Remembering His Baptism

This song has been in my heart ever since Sunday (which was an AWESOME time with Bp. Ilgenfritz). I thought you'd appreciate it as well. (Note, the music is 6v where the song is only three...so sing it twice!)

	Clyde McLennan - Rise, my soul, to watch and pray .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

C. F. Moule on the Resurrection

Previously unpublished lecture by C. F. D. Moule on the resurrection as the controlling event of early Christian experience.

Give it a read.

Why Christ's Physical Resurrection Matters

The Apostle Paul said: "16 if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied." (1 Cor. 15) While many modern so-called churches have forgotten this timeless truth, it still speaks today.

I offer this poem by John Updike as an Easter meditation.

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier - mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

— From Telephone Poles and Other Poems by John Updike
© 1961 by John Updike

John Updike's take is that if all there is is all we can control, we are dead to truth and beauty, and most to be pitied. This Easter, my prayer for you is a deep encounter with the truth of the Risen Christ - a true human (like you and me) and also true God. As his body has been raised into glorified perfection, so shall ours be. And as his body is one, may he also make his church - his body on earth - to be one. Amen.

More Gregorian than gregarious

Some people think that I'm not "nice" because I hold vowed officers of the church to the faith handed down by the apostles. Well, on this March 12, commemoration of Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church and Bishop of Rome, I'm going to try to be more gregarious. . . or at least Gregorian.

Here's a little info on the sainted bishop.

Only two popes, Leo I and Gregory I, have been given the popular title of "the Great." Both served during difficult times of barbarian invasions in Italy; and during Gregory's term of office, Rome was also faced with famine and epidemics.

Gregory was born around 540, of a politically influential family, and in 573 he became Prefect of Rome; but shortly afterwards he resigned his office and began to live as a monk. In 579 he was made apocrisiarius (representative of the Pope to the Patriarch of Constantinople). Shortly after his return home, the Pope died of the plague, and in 590 Gregory was elected Pope.

Like Leo before him, he became practical governor of central Italy, because the job needed to be done and there was no one else to do it. When the Lombards invaded, he organized the defense of Rome against them, and the eventual signing of a treaty with them. When there was a shortage of food, he organized the importation and distribution of grain from Sicily.

His influence on the forms of public worship throughout Western Europe was enormous. He founded a school for the training of church musicians, and Gregorian chant (plainchant) is named for him. The schedule of Scripture readings for the various Sundays of the year, and the accompanying prayers (many of them written by him - and still sung!), in use throughout most of Western Christendom for the next thirteen centuries, is largely due to his passion for organization. His treatise, On Pastoral Care, while not a work of creative imagination, shows a dedication to duty, and an understanding of what is required of a minister in charge of a Christian congregation.

Doctrinally speaking, there is little of great interest. He is known to have defended the physical resurrection from a subtle attack by no less than the Patriarch of Constantinople himself! Eutychius speculated on our resurrection bodies being "more subtle than air" but there is a record of his having recanted before death. (Hey...maybe I'm gregorious in dealing with my own Eutychius after all! With him, I say Pro cuius amore in eius eloquio nec mihi parco - "For the love of whom (God) I do not spare myself from his Word.") Gregory's letters and sermons are still readable today, and it is not without reason that he is accounted (along with Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine of Hippo) as one of the Four Latin Doctors (=Teachers) of the ancient Church. (Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzen, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom are the Four Greek Doctors.)

English-speaking Christians will remember Gregory for sending a party of missionaries headed by Augustine of Canterbury (not to be confused with the more famous Augustine of Hippo) to preach the Gospel to the pagan Anglo-Saxon tribes that had invaded England and largely conquered or displaced the Celtic Christians previously living there. He was moved when he saw some fair-haired, blue-eyed Angle boys being sold in a slave market and quipped: "Non Angli, sed Angeli!" (they are not Angles, but Angels!) Gregory had originally hoped to go to England as a missionary himself, but was pressed into service elsewhere, first as apocrisiarius and then as bishop of Rome. He accordingly sent others, but took an active interest in their work, writing numerous letters both to Augustine and his monks and to their English converts.

