Books I won’t be reading any time soon

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Apparently, Bart Ehrman is getting cranky. His most recent book is Forged: Writing in the Name of God–Why the Bible’s Authors are not who we think they are.

His argument seems to be that certain of the authors of biblical texts intended to “defraud or bamboozle” their readers. In other words, he is attacking both conservatives, who think the texts were written by the authors named in them, or attributed to them by later tradition, as well as mainstream scholarship which has argued for centuries that many of the texts, such as several of the letters attributed to Paul, were written pseudonymously. Ben Witherington offers his take-down here. So Ehrman is going from writing about errors in the text to malicious biblical authors. It’s clear he has a few issues with scripture.

Another book I’m not going to read is Defending Constantine, by Peter J. Leithart. This is one part biography and one part attack on those who view Constantine’s conversion as an epochal shift, and not for the better, in the History of Christianity. His chief target is John Howard Yoder.

Constantine was a complex and enormously important figure and Leithart is correct in problematizing recent and not-so-recent historiography. But in his effort to do so, he seems to go a bit overboard and perhaps even distort the story. The sources are problematic and historians have debated for decades whether or when Constantine in fact converted. That he declared Christianity a licit religion is not in question. What is in question is the depth of Constantine’s own faith. The fact that he was baptized only on his deathbed gives many pause.

That his conversion changed the relationship of Christianity to the state is also clear. To go from being persecuted by an emperor to having an emperor sponsor the construction of churches and calling church councils in a little over a decade was amazing, and disorienting for Christians. There were gains as well as losses in the historical development that took place in the wake of Constantine.

We are living, once again, in a post-Constantinian age. Many Christians, especially on the right, seem not to recognize that the role of Christianity in contemporary culture has changed dramatically in the last fifty years (see my previous post). While there is much in Yoder with which I disagree, I think his call for the church to recognize this situation, to claim it as an opportunity to rethink the relationship of the church to the gospel, and to think creatively about what the church’s role in culture might be, is vital if we are to continue to be a faithful witness to the gospel in the twenty-first century.

There’s a somewhat favorable review of Defending Constantine here–and a takedown from the Yoder school here.

Hauerwas on the church–local and universal

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Several weeks ago, I came across this essay by Stanley Hauerwas of Duke Divinity School: The place of the church: locality and catholicity – ABC Religion & Ethics – Opinion.

It begins with Constantinianism, post-Constantinianism and John Howard Yoder. Yoder argued that with the rise of Constantine, something important was lost in Christianity. It’s often assumed that Yoder viewed the church in the centuries after Constantine as completely fallen. That’s not the case. Hauerwas cites Yoder’s views concerning faithfulness in the Middle Ages, but he also thinks Yoder’s analysis went deeper than that:

For him the alternative to Constantinianism was not anti-Constantinianism, but locality and place. According to Yoder, locality and place are the forms of communal life necessary to express the particularity of Jesus through the visibility of the church. Only at the local level is the church able to engage in the discernment necessary to be prophetic.

Hauerwas’s essay is actually a review of Bruce Kaye’s Conflict and the Practice of Faith: The Anglican Experiment, in which Kaye uses the controversies in Anglicanism to explore the tension between locality and universality (catholicity) in the Christian faith.

Kaye is building on ideas of Rowan Williams. In defending the Church of England’s unique role in English society, Williams (according to Hauerwas) argues that:

the New Testament testifies to the creation of a pathway between earth and heaven that nothing can ever again close. A place has been cleared in which God and human reality can belong together without rivalry or fear.

For Williams, “the role of church is to take up space in the world, to inhabit a place, where Jesus’ priesthood can be exercised. Such a place unavoidably must be able to be located on a social map so that it does not have to be constantly reinvented.”

Hauerwas’ final sentences are provocative:

The culture that inhabits us – and by us I mean Christians – is a subtle and seductive one. It tempts us to believe we are free of place. It tempts us to believe that we do not have the time to do what needs to be done, so we must constantly hurry. These temptations are often assumed to be congruent with the gospel imperatives to have no permanent home.

But in the process we lose the visibility necessary to be witnesses to the One who made it possible to be Christians.

There’s something quite interesting here–and important for us to reflect on as we think about the role of the church in contemporary culture. But it’s more than that abstract question that I find interesting. It’s the concrete question: What is Grace Church’s role in our community?

We occupy a unique space that offers opportunities, challenges, and responsibilities. What does it mean to be church on Madison’s Capitol Square?

Back in the 1980s, Richard John Neuhaus wrote a book entitled The Naked Public Square. I don’t recall the gist of his argument (it’s been over 25 years!) but the image of a public arena in which religion had no role is a powerful one. We don’t live in a completely secular world, and religious voices continue to clamor for attention and influence policy. But at the same time, the church as an institution plays a much smaller role in our society than it did even a half-century ago.

