Covenant

At Fuller Seminary Presbyterian Students were expected to take a bunch of Presbyterian courses. They included Presbyterian History, Presbyterian Polity, Presbyterian Program, Presbyterian Ethos, and I think there was one other but I don’t remember what it was. It was 30 years ago.

Anyway, Jack Rogers taught Presbyterian Ethos. One day Jack asked what word would most characterize Presbyterian theology. There was this long silence and then Jack started almost jumping up and down shouting, “Covenant! Covenant! If you don’t get anything else out of this class I want you to remember that Presbyterians believe in covenant! So of course, I do.

I believe in a God who makes covenants. Most of us tend to think a covenant is something like a contract. One side agrees to do one thing and the other side agrees to do another think. Like getting a contractor to come in and replace your furnace. The contractor puts the furnace in and you pay. A covenant, from a Biblical perspective, is nothing like that.

In the Bible God acts first and then asks people to follow and obey. We see this in the 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments begin:

¹Then God spoke all these words: ²I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ³you shall have no other gods before^£ me. (Ex.20:1-3; Deut 5:6)

God acts with grace and then calls people to follow and obey. It’s the same in the New Testament. God acts in Jesus, (incarnation, life, death and resurrection), with grace and then calls people out to follow. (Okay, yes, Jesus called followers before he died and rose, but the incarnation was part of the grace. And yes, God called Abraham to follow and made promises, most of which were not fulfilled for years. So sometimes God calls first and then gives the gift. But the promise of the gift always comes before the call to follow.

Covenantal Theology says that God acts graciously and calls people to follow. This is the case throughout the Old Testament (literally Old Covenant) and also the New Testament. In fact Reformed thinking says that there is no difference between the Old and New Covenants in the aspect of work. The Covenants of the Old Testament are covenants of grace as are those of the New Testament. In a sense they are all one covenant, God acting graciously and calling people to follow. In this sense I do believe in salvation history.

Some caveats: while I believe that God made a covenant with Abraham and other covenants with the people of Israel, there can be no historical evidence for this. We can find some archeological evidence for the existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, (although whether some of the evidence actually goes back to the time period or are fakes is highly debated), but that evidence can’t tell us that God spoke to Abraham or Moses or David or Elijah and made covenants. Belief in a God who makes covenants and that specific covenants were made is a theological statement.

Another critical factor is the false assumption by some that God makes covenants with secular nations today. The US is God’s land only in the sense that all the earth is God’s. All nations do both good and bad. God has made no covenant with any nation today. To suggest that God does so is not only theologically wrong but also dangerous.

So a major part of Church belief that affects or at least should affect the behavior of the Church is the covenant God made with the people of God. Deuteronomy says that God didn’t choose Israel because there was something special about Israel. God doesn’t choose those who come to faith because there is something special about them. God simply chooses and makes a covenant.

This should produce two effects in the Church. First, there are no grounds for boasting because we are part of the Church. We didn’t become part of the Church because we did anything. Humility is the order of the day. Second, while there is no work that gains God’s favor, part of being people with whom God has made a covenant is that we are called to live as the people of God. We must seek to live as if the Kingdom of God was already present in all completeness in the world today. Being people of the covenant makes ethical demands.

Grace and Peace

Bob

SIN

First, I finally found the picture of me with really long hair and a beard. Here it is!

Sin. I had to get around to it sooner or later. And after talking about the image of God I figured now was a good time. I think the two need to be talked about and heard together. C. S. Lewis says something about humans that I think describes the relationship between being created in the image of God and sin perfectly: "'You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,' said Aslan.' And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth.'"[1] (Prince Caspian)

We have had this conversation time and again in the responses to John and my blogs. Are humans totally evil? They cannot be totally evil because they are created in the image of God. Are humans good? They cannot be totally good because they sin. All humans are created in the image of God. All humans sin. You could say that the image of God is twisted and marred in humans by sin.

There are probably many more aspects to sin than two but I will highlight two: individual sin and inherited sin.

In response to my last blog societyvs pointed out that in some societies the idea of the individual is difficult to understand. The members of those societies see themselves primarily as members of the group. We in America see ourselves primarily as individuals. I think one could make a case that the Bible sees humans first as part of the whole of humanity and then part of a nation or tribe and lastly as individuals. I think both of these views as necessary.

