THE ANCESTORS

I talked about my childhood. Now I’m going to talk about my ancestors.

Mostly I think of myself as Scottish, but like most Americans I’m a mutt. My Dad’s paternal grandfather came to the U.S. from Northern Ireland. Ours was one of those families offered land in Ireland in the early 1600’s if they would go and keep an eye on the Irish Catholics. The English wanted to control the Irish and used Scots Presbyterians to do it. So the Troubles in Ireland began.

Anyway, my great-grandfather, John Campbell came to the U.S. in 1876 as an Irish whisky salesman. His future wife, (and his first cousin), had come earlier through New Orleans with her family and settled in Illinois. Her brother was a Presbyterian pastor. Great grandfather John was an elder at the Presbyterian Church in Montclair, NJ.

As for the rest of the family, we are a mess. We have ancestors from England on both sides of the family, including people who came on the Mayflower, fought in the Revolution, built ships in New England that were probably used as slave ships. All of my ancestors eventually left New England for other parts. They were, from what we can tell, devout.

My mother’s paternal ancestors moved from Connecticut, started a tiny town in North Central PA and built a Baptist church there. I used to be related to half the town. My maternal grandfather met a nice woman at college of German extraction, whose family had been around since before the Revolution, and married her. She died when my Mom was in high school. My other three grandparents lived into the sixties and in one case, the seventies.

I had these two maiden great aunts, my mother’s father’s sisters, who came to visit us regularly, and particularly when Mom had her babies. One of my great aunts, who saved everything, had a note from me, written to my mother when she was in the hospital after the birth of my youngest brother that said I was going to be a minister. I have no memory of that note.

While my Mom’s church and family was fairly conservative, (there was no alcohol served at my parent’s reception, to the horror of my Dad’s mom), the church we attended was kind of middle of the road. The pastor I really got to know had a PhD and was an expert in Bonhoeffer. During the Vietnam War his wife would go down to the demonstrations against the war at city hall, to the shock and dismay of the congregation.

So I grew up Presbyterian. I had no idea what that meant as a child. No one ever talked about predestination or any of the other great Presbyterian doctrines. Or if they did I wasn’t listening. It was just church, and we went.

I started Junior High in 1963. The Beatles were popular and I hated their music then. “I Wanna Hold Your Hand?” What dreck! I was into show tunes then. Still am. I developed a love for Rock and Soul a year later. While still going to church I wasn’t much of a Christian. I was much more interested in pretty girls, although I had no idea how to talk with them. And things didn’t change much in high school until the summer after my sophomore year. Then I went to church camp. And things began to change.

Grace and Peace

Bob

A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

John Shuck and I are moving from theology to personal faith stories. I decided to put mine here as well. There will also be posts for teen years and college, seminary and several for years in ministry.

Learn more than you ever wanted to know about me!

FAMILY AND CHILDHOOD

I grew up in a traditional family for the 1950’s and ‘60’s. Mom and Dad had both been only children and wanted to have lots of kids. They had five of us. Mom had preschoolers at home from 1951 to 1968!

Dad had grown up right near where we lived in North Central Jersey. Madison, New Jersey. His parents moved to about an hour away in the mountains and we went to see them once a month on Sundays. Mom grew up in a tiny town in central PA. We spent summer vacation there, playing in the creek and visiting the relatives in the graveyard and going to Ticklish Rock. (I took this picture of it and my thumb in 1963)

Dad was a chemical engineer. Mom was a stay at home mom. It was the 1950’s.
We grew up going to church. The Presbyterian Church, of course. Where else would someone named Campbell go? I don’t remember ever asking to stay home. It just wasn’t done. We went to Sunday School. I remember the big, white, New England style sanctuary and sitting in the balcony on Christmas Eve.

Prayer was a part of every meal and part of bed time.

It’s strange thinking back to the way things were. We didn’t have a lot, certainly not compared to today. There was plenty of food and we had enough clothes. The house was a bit small, three bedrooms with five kids and two adults but we moved to a bigger house when I was in Junior High. We had one car for years. My parents didn’t allow toy weapons so we pretended sticks were guns and threatened the engineer of the train as it went though town. My brother and I could just tell Mom we were going for a bike ride, make lunches and ride all day. I read a lot. The big thing to do in town for children was swimming at the YMCA. We went away to camp and I was in Boy Scouts.

