I have a personal policy that prevents me from identifying my choices in an election. I believe that it would be detrimental to my work as a pastor to choose sides publicly in an election contest. Now, I’ll talk issues; as a matter of fact, prophetic preaching demands that issues, including those that relate to public policy, be addressed. And, frankly, sometimes when a pastor addresses public policy issues she or he may come off sounding like one candidate rather than another. I believe, given that possibility, that it is wise to discuss such issues at times as far removed from an election cycle as possible. Of course, that gets harder all the time, since presidential campaigns now last two years or longer.
Because I am going to talk about Newt Gingrich in this post, I am going to make an exception to my policy and reveal that I voted for him once. The year was 1976 and I had absolutely no idea who Newt Gingrich was. As a matter of fact, I was not really voting for Gingrich; I was voting against his opponent, Rep. John J. Flynt. During my freshman year in high school in 1973, I had gone to Washington for a week as part of a government studies program sponsored by the Close Up Foundation. All of the students in our group were from Georgia. During the week we had the privilege of meeting with our congressional representatives. Rep. Flynt was the congressman from my district. During our question and answer session with him, he responded to a query in a manner that made me conclude, with much fourteen-year-old indignation, that he had outgrown his usefulness. I remember neither the question nor the answer verbatim, but a student asked him something about a situation in our district and Flynt’s answer seemed to me to have elements of “that’s a local problem and I’m a national politician.” I may have misheard and I’m certain that I overreacted, but I decided then and there that if I ever had the chance I’d vote against him. That chance came in 1976, the year I turned eighteen. So I voted for Gingrich. Incidentally, Gingrich lost that election. He won two years later; I believe that Flynt did not run for reelection that year.
Gingrich is in the news these days because he seems to be toying, along with just about every other politician of note and a few of little note, with the idea of running for president. In recent days his personal life has been the topic of much discussion. He appeared last week on James Dobson’s radio program and in that interview, Dobson asked him about an alleged extramarital affair. Gingrich admitted that he had been involved in an affair during the same period that he was leading the impeachment charge against President Clinton that developed following the revelation of Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Gingrich expressed repentance over his actions. He also tried to make the case that the situation with Clinton was of a different nature because of Clinton’s alleged perjury. I do think that some distinction has to be made between “high crimes and misdemeanors” on the one hand and acts of personal immorality or failing on the other. Wrong is wrong, but we certainly need our public officials to respect and follow the law.
As I said, Gingrich admitted to the affair. He is in his third marriage. He has a new book out entitled Rediscovering God in America. He will be the graduation speaker at Liberty University this spring.
Let me repeat: he has admitted to an extramarital affair; he is in his third marriage; he has written a book called Rediscovering God in America; he is going to speak at Jerry Falwell’s college; and he is probably going to run for president. Many conservatives, including some of the “evangelical Christian" variety, are allegedly excited about the prospect. My first reaction to that is “Wow.” On the other hand, it may show some evidence of what some might consider a developing maturity on the part of religious conservatives. If Gingrich truly represents their positions on public policy issues and if they can trust him to pursue those positions, maybe it says something good about them that they can overlook his moral failings and/or accept his statements of repentance. Of course, when it comes to politicians with whose policies Christian conservative leaders disagree, those leaders usually want to make the case that you can’t separate a leader’s private life from his public life and that it is a slippery slope from personal immorality to public corruption.
Gingrich is not alone in having his private life paraded before the entire country. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s marital and extra-marital situations have been bandied about a lot, too. He has also been married three times and he has been involved in some very public infidelity. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission recently said of Giuliani, "I mean, this is divorce on steroids…. To publicly humiliate your wife in that way, and your children. That's rough. I think that's going to be an awfully hard sell, even if he weren't pro-choice and pro-gun control." On the other hand, Giuliani is going to speak as a part of the executive leadership series at Pat Robertson’s Regent University in April. Mitt Romney will be Regent’s commencement speaker. Romney is a Mormon who has been married to the same woman for thirty-eight years.
I find all of this very interesting and I think it’s highly problematic for social and religious conservatives. Giuliani has the leadership credentials but has personal and policy problems. Gingrich has the policy credentials but has personal issues. Romney is the epitome of a family values candidate but, and I say this with all due respect to Mormons, he’s a Mormon, and that’s going to be a problem for a lot of “mainstream” Christian evangelical types.
It is fair to ask whether some conservative Christian leaders are being hypocritical by their implicit or explicit support of candidates with whom they have common ground on the issues but whose personal lives have run so counter to what those leaders stand for. It is also fair to ask whether in other cases more liberal Christian leaders have been wrong to downplay the moral failings of other politicians with whose policies they were in agreement. It seems to me that if you’re going to bash any politician for marital infidelities or other personal sins, then you ought to bash all of them—if you have that much time on your hands.
On the other hand, maybe it’s good to be able to see beyond the personal failings of candidates and to focus on the ways in which they would lead and the agendas they would pursue. Maybe it’s good to accept someone’s statement of repentance so long as we are careful not to hear what we want to hear so that we can support someone that we think will promote our priorities. Maybe it’s good to realize that presidents and prospective presidents are real people who have to lead a real nation in the real world.
Still, I think I’ll keep holding out for a candidate who shares my values, who supports my preferred policies right down the line, who thinks just like I do, who looks and talks like I do, and who has a family that looks just like mine.
Heaven help me, I think I just announced my candidacy!
Rest assured—if nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Opportunity Knocks
(A sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent based on Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9)
Do you remember the Flip Wilson Show? One of his recurring characters was Rev. Leroy, who served as the minister of The Church of What’s Happening Now. “What’s happening now” is a hot topic for people who try to lead churches. We are always trying to find that balance between leading the church to be contemporary enough to be relevant while at the same time bearing sufficient witness to the old, old story. Whatever medium we use to communicate the message, we always want the Gospel message to come through clearly. One answer to the question “What’s happening now?” is that a lot of the same things are happening now that have always been happening. As my high school history teacher Mr. Julian was fond of saying, some things have been happening “ever since Adam and Eve came out of the garden.” Sin certainly falls in that category.
