Patrick's Ramblins

Different Language; Same Words

2010-07-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

"So it is clear that the very dissolvers and destroyers of Law and Scripture decorate themselves with lovely titles like 'Scripture' or 'Gospel' or 'Christian Church' and that under this pretext they have imported their maggots and corrupted everything and made it useless. And then they yell at us for attacking the Christian Church, the holy fathers, and good works!"

--Luther on Matthew 5:17 (LW, vol 21, p. 69)

Christmas Evangelism

2009-12-24T06:17:00.001-08:00

I thought this post was a helpful look at evangelism as you prepare for Christmas with family.

Blessings to all as you celebrate the incarnation.

Christmas: Naughty or Nice?

2009-12-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

Christmas: Naughty or Nice?

Two Reactions

Around Christmas time, I usually encounter two different attitudes from Christians with respect to the holiday. Some look down on Christmas as a celebration growing out of pagan practice and therefore refuse to participate. The Puritans were well-known for this outlook, and it continues in certain quarters today among separatist-minded believers and independent churches. Others celebrate it with gusto, taking a great deal of comfort from it while lashing out at the crass commercialism that threatens it. Here the sentiment seems more at home among Christians in mainline or broadly evangelical churches.

I recently finished reading Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, written in 1912 by Clement A. Miles. The book is a detailed look at Christmas and its development and how the church has responded to Christmas at various times in its history. The book has offered me an opportunity to reflect on the two attitudes described above, both of which are somewhat out of balance and fail to grasp the complete historical picture of Christmas.

Is Jesus the Reason for the Season?

Among those who look to Christmas as the high point of the Christian year, you often find the popular idea that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Anything then that attacks the Christian meaning in Christmas is the enemy. There seems to be an implicit belief in this view that the church, at one time in the past, established Christmas independently to celebrate Jesus’ birth, and now in recent times, Jesus has been arbitrarily removed by the secular culture. Jesus’ removal is seen in the abbreviation “Xmas,” or the bland “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” on greeting cards, or the excessive commercialism and entertainment associated with the season.

This view has a long pedigree. Around 1400 a monk Alsso of Brevnov, laments the perversion of Christmas practices. Instead of presents being given as a symbol of the gift of Jesus to humanity, they are given because if one doesn’t give, he will be unlucky in the new year. Instead of money being given freely to the poor, it is given in the hopes of securing wealth in the coming year. Alsso grieves the loss of Christian meaning in these rituals. But as Miles points out in his book, “there can be little doubt that precisely the opposite was the case—the Christian symbolism was merely a gloss upon pagan practices.” (pg. 141)

In order to understand Miles' comment, one must recognize that Christmas didn’t develop independently. Many of the customs surrounding Christmas derive from other festivals, notably the Roman celebration of the New Year called Kalends. The Greek sophist Libanilus describes the festival: “The impulse to spend seizes everyone. He who the whole year through has taken pleasure in saving and piling up his pence, becomes suddenly extravagant. He who erstwhile was accustomed and preferred to live poorly, now at this feast enjoys himself as much as his means will allow…. People are not only generous towards themselves, but also towards their fellow men. A stream of presents pours itself out on all sides.” (pg. 129) Additionally at Kalends, homes were often decked with greenery, which perhaps played into the development of the Christmas Tree, found first in Germany in the early 17th century.

Christmas itself was first celebrated on December 25th by the church in Rome in the 4th century. The date itself, of course, is not the actual day of our Lord’s birth, but may have been chosen by the church to replace the pagan festival commemorating the return of the sun at the winter solstice. Miles asks what could be more natural than the church choosing “this day to celebrate the rising of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings, that she should strive thus to draw away to His worship some adorers of the god whose symbol and representative was the earthly sun.” (pg. 8)

Given that Christmas and the Kalends were celebrated near the same time, the excesses of Kalends began to make their way into Christmas. Over time a variety of superstitions from many cultures found their way into the melting pot of Christmas. There were many popular folk festivals from the November harvest all the way through the New Year that contributed in some way to Christmas as we know it today. Christmas is not a pure, isolated event. If anything, history shows that pagans have the greater claim to be upset with the church for perverting its practices than the other way around. Gift giving, for example, in pagan practice, was meant to bring favor in the New Year. Gifts of coins were good luck tokens so that the year would continue as it began—with wealth. Only later did the church associate gifts with God’s great gift of the incarnation.

A Christian with a high view of Christmas is free to bring his or her meaning to Christmas. We are free to reflect on the incarnation as the gospels do in their opening pages. But it seems misguided to allow oneself to invest too much significance in the holiday. The future of the kingdom of God does not depend on a secular culture putting Jesus back into Christmas. The world will go on being the world with all of its excess and rebellion against God. We may rightly bemoan this state of affairs, but it’s not a new or surprising development. Far more significant to the future of God’s kingdom is the everyday fruitfulness of God’s people as they focus on the Christmas virtues of love and generosity every day of the year.

Is Paganism the Reason for the Season?

Given the pagan backdrop to many Christmas practices, some have taken the opposite approach to the holiday, refusing to participate in any way. As far back as the 6th century, Caesarius of Aries spoke out against the Roman Kalends and its influence upon the church at Christmas: “On those days, the heathen, reversing the order of things, dress themselves up in indecent deformities….These miserable men, and what is worse, some who have been baptized, put on counterfeit forms and monstrous faces, at which one should rather be ashamed and sad.” (pg. 130) The writer goes on to lament gift giving, with its emphasis on securing wealth in the New Year and feasting, which often led to gluttony, immorality, and drunkenness. Responding to these abuses, the church declared a public fast during the Kalends. To participate in these activities was to share in the pagans’ sin.

Protestants also reacted against many superstitions that developed around Christmas among everyday Christian people. In Germany for example, “cradle rocking” became quite popular in the 14th century where an actual cradle with a figure of the Christ-child was rocked, allowing the worshipper to express devotion to the baby Jesus. In Upper Austria, a wooden figure of the Christ-child would be passed throughout the congregation, where each member kissed it reverently and passed it on throughout the church.

