy of Love: Reiki and Christian Healing; God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God; Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed.)
[slideshow_deploy id=’2461′] -
Balance
If the history of Christianity teaches us anything, with all the divisions, doctrinal disputes, conflicts and even a few wars, it is that a correct understanding of God’s Word is not easily achieved. Of course, one could just take the position, as some Christians do, that it really is easy for them to read and understand God’s word, and as for those who do not accept their interpretation, well, they are just letting the things of the world cloud their understanding.
One problem is that while it is easy to see how others are letting things interfere with their understanding God’s word, it is usually correspondingly difficult to see how such things are getting in our way. This is why I believe that humility, dialogue, and a tolerance for those who disagree, working in a framework that stresses unity rather than division, are so important.
There is another problem as well. Even when there is an agreement on a biblical teaching there can still be disagreement on how this applies to real life situations. Thus, while I think I can confidently say that all of the authors posting on this board believe that based on God’s word, we have an obligation to the poor, there is considerable disagreement on the exact nature of this obligation and how it should be worked out.
Probably the most difficult problem is the question of balance. While many of the statements of Scripture are pretty clear, how they all fit together often is not. This is probably to be expected when dealing with nature of God. We do not really know how the statements that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God fit together with the statements that there is only one God. But this problem goes beyond God’s nature. We do not really know how the statements that salvation is a choice we should accept fit in with the statements of God’s predestination of the elect.
As a result, as we seek to merge all these biblical statements into a unified whole, if we are not extremely careful, and historically it is clear the Church has not been careful, we create divisions in the body of Christ. For example, as some gave more weight to the verses that speak of our choice, others gave more weight to the verses that speak of our election. To disagree on this is one thing. To divide on it is another.
This is further exacerbated by our ability to reason, or perhaps rationalize. We reason what a biblical concept must mean, Sovereignty, Love, Grace, Righteousness, etc., and then interpret seemingly contrary passages to fit the our reasoning.
When you look at what are considered heretical views of the nature of God, they all try to rationalize God’s nature into something we can understand. Passages that teach contrary to the rationalization are then effectively ignored.
Again, while it is easy to see this process at work in the views of others, we all do this to some extent and in some places. God is a god of mercy. God is a god of justice. Those teachings are easy, but how we combined them is tough and thus we will tend to err to one side or the other, and examples of both errors are to be found in church history.
This is one place where discussion towards unity becomes so important. I have heard that when trying to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar, the best way is to have a large number of people guess and then take the average of their guesses. As we wrestle with these issues as a community, we will as a community reach better answers than we could individually.
Of course, one problem with this approach is when there are influences that effect everyone and the biggest of these is culture. How can these be counteracted? First, you must realize they are there. It is much easier to tell if you are being swept along by a current if you are on a river, than in the middle ocean. This is because the river bank is a fix point of reference.
The Bible is, or can be, such a fixed point of reference. If your understanding of the Bible is being updated to keep up with cultural changes, that should at least set off alarm bells. We are in this world, but our citizenship is not of this world. This is a world of sin that Jesus came to redeem, not imitate.
But again, it is always easier to pick out the flaws in others which is why, contrary to my normal pattern, I am not giving much in the way of examples. One hopefully safe example, is that it is much easier for us to see how our brothers and sisters, who lived during the Middle Ages, got some things wrong than it would be for us to see this in our brothers and sisters today, particularly those brothers and sisters who tend to agree with us. The sobering thing to realize is that our brothers and sisters from the Middle Ages would probably be equally adept at seeing how we are getting some things wrong.
Still, overall, I think the Church has learned from at least some of its mistakes and there has been some improvement over the last 2000 years. But I do not think the progression has been uniform or constant. As we have improved in one area, it has often come at the expense of others. Nor is this to be a surprise. To “get it right” we would essentially have to be God. Thus, I believe our efforts to balance out the seemingly conflicting aspects of God’s nature, to come to a better understanding of God’s will, and thereby God, will be a process that will last at least until Christ returns, and probably into eternity.
Elgin Hushbeck, Jr., Engineer, teacher, Christian apologist, and author of Preserving Democracy, What is Wrong with Social Justice?, A Short Critique of Climate Change, Christianity and Secularism, and Evidence for the Bible.