And yes, I went to school. Curiously we went to school through the 1950’s and 60’s with little prejudice against those of other races, except the Italians. There were lots of Italians in town and very few African Americans so Italian Americans were considered a threat. Catholics too. I never could figure out why they got out of school early one day every week and why, every February they walked around with dirty foreheads one day. School was no big deal until I got to Junior High and learned that the upper class in town lived on the Hill and I was middle class.

Mom grew up Baptist so none of us got baptized until we joined the church. I remember Communicant’s Class. Being the obnoxious inquisitive kid that I was when the pastor asked if Jesus ever sinned I asked if he hadn’t sinned in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking the Father to let him out of being crucified. Of course the pastor told the parents about this one question from one of the students and my Mom, smart woman that she is, figured out it was me.
It was very strange. I got baptized with a couple other kids in a private service. It didn’t happen in worship.

The biggest thing I remember from church was THE GREAT DEBATE over whether the Associate Pastor would become the pastor. There were no rules about that back then. He became the pastor and was later a friend and colleague of mine.

God was just there. No one asked about children taking the Lord’s Supper. I prayed childhood prayers, some serious and some stupid and went to church.

Pastor Bob

Always Nice to Be a Book You Love!

Thanks to John Shuck for the Book Quiz!

Love the book, but don't want what happened to Owen to happen to me!

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!

by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire
faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest
this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking
moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT
SOUNDS LIKE THIS!


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Conversation on Theology, Science, History and Other Stuff

Back in my younger days I was a member of Utica Presbytery. There was a colleague of mine named John Shuck. I've always liked John. But John and I come from different theological perspectives.

Here is a picture of John.

Last year John started a blog. It has, I think I can say, caused some controversy and some people have said all kinds of nasty things about John. Recently we started a dialogue on a variety of issues. I've been long-winded, which will not surprise any of you who know me, particularly congregational members.

Anyway, to read the dialogue go to John's blog called "Shuck and Jive." You can go there by clicking on John's picture or below:

Shuck and Jive

SOME OPINIONS ON THE WAR IN IRAQ

I have opposed this Iraq War since it was first suggested. My original reasons were Christian. Long ago Augustine proposed the Just War Theory. It basically says that for a war to be just it has to meet the following criteria:

1. have a just cause;
2. be declared by a proper authority;
3. possess a right intention;
4. be the last resort;
5. have a reasonable chance of success; and
6. the ends be in proportion to the means used.[1]

Before I explain why the current Iraq War does not meet these criteria, let me add one caveat to Just War Theory: war is always evil. Sometimes, alas, it is the least evil choice in this messed up, sinful world.

Having said that, the Iraq War fails to meet the first, third, fourth and fifth and sixth criteria listed above.

A just war has to have a just cause. This basically means that one’s country has been attacked or another country has been attack and one’s country comes to the defense of the other country. President Bush and his aides promoted the Iraq War by calling for a preventative war. A preventative war cannot be just because one’s country is not under attack. Even the threat of potential weapons of mass destruction fails under this theory, not because no such weapons were found but rather because the U.N. inspectors were doing an adequate job, not of finding weapons of mass destruction but rather of preventing Saddam Hussein from using them, if they existed, the presence of the inspectors did not allow for sufficient space to make and deploy the weapons.

Further, the argument that Saddam Hussein supported Al Qaeda is laughable. Radical Islamicists hated Saddam Hussein as much as they hate us.

A just war has to be declared by a proper authority. This basically means that a legitimate government has to declare the war. I let this one go because the president did go to congress and get its permission. Still, a little more attention to the truth would make this criteria more justifiable.

A just war has to possess a right intention. Hmmm . . . What were our intentions again? The stated intention was to remove the threat of weapons of mass destruction. But evidence has come out that the administration knew that weapons of mass destruction, at least nuclear weapons, were not in Iraq. And the problem with finding chemical or biological weapons is that the places where they might be developed can look a lot like a insecticide factory or a graduate level bio lab.