But there’s something to be said for the reality of place. For what it’s worth, Grace Church still occupies a corner of Capitol Square. Whatever mission and ministry we do at Grace, part of what we do has to involve nurturing that space where heaven and earth meet, as Williams put it, “to inhabit a place where Jesus’ priesthood can be exercised.”

The Anglican Covenant, back in the news

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The House of Bishops is meeting this week. Among the topics of conversation is the proposed Anglican Covenant. Bishop Kirk Smith live-tweeted the first set of conversations: Bishop Smith’s tweets. There’s also a brief and not very informative report from ENS.

But there have been other developments in recent months. The Church of Ireland held a colloquium recently with papers for and against, as well as proposals for that Church’s response. The papers are well-worth reading. The full report is here.

For background, Kate Turner’s essay is helpful. Jonathan Chatworthy argues against the covenant with several salient points. Among them, he argues that the definition of the church put forward in the document is “far too steeped in Reformation Protestantism,” and that the description of Anglicanism put forward in Sections 1-3 would become foundational for Anglicanism. He also argues convincingly that it would lead to centralization of power, limit provincial autonomy, and have dire implications for local initiative, theological development, and ecumenical efforts.

Chatworthy sees the covenant as introducing something quite new to Anglicanism–revolutionary, in fact. He describes the approach of classical Anglicanism in the following terms:

Classic Anglicans, on the other hand, expect the insights of modern research to shed light on current church debates. The way to resolve disagreements is to allow the different points of view to be publicly expressed, defended and criticised. Debate should continue until consensus is reached. Any attempt by church authorities to curtail debate and impose their own view would be to abuse power and suppress the search for truth.

For Classic Anglicans, therefore, the Covenant is equally unsatisfactory but for the opposite reason: not because it does not draw a clear enough line between two kinds of Anglican, but because it proposes to draw any line at all. The Covenant is at fault for seeking to pre-empt theological agreement by ecclesiastical decree.

His description of the way power is deployed in the covenant is illuminating:

Critics point out that it is like a school playground. You are free to do whatever you like, but if you don’t do what we tell you we’ll all walk away and we’ll have nothing more to do with you. At the very least it’s a power game.

If that’s not enough for you, the Church Times has produced a handy guide to the covenant: Anglican Covenant_18 March. Church of England dioceses are beginning to weigh in as well. The Diocese of Litchfield approved it; the Diocese of Wakefield rejected it.

Another view against it from Nathaniel Rugh: rugh_case.

A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent

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March 27, 2011

One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that no matter how much we bring to God—our questions, fears, hopes, and needs, God has a way of transforming it all into something quite different. Take me, for example. In my former parish, I was the person who was always thinking ahead—urging staff to look at the long-range planning calendar, to make sure we had all of our ducks in a row, or service bulletins, well in advance of Holy Week, to take just one example. Continue reading →

Reading, Writing, and the Practice of Ministry

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I finally got around to reading Jason Byassee’s marvelous essay on reading, writing, and theological education. Drawing on sources as diverse as Basil the Great and Annie Dillard, he reminds us of the importance of both reading and writing to ministry. I especially appreciated his observation that much of what we do in ministry is writing, whether emails, sermons, newsletter articles (in my case, this blog). Much of that is done on the fly. Certainly I rarely take the kind of time I should with my writing. Perhaps that’s why I like to blog. I throw something out there, almost never glancing back except to check grammar and spelling in a superficial manner.

But he says something I find true–that one hasn’t really read something until forced to write about it. I followed that advice when I was teaching. It’s another reason I like to blog. There’s a lot I want to comment on when I read, and I gave up the marginal note long ago.

His essay put me in mind of another piece I came across in the past couple of weeks–Fred Schmidt’s piece on the future of seminary education. I share many of his concerns and wonder about what theological education might look like in thirty or fifty years. It’s outrageously expensive and inefficient. Still, looking back twenty-five years after I received my M.Div, and with twenty years separating that degree from my ordination, I’m reminded regularly both of what I learned in Divinity School, and how appropriate my field education setting was for my current position. On the other hand, other than the seminar on preaching I took with Koester and Gomes that I mentioned a few weeks back, and the work in Greek and New Testament, there’s very little from those three years, other than a trained mind, that serves me. In the end, much of it is about reading and writing.

More on Rob Bell

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Brian McLaren’s Huffington Post essay in defense of Rob Bell and rebutting Al Mohler. In the context of dealing with Mohler’s attacks, McLaren also asks some pointed questions about “the decline of mainline Protestantism.” Perhaps the most salient concerns the conservative argument that mainline Protestants succumbed to secular culture. Here’s his response:

To more and more of us these days, conservative Evangelical/fundamentalist theology looks and sounds more and more like secular conservatism — economic and political — simply dressed up in religious language. If that’s the case, even if Dr. Mohler is right in every detail of his critique, he’d still be wise to apply the flip side of his warning to his own beloved community.