[slideshow_deploy id=’2411′] -
On Patriotism and Revolution
In a recent post here, Dr. David Alan Black wrote, “The humility of Christ doesn’t grant us permission on this Fourth to call out our fellow Christians for feeling patriotic or to harp about a revolution in 1776 that was probably at odds with Paul’s teaching about submission to civil authority in Romans 13.” In a post that I otherwise agreed with, I found myself wondering if my patriotism and attitude toward the American Revolution were wrong?
When I read Dr. Black’s article, I was editing an article in which I had written about why “I believe that humility, dialogue, and a tolerance for those who disagree, working in a framework that stresses unity rather than division are so important,” and it is in this spirit that I offer up what admittedly may be a rationalization on my part, but is a defense of my views on these two questions.
The question of patriotism is for me the easiest. We all are many things. I am a husband, father, manager, engineer, and author, just to name a few, and in the last few years have been blessed to add grandfather to that list. I do not see any reason patriot cannot also be on this list. For me the issue is not so much a matter of being, or not being, a patriot, but where in your list of labels patriot exists, if it exists at all. In my list of identifying labels the first and most important is Christian. In fact, for me, patriot, while it is there, comes much further down the list.
This is important because if patriot comes at the top of the list, then nothing can challenge it, and it becomes my country right or wrong-type of patriotism, a patriotism that, historically, has been so problematic.
My patriotism is also not a matter of reflex, habit, or just because I grew up in America. In fact, today, the cultural norm is the opposite. Today it is much cooler to be a “citizen of the world.” To be a patriot is frequently difficult as the cultural messages are far more likely to stress the flaws and short comings of the country than the good that it has done. Even one of the leading historians read in schools said in an interview that it would have been better if the country had never existed. Not surprisingly then, one of the key political questions, is whether the country will even remain as it was founded, or should it change to be something significantly different. In many respects, it is the same question faced in the revolution.
Was the revolution wrong? Did it violate “Paul’s teaching about submission to civil authority in Romans 13?” This is nowhere near as easy a question as that of patriotism. On the one hand, if Paul could say what he said in the context of Caesar and Rome, wouldn’t it apply even more so against King George and England? Is Paul’s teaching a universal one that applies in all cases and every situation? Was Bonhoeffer wrong not to submit to Hitler’s government?
These are not easy questions, and in one sense I am tempted to be comforted by the fact that I do need to directly answer them. If the revolution was wrong, the fault lies with those responsible. Today the civil authority I am under is the United States, independent of how it came to be. But, in another sense I do need to answer these questions, and while I do not see this as in any means clear cut, there are several factors that cause me to question how Paul’s teaching really applies in this situation.
The first is that the American revolution was truly unique in many ways, and not just in its success. In fact, I believe it is these differences that led to its success and kept it from falling into the disasters of so many other revolutions most notably the French Revolution and the reign of terror that followed.
While truly out of vogue today, one of these distinctive aspects was the Christian underpinnings of the revolution. While the revolution itself was far from a religious movement, as I detail in my book, Preserving Democracy, the intellectual roots come out of the Great Awakening. While downplayed by the now prevailing secularism, those in the revolution saw God’s hand behind many of the “coincidences” that allowed the revolution to succeed and that even some modern historians have labeled miraculous, though not accepting the theistic implications of the term. (For some examples from a theistic perspective, see The American Miracle, by Michael Medved).
But none of this goes to the heart of Paul’s teaching. Still, even here, there is a unique difference and this difference can be seen in the question faced by those alive at the time: to which civil authority should they submit? When the colonies were settled, they were, for the most part, left to themselves. The thirteen colonies set up governments to rule themselves and these governments were the civil authority under which the colonist lived.
This only started to change following the Seven Years War, as the King began to try and impose his will on the colonies. The civil authorities of the colonies attempted to seek accommodation with the King and it was only when that failed did they declare independence. Independence was not declared by a group of individuals seeking to overthrow the government. It was an act of “the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, [done], in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies.”
This was a situation that did not, and could not, exist in Paul’s Rome. The key question was, must a people who had until then governed themselves, submit to King who had up to that point ignored them. Does the fundamental authority of government exist with the people, or does it reside with whomever happens to be the current King? This was not even a question in Paul’s time, where rulership was based, not on the authority of the people, but on raw power and who had it.
For the colonists, the fundamental authority rested with the people and those who voted to declare Independence were acting as duly empowered representatives of that civil authority, a civil authority that had existed long before the then current dispute with King. Thus, in a very real sense, the “revolutionary” in this situation, i.e., the one who was trying to overthrow the status quo, was not the colonists, but the King.