What is sin? Perhaps you think that it is not necessary to formulate an answer to that question. Most of us figure that we could say about sin what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said in 1964 about obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” There are problems with such a presumption, however.
For one thing, we tend to see sin in others before we see it in ourselves or more than we see it in ourselves. While it is impossible to know exactly what was in the hearts of the people with whom Jesus was conversing in today’s Gospel lesson, we can make some pretty good guesses based on the flow of the discussion. Luke tells us that some people told Jesus about some Galileans who had been killed by Pontius Pilate. In response Jesus said, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way that they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” His question pushed them to think about whether the great tragedy suffered by those people was an indication that they had greater sin in their lives than other people did. Perhaps he also intended for it to push them to consider the validity of any belief that they themselves were less guilty than those who had been killed. You know how those questioners might have been because you know how we can be. If we can conclude that others are sinners and we are not or that others are worse sinners than we are, it can, in a pathetic kind of way, make us feel better about ourselves.
For another thing, we tend to form our own limited definition of what constitutes sin. We may think of certain sinful acts as worse than other sinful acts. We may regard personal acts of immorality as sin, which they are, but tend not to think so negatively of sins of the heart, sins of attitude, or sins of neglect that are just as sinful in God’s eyes. Again, we tend to be especially skilled at calling something sin that we see in someone else’s life but turning a blind eye to the sin that is present in our own lives. The truth is, though, that sin is sin and that every human being who has ever lived, who lives now, and who ever will live is in need of repentance and forgiveness.
You see, then, that understanding sin is not as simple as concluding that we will know it when we see it. Therefore, it may be helpful for me to pose a definition for you. There are several good definitions of sin that have a biblical foundation. Sin can be defined, for example, as “missing the mark,” as “trying to be your own god,” or as “living outside of a relationship with God.” I’d like to offer another definition for you that I believe is also grounded in biblical teaching: sin is missed opportunity. Another way to put that would be to say that sin is settling for less than God in his mercy and grace intends for us.
God has given us the opportunity to live the kind of life that will lead to fulfillment and joy. Now, in some ways, life is a struggle for anybody and everybody. Living God’s kind of life does not eliminate struggle. We will all have hard questions and difficult choices and we will all experience painful events and tragic circumstances. Still, we can know fulfillment and joy even in the midst of hard times if we submit ourselves to the Lord and live in relationship with him. We can have the life God intended for us if we will look past the things out of which our culture makes false gods but which ultimately have no value—money, status, power, prestige, reputation—and let God give us the realities that have ultimate value—a relationship with him, a place in his family, and a part in his purpose.
It is sad that so many people insist on going the way of the world that turns the transient into the ultimate and that finally leads to frustration and judgment. It is a wondrous event when someone turns from that way and turns to the Savior in whom ultimate meaning is found and through whom fulfillment and redemption are experienced.
Such a wondrous event can happen for you right now. I have defined sin as missed opportunity, by which I mean missing the opportunity to live God’s kind of life which is clearly the best kind of life to live. But you don’t have to continue missing that opportunity. Opportunity is knocking. It is knocking because God is standing at the door of your heart, patiently seeking entry. He is standing there, offering forgiveness. So long as God makes forgiveness available you have the opportunity to repent and to experience real life. Why would you ignore him? How can he make the offer more obvious?
We were in a store the other day. We were ready to check out. No one was at the registers at the front of the store. I saw two employees standing in front of the customer service desk. One of them was talking to a customer; the other was standing there, listening. I walked over and stood near them, directly in their line of vision. They ignored me. Finally, I waved my arms over my head like I was trying to flag a taxi. I really did. Still, no one said, “May I help you?” One of them just looked at me like I was crazy until I asked, “Is there someone here to take my money?” She pointed me to a register at which no one was working. I walked over to it and someone magically appeared. God is standing right over there, waving his arms in front of us. He has done everything he can to get our attention. Above all else, he has sent his Son Jesus into this world to die for our sins. How much longer will you ignore him?
Indeed, God has been making the same offer for 2000 years. Have you heard the story about the jogger who would run by the bagel stand every day? The stand sold bagels for fifty cents. Every day as the jogger would pass the stand he would throw two quarters in the bucket but he never took a bagel. After months of this activity, one day the proprietor stopped him. The jogger said, “You probably want to know why I always put money in but never take a bagel, don’t you?” The vendor replied, “No, I just wanted to tell you that the bagels have gone up to sixty cents” (Cindy Hess Kasper, “What God Owes Us,” Our Daily Bread, January 22, 2007). God has been amazingly patient with us. The price of forgiveness has not gone up for 2000 years and it never will. Jesus really did pay it all.
2000 years is a long time, but opportunity will not knock forever. God in his grace has waited, giving us the opportunity to repent. But neither life nor time will last forever. Will you open your heart today to the gracious knocking of our God?
Do you remember the Flip Wilson Show? One of his recurring characters was Rev. Leroy, who served as the minister of The Church of What’s Happening Now. “What’s happening now” is a hot topic for people who try to lead churches. We are always trying to find that balance between leading the church to be contemporary enough to be relevant while at the same time bearing sufficient witness to the old, old story. Whatever medium we use to communicate the message, we always want the Gospel message to come through clearly. One answer to the question “What’s happening now?” is that a lot of the same things are happening now that have always been happening. As my high school history teacher Mr. Julian was fond of saying, some things have been happening “ever since Adam and Eve came out of the garden.” Sin certainly falls in that category.
What is sin? Perhaps you think that it is not necessary to formulate an answer to that question. Most of us figure that we could say about sin what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said in 1964 about obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” There are problems with such a presumption, however.