In another blog post, McLaren points out other evangelical voices who support Bell, if even only partially.

Rob Bell himself gives some background on why he wrote the book here.

My friend (and former student!) the Very Rev’d Jake Owensby, Dean of the Cathedral of St. Mark in Baton Rouge, has written a thoughtful series of posts on heaven and hell. You can read it here.

 

Chad Holtz lost more than hell… he lost his job

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Chad Holtz, about whom I blogged a couple of weeks ago concerning his views on hell, has lost his job in a United Methodist Church. A news article about it is here. He writes about what’s happening to him on his blog, Dancing on Saturday.

It’s a shocking development, especially given he wasn’t working in a Baptist church, but in a United Methodist congregation. Apparently, it’s hard to get rid of a Methodist pastor once they’ve been ordained and attained the status of elder, but since Holtz is still a Divinity student, it was relatively easy to get rid of him.

Ironic, given what the founder of the Methodists had to say:

The requirement for salvation is such a divine conviction of God and the things of God . . . as even in its infant state, enables every one that possesses  it to fear God and work righteousness. And whosoever, in every nation, believes thus far, the Apostle declares is accepted.” -John Wesley, “On Faith”

My prayers are with him in this time.

Just War in Libya?

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The last months have seen protests throughout the Arab world. In some cases, as in Egypt and Tunisia, peaceful protests have led to the downfall of regimes. Elsewhere, including Syria just today, and Bahrain and Yemen in past weeks, protests have been put down with violence.

The most dramatic military action against protests occurred in Libya where protests turned into rebellion and what seems to be civil war. After a relatively brief debate in the international community, the UN authorized military action to limit the Libyan military’s response.

The use of military force raises moral as well as political questions. Just War theory has a long and controversial history in Western thought. Bishop Pierre Whalon of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe, presents a thoughtful case why the allied action is just. Derrick Crowe questions two of the principles by which military action might be justified in this case: probability of success and discrimination.

Jonathan D. Fitzgerald writes in opposition to the use of military force in Libya: Opposing the Use of Force in Libya. His essay gives some of the background to his position including how he came to be a Christian pacifist.

The debate over the political and legal legitimacy of the action in Libya is well-represented on the daily dish, with Andrew Sullivan leading the attack against the attack as well as on advocates of taking action, both here and abroad.

I’ve never been comfortable with Just War theory, in part because of my personal background in the Anabaptist tradition, but also because it seems that the principles by which war is judged seem very slippery indeed. More important still is that Just War theory is often used by political leaders as justification for their decisions, and once made and justified, the moral question is resolved, allowing political and military leaders to do whatever they want and brook no continued opposition.

This raises for me again, the question of the relationship of Christians and the political sphere. It’s a question I’ve been struggling with intensively in the last month. I’m groping toward a new understanding of that relationship, or at least of what I see my role to be.

 

Where does my help come from? A homily for the Second Sunday in Lent

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March 20, 2011

Lent is a season when we are encouraged to examine our faith with perhaps more seriousness than at other times of the year. It is an opportunity for us to reflect on where we stand with God, to seek ways of deepening our relationship with Christ. All of our lessons encourage us, in different ways, to do just that. We are given two very different stories, the familiar stories of Abraham and Nicodemus. They challenge us to reflect on how we approach God, and how we respond when God approaches us. Continue reading →

Consultation on Same-Sex Blessings

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On Friday and Saturday, there was a gathering of lay and clergy deputies to General Convention to discuss the development of liturgies for same-sex blessings. The consultation is in response to the General Convention’s mandate in 2009 to the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Mission “to collect and develop theological resources and liturgies for blessing same-gender relationships.”

Reports are beginning to trickle in. Here’s the article from Episcopal News Service. One attendee’s reflections are here.

To be honest, I’m not sure where I am on this. That same-sex blessings are taking place in the Episcopal Church is obvious; that such blessings are probably quite diverse theologically and liturgically also probably goes without saying. My guess is that we are at the very initial steps of a process that will take some time to come to fruition. I doubt very much whether General Convention will be prepared in 2012 to publish such liturgies.I think moving slowly on a denominational level is wise. I wasn’t around when the Book of Common Prayer was under revision but I should think such a process, even for a single rite like same-sex blessings, should include a great deal of feedback, including after using such rites.

What I do like about this process is the openness with which it is occurring. To have a conversation that includes not just liturgical or theological experts lets a wide range of voices and interests to be heard. On the other hand, I’ve never been a fan of editing by committee…

It is worth noting that recent polls suggest a majority of Americans now support gay marriage.