Theological Digest & Outlook

Selections from the September 1998 issue (Vol. XIII, No. 2)

NOTE: THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THE SIGNED ARTICLES ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHORS AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT ENDORSEMENT BY CHURCH ALIVE.

• Paul Miller, "Gospel, Culture and Church in the Writings of Lesslie Newbigin
• Victor Shepherd, "Theology of Life"
• Graham Scott, "Review of Bearing Faithful Witness and Can a Bishop be Wrong? [Spong] (Peter C. Moore, ed.)"
• Dirk de Vos, "Cosmic Visions and Christian Freedom" (syngretism and the CRTC)
• St. Borino, "A Conversation Between an Enquirer and a United church Minister" (six conversations) [ironic]
• Brian Wilkie, "The Twenty Articles of Faith, 1997" [ironic]
• Don Faris, "Shall we sing faith--or heresy?"
• Victor Shepherd, "A Note on Intercession"
• Elizabeth Achtemeier, "Dealing with thorns"
• James Adamson, "The Message of Jesus and the Message of Paul"
• Victor Fiddes, "Why I left the Order of Ministry"
• "Palms & Scorpions, Cheers & Tears" (Note: Opinions expressed are the Editor's and not necessarily those of Church Alive)
• "A Christian Women's Declaration"

Gospel, Culture and Church in the Writings of Leslie Newbigin

    Very often the Christian Church seems to be at a complete loss as to how it should relate to post-modern culture. As Churches struggle to assimilate and understand rapid changes in all the various components of culture -- technology, art, philosophy, the political realm -- they are faced with two dangers. One we may call the temptation to capitulate to culture; the other the danger to retreat from culture.

    As they try to be culturally relevant, the Church may find itself simply mimicking the reigning values and prejudices of the culture it seeks to influence. This is a risk in Churches that, for example, see the use of cutting-edge technology and growth strategies borrowed from the world of business as essential to their task. The medium may overpower the message so that the point of coming to Church is to be bathed in multi-sensory experiences rather than to be confronted with the claims of Jesus. In seeking to be relevant, the Church always faces the danger of rendering itself irrelevant by becoming indistinguishable from the surrounding mores of society. When that happens, the Church has nothing to say that cannot be heard from other quarters.

    Another capitulation strategy is to turn the empirical reality of pluralism into a necessary principle and to make pluralism itself into a new form of doctrine. There are factions, particularly within declining mainline Churches which actually hail the marginalization of Christianity as the triumph of a rich and riotous diversity. Behind this response is the conviction that truth itself is inherently pluralistic and relative. All religious roads lead to the same destination. Every religious faith has its own unique perspective on the divine; but none has privileged access to the truth. In fact, Church people who take this line often believe that Christianity has the least access to the truth of any religion because of its sorry history of colonialism, patriarchy and homophobia. .

    The second and equally dangerous temptation is a kind of hardened resistance, a sullen denial of reality. Those who respond to the challenges of postmodernity in this way really do believe in their heart of hearts that the world has not changed. Things have gone off the rails a little, but we can soon put them back if we try hard enough. Putting things back on the rails means Christianity reassserting itself not only as true, but as the dominant cultural ideology. In various ways American fundamentalism and the pontificate of John Paul II take this line. But sadly, our own renewal movements are at times vulnerable to seizing on 70-year old doctrinal and ecclesiological forms and treating them as unchanging icons rather than part of a dynamic process.

    Both responses -- capitulation and retrenchment -- are problematic for a Church that strives to proclaim the Gospel of the living God. Retrenchment has no future because it is founded on the illusion that the cultural landscape has not fundamentally changed. Furthermore, it is often oblivious to the extent to which its own mindset is culturally conditioned, believing itself to be the pure untainted presentation of the Gospel.

    On the other hand, those who are positively enthusiastic about pluralism do not always see how their position can strike at the heart of their own message. Christianity, like Judaism, is a non-pluralistic faith. Leaving aside the fact that Christians need to coexist peacefully and respectfully with people of other faiths, the Christian message itself is compromised when Christians present it as one way to the truth. It is one thing for non-Christians to say that Jesus was a good teacher, a wise man, and may well be one path to God. For those who have committed themselves to Christ and claim to build, such a belief is not broad-minded but suicidal. It cuts to the heart of Jesus Messiah's own demand for utter surrender to him. To argue, as many do, that Jesus never intended anyone to call him Messiah is not only historically dubious but gets us into further problems. I have never understood why anyone would want to follow such an inscrutable and mealy-mouthed Jesus as the avant-gard of New Testament criticism has reconstructed him. A religious community which makes indifference or uncertainty about its own Founder into one of its prime virtues deserves to be consigned to oblivion.

    Cultural irrelevance or cultural assimilation -- neither alternative is very appealing to those who care passionately about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    Furthermore, both responses tend to ignore the most striking feature of post-modern culture: that the vast majority of those with whom we have contact are not looking to become adherents of any religion. This is especially true if they are under 35. Mainline denominations like the United Church act as though the real issue is the relationship between Christianity and other "great world faiths" -- Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism. Every traditional faith community faces the predicament of a culture where religion is simply not on the radar-screen for most people, period.

    The late Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, who died this year at the remarkable age of 89, has been a voice of clarity for the church in these interesting times. Newbigin has intelligently and passionately advocated the church recovering its essentially missional dimension. He called for the church of Christ to enter into a fearless and genuinely missionary encounter with modern culture. He did so without any illusions about the radically pluralistic nature of our culture. He recognized how profoundly resistant to the Gospel message modern culture has become. But he never wavered in his belief in the power and uniqueness of that message. A keen understanding of culture together with an unshakeable commitment to Christ make Newbigin a prophet for our time.

    Newbigin spent 40 years as a missionary in India. Raised a Presbyterian in England, he was a pastor and a Bishop of the Church of South India, as well as one of the architects of that bold experiment in church union. Newbigin learned first-hand how to communicate the Gospel in a language (Tamil) and a cultural-religious situation that is foreign to the mindset of Western Christianity. One of the lessons Newbigin learned which became one of the foundational principles of his thought, is the necessity of distinguishing the Gospel from the various ways in which it can become domesticated and disempowered by the prevailing norms of our culture. Translating the Christian message into the alien thought-forms of Tamil culture forced Newbigin to come to grips with his own western prejudices and to separate them from the real message of Christ.