According to some observers, the problem with such traditions is that they never take us to the cross. (pg. 77) The babe never grows up. It’s easy to revere a child on a sentimental level for its cuteness. He is more like a universal little brother than the savior of the world. There are paternal instincts that come into play, exciting one’s love for the babe. But the central message of sin and redemption isn’t made explicit with such customs. The focus is wrong. In the Puritan critique of Christmas, to focus on a particular holy season was also wrong. There were no holy days; instead, the Lord’s Day worship on Sunday was itself a holy day. To set Christmas apart as a special time meant that people would mistakenly come to believe that they could honor God by observing Christmas while ignoring the significance of weekly worship.

The question to answer then is whether or not Christmas is so compromised with paganism and superstition that it should be avoided. Although it may be easier, in an effort to avoid all appearance of compromise, to cast aside Christmas, a more nuanced view is possible. In the development of Christmas, there are two streams that flow forward in time. There is the pagan stream with festivals like the Roman Kalends. As this stream moves forward in time, it picks up many other rituals from various folk religions—anything from Christmas trees to setting out food on the table for Santa Claus. Then there is the Church stream, which has established seasons like Advent and Christmas to focus on the incarnation during times of worship. Advent, leading up to Christmas Day, focuses on the coming of the Messiah, utilizing Old Testament prophetic texts that call for repentance and preparation. Christmas services themselves often focus on lessons from early in the gospels that tell of Jesus’ birth and the fulfillment of God’s promises to the world.

The tension for Christians is found in that these two streams have poured into each other, forming a river that is now modern Christmas. For some, the pagan stream has polluted the church stream and so the whole river is avoided. But why should Christians abandon the great worship resources developed by the church over the years simply because the pagan stream also influenced Christmas? Should we give up singing profound Christmas hymns simply because Santa Claus is at the mall? Should we give up Advent-themed worship with its biblical calls to repentance and waiting because there is a danger that some will be tempted to covet and overspend on Christmas gifts? For Christians to abandon their own liturgical heritage surrounding Christmas is to be defeated by the pagan stream.

Other questions feed into this tension. For example, why did the church establish a Christmas stream to begin with? The church has no mandate in scripture to observe Christmas, so why is it emphasized at all? This question moves us into larger debates about the use of a church calendar, but suffice it to say here, every pastor establishes preaching texts and themes for the year. It seems hard to argue with the practice of picking scriptures that emphasize the incarnation once a year during a focused time. The announcement of Immanuel, God with us, is the biggest news the world has ever heard. It is appropriate for churches to order worship around this theme and sing songs reflective of the hope proclaimed in the opening chapters of the gospels.

With regard to the pagan stream, some wonder how far Christians may practice activities that arise specifically from paganism. For example, the setting out of food on Christmas Eve seems to have developed from the pagan notion of feeding one’s dead ancestors, who would return at the turning of the year. Feasting, and especially the use of ham for the Christmas dinner, probably developed from the Novemeber harvest festivals, where pigs were often the sacrificial animal of choice. Can a Christian practices these traditions without being polluted by them?

Surveying these rituals in his book, Miles makes an important observation: “The denigration of [pagan] religious rites into mere play, is, indeed, as we have seen, a process illustrated by the whole history of Christmas.” (pg. 225) In other words, whatever beliefs may have at one time been associated with particular pagan rituals, they have been emptied of meaning over time as Christmas has absorbed them. In other words, the church stream has also had a sanctifying influence on the pagan stream. As the church took over certain rituals and gave them new meaning, the older pagan associations simply vanished. With the exception perhaps of some pagan revivalists, nobody believes anymore that a Christmas tree has sacramental overtones where the tree imparts some of its life-giving spirit to the household. Instead, the evergreen seems an appropriate symbol for Christmas—that in the barrenness of the world, there is still life and hope for a future fruitfulness through the Messiah.

Individual Christians would do well to strike a balanced approach to the holiday. It’s naïve and overly optimistic to hope that the world will somehow restore Jesus to the center of a season that developed along several fronts, the church being only one among many. Miles’ book is helpful for pointing out that Christmas speaks to a universal hope found in the human heart for something better; it is trans-religious in a sense. But that doesn’t mean that Christians can’t profit from Christmas either. The church knows that the world’s only hope for peace is found in the incarnation. Why not celebrate in worship what the New Testament affirms: “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

Ada Herald - Pastor's Pen Article October 29 2009

2009-10-29T11:44:00.001-07:00

I remember with fondness my Jr. High Sunday School teacher. He put up with a lot of nonsense from me and my friends. We were the ultimate tangent-takers, attempting to derail his teaching down any number of speculative spurs. Usually we tried to steer the conversation around to the fate of people who never have an opportunity to hear the gospel preached to them. Will God condemn them?

The tables were turned on me the other night when, at the last minute, I was called to teach a class of 5th graders at the church. Improvising, I turned it into an “ask the pastor” type of event, encouraging the children to ask me anything they ever wanted to know about the Christian faith. For some reason, the questions always found their way back to dinosaurs. How do they fit in the bible?

Christians, it seems, have a perpetual desire to speculate. We enjoy taking the tangents, especially on matters where we don’t have all the answers. One of the things I have come to appreciate about John Calvin, the forerunner of Presbyterian thinking, is how cautious he was when it came to matters that were not clearly defined in the bible. He was continually criticizing the speculators.

In a passage early in the Institutes, Calvin writes that God is shown to us “not as he is in himself, but as he is toward us: so that this recognition of him consists more in living experience than in vain and high-flown speculation.” Calvin believes that God can be known. He has made the case that God is known ultimately in the bible. But he also makes the case that the bible doesn’t give us exhaustive knowledge of God. We do not know God “as he is in himself.”

