The Internet Monk Archives

Saturday Ramblings: February 20, 2015 – Pitchers & Catchers Edition

rambler AZ — 1954 Nash Ambassador Custom 4-Door Sedan

Now, these folks have the right idea. Where does any decent, upstanding, red-blooded American want to be at this time of year?

Why, Arizona of course, or perhaps Florida. And for what reason? Why, because it’s Spring Training time. Pitchers and catchers reported this week to their Cactus League or Grapefruit league facilities and next week the position players will join them. Jeff Dunn and I are ecstatic (and really jealous we’re not riding in that Rambler)!

In fact, today is the first day my Cubs pitchers and catchers will work out. However, some of the regulars arrived early and have already begun to practice. On Wednesday, picking up where he left off last season, Cubs hitting sensation Kyle Schwarber did this to a fan’s car in the parking lot during batting practice:

Peter Gesler posted a photo of his broken windshield on Instagram, saying, “Our car is now famous. Kyle Schwarber’s home run in batting practice found our windshield. Everyone took pictures and laughed at the idiot who parked there. I did the same.”

A man who carried a lot of theological weight in the circles in which I walked for many years died this past week. Charles C. Ryrie, who taught systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary and served as a dean there, wrote more than fifty books, and edited The Ryrie Study Bible — a more contemporary version of the famous Scofield Bible — died at age 90.

Some of Ryrie’s books were standard fare when I was in Bible college, studying under professors who had gone to DTS and thought highly of Ryrie. He was a good communicator, able to make the complexities of dispensational theology clear and understandable.

Over the years, as IM readers know, I came to see that the whole dispensational enterprise — whether in its “irenic” form as Charles Ryrie taught it or in some of its more popular, quirky, and even crazy forms — amounted to a theological dead-end. Good men like Ryrie, unfortunately, gave this bad theology credibility by their exemplary character and strong gifts.

Ah, another guru from my past, and this one may not be so exemplary. 18 people — 16 women and two men — are now suing Bill Gothard, the 81-year-old founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, and the Oak Brook, IL-based institute itself. Gothard became well known through his seminars and thousands of conservative Christian families have used the IBLP’s home schooling curriculum.

The attorney for the plaintiffs likened the situation to that of Bill Cosby, with more and more people coming forward with similar stories. RNS reports:

The story told in the pleading filed Wednesday (Feb. 17) paints Gothard and other IBLP leaders as manipulative spiritual authorities, groping girls as young as 13 and persuading them to keep the abuse from their parents. The suit also alleges that Gothard raped one young woman. One of the men suing alleges harsh physical punishment and emotional abuse from IBLP leaders. The other alleges that he was molested by a male IBLP counselor, who is not Gothard.

The internet has proven to be an important means of bringing these stories to light. You can read more at Recovering Grace, where the “Bill Gothard generation” tries to shine light on his teachings and practices.

“We want to give Jesus the biggest ‘We love You!’ from the Church of America we possibly can! We want to declare that He is central in our nation, and that we desire His presence in the midst of all we do.”

Those are the words of Ryan Montgomery, administrative director for David’s Tent, a Christian ministry that is holding a continuous worship service 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the nation’s capital to inspire a revival in the United States. It began on Sept. 11, 2015, of last year and will conclude on election day this coming November.

Montgomery told The Christian Post that the continuous worship service was inspired by King David, ruler of ancient Israel. “We were inspired by the devotion of King David, 3,000 years ago in Jerusalem. He hired 4,000 musicians and 288 singers to minister to God 24/7 for the length of his reign,” explained Montgomery.

According to CP and the David’s Tent website:

…the worship service “is about defining a culture that is centered around publicly honoring Jesus.”

“We want to see worship in public spaces become the norm, not a special event. Amos 9:11 speaks of the restoration of the fallen Tent of David, meaning that a descendant of David would once again be on the throne,” stated the site.

“This is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who has been crowned King of the Ages! David’s Tent DC is a national confession that Jesus is Lord of America and that we receive Him as such.”

Am I just getting old? Why does this just strike me now as silly?

A moment of silence for Harper Lee, who died this week at age 89.

She is, of course, best remembered for writing one of the greatest American novels, To Kill a Mockingbird. In the book’s fiftieth anniversary year, we did a “Writer’s Roundtable” on TKAM. Here’s an excerpt from that conversation:

Chaplain Mike: The first thing to be said to this table of authors is that To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most beautifully written American novels. As a writer, what do you appreciate about this book and how it exemplifies for us the craft of writing?

Damaris Zehner: It is a beautifully written book. It exemplifies the perfect union of style and substance. So many books are well written but have less than edifying content; others have great plots but have to be read with your teeth gritted to get through the clumsy prose and poor structure. To Kill a Mockingbird, though, shows us a beautiful story through the window of clear, unobtrusive prose. Virginia Woolf called this kind of of writing “incandescent” — all impurities burned out, just pure light shining through.

Noel Spencer Cordle: I appreciate that nothing in this book is overdone. In fact, Lee’s style is very simplistic, yet she uses this simplistic style to weave such a beautiful and complex tale. I particularly appreciate her creation of the vivid setting of sleepy Maycomb, Alabama.