    Over time, Newbigin came to see significant parallels between the situation of Christianity within the rich plurality of Indian religious and philosophical systems, and the present state of western culture which has by and large rejected Christianity as its dominant worldview. In the 1950s and 1960s, Newbigin wrote, mainly under the auspices of the World Council of Churches, about the theology of missions. In more recent years leading up to his death, he extended his thinking to embrace the challenges of a missionary encounter with the strange, radically pluralistic, neo-pagan culture of the West. Western Churches, Newbigin pointed out, are having to learn how to sing the Lord's song in a strange land for the first time in 1500 years. The "home base" for missionary endeavours is now everywhere, because the frontiers which must be crossed are no longer boundaries of geography but those between "faith in Christ as Lord and unbelief."⁽¹⁾
 

    I will provide a brief overview of Newbigin's thought by looking at three questions which he believed are at the heart of the Gospel's challenge to our culture. They are basic questions, indeed radical questions in that they strike at the root, the radix of our present situation.

    What is our culture?
    What is the gospel?
    What is the church?

    Newbigin was deeply concerned with the interaction of the gospel and culture. It was the issue which dominated his work both in India and Britain. He was sensitive not only to the differences between cultures but the ways in which cultures interpenetrate and influence one another. He saw the incursion of western values into India, but recognized the affinities between western pluralism and the ancient culture of south Asia. I will emphasize those aspects of Newbigin's thought which provide a critique of western culture, first because that is what is most relevant to us and second, because the central thrust of most of his writings was the need for a basic reevaluation of western Christianity itself.

    Newbigin believed that Western culture had become irreversibly pluralistic. There is nolonger a common, universally-accepted framework of beliefs and convictions that is definitive. Borrowing Peter Berger's phrase, Newbigin argued that there is no reigning "plausibility structure" that ties western culture together.⁽²⁾  This is no longer open to debate. Particularly in regard to religious convictions, there is simply no way of arbitrating decisively between the competing claims of rival religious systems. Religion has been redefined as a matter of purely personal choice.

    This has far-reaching implications for the churches, Newbigin argues. In today's climate, the Christian message has no special claim to truth. The most one can say is that Christianity is true for me. Newbigin takes issue with Berger who says that modernity is characterized by the absence of a plausibility structure. In fact, pluralism has become a new plausibility structure by which disparate values and beliefs are incorporated into one overarching view of reality which is multi-faceted and open to a plurality of equally valid interpretations.

    Newbigin seeks to uncover the concealed presuppositions behind this view that is so prevalent it has become almost self-evident to the majority of people. Perhaps as much as any accessible thinker, he addresses issues of epistemology -- how we know what we know by analyzing thoroughly the philosophical presuppositions of the western mindset. We take these conceptual underpinnings for granted because we are part of the culture which they shape. They are like the water in which the fish swims. Central to this worldview is the radical distinction between public and private reality. Beginning with Galileo and Descartes, Newbigin in several of his books traces the development of a dichotomy between "facts" which can be demonstrated by scientific method and "values" which admit of no demonstration and are therefore relegated to the realm of private opinion. This cleavage between fact and value, between public and private truth, between science and religion,. is one of the dominant themes of modernity.

    Facts are what everyone agrees on. They are what can be shown to be true. As such, they are "value-neutral." They are just "the way things are." Values, on the other hand, are those convictions, attitudes and beliefs which no one can prove or disprove. This view of reality is so much a part of the modern mindset that it is regarded as self-evident. But Newbigin argues that, far from being an immediate correspondence with reality, it is one of the principle unexamined myths of our time.

    Newbigin was deeply influenced by the work of the scientist and philosopher Michael Polanyi. In his ground-breaking book Personal Knowledge, Polanyi argues that knowledge is never wholly disinterested. Modernity presents the scientific method as the means by which pure facts can be discerned without being clouded by any values or presuppositions. But all thought is interpretation, Polanyi argues, and all knowledge is grounded in personal commitment. The answers we get depend on the questions to which we subject the data before us; and asking questions, Polanyi argues, always involves a decision of the will. The scientist does not come to a completely unorganized body of facts without some preconception of how he or she will intrepret those facts.⁽³⁾  The scientist decides in advance what facts are worth pursuing and uses that conceptual framework to develop hypotheses. These can be altered in the face of further evidence, but the point Polanyi -- and Newbigin -- make is that there is no knowledge apart from personal commitment.

    Most of what we learn comes against the backdrop of what Polanyi refers to as "tacit" knowledge. This is the framework of observations, assumptions and perceptions of which we are scarcely aware. An example of tacit knowledge is the letters and grammar that make up written language. We are not consciously aware of the individual letters or even individual words on the page when we read. We know them, but they operate on an almost subconscious level. All the accumulated knowledge that went into learning to read becomes internalized to the point where it functions as background. This provides a paradigm for understanding the process of knowledge in all spheres. Inquiry into truth is always undertaken within the framework of a tradition, inherited values and personal commitment of which we are not consciously aware. The fact that science presents itself as the one method for getting at truth versus personal prejudice or opinion is itself a value judgment. In India, Newbigin discovered a culture that interprets the natural world according to a radically different paradigm than that which governs western science.

    There is no realm of pure "fact" distinct from the values and commitments which give those facts significance. The force of Polanyi's work is this: science as well as religion rests ultimately on belief.

    Where did the bifurcation of reality into a public sphere of "fact" and a private sphere of "value" originate? Newbigin locates it in the Enlightenment, that movement which sought to exalt reason and dethrone dogma and authority. Modern epistemology is essentially Enlightenment epistemology. Newbigin frequently quotes Kant's famous dictum "Dare to know" as the watchword of the Enlightenment mentality. The most significant shift brought about by the Enlightenment, Newbigin argues, was that teleology, or the consideration of purpose, was removed from scientific inquiry and replaced with the natural laws of cause and effect. Purpose is relegated to the private sphere of opinion and individual choice. A true scientific explanation of something is an explanation of its causes, not its ends. The notion of purpose is believed to positively contaminate objective scientific investigation. And, since the Enlightenment defines truth as scientifically demonstrable fact, purpose is something one may choose to believe in or not, but it has no essential relation to the question "Is this true?"

    Newbigin uses this argument to make one of his boldest criticisms of western culture. It is pluralistic only with regard to the private sphere of values. In the public realm of demonstrable facts one is not at liberty to dissent and still be taken seriously. This does not mean that there are not arguments over the reliable of any given statement of fact, nor that scientists do not agree about philosophical principles or values. Newbigin's point is that our intellectual culture is built on an ultimately unprovable presupposition -- that one does not need to inquire into the purpose for which things exist in order to understand them.

    But this is absurd, Newbigin argues. Nothing can truly be explained apart from the purpose for which it was designed. A machine cannot be explained by simply describing its parts and components or the processes which led to its creation. It can only be understood by answering the question "What is it for?" What is true of machines is even more true of animate creatures and especially of persons. To believe that we can understand human life without inquiring into the purpose of existence, or by reducing life to its efficient causes and physical functions, is nonsense.