Curiously in the early 1800’s Christians in America had this very debate. Traditional Calvinists argued for original sin, that sin was inherited from the original humans. Members of a school of thought from Yale, (named after Samuel Hopkins) argued that sin was rather “an accumulation of actions rather than primarily a state of being issuing in evil deeds.”[2] (Actually these were the thoughts of Jonathan Edwards Jr. and Timothy Dwight.)

Now clearly science throws a wrench into all theological statements about sin. If we believe that humans evolved from other species, (I hate saying lesser species), then when or how did sin come into the world through the actions of some humans? Even more important, it seems that life on earth evolved in such a way that species were and are always in competition. Forget animals and insects, species of trees compete for space in the forest! So is intraspecies competition, (human against human), sinful while interspecies competition not? Or as John keeps telling us, and rightly so, because humans have the power is it sinful for humans to use other species as resources for our own gain?

Some try and explain the problem with Process Theology. God is in the process of moving creation towards perfection and God is not all powerful so God kind of nudges creation toward perfection. I find Process Theology an unpalatable answer. Part of my reaction is emotional. I want a God I can depend upon, not a God who may or may not bring in perfection. And, as we have discussed before, I see the Bible as an Authority, properly interpreted.

So that brings us to the beginning of Genesis. The second creation story tells us about a man named Man and a woman named Woman, (whose name the Man later changed to Eve, mother of all living). I do not take this story literally. I would use the word “legend” to describe it. Hebrews looked at the world and saw good and evil, particularly evil done by humans. They wrote a story to explain how evil came into the world. I don’t think the story is a literal description of how God created the world in general and humans in particular, although some of it is poetically beautiful, like the creation of Woman as both the same and different from Man. Neither do I think the description of how humans brought evil into the world is literally true. But I do think there is a deeper truth in the story. Human sin is primarily the attempt by humans to take the place of God, to set their own law in the place of God’s Law. The story tells of the attempt by humans to become autonomous, that is to become a law unto themselves. This attempt not only breaks the relationship between God and humans, it also breaks the relationship between humans. We see one consequence of sin in the attempt of the man to rule over the woman, in effect to say that women are less than men. But we also see as we go on in the story that humans move from simple disobedience to God, to blaming the other to murder! Human sin grows geometrically.

I think there is another truth in this story, one that will be roundly disputed: that humans brought sin into the world and somehow we communicate this disease we call sin from generation to generation, almost as if it is a genetic disease. Thus sin is something we all inherit.

So much for the collective or the community. Sin is also individual. I sin. I get lazy and don’t do what I promised my wife I would do until she finally goes out and does it herself. I get frustrated with members of my congregation, (as if I am perfect and they are not!). I watch the leaves turn color and marvel at the beauty but don’t stop to thank God for the wonders of creation and the regularity that God has placed in creation. And the list goes on. Like the Man in Genesis 3, I want to blame someone else for my sin, (my parents, my wife, anyone but me!), but I am responsible for what I do and for what I fail to do. And I see others sin too. In fact it is much easier for me to see the sins of others than it is to see my own sin!

Which brings us to another aspect of sin. I may get drunk and have an accident and kill someone. That is my sin. But there is also collective or corporate sin. We fail to elect governmental officials who seek to bring true justice. We elect presidents who send American troops into Iraq or some other land failing to understand the complexity of the situation and bringing death and destruction to people who only want to be left alone. Corporations cut the tops of mountains off to get at the coal underneath and so destroy God’s good creation. And many of us profit, sometimes unknowingly, from this corporate sin. We sin as individuals and we sin as groups.

I believe in original sin and individual sin.

Grace and Peace

Bob

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[1] Prince Caspian, C. S. Lewis, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1951), pp. 211-212.

[2] (New England Theology), BELIEVE Religious Information Source web-site. 2007. A Christ Walk Church Public Service. 10/7/07 http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/newengla.htm

THE IMAGE OF GOD

One of the basic affirmations of the Bible, (although it isn’t mentioned all that frequently) is that humans are created in the image of God. In fact when referring to humans in general and not to Jesus Christ the term is only used once, in Genesis 1. It says:

²⁶Then God said, “Let us make humankind^£ in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,^£ and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

²⁷ So God created humankind^£ in his image,

in the image of God he created them;^£

male and female he created them.

Let’s start with the science. If we believe that humans descended from a series of proto humans, and before that from other life forms back to one celled organisms, as the evidence suggests, one has to ask just when did humans become the image of God. The short answer is, who knows? Nevertheless, I think the belief that humans are created in the image of God is a necessary belief. Let me explain.