Now if one makes the argument that the people of Iraq needed to be set free from a tyrant one has a slightly better intention. But the right thing to do under such circumstances is to provide material support to tribal or governmental leaders who seek to overthrow a tyrant. Setting a people free who do not fight for their own freedom is a dangerous activity that usually is punished. Alas, too few people study history.

A just war has to be the last resort. In 2003 were there other actions the United States or NATO or the UN could have taken to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq? That, after all, was the reason given for the war. Certainly the UN inspectors were not allowed to do a complete job. Nevertheless the probability of Iraq actually being able to use weapons of mass destruction was fairly low. The US and its allies had no fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. There were spy plane missions and robot plane missions and spy satellite missions constantly observing Iraq. Wouldn’t greater support for UN inspectors have been a reasonable step before the last resort of war?

Oh, and I have to say here, because I have to say it somewhere: the sanctions and the oil for food policies weren’t working. They weren’t working partially because some UN officials and others got very rich selling oil on the side for Saddam Hussein and also because Saddam Hussein didn’t care if the middle class of Iraq sank into poverty and people starved. He was just a bit too self-centered to care about those who didn’t help to prop up his regime. And besides, let’s see we send food to feed the starving in North Korea, a country the president calls part of the axis of evil, but not to the people of Iraq? Either there is a subtlety of foreign policy that I just don’t get here or feeding North Koreans while starving Iraqis just didn’t make sense

Whew! Having got that out of my system:

A just war has to have a reasonable chance of success. Well, we did succeed, didn’t we? Saddam Hussein is dead and the Baath party is destroyed. So why are civilians and soldiers dying every day in Iraq? It is because we didn’t take a careful look at the situation on the ground. HELLO! Did anyone ask any questions about the millennium old hatred of Sunnis for Shiites and vice versa? How about the desire of Kurds to establish their own nation and how surrounding countries like Turkey and Iran might feel about that? (Remember that Turkey wouldn’t let us fly air missions out of bases in Turkey? Think maybe they has a reason for that, justified or not?) Did anyone consider that Hussein had favored his Sunni relatives and friends and oppressed the Shiites and that the Shiites might want some revenge? Did anyone in the administration consider the important role of tribes and tribal leaders in Iraqi life? Or the fact that in some Muslim countries, when allowed free elections, people vote for parties like Hamas? Nope! We wanted to establish an American style democracy in an area of the world that didn’t have the history and tradition that would contribute to such a democracy. What did we expect?

The ultimate result seems to be, no matter how many troops we pour into Iraq now, the Sunnis and the Shiites are going to fight whether we are there or not. Maybe, if we sent in a million troops we might get the fighting to die down a bit, but they are, sure as shootin’ (couldn’t resist that bad pun), going to start fighting again as soon as they get a chance. And let’s see . . . if we get really unlucky maybe the Iranians will not only supply weapons to the Shiites but send troops as well and then Sunni nations like Syria and Saudi Arabia will send troops in to protect the minority Sunnis and we will have a really big war in the Middle East!

By the measurement of number of deaths the Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein! At least under his rule only the army or the secret police might come and kidnap you in the middle of the night. Now kidnapping is a growth industry in Iraq and mass murder is an everyday event!

Please notice I’m not arguing that Saddam Hussein provided good or just rule in Iraq. I am arguing that one should consider the consequences of one’s actions before one acts! Again, study of history would be a help.

In just war the end has to be proportional to the means. Curiously this can be argued two different ways. On the one hand, the amount of bombs we dropped on populated areas in Iraq was beyond proportional to the goal: the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. A lot of people who just wanted to go about their daily lives got killed. Them bombs just ain’t as smart as they are supposed to be! Proportionality is a problem with all modern warfare, including World War II. One can no longer just fight the army in an open field away from innocent civilians. There are, as Bob Dylan called them the “Masters of War,” those who make the weapons that kill and their factories. It is difficult to win a war these days without also destroying the means by which the enemy fights the war. This doesn’t mean that wars should never be fought any more. There are still just causes. But war has gotten dirtier and more evil. Thus we should consider longer whether we should enter a war or not.