    Newbigin is attempting to disarm the prevailing criticism levelled at Christianity's claim that the character and will of God are decisively revealed in Jesus Christ. This claim is rejected on the grounds that it cannot be demonstrated. But ultimately, the whole scientific claim to give a complete account of reality rests also on certain equally unproveable assumptions. This includes the assumption that a detached "scientific study of religions" as cultural phenomena gives a "truer" picture of those religions than their actual practice. This scientific approach has led to the axiom that the truth is so great that no one religion, and certainly no one human person, could possibly contain it. This is the essence of the statements by the Moderator of the United Church to the effect that Jesus may reveal as much of God as it is possible for any one man to reveal, but that he cannot be regarded as the complete disclosure of God. "How does the speaker know that the truth is so much greater than this particular affirmation of it -- for example, that 'Jesus Christ is the truth?' What privileged access to reality does he have?"⁽⁴⁾ To those who state as a matter of indisputable fact that only by transcending individual religious traditions will we arrive at the truth which underlies them all, he asks: "What grounds have you for thinking that you will come nearer to a solution for the world's problems by combining the insights of all the religions?" Newbigin reverses the charge of spiritual arrogance usually levelled at Christianity and turns it back on those who claim to have an objective vantage point outside religious belief from which they can critique all religions in the name of truth.

    Western culture has inherited from Descartes and his descendants "the vast and unproven assumption ... that the cosmos and human nature are such that it is possible to know the truth without dependence on any word from the Creator."⁽⁵⁾  It is the critics of Christianity who regard their criticism as self-evident who display arrogance and not those who operate out of a conviction that God has disclosed himself in Jesus. Christians, like everyone else, operate out of a plausibility structure which in the end is a matter of choice. "All knowing of a reality beyond ourselves", Newbigin writes, "is a personal venture of faith for which we have to take responsibility."⁽⁶⁾  Like Augustine, we believe in order to understand. The choice of this plausibility structure is not arbitrary. Christians choose to stand within it because it gives the most believable account of the ultimate meaning and destiny of creation. Yet, this framework of belief cannot be subjected to the judgment of any higher criterion. If it were, it would not be ultimate.⁽⁷⁾  The criterion used to to judge it (all religious truth is relative and culturally conditioned) would then become the ultimate measure of its validity.In its missionary encounter with contemporary culture, the church does not render itself more intelligible or irrelevant by permitting itself to be co-opted by the pluralistic presuppositions of that culture. It renders itself less so.

    What is the gospel the church proclaims? It is "the announcement that in the series of events that have their centre in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ something has happened that alters the total human situation and must therefore call into question every human culture."⁽⁸⁾  The gospel is the overarching vision of reality by which all cultural expressions are judged. The church's task is to keep that gospel at the centre of its proclamation and to resist steadfastly its marginalization. Christians are bound to ask: "how can we move from the place where we explain the gospel in terms of our modern scientific world-view to the place where we explain our modern scientific world-view from the point of view of the gospel?"⁽⁹⁾

    The gospel, according to Newbigin, is first and foremost theocentric. It is centred on God and not on human aspiration or need. The church is in constant danger of displacing God from the centre and substituting our own need for a particular kind of experience. Newbigin for several years was part of a weekly study group at a Hindu monastery which read alternately from the Upanishads and the Gospel of John. One member of the group was a scholar in a particular philosophy that, in its doctrine of sin and grace, resembles Christianity. This man asked Newbigin to explain his understanding of salvation. When he finished, the Indian man remarked that except for the name of Jesus their views were practically identical. Newbigin asked how in the absence of Jesus he could be assured that God forgave him? "If he wouldn't", the man replied, "I would go to a god who would." This was a moment of truth for Newbigin. "I suddenly saw that ... someone could use all the language of evangelical Christianity and yet the centre was fundamentally the self, my need for salvation. And God is auxiliary to that."⁽¹⁰⁾  Newbigin was firmly convinced that Protestant Christianity took a drastically wrong turn with Schleiermacher when it permitted the gospel to be reduced to anthropology, to "feeling" or "consciousness." The message of the Scriptures is "dominated by the figure of the living God who acts, speaks, calls and expects an answer."⁽¹¹⁾

    Like Bonhoeffer, Newbigin steadfastly resisted modern attempts to push God to the fringes. The gospel addresses all of reality. It was this conviction that prompted Newbigin to take such an interest in science. He could not countenance what he regarded as a cowardly evasion on the part of Christians who carved out for themselves a "spiritual" sphere and left the rest of life to the scientists. There is one creation and one history. Reality is not bifurcated into material and spiritual realms. Christ is Lord of all. Newbigin referred to the gospel as a "secular announcement" in that it is not confined religious practice but touches all areas of life.⁽¹²⁾  On this point Newbigin challenges most forcefully the complicity of the churches in relegating faith to a private sphere, insulated from science, economics and politics. God is the creator of all and King of all. Newbigin's account of the gospel is a rich vision of God's promised restoration of the whole of creation.

    The gospel is incarnational, according to Newbigin, in that it has been revealed to us in the scandalous particularity of Jesus of Nazareth and has been transmitted through the imperfect agency of the Church. God has elected to embody the good news in human, historically-conditioned forms. The Gospel is also trinitarian in the sense that at its heart is God's will for mutual relatedness, revealed in the essential interrelatedness of the persons of God in the Trinity. God's saving work is not intended only for the individual soul after death, but for the whole of creation.⁽¹³⁾  This two-fold character of the gospel leads into Newbigin's account of the church.

    The church is called to play an essential role in God's work in the world, according to Newbigin. "The church is the bearer to all the nations of a gospel that announces the kingdom, the reign and the sovereignty of God."⁽¹⁴⁾  The church, Newbigin argues with passion, is essentially a missionary church. A non-missionary Church is a contradiction in terms. By definition, the Church is called to work in the world to bring about "the creation of a new being through the presence of the Holy Spirit."⁽¹⁵⁾

    Newbigin describes the Church as "the sign, instrument and foretaste" of God's ultimate sovereignty.⁽¹⁶⁾  These three aspects of the Church's being are the key to Newbigin's ecclesiology.