I here mention something that was not Gregory's doing, but is an important part of Church history. It was in Gregory's lifetime that Rome, and with it the Western Empire, with astonishing suddenness, and for no reason that I know of, went monolingual. For more than six centuries previously, Greek had been spoken at Rome along with Latin. Every Roman with pretensions to being educated could speak it. Everyone involved in shipping and commerce, from banker to stevedore, could speak it. The list of the early Bishops of Rome has a fair proportion of Greek names. When Paul wrote an epistle to the Romans, he wrote in Greek as a matter of course. But in Gregory's lifetime this changed. Gregory was ambassador to the Eastern Patriarch at Constantinople for six years, but he never bothered to learn Greek. And in his day (not, as far as I have any reason to believe, as a result of his example or influence) most other Latin-speakers did not trouble to learn Greek either. The already existing difficulties of communication between Latin and Greek theologians were greatly exacerbated by this development. Increasingly, Latins did not read the commentaries and other writings of Greek Christians, and vice versa. Thus differences between the two that dialogue might have resolved were left to accumulate, culminating in the formal split between Latin and Greek Christendom in 1054.

If I were to select a ground on which this devout Christian of great accomplishments might reasonably be censured, it would be that his Dialogues, a book on the Lives of the Saints, is full of accounts of dreams and visions that various persons were said to have had of souls in Purgatory. Gregory, a man of keen critical judgment on many matters, was completely uncritical in his acceptance of these stories. A general belief in Purgatory was standard among Christians when he wrote; but his reliance on "ghost stories" to fill in the imaginative details gave the doctrine as held thereafter in Latin Christendom both a prominence and a coloring that it had not previously had, with results that many Christians, including adherents of the Pope, have found regrettable - and a constant impediment to church union.

PRAYER (traditional language):

Almighty and merciful God, who didst raise up Gregory of Rome to Be a servant of the servants of God, and didst inspire him to send missionaries to preach the Gospel to the English people: Preserve in thy Church the catholic and apostolic faith they taught, that thy people, being fruitful in every good work, may receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

PRAYER (contemporary language):

Almighty and merciful God, who raised up Gregory of Rome to Be a servant of the servants of God, and inspired him to send missionaries to preach the Gospel to the English people: Preserve in your Church the catholic and apostolic faith they taught, that your people, being fruitful in every good work, may receive the crown of glory that never fades away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Doctrine, Denominations, and Deceptive Devotion

Summer time is here. It's a time when denominational meetings occur (including my own, as well as the former name brand). Denominations are still important today - though more as missional networks and accountability groups, rather than bureaucracies. Denominations allow Christians of similar conviction and habit to work together with less friction than we would otherwise. They allow for some measure of distinctive theological and ecclesiological habitus to shape a people into God's multi-faceted family. However, we can all come back to the table as the Christian family so long as there is a strong family resemblance. In the church, we call that family resemblance orthodoxy (in early times called the rule of faith).

Some people who have rejected that ancient family resemblance will try to play the Pharisee card on people who question their place at the decision making table. They say "Doctrine divides" (even within denominations, where it's supposed to serve as a unifying principle). Most of the time, they hit the evangelical achilles heel of pietistic devotion by saying that we're all about the same Jesus. (See false-teacher Joel Osteen fall for that one on the Mormon question.) All of this posturing falls apart if you press the case with this Jesus approving something they don't like - which shows that he's just a figment of their imagination.

In light of the foregoing habits of some, I'd like to provide a timely quote from one of the greatest expositors of the 20th century.

You cannot separate what a man believes from what he is. For this reason doctrine is vitally important. Certain people say ignorantly, "I do not believe in doctrine; I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; I am saved, I am a Christian, and nothing else matters". To speak in that way is to court disaster, and for this reason, the New Testament itself warns us against this very danger.

We are to guard ourselves against being "tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine", for if your doctrine goes astray your life will soon suffer as well.

So it behoves us to study the doctrines in order that we may safeguard ourselves against certain erroneous and heretical teachings that are as rife and as common in the world today as they were in the days of the early Church.

--Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Exposition of Ephesians

h/t Thinkerup

Fun Facts on Life Insurance and the death of a church

Fun Fact:

On this date in 1761, the first American life insurance policy was issued. The policy was available to ministers for the Presbyterian Church. It was provided by the Presbyterian Synods in Philadelphia and New York who set up the Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers. Nevertheless, it proved to be unpopular as many ministers considered "insurance" to be a form of gambling.