Lisa Dye: I admire Lee’s use of similes and metaphors and the poetic sound of her sentences. (“We strolled silently down the sidewalk, listening to porch swings creaking with the weight of the neighborhood …” and ” … the town remained the same size for a hundred years, an island in a patchwork sea of cottonfields and timberland.”) She manages her poetic prose without being excessive or flowery. In fact, she is often blunt and shocking, a fitting trait for a young and tomboyish storyteller brought up by a loving (albeit detached) single father who eschewed southern constraints on females.

Jeff Dunn: I would say that TKAM is the best American novel ever! But if asked to describe Lee’s style, I would be hard-pressed to come up with an answer. She doesn’t really have a distinctive style, and that is a good thing. Her writing doesn’t get in the way of her characters. The characters drive this story, and they come alive from page one. Too many writers try to craft a story rather than letting it tell itself. Lee was able to take herself as writer out of the way and let the characters do their thing.

Joshua Bell: I think the best part of this book is how Harper Lee creates a completely believable world for her characters without going overboard. Harper Lee sets her stage perfectly, nothing seems out of place. By the end of the book Maycomb County takes on a life of its own as we see its many social classes and individual characters in the community and how they interact with each other. Even the characters that play the smallest parts, such as Dolphus Raymond the “town drunkâ€, never seem out of place.

Lisa Dye: Furthermore, the pacing of Lee’s storytelling fits the time and place – a small, slow, southern town sweltering much of the time in summer heat.

Noel Spencer Cordle: I chose to do my 2010 re-read of this novel in the summer, and I found it to be an excellent choice because so much of the story takes place during the “dog days” of summer. Lee does not have to exert much effort or trump up her writing in order to beautifully capture these classic summer moments in a classic Southern town.

In another post I set forth my conviction that TKAM’s main character, Atticus Finch, is not only one of the great characters in American literature, but also a model of spiritual formation.

Like Atticus Finch, I find myself simultaneously at home and not at home in the community where I live.

And here I must learn to love.

“Hey sarge,” the postmaster said in a 911 call to the Hillsdale Police Department. “You’re not going to believe this, but I got a carrier that’s being attacked by wild turkeys and won’t let him deliver the mail.”

No, that’s not a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds, but an actual emergency call placed in Hillsdale, NJ, a quiet New Jersey town that has become besieged by wild turkeys.

Reintroduced to the state in the 1970’s, there are now more than 25,000 wild turkeys roaming the state. The New York Times reports on some of the havoc they’re causing:

…local officials and residents say face-to-face turkey encounters are increasing and can be scary. The postmaster who placed the 911 call in Hillsdale told the police that the turkey situation was “crazy.” “I mean, they’re actually attacking, biting,” he said. “They chase the trucks — everything.” The police sergeant simply said, “Wow.”

Elsewhere in the state, some residents have reported being chased by turkeys.

Perhaps the most alarming scene to be caught on video occurred in 2009 in Cherry Hill, in Camden County, when a mother and her young son were accosted by a few turkeys. In the video, the mother places the boy’s tricycle between him and the turkeys, and they then run off. As a driver comes around the corner, honking the horn to frighten the birds, the mother’s screams can be heard in the background.

Later, the mother is seen running to safety with the boy in her arms.

Here are a few great shots from the annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

Best in show was given to C.J., a German Short-Haired Pointer…

One of the stranger looking dogs you’ll ever see, a Komondor, in the judging ring…

Then again, perhaps it’s the owners who are strange when they do this to a pooch. This is Panda, a Shih Tzu, shown in the ring during the toy group competition…

And, perhaps this Dogue de Bordeaux’s pose says it all: “This is hard work!”

We can’t run anything on the dog show without taking a couple of glimpses at the genius of Christopher Guest, who spoofed the event in his classic movie, Best in Show.

The first clip features the incomparable Fred Willard as a commentator and the second follows Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins, who take us behind the scenes with their great idea of a Shih Tzu calendar, featuring the dogs dressed up in scenes from great movies of the 30’s and 40’s. Hilarious.

Every morning is a little Lent

Morning Fog, Oneida KY — Sunday Morning Landscape, Oneida KY

Every morning is a little Lent
Lent I

The picture above is the second in a series of photos that I am using to focus my Lenten meditations this year. Click on it to see the full size image.

I took this picture last spring in Oneida, Kentucky, Michael Spencer’s home, early on a Sunday morning as we prepared to go to church with Denise.

I love landscape pictures because they are complex, drawing one’s attention to many different elements in a single shot. Here we have the early morning light, the dewy green grass, the trees in early leaf, the creek upon which the light dances, the farm field across the creek shrouded in fog, and the tree-topped hills that almost look set on fire just before the sun appears over them.

Every morning is a little Lent. Just before the sun’s entrance, the fog and dew soak the ground and air, a cool refreshing that wakes us to warmer days. Life begins flowing through trunks and branches. Flowers prepare to push through the soil. We’re not far from planting.