I’m going to argue backwards, from ethics to theology to anthropology, not the best way to prove a point but I’m not trying to prove that humans are created in the image of God. I am asserting it as a matter of faith.

I think the assertion that humans are created in the image of God is a necessary, indeed vital faith statement. For too long, in fact throughout most of human history, humans have treated the other, the human that is different, as sub human. We certainly see this in the Nazi’s treatment of Jews, as well as Christian persecution of Jews throughout most of the past two millennia. We see this in the slavery of people from Africa over the past 500 years. We see this in our current war in Iraq and in the Vietnam War. Even in World War II American propaganda portrayed the Japanese as sub human. This allowed us to fire bomb Tokyo and kill over 100,000 people in one night. And yes, what happened in Johnson City, Tennessee over the past couple of days is also an example. We can publish the names of people accused of a crime on the front page of the newspaper because, after all, they were allegedly committing homosexual acts.

I affirm that humans, all humans, are created in the image of God. That means that whenever we look at anyone, no matter how we feel about that particular person, no matter what that person may or may not have done, that person deserves respect. We should see that person as one who bears the image of God. That means we have to look past what we see and past our prejudices and see the image of God in that person. That means we have to love and honor that person. There can be no stereotyping. People individually and collectively must be treated with love and care. This means that the following are the very least that we must do:

1. We shall not kill the image of God. I include in this both abortion and capital punishment.
2. We must listen to the other, particularly if we disagree with the other.
3. We cannot treat people as groups but must take people as individuals.
4. We must be very, very careful when we think about going to war. Frankly I would rather be a pacifist, but see the need for national defense in a fallen world. But we rush too quickly to war, not thinking through the very real and agonizing questions that must be asked when we make the decision to go to war. The questions asked about just war by Augustine should be send us into a careful process, not a quick checklist. Here’s a question for you: was the American Revolution a just war? My opinion is, not by Augustine’s standards.
5. When we do think of people as groups we must see the image of God in every person in the group.
6. Prisoners are all created in the image of God. The American prison system ignores the image of God in prisons and dehumanizes them. Even when someone does something that is terribly wrong that person still images God, not by what they have done wrong but simply because they are human.
7. Intelligence or the lack thereof does not have anything to do with being created in the image of God. People with Down’s Syndrome are created in the image of God.

Just what does it mean to be created in the image of God? I think there are two aspects that we find in the Genesis passage. To be created in the image of God is to be created for community. While we can see this in human behavior, (we need to get together), the Genesis passage points to our need for community by saying that God created us male and female. God made us the same but different from each other, thus saying that we need each other.

The other aspect is that of dominion or stewardship. God created us to care for creation. John you keep insisting on the need to take care of planet Earth before it is too late. I suggest that such care is part of the very essence of what it means to be created in the image of God. Just as God is creator, so we are those who are created to care for the parts of God creation that come under our influence. No, we don’t have responsibility for the sun, (at least not yet) but we do have responsibility for the ocean. We are over fishing and thereby bringing some species close to extinction. The plastic holders for six packs kill turtles and dolphins. The list goes on and on. We are not caring for God’s creation and we soon will pay the price.

Now the big question: when did humans receive the image of God? Was Australopihecus afarensis created in the image of God? My answer is, how should I know? I am certain that Homo sapiens are created in the image of God. Before that I don’t have a clue. The scientific record isn’t going to tell us and the Bible isn’t going to tell us for two reasons: the writers/editors of the Bible had no idea about pre Homo sapiens and the writers/editors of the Bible were writing for the people of their time, not to provide an anthropological study of human or any other species.

In other words I don’t think science can prove to us that humans are created in the image of God and I don’t think the Bible can tell us when humans were endowed with the image of God. And while the past interests me it is our present treatment of each other that I find most important. We can’t fix the past. We can change the way we treat each other now.

I affirm that God created humans in the image of God.

Grace and Peace

Bob

LORD AND SAVIOR

There are all kinds of topics that should be discussed before these, but here we are so here we go.

I think we need to start with the appropriate translations of the words. I’m going to stick to the Greek since we are talking about Jesus. The problem is that each of these words can mean a variety of things depending on the context. Thus kurios, the Greek word we translate as lord can mean, in context, God, a ruler of some sort, a master to a slave or a servant or even just one’s social superior. So let’s take a look at the context from which the Church has normally taken the basic meaning for this word: Romans 10:5-13;

⁵Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.” ⁶But the righteousness that comes from faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) ⁷“or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). ⁸But what does it say?