They're still at it - the Presbyterian Church continues to provide death benefits for its minister members, virtually uninterrupted for 250 years. The financial resources of previous generations lend strength to the Board of Pensions, funding its important work. Unfortunately, the denomination has rejected the theological resources of the previous generations. Jettisoning the Westminster Standards (and adopting a sloppy substitute) has resulted in precipitous declines of membership and - more important - missional thinking and acting.

To all my friends in the PCUSA, I say this: There is no death policy for a church. The only thing that can be done for a dying church is to proclaim Christ's Resurrection with unflinching courage and conviction. If you want metaphorical, narrative growth - proclaim a rhetorical resurrection. But if you want real incarnational, missional, personal growth - proclaim his resurrection and ascension in the self-same body that suffered and died for our salvation.

Looking for ways to strengthen your congregation for meeting the great ends of the Church? Become a member of the Westminster Fellowship! (They'll even let Calvinist Anglicans like myself in...hey, it was our collegiate church!)

Catch that Calvinism

I just got an Easter card from a friend. It's lovely and well rendered, graphically. Take a look at it here. Do that before you read the rest of the post.





Now....can anybody guess why I find this card disheartening? Two thumbs up to the first contestant that gets it right!

Creativity an essential to religion

CAVEAT: I'm not PCUSA anymore, so this is tongue-in-cheek. (I don't have the class that Will Spotts shows in just staying out of it.) But it's my blog, so I can vent like that. This post was written before I was tidily swept out of the ordination process. However, with the recent GAPJC ruling, I think it's relevant. The real mess isn't about THE GAY, but about THE GOSPEL. Disobedience to evangelical truth lies at the root of the rot - across the mainlines sidelines.

At the bidding of Clifton Kirkpatrick, I was reflecting on what is essential to Christian faith. Since the only folks who will determine if I've met those essentials (and CPE) are in Holston Presbytery, I decided it best to visit the teaching ministry of our most Reformed blogger, who - unlike me - is able to hold ordained ministerial status. I found there an essential of creativity. With that in hand, I thought about the general impulse of the blog and decided I'd better get about the task of finding a politicized church where creativity was an essential (rather than all those essentials of the Christian faith he has trouble accepting or understanding, like the full deity of Christ and his second advent, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the Triune personhood of God).

I think I finally found one. It essentializes creativity, looks for logical / scientific / evolutionary answers to the world's problems, holds that Christian history is full of human horrors caused by supernaturalistic dogma, forbids thought of an afterlife, thinks that religion is best occupied by political action rather than doctrinal issues, and is all about taking care of the environment. They even emphasize women clergy! (That's one better than those NWACko winos!)

Ach! Zombies!

Over at Evangelical Outpost, they've posted an academic paper showing that vampires can't be real because they would have destroyed the human population by now. One problem - as anyone who has played Vampire: The Masquerade or read Anne Rice would know: Vampires don't have to kill the living in order to feed. Moreover, simply being bitten by a vampire isn't sufficient to turn the victim into one. Therefore, the smart vampire would feed selectively and never deplete the food supply.

Zombies, however, have no such finesse. They are a true scourge. And they hold particular horror for those of us who actually do believe that the dead have risen in the past and will rise in the future. And whose original sect was persecuted for "cannibalism" by the Romans. I'm starting to smell Jungian archetypes.... Or maybe Paul had something else in mind when he was talking to those wacky Galatians.

(post title taken from the best Simpsons Halloween segment ever!)

CPE - An Essential of the Faith

Back in November, I received a letter from the Presbytery Committee that oversees my candidacy for ordination: Complete a unit of CPE (and magically pay to feed, house, and insure your family while you're doing that instead of working) or be removed from the process.

Apparently, in Holston Presbytery, the essence of Reformed ministry is CPE and stuff like resurrection, or inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, or the Trinity are just, well, adiaphora.

God, where are You calling me to go? I'll follow...if You'll give me bread for the journey.

Miracles not on 119 West F Street

I try to leave John Shuck alone these days (he started deleting my comments, so what's the point of seeing him outside of a PJC?). But his recent post on miracles cuts to the heart of the disagreement that I and most other orthodox Christians have with him. Strangely enough, it's not THE GAY. It's THE MIRACULOUS.