Let’s Discuss: Mulder and Scully get theological

The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Mulder and Scully get theological

I’m fighting a bad cold as I write this, and find that my mind is not in a state conducive to writing. As I lay on the sofa tonight, blowing my nose and drinking my tea, The X-Files Reopened gave me something to ponder.

At the end of episode 5, “Babylon,” in which they foil an Islamist terrorist plot, Mulder and Scully take a walk and find themselves discussing “the angry God of the Bible” (and the Koran) and the times in which we live.

I’ll throw it out there today as something to chew on and discuss.

Click on the picture to go to the linked video.

An epic friendship

If you can’t disagree ardently with your colleagues about some issues of law and yet personally still be friends, get another job, for Pete’s sake.

• Antonin Scalia, about Ruth Bader Ginsburg

As annoyed as you might be about his zinging dissent, he’s so utterly charming, so amusing, so sometimes outrageous, you can’t help but say, “I’m glad that he’s my friend or he’s my colleague.”

• Ruth Bader Ginsburg, about Antonin Scalia

• • •

Scalia & Ginsburg, riding an elephant together in India, 1996 — Scalia & Ginsburg, riding an elephant together in India, 1994

Let’s skip the whole political kerfuffle about what will happen in the Supreme Court now that Justice Antonin Scalia has died. I’d rather spend a few moments delighting in one of the most unlikely friendships in Washington.

“We were best buddies,” Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote after Scalia died on Saturday. The two first served together in the early 1980s on the federal circuit court in Washington, D.C., from which each was chosen to be nominated for the Supreme Court. Despite their vastly different views on the law — Scalia a staunch conservative and Ginsburg a staunch liberal — they never let their intellectual arguments destroy their personal camaraderie.

As Gillian Edevane commented at Mashable: “The two ideological opposites shared an epic friendship, which serves as a worthwhile example not just for policymakers and presidential hopefuls, but for everyone who encounters views vastly different from their own.”

In fact, Ginsburg remarked that Scalia made her better, his well-reasoned arguments forcing her to rise to the challenge of another viewpoint and refine her views. “We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation,” Ginsburg once said. “He nailed all the weak spots and gave me just what I needed to strengthen the majority opinion.”

Edevane describes their friendship:

Both Ginsburg and Scalia had a deep love of the opera — the pair’s friendship has even been adapted for the stage, in the upcoming Scalia/Ginsburg — but that’s not all. Both were lovers of fine food, and Scalia dined with Ginsburg and her late husband Martin, a renowned chef, every New Year. They also vacationed together and delighted crowds by trading light-hearted barbs during speaking engagements. They found commonalities despite entrenched political beliefs and bridged a divide that seemed impossible from the outside.

“I don’t think they even try to influence each other,” said Lisa Blatt, a former clerk for Ginsburg, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times . “Both of them simply have huge personalities, love the arts, like to laugh and are brilliant.”

A 2013 article in CNN debated whether or not such a lack of personal friendship and collegiality is a factor in the polarization and dysfunction we see in today’s Congress. I don’t know the answer to that, and I’m sure it’s not quite that simple, but isn’t it refreshing to see people — especially people in Washington D.C. — share true respect and friendship, even when they disagree vehemently about the other’s political and legal views?

It’s not just about civility, which in itself would be a welcome relief and significant improvement in today’s climate of the zero sum game. It’s about actually appreciating, respecting, liking, and enjoying others who are different.

You know, “loving my neighbor.”

What a concept.

Civil Religion Series: God’s Chosen Nation?

Civil Religion, part two
God’s Chosen Nation?

Presidential election years in the U.S. provide American Christians an opportunity to reflect upon our faith and how it applies to our lives as citizens and to the public issues that affect us all. We are taking many Tuesdays throughout 2016 to discuss matters like these. We will look at material from three books, the first of which is Richard Hughes’s Christian America and the Kingdom of God.

Hughes claims that Christians in the U.S., and evangelical Christians in particular, have a fundamental problem when it comes to a proper theological understanding of our nation and its place in the world: biblical illiteracy.

In 2007 Stephen Prothero published a major book that documented that illiteracy in substantial detail. He called that book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know— and Doesn’t. While Prothero examined illiteracy about many world religions, not just Christianity, his study confirmed what others have been reporting for many years on the ignorance of the American people about the Bible. We learn in this book, for example, that “most Americans cannot name the first book of the Bible,” that “only one-third know that Jesus . . . delivered the Sermon on the Mount,” and that “ten percent of Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.”

Most surprising— and appalling— is the fact that religious illiteracy abounds where one would most expect to find a solid knowledge of the biblical text: among evangelical Christians. Prothero argued that “despite their conviction that the Bible is the Word of God, evangelicals show scant interest in learning what scripture has to say or wrestling with what it might mean.” Indeed, in the 1990s evangelical theologian David Wells lamented, “I have watched with growing disbelief as the evangelical church has cheerfully plunged into astounding theological illiteracy.”

The truth is that, in general terms, American Christians across the board know precious little about the religion they claim to profess. Their factual understanding of the Christian religion is meager, and their grasp of the great theological teachings of the Christian faith is more meager still. That fact alone should call into serious question the notion of Christian America (p. 17).