For one thing, we tend to see sin in others before we see it in ourselves or more than we see it in ourselves. While it is impossible to know exactly what was in the hearts of the people with whom Jesus was conversing in today’s Gospel lesson, we can make some pretty good guesses based on the flow of the discussion. Luke tells us that some people told Jesus about some Galileans who had been killed by Pontius Pilate. In response Jesus said, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way that they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” His question pushed them to think about whether the great tragedy suffered by those people was an indication that they had greater sin in their lives than other people did. Perhaps he also intended for it to push them to consider the validity of any belief that they themselves were less guilty than those who had been killed. You know how those questioners might have been because you know how we can be. If we can conclude that others are sinners and we are not or that others are worse sinners than we are, it can, in a pathetic kind of way, make us feel better about ourselves.
For another thing, we tend to form our own limited definition of what constitutes sin. We may think of certain sinful acts as worse than other sinful acts. We may regard personal acts of immorality as sin, which they are, but tend not to think so negatively of sins of the heart, sins of attitude, or sins of neglect that are just as sinful in God’s eyes. Again, we tend to be especially skilled at calling something sin that we see in someone else’s life but turning a blind eye to the sin that is present in our own lives. The truth is, though, that sin is sin and that every human being who has ever lived, who lives now, and who ever will live is in need of repentance and forgiveness.
You see, then, that understanding sin is not as simple as concluding that we will know it when we see it. Therefore, it may be helpful for me to pose a definition for you. There are several good definitions of sin that have a biblical foundation. Sin can be defined, for example, as “missing the mark,” as “trying to be your own god,” or as “living outside of a relationship with God.” I’d like to offer another definition for you that I believe is also grounded in biblical teaching: sin is missed opportunity. Another way to put that would be to say that sin is settling for less than God in his mercy and grace intends for us.
God has given us the opportunity to live the kind of life that will lead to fulfillment and joy. Now, in some ways, life is a struggle for anybody and everybody. Living God’s kind of life does not eliminate struggle. We will all have hard questions and difficult choices and we will all experience painful events and tragic circumstances. Still, we can know fulfillment and joy even in the midst of hard times if we submit ourselves to the Lord and live in relationship with him. We can have the life God intended for us if we will look past the things out of which our culture makes false gods but which ultimately have no value—money, status, power, prestige, reputation—and let God give us the realities that have ultimate value—a relationship with him, a place in his family, and a part in his purpose.
It is sad that so many people insist on going the way of the world that turns the transient into the ultimate and that finally leads to frustration and judgment. It is a wondrous event when someone turns from that way and turns to the Savior in whom ultimate meaning is found and through whom fulfillment and redemption are experienced.
Such a wondrous event can happen for you right now. I have defined sin as missed opportunity, by which I mean missing the opportunity to live God’s kind of life which is clearly the best kind of life to live. But you don’t have to continue missing that opportunity. Opportunity is knocking. It is knocking because God is standing at the door of your heart, patiently seeking entry. He is standing there, offering forgiveness. So long as God makes forgiveness available you have the opportunity to repent and to experience real life. Why would you ignore him? How can he make the offer more obvious?
We were in a store the other day. We were ready to check out. No one was at the registers at the front of the store. I saw two employees standing in front of the customer service desk. One of them was talking to a customer; the other was standing there, listening. I walked over and stood near them, directly in their line of vision. They ignored me. Finally, I waved my arms over my head like I was trying to flag a taxi. I really did. Still, no one said, “May I help you?” One of them just looked at me like I was crazy until I asked, “Is there someone here to take my money?” She pointed me to a register at which no one was working. I walked over to it and someone magically appeared. God is standing right over there, waving his arms in front of us. He has done everything he can to get our attention. Above all else, he has sent his Son Jesus into this world to die for our sins. How much longer will you ignore him?
Indeed, God has been making the same offer for 2000 years. Have you heard the story about the jogger who would run by the bagel stand every day? The stand sold bagels for fifty cents. Every day as the jogger would pass the stand he would throw two quarters in the bucket but he never took a bagel. After months of this activity, one day the proprietor stopped him. The jogger said, “You probably want to know why I always put money in but never take a bagel, don’t you?” The vendor replied, “No, I just wanted to tell you that the bagels have gone up to sixty cents” (Cindy Hess Kasper, “What God Owes Us,” Our Daily Bread, January 22, 2007). God has been amazingly patient with us. The price of forgiveness has not gone up for 2000 years and it never will. Jesus really did pay it all.
2000 years is a long time, but opportunity will not knock forever. God in his grace has waited, giving us the opportunity to repent. But neither life nor time will last forever. Will you open your heart today to the gracious knocking of our God?
Sunday, March 11, 2007
In a Country Where They Turn Back Time
(Sabbath Blog #8)
The title of this post is a line from Scottish songwriter and singer Al Stewart’s 1976 song Year of the Cat, from the album of the same name. The song begins,
On a morning from a Bogart movie,
in a country where they turn back time;
you go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
contemplating a crime.
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
like a watercolor in the rain.
Don't bother asking for explanations
she'll just tell you that she came
in the year of the cat.
I can’t be sure that the line refers to turning the clock back when a country goes from Daylight Saving Time (DST) to Standard Time. In fact, I doubt it does, given the references to Bogart and Lorre; Stewart seems to be trying to paint a picture of a romance against a film noirish, foggy, and melancholy kind of canvas.
Nevertheless, when I hear the song, I think of the fact that in this country and in about 70% of the world, once a year we set our clocks forward and once a year we set them back. Spring forward, fall back. Well, this year the United States Congress has moved the start of Daylight Saving Time ahead by three weeks so that today, ten days before Spring even begins, we went to DST.