Ultimately the question of the American Revolution is: does political power derive from the people, or does might make right, and whoever has the power gets to do whatever they want. This is not just an abstract and merely historical question. It is a question that is still with us now more than ever and I do not think Paul’s teaching precludes me from taking a stance on this question.
Elgin Hushbeck, Jr., Engineer, teacher, Christian apologist, and author of Preserving Democracy, What is Wrong with Social Justice?, A Short Critique of Climate Change, Christianity and Secularism, and Evidence for the Bible. -
Hold Them in Love
(July 4, 2017) 10:46 AM Shot this pic in Dallas.
You’ll notice that “community” is used instead of “church.” This is the high calling of the body of Christ, including your local church and mine: to live in community. (Some day I will stop using the word “church” to translate the Greek ekklesia. If people around me aren’t doing it, that’s no excuse for me not to try. An ekklesia is a group of people who have something in common as opposed to an ochlos, a “crowd.”) This illustrates something important for me. I am being lured back to the simple ways of Jesus. And I am finding the process so convicting. The humility of Christ doesn’t grant us permission on this Fourth to call out our fellow Christians for feeling patriotic or to harp about a revolution in 1776 that was probably at odds with Paul’s teaching about submission to civil authority in Romans 13. Oh my. This approach, it seems to me, is based largely on the habit of being negative — seeing only (or mostly) what’s wrong in our culture and even in our church culture. In Matthew 25, Jesus condemned those on His left not because of something they did but because of something they failed to do right. This is how simple the Gospel is. “Whatever you do for the least of these, My brothers and sisters, you do for Me.” In other words, Jesus is describing (as in the church sign above) a community, and a community that cares. If, on my website, I’m constantly calling out gays or liberals or Trump-supporters or Trump-haters, how can I ever expect to befriend them with a view to sharing with them the love of Christ? I’ve already alienated them. As my seminary evangelism professor once told me, “You’ve got to play the music, Dave, if you want to say the words.” We take our marching orders from King Jesus, and last I checked I don’t think He was asking us to defend homeschooling or eldership or a political brand. Believe what you want, but be careful of becoming apologists for your views. That’s the theme, by the way, of my little book Christian Archy. One example I used was pedagogy. Practice homeschooling if that’s your personal conviction (it was ours), but remember that other Spirit-filled Christians might view education differently, and you can both hold your convictions in love because you are in community, not pontificating from a keyboard. Following Jesus never comes with a permission slip to get up on our high horses. In their book The Tangible Kingdom, Hugh Halter and Matt Smay write, “People in America are not ignorant of Christianity…. They’ve seen so much of pop Christian culture that they have a programmed response to us: Ignore, ignore, ignore” (p. 125). Representing a kingdom alternative to the world does not require a boo-hooing of everything else in our culture.
Well, Dave, isn’t it time you stopped preaching to the choir and got real? How are you going to change? After all, aren’t you the greatest of sinners? (Answer: Yes.)
If I see a serviceperson today, I will thank him or him for their service without stopping to think (not even for a nanosecond) about politics. I will watch tonight’s fireworks and marvel at this Chinese invention. I will listen to Sousa and tap my feet. I will take a long walk. (I don’t need to be in “church” to experience God.) I will look for Him in a grandchild’s smile or in the reflection in a pond or in the scent of a gardenia or in feeding my puppy a treat or in taking a bubble bath. I won’t feel guilty that I live in a free nation. Instead, I will seek to leverage that privilege for Jesus. For starters, I will ask God to help me to make the most of every opportunity that lies before me both on the internet and at home, school, work, and every area of my life. I will ask Him to knock down a few of my defensive walls. Like Jabez, I will ask Him for broader horizons to share my faith. I will think long and hard about people I know who are not yet heaven-bound and will add them to my salvation prayer list and intercede daily for them. I will ask God to soften their hearts to the love and saving power of Jesus and to convict them of their sins. More importantly, I will ask God to make my life a light that points them toward heaven.
Friends, the amazing thing is that it’s within our power how we will view this national holiday. With a snub we can create enmity; with charity we can work miracles, even the miracle of leading someone to the Savior. A put-down, even if it seems well-deserved, might make us feel good for a while, but loving encouragement can heal a multitude of wounds. And boy could our nation use some healing right about now.
So ….- Have your convictions.
- Hold them in love.
- Act civilly toward all.
- Be Jesus to everyone you meet.