“The word is near you,

on your lips and in your heart”

(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹because^£ if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. ¹¹The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” ¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. ¹³For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (NRSV)

The specific context here the question of whether Israel, that is the physical descendants of Abraham, will be saved or not and if so how will they be saved. Paul, as he has throughout Romans, argues that all are saved by faith and not by works. The key verses are 9 and 10. They suggest that one must confess with one’s lips that Jesus is Lord to be saved. The problem is what does the word Lord mean here? We could, given verses 12 and 13 guess that the text means that Lord here means God. But let’s take the basic meaning of the word. Lord is someone who can give commands and expect them to be obeyed.

If "Jesus is Lord" means he can command and expect obedience then we have a basic definition of the meaning of the Christian confession. To put it in the terms of the Gospels, to say Jesus is Lord is to be a disciple of Jesus. We follow Jesus. We commit ourselves to do and live as Jesus commands.

This, of course, could create a problem with Paul’s whole argument. If we say that one is a Christian because one obeys Jesus then we argue the opposite of what Paul says throughout Romans, that one is saved by faith. Reformed tradition has claimed that Paul says in Romans that becoming a Christian changes the use of the Law for the Christian. While in the past obeying the Law was the way to salvation, now one is saved by faith through grace. But after one becomes a Christian one shows love for Christ (and seeks sanctification) by obeying Christ.

There are a variety of problems with this whole argument, not the least of which is recent study by Christians that suggest we have misunderstood the Pharisees and the use of the Law by 1^st Century Jews all along, that the basic Jewish position was and is that God elected the people of Israel by grace and that obedience to the Law is not a way to earn God’s pleasure but rather a response to God’s grace. This is a developing argument in Romans studies today. But for our purposes let’s leave that argument alone. Let’s say that the confession “Jesus is Lord” means that the person who says this will be a disciple of Jesus and seek to obey him.

So that I suggest is the first part of the confession. To say Jesus is Lord is to confess that he has the right to command me, to tell me how to live.

The second part of the confession is just as problematic. The Greek word for Savior, soter, can mean healer, someone who saves your life, as well as the traditional way the Church has interpreted the word: that Jesus saves us from sin and thus opens the way to forgiveness and to the coming Kingdom of God.

In fact the New Testament uses the verbal form of the word much more often than the noun form. And the use of the verbal form is even more problematic. Paul uses the verb most often in the future tense, as in the passage I quoted from Romans above. The person who confesses that Jesus is Lord and believes that God raised him from the dead shall be saved. Salvation then is a future event. (And notice that Paul doesn’t say that a Christian is one who confesses that Jesus is Lord and Savior. He says that one who confesses that Jesus is Lord and believes that God raised Jesus from the dead shall be saved, a different statement altogether.)

Again, the Church has traditionally used the word Savior to mean that through Jesus one is forgiven of sins. And Paul does talk about Jesus as the means by which we receive forgiveness; specifically that Jesus’ death gives forgiveness.

(A brief excursus on forgiveness) Unfortunately people often take one Biblical image for forgiveness and claim that image is the one way to think about Jesus and forgiveness. The image chosen most often, at least in conservative or Evangelical circles is the judicial image or that of atonement. I suggest that forgiveness is so big that one image cannot contain all that is meant by it. I think we need all the images, including the judicial image but also the other images like reconciliation and that Jesus’ death exposes the powers of oppression. To claim that Jesus’ death on the cross can only be interpreted by one image is to miss the richness of the New Testament on the subject.

Let’s move out of Paul for a moment. After all, Paul is not the be all and end all of Christianity. In Luke 19:1-10 Jesus himself uses the word salvation. Here is the passage:

¹He entered Jericho and was passing through it. ²A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. ⁴So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. ⁵When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. ⁷All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” ⁸Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” ⁹Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

As we think of Jesus as Savior there are three critical aspects to this passage. Jesus does not proclaim that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house until after Zacchaeus repents and reverses his earlier behavior. Salvation then includes a change in the way one lives. Jesus tells the crowd that salvation has come because Zacchaeus is also a son of Abraham. Thus at this point in Luke’s narrative salvation was only open to Jews, a position he changes later in Acts. Finally Jesus, using “the Son of Man” to refer to himself, says that he came to save the lost. Note that there is no content in this passage, if we isolate if from the rest of Luke and other New Testament material that suggests that salvation refers to the future, as it does in Paul. Here salvation means that repentance brings one back into the people of Israel. While Jesus often refers to the Kingdom of God in Luke as both future and present, he does not say that salvation is a future event. Zacchaeus receives salvation at once.