While the idea of DST supposedly began with Benjamin Franklin, the United States was not the first nation to adopt it; that honor goes to Germany, which did it in 1916. Congress authorized DST in this country in 1918 but it was disliked so much it was repealed in the following year. President Roosevelt reinstituted it on a year-round basis during World War II as “war time.” Following the end of the war and of year-round DST, many states adopted their own DST practices. In 1966, Congress adopted the Uniform Time Act, which set a uniform pattern for time changes during the summer. Another experiment with year-round DST was tried in 1974-1975 during the OPEC oil embargo. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 moved the start of DST from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March and the end of it from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November. (Historical information from CNN.com.)
The other day I heard someone ask what I think is a fair question: by what definition of “standard” is Standard Time standard when it is followed only four months of the year while DST is observed for eight months? Hasn’t DST become the “standard time”?
I do agree that there are sound ethical reasons for having and even expanding DST. For one thing, statistics show that energy, especially electricity, is conserved during DST months. Statistics also show that traffic accidents decrease during those months. We are also encouraged to put fresh batteries in our smoke detectors on the same nights that we change our clocks, and it stands to reason that lives will be saved as more of us adopt that practice. I do wonder if, since there are clear-cut advantages to the practice of DST, we ought not make it a year-round practice.
Still, I am opposed to that as a matter of self-preservation. The extended daylight in the evening makes is possible to work in the yard until well into the night. All too often what is possible comes to feel like what is necessary. When I get to thinking about mowing the lawn or trimming the hedges or raking the leaves, I’d like to have at least four months where I can say, “I can’t—it’s too dark.”
The title of this post is a line from Scottish songwriter and singer Al Stewart’s 1976 song Year of the Cat, from the album of the same name. The song begins,
On a morning from a Bogart movie,
in a country where they turn back time;
you go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
contemplating a crime.
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
like a watercolor in the rain.
Don't bother asking for explanations
she'll just tell you that she came
in the year of the cat.
I can’t be sure that the line refers to turning the clock back when a country goes from Daylight Saving Time (DST) to Standard Time. In fact, I doubt it does, given the references to Bogart and Lorre; Stewart seems to be trying to paint a picture of a romance against a film noirish, foggy, and melancholy kind of canvas.
Nevertheless, when I hear the song, I think of the fact that in this country and in about 70% of the world, once a year we set our clocks forward and once a year we set them back. Spring forward, fall back. Well, this year the United States Congress has moved the start of Daylight Saving Time ahead by three weeks so that today, ten days before Spring even begins, we went to DST.
While the idea of DST supposedly began with Benjamin Franklin, the United States was not the first nation to adopt it; that honor goes to Germany, which did it in 1916. Congress authorized DST in this country in 1918 but it was disliked so much it was repealed in the following year. President Roosevelt reinstituted it on a year-round basis during World War II as “war time.” Following the end of the war and of year-round DST, many states adopted their own DST practices. In 1966, Congress adopted the Uniform Time Act, which set a uniform pattern for time changes during the summer. Another experiment with year-round DST was tried in 1974-1975 during the OPEC oil embargo. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 moved the start of DST from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March and the end of it from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November. (Historical information from CNN.com.)
The other day I heard someone ask what I think is a fair question: by what definition of “standard” is Standard Time standard when it is followed only four months of the year while DST is observed for eight months? Hasn’t DST become the “standard time”?
I do agree that there are sound ethical reasons for having and even expanding DST. For one thing, statistics show that energy, especially electricity, is conserved during DST months. Statistics also show that traffic accidents decrease during those months. We are also encouraged to put fresh batteries in our smoke detectors on the same nights that we change our clocks, and it stands to reason that lives will be saved as more of us adopt that practice. I do wonder if, since there are clear-cut advantages to the practice of DST, we ought not make it a year-round practice.
Still, I am opposed to that as a matter of self-preservation. The extended daylight in the evening makes is possible to work in the yard until well into the night. All too often what is possible comes to feel like what is necessary. When I get to thinking about mowing the lawn or trimming the hedges or raking the leaves, I’d like to have at least four months where I can say, “I can’t—it’s too dark.”
Friday, March 9, 2007
Being Baptist
I have often jokingly said that I was a Baptist before I was a Christian. While I am joking when I say it, technically it’s true. My parents, as my mother never tired of telling me, took me to the Midway Baptist Church four miles outside of Barnesville, Georgia for the first time when I was ten days old. I suspect that I was added to what they called the Cradle Roll (a means by which a baby could be enrolled in Sunday School) within minutes of my exit from the womb. I was baptized when I was seven years old. Therefore, technically, I was a Baptist before I was a Christian.
The Christian heritage is rich and diverse. All the branches of the Christian tree offer something valuable to the tradition. As a Baptist pastor, I spend most of my time around Baptists. I am convinced that I have built up a resistance to Baptist germs because I have visited so many Baptists in the hospital! When I have the opportunity to be around people of other Christian traditions I find myself comparing my particular faith expression to theirs. There is much in those other traditions that I admire. I often “catch” something very good from them. But there is much in mine that I admire, too.
A few months ago a publication asked me to contribute to an issue with the theme “Why I Am a Baptist.” I confess that on the morning that I sat down to write my article I stared at my computer screen for a very, very long time. The reason for that wasn’t that I couldn’t think of any reasons; it was a recurrence of a chronic problem I have—I always want to sound original. But I couldn’t come up with any original thoughts on why I am a Baptist. In other words, my reasons are the same reasons that many people have listed for very many years.
I have never found a better way to list those reasons than that offered by Rev. Jim Pitts in his sermon at a Georgia Baptist Convention meeting in Savannah, GA sometime around 1990. In his sermon he said that Baptists had historically stood on five great principles that began with the letters A, B, C, P, and S.
A is for the Authority of the Bible.
B is for Believer’s Baptism.
C is for Church Autonomy.
P is for the Priesthood of Believers.
S is for Separation of Church and State.
I still believe in all five of those bedrock Baptist principles. I believe in them so much that even were I to join another Christian faith tradition I would still in my heart be a Baptist.