To put this another way, God reserves the right to be God. We are finite. We like to speculate about questions that are on the fringes of the bible, yet if we go too far in our speculation, we take the risk of overstepping the boundaries between creator and creature. “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8)

Instead, Christians would do well to discipline their minds around the core truths of the gospel—the things that are clear and well-attested in scripture. The Apostle’s Creed gives us a good indicator of the core message that should permeate our thinking. Paul encouraged Timothy to rebuke the speculators of his day, those who devoted themselves to “myths and endless genealogies.” (1 Tim 1:4) Paul reminded us that “these promote controversies rather than God’s work.”

Ada Herald - Pastor's Pen Article October 22 2009

2009-10-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

You would think me a chicken if I wrote a series of articles on Calvin and failed to mention predestination. One of the charges leveled against Calvin is that he invented the doctrine of predestination, pulling it out of thin air, as it were, making God into something of an arbitrary tyrant. In the public mind, Calvin equals predestination. While it is clearly an important part of his theology, the universe of Calvin’s thought didn’t revolve around it. It is more a spoke than a hub.

Predestination, as Calvin puts it, is “God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man” Some are ordained to eternal life; others to eternal damnation. Calvin taught this, yet the teaching didn’t originate with him. He traced it back to Augustine, who traced it back to the Epistles of Paul. Other prominent theologians held the view including Thomas Aquinas, John Wycliffe, and nearly every major Reformation figure.

Perhaps the reason the doctrine stuck to Calvin was the way his name came to be associated with the five points of Calvinism, proposed by the Synod of Dort some 50 years after Calvin’s death. The Synod highlighted predestination in its response to others who were advocating the place of free will in salvation. The Synod of Dort distilled Calvin’s teachings on salvation, and for some, this distillation remains the essence of all Calvin said, even though he wrote widely on numerous theological topics.

Calvin didn’t teach predestination simply to be controversial. For him, it reflected the teaching of scripture: in Romans 9 God chose Jacob over Esau before either of them were born; in Ephesians 1 God is said to have chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world; in Acts 13:48 Luke records that “all those appointed for eternal life believed.” Calvin felt that those who downplayed these passages were instead playing up their own opinions.

Despite his firm belief in the doctrine, Calvin recognized that predestination was hard for people to accept. He admitted that talking about predestination was itself a difficult thing, perplexing and hazardous, especially to those who were overly curious and refused to ground their speculations in scripture itself. If predestination is difficult, and if it met with such opposition, one may be justified in wondering whether it has any value.

On this point, Calvin was clear that predestination was valuable because it gave glory to God more than any other way of understanding salvation. When we were lost and unable to save ourselves, God opened our ears to hear the message of the gospel—that Jesus died and rose again for our salvation—and gave us the faith to believe it. All the credit for our salvation belongs to God, which magnifies his glory. At the same time, election gives believers confidence in their standing before God. If my salvation depends upon my choosing God, then my salvation is uncertain, because my will is fickle. My preferences change daily, but God’s are eternal.

Ada Herald - Pastor's Pen Article October 15, 2009

2009-10-19T06:38:00.001-07:00

I came across an obituary recently of an accomplished man. He was a military pilot in World War II and a life-long attorney. What stood out to me was another word used to describe this individual: churchman. It’s not a common word anymore. It’s a word used to describe someone who actively loves and supports the church. Perhaps it’s rare because such people are rare.

There’s a growing movement away from organized churches towards more informal, house church arrangements, where a few families gather in someone’s living room to sing and pray and share scripture. One of the scriptural supports behind the house church movement is the way the Book of Acts describes Christians as meeting in people’s homes.

A deeper look at real estate in the first century reveals a different picture than commonly assumed. In Rome for example, only about 3% of the population owned what we might call a home. Most lived in apartments. Those who owned homes were wealthy, and their homes were often large estates with multiple rooms, halls, and meeting places.

As wealthy people were converted, they would become the benefactors of the church in a particular community, opening their large complexes to the church for a meeting place. If you look at the early church at Pentecost, they were gathered in an room that held 120 people. They weren’t meeting in a three-bedroom ranch with a living room that might seat 12 adults.

People leave organized churches for a variety of reasons: the fellowship isn’t deep enough, basic decisions can get bogged down in bureaucracy, or there’s just too much hypocrisy. While the organized church may need reform, it is highly unwise to abandon it. John Calvin wrote that the church is like a nourishing mother, which feeds and guides individual believers through the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments.

It seems strange to have to argue for this point, but organized churches have certain advantages precisely because they are, well, organized. Pastors are trained in original language study and ordained by the church; elders are appointed to protect and guide church members; membership itself is a form of accountability that leads to spiritual growth. Additionally, the organized church provides more opportunities to practice love, because you are forced to rub shoulders with those outside of your normal circles.

One of the great weaknesses of the house church movement is its parochialism. There’s a natural tendency to want to be around like-minded people, and this tendency is multiplied in this movement. The true church becomes not only those who hold the same theology, but the same politics, child-rearing philosophy, food tastes, and vaccination schedules. Such a closed community is a far cry from Acts 13, where the church leaders in Antioch included a childhood friend of Herod’s, a Levite, an African Christian, and a Roman citizen.

A Chinese Christian recently wrote an article about house churches in his native country. He pointed out several weaknesses: church leadership is unstable, meeting times are switched at random, cults infiltrate churches and take control, and the preaching is often of poor quality. The grass may not be greener on the other side. It may, in fact, be better for us to revive the word churchman, to love the local church with all its warts, working to make it a true expression of the kingdom of God.

Ada Herald - Pastor's Pen Article October 8, 2009

2009-10-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

John Calvin turned 500 this year. This October, I have five articles to write for the paper, which works out to one per century in honor of Calvin’s legacy. I trust this sounds as reasonable to you as it does to me.