The dividing line has already been drawn - we're just rehashing it hoping to come up with a different result. Machen, in his book title Christianity and Liberalism, showed that non-supernatural / modernist Christianity (which he termed liberalism) and supernatural / fundamentalist Christianity (which he simply called Christianity) are in fact two separate religions sharing a common source and some overlapping language. Of it, he said:

There is much interlocking of the branches, but the two tendencies, Modernism and supernaturalism, or (otherwise designated) non-doctrinal religion and historic Christianity, spring from different roots. In particular, I tried to show that Christianity is not a "life," as distinguished from a doctrine, and not a life that has doctrine as its changing symbolic expression, but that--exactly the other way around--it is a life founded on a doctrine.

Trying to be "nice" about it has let the bomb get bigger before it blows up in everyone's face. It would have been better to take a different route (especially in our denomination) 80+ years ago.

If you'd like to read on the historic and philosophical arguments that support the Bible's claims of the miraculous, visit (and support) Greg Koukl's ministry at Stand to Reason. I also highly recommend the work of Gary Habermas on miracles generally and especially on the resurrection of Jesus.

Correspondence on discipline and doctrine

Here's my initial email.

Rich,

I'm heartsick as I write this, but I don't know to whom I should turn.

Is Holston Presbytery aware of the theological positions of John Shuck? He broadcasts them on his blog, casting vitriolic derision on anyone who asks why a Presbyterian minister denounces the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the unique/ontological divinity of Jesus, and the inspiration of the Scriptures. Many (if not most) of his "theological explorations" end up equating God with the universe, or some other panentheistic concept. This is most repugnant because it represents a thorough collapse of Trinitarian Godhead. Given the level of misuse and neglect of the Trinity throughout our denomination (on both "sides"), the last seems especially troubling.

Am I alone in my concern for both him and the sheep entrusted to his care? I've gone to him personally, and communicated privately and semi-publicly. I'm not sure what else I can do

--
Chris

Here's the response I got.
Chris,
Thanks for your email.
You ask, "Is Holston Presbytery aware of the…" I can't speak for all of Holston Presbytery… but I can speak for myself and in regard to the Constitution of the PCUSA. So, let me try to address those concerns from my perspective and the Constitution.
I am aware of John Shuck's blog site. John is free to express his opinions and theological views—although much of what is on his blog are the viewpoints of other scholars and theologians—even if they are different from yours or mine or even mainstream Presbyterianism. John (and any ordained officer or church member, for that matter) is not free to depart from the practice of Presbyterian polity or Scripture.
The examination of officers and candidates for ordination is where an individual's conduct and beliefs are tested and judged by the Constitutional standards and according to the session's or presbytery's sense of orthodoxy. Church discipline in the PCUSA is designed to bring about repentance, reconciliation and restoration for those who have acted contrary to Scripture or the Constitution of the PCUSA.
John has appropriately and Constitutionally been examined by the Committee on Ministry, approved for membership in Holston Presbytery, and John has affirmed the Constitutional Questions required of ordination. I am not aware that John has acted contrary to Scripture or the Constitution of the PCUSA. (Just as I am not aware that you have acted contrary to Scripture or the Constitution of the PCUSA.)
I and the Committee on Ministry are charged with the responsibility of caring for pastors and congregations. Ideally, as the entire body of Christ, we all care for one another. So, my answer to your question, "Am I alone in my concern for [John] and the sheep entrusted to his care?" would be "No, you, Chris, are not alone."
Richard L. Fifield

I've sent comments along to other ministers within our presbytery, asking them to talk with John or the COM or the EP. No response has been given.

I was always proud (in a good way) to be from Holston. Good work is going on there. The gospel is being faithfully proclaimed (in word and in deed) by presbyters, deacons, and "laity." But when it comes to exercising discipline (formal or otherwise) against "troubler(s) of Israel," I'm guessing this is going to go in pretty much one direction.

I imagine that my CPM will see this as further evidence that I'm too adversarial to lead a church. Maybe. I doubt that the "heretics" at the various congregations I've served would say so. I'll talk Spong and Borg with them, and gently express what criticisms (and true statements) I find therein. But they are church members. Sometimes they are officers - but none are ministers.

As I read Paul's instructions to Timothy and Titus, the most pastoral approach to take with people that are unsteady in their doctrine is an educational one backed up by prayer for illumination and kindness. But this is not acceptable with those who would teach and lead. To turn a blind eye or deaf ear is not only unloving to the person who is stumbling in their doctrine, it's downright hateful to those who are under their teaching authority.

When I spoke with a friend in the Renewal network, I was asked if this was a hill I was willing to die on. The answer is "yes." I will risk my future in the PCUSA in order to clarify our denominational position towards those who mock the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus and decry God's merciful provision of salvation through Christ as mere exclusivist provincialism.