So that’s why I still am one!
The Christian heritage is rich and diverse. All the branches of the Christian tree offer something valuable to the tradition. As a Baptist pastor, I spend most of my time around Baptists. I am convinced that I have built up a resistance to Baptist germs because I have visited so many Baptists in the hospital! When I have the opportunity to be around people of other Christian traditions I find myself comparing my particular faith expression to theirs. There is much in those other traditions that I admire. I often “catch” something very good from them. But there is much in mine that I admire, too.
A few months ago a publication asked me to contribute to an issue with the theme “Why I Am a Baptist.” I confess that on the morning that I sat down to write my article I stared at my computer screen for a very, very long time. The reason for that wasn’t that I couldn’t think of any reasons; it was a recurrence of a chronic problem I have—I always want to sound original. But I couldn’t come up with any original thoughts on why I am a Baptist. In other words, my reasons are the same reasons that many people have listed for very many years.
I have never found a better way to list those reasons than that offered by Rev. Jim Pitts in his sermon at a Georgia Baptist Convention meeting in Savannah, GA sometime around 1990. In his sermon he said that Baptists had historically stood on five great principles that began with the letters A, B, C, P, and S.
A is for the Authority of the Bible.
B is for Believer’s Baptism.
C is for Church Autonomy.
P is for the Priesthood of Believers.
S is for Separation of Church and State.
I still believe in all five of those bedrock Baptist principles. I believe in them so much that even were I to join another Christian faith tradition I would still in my heart be a Baptist.
So that’s why I still am one!
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Read More of Josh Ruffin's Work
You can do so at www.metrospirit.com. Once there, click on "Music." The stories "Drawn to Banjos" and "Review: Mayhem String Band" are by Joshua. "Drawn to Banjos" is also in the Spirit's print edition. You can also read two of his CD reviews on that same page; his are the first and third ones.
Obviously, I want you to read our son's work, but while you're there, take a look at the rest of the website. They have some really interesting stuff.
Obviously, I want you to read our son's work, but while you're there, take a look at the rest of the website. They have some really interesting stuff.
Living the Forgiven Life: Engage in the Struggle
(A Lenten devotion based on Exodus 17:1-7; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42)
Sometimes we say that we came to Christ or that someone else ought to come to Christ as if it is a simple thing. And in a way it is simple. We must never add anything to the simple child-like faith that is required if one is going to become a follower of Christ. Still, to get to that point of faith, to that place where one can throw oneself at the feet of Christ in utter child-like dependence, can be a struggle. I think of Herod Agrippa who said to Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” It can be a long way from “almost” to “all right.” A good example of what I am talking about is found in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, a story that had a happy ending.
When Jesus met the Samaritan woman, all kinds of realities stood between him and her. In the first place, there were ethnic barriers. She was Samaritan while he was Jewish. In the second place, there were social barriers. She was a woman while he was a man. In the third place, there were religious barriers, for while the Samaritans and the Jews worshipped the same God they did so different ways, including having competing temples and differing collections of Scripture. And so when they encountered each other a situation of confrontation was set up. Something to admire in this woman is the fact that she hung in there with Jesus and was willing to engage him in the struggle. She entered into a dialogue with Jesus.
I put before you the observation that so long as one is willing to dialogue with Jesus the hope exists that a breakthrough will occur. We Christians need not be threatened by those who ask questions and who challenge what we say or believe. The ones to be truly concerned about are those who have so little interest that they just don’t care one way or another.
So the woman at the well struggled with Jesus. She struggled against the backdrop of her religious background, her ethnic background, and her social background. Where the breakthrough began to occur, though, was when the struggle moved to the issue of her personal life. Here was a woman who had to go out to the well every day to get water. It was a part of the hum-drum struggle of her daily life. Now, this strange man offers her water and promises that if she’ll drink it she’ll never be thirsty again and that it will give her eternal life. I guess she was thinking literally and physically when she responded, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Then, though, Jesus turned the conversation in a direction that pointed toward her area of real thirst, an area of thirst much more real and much more vital than physical thirst. “Go, call your husband and come back,” he said. “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus answered, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” To which she (understandably) responded, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.” He had cut to the heart of the matter. What drove her to go from man to man like that? What caused her to grope and grasp and reach out for love, constantly failing but always trying again? At the point of her deepest need Christ offered his greatest help. In her recognition that he was the Messiah came her hope. Jesus calls you to admit your place of deepest need, your place of deepest hurt. And then he will come to you at just that point.
Some people think, it seems to me, that struggling should end once you find forgiveness in Christ and once you commit your life to being his disciple. That’s a fallacy that people understandably accept, since our initial acceptance of Christ puts many ultimate issues to rest. When sin, death, and hell have been taken care of, what’s left? Well, there’s actually a lot left. We who are Christians, who have been forgiven, still need to engage in the struggle that comes with trying to live as God’s people. Indeed, coming to faith in Christ does not bring the struggle to an end. It continues. The question is not whether or not we will struggle. The question is what we will do with the struggle. The meaning of the struggle is found in what we do with it.
Will we murmur and complain? That’s what the Hebrews did. Now, we need to state right up front that the life of discipleship is a journey. It’s a process. We have to walk the walk and we have to walk it one step at a time. Sometimes the walk becomes difficult. God saved the Hebrews. He brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand. He led them across the sea. And almost immediately they began to complain. They complained at a place called Marah because the water was bitter and God gave them clean water (15:22-25a). They complained at the wilderness of Sin because they were hungry and God gave them manna and quail to eat (16:1ff). In today’s text they came to a place called Rephidim and there they complained because there was no water. This time God told Moses to strike a rock with his staff and water came from the rock. Moses called the place Massah and Meribah, which mean “Test” and “Quarrel,” respectively, because of the attitude of the people. The issue at the heart of their complaining was “Is the LORD among us or not?” (v. 7).