Last week, we examined the claim that Calvin had Servetus burned in Geneva. This week, I want to take you into the beginning pages of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. The first sentence is well-known: “Nearly all the wisdom we possess…consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”

In order to possess wisdom, one must know God and know oneself. The two are intertwined. The more we know God, the better we know ourselves. The more we know ourselves, the better we know God. Unfortunately, our world is adept at inventing ways to eliminate God from the equation of true knowledge.

The problem however is that when one tries to understand life apart from God, that person lives a life of fiction. It may seem real, but it is an illusion that leads ultimately to despair. If God is the creator, and if we are made in his image, then life can only make sense in relation to him.

In Walker Percy’s novel The Moviegoer, Binx Bolling is on a search for meaning. He talks about his vertical search, his search to understand God. After reading a chemistry book, he felt that there was no longer any need to consider God’s hand in the world. The natural world explained itself.

“The only difficulty,” Binx concluded, “was that though the universe had been disposed of, I myself was left over. There I lay in my hotel room with my search over yet still obliged to draw one breath and then the next.” With knowledge of God no longer certain or necessary, one is hard pressed to explain why he should take another breath. Life is leftover and empty.

This emptiness manifests itself continually in our world. People shop to forge new identities. We divert ourselves from the despair within through leisure and entertainment. As Binx Bolling put it, “Before, I wandered as a diversion. Now I wander seriously and sit and read as a diversion.” Devoid of meaning, we take our wandering seriously indeed.

If we seek to know ourselves apart from knowing God, we are left with a false view of ourselves. We’re looking in a mirror but seeing a cartoon staring back at us. There is a reason why we feel despair and unhappiness. It’s residual knowledge of who we were really meant to be by the grace of God. Calvin helps us see this truth even today.

Ada Herald - Pastor's Pen Article October 1 2009

2009-10-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

Understanding the beliefs of Christian denominations is sort of like following a family tree. Differing beliefs and practices often trace back to key individuals who shaped the church in dramatic ways. Lutherans have their Luther. Methodists have their Wesley. Mennonites have their Menno Simmons. Catholics have their Aquinas, and Presbyterians have their John Calvin.

For some reason, Presbyterians find ourselves defending John Calvin from attack far more often than our friends in other denominations are called upon to defend their own spiritual ancestors. Calvin was much maligned in his own lifetime, and the standards of biographical writing in Calvin’s day, being much different from our own, have allowed myths about Calvin to stick in the Western mind.

Given that this year is the 500^th birthday of Calvin (July 10, 1509 – May 27, 1564), perhaps it’s time to clear the air. One persistent misrepresentation of Calvin is that he had Michael Servetus burned at the stake in Geneva. A closer look at the episode reveals that although Servetus was burned in Geneva, he most likely would have been burned in any number of cities at the time.

In 1530, Servetus published a book titled On the Errors of the Trinity. In it, he said that the Triune God was a three-headed dog and an invention of the devil. In the 16^th century, this was heresy in anybody’s book. The Emperor Charles V set down a law that anyone who denied the Trinity was punishable by death. Servetus wasn’t just attacking the church. He was attacking the state and the Empire.

He was tried by the Catholic Church and sentenced to die by burning. Had he not escaped, others would have put him to death, but he ended up in Geneva. Servetus was arrested by the City Council after Calvin reported seeing him in the church were Calvin preached.

Calvin went to Servetus in his time of imprisonment and tried to convince him to recant. He argued for a less painful death sentence than the one imposed by the Council but to no avail. Servetus was burned, and as one biographer put it, “the smell of smoke has clung to Calvin’s clothes for centuries.”

Considering the many mitigating factors surrounding Calvin’s involvement, one would be wise to resist the knee-jerk reaction, “Servetus!” upon hearing Calvin’s name mentioned in polite conversation. Instead, it would be wise to consider Calvin’s contributions to the larger church and world. “To omit Calvin from the forces of Western evolution,” as the English scholar Lord John Morley put it, “is to read history with one eye shut.”

Just as Bad in Geneva

2009-09-15T06:18:00.001-07:00

I recently finished a new biography of John Calvin, titled John Calvin: A Pilgrim's Life. I was strangely encouraged by Calvin's complaints in Geneva about people's attitudes towards the service of worship. During the administration of the sacrament of baptism, people would be in the back of the church discussing business or walking around. I don't feel so bad now when people get up in the middle of a sermon and wander around or when the kids drop the pencils on the hardwood floor and they roll all the way to the front of the sanctuary. Even Calvin had to put up with distractions and people distracted from the service of worship. And that was before TV and texting....

In Praise of Churches

2009-07-15T13:30:00.001-07:00

I finished Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck's new book, "Why We Love the Church," this afternoon. It's written primarily to those who are quitting church in favor of more informal meetings--gathering with a few Christian friends at Starbucks or on the Golf Course. It's a good read overall.

The authors quote J.C. Ryle on the need to take the church more seriously on page 101:

"Let me warn all careless members of churches to beware lest they trifle their souls into hell. You live on year after year as if there was no battle to be fought with sin, the world, and the devil. You pass through life a smiling, laughing, gentlemanlike or ladylike person, and behave as if there was no devil, no heaven, and no hell. Oh careless, churchman, or careless dissenter, careless Episcopalian, careless Presbyterian, careless Independent, careless Baptist, awake to see eternal realities in their true light! Awake and put on the armor of God! Awake and fight hard for life! Tremble, tremble and repent!"

Then the authors make their own point by way of follow-up:

"Church isn't boring because we're not showing enough film clips, or because we play the organ instead of the guitar. It's boring because we neuter it of its importance." (pg. 102)

In other words, the problem with church, for many people, doesn't actually reside with the church institution; rather it's a problem with their own perception of the church's value in God's plan to redeem us. If they understood its importance, nothing about it would be boring.