On the other hand, there is the Powell Doctrine. Colin Powell, after his frustrating experience in Vietnam, argued during the First Gulf War that if you are going to do the job you have to do it right. In other words you use all the power available to you, not to kill everyone in sight but rather to so overawe the enemy so that he/she will not resist. Alas, our president did not listen to his best advisor and tried to do this war on the cheap, not sending in enough troops because it wasn’t politically expedient. Remember that big base full of weapons that sat unguarded and was looted? Those weapons are being used against our troops now! If we sent in enough troops we would have been able to guard those weapons. And the oil lines. And put enough soldiers on the streets to make guerrilla warfare too expensive.

Of course, no one was listening to me in 2003. For that matter few, if any, will listen to me now. But it isn’t fair to just critique the past and then leave. So I have a proposed solution. It ain’t pretty, but it’s mine.

1. Apologize. I know politicians don’t like to admit they were wrong but what the heck? They were wrong! So President Bush should say he was wrong when he decided to go to war with Iraq. He should say, at the very least, that he did not consider the full consequences of his actions and that things certainly didn’t turn out the way he expected them to turn out.
2. I know we don’t have a lot of credibility with the Sunnis or the Shiites, but we should ask their leaders to sit down with us, or some other party that both sides trust and see if there isn’t a way to stop the fighting between the two groups. Better include those tribal chiefs in the conversation too and provide all sides protection from both their enemies and their friends if they will accept such protection from us or some other group.
3. We should offer the Kurds all the support they need. After all, the north of Iraq is the one place in the country where American troops are welcomed. After their persecution they deserve a place of their own. But we shouldn’t get involved in their arguments with the Sunnis about who owns which city or who owns the oil. We should encourage them to negotiate with the Sunnis about these issues. Alas, negotiation does not seem to be the preferred method of resolving disputes in Iraq today, but we should at least try. Oh, and we shouldn’t guard the borders of Kurdish territory. They should take on that task.
4. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that neither the Sunnis nor the Shiites want us in their country. Both sides have people who shoot at our troops and set off bombs as they go by. Polls say that most of the Sunnis and Shiites don’t want us in Iraq. Let’s take them at their word. Give them the chance to sit down together and try and work things out and tell them they have six months to do so. They can choose peace or a long, messy, horrible civil war. After all, they can continue to fight that civil war slowly as long as we are there and then heat it up when we leave. They could fight now or later. Or they might just take a look at the situation and back off and try to find a way to get along together. Then again, they might not. Either way it would be their choice.
5. If the various groups find a way to peace we should pay to fix their country’s infrastructure. I don’t like more taxes anymore than anyone else, but we made the mess and we ought to clean it up.

Anyway, that’s what this simple-minded pastor thinks.

---

[1] http://www.thelaborers.net/ethics/just_war_theory.htm

APOSTASY, HERESY, SERIOUS ERROR, SIN AND ADIAPHORA, CONTINUED

Back to the task!

Heresy is a bit more difficult to define. Take a look at the early Ecumenical Councils and you will see what I mean. The Monophysites and Nestorians both believed Jesus was divine and human, but their ways of explaining his divinity and humanity were messed up. Basically they either said Jesus’ divinity and humanity were mixed up together or they were so separate as to make Jesus two different persons. Both of these heresies are complicated and I am not going to go into them.

Let’s consider some modern day heresies. Some say Jesus is not the only way to salvation, that is Jesus is not the only way to be forgiven of one’s sins. The person who says this may believe that Jesus is fully human and fully God and that Jesus died for his/her sins, but that Jesus didn’t die for everyone’s sins and one can receive freedom from sin and death without believing in Jesus and becoming a Christian. Others say that the Bible is a book of nice stories but not revelation from God. Still, we can learn from those stories. This person, again, may believe that Jesus is her/his Lord and Savior, and even that he literally died and rose from the dead. She/he doesn’t believe that the Bible is God’s revelation for the salvation of humanity. They are heretics.