Let’s be fair about this. First, these were real issues that the people were raising. Food and water are indispensable human needs. They were not voicing complaints over trivial matters. Without food and water, they would die. Sometime we complain over trivial issues and we just need to stop being silly. But some issues really are life and death issues. Second, the Bible does not prohibit complaint and lament. Indeed, the book of Psalms contains more laments than any other type of psalm. It is appropriate when we are suffering and struggling to pour our hearts out to the Lord. It is appropriate that we be honest and open with him about what we are experiencing and about that with which we are struggling. Indeed, it is dishonest not to do so. He’s big enough to handle it.
Yet the Hebrews should have learned something by the time they got to Rephidim. I can understand their fears about food. I can understand their initial fear about water. But God had already intervened on their behalf twice. He had already proven through the primary salvation event of the Exodus and through the manna, the quail, and the turning of the bitter water into sweet, that he was among his people. The Hebrews ought to have learned something through what they had already experienced. We should learn and grow through what we experience. That’s what our experiences are for. Our experiences, even the most difficult ones we have, can and should serve to teach us the truth that God is with us.
This brings us to the other possibility. Will we grow in endurance and hope? We who are Christians have already experienced our primary salvation event; we have been saved through the cross of Christ. Paul reminds us, “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand” (Romans 5:1-2a). This has happened; it is the way it is. And having experienced God’s grace through faith and having come to have peace with God in the present, we look forward to God’s great future when we will share in the glory of God (v. 2b). Christ died for us while we were sinners (vv. 6-8) and we can be sure that he will finish the work he has started in us (vv. 9-11). But in the present times can get hard. We can suffer. We can have trials. Many if not most of you are sitting here this morning carrying heavy burdens of suffering and trial. Others of our fellowship are not here today precisely because of the heavy burdens they are bearing.
Paul gives us the glorious word that even our suffering contributes to our walk with God and to our development as Christians. The coming of suffering is a fact. The question is what we will do with it. Paul tells us that we can boast in our present suffering just as much as we boast in our future glory because they are tied together. “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (vv. 3b-5). It’s worth the struggle. It’s worth the struggle because every time we experience pain we learn that God is with us. And each experience should teach and remind us and make us even surer that he is with us. God made the ultimate statement that he is with us in our suffering by suffering alongside us and for us in Calvary’s cross.
Yes, struggle, but remember that the struggle can make us surer of what God will finish in us. Engage in the struggle because it is in the struggle that we become sure of the love and the hope that are in us.
Sometimes we say that we came to Christ or that someone else ought to come to Christ as if it is a simple thing. And in a way it is simple. We must never add anything to the simple child-like faith that is required if one is going to become a follower of Christ. Still, to get to that point of faith, to that place where one can throw oneself at the feet of Christ in utter child-like dependence, can be a struggle. I think of Herod Agrippa who said to Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” It can be a long way from “almost” to “all right.” A good example of what I am talking about is found in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, a story that had a happy ending.
When Jesus met the Samaritan woman, all kinds of realities stood between him and her. In the first place, there were ethnic barriers. She was Samaritan while he was Jewish. In the second place, there were social barriers. She was a woman while he was a man. In the third place, there were religious barriers, for while the Samaritans and the Jews worshipped the same God they did so different ways, including having competing temples and differing collections of Scripture. And so when they encountered each other a situation of confrontation was set up. Something to admire in this woman is the fact that she hung in there with Jesus and was willing to engage him in the struggle. She entered into a dialogue with Jesus.
I put before you the observation that so long as one is willing to dialogue with Jesus the hope exists that a breakthrough will occur. We Christians need not be threatened by those who ask questions and who challenge what we say or believe. The ones to be truly concerned about are those who have so little interest that they just don’t care one way or another.
So the woman at the well struggled with Jesus. She struggled against the backdrop of her religious background, her ethnic background, and her social background. Where the breakthrough began to occur, though, was when the struggle moved to the issue of her personal life. Here was a woman who had to go out to the well every day to get water. It was a part of the hum-drum struggle of her daily life. Now, this strange man offers her water and promises that if she’ll drink it she’ll never be thirsty again and that it will give her eternal life. I guess she was thinking literally and physically when she responded, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Then, though, Jesus turned the conversation in a direction that pointed toward her area of real thirst, an area of thirst much more real and much more vital than physical thirst. “Go, call your husband and come back,” he said. “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus answered, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” To which she (understandably) responded, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.” He had cut to the heart of the matter. What drove her to go from man to man like that? What caused her to grope and grasp and reach out for love, constantly failing but always trying again? At the point of her deepest need Christ offered his greatest help. In her recognition that he was the Messiah came her hope. Jesus calls you to admit your place of deepest need, your place of deepest hurt. And then he will come to you at just that point.
Some people think, it seems to me, that struggling should end once you find forgiveness in Christ and once you commit your life to being his disciple. That’s a fallacy that people understandably accept, since our initial acceptance of Christ puts many ultimate issues to rest. When sin, death, and hell have been taken care of, what’s left? Well, there’s actually a lot left. We who are Christians, who have been forgiven, still need to engage in the struggle that comes with trying to live as God’s people. Indeed, coming to faith in Christ does not bring the struggle to an end. It continues. The question is not whether or not we will struggle. The question is what we will do with the struggle. The meaning of the struggle is found in what we do with it.
Will we murmur and complain? That’s what the Hebrews did. Now, we need to state right up front that the life of discipleship is a journey. It’s a process. We have to walk the walk and we have to walk it one step at a time. Sometimes the walk becomes difficult. God saved the Hebrews. He brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand. He led them across the sea. And almost immediately they began to complain. They complained at a place called Marah because the water was bitter and God gave them clean water (15:22-25a). They complained at the wilderness of Sin because they were hungry and God gave them manna and quail to eat (16:1ff). In today’s text they came to a place called Rephidim and there they complained because there was no water. This time God told Moses to strike a rock with his staff and water came from the rock. Moses called the place Massah and Meribah, which mean “Test” and “Quarrel,” respectively, because of the attitude of the people. The issue at the heart of their complaining was “Is the LORD among us or not?” (v. 7).