Spurgeon Sabbatical Part 2

2009-06-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

It's now Saturday night, and we've had a full five days of class work and reflection. We finished up Romans chapter 2 this morning. One of the more interesting issues raised in our study is the doctrine of imputation of Christ's righteousness and what that means. This is a pretty hot topic in certain quarters of Christendom these days. If you'd like to read more about it, you could click here for an overview.

The conversation with fellow pastors continues to be really good. It's been good to see that the "problems" we face aren't all that unusual. I'm also encouraged by the caliber of pastor's here--it's hopeful for the church.

We had some time off tonight and more tomorrow. I ate over at Woodmans in Essex this evening, which is one of the area's best for seafood. I had a plate of fried sea scallops with fries and onion rings. You just can't find places like this in Hardin County!

Spurgeon Sabbatical

2009-06-25T04:49:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Boston on Monday to attend the Spurgeon Sabbatical at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (my alma mater). It's Thursday, so I'm at the start of the third full day. We're meeting for worship each morning at 8:45 and then moving into a study of Romans from about 9:30 - noon. So far we've covered about the first 7 verses.

We're working through a lot of the material in Greek and it's been really invigorating and exciting to study at this level again. It's about 30 hours of content altogether, so it's like a full seminary course (but without the grading and papers!).

So far one of the more interesting issues has been how to understand the phrase "obedience of faith" in vs. 5. The theme of obedience creeps up in Romans more than you'd think at first glance. We've been talking a lot about how obedience is an organic expression of our faith.

After class, we meet for lunch and a pastor will take a turn sharing some of his life story and then we pray for him. We have time off in the afternoons then reconvene around 5:30 for dinner followed by more pastoral reflections about issues in our churches. Then we conclude with worship in the evening by about 9:30.

I made it over to Manchester, MA yesterday afternoon, which was where Deb and I lived when we were here. Took a walk on singing beach, which is a great little place to see the ocean here.

The weather however has been typical New England stuff. I haven't seen the sun yet. It's been foggy, drizzly, and cool since I got here. Yesterday, the car was telling me the temperature was 59 as I was driving around.

For Father's Day

2009-06-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

I recently reread an article by Doug Wilson called Spanking Stories. It's a funny look at how children who have been lovingly disciplined through spankings look back on the times of discipline with affection and warmth.

The scriptures give some rather clear instructions for fathers on the task of discipline. Ephesians 6:4 says: "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." The word "training" in this verse refers to training received through correction and discipline.

Unfortunately, we men tend to let the weight fall on the "do not exasperate" side of things, allowing our children to follow the desires of their hearts. Perhaps we are afraid to lose their affections, and so we think they will love us more if we let them do what they want. Ironically, we are then surprised when they grow up and rebel when we (too late) try to exercise authority over serious matters (like dating), having failed to exercise authority over minor matters (like throwing a fit).

The paradox that we fathers need to embrace is that discipline, lovingly applied, will win the hearts and respect of our children. Failure at discipline will drive them away. Proverbs 29:17 "Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul." The flip side is also true: Failure to discipline will bring strife and sorrow to your soul.

Is Teen Rebellion Inevitable?

2009-06-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

I recently watched the movie Astronaut Farmer staring Billy Bob Thorton.

Thorton plays an eccentric farmer who builds a rocket in his barn on his rural farm and dreams of flying into space. He has a family, and the amazing thing about the movie is the way his family supports him in his craziness. He has a teenage son who worships him. In nearly every other "family" movie I watch, the teenage children hate their parents or are embarrassed by them. Here, when the father pulls his children out of school to help with the project, they support their dad and want to be part of what he's doing.

The most memorable line in the movie comes from his father-in-law, who complains that when he was growing up, he could barely get his family to eat together, but he (Thorton) has his family dreaming together. The movie has one or two sexual references that may not be appropriate for younger children (but they'd probably go over their heads). It's definitely one of the more pro-family movies I've seen out of Hollywood.

There is a sense, even among Christians, that children will naturally rebel and dislike their parents. It doesn't have to be that way. In fact, the whole teenage experience is a recent social creation. See Mardi Keyes excellent article for more on this point.

The Examen

2009-01-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

In Puritan New England, pastors often connected New Year's Day to a time of self-examination. In the Handbook of Spiritual Disciplines, the following questions are used to help jump start this discipline:

- What was the most life giving part of my day? What was the most life-thwarting part of my day?

- When today did I have the deepest sense of connection with God, others and myself? When today did I have the least sense of connection?

- Where was I aware of living out of the fruit of the Spirit? Where was there an absence of the fruit of the Spirit?

- Where did I experience "desolation"? Where did I experience "consolation"?

David's prayer at the end of Psalm 139 is highly appropriate for the practice of The Examen: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

A Poem for the Rural Homestead

2008-12-16T12:08:00.000-08:00

I came across this poem recently--hope you enjoy it as much as my family did.

Farm Country
by Mary Oliver

I have sharpened my knives, I have
Put on the heavy apron.

Maybe you think life is chicken soup, served
In blue willow-pattern bowls.

I have put on my boots and opened
The kitchen door and stepped out

Into the sunshine. I have crossed the lawn,
I have entered

The hen house.

Christians, Churches, and Christmas

2008-12-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

For some Christians, the season of Christmas brings about a question of debate: should we celebrate Christmas? After all, we're not commanded in scripture to observe Christmas, Advent, or Easter.

I've often thought that the reason we in the mainline church have "Easter and Christmas Christians" was that in emphasizing these high points of the church year, we in some way diminish the weekly Lord's Day. Why come every Sunday when the big holidays are the times that really count?

Despite these misgivings, I have come back around recently to appreciating a basic church calendar. By remembering the high points of Christ's life on the calendar, the church declares that our faith is rooted in history. We are also reclaiming time for the kingdom of God.

Pastor Gregg Strawbridge wrote an excellent overview of these points in this article on his website at All Saints Presbyterian Church. I encourage you to read it and leave me your comments.

LATE ADDITION: If you have all night and a day, here's another article I came across that defends Christmas celebrations. Happy Holidays!