My personal favorite modern heresy is the attempt to name the persons of the Trinity in new and different ways. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe God is either male or female. God is spiritual and not physical and therefore does not have gender. And I’m all for women’s rights, including the call of God to women to be leaders in the Church. The problem with changing the names of the person’s of the Trinity is that doing so tends to mess up how we think about the Trinity.

An example. Some try to get around the masculine language by substituting the words, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer for Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are two problems with this language. First, God is personal. God cannot be defined by job descriptions because God is more than tasks. Second, one cannot so easily divide the work of God into tasks of the Father, tasks of the Son, and tasks of the Spirit. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all involved in creation, redemption and in sustaining the faith of the Church.

Another example. Some simply exchange the feminine “Mother” for the masculine “Father.” Again, there are at least two problems with this exchange. First, Jesus told us to call the Father, “Father.” One of the basics of being a Christian is doing what Jesus says, even if it is politically incorrect. Second, the word “Mother: may suggest or bring up images about God that are untrue. If Mother simply means one who loves and nurtures like a parent, that’s one thing. But mothers also have wombs, and some outside of the Church today, and some, yes, heretics within the Church say that God creates like a mother, that the universe was created in the womb of God. This suggests that God did not create the universe out of nothing but rather that the universe is in some way an extension of God. One more problem: with the rise of Pagan groups such as Wiccans who worship the earth mother, we Christians need to be careful with our language so as not to be heard as agreeing with those who are outside the faith and, to be blunt, wrong about who God is.

What should the Church do about heretics? Certainly we should not ordain them as Ministers of Word and Sacrament! We want people who preach and teach in our congregations to be orthodox! Imagine if someone got up in the pulpit and said that Jesus was not fully human but that his soul was divine, the rest of him was human. Such teaching would have grave effects on the belief that Jesus, the fully divine and fully human person died for our sins. Are sins only done by bodies or are they also done by minds and souls?

Just as important, we need to make sure that those who teach in our seminaries and those who teach religion in our colleges and universities, are orthodox. Do we want those who teach the future pastors of the Church to be heretics and teach heresy to them? I hope not!

It was the practice of the early Church to excommunicate heretics. I am afraid that if we did so we would have almost no church members! Try to find people who know that believing that Jesus is fully divine and fully human is important! We need to do a much better job of educating the average church member. In the 19^th Century the average Presbyterian Church member could debate the doctrine of predestination with their neighbors. Of course, in the 19^th Century the average Presbyterian Church member had to memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Today our standards are much lower. We need to raise our standards by educating our members.

As to church leaders, particularly Ministers of Word and Sacrament, we need to do a much better job of examining them as to their fitness for office. And we need to be willing to hold all of us to account and discipline (disciple) those who stray. The Church would be the stronger if we insisted on orthodox pastors.

Serious Error

Is there a difference between heresy and serious error? I think so. Let me explain.

Some of my closest friends believe that the Bible does not teach that homosexual sexual behavior is wrong. For that matter, I know some people that believe that a man and a woman who live together and have sex outside the bonds of marriage are not wrong. And just so that you all don’t think I’m fixated on sex, there are those who claim to be Christian and think that whites are better than those of other races. And I could go on to economic theories that clearly violate the doctrine of the sovereignty of God . . .

What is the Church to do with those who are in a state of serious error? The PC (USA) makes it clear that we will not ordain someone who believes that God makes a person whose skin is one color somehow better or more equal than a person whose skin is another color and acts upon that belief by refusing church membership or leadership to those of another skin color. We have, in fact, moved this belief into the area of heresy, as well we should. To say that all humans are not equal before God because of the color of their skin or their ethnic heritage is to deny the doctrine that says all humans are created in the image of God. Should we believe that white folk are created more in the image of God than those with darker skin? Or that those from Northern Europe are created more in the image of God than those from South Asia? This is heresy.

Of course, we white Christians may not believe this heresy but it still resides down in our bones. It is one of the Great American Sins.

The great debate in the PC (USA) today, however, is over questions of sexuality. Personally I would prefer to have a debate about the uniqueness of the person and work Christ. There are far too many out there in the denomination who believe people get into heaven because they are generally good people, not like those evil sinners over there. But of course people mouth the right words, no matter what they really believe.

