This book, edited by Choon-Leong Seow, is a gathering of informed theolgical viewpoints of the PTS faculty in 1997 over the issue of homosexuality, and how it has been dividing the church. Ten years later, and it is still dividing us.
Can we move forward? Is there a place for post-conflict Scriptural interpretation that can allow us to honor the past of our interpretation of Scripture while at the same time coming to terms with the present crisis?
I found a lot of material in here that has prompted me to further thinking and reflection, things that as I work them through, will hopefully end up here, in some coherence.
I know there is an answer, one that honors our God and the Scriptures left to us, one that honors our brothers and sisters in Christ, one that will lead us forward to a more diverse and strengthened congregation. I think I have a little bit of the prophet stuck in my throat.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Best of Two Worlds!
I am a graduate of Princeton, Old and New. I carry the legacy of Old Princeton with my time at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. And I enjoy the legacy of New Princeton on that venerable campus. And I have spent the last ten years in ministry integrating the best elements of both and trying to slough off the excesses.
To try and compare the two is like trying to compare Granny Smith and Macintosh apples. They are both apples, both Presbyterian, but with very distinct flavors. Perhaps the best way I can begin to draw them together is through two unique volumes produced during my time at each place.
In 1988, Westminster published a symposia, drawn from the faculty and edited by a campus favorite, Harvie Conn, concerning Inerrancy and Hermeneutic. The challenge is over the doctrine of Scripture under attack in modern American theological thinking. The subtitle lays it out well, "A Tradition, A Challenge, A Debate". This was the theological debate of the moment as I began my time there.
On the other hand, in 1997, Princeton published a volume with contributions from the faculty, edited by Choon-Leong Seow, entitled Homosexuality and the Christian Community in response to a vigorous debate going on at the Seminary during my attendance there. The challenge, I believe, is over the doctrine of sin and homosexuality, and how to bring the authority of the bible to bear on the relationship between the two.
I fear people from both sides would cringe at the notion that I would put these two side by side on my bookshelf. But each is part of the legacy the Lord has blessed me with, two schools of the Presbyterian tradition, of vigorous academic reputation, interested in spirited debate, and each willing to engage with the wider Christian community on key issues of the day.
I have been blessed.
To try and compare the two is like trying to compare Granny Smith and Macintosh apples. They are both apples, both Presbyterian, but with very distinct flavors. Perhaps the best way I can begin to draw them together is through two unique volumes produced during my time at each place.
In 1988, Westminster published a symposia, drawn from the faculty and edited by a campus favorite, Harvie Conn, concerning Inerrancy and Hermeneutic. The challenge is over the doctrine of Scripture under attack in modern American theological thinking. The subtitle lays it out well, "A Tradition, A Challenge, A Debate". This was the theological debate of the moment as I began my time there.
On the other hand, in 1997, Princeton published a volume with contributions from the faculty, edited by Choon-Leong Seow, entitled Homosexuality and the Christian Community in response to a vigorous debate going on at the Seminary during my attendance there. The challenge, I believe, is over the doctrine of sin and homosexuality, and how to bring the authority of the bible to bear on the relationship between the two.
I fear people from both sides would cringe at the notion that I would put these two side by side on my bookshelf. But each is part of the legacy the Lord has blessed me with, two schools of the Presbyterian tradition, of vigorous academic reputation, interested in spirited debate, and each willing to engage with the wider Christian community on key issues of the day.
I have been blessed.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Anne Rice II
I finished "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" and I am still trying to absorb it. It is like she has reached into the first century and created a world to get lost in. I am joyful at the way that she has portrayed Jesus, fully human and fully divine, seeking to come to terms with what that might mean as a child. She portrays that time with the violence and turbulence and uncertainty that may, at times, bother the reader. But that is where the power lies, a conviction of Jesus as a real person in a real place at a real time.
I am very much looking forward to the next volume of this work.
I was moved by a section in the Note on the Paperback Edition, which I have. As she describes her conversion, or perhaps reversion experience, returning to the fold, I was struck by the parallels to the last chapters of Job. Now Anne Rice has not had the life of Job, but God's words at the end, describing God's relationship to the powers of all and everything, compared to the life of Job, resonated with what I was reading from Anne Rice's own life.
It is a powerful witness of the Holy Spirit to truly try and lose yourself in the grand mystery of God's creation.
I am very much looking forward to the next volume of this work.
I was moved by a section in the Note on the Paperback Edition, which I have. As she describes her conversion, or perhaps reversion experience, returning to the fold, I was struck by the parallels to the last chapters of Job. Now Anne Rice has not had the life of Job, but God's words at the end, describing God's relationship to the powers of all and everything, compared to the life of Job, resonated with what I was reading from Anne Rice's own life.
It is a powerful witness of the Holy Spirit to truly try and lose yourself in the grand mystery of God's creation.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
My Preferred Conversionary Sound Byte
I so prefer our sound byte, “You must accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior” to the evangelical sound byte, “You must be born again”.
Yes, I have discovered this is one of the windmills I like to tilt at, the notion that salvation can be boiled down to ‘born again’. The citation is John 3:3, “born anew” according to my faithful RSV, with a footnote referencing ‘born from above’.
But consider Lord and Savior. It defines a definite hierarchical and sovereign relationship between Jesus and ourselves.