Sermon Leftovers on Stewardship

2008-11-06T08:33:00.000-08:00

As I have been writing up the sermon this morning, I have had to leave something out that I just don't have the time to cover, but it is interesting.

When the early church brought money to the apostles for the ministry of the word and to help those in need, Acts 4:35 says that they "put it at the apostle's feet." In other words, they trusted the apostles to distribute the money as they saw fit. No strings attached.

Today some donors leave gifts to the church, but there are many restrictions--use it for the building only. Use it for mission only. Use it for curriculum only. While givers may want to leave money to things they are passionate about, I wonder how the apostles would have received gifts with restrictions?

Books I'm Reading

2008-10-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

Through a friend, I found a place called Library Thing on-line. You can now get a feel for what I'm reading currently on the sidebar. Let me know what you think of the books.

Library Thing is pretty cool too--you can get lots of recommendations of books similar to what you have in your library.

Investing in True Securities

2008-09-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

“‘Wall Street’ No Longer Exists” read one headline earlier this week. There is no end to the superlatives thrown at the current financial shakedown. Some are calling it the worst crisis since the Great Depression. Others are calling it simply the greatest financial crisis in our nation’s history—ever. We are used to media-generated crises in our country, but this time the hysteria is grounded in grim reality.

Credit markets froze last week. Banks weren’t lending to each other, and loans to companies and consumers were in danger of drying up, effectively stalling the economic engine of our nation. Now that the feds are proposing nearly one trillion dollars to take bad debt off the banks’ books, the dollar is in a freefall, causing oil and gold to go haywire.

One could point a lot of fingers in this time of crisis. Some have argued that the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 forced banks to make loans to those who really couldn’t repay them. Others have argued that the feds’ policy of easy money and low interest rates in recent years allowed people to take on debt upon debt—until the whole scheme started to crumble with failing mortgages.

It’s easy to fix blame in times of crisis. But for those who think about life from of a Christian worldview, these recent events shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. The Apostle Paul warned us about money, saying not to put our “hope in wealth, which is so uncertain.” (1 Tim 6:17) Likewise Jesus told his disciples, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy.” (Matt 6:19) The bible warns us that money is fleeting. It can be here one minute and gone the next. It is not the proper place to look for stability and security.

This observation is not meant to be a “gotcha.” Many Christians (including myself) will have lost some money in their investments over recent weeks. To point out the bible’s warning about money’s slippery quality is meant to draw us to the path of wisdom. After Paul’s warning, he immediately follows it up by saying, Christians should “put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” Jesus follows up his warning by saying, “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy.”

There is a place to invest. By all means, invest in your retirement plans and stock funds. But keep in mind that these investments aren’t your first or primary line of hope. The world’s financial institutions will never tell you that in their advertising. Instead, your primary line of hope & investment must be in God, whose spiritual riches and delights are far superior and permanent than anything money can buy. David praised God in the Psalms writing, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (Psalm 16:11) MasterCard can’t touch this priceless security.

The Church Repellent

2008-09-16T06:34:00.000-07:00

This is my third article for the Ada Herald here in the month of September.

If Christians have the truth, “why is it the case that they are repellent precisely to the degree that they embrace and advertise that truth?” asks Will Barrett in Walker Percy’s novel The Second Coming. In the novel, Barrett is a wealthy Southerner whose life is spiraling out of control. He questions reality, and he wonders why Christians, if they have the truth, remain largely unattractive to those searching for meaning in life.

Perhaps you’ve thought similarly about Christians. Maybe you’ve been hurt by a particular church in the past, perhaps one that was too controlling. Maybe a co-worker gossips about you, yet you know he is also a church leader. Hypocrites in the church have always kept many from considering the claims of the Christian faith. Christian preachers might be a turn-off, especially the televangelists. These individuals often do repel to the degree they advertise the truth.

If I could attempt to explain a piece of Christian teaching for a moment, I hope that you would be willing to reconsider your opinion of Christians. The vast majority of churches believe that Christians remain sinners even after coming to faith in Jesus Christ. We believe that we are forgiven for our sins, yet the tendency to sin remains in our hearts. Only over a lifetime of prayer, worship, and yes, even being around other Christians, do we slowly become more like Christ. The change in our lives that we hope for doesn’t happen overnight.

To put this another way, you shouldn’t be surprised to see Christians who fail to live up to the teachings of the bible. The bible teaches that we will fail, in this life, to live up to all its teachings (read, for example, Romans 7). So in failing, we are in fact being consistent with biblical doctrine! Now that’s not meant to be a smart excuse for our failures. Its meant to be realistic about the Christian life, about the struggle in our hearts to overcome sin and to grow in godliness.

As a Christian pastor, I’ve been around lots of Christians. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yet for the most part, the Christians I know are quietly putting their faith into practice. They are working in the Ada Food Pantry and at Restore. They are praying with their children. They are rebuilding the Gulf Coast. They are worshipping on Sundays, hearing preaching from modest pastors, and trying to live out their faith with the help of the community of the church.

I will be the first to admit that Christians will let you down. But in the end, I would encourage you to look past Christians to God. God is really the one you need to be thinking about more than the people of God in Christian churches. Even if a Christian fails you, God hasn’t changed. He is still your creator. He still gives you life, and breath, and everything else. Don’t let God’s people keep you from seeking God. I would even be so bold as to suggest that if you want to know God, there are many Christians in local churches who would be glad to offer humble and gracious direction.

Why Pastor's Wear Robes

2008-09-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

I have mixed feeling sometimes about wearing a robe to preach on Sunday morning. Here's an interesting article about it from a Reformed perspective.

Internet Paralysis

2008-09-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

This is the second article being published for the Pastor's Pen this month (Sept 08)

“Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. Now I zip along like a guy on a Jet Ski,” writes Nicholas Carr in a provocative article titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The article was published this summer in the Atlantic Monthly. In it the author observes how he is less and less able to read a book cover to cover or to follow a complex argument to its conclusion.