Anyway, about sexuality, as that is the great debate. I know, we Presbyterians do not all agree about this, but I believe that the Scriptures teach that God created humans male and female for each other. Part of this for each otherness is that men in general exhibit certain traits, at least partially genetic and partially learned, and women in general exhibit certain other traits, also partially genetic and partially learned. This is one of the reasons we need Ministers of the Word and Sacrament who are men and others who are women. In general we have different styles. And that is a good thing.

But God also created males and females for the purpose of forming lifelong relationships called marriage. Yes, part of that lifelong relationship is having children. Now I know, some people when they get married are too old to have children and some are physically unable to have children. But on a practical level if the human race is to continue we have to have children! And the best environment to raise children is in a home with two parents. And yes, (I am now about to enrage the political gay and lesbian community), all other things being equal, children are best raised in a home with a mother and a father. I believe children of both sexes need a female and a male role model. I don’t mean this in a sexist way. Fathers should wash the floors and mothers should cut the grass! I do mean, however, that a boy needs a male role model and a girl needs a positive male figure in her life. A girl needs a female role model and a boy needs a positive female figure in his life. At the very least, teens need to see how their opposite sex parent treats his/her same sex parent, (preferably in a positive way), so that he/she will know what to look for in a mate.

Will all heterosexuals get married? No, they won’t. Some have the calling described by Paul as celibacy. Others, alas, never find mates or their mates die or divorce them. It is God’s intention that sex be a part of marriage because the sexual act binds people together not just in a physical way but also in a psychological and a spiritual way. At least that is what God intends. I don’t understand how people can go out and “hook up” and not feel that something is missing. Maybe something is missing in them.

I know, some will say that as a married man I have no right to speak about the issues of the single people. Every once in a while I imagine what life would be like without my wife and I am devastated by the thought. Being single must take great courage. Just having a spouse to talk with at the end of the day is a blessed gift from God.

I do not believe that God intends for people to live together and have sex together and not be married. Here I define marriage as a lifelong commitment that has been proclaimed in some way to the community. I don’t think that all the modern trappings of marriage are necessary. In fact I find the expense of most modern American marriages obscene. I think it would be sufficient if a Christian couple, after appropriate counseling with their pastor, stood up in Sunday worship and declared that they believed God called them to be husband and wife and to promise each other to love and support one another for the rest of their lives.

As a pastor I find myself continually picking up the pieces after a couple who lived together breaks up. I know, I do the same thing after divorce and the emotional process is very similar. But at least in America today there are some legal protections for those who are married and getting divorced! And further, the commitment of living together just does not rise to the standard God sets before us of lifelong commitment. Living together may be trial marriage or just, “we get along, so let’s share the same apartment and have sex!” God does not intend this for our bodies or our souls. God loves us way too much.

Unfortunately I have to come around to the issue before the denomination: homosexual sexual behavior. I wrote all that stuff above about living together outside the bonds of marriage because that sin is much more common. The truth of the matter, however, is that I cannot believe a presbytery would ordain someone who was involved in a heterosexual sexual relationship outside the bonds of marriage. And frankly I would refuse to ordain someone as elder or deacon who had such a living arraignment.

To put it simply, the debate in the church today, when separated from the political question of ordination, is whether God creates some people with homosexual desires and blesses those desires and invites those with such desires to find mates of the same sex. Let’s assume that we are talking about a couple of men or a couple of women who deeply love each other, who will not have sex with anyone besides their partner, and who, according to the American Psychological Association are in good mental health. Is sexual behavior between two men or two women, who are lifetime, exclusive sexual partners, blessed by God or not?

I know what I am about to say will cause an outcry, but as I read the Bible, the text says that God does not bless such behavior. Besides the passages that talk specifically about homosexual sexual behavior, there is a heterosexual theme in the Bible, from the first chapters of Genesis through the final chapters of Revelation. God creates man and woman for each other. Prophets and apostles and poets write about the relationship between God and Israel and God and the Church in analogy to marriage between one man and one woman. The Bible even has a rather racy book about heterosexual love in it! No where is there any blessing of homosexual sexual relationships.