So if we use the word Savior to describe Jesus, what do we mean? Certainly we mean that Jesus brings forgiveness. Zacchaeus repents (after something happens during his lunch with Jesus), and receives salvation. But on the other hand Paul talks about salvation as a future event, suggesting to me that salvation only becomes complete in the Kingdom of God, (and yes I know, that is a term that Paul does not use. Instead he talks about the return of Christ.)

So to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior is to say that Jesus can command and we who confess that he is Lord must obey and that Jesus brings forgiveness when one repents. Ultimately salvation comes when Jesus returns.

Grace and Peace

Bob

COMMUNITIES

I was going to move on to talk about the image of God, but I think you are right, we should talk about communities.

We all belong to various communities. In a sense we, along with all life, we belong to the creation of God on earth. In fact I think that is an important affirmation and an essential of Christian faith. We are creatures along with all the other creatures in creation. In a more limited sense, we all belong to the human community. A Christian point of view on this is that all humans are created in the image of God and all humans are sinners.

There are various other communities like nations, cities, tribes and families, all limited by citizenship or membership. In tribes and families membership is determined by being born into the community. Curiously birth is also how one enters the Jewish community and, for some entrance into the Muslim community.

Then there are all sorts of clubs and other stuff. My great aunt kept pressing me to join the Mayflower Society and the Sons of the American Revolution as I have ancestors who came on the Mayflower and fought in the Revolution. Personally I find this type of organization distasteful. I don’t see why I should be considered special because my ancestors did something. On the other hand I wear kilts because some of my ancestors were Scottish. Go figure.

And there is the Christian community. While at times the Christian community has defined itself by birth, (your family was Christian and you got baptized so you were part of the Church, no other questions asked), there are some clear and some not so clear limits to the Christian community. One limit is baptism. People who were baptized in a Christian community are part of the Christian community. The PCUSA places a limit on what baptism means to help define whether one has been baptized into the Christian community or not. For example, Jews take ritual baths at particular times in life. One of those times is when someone who is not Jewish converts to Judaism. That person takes a ritual bath as part of entrance into the community. The PCUSA would say that this ritual bath is not baptism. We limit baptism to those who are baptized with a Trinitarian formula.

For adults and youth when one joins a PCUSA congregation one meets with the session and the session sets the limits for joining the congregation. Our Form of Government makes the following statements about conscience and membership:

(1) (a) That “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his Word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship.”

(b) Therefore we consider the rights of private judgment, in all matters that respect religion, as universal and unalienable: We do not even wish to see any religious constitution aided by the civil power, further than may be necessary for protection and security, and at the same time, be equal and common to all others.

(2) That, in perfect consistency with the above principle of common right, every Christian Church, or union or association of particular churches, is entitled to declare the terms of admission into its communion, and the qualifications of its ministers and members, as well as the whole system of its internal government which Christ hath appointed; that in the exercise of this right they may, notwithstanding, err, in making the terms of communion either too lax or too narrow; yet, even in this case, they do not infringe upon the liberty or the rights of others, but only make an improper use of their own. (G-1.0301-0302)

We Presbyterians do like balance.

As you pointed out in response to my last post, John, the session sets the qualifications for membership. But there are some restrictions. Again, the Form of Government says:

The incarnation of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ gives to the church not only its mission but also its understanding of membership. One becomes an active member of the church through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and acceptance of his Lordship in all of life. Baptism and a public profession of faith in Jesus as Lord are the visible signs of entrance into the active membership of the church. (G-5.0101)

For those who are not Presbyterians these are from the PCUSA Constitution Part 2, the Book of Order. The numbers are reference numbers to sections in the Book of Order. The first part of the constitution is the Book of Confessions. If you want to read the Book of Order you can find it online at: http://www.pcusa.org/oga/constitution.htm.

So membership in the community called the Presbyterian Church (USA) is defined as those who have been baptized and who place their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Of course in the PCUSA the session decides whether someone believes Jesus is Lord and Savior. It is my experience as a Presbyterian pastor of almost 30 years that we Presbyterians really operate on what I call the L & B method of receiving members. That means if you are living and breathing we will accept you as a member. In fact I think we might accept someone who is just living and not breathing! I rarely hear any questions from the session about the faith of a person who wants to join.