Let’s be fair about this. First, these were real issues that the people were raising. Food and water are indispensable human needs. They were not voicing complaints over trivial matters. Without food and water, they would die. Sometime we complain over trivial issues and we just need to stop being silly. But some issues really are life and death issues. Second, the Bible does not prohibit complaint and lament. Indeed, the book of Psalms contains more laments than any other type of psalm. It is appropriate when we are suffering and struggling to pour our hearts out to the Lord. It is appropriate that we be honest and open with him about what we are experiencing and about that with which we are struggling. Indeed, it is dishonest not to do so. He’s big enough to handle it.
Yet the Hebrews should have learned something by the time they got to Rephidim. I can understand their fears about food. I can understand their initial fear about water. But God had already intervened on their behalf twice. He had already proven through the primary salvation event of the Exodus and through the manna, the quail, and the turning of the bitter water into sweet, that he was among his people. The Hebrews ought to have learned something through what they had already experienced. We should learn and grow through what we experience. That’s what our experiences are for. Our experiences, even the most difficult ones we have, can and should serve to teach us the truth that God is with us.
This brings us to the other possibility. Will we grow in endurance and hope? We who are Christians have already experienced our primary salvation event; we have been saved through the cross of Christ. Paul reminds us, “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand” (Romans 5:1-2a). This has happened; it is the way it is. And having experienced God’s grace through faith and having come to have peace with God in the present, we look forward to God’s great future when we will share in the glory of God (v. 2b). Christ died for us while we were sinners (vv. 6-8) and we can be sure that he will finish the work he has started in us (vv. 9-11). But in the present times can get hard. We can suffer. We can have trials. Many if not most of you are sitting here this morning carrying heavy burdens of suffering and trial. Others of our fellowship are not here today precisely because of the heavy burdens they are bearing.
Paul gives us the glorious word that even our suffering contributes to our walk with God and to our development as Christians. The coming of suffering is a fact. The question is what we will do with it. Paul tells us that we can boast in our present suffering just as much as we boast in our future glory because they are tied together. “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (vv. 3b-5). It’s worth the struggle. It’s worth the struggle because every time we experience pain we learn that God is with us. And each experience should teach and remind us and make us even surer that he is with us. God made the ultimate statement that he is with us in our suffering by suffering alongside us and for us in Calvary’s cross.
Yes, struggle, but remember that the struggle can make us surer of what God will finish in us. Engage in the struggle because it is in the struggle that we become sure of the love and the hope that are in us.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Reflections on Yesterday’s Forum on Women’s Reproductive Health
Yesterday I was a member of a nine-person clergy panel that participated in a forum on “Religious Perspectives on Women’s Health Issues”; the focus was on abortion and contraception. We were supposed to be a ten-person panel but the scheduled imam was unable to make it; I regret that because it would have been interesting to hear his perspective. The members of the panel were identified beforehand as “pro-choice” or “pro-life.” The pro-choice folks had green name placards and the pro-life folks had blue ones. I don’t think there was any significance to the color choices. On the “pro-choice” side were two ministers in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., one from a Church of God congregation, one from the Unitarian Universalist Church, and a Reformed Judaism rabbi. On the “pro-life” side were a Roman Catholic, a Presbyterian Church in America pastor, a Lutheran, and me, the Baptist. All of the members of the panel were bright, articulate, and concerned. I liked them all; some of them I had met before and some I met for the first time yesterday.
All of the members of the panel have a lot of compassion for women who find themselves in the position of having a problem pregnancy. I think it’s fair to say that the “pro-choice” folks tend to focus their compassion more on the women who are dealing with the issue while the “pro-life” folks tend to focus theirs more on the fetus. Baptist ethicist Paul Simmons once wrote that pro-life people are really pro-fetus while pro-choice people are really pro-woman. While I think that is overstating the case, there is some truth to it. Extreme pro-lifers, those who believe that abortions should absolutely never be performed, even if the life of the mother is in serious danger, value the life of the unborn over the life of the mother. Extreme pro-choicers, those who believe that abortions should be available to any woman who wants to get one no matter what the reason, value the life (here I’m defining life broadly—physical, social, emotional, mental) of the mother over the life (here I’m defining it narrowly as physical) of the fetus. Again, though, in their own way everyone on every point of the spectrum exhibited compassion.
It seemed to me that eight of the nine members on the panel, including me, believe that therapeutic abortion should be available as an option in certain cases, such as risk to the life of the mother, pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or the probability of severe fetal malformation. I think that everybody on the panel would welcome a situation in which there would be no more elective abortions (“abortion as birth control” or “abortion on demand”). Some would want to outlaw those via legislation or via a constitutional amendment. Others believe that the better avenue to reducing them is to do a better job of educating young people and parents on sexuality and specifically on birth control. Some believe that much more attention should be given to developing more effective and reliable methods of birth control.
The need for us all to work together in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies was a positive theme of the afternoon. Now, there are people who strongly believe that the use of artificial birth control is wrong and that the only moral type of birth control is natural family planning. That seems to me, with all due respect, an abrogation of the duty with which God endowed us when he gave us the ability to reason and the responsibility of stewardship over his creation. While procreation is a blessing we also need to take steps to prevent overpopulation and its subsequent strain on our planet’s limited resources. I believe along with some of the other panelists that the church should do a better job, in cooperation with parents, of teaching our young people about sexual matters. I’m not quite sure how that should look in practice: I’m open to suggestions. Abstinence is the ideal and we should promote that. Given the realities of adolescent life, though, young people should also know about contraception. Again, any talk about that in the church surely must involve a partnership with parents.