    The church must first of all be a visible sign of God's sovereignty. It exists in dynamic interaction with the public world, never retreating into what David Lowes Watson has called a "safe house" mentality.⁽¹⁷⁾  In its infancy, the Church provoked the wrath of the Roman authorities by refusing to become simply one more private cult. "A private religion of personal salvation that did not challenge the public ideology was perfectly safe under Roman law, as it is safe under ours."⁽¹⁸⁾  But this must be challenged. The Church cannot limit itself to the inward, invisible, private spiritual dimension of human existence. This is to reinforce the fact/value, public/private split that has characterized modernity, but that is inimical to the spirit and message of Jesus. Newbigin rejected the modern tendency of the church to simply write off the powers and structures that order our public life as being beyond redemption. This indifference shows itself both in the right-wing tendency to privatize faith and in the left-wing tendency to portray all social structures and institutions as inherently evil. Even though the powers of government, society and the economy have been corrupted, distorted and broken by sin, they have been instituted by God and derive their authority from God. The Church cannot take a manichaean stance by retreating from the ambiguities of the world into its own sanctuaries. It must boldly and hopefully ask what are the beliefs and commitments that undergird secular society "and ... expose them to the light of the gospel."⁽¹⁹⁾  The church, even though a socially marginal institution as it is in India and increasingly in the west, can still function as salt and light, a sign of the culture in which we live.

    Secondly, the church is to function as the instrument of God's sovereignty. Newbigin tries to recover the much-maligned doctrine of election. Election as a theological category has fallen into disfavor because it has been used to secure the privileged status of the elect. Election, however, is God's method of working in the world. The Bible is the "story of a universal purpose carried out through a continuous series of particular choices",⁽²⁰⁾  the ministry of the church being one of those choices. Election is made manifest by conversion which is a call to concrete obedience here and now, not to a kind of self-satisfied complacency.⁽²¹⁾  When put in these terms, the church is able to reinterpret its instrumentality in the world theocentrically, in terms of God's ultimate purpose for the world.

    Thirdly, the church exists as a foretaste of God's sovereignty. Eschatology is an essential concern of the gospel. The Christian message is inherently teleological. It has to do with the telos or the end and purpose of creation. This eschatological commitment sets the church immediately at odds with the reigning culture. However, it the ultimate purpose of God which both determines and discloses the meaning of the present. In its liturgy, in its fellowship and in its obedience, the church offers a hint of what God has in store for the whole cosmos. Especially because of its eschatological task, it is essential that the church recover a sense of confidence in the gospel.⁽²²⁾  Newbigin frequently remarked on the western churches' "failure of nerve."⁽²³⁾  They have lost the sense of being entrusted with a message of ultimate and eternal significance. "What I have been so horrifed by", he once said, "is a kind of timidity by Christian preachers and ministers. The kind of attitude that says, 'Well, I happen to be a Christian, but of course I wouldn't expect you to think that.'"⁽²⁴⁾  The church has been given the awesome responsibility of drawing the eyes of the world to the glorious and hopeful future of God.

    In emphasizing eschatology as he does, Newbigin refuses to be drawn into the abstract debate about who will share in a future salvation. This popular red herring leads on the one hand to an evangelical equation of conversion with salvation, and on the other to a kind of mushy mainline universalism. This concern is expressed in theoretical questions about whether non-Christians can be saved. Framing the issue in this way places too much emphasis on salvation as a future, individual event in which "God's future" signifies only the resurrection of individual souls to salvation or damnation. This prospect creates on the conservative side an urgency about "winning souls" and on the liberal side a rejection of the entire concept that Christ has brought about the salvation of the world. Eschatological proclamation is not a call to get into the lifeboat while there is still time, but a joyous declaration of God's ultimate will for the cosmos. Questions of the salvation of individual souls are a distraction from the church's mission, according to Newbigin.

    The legacy of Lesslie Newbigin is a gift to us in our present situation.His analysis of our culture can help Churches to distinguish between the heart of the gospel and the cultural forms in which is necessarily expressed, but which may cloud and distort it. His keen insights into modern culture can aid the Christian community in developing perspective on the context in which it seeks to witness and work.

    His statement of the Christian message is profoundly Scriptural and complete. Newbigin always insisted that theology and mission be firmly grounded in the faithful study of Scripture. In his various books he has woven together the central themes of the gospel in a way that exalts the sovereignty and grace of God and exudes a powerful hopefulness in God's ultimate plan of salvation.

    His description of the church is a summons to recover a sense of the grandeur of our task and the humility of our situation before God and the world as servants of the Word.

    Newbigin's thought could be instrumental in helping the church find its way in an alien cultural situation, to rekindle its missionary flame, to deliver it from passive resignation and to announce God's message of hope.
 

Endnotes

¹ One Body, One Gospel, One World: The Christian Mission Today, (London, New York: International Missionary Council, 1958), p.29.

² Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1984), p.14.

³ The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), pp.27-38.

⁴ Ibid, p.9.

⁵ A Word in Season (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), p.159.

⁶ Ibid., p.161.

⁷ This is similar to the argument made by H. R. Niebuhr that if any other criterion is used to legitimate revelation then it is not revelation. Revelation is the criterion by which all else is interpreted. Furthermore, Niebuhr argues that a commitment to revelation is always a commitment of faith to something which furnishes the means for making sense of reality. See The Meaning of Revelation (New York: Macmillain, 1941)

⁸ Foolishness to the Greeks, p.3.

⁹ Ibid, p.22.

¹⁰ Tim Stafford, "God's Missionary to Us", Christianity Today 40 (Dec.9, 1996): 29.

¹¹ Foolishness to the Greeks, p.40.

¹² The Finality of Christ (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1969), pp.46ff.

¹³ Ibid., pp.60-61.

¹⁴ Foolishness to the Greeks, p.124.

¹⁵ One Body, One Gospel, One World: The Christian Mission Today (London, New York: International Missionary Council, 1958), p.20.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ David Lowes Watson, Forming Christian Disciples (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1989) p.28.

¹⁸ Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 132.

¹⁹ Foolishness to the Greeks, p.131.

²⁰ The Open Secret: Sketches for a Missionary Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), p.75.

²¹ Ibid., p.111.

²² A Word in Season, p.187.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ "God's Missionary to Us", p.33.

THEOLOGY OF LIFE

   "Sunstroke" and "moonstroke" are alike dreadful, albeit each in its own way.  Yet the psalmist (Ps.121) insists that the Lord, helper and keeper of his people, has guaranteed that the "sun shall not smite you by day nor the moon by night."  When our foreparents in faith spoke metaphorically of sunstroke they had in mind the frontal assaults that crumble people: war, rape, torture, intra-family savagery.  "Moonstroke", however, was something else.  To be "moonstroked" was to be submarined insidiously by what we do not see, cannot anticipate, and against which therefore we aren't forearmed.  To be moonstroked was to be victimized unknowingly, victimized helplessly, victimized utterly.  It was also the conviction of our foreparents that the same Lord who safeguarded his people against "sunstroke" and "moonstroke" alike would also "keep them from all evil", "keep their life."