Now that’s the formal stuff. A community is not really made up of people who say the right things. A Christian community does share certain intellectual beliefs but that isn’t what the community is really all about. The community is for mutual support, love and encouragement. We worship together, prayer together and for one another, eat together, study the Bible and other things together, care for one another in times of trouble, reach out in mission in a wide variety of ways, including feeding the poor, visiting the sick and those in prison, speaking to governments about what is just and what is unjust, speaking to the larger community on issues such as gun violence, (a big problem here in Philadelphia), gathering with other members of the larger community to demonstrate against violence, and yes, evangelism. A Christian congregation is made up of people that Christ has called together to be a community. But the Church can too easily forget that it is part of a larger community. When a congregation turns inward and does not participate in the life of the larger community it begins to die.

Someone quoted Bonhoeffer on this subject and I reiterate what Bonhoeffer said: we all have to abandon our wishes and images of what an ideal Christian community looks like. We don’t build the community into what we think God wants. Jesus molds the community into what he wants. This is easy to say and very difficult to do.

Flycandler said something about membership in response to my last post which I think is very helpful. An official member of a particular congregation has one privilege that those who are not members do not have: the member has the right and responsibility to vote in a congregational meeting. Everyone is welcome at all events of the congregation. All those who have been baptized are welcome to partake of the Lord’s Supper. And frankly we don’t ask those who receive communion if they are baptized or not. We don’t give out baptism cards. Will those who attend be encouraged to become members? Of course. Most of the time evangelism is not explicit conversation about becoming a Christian, at least not in congregational events. But worship, education and fellowship all present the message of the Gospel.

What I mean to say is that being part of the community is not so much a formal reception into membership, although those who choose to join may do so. Being part of the community means that you are involved in the community. Everyone is welcomed, everyone is loved, everyone is served and asked to serve. But we will also have conversation about the Christian faith. People will be encouraged to become Christians.

To unpack the basic Christian affirmation, Jesus is Lord and Savior requires some preliminary information on subjects like sin and forgiveness so I will try to get back to that process in my next posts.

Grace and Peace

Bob

FAITH, DOUBT AND DOGMA

My continuing conversation with John Shuck.

John. Thanks for the explanation. Sometimes I think I’m an F Christian! At least you have a passing grade. Of course, we don’t earn our way into God’s favor. Grace is a gift. So while we might score low, God, through Jesus, gives us A’s.

I’m going to talk about this first from a personal perspective first. While I agree with you that faith and doubt are things that affect our whole beings I tend think about faith and doubt in several categories.

I have intellectual faith and doubt. Even though I am an INFJ I was trained in school as a thinker. That, after all, is what they want in school. Isn’t it curious? Big advancements in science tend to come from AHA! Moments by people who are well trained intellectually in their fields. But all the training cannot produce a moment like the Theory of Relativity. So anyway, I was trained to think and reason and I have intellectual faith and doubt.

That means that sometimes I am absolutely sure in my mind that Jesus rose from the dead. I know, I can’t prove it, but I can see historical evidence suggesting that it happened. Nevertheless, I have my moments when I think, “What if it isn’t true? Then I have wasted my whole life and made promises that aren’t true.” I stand up at funerals and talk about the resurrection and God’s promise of life beyond life, given through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Usually I believe it at the time but I do have my moments when I think it isn’t true. And frankly, particularly when I’m depressed a long cold nothingness seems like it would be better than eternal life. I know, God will probably take away my bipolar disorder in the Kingdom of God and maybe even let me play the bagpipes! But yes, sometimes I wonder if it is all a lie.

Sometimes I have moments of feeling God’s presence and grace. Other times I feel like God could not possibly love me. Other people sure, even the people I pray with in prisons! But not me. While I preach grace, I have this place in the back of my head and way down in my heart that says that there are different rules for me, that I have to earn God’s love. And then I sit in the sanctuary during the Lord’s Supper, holding the bread and I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit surrounding me with love, taking me into the center of the Trinity and time seems to stop. (It doesn’t. Often at those times I forget to look up and see the elders waiting to walk back to the chancel with the plates of bread!) Faith and doubt can come as feelings.