Not only is the idea of “Christian America” contrary to the U.S. Constitution (a point Hughes argues elsewhere), it is foreign notion as far as the Bible is concerned as well. And Christians, of all people, especially those who claim to take the Bible most seriously, should grasp that.

Two themes in particular have been misconstrued and misapplied to construct the concept of “Christian America” —

God’s Chosen People (Nation)
The Kingdom of God

Today, we look at the first of these motifs.

God’s Chosen People (Nation)

There is a chosen people (nation) in the Bible. The Hebrew Bible unambiguously gives that title to Israel. Hughes cites Deuteronomy 7:6 as a prime text: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”

Central to this honored status is the concept of covenant — that God would bless his people for their faithful loyalty to him and bring curses upon them if they broke the covenant, failed to keep his laws, and followed after other gods (Deut 7:12-13, 8:19).

This is clear enough with regard to ancient Israel. However, many centuries later, these ideas became prominent in the self-understanding of English Reformers, through whom the vision developed and crossed the sea to America’s shores.

Richard Hughes recalls William Tyndale, the Bible translator, who in the days of Henry VIII published two editions of the New Testament in the hope of bringing religious reform to England. In his subsequent studies of the Pentateuch in preparation for a complete Bible translation, he pointedly applied the teachings of Deuteronomy to England herself. Tyndale wrote the following in a revised preface to his 1534 New Testament:

The general covenant wherein all other are comprehended and included is this. If we meek ourselves to God, to keep all his laws, after the example of Christ: then God hath bound himself unto us to keep and make good all the mercies promised in Christ, throughout all the scripture (p.22)

Tyndale’s Bible was extremely popular among English Protestants and helped shape their vision of “chosen people” and “national covenant” for generations. Heirs of that way of thinking — the Puritans in particular — brought that vision with them to American soil.

John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, impressed upon those pilgrims his deep conviction that they were God’s chosen people, standing in a special covenant relationship with God. They understood themselves as “God’s New Israel.” They believed they had been led out of bondage (England), across the sea (the Atlantic), and into the Promised Land (North America).

Winthrop’s famous “City on a Hill” sermon (1630) makes a direct correlation between God’s covenant with Israel and what was happening in New England:

…wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when tenn of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are going: And to shutt upp this discourse with that exhortacion of Moses that faithfull servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israell Deut. 30. Beloved there is now sett before us life, and good, deathe and evill in that wee are Commaunded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another to walke in his wayes and to keepe his Commaundements and his Ordinance, and his lawes, and the Articles of our Covenant with him that wee may live and be multiplyed, and that the Lord our God may blesse us in the land whether wee goe to possesse it: But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worshipp other Gods our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whether wee passe over this vast Sea to possesse it;

Therefore lett us choose life,
that wee, and our Seede,
may live; by obeyeing his
voyce, and cleaveing to him,
for hee is our life, and
our prosperity.

This perspective was proclaimed throughout the colonies. It provided a theological grounding for the Revolution to which many preachers appealed. Several of the Founders, though they may not have shared the deep theological conviction of the pilgrims, embraced the imagery of the myth of America as a specially chosen nation. Hughes notes that even Ben Franklin suggested a seal for the U.S. portraying Moses and the people being delivered at the Red Sea. Twenty years later, at an Independence Day celebration, John Cushing proclaimed, “there is as great similarity perhaps int he conduct of Providence to that of the Israelites as is to be found in the history of any people.”

In his 1850 novel White Jacket, Herman Melville included this passage: “Escaped from the house of bondage, we Americans are the peculiar, chosen people — the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.”

The 20th century showed an ongoing fascination with this theme, particularly during the Cold War years when preachers like Billy Graham warned against the threat of atheistic communism by appealing to our nation’s special covenant relationship with God and urging people to stay true to that covenant’s terms so that God would keep America in his blessing and would not give us up to our enemies.

One of the strongest voices in the “Christian Right” era of evangelicalism was Dr. D. James Kennedy, pastor of Coral Ridge (FL) Presbyterian Church. He wrote a book called, What If America Were a Christian Nation Again? in which he said:

Here God established a certain sort of nation, a nation that was founded by the Pilgrims and the Puritans and others who came with evangelical Christianity. Here the Bible was believed and the gospel was preached. It was an evangelical nation. . . . If God, in His providence, ordained that this is what this nation should be, then all down through the ages, in fact from all eternity, God intended that it would be so.

It must be said that there have been dissenters from the beginning. For example, there was Roger Williams, one of the founders of Rhode Island, a minister who questioned the rights of colonists to take Indian lands and who was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious and political views. Williams founded the first Baptist congregation in the colonies and then later became a “Seeker” (essentially non-denominational), and is best known for his foundational ideas about religious toleration and separation of church and state. In his work, A Plea for Religious Liberty, he made the following points (among others):

…Fifthly, all civil states with their officers of justice in their respective constitutions and administrations are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship.

…Seventhly, the state of the Land of Israel, the kings and people thereof in peace and war, is proved figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern nor precedent for any kingdom or civil state in the world to follow.