   Our foreparents' conviction notwithstanding, we can't help asking, "Are people "kept" in the face of evil?  What does it mean to say they are kept when they manifestly aren't kept alive?  How are the 1.2 million unborn children aborted each year in the U.S.A. kept?  And the brain-damaged daughter of Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer, on the day her father killed her?

   We can move toward answering such questions only as we patiently probe the witness of scripture to the truth.  God can "keep our life" only because God is the author of life; and he is the author of life inasmuch as he is the "living God" himself.  God's very nature is life.  For this reason alone he is able to impart life to his creatures, and it is his sole prerogative to do so.  God "breathes" the breath of life into his creatures, who thereby are rendered living themselves.

  We are not to think that the God who lives "makes alive" by sharing his deity with his creatures.  (This would be but an anticipation of New Age pantheism); neither is it the case that creatures possess life as an immanent creative principle.  God alone has life in himself; all others have life on a loan.  The God who lives himself and makes creatures distinct from himself alive too ever remains sovereign sustainer.  While God's sustaining of life is not episodic or spasmodic and can therefore be trusted, any presumptuousness on the part of beneficiaries is inappropriate. The king of Israel knew as much when he replied to Naaman's messengers when they sought help, "Am I God, to kill and make alive?" (2 Kings 5:7)

   Since life belongs to God, individuals do not have the right to destroy their own life or wantonly take the life of others.  In short, since God is uniquely "living" and sovereignly imparts life to the work of his hands, the older testament everywhere esteems life as the supreme earthly good, particularly since life is meant to be fulfilled in intimate communion with God.  This latter point needs to be underlined, for it is precisely what distinguishes humankind from the animals.  The animals, after all, possess life too.  Created on the same "day" as humankind, and possessed of "soul" as well (according to Genesis), they are yet not the crown of creation and are not made in the image and likeness of God.  While God loves the animals and protects them (as environmentalists rightly remind us), God speaks to men and women alone.  God's addressing us, however, is never idle chit-chat.  His Word is freighted with his gift of salvation and his claim upon our obedience.  The Hebrew word for "word" (dabar) means both "word" and "event."  By his Word God summons the creation into being; by his Word he renders us alive; by his Word our obedience is voice-activated.  The event that all this is is meant to issue in the event of communion with God.  Since such communion with God is the goal or purpose of human life, only the life of grateful, loving obedience is ultimately satisfying.  While life is "life" by definition (i.e., by God's decree, lest we etherealize life and undervalue bodily existence), biblical thought consistently insists without fear of contradiction that only the life that is shaped by obedience to the Word is properly called "life."

  What does it mean to say we are created "in the image and likeness of God"?  God's free resolve, "Let us make man in our image", indicates once again that no power inheres the creaturely in such a way that the creation itself can give rise to human existence.  (Any power inhering the creation that could originate humankind independently of God could also annihilate us similarly; and this the sovereign One does not permit -- for our blessing.)  Instead, nothing can ever deprive a human being of humanness just because we have our existence by God from God.  Succinctly put, man is "of" the creation (because forever creaturely, never divine) but not "from" it (because God-fashioned for a particular relationship with him and therefore especial.)   At the same time bible-readers have long noticed that scripture nowhere specifies in what the "image of God" consists.  Is the image a stamp or impression engraved upon us, or is it that pulsating relationship with God, unique in the creaturely realm, to which all are called?  If the latter only, then we can only conclude that all who repudiate this relationship, frustrate it, even forfeit it are accordingly devoid of the image.  If the former only, then with equal rigour we must conclude that the image, without reference to a relationship and to this extent "thingified", doesn't have to do with the profoundly personal.  In both cases the uniquely human has been lost.  The witness of scripture is plain: having being created response-able (to God), we are thereby rendered response-ible.  We may honour God's intention for us or disdain it, fulfil God's purposes or frustrate them, love God or remain indifferent.  What we can't do, however, is escape it all!  While we may attempt to flee our vocation as covenant-partners of God (and the Fall means, among other things, that everyone without exception attempts such a flight), the attempt is forever futile.  And precisely here is our blessing, our hope, and the only ground of our dignity and ultimate inviolability!

   The "substantial" aspect of the image is that God unfailingly knows us and loves us, thereby giving us our identity and our worth, together with our capacity and desire for knowing and loving him.  The "relational" aspect of the image is that fully human now on account of the Creator, we can (paradoxically) become "fulfilledly" human only as we abandon ourselves to our Redeemer.  While we can and do stumble with respect to our vocation, we cannot rid ourselves of its glory.

   It all means that we fallen creatures are "bent in on ourselves" (as the Protestant Reformers speak of us), and because "bent" in this manner find ourselves going 'round in circles instead of stepping ahead on that way which is also truth and life.  Still, God has set a limit to the disaster we bring upon ourselves: we can't fall so as to plunge ourselves beneath our human status and render ourselves animal or even demonic.  However depraved we might be, we can't cease to be the crown of God's creation, singularly identified for an especial bond with him and destined for a glorious future in him.  It all means too that no human being, however temperamentally vicious, psychologically twisted, physically malformed or intellectually disadvantaged; none of these is to be viewed as sub-human.  It also means that no one can deprive others of their God-ordained identity, preservation and protection.  Regardless of how terribly people are abused, they remain what they are (human) and who they are (their identity) before God.  In view of the unspeakable horrors of the twentieth century, it must be emphasized that the worst violation of a human being cannot overturn that person's ultimate inviolability.  Because of the image of God, our reality as human beings and our identity are guaranteed.

   This is not to say that sinful men and women cannot and do not deny this truth in themselves and others.  We need only call to mind the commandants and their S.S. assistants in the death camps of the Nazi era.  Lest the victims slated for execution appear to have been murdered, they were first degraded and made to appear as less-than-human.  (Only human beings are properly described as having been "murdered.")  Camp-bosses cleverly sought to preface the destruction of detainees with the latter's self-destruction.  Such self-destruction need not have entailed suicide; self-destruction as humans was fostered by the "Catch-22" of insisting that prisoners maintain personal and communal cleanliness by defecating only in specified areas and at the same time forbidding prisoners to absent themselves from work or roll-call.  This "excremental assault" (the title of Chapter three of Terence des Pres's, The Survivor) aimed at a humiliation and degradation so thoroughgoing as to relieve guards of the last twinge of conscience.  For who would ever be conscience-stricken at disposing of sub-human vermin?  Even the victims' death was to be deprived of any significance for the victims themselves and their peers: the extermination of vermin bespeaks only sanity and sanitation!  And of course the treatment meted out precluded even the consolation of martyrdom.  Martyrs, we know, choose to die for their faith, and these people had no choice.  Moreover Jewish camp-victims were slain not because of their faith but merely because of their ancestry: they happened to have had at least one Jewish great-grandparent  Now at least one-eighth Jewish, they "qualified" for inhuman treatment as sub-humans.