To that end, here are my public questions of complaint.
1. I'm not a polity guy, so there are things that aren't always clear to me. But my reading of the "shall" statements in our Directory for Worship (especially 2.2007, 3.3101(1), and 3.3401d) seem to necessitate that sermons be based upon the Scriptures. Would that mean that sermons based on the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Mary are acts contrary to our Constitution?

2. If doctrine doesn't matter, why would Timothy be instructed to watch both his life and his doctrine , because his (and his hearers') salvation was impacted by it?

3. Is preaching about the rotting body of Jesus an acceptable position within Holston Presbytery?

The problem isn't that Mr. Shuck reads and posts about these things. I'm all for that sort of freedom. The problem is that he believes them - so convinced is he of the truth that the Bible is not inspired (a belief he sees as sentimental at best, spurious, pernicious, and moot at worst), Jesus' body is still in the grave, and that there is no afterlife that he PREACHES these doctrines from a pulpit of Holston Presbytery. He veers dangerously close to (if not into) gnosticism, docetism, and unitarianism. If these doctrines - which are condemned by the Church catholic - are acceptable in a Minister of the Word and Sacrament in our denomination, then I need to know now before vows bind me any further.

As for me, there seems to be a veiled implication of my activity that is contrary to Scripture or our Constitution. I must admit that I have acted contrary to both. When I see the standards of righteousness and justice set before me in the pages of Holy Writ, I know that I not only fail to meet them but in many cases I willfully transgress. When I led a catechism class through the Westminster commentary on the Decalogue, I caught a renewed sense of my error (both in omission and commission). I was also driven even more forcefully to Christ as my only righteousness before the Godhead (and a foreign righteousness, at that).

That's why resurrection is such a big deal to me. I sin in my body and in my mind. And Paul declares that Jesus was raised for my justification ( Rom. 4:25). If Jesus is just a man, then he died for his own sins and not for mine - and that leaves me with a vain faith and no hope.

I have spoken with Mr. Shuck personally. I have communicated with him electronically. A number of ministers and elders from around the country have communicated with him and he still does not recant. I have no other option but to ask the church to intervene - for his sake and for the sake of his hearers. And if this action is considered unloving, mean-spirited, or arrogant then I need to go somewhere else, because I can almost guarantee that at some point in the future, I'll need a loving rebuke too.Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir! Amen.

Discovering Divine DNA

Okay...they've tested the DNA of the Talbiot tomb and found that the woman named Mariamene and the man they claim is named Joshua (the name is scratchy and hard to make out) are not related on their mother's side. Big whoop.

If the skeptics want me to believe that it's really Jesus of Nazareth, they're going to have to show one convincing bit of evidence: haploidy. Of course, if he's really virgin-born would we even be seriously considering that his bones would be on earth?

Resurrection Fun

Okay - it's Lent. That means that we're preparing ourselves for one thing: EASTER!!!

I understand that our repentance (which should be continual, but is especially intentional in this season) is often accompanied by a somber turn of character. However, in the interests of keeping Lent a truly proleptic time of anticipation (kinda like Advent), I encourage everyone to repent of their unbelief in the true, bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sure, there are people who don't believe it and say as much (some of whom who should really know better). But there are plenty of folks that would confess belief in Jesus' triumph over death, yet the accompanying joy of that fact never reaches their hearts (much less their daily living). Folks, there is only one response to Jesus Christ having been raised for our justification (Rom. 4:25) - a more profound ALLELUIA!!

As James Dennison reminds us:

Eschatological death is past for us—Jesus paid it all.

Eschatological judgment is past for us—Jesus endured it all.

Eschatological wrath is past for us—Jesus bore it all.

Eschatological righteousness is present for us—Jesus has it all.

Eschatological forgiveness is present for us—Jesus gives it all.

Eschatological life is present for us—Jesus lives it all.

Even now to those who are in Christ Jesus—no condemnation!

Even now to those who are in Christ Jesus—no more wrath!

Even now to those who are in Christ Jesus—no more death!

Even now to those who are in Christ Jesus—you are justified!

Even now to those who are in Christ Jesus—you are forgiven!

Even now to those who are in Christ Jesus—you have been raised from the dead!

In that spirit, I encourage you all to take this whimsical test by Gary Habermas.