…Eighthly, God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.

…Twelfthly, lastly, true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, either of Jew or Gentile….

Key to Williams’s argument is his point seven, which in one sentence denies that the Bible supports any claim that America is the “New Israel.”

Israel alone was God’s chosen nation, the Hebrew Bible is her story, and the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah in the New Testament presents the fulfillment of that story. To apply covenantal texts speaking of Israel in the context of that story to any other nation is to misread and misapply the Old Testament scriptures.

Furthermore, as Richard Hughes observes, this view of America also misses how the New Testament develops the idea of “God’s chosen people” into a transnational, universal concept.

…numerous New Testament writers redefined the meaning of “chosen” to point not to Israel alone, but to all in every nation— Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female— who place their trust in Jesus Christ. This attempt to redefine the meaning of “chosen” lies at the heart, in fact, of Paul’s letter to the Romans, where he asked, for example, “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised [i.e., the Jews] on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised [i.e., the Gentiles] through that same faith” (Rom. 3: 29– 30). Later in Romans, Paul made the same point in a slightly different way. “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’” (Rom. 10: 12– 13) (p. 26).

This is not mere theological dispute. Hughes reminds us of the real world danger in missing this. When a nation understands herself to be “God’s chosen,” experience shows that it leads to unhealthy and violent forms of nationalism. Other peoples and nations who do not fit our agenda become “enemies” to be opposed. From the Puritans’ view that the native Americans were “heathens” to be destroyed as the Israelites had conquered the Canaanites to the wars and policies some urge us to pursue today, there is an “exceptionalism” that is used to justify lording it over others.

In 1899, the U.S. invaded the Philippines to put down an insurrection that was part of the Philippine Revolution against Spain, whom the U.S. had defeated in the Spanish-American War. In 1900, Senator Albert Beveridge from Indiana, a devout Christian, stood before the Senate and justified the invasion.

God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No. He made us master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigned. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force as this the world would relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the redemption of the world.

That is perhaps the clearest statement of America as “God’s Chosen Nation” that I have read.

I wonder how many Christians in the U.S. today would shout “Amen” to that?

Mondays with Michael Spencer: February 15, 2016

This is part five in a series of iMonk posts that Michael wrote back in 2006. We have edited them and now present them each Monday. His subject was “the sermon,” and the series was called “What’s Wrong with the Sermon?” Here is Michael’s explanation of the approach he took:

In this series of posts I will be examining the sermon as it is currently done in evangelicalism. My method will be a bit backwards. I am going to examine the most frequent criticisms of sermons — something I hear all the time from my peers and student listeners — and see if there is truth in the criticisms.

Past posts:
• Part 1: The sermon’s too long
• Part 2: The sermon’s boring
• Part 3: The sermon — I don’t understand it
• Part 4: The sermon — it isn’t practical

• • •

What’s wrong with the sermon?
(5) The sermon — More stories please!

“We are constantly assured that churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine–‘dull dogma,’ as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man–the dogma is the drama.”

• Dorothy Sayer

Good preaching uses good stories. This is unarguable from several perspectives.

First of all, Jesus was a story-teller, and stories were a powerful part of every aspect of his proclamation. N.T. Wright well demonstrates that underlying all of Jesus’ ministry, words and actions is a reinterpretation of the central story of Israel, and this re-imagining of Israel’s story comes forth in the dozens and dozens of stories that are part of Jesus’ own proclamation.

Secondly, scripture itself is highly narrative, with stories making up not only key components, but also many of the thematic subplots, character studies and moral lessons. There are stories behind the law, and stories behind the Psalms. Even the prophets fit into the larger story of Israel and the continuing story of God’s covenant relationship to immediate events and eschatological promises.

Thirdly, Even doctrinal sections of scripture such as Paul’s letters are based much more upon a “narrative thought world” than many of us ever realize. Look, for example, at Colossians 1:13: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. This is a story – the story of Jesus as it extends to each one of us. Books such as Ephesians and even Romans have underlying narratives that provide context for the doctrinal admonitions.

Of course, each epistle is part of the story of the church itself, a story that extends from the Bible to the current time, and encompasses, in some way, the stories of saints, missionaries, martyrs, grandparents and mentors in our own experience. We cannot preach, teach, narrate, do history, catechise, evangelize, reform, worship, analyze or understand ourselves as Christians without Biblical stories and the stories of God’s people.

Christian preaching is proclamation, but if it does not incorporate Biblical stories, it will not be Biblically faithful. If it does not take seriously the story of the church, preaching will become a lecture and not the invitation of Christ to join the people of God. If preaching does not make a place for all of its stories, the very heart of the incarnation–God stepping into our story and incorporating us into His story through Christ–will be misrepresented and misunderstood.

With all of this said, I must also say that the typical use of stories in contemporary preaching is a matter of serious concern to anyone who cares about the church, Christian preaching and the Gospel.

What is the problem?

1. Many of the stories in contemporary preaching are centered around the pastors who are preaching. The successful pastors of today’s megachurches and Christian culture fill their sermons with narratives about themselves. Many of these preachers are major characters in their own sermons, and often hold themselves up as examples of the application of the sermon’s message.