   Just as others may deny any person's humanness (but never deprive him of it), so any one person may contradict her own humanness.  We admit as much in everyday speech when we say to someone whose conduct is deplorable, "Be a man!"  We never say to an alligator, "Be an alligator!"  Because an alligator can be only an alligator, anything it does perfectly reflects its nature.  "Be a man!", on the other hand, means that someone is falling short of what he is created to be.  He is contradicting himself; his conduct fails abysmally to reflect his nature.  The glorious, humanity-saving paradox is that the imperative,"Be a man!", lefthandedly suggests that someone can fail to be human even as the fact of the address means that he can't!  The subtle ambiguity here is grounded in the twofold significance of the image of God.

   G.K. Chesterton was surely correct when he said that the Christian doctrine of the Fall is the only doctrine that is verifiable!  In view of the world's ongoing violation of defenceless humans, Christians aren't inclined to lose sight of the truth of the doctrine.  Christians often are inclined, however, to lose sight of the complementary truth that God wills to preserve a fallen world, and wills to preserve it with a view to its redemption and its eschatological renewal in Christ⁽¹⁾.   In other words, God's judgement on a fallen world includes his determination not to let it sink so far into evil that it becomes uninhabitable, his determination not to turn his back on it in disgust or abandon it as hopeless.  In the wake of the Fall the creaturely, unqualifiedly good as it came from God's hand, is now known as the "natural"; i.e., the "natural" is the creaturely warped by the Fall.  On the day of "the new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13) the natural will be rid of its Fall-imported frustration and futility, distortion and disfigurement.  In the meantime the natural remains the means whereby God providentially protects the creaturely good whose goodness he hasn't allowed to disappear completely.  To say the same thing differently, God's providential care for a fallen world is exemplified as we see how the natural safeguards life against the unnatural.  To be sure, the unnatural can prevail for a time; in the long run, however, the natural reasserts itself and prevails by its providentially-lent strength.  Adolf Hitler spoke of his "Thousand-Year Reich" that was to usher in a wholly new humanity, the race of "supermen."  The result?  The Reich lasted only a decade, and fifty years later the unnatural horrors of the Nazi era continue to fill even the most convinced atheist with loathing.  The depredations of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, the cruelties of Mao Tse Tung and the Cultural Revolution, the throat-cutting of children and the raping of women in Bosnia, the genocide in Rawunda; the unnatural is as unmistakable as it is undeniable.  At the same time the Nuernburg war-crimes trials, public outrage and economic sanctions and military interventions and international correctives: these are the reassertion of the natural in the face of the unnatural, the ever-watchful providence of God preserving the life of a fallen world for its ultimate liberation in Christ.

   All that has been said concerning the natural as the means whereby God preserves life in a fallen world has specific application to the right to bodily life.  It is incontrovertible that God wills human life to be bodily life.  While the human person cannot be reduced to the body, the body must none the less be preserved for the sake of the person.  Human beings (persons) are neither disembodied spirits nor bodies only.  Yet since the body is essential to the person (no one has ever seen, met or known a person apart from encountering that person's body), the preservation of the right to bodily life grounds all other rights.  The importance of this is incalculable, particularly when the Hemlock Society speaks of the "right" to kill oneself and totalitarian societies speak characteristically of the "right" to sacrifice individuals for the sake of the collectivist good.

   Then is the life of the body an end-in-itself or only a means to an end?  To say only that the body is an end-in-itself is to reduce persons to bodies and to invoke the pagan cult of the body.  Yet to say, on the other hand, that the body is only a means to an end (e.g., only a means to one's personhood), is to suggest that the means can be ignored as soon as the end is obtained.  If, again, the body is only a means to an end, then we have no right to bodily joys (a misapprehension that scripture corrects on page after page.)  And of course if the body is only a means to an end, then any injury done to my body isn't an injury done to me.  This needs only to be stated in order to be set aside.

   As the gospel-story of the rich man and the socially-useless Lazarus makes clear, life is good regardless of its utility. (Luke 16:19-31)  To arrogate to ourselves the capacity to distinguish between life that is worth living and life that is not is to "Nazify" our society and welcome the unnatural.  As often as I hear it suggested that we should do this I think of the severely physically disabled people, known to me, who relish life; and of the severely mentally ill people whose faith I have found radiant.   And in view of the sanctuary afforded the defenceless through the many "L'Arche" communities, no more than a moment's reflection is required to imagine Jean Vanier's comment on the arrogance of those who take it upon themselves to "select" those whose life is deemed worth living and those whose is not.

  Running throughout scripture's nuanced discussion of life is the eschatological goal of life.  Jesus Christ claims all of life as he reclaims it from the disfigurements of sin, evil and death.  God protects and preserves natural life in that he has always intended its redemption and fulfilment.  Scripture accordingly uses "life" of both bodily existence and this existence fulfilled in that relationship with God which Jesus Christ effects.  The writer of Proverbs records the unembroidered assertion, "He who finds me finds life." (Prov. 18:35)  While God is said to have animated humans by breathing into them the breath of life, the business of humans thus rendered able to breathe themselves is to praise God. (Ps. 150:6)  Over and over scripture speaks of life as an unqualified good just because there hovers above all such discussion the conviction that life is really life only as God's purpose for it is realized: a bond with him that nothing will break.  Typical is the older testament's insistence both that life-as-such is of inestimable value and that God summons us, "Seek me and live." (Amos 5:4)  In the same vein, while God puts life and death before people who are bodily alive now and bids them choose, he doesn't proffer life and death as if each were weighted equally.  Instead God urges us, pleads with us, warns us, woos us, "Turn [i.e., repent] and live." (Ez. 18:32)  God's pronouncement over the valley of dead bones is that people who are alive at present will yet live only as God puts his Spirit within them. (Ez. 37:14)  In numerous places throughout scripture "life" means "relationship with God."  In the newer testament "life" has this meaning virtually exclusively.  In the same vein "image" in the older testament speaks of our inalienable humanness; in the newer testament "image" speaks of our transformation in Christ, who is himself "the image of the invisible God." (2. Cor. 3:18;4:4)