He postulates that over time, reading blogs and email has changed the way he handles words. He skims things he used to dig into. He clicks from one article to the next without staying with something to the end. The internet, for all of its upside, does change the way we learn and handle information. We are less patient with words. We lack the ability to concentrate. Our work is more scattered and less focused.

The poet Donald Hall once made the point that contentment is found in something he calls absorbedness. It is “early morning hours, concentration on the page and its words, total loss of identity, hours that pass like seconds or without any notion of time elapsing.” In other words, the quality of life is improved by our ability to get lost in our work or our reading without a sense of distractedness. On the flip side, a frenetic quality to life leaves us frazzled.

In my own life, I recognize symptoms of distraction. I keep track of the books I read, and when I first started my work as a pastor, I was reading 30 to 40 books a year. Now I must confess I’m down to about 10. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had six children in those years, but I also notice as my internet use has increased during this time, my ability to get absorbed in reading or study has been hampered. It’s far easier to check email a dozen times a morning than to sit down and translate a Greek passage from the New Testament.

If Nicholas Carr is right, Christians of all people should be concerned. We are people of the book. Our faith arises out of the scriptures. Our ability to grow to maturity in the faith rests on our ability to read and ponder the bible. Whether you’re engaged in serious biblical exegesis or practicing lectio divina (a more contemplative style of reading the bible), you need the ability to concentrate and to attend to the words on the page.

Friends and civic leaders alike extol the virtues of the internet. I use the internet myself. It’s helpful for finding sermon illustrations and keeping up with friends. Yet the internet does seem to be changing the way we learn and think. We might have more information at our fingertips, but we are less and less able to understand and digest that information. If internet use is paralyzing our analytical ability, we might want to do something about it now—while we can still think about it.

Christian Citizenship

2008-09-04T10:10:00.001-07:00

I am writing the "Pastor's Pen" column for the Ada Herald this month. Here is this week's article:

Barak Obama made a surprise stop at a Lima church this past Sunday. The pastor didn’t receive final confirmation of Obama’s visit until 8:00 that morning. The press and others around Lima didn’t get wind of his stop until they saw police barricades around the church. Everyone was caught off guard at his coming.

The thing that surprised me about his stop wasn’t so much that he came but the way the worship service went on without much fanfare. The pastor said that he resisted the urge to alter his sermon to preach at Obama. The candidate himself didn’t address the congregation from the pulpit. He simply sat under the preaching of God’s word and worshipped.

Far too often we see churches becoming platforms for political candidates, either right or left. Pastors take to the pulpit to say their candidate is God’s man for the job. The candidate delivers a message—half sermon, half pep talk—to people who you never would have imagined came together in the first place to worship Jesus Christ.

This disturbing trend makes the fact that Sunday’s worship in Lima managed to stay a worship service both remarkable and commendable. The bible reminds Christians that “our citizenship is in heaven.” (Phil 3:20) Yes we are Americans, but Christians are citizens of God’s kingdom first and foremost, and as the Apostle Paul continues in that passage, “we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

It is tempting, in an election year, for Christians in both political parties to forget that their hopes ultimately rest in a king whom they cannot see. With political conventions dominating the airwaves, candidates from both parties making astounding promises, and the media giving round the clock coverage, it is easy to get swept up in the tide of enthusiasm for politics itself as a kind of national savior.

The Psalmist reminds us that “God is king of all the earth,” and in scripture we see God raising up kings with one hand and deposing kings with the other. It is the Lord God and his son Jesus Christ who, in the power of the Holy Spirit, hold out the promise of salvation. It is right to gather and worship this great God, keeping politics in proper perspective—subservient to God, who alone “reigns over the nations.” (Psalm 47:8)

Help With Logos

2008-08-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've been working on some designs for a church logo--to use with letterhead and such. I need some feedback on what tag-line best captures the spirit of our church.

"To him be glory in the church" is a quote from Ephesians 3:21. I like it because it captures the Reformed idea of God's glory being worked out in the church.

The phrase "for Christ and the Gospel" is a phrase you see associated with Reformed churches that emphasizes the church's mission.

Some other ideas that I was playing with:

"Advancing God's Kingdom in Ada"
"Proclaiming the Gospel in Ada for 175 years"
"A Confessing Church in the Reformed Tradition"
"in Spirit and in Truth"
"Rooted and Established in Love"

What do you think? Any new ideas you have would also be welcome....Let me know too what you think of the design in general.

The Charge of Hypocrisy

2008-02-26T12:38:00.000-08:00

The charge of hypocrisy is often leveled at those in public positions of leadership who fail to live out their beliefs. We can think of Ted Haggart in the church and Larry Craig in congress. Both leaders acted in ways that differed from their professed beliefs. The bible of course cautions us about hypocrisy. Both the writer of Proverbs in the Old Testament and James in the New warn us about “double-mindedness.” We should be concerned about hypocrisy in our lives and seek to root it out wherever we find it.

But at the same time, the public outrage against hypocrisy is over the top at times. I got to thinking that we could categorize people with respect to belief and action. There are those who have true beliefs and true action. Let’s call them T/T (True belief/True action). Then there are hypocrites like Ted Haggart. They have true belief and false action. We could label them T/F (True belief/False action). But there is a third category. There are those who have false belief and false action. We could label them as F/F (False belief/False action).

If you accept my general categories, isn’t it true that a person in the T/F category is still better off than someone in the F/F category? For example, if a Christian professes belief that he should pray, and he does, then he is a T/T believer and should be commended. If a Christian professes belief in prayer, but doesn’t pray, he is a T/F Christian and should be encouraged to make his belief match his practice. But if your average person on the street doesn’t believe in prayer and doesn’t pray (making him an F/F), why does he have the moral authority to judge the T/F as a hypocrite? Isn’t he in the worst position of all three?