Some might think that I should have included this in the section under sin. I include it in the category of serious error because, if a leader in the Church tells someone that their sin is not sin, that leader endangers the eternal life of that person. We have to remember that Paul does say that several categories of people, “Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.” (I Cor. 6:9b-10, NRSV) If the translators of the NRSV have translated this passage correctly, (and frankly I think they mistranslated “male prostitutes: it should read the soft man, referring to the one who is penetrated in a homosexual sexual act) then several categories of people are in danger of not inheriting the kingdom of God. (And yes, I wish we were talking about the greedy! Why do we Americans worry so much about sex and not about our consumerist addictions?) The pastor who preaches or teaches or counsels that one can ignore a strong warning against certain sinful behavior in Scripture commits a serious error.

How shall the Church deal with leaders who commit serious errors? Well, we have a process. If I “borrow” my sermons off the internet and my behavior is discovered, I am sure that the Committee on Ministry in my presbytery would at the very least warn me not to do it again or else! And if I continued in such behavior I suspect that I would be disciplined by the presbytery.

We have had this debate for the whole of my career as a Minister of Word and Sacrament. For all those years the PC (USA) has said that conducting a wedding service for two people of the same sex is not allowed, that ordaining someone who is involved in a homosexual sexual relationship is not allowed, and that God does not intend for humans, no matter what their desires may be, to participate in homosexual sexual behavior. During this time the rules of the denomination have been ignored regularly with little or no discipline for those who break the rules. It seems to me that we could at the very least begin to discipline those who break the rules, who do not keep the promise they made at ordination: “Will you be governed by our church’s polity, and will you abide by its discipline? Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?” (The expected answer is, “I will.” If you don’t say “I will,” you don’t get ordained or installed!)

And yes, I will go out on the limb. The time has also come to say that teaching and preaching that homosexual sexual behavior is a gift from God and not a sin is a serious error and must be disciplined.

If anyone is reading this, let the flaming begin!

More on sin and adiaphora later.

APOSTASY, HERESY, SERIOUS ERROR, SIN AND ADIAPHORA

Certain people, in the process of leaving the Presbyterian Church (USA) have thrown the word, “apostasy” around as they walked out the door. It seems to me, as I have said before, that the PC(USA) is not apostate. Today I’m going to enlarge upon that statement.

Let’s start with some basics. What does one have to believe to be a Christian? Yes, I know, being a Christian is more than affirming a bunch of statements as true and I’m going to get to that. And for that matter I would prefer to talk about belief by telling stories. I am after all a pastor. But sometimes we need shorthand. And certainly there are things that we can say Christians must believe to be Christian. This is my list.

God exists and is personal.

God created the universe.

God created humans in God’s image.

God is one God, yet has always existed in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We call this the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit agree about everything and act together. Their love for each other and for the universe they created is overwhelming

Humans a long time ago messed up really bad. We call this sin. We humans still sin.

Sin usually causes great pain, sometimes to the sinner but all too often not to the sinner but to people around the sinner.

The wages of sin is death.

Somehow sin is transmitted from one generation to the next.

We humans, no matter how hard we try, are not able to stop sinning and even if we were we would still be sinful because we inherited our sinfulness from our ancestors.

We needed God to do something about sin because we couldn’t.

God chose to do something about sin. God chose for the Son, the second person of the Trinity, to become human.

The Son, now both fully divine and fully human, was and is named Jesus.

While resident in this world, although he was still fully divine, Jesus was affected by all the things that affect humans, except he was not born sinful and he did not sin.

When the right time came along Jesus gathered disciples, taught, healed, and basically stirred up a lot of trouble because people didn’t like what he said and did.

Jesus went down to Jerusalem. There he stirred up even more trouble by challenging the authorities.

The religious and political authorities arrested Jesus, tried him, tortured him, and put him to death.

Jesus rose bodily from the grave. His body was transformed and was no longer subject to most if not all human limitations.

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus free us from the power of sin and death.