   Jesus insists that he is life. (John 11:25)  The essence of life is not to be expressed simply as biological or intellectual activity, but expressed rather as indissolubly linked to his person.  Jesus never says that he has life, only that he is life.  The question, "What is life?" therefore gives way to the question, "Who is life?"  We must be careful, in our psychology-conscious age, lest we subtly psychologize our Lord's insistence, as happens when people remark, "Were it not for Jesus Christ, my life would lack meaning" or "Were in not for my Lord, life wouldn't be worth living."  While these psychological assessments are unobjectionable in themselves (because no doubt true), they are not what the apostles have in mind when they bear witness that Jesus Christ is life (John 14:6) and that he is our life. (Phil.1:21 and Col. 3:4)  Despite the fact that the spiritually unquickened do not know this, affirm it or celebrate it but rather direct themselves against it, it remains the hidden truth of their existence.  In the proclamation of the gospel they are summoned and equipped to "see" it, own it, confess it and praise God for it.  As the definitive reversal of life's enemy, death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ grounds the God-ordained goal of all human existence.  Believers, united to their Lord who is life, know and enjoy "eternal life" now.  For them, future life can only be greater intimacy with God's "steadfast love."  Here the psalmist's profound acquaintance with "life" -- intense intimacy with his Lord -- is so very rich that in contemplating its becoming richer still he finds language inadequate; he can only say, blissfully oblivious to verbal inconsistency, that God's steadfast love (i.e., life) is even "better than life." (Ps. 63:3)

   If the nature of God's safeguarding is to preserve us against "sunstroke" and "moonstroke", what is the scope of God's keeping?  The psalmist says that God can be trusted to keep our "going out and coming in."  This is a rich Hebrew expression with three distinct meanings.

   "Going out and coming in" is a Hebrew way of expressing entirety or totality; it comprehends every eventuality.  Nothing that befalls us will ever undo God's keeping; nothing will ever handcuff God so as to leave him unable to keep us.  He who wasn't handcuffed by the death of his Son won't be handcuffed by anything now.

   "Going out and coming in" refers to the important ventures, efforts and undertakings of life.  To have these kept is to have our diligent efforts rendered fruitful.  Psalm 126 promises, "He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come in with shouts of joy, bearing his sheaves with him."  We may have seen little fruit to date for the energy we have poured out, the sacrifice we have made and the prayers we have pleaded.  Still, it all isn't finally going to dribble away!.  It's going to be crowned.

   "Going out and coming in" refers also to the early and sunset years of life, infancy and old age, when we are helpless, frequently voiceless, and always vulnerable.  At he beginning of life and at the end we are kept.  The child who dies in infancy, the still-born child, the aborted child, the brain-damaged child -- all are kept inviolate before God, by God.  The most senile person in the nursing home whose befuddlement has left her virtually unrecognizable, the most "scattered" schizophrenic whose inner torment wasn't relieved for decades; the humanity and identity of these are kept inviolate before God as well.

   It is "our great God and Saviour" (Titus 2:13) who will ever keep our life.

¹In this part of the discussion I have been helped by Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics.
 
 

REVIEW

Bearing Faithful Witness: United Church--Jewish Relations Today, by the National Task Group on United Church--Jewish Relations, 2nd draft, July 1996. 35 pp. Reviewed by Graham Scott.

The National Task Group is chaired by Rev. Don Koots and includes as members Rev. Clinton Mooney, Linda Payne, Rev. Bill Phipps, Carolyn Pogue Phipps, and Fritz Voll. The 36th General Council meeting at Camrose, Alberta, in August of 1997, affirmed the document and authorized study of it through the church. Press reports indicate that it will be sent to pastoral charges of the United Church in June, but this particular mailing has not been received at this time of writing. I am therefore reviewing the 2nd draft of 1996. For easy reference I will abbreviate Bearing Faithful Witness to BearWit.

    To the extent that the study document attempts to improve United Church--Jewish relations, I have no hesitation in saying a heart-felt Amen. To the extent that BearWit reminds us of Paul's insistence that God has not cast away his people forever (Rom. 11:1), I say a definite Amen. To the extent that the document reminds us of the Jewishness of Jesus, I say not only Amen but Alleluia.

    Although it is a legitimate part of the Christian tradition to call the Church the New Israel (following the logic of 1 Peter 2:9), we would never deny Paul's insistence that when the fullness of the Gentiles has come into the Church, then "all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26). The fact that the Old Testament has always been regarded as Holy Scripture from the time of Jesus through the Marcionite heresy until today is evidence that the continuance of the Jews separate from the Church is a mystery (Rom. 11:25) under God's providence.

    I would go further and suggest that the continuance of the Jewish people today and their diaspora throughout the world prepare the world for the good news that is rooted in Old Testament Judaism. Judaism prepares the world for the Gospel specifically by proclaiming that the one transcendent God has spoken and has created and cares for all things, and that human beings are accountable to him for their conduct.

The study document is alarmed by rising anti-Judaism, anti-Semitism, white supremacy and neo-Naziism in Canada and other countries, but in fact all this is a fringe movement sustained only by the publicity it is given. The recent desecration of the St Catharines' Jewish cemetery was the work of two young individuals, not a legion of anti-Semites. In his 1994 book Anti-Semitism in America Leonard Dinnerstein wrote, "Today anti-Semitism in the United States is neither virulent nor growing. It is not a powerful social or political force." How much less so is anti-Semitism in Canada!

    BearWit assumes that "Christian denial of Jesus' Jewishness contributed to pogroms, the Holocaust, the refusal to admit refugees and other horrors against the Jewish people." In fact it was the Nazis who denied Jesus' Jewishness (and much else) along with those 'German Christians' who bought into the Nazi ideology and reduced their Protestant faith to mere Culture-Christianity, in contrast to the Confessing Church of Martin Niemoeller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But can one say baldly that Christians have denied Jesus' Jewishness?

    The Church has long had a feast day, January 1, which remembers Jesus' circumcision on the eight day after his official birthday. Any Christian celebrating the Feast of the Circumcision could hardly deny that Jesus was Jewish. Some Christians may have forgotten that Jesus was born a Jew, but it was not this which contributed to the horrors; it was sin, simple bigotry against a minority and more recently chauvinism.

    The March 16, 1998, statement from the Vatican noted, "Despite the Christian preaching of love for all, even for one's enemies, the prevailing mentality down the centuries penalized minorities and those who were in any way 'different'." "...in the nineteenth century, a false and exacerbated nationalism took hold. In a climate of eventful social change, Jews were often accused of exercising an influence disproportionate to their numbers. Thus there began to spread in varying degrees throughout most of Europe an anti-Judaism that was essentially more sociological and political than religious." "The Shoah [Holocaust] was the work of a thoroughly modern neo-pagan regime. Its anti-Semitism had its roots outside of Christianity and, in pursuing its aims, it did not hesitate to oppose the Church and persecute her members also." ("We remember: A reflection on the Shoah," in First Things, May 1998, pp. 40-41.)