I am grateful for the opportunity I had to participate in the forum because it forced me to do some hard thinking about where I really stand on this issue. I have expressed in previous posts my reticence at talking about abortion because of the fact of my gender; I’m not a woman. Also, my wife and I never had to face a problem pregnancy and thus never wrestled personally with the choice. Still, as a Christian and as a minister I need to be able to articulate a response.
So, here I stand. I do believe that the fetus is a life. Actually, that is not a matter of belief; by any legitimate definition I think it is a matter of fact. I also believe that the fetus is a potential person. It is not a “full-blown” person because that means a certain level of independence and the ability to live in relationship with others. Still, I cannot get past the fact of potential personhood in the fetus; that makes the life worth preserving. Nevertheless, I believe that therapeutic abortions are sometimes regrettably necessary, particularly if carrying the pregnancy to term would put the life of the mother at serious risk. In such a case a decision must be made to value one life over the other and that is very difficult. There are cases in which the already established personhood and relationships of the mother might be judged to be more valuable than the potential personhood of the fetus. That would be a terribly difficult call for a Christian woman who believes that sacrificial love is a hallmark of her faith, but, if she dies for the sake of the fetus, she may actually be selfishly putting her commitment to the fetus ahead of her commitment to her other family members. Again, it’s a tough choice to have to make.
I believe that we should work to eliminate elective abortions or “abortion on demand” or “abortion as birth control.” Should that be done legislatively? I’m not sure. My impulse is to say “Yes.” The problem would come in criminalizing elective abortions while not criminalizing therapeutic abortions. How would such a law be enforced? There are a lot of issues involved with such an effort. I absolutely believe that we Christians ought to do all that we can to educate toward the eradication of unwanted and unplanned pregnancies. Abstinence before marriage and faithfulness in marriage is our ideal and we must stick to it. But we must also counsel responsibility for the sake of our children’s health and their future.
All of the members of the panel have a lot of compassion for women who find themselves in the position of having a problem pregnancy. I think it’s fair to say that the “pro-choice” folks tend to focus their compassion more on the women who are dealing with the issue while the “pro-life” folks tend to focus theirs more on the fetus. Baptist ethicist Paul Simmons once wrote that pro-life people are really pro-fetus while pro-choice people are really pro-woman. While I think that is overstating the case, there is some truth to it. Extreme pro-lifers, those who believe that abortions should absolutely never be performed, even if the life of the mother is in serious danger, value the life of the unborn over the life of the mother. Extreme pro-choicers, those who believe that abortions should be available to any woman who wants to get one no matter what the reason, value the life (here I’m defining life broadly—physical, social, emotional, mental) of the mother over the life (here I’m defining it narrowly as physical) of the fetus. Again, though, in their own way everyone on every point of the spectrum exhibited compassion.
It seemed to me that eight of the nine members on the panel, including me, believe that therapeutic abortion should be available as an option in certain cases, such as risk to the life of the mother, pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or the probability of severe fetal malformation. I think that everybody on the panel would welcome a situation in which there would be no more elective abortions (“abortion as birth control” or “abortion on demand”). Some would want to outlaw those via legislation or via a constitutional amendment. Others believe that the better avenue to reducing them is to do a better job of educating young people and parents on sexuality and specifically on birth control. Some believe that much more attention should be given to developing more effective and reliable methods of birth control.
The need for us all to work together in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies was a positive theme of the afternoon. Now, there are people who strongly believe that the use of artificial birth control is wrong and that the only moral type of birth control is natural family planning. That seems to me, with all due respect, an abrogation of the duty with which God endowed us when he gave us the ability to reason and the responsibility of stewardship over his creation. While procreation is a blessing we also need to take steps to prevent overpopulation and its subsequent strain on our planet’s limited resources. I believe along with some of the other panelists that the church should do a better job, in cooperation with parents, of teaching our young people about sexual matters. I’m not quite sure how that should look in practice: I’m open to suggestions. Abstinence is the ideal and we should promote that. Given the realities of adolescent life, though, young people should also know about contraception. Again, any talk about that in the church surely must involve a partnership with parents.
I am grateful for the opportunity I had to participate in the forum because it forced me to do some hard thinking about where I really stand on this issue. I have expressed in previous posts my reticence at talking about abortion because of the fact of my gender; I’m not a woman. Also, my wife and I never had to face a problem pregnancy and thus never wrestled personally with the choice. Still, as a Christian and as a minister I need to be able to articulate a response.
So, here I stand. I do believe that the fetus is a life. Actually, that is not a matter of belief; by any legitimate definition I think it is a matter of fact. I also believe that the fetus is a potential person. It is not a “full-blown” person because that means a certain level of independence and the ability to live in relationship with others. Still, I cannot get past the fact of potential personhood in the fetus; that makes the life worth preserving. Nevertheless, I believe that therapeutic abortions are sometimes regrettably necessary, particularly if carrying the pregnancy to term would put the life of the mother at serious risk. In such a case a decision must be made to value one life over the other and that is very difficult. There are cases in which the already established personhood and relationships of the mother might be judged to be more valuable than the potential personhood of the fetus. That would be a terribly difficult call for a Christian woman who believes that sacrificial love is a hallmark of her faith, but, if she dies for the sake of the fetus, she may actually be selfishly putting her commitment to the fetus ahead of her commitment to her other family members. Again, it’s a tough choice to have to make.
I believe that we should work to eliminate elective abortions or “abortion on demand” or “abortion as birth control.” Should that be done legislatively? I’m not sure. My impulse is to say “Yes.” The problem would come in criminalizing elective abortions while not criminalizing therapeutic abortions. How would such a law be enforced? There are a lot of issues involved with such an effort. I absolutely believe that we Christians ought to do all that we can to educate toward the eradication of unwanted and unplanned pregnancies. Abstinence before marriage and faithfulness in marriage is our ideal and we must stick to it. But we must also counsel responsibility for the sake of our children’s health and their future.
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