It’s a tall order, but it’s not one-sided. “Remember, I am with you, day after day after day.” The Lord has big-time plans for Americans who, on the one hand, value their liberty, but who, on the other hand, leverage it for the Gospel.
Happy Fourth!
(From Dave Black Online. Used by permission.)
[slideshow_deploy id=’2299′] -
Elgin Hushbeck, Jr.: Unity
by Elgin Hushbeck, Jr., Engineer, teacher, Christian apologist, and author of Preserving Democracy, What is Wrong with Social Justice?, Christianity and Secularism, and Evidence for the Bible.
Currently I am teaching through the book of Philippians, the central message of which I believe is not joy, but a call for unity for the sake of the Gospel. While the letter does not provide the details of what was going on, there seems to have been at least two factions, if not more striving for power/control among the Christians in that city. This power struggle was having consequences, the most serious being that it was threatening the spread of the Gospel. Thus, Paul’s letter, ostensibly to explain why Epaphroditus was being sent back, was at its core, a call to unity.
At the time, Paul was awaiting trial with a possible death sentence, still his focus remained on the spread of the Gospel. He points out that some were trying to preach the Gospel because they were “selfishly ambitious and insincere, thinking that they will stir up trouble for me during my imprisonment.” Given the stakes, one could easily expect Paul to be angry about this, after all his life was on the line. Yet instead, Paul’s reaction was, “But so what? Just this—that in every way, whether by false or true motives, the Messiah is being proclaimed. Because of this, I rejoice and will continue to rejoice.”
How could Paul do this? How could he rejoice that some people were trying to stir up trouble that could result in him being executed? He makes this clear a few verses later as he begins to transitions to the core message of the letter. For Paul, “The only thing that matters is that you continue to live as good citizens in a manner worthy of the gospel of the Messiah” (1:27).
The core of the letter is found in the first four verses of Chapter 2:Therefore, if there is any encouragement in the Messiah, if there is any comfort of love, if there is any fellowship in the Spirit, if there is any compassion and sympathy, 2then fill me with joy by having the same attitude, sharing the same love, being united in spirit, and keeping one purpose in mind. 3Do not act out of selfish ambition or conceit, but with humility think of others as being better than yourselves. 4Do not be concerned about your own interests, but also be concerned about the interests of others.
Note that this is not unity for unity’s sake. Nor is it a call for all to be the same. In places like Romans 14 Paul makes clear he is not calling for sameness. In Romans 14 Paul addresses some disputes that had arisen within the Church at Rome. Now he could have settled these by simply declaring the correct answer. After all, these were not trivial issues. One of them was what days should you worship (v 5). If Christians cannot agree on the day of worship, how can they worship together?
Yet Paul did not give us the “correct” answer. Instead what he writes is a much more difficult teaching, “let’s keep on pursuing those things that bring peace and that lead to building up one another” (Romans 14:19). Basically, he says stop bugging each other about the points of contentions, but rather focus on the points of agreement and build up one another.
Thus, this is not a call to sameness, or even to abandon our beliefs in these areas. It is a call to reorder our priorities. It is a call to put our own priorities and agendas second, and put the Gospel first.
How do we do this? After all, how can we work with “those people?” They are not even real Christians, they believe / do not believe X? Granted, there is a line here. I do not believe I could associate myself in any way with the Westboro Baptist Church, whose methods and tactics are flat out evil, and in my mind harmful to the Gospel. So, I am not saying that we should be completely nonjudgmental in such matters.
Aristotle in his ethics had what is called the Doctrine of the Mean (i.e., middle). He points out that too often we look at things in terms of opposites. One is either a coward or courageous. This false choice has convinced far too many people to do things that were truly stupid, lest they be seen as a chicken. Aristotle points out that what we see as a binary choice is really a range of choices from rashness to cowardice, where true courage is in the middle. Often, It takes courage to do not only what is right, but also not to do what is wrong, especially if our friends are doing it.
Furthermore, Aristotle points out that we all have tendencies, in the case of the example above, either to be rash, or to be a coward. We should therefore be aware of our own tendencies and factor this in when it comes to trying to decide on a course of action. Do we tend towards rashness? If so, we should err on the side of caution. Do we tend towards cowardice? Then we should err on the side of boldness. In this way, we are much more likely to be closer to where we should be.