Faith and doubt can be expressed in actions. Even if I don’t feel God’s presence, even if I doubt the promises of Jesus I still can go forward and act according to the commands of Jesus. I’m trying an experiment right now! I promised God I would try to stop saying nasty things about my fellow drives and that I would try to have more patience while driving. The not verbalizing is going pretty well. The thoughts still cross my mind but I keep my big mouth shut, most of the time. The patience is coming slower. Fortunately I no longer live in So Cal! Stop and go on the freeways would probably be my undoing. (For those of you who know the Philadelphia area, I avoid the Schuylkill Expressway from 6 AM until 7 PM on weekdays!) So no matter what I feel or think I can still obey.

And then there is worldview. As I think about it that is the area in which I am fairly faithful. I tend to look at the world through Christian eyes. I’ve been living in this worldview for so long that trying to look at it like an atheist or a Muslim feels almost impossible.

I agree with you, John, I think the roller coaster ride of faith and doubt, is part of God’s intention for us. Times when we doubt, if we insist to ourselves that the faith is true, if we live as Christians no matter what we may think or feel, we can grow in faith. In fact I think faithful doubting is a gift from God that actually strengthens faith.

Something we have not talked about is the effect of being part of a community on our faith. We Americans tend to think of ourselves as individuals first and members of a community second. That is not the case through most of the world. In many places people see themselves as part of a family or village or tribe first and as individuals second. I suspect this is definitely and Old Testament viewpoint and probably a New Testament viewpoint as well. While I do see emphasis on individual decision making in the New Testament, (Jesus’ statements about hating parents, siblings and wives and giving up all including family to follow him), I also see family emphases too. There are hints in Acts that suggest that households became Christian because the leader of the household became a Christian, like Lydia’s household in Philippi. (Acts 15:11-15) While I see myself like most Americans, as an individual first, I think we need to reclaim at least a balance between being a part of a community and an individual. The community of faith is vital to the well being of the individual and vice versa. I’ve even suggested that the congregation sell their houses and buy an apartment building! Strange, but there were no takers. We exist as part of the community.

And yes, I used the word dogma up there in the title. I’ve read the responses to your last post that talk about the movie. Thanks flycandler! Most of the time Americans hear the word dogma and think of the Spanish Inquisition. (Okay, it has to be said: “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”) What I see and hear in these post modern times is that if you say what you think, particularly on religious issues, people think that you are persecuting them if you make a claim of absolute truth. I think dogma has a place in the life of the Church. We make truth claims. Yes they are claims of faith and people can freely disagree with them. But part of the job of the Church is to assert those truth claims. We have learned, at least here in America, that everyone has the right to say what they think, (as does the president of Iran. I may think he is a fanatical anti-Semitic . . . hmm, I better stop there, but I think Columbia was right to let him speak.) One of the best things about America is our tolerance for diversity, even if someone asserts something as true that most think is absolute bunk.

Of course, what I just said means that I think there are essentials of faith in the Church. And in the PCUSA presbyteries and sessions are guardians of that truth. As I’ve said before, I get one vote. We make decisions together. But there are things that we decide together are essential. I assert that faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior is essential. I’m not going to spell out what Lord and Savior means in this post. I’ll save that for later. But faith is an essential, even as we ride the roller coaster of faith and doubt. May our doubts lead us to greater faith.

Grace and Peace

Bob

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

Okay, I admit it: I haven’t read Schleiermacher for 10 years. And I think I may have muddied the waters by talking about feelings. My main concern with Schleiermacher is his attempt to start theology from human experience rather than from revelation.

Second, I think we just ran into a situation where words mean different things in different parts of the Church. Among the people I hang with the word “experience” often does refer to feelings. To experience the presence of God often means to have a feeling of awe or peace or sometimes even terror. I wonder if my perspective doesn’t come from the Evangelical tradition of Revival. Going all the way back to Jonathan Edwards, (and before him to communion seasons in Scotland), the experience of grace has often been described in emotional terms. One felt lost. One felt guilty because of sin. One felt the anger of God at sin and knew that there was nothing one could do to make God forgive. One felt peace and joy in an experience of grace. While Edwards, (and again, I’m doing this from memory), insisted that feelings were not grace itself, he acknowledged that feelings were part of the human experience of God.

It sounds, John, like we may agree about the movement of God and humans. While humans may seek God, the true experience of God is always at the initiative of God.