While some of these stories are commendable and appropriate, others are exercises in celebrity self-promotion and egotistical narcissism. It is painful to listen to preachers telling stories that amount to little more than crass bragging and common lying.

Of course, Paul does speak of himself in some of his epistles, but there is no reason to believe that a regular feature of Paul’s preaching was a weekly soap opera of his own experiences. In fact, Paul’s self-depricating comments indicate that when pressed to talk about himself, he was careful to not promote himself as a saint or hero. When challenged about his apostleship or speaking of his own encounter with Christ, Paul would speak about himself as needed, but when we read a presentation of the Gospel like Romans, we do not find Paul seasoning the text with personal anecdotes. And it is particularly hard for me to imagine Paul dropping mentions of his recent trip to Vail or his new Humvee into the message.

2. Increasingly, stories are the narrative framework of the sermon, replacing the text of scripture. It is not at all unusual to have the entire teaching of a sermon be subpoints in a personal narrative about the pastor or a story that the preacher uses as a dominant metaphor or analogy in the sermon.

So a preacher might talk about his experience learning to playing golf, and preach on the lessons of the golf course. Scripture would be brought in to support the points, but the story of the golf lesson drives the sermon itself.

It is almost guaranteed that this sermon will be popular, because it relates to something the audience is familiar with, and it allows the pastor to leave the role of “preacher” and be more like us. Such stories often allow a kind of familiarity, humor and direct speech that is very appealing to listeners.

As Biblical illiteracy increases, and as churches choose to use less and less scripture in public worship, these kinds of stories increase in influence.

3. Because we live in a media-saturated culture, the stories being told in movies and television provide interesting “texts” for sermons. Again, a series of sermons on “iFaith” or “Lost” or “Friends,” using illustrations from current media, is bound to be very popular. Such stories are much more accessible to the typical audience, and particularly to younger people.

The current celebration of movies and television as a place to find “stories about the Gospel” is a mixed blessing. While it is good to see Christians viewing culture Biblically, it is not good when other stories begin to crowd out our own.

4. Rather than being illustrations of the Biblical story, many of the stories in today’s sermon have an emotional and textual life of their own, where the Biblical text is the “illustration” or the citation that legitimizes the “talk” as a “message” from God. These stories are sentimental and manipulative. The point is to impact the emotions in a way the text does not. The power of sentiment and the potential to manipulate are important.

This is a particularly difficult problem. Do we retell the story of the prodigal son through a story that will create a reaction that the Biblical text does not create for Christians very familiar with the story? Or do we stay with the Biblical story and illustrate it in such a way that the Biblical text lives on its own? Such choices are essential for a competent preacher who wants to use stories but not lose the primacy of the Biblical story.

5. Those who most strongly advocate the use of storytelling in preaching are well aware of the methodology of Jesus. But does this translate into the use of storytelling (or narrative preaching) that is completely (or largely) outside of the Biblical text, and which connects to the Biblical faith only when the story is “explained?”

In seminary, I took an advanced preaching lab. One student, a woman, did a narrative “sermon” that was an original children’s story about a skunk. At the end she related it to a Biblical text. The professor was very impressed and praised her sermon.

The class discussion, however, was not as positive. Many of us felt that the message, while creatively excellent, was quite dependent on context for its effectiveness. I felt that, as confessionally based preaching in the church, the sermon failed because it came to the Bible from far outside the Bible, and did not need the Bible at all to communicate its point. There were places it would be perfect, but many others where it would do little to communicate the Gospel.

Of course, we look at a story like the Narnia tales, and we realize the amazing possibilities of stories to take Biblical truth and make it come alive. We can’t deny this power and we can’t deny the need to create stories and literature that illustrate and illuminate scripture.

But are these stories preaching? Should preaching become story-telling, even excellent Christian story-telling? Is there a difference between preaching and other kinds of “spiritual” communication? I believe that preaching is always tied to the text and message of the Bible, not only for content, but for authority and the form of the sermon. While we have freedom in our presentation of this message, the “balance” of story and text/gospel cannot shift to the place where the Gospel is displaced from scripture and scripture is displaced from its central place in preaching.

Let me close with some simple suggestions:

1. The narrative nature of the Bible and its many stories should be everywhere in our preaching and worship.

2. Those gifted in the creation of stories, dramas, literature, etc., should be set free to do so, and encouraged to share those narrative creations in appropriate places.

3. Sermons should be text-based, and text-driven. A Biblical sermon should always be about a text, based upon a text, or upon the clear use of a set of texts.

4. Illustrations should illustrate Biblical material, and never vice versa.

5. When stories begin to outweigh the Biblical story in interest, it is time for the preacher to retool until he can come to the pulpit with the power of the text on his own heart and mind, and illustrations to serve that end.

6. The sermon is not the place for excessive, indulgent pastoral story-telling. Limit personal anecdotes, even if they are popular. Use them sparingly, and do not foster the idea that a preacher enjoys talking about himself.