While this will vary from individual to individual, when it comes to the question of unity for the Gospel, the history of the church is pretty clear as to where on the range of unity vs division Christians as a whole have fallen. Far too often Christians have divided over such fine points of doctrine that only the most theologically informed really understand even the disagreement, much less the significance. Thankfully that has greatly diminished in the last 50 years. But it is something we should be vigilant against. A question we should ask is are we letting our agenda take precedent over, and interfere with, the spread of the Gospel? -
Edward W. H. Vick: Doubt
by Dr. Edward W.H. Vick, retired professor and author of From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully, Philosophy for Believers, Creation: The Christian Doctrine, History and Christian Faith and more!
How utterly disheartening it is when you are in the thick of serious questions and doubts to be told that you should not be questioning and doubting. If you’re in the middle of a storm, it’s no help to be told that you should not be there. What you then need is a helping hand, a sharing mind. And the more important the questions are to you, the more urgent will be your desire for clarity, proper consideration, and decision.
When we were children we did not have to be taught to accept what our parents and teachers said. There was no other alternative but to accept. They were there first. But we grow up and we learn more than we knew as children. We begin to have the problem of sorting out the answers we learned and even the questions we should now be asking. This produces more questions and, most likely, confusion and frustration. No one who thinks at all gets through this stage of life without doubting.
At this stage, the people who think they know every answer, or worse still, every question, are the ones who may be able to help us the least. People who have gone through an experience similar to ours a long time ago, and who have now found working answers to their questions, may have forgotten how hard-won their conclusions and attitudes were. It’s easy once you’ve found a working answer to problems which were once important to us and forget or overlook the process of struggle that led up to our present positions. It is easy then to be unsympathetic. That happens when once has become very certain of the answer one has attained.
There is, of course, a very different attitude. Having experienced a struggle, more or less intense, to achieve one’s present position, one can then reflect on that process. It becomes obvious on reflection that others who have achieved some certainty through the process of doubting have also had tensions, struggles, and opposition. Realising that is often the case, one may be ready to be sympathetic to them, and willing to give support and help as it is needed.
Those who have not gone through what we go through in this period simply live in a different world from us, and speak to us in a language which does not connect. We hear the words and see the concern. We know their affection and appreciate it. Yet sometimes the very finality and placidity with which we are told what they believe what their new attitudes and positions are disarms us. Their position differs from ours and is considered unsatisfactory. It may even, if we are deeply troubled by dogmatism, lead us to reject not only the answer that but also the very quest in which we are participating. It may even lead top alienation. Fortunately sometimes respect and even affection can survive the emergence of drastic differences of belief. This is a gesture of despair, but quite an understandable one.
To those who have difficulty finding people who will treat their questions seriously and with understanding, I say: ‘Do not be put off from the quest for truth and for life. Keep asking. Keep searching. And try, meanwhile, to be loving. If you don’ t appear to be understood, then turn the tables by trying, as far as possible, to be understanding.’
It might help if I made an explicit distinction for you to think about. It is one thing to ask questions about what faith means. It is another thing to give up the faith.
Because you have questions about the faith does not mean at all that you are giving up the faith. Do not let anybody persuade you that it does. If you are alert you will have serious questions. If your faith is vital and healthy, it will give rise to inquiry, to careful thought, to examination of answers you did not question as a child. One of the emancipating discoveries you can make is that Christian faith is big enough to permit the believer to live with questions, and to go on living with questions.
To some questions there simply is no intellectually satisfying answer. For example, I have yet to read an intellectually satisfying answer to the problem of suffering. Indeed I do not believe that one is possible. There will always be room to doubt the goodness of God. I believe that God is good. But my faith in God does not depend upon the answer to this problem being satisfying to my mind. This does not mean of course that I shouldn’t seek the very best explanation I can get.
While to some questions there is no finally satisfying answer, there is an answer to the mystery of life – the answer of faith in Jesus as Lord. When Jesus is found, then the process of inquiry and of questioning is put into a context where it has both significance and direction.
Life is not God’s reward for cleverness in solving problems. It is a gift he offers us because we need it. When we accept and live out of the grace he gives, joy is larger than frustration.
How do you mark off what is beyond doubt from what you may doubt, and what you must doubt, what is indubitable from what may be doubted? Why do you not doubt if you feel you should? There is no virtue in resolving, ‘I will not doubt’. You maintain a belief because no alternative has yet been offered to you or come to your attention. You have asked questions and may be in the process of finding answers that provide you with satisfaction. Questioning is not doubting, but it is often a pathway that leads us to revise our understanding, to revise our beliefs. But you maintain a belief or set of beliefs because it is comfortable to be accepted by other believers. You may forget that life and understanding become richer as new perspectives emerge. But guidance is often needed even if it is not sought.