We don’t need to do anything to earn freedom from sin and death. It is a free gift.

When Jesus left the earth he sent the Holy Spirit to be with those who believe in him to help them avoid sin, keep them faithful, and give them comfort.

God created a community called the Church that is made up of people who believe Jesus lived, died and rose again for them so that they could be forgiven and set free from the powers of sin and death. The people in this Church are called Christians.

The story of God’s dealings with humans from the beginning of the universe to the end of the first century is contained in a book we call the Bible.

The Bible mostly tells the story of God’s dealings with humans particularly about God’s chosen task of saving humans from sin and death. Although it isn’t specific about a lot of things like nuclear physics and most of human history it tells us all we need to know to believe correctly and to live correctly as God’s people.

The Church’s job in this world is to so speak and so live that others will come to believe, (with the help of the Holy Spirit), in Jesus. Part of that speaking and living must be to try and fight against the evil that still exists in the world.

Sooner or later Jesus will return and then there will be no more evil and no more pain and no more death.

That’s my list and I’m sticking to it. You may want to rephrase some of the ways I say things. You may want to argue with me about the necessity of something being on the list. Nevertheless, it’s my list. I think that believing all of these is necessary to being a Christian. They are, to use the current buzz word in the PC(USA), essential. Essentials for being a Christian, that is. Are there other essentials to being a Presbyterian? Of course! Notice I left out predestination, covenant, stewardship, salvation by grace alone and a bunch of other stuff.

Does this mean that I think there are people who claim to be Christians but aren’t? Yes. I don’t think the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians. Neither groups believe in the Trinity. In fact the Mormons believe that the Father was once a human being! They may be very nice and decent people, but they aren’t Christians.

Of course thinking the right things about God isn’t enough. One time I was reading the minutes of the Session of a congregation I served, minutes from the 1850’s. Every time the Session met with people who wanted to join the congregation, not by letter of transfer but by affirmation of faith, they examined those people “as to their doctrinal and experimental religion.” I just went through the doctrinal part. The experimental part is just as interesting.

Turns out “experimental religion” in the 1850’s was a way to talk about one’s relationship with God. Back then the Session wanted to hear about the individual’s conversion experience and about how his/her life had changed after he/she became a Christian. Nowadays I want to hear about one’s experience of the presence of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the life of the person who wants to join the congregation. In other words, I want to hear what they believe (doctrine) and I want to hear about how they believe (experience). The two go hand in hand.

Now let’s go on and define those words I used in the title. An apostate is a person who used to be a Christian but now says that all that stuff about God and Jesus and forgiveness through Jesus’ dying for us isn’t true. In other words an apostate is someone who used to believe but now openly says she/he no longer believes. In the early Church there was a rather dramatic test for this, produced by the Roman government. If someone was accused of being a Christian that person was invited, (dragged), down to the local police station and asked if she/he was a Christian. If she/he said no, that was the end of it. If she/he said yes, that person was asked again after being warned that persisting in believing such foolishness would result in death. At this point the person who claimed to be a Christian could say, “Sorry, just kidding!” and the police would then ask him/her to prove it by making a sacrifice on the altar of the emperor/god. (The emperor foolishly thought that if everyone in the empire thought he was a god that there would be less rebellion and a more unified empire. It didn’t work.) If the person who claimed to be a Christian continued to claim faith in Christ, she/he was asked one more time. If he/she was foolish enough to say again she/he was a Christian that person was put to death.

People who went into the police station saying they were Christians and came out alive were called apostates. Later they were allowed back into the Church after some severe discipline/discipleship. No, they weren’t spanked. They were held up in front of the congregation over a period of years as the way not to live as a Christian. At the end of that time they were allowed to receive the Lord’s Supper again.

Today becoming an apostate is easier. A person just has to say, “I don’t believe that stuff anymore.” That’s it. And no, just because someone stops coming to worship and gets dropped from the role of the congregation doesn’t mean that person is apostate. That person does need to be warned, however, that the Church is the Christian community and avoiding the Christian community is dangerous to one’s spiritual health.

This is getting too long. I’ll talk about heresy and maybe serious error in my next blog.