He is our Lord, our boss, our master. All the American egalitarian definitions of our lives as a republican democracy are thrown out in this top down relationship with the Almighty. Yes, we are not God’s slaves, Jesus is the first born of God’s children, making us co-heirs with him to the glory of heaven. But he did it for us. He was being gracious.
And he is our Savior. Maybe atonement language is too legalistic, maybe the idea that the death of Jesus is a moral example to us is too thin, maybe the idea that Jesus won a cosmic victory is too ‘out there’, but we cannot deny that he shed his blood for us, that his body was broken for us, and that we who call ourselves preachers of the Gospel must proclaim the Good News of our eternal life acquired in the death of an Innocent.
I’m not talking about Ministers of the Word and Sacrament here. Preaching the Gospel message is the charge to EVERY Christian.
The jailer who was going to commit suicide in Acts 16 because he thought all the prisoners had escaped asked the question, “What must I do to be saved?”
The answer was “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Yes, I have discovered this is one of the windmills I like to tilt at, the notion that salvation can be boiled down to ‘born again’. The citation is John 3:3, “born anew” according to my faithful RSV, with a footnote referencing ‘born from above’.
But consider Lord and Savior. It defines a definite hierarchical and sovereign relationship between Jesus and ourselves.
He is our Lord, our boss, our master. All the American egalitarian definitions of our lives as a republican democracy are thrown out in this top down relationship with the Almighty. Yes, we are not God’s slaves, Jesus is the first born of God’s children, making us co-heirs with him to the glory of heaven. But he did it for us. He was being gracious.
And he is our Savior. Maybe atonement language is too legalistic, maybe the idea that the death of Jesus is a moral example to us is too thin, maybe the idea that Jesus won a cosmic victory is too ‘out there’, but we cannot deny that he shed his blood for us, that his body was broken for us, and that we who call ourselves preachers of the Gospel must proclaim the Good News of our eternal life acquired in the death of an Innocent.
I’m not talking about Ministers of the Word and Sacrament here. Preaching the Gospel message is the charge to EVERY Christian.
The jailer who was going to commit suicide in Acts 16 because he thought all the prisoners had escaped asked the question, “What must I do to be saved?”
The answer was “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Monday, October 13, 2008
The Faith of Anne Rice
I usually wait till I finish a book to contemplate blogging about it. But I am not even half way through Christ the Lord Out of Egypt and I am blown away. I like her novels, she walks through the dark side of our experience and personalizes them in the vampires, but more so for me in the character of Lasher.
Years ago, I heard her on an NPR show discussing one of her books and the discussion turned theological, looking to the question of evil, how it might be explored, and how Ms. Rice did explore it. She seemed more taken with the discussion then the commentator.
It did not surprise me when she declared for the faith. And she has now turned her talents to something that reads and tastes like the Holy Land in the days of our Lord.
The book begins its journey in the 'between time' of the gospel, between the birth narratives and Jesus coming to Jerusalem at the age of 12. The root of the story is from Matthew 2: 19ff, "When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother; and to to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead . . ."
Thank you Ms. Rice.
Years ago, I heard her on an NPR show discussing one of her books and the discussion turned theological, looking to the question of evil, how it might be explored, and how Ms. Rice did explore it. She seemed more taken with the discussion then the commentator.
It did not surprise me when she declared for the faith. And she has now turned her talents to something that reads and tastes like the Holy Land in the days of our Lord.
The book begins its journey in the 'between time' of the gospel, between the birth narratives and Jesus coming to Jerusalem at the age of 12. The root of the story is from Matthew 2: 19ff, "When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother; and to to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead . . ."
Thank you Ms. Rice.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Where our Hope and Faith Are, So Is Our Worship . . .
There is nobody making the Credit Markets or the Stock Markets go up or down. There is no force in the financial system that drives what happens, not bankers or analysts or government officials or men in black suits behind drawn curtains. It is 'we the people'. And it scares me.
If 'we the people' have confidence in the markets, they will go up. Governments can pump billions and trillions of dollars into the system, but it will mean nothing if 'we the people' are convinced it means nothing.
But apparently, if we can trust the system, if we can hope in the system, if we can put our faith and confidence back into the financial system, it will go up. It was faith and confidence in the market that made it go up and up and up and up and up until the housing bust. But then again, it could have kept going up forever, if we believed that it could.
If 'we the people' believed that housing values could go up forever, despite what the experts said, then they could have.
Because we made this god in our own image. We want to be rich. We want our money to go forever. And we love that money and everything it allows us to go.
But therein is the root of the evil. We love the money, we fall into greed, we take as much as we can, we look to ourselves and not our neighbors, and we have broken the Second Law of Jesus, Love thy Neighbor as Thyself.
And now we reap what we have sown.
If 'we the people' have confidence in the markets, they will go up. Governments can pump billions and trillions of dollars into the system, but it will mean nothing if 'we the people' are convinced it means nothing.
But apparently, if we can trust the system, if we can hope in the system, if we can put our faith and confidence back into the financial system, it will go up. It was faith and confidence in the market that made it go up and up and up and up and up until the housing bust. But then again, it could have kept going up forever, if we believed that it could.
If 'we the people' believed that housing values could go up forever, despite what the experts said, then they could have.
Because we made this god in our own image. We want to be rich. We want our money to go forever. And we love that money and everything it allows us to go.
But therein is the root of the evil. We love the money, we fall into greed, we take as much as we can, we look to ourselves and not our neighbors, and we have broken the Second Law of Jesus, Love thy Neighbor as Thyself.
And now we reap what we have sown.
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