This brings us to one of my concerns as a Presbyterian. We all use the same words but sometimes we mean different things. For example: we both just used what most people would not hear as a philosophical or theological word: experience. We meant different things by it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. That’s why conversations like this are so terribly important. Before we start condemning each other we need to at least be sure we understand what the other means.

So let me use another word that you used: faith. I believe faith is an all person thing. Faith does involve feelings but it also involves thoughts, words and actions. You said, “My faith or trust in God as creator does not come by proof or scientific method. When it comes, it comes usually by grace, that is, I cannot engineer it. I experience it.” You equate faith and trust, a very Biblical/Greek approach since the word in Greek can be translated either way.

Let me make some affirmations about faith. Some are going to be more Reformed and others are going to be generally Christian, at least I hope.

Faith is a gift from God. Again, God begins the conversation but we are not even able to have the conversation until God gives us the gift of faith through the Holy Spirit.

Faith is also a human response to God. God calls out to us, as God called out to Samuel and we must respond, “Here I am!” My understanding of the Hebrew is that it means more than just, I’m here. It also means I am here with you and for you and I will follow you and do as you command. Therefore, while faith is first a gift from God from a human perspective faith is also the great “Yes!” in response.

I agree with you John, what we believe, what we put our faith in can never be proven. I would use the word believe in different ways for scientific theories and for God. I would say that, given the evidence available at the present time, (I mean the evidence available to me), I believe the Big Bang theory is the best theory at the present time to explain the evidence about the beginning of the universe. But I believe in God, meaning I put my faith and trust in God.

Hmm . . . Curiously I think I would also say I believe in gravity too, not as a theory or any kind of scientific model (although I would say I believe in gravity in the same way as I believe in the Big Bang), but rather as an experience. Having never been farther away from earth than 40,000 feet, my experience is that if I go up I’m going to go down sooner or later too. But my trust or belief in gravity is different in some ways from my trust and belief in God. Consider gravity as an analogy for faith in God: I can depend on gravity. It’s there whether I need it or not. Sometimes it’s there when I don’t want it, like if I fall down the stairs. Part of the way I trust or believe in God is the same. God is always present. I can’t go anywhere where God is not. And yes, sometimes when I sin I wish God was not there but I know God is present whether I want God to be present or not.

But faith in God is different because gravity is part of creation. God is creator. Further, as we have discussed before, faith in God is at least partially relational.

I am curious about your statement that I quoted above: “My faith or trust in God as creator does not come by proof or scientific method. When it comes, it comes usually by grace, that is, I cannot engineer it. I experience it.” I may misunderstand you but it sounds as if you are saying that your experience of faith is intermittent. Certainly I would also say that there are times when I place my faith in God and other times when I do not. The latter may be doubt. It also may be sin, usually the good old human sin of trying to take God’s place and be in charge of my own life. I may, again, be completely misunderstanding what you say but it sounds to me that you are describing faith as . . . the best word I can think of is punctiliar rather than continuous. An analogy for what I hear is a sense experience. I walk in my yard in the spring and smell the lilacs. To fit the analogy better I would have to say that I am surprised by the smell of the lilacs. You seem to say God acts and you experience faith, usually by grace.

I suggest (and also should say I experience) that faith as both punctiliar and continuous. Sometimes I experience the presence of God (arguably an experience of faith) in a way that seems to be a feeling but much more than a feeling. Other times faith is a daily way of life. As mystical seeker has implied in one of her responses, my faith colors the way I look at the world. Faith is, in this sense, a worldview that is much more than intellectual. While saying that I believe humans are created in the image of God, certainly an intellectual assertion, I seek to treat everyone as the image of God. Sometimes this is a conscious decision and sometimes it is not. Of course I don’t always succeed, but seeing all humans as created in the image of God is a central part of my worldview, my faith.

And, as I said in my last post, sometimes I believe in God, I place my faith in God when all around me shouts that I am wrong, God is not present, God does not love me, Jesus did not die for me, God has not forgiven me. I have been to the place that the mystics call the dark night of the soul, or if I haven’t been there I never want to go there because where I was was certainly bad enough! Faith in such times takes great energy, to insist on faith when the evidence suggests that my faith is foolish.

So I think faith is a gift from God, has intellectual content, like the essentials I keep listing, is relational as I trust and also doubt, affects the way we see what happens in the world, should, but does not always direct the way we live and sometimes is an affirmation in the face of doubt and fear.

And faith is much more, but enough for now.

Grace and Peace

Bob