7. Remember that different kinds of audiences and opportunities will affect our use of stories. A children’s sermon can be an object lesson with more freedom than a sermon for the church. But remember that the children’s sermon can be an excellent illustration of a Biblical text, and can serve the purpose of Biblical preaching.

8. Do not manipulate or sentimentalize with stories. Be cautious, but prudently creative, about using stories from current media. Do not fall for the notion that these kinds of stories have an inherent power to communicate that other stories do not have. Do not use media in a way that undermines the sermon.

9. Learn the lessons of Jesus’ use of stories, but do not ever assume you have the same freedom and competence in story telling the Good News as Jesus did. Again, remember that some contexts allow more story-telling than others.

10. Don’t tell lies and exaggerations. Have someone out there who will check your stories against the truth, and who will tell you when you go off track. And if you aren’t a good story-teller, don’t force it. Use your strengths in the pulpit.

The current interest in story and narrative is a welcome addition to contemporary preaching. Learn to illustrate Biblical sermons. Have Gospel stories and Bible stories available to use whenever possible. Above all, be a faithful proclaimer of the greatest drama, tragedy, comedy and rescue story of all time. Draw your hearers in, and bring them a story whose central character will win their hearts and trust.

While an appreciation of stories is essential to understand and communicate the Bible, Biblical preaching should use stories to illustrate, not dominate, the sermon.

Lent I: Richard Rohr on Learning How to Love

Lent I
Richard Rohr on Learning How to Love

During Lent, on Sundays I’d like to share some things I’ve been learning from Richard Rohr.

Rohr is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard’s teaching is grounded in “Franciscan alternative orthodoxy,” which emphasizes both practices of contemplation and acts of radical compassion, particularly for those who are on the margins of society.

Each day, in my inbox I receive daily meditations by Rohr that I’ve been keeping and through which I occasionally meander. I will be quoting from these and making comments for our Sunday times together.

Today, on this first Sunday of Lent and the day in our culture when we think of love, here are some thoughts from a meditation I received earlier this week on “Learning How to Love,” in which Richard Rohr considers his Franciscan heritage of loving actions that grow out of contemplation.

Francis’ emphasis on action, practice, and lifestyle was revolutionary for its time, just as it is now. It is the foundation of Franciscan alternative orthodoxy. For Francis and Clare, Jesus became someone to actually imitate and not just to collectively worship. Believe it or not, this has hardly ever been the norm or practice of most Christians. We preferred morning worship services and arguing about how to conduct them or prohibiting each other from attending “heretical” church services. God must just cry.

The Franciscan School found a way to be both very traditional and very revolutionary at the same time by emphasizing practice over theory, or orthopraxy over orthodoxy. In general, the Franciscan tradition taught that love and action are more important than intellect or speculative truth. Love is the highest category for the Franciscan School (the goal), and we believe that authentic love is not possible without true inner freedom (contemplative practice helps with this), nor will love be real or tested unless we somehow live close to the disadvantaged (the method), who frankly teach us that we know very little about love.

…Early on, Francis found himself so attracted to contemplation, to living out in the caves and in nature, that he was not sure if he should dedicate his life to prayer or to action. So he asked Sister Clare and Brother Sylvester to spend some time in prayer about it and then come back and tell him what they thought he should do. After a few weeks, they both came back. Francis knelt down and put his arms out, prepared to do whatever they told him. They both, in perfect agreement, without having talked to one another, said Francis should not be solely a contemplative; nor should he only be active in ministry. Francis was to go back and forth between the two (much as Jesus did). Francis jumped up with great excitement and immediately went on the road with this new permission and freedom.

…Before Francis, the “secular” priests worked with the people in the parishes and were considered “active.” Those who belonged to religious orders went off to monasteries and prayed. Francis found a way to do both. Thus Franciscans were called friars instead of monks. Francis took prayer on the road; in fact, prayer is what enabled him to sustain his life of love and service to others over the long haul, without becoming cynical or angry. Francis didn’t want a stable form of monastic life; he wanted us to mix with the world and to find God amidst its pain, confusion, and disorder.

This seems very “Jesus-shaped” to me.

Furthermore, it seems an appropriate emphasis for the season.

In his 2015 message for Lent, Pope Francis spoke of the Lenten discipline of fasting. Without denying that practices like this may help renew us inwardly, Francis suggested that we fast most of all from a spirit of indifference toward our neighbors, a selfish attitude that has taken on “global proportions” in our day: “Indifference to our neighbor and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.”

Hearing and responding to God in Lent will involve not only seeking purity of heart, but also active engagement in practices of showing mercy and living as peacemakers, cultivating and extending the love of God to those around us.

Contemplation and action. Action and contemplation.

A life filled with love. A life expressing love.

Saturday Ramblings: February 13, 2016 – Valentine’s Day Edition

We’re pulling the pink Rambler out of the garage for a romantic rendezvous this weekend.

Tomorrow is St. Valentine’s Day!

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, there are three martyrs called “St. Valentine” who are associated with February 14, the most familiar of whom was a priest in Rome in the second half of the third century.