We have distinguished faith from belief. We distinguish ‘the faith’ from beliefs held within its context. Because you have questions about the faith does not mean that you are giving up the faith. Do not let anybody persuade you that it does. If you are alert, you will have serious questions. If your faith is vital and healthy, it will give rise to inquiry, to careful thought, to examination of answers you did not question as a child, or have not questioned since. One of the emancipating discoveries you can make is that Christian faith is big enough to permit the believer to live with questions, and to go on living with questions. -
Elgin L. Hushbeck, Jr: The Dark Side of Apologetics
by Elgin Hushbeck, Jr., Engineer, Christian apologist, and author of Christianity and Secularism, Evidence for the Bible, Preserving Democracy, and What is Wrong with Social Justice?.
One of the earliest verses I learned as a basis for Christian Apologetics was 1 Peter 3:15, “Always be prepared to give a defense to everyone who asks you to explain the hope you have.”(ISV) As with most verses presented in a standalone fashion, the interpretation is open to a much wider range of understanding than was intended by the author.
In the case of apologetics, this is seen as a justification for a wide range of actions and beliefs. For some this means metaphorically becoming a shining Knight for the Gospel, armed with a wide arrange of arguments and debating tactics, ready at a moment’s notice to counter and defend against any challenge to the faith.
I would submit that this is not only a misunderstanding of the verse, it is one that has several dangers lurking within it. Perhaps the most dangerous is that it can lead one to see those who are raising objections more as opponents that need to be defeated, than souls that need to be saved.
This view is akin to the Dark Side of apologetics, a road that tempts us with the promises of an easier victory, but one whose end is not good. This is not to say that those we are reaching out to are not at times making the choice easier for us. While I have had many good and earnest discussions with those having different beliefs, I have also had many where those I was discussing with made it very easy to see them as “opponents to be defeated.” After all, when someone threatens to kill you, I know from personal experience that it takes some effort to keep them in the “souls that need to be saved” category.
In the end, the dark side leads to a focus on winning debates more than winning souls. In addition, the more we demonize our counterparts, the easier it becomes to justify bad behavior on our part. Even lying or worse can be justified “for the greater good.” After all, as long as we are not as bad as they are, it’s still OK, isn’t it?
The another problem with this can be seen throughout history, and sadly at times on the nightly news. From the early killing of those considered heretical, to the Inquisition, up to the Westboro Baptist church, to name just a few of the far too many examples, as an apologist at times is seems that most of what I do is try and account for the actions of Christians who thought they are defending the faith.
The struggle we are in is very real, and darkness will seize on any advantage it can. As a result, it is just a fact that the more Christians act badly, the more they will be presented as the “true face” of Christianity. Thus, not only is it wrong, it is, at the end of the road, counter-productive and harmful.
But if this is true, then why did Peter say this? The simple answer is that he didn’t, for when put into context, a different picture emerges. Even a little more context helps, for the next verse begins, “But do this gently and respectfully.” It is very difficult, if not impossible to go to the dark side of apologetics “gently and respectfully.” Thus, when I hear 1 Peter 3:15 quoted, I always listen to see if these words are included and thankfully I am hearing them a bit more often, though I would like to hear them even more. When we look at even more context, this removes completely the possibility of the dark side.
Who will harm you if you are devoted to doing what is good? But even if you should suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. “Never be afraid of their threats, and never get upset. Instead, exalt the Messiah” as Lord in your lives. Always be prepared to give a defense to everyone who asks you to explain the hope you have. But do this gently and respectfully, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak evil of your good conduct in the Messiah will be ashamed of slandering you. After all, if it is the will of God, it is better to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong. (1 Peter 3:13-17 ISV)
In context (and I highly recommend that you read 1 Peter from the beginning to get the full context) this passage is saying that whatever our circumstances, we should live our lives in such a way as Christ shines through us. In that way people will be drawn to us, not because of us, but because Christ is shining through us. When they ask how we are able to live and act as we do, then we should “always be prepared to give a defense to everyone who asks you to explain the hope you have. But do this gently and respectfully.” This is the apologetics that Peter calls us to. Not a life of debates and arguments, but a life of service and example, where people can see Christ working through us.
[slideshow_deploy id=’2411′]