We should point out that all Christians will have some level of hypocrisy in their lives. All of us are fallen, and all of us are in a process of growth, trying to match our practices to our beliefs. We are continually hindered in this process by our fallen nature. During this season of Lent, ask God to root out hypocrisy that you might become a T/T. Pray also that God would soften the F/Fs in your life, that they might see true belief as at least the first step towards God.

A Clear Signal About Cell Phones

2007-11-19T11:35:00.000-08:00

I am pretty out of touch when it comes to texting and cell phones. I was sitting in the stands at an Ada football game earlier in the year when I saw a young woman holding a cell phone with two hands, banging on it with such force I thought she was trying to break it. I finally realized, as she snapped it shut and then back open when it began to rattle, that she was sending text messages to a friend (probably someone sitting a few rows away from her...).

If you're ever surprised or frustrated by cell phones, or if you ever wonder why you feel like cell phones are a bit of nuisance but haven't been able to put your finger on it, then check out this article http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/rosen.htm It spells out what you may have thought but hadn't yet got around to articulating. It's long, so print it out, and enjoy the read while you're digesting Turkey this week.

Is This The Best The Athiests Can Do?

2007-07-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

Over the past year or two, a slew of books promoting atheism have been published and are selling like hotcakes. Perhaps the cream of the crop is Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion." I checked it out of the library recently to see what all the fuss is about.

One of the first things you notice about the book is how angry the author is. The book would have been much more effective if it had attempted to maintain some level of objectivity. It's obvious by the author's tone, that he has a major beef with anyone who believes in God.

One particular observation I would make has to do with Dawkins' criticism of the morality of the Old Testament. He makes reference to the story of Jephthah's daughter in Judges 11. Jephthah makes a rash vow where he pledges to offer as a sacrifice whatever comes through his door when he comes home from a battle, provided God grants him victory in battle. Tragically, Jephthah's daughter is the first one to great him, and she is sacrificed by her father as an offering to God.

Dawkins points to this as an example of the twisted morality of the bible: How can one use the bible as a source of morals when this is the kind of story you find in the bible? Dawkins seems to miss the whole point of Judges, which is to remind Israel how far they've fallen from God by adopting the practices of their pagan neighbors (who did practice child sacrifice as part of their religious worship.) Dawkins doesn't seem to grasp the point that the bible honestly records actions that are contrary to the will of God. It shows the human race in all its evil and sin to help drive us to the mercy of God in the gospel.

I find it interesting that Dawkins is outraged by the story of Jephthah's daughter, yet he doesn't allow God to be outraged by it. Instead he criticizes God for punishing sin and calling his people to be loyal to him. Dawkins wants to judge Jephthah, but God isn't allowed to judge or else he is being vindictive and jealous.

To round out the story, it's vital to grasp that God doesn't ask for Jephthah's vow. Jephthah makes the vow of his own accord, which reveals how much he is in step with the Canaanite culture that surrounds him. God has nothing to do with it. It's an example of Israel's evil, which results in her continued judgment, which is proper for God to exercise if there is any hope for justice in the world.

If you're reading the book, be sure to also look at the response by Alister McGrath in his book "The Dawkins Delusion?".

Amish Crackdown in Kenton Ohio

2007-03-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

I had a letter to the editor published in the Kenton Times on Saturday March 3, 2007regarding the crackdown on the sale of Amish food. Please read it below and post your comments!

The recent crack-down on the Amish in Hardin County reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about health. The Hardin County Health Department together with ODA officials are focused rather narrowly on a single aspect of health—the physical health of our bodies, in this particular case, the connection between food storage and potential illness. That there may be other types of health is an assumption that does not seem to be under consideration.

For example, healthy community life and neighborliness are forms of well-being that the officials overlook. The ability to purchase food from local producers builds trust and cooperation between the farmer and the person purchasing food. As one who travels from Ada to buy food from the Amish, I know many of these people and count them as friends. When officials undermine the ability of local farmers to provide food for their neighbors, these relationships deteriorate.

As relationships deteriorate, trust and cooperation and friendliness among different people also erode, yet these are the very ingredients necessary to a vibrant and well-ordered civic life. With a more holistic view of community life, officials would do everything in their power to connect our residents with local sources of food rather than sever those connections. The officials may justify their harassment of the Amish under the banner of health, yet it is precisely the health of our community that is at stake.

The same misunderstanding of health has injured community life here in Ada. A few years back, a women’s group in a local church quit baking bread and pastries for a community festival due to pressure from health officials. The effort to meet the regulators’ requirements didn’t justify the time to produce the food. As a result, a group of ladies didn’t meet, and by not meeting, their relationships suffered, and the community suffered for not being able to socialize with the older generation these ladies represented.

To be sure, there is a legitimate place for health departments in the life of a community, but surely these recent tactics are overzealous. Is it necessary to protect the local community from an Amish matriarch’s pies, pies that give pleasure to thousands of people, pies whose recipes have been handed down through generations with no ill effect? Most of us know that Amish food is no threat to our physical health, but even if it were, our officials should tread with great caution, recognizing that the health of communities, the fabric of relationships between friends and neighbors, is not something easily repaired once lost.

Smooth Talk and Flattery

2007-03-01T06:55:00.000-08:00

In my final sermon on Romans, we talked about those who would lead us away from being established in the gospel by smooth talk and flattery. We all tend to be suspicious of the cults and radical groups that have clearly distorted the gospel, yet we may not be quite as discerning with spiritual leaders and pastors closer to home.

For example, many people trust Oprah more than their pastor. Her gospel of self-fulfillment is the religion for many Americans. See this USA Today article for more on her "ministry."

Popular t.v. preacher Joel Osteen has rightly come under criticism for failing to articulate the gospel (as Paul presented it in Romans) clearly. Click here for a review of one aspect of his book. And click here for a bit of satire on Osteen's philosophy of Christianity.