As for where the customs came from that developed and were associated with his name:

The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine’s Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e. half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair. Thus in Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules we read:

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers’ tokens. Both the French and English literatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain allusions to the practice.

In honor of this day of love, we’ll be rambling about, passing out valentines to various folks around us, just like they taught us in elementary school.

Come on, let’s ramble and share the love!

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings: February 13, 2016 – Valentine’s Day Edition”

Another Look: All Fall Down – The Wilderness Within

Broken lines, broken strings
Broken threads, broken springs
Broken idols, broken heads
People sleepin’ in broken beds
Ain’t no use jivin’, ain’t no use jokin’
Everything is broken…

• Bob Dylan

• • •

We must first learn that the wilderness is within us.

Though we dwell in dry and discouraging places, the barren land that surrounds us is the effect and not the cause of our misery. We are not the “good people” to which bad things happen. We are the fools who have fouled our own nests and now move about in the dirt and stench.

Our rebel rain-dance has awakened the storm clouds and now we find what pleasures we can splashing in puddles and rolling in mud. Fun though it may be, we end up soaked and shivering, and it’s hard to avoid making a mess everywhere we go.

“Ashes, ashes, all fall DOWN!” the children sing, smacking the ground with their butts and squealing with delight. If only they knew. These little Jacks and Jills will spend their whole lives tumbling, fighting gravity, trying to avoid breaking their crowns. All the while, the king’s horses and men will rush about, triaging the damage, sweeping up bits of shell, spraying away the goopy mess of foolish Humpties who had no business sitting atop walls in the first place.

The very earth is groaning as ice caps melt, forests dwindle, and species die off.

You and I can’t seem to talk to each other without getting our feelings hurt or at least wondering about motives. We find it hard to quiet the noise within and we avoid quiet places because that’s when it gets so loud we can’t stand it. So we keep busy with trivial matters and call that life. We convince ourselves that we’re mad at the government or appalled at the latest scandal. We watch the cooking shows and imagine we’re full. We live for Sunday, paint our faces and don our jerseys, and dine on bread and circuses. The antics of our virtual “friends” amuse us or at least keep us occupied until the next show starts.

It’s a wilderness out there because it’s a wilderness in here.

Come on, it’s not as bad as all that, is it?

It must be said that the wilderness is a place of breathtaking beauty as well as desolation. Rarely must anyone in this world face unambiguous ugliness. The late John Stott called this “the paradox of man.”

We human beings have both a unique dignity as creatures made in God’s image and a unique depravity as sinners under his judgment. The former gives us hope; the latter places a limit on our expectations. Our Christian critique of the secular mind is that it tends to be either too naively optimistic or too negatively pessimistic in its estimates of the human condition, whereas the Christian mind, firmly rooted in biblical realism, both celebrates the glory and deplores the shame of our human being. We can behave like God in whose image we were made, only to descend to the level of the beasts. We are able to think, choose, create, love and worship, but also to refuse to think, to choose evil, to destroy, to hate, and to worship ourselves. We build churches and drop bombs. We develop intensive care units for the critically ill and use the same technology to torture political enemies who presume to disagree with us. This is “man”, a strange bewildering paradox, dust of earth and breath of God, shame and glory. So, as the Christian mind applies itself to human life on earth, to our personal, social and political affairs, it seeks to remember what paradoxical creatures we are — noble and ignoble, rational and irrational, loving and selfish, Godlike and bestial.

• Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today

And so this week we have moved through Ash Wednesday and have begun our Lenten journey in a wilderness that is both beautiful and bedeviled.

We submitted to the marking of our foreheads, a liturgical act by which we acknowledge the wilderness in our hearts. We confess our inner barrenness. We also admit that we are lost in a “in a dry and parched land where there is no water” (Ps. 63:1 NIV). We abandon hope that there is a permanent oasis near enough to sustain us. The pools of refreshment calling to us are mirages.

Dust we are, on dusty roads we travel, and to dust we will return.

Lord of the winds, I cry to thee.
I that am dust,
And blown about by every gust
I fly to thee.

• Mary Coleridge

Edited from the original post in 2012.

Beginning our walk across Lenten fields

Beginning our walk across Lenten fields
For Ash Wednesday

The picture above is the first in a series of photos that I will use to focus my Lenten meditations this year. Click on it to see the full size image.

I took this in the early morning at Gethsemani Abbey, Bardstown, KY, in March of 2014. I call it “Lenten Fields” because it speaks to me of both the barrenness and fecundity of the Lent season.

The vast swath of earth in the foreground speaks to me on this Ash Wednesday — “dust you are, to dust you shall return.” We are animated earth, filled with potential for life and fruitfulness.

The deer foraging the fields remind me that God cares for his creatures. Even when the earthly landscape seems barren and circumstances unfavorable for nourishment, there is provision.

The trees so stark and apparently lifeless tell me life is more than meets the eye. Soon the life within will bud and flower and produce a sea of green.

There is a road hidden in the midst of the landscape on which people travel. It goes around curves and up and down, through fog and toward hills, its destination unseen.

All this, the Lenten journey.

All this, the lengthening of days and the coming of light.