    Nonetheless we would affirm with the committee's study, "Love for God and for our neighbour leaves no room for anti-Judaism in our reading of the Bible. As well, our personal devotion should include prayers for the wellbeing of all people and for creation."

Bearing Faithful Witness is in two parts, the first entitled "Where we are", and the second, "Guidelines for the use of Scripture." The study is not likely to bring joy to those who are trying to be faithful to the Basis of Union doctrine.

    Although BearWit shows a properly respectful attitude to the Old Testament, it allows a condescending attitude toward the New. For example it states, "It was only in the 4th century C.E. that the church officially expanded the compass of Scripture to include Christian writings, concluding a process that began at the end of the 2nd century CE."

    But the church's liturgical practice was official, and it included Paul's letters in the services along with the Old Testament from earliest times (e.g., Col. 4:16). It is unlikely that the stories of Jesus derived orally from the apostles would not also be recited. Just because a church council did not list all our books until 397 A.D. does not mean that those books did not have widespread official approval. The Carthaginian Council's decision simply codified what had long been official practice in most churches. BearWit gives the impression that the New Testament was a Johnny-come-lately and not to be taken as seriously as the Old Testament.

    A tiresome hermeneutic of suspicion seems to underlie BearWit's summary of the New Testament's faults. For example: "In the passion stories the Jews and their leaders are painted as urgently seeking the death of Jesus... Mark uses the same Greek word for the 'shouts' of the crowds as he used for the cries of the people possessed by demons, indicating that Satan has control over them (compare 15:13,14 with 1:24,26; 3:11; 5:5,7; 9:26; for other 'cries' Mark uses another word: 6:49; 9:24; 10:48)."

    Mark might possibly have used that device for that purpose, but in fact he also uses the word in question for blind Bartimaeus' cries for mercy (Mk 10:48) and, according to some manuscripts, for the centurion's description of Jesus' great shout (Mk 15:39). When this wider use of the word is understood, the case that Mark was demonizing the Jews and their leaders begins to look flimsy. Indeed one may ask if BearWit is trying to demonize Mark and the New Testament and if its hermeneutic touches on the paranoid.

    BearWit minimizes the radically new thing which God did in Jesus Christ by stressing fulfillment as "revealing the content that God always saw in" the Hebrew Scriptures. One might ask how the committee found out what God always saw. Did they receive a special revelation? Do they believe in revelation? In any case BearWit even denies that "Christ adds something that people were missing" in the Old Testament. I wish that BearWit were trying to say what St Augustine said quite plainly: "The New Testament is hidden in the Old Testament; the Old Testament is revealed in the New." But BearWit insists, "It is totally inappropriate to understand 'fulfillment' in any way that would include ideas of abrogation, supersession, displacement, substitution, etc."

    Yet abrogation of the Old Testament sacrifices is a central theme in Hebrews, as BearWit admits and seems to deplore. Even in Romans 11 Paul uses the concept of rejection concerning the very Israel that he also insists is certainly not cast away. Compare Rom. 11:1 with 11:15, 17, 19-20, 28. And in Philippians 3 Paul counts not only his Jewish heritage but all things "as loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ..." (3:4-8)

    In dealing with John's Gospel BearWit has this to say: "Jesus enters into conflict with 'the Jews' almost immediately: at the beginning of the story he drives the merchants and money changers out of the Temple (2:13-21). The signs of Jesus signify the powerful presence of God which changes Judaism and overturns the old practices. It substitutes for the old water of purification (Judaism) the new, best wine kept until the last (Christ, possibly meaning the wine of the eucharist) (2:1-11). This portrayal of Judaism is superficial, argumentative and denigrating; it cannot possibly have been Jesus' view."

    It is news to this student of Scripture that John's portrayal of Judaism is superficial, argumentative and denigrating. These adjectives might be used by some to describe the study itself. In any case water as a symbol of Judaism cannot be denigrating, for John affirms the Baptist's ministry of water (Jn 1:6-8, 19-27). He records Jesus himself as saying to the Samaritan woman, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." (Jn 4:14).

    And John goes on to record Jesus saying to the crowd in the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" (Jn 7:37-38). Moreover John solemnly records and bears witness that when Jesus' side was pierced, "immediately blood and water came out" (Jn 19:34).

    It is absurd to conclude that water as a symbol of Judaism should be denigrating. In context it is inclusive and affirming of Judaism. Does the beauty of the flower denigrate the bulb? Rather the flower's beauty reveals the hidden beauty of the bulb, and flower and bulb are one continuity.

    That the BearWit committee thinks the meaning of the story of Jesus turning water into wine "cannot possibly have been Jesus' view" is disturbing. It suggests that they think they have sources for entering into Jesus' mind above and beyond Scripture. Whatever could that source be? Do they think they know more than the eyewitnesses? Do they think that writers one generation or less later than Jesus have less grasp of his message than they, who come perhaps 70 generations after him? And do they think that Jesus was something less than the culmination and fulfillment of Judaism? that he did not inaugurate a new covenant in his blood? that he was something less than the Word of God become a human being?

Perhaps the most shocking part of BearWit is its answer to the question, "Is Jesus the Messiah?" BearWit answers, "We believe that the right answer is: for Jews, no; for many Christians, yes." If Jesus is not the Messiah for Jews, then he is not the Messiah at all, and confessing him to be so would be an arbitrary, subjective and meaningless choice unrelated to reality. If Jesus is the Messiah of Israel, then he is so potentially for all, including Jews, because he is so in reality.

    BearWit states that 'Christos' is not a title: "In the whole history of the church, only in our century have some theologians begun to speak of 'Christ' as a title." The learned committee might do well to return to Calvin's Institutes, where they can read this 16th century theologian writing, "Now it is to be noted that the title 'Christ' pertains to these three offices [prophet, king and priest]..." (II, xv, 2).

    BearWit asks, "Did Jesus think of himself as Messiah?" It answers, "Probably not." Accounts of Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ are dismissed as "post-resurrection texts that serve the interests of the church." We might point out that all of the New Testament is post-resurrection, unless there was a source for Jesus' sayings (Q) written before his death and resurrection.

    In any case we might ask if the Holy Spirit had gone into retirement when Jesus died and had no role in the writing, editing and choosing of the New Testament books. Did the process of writing the New Testament depend just on serving the interests of a sect within Judaism? Is it true that the New Testament texts "seek, by any means, to undermine the legitimacy of opposing points of view"? Did the Holy Spirit do nothing to ensure that the New Testament was trustworthy for salvation? Is the New Testament nothing more than a human construction and a bigotted one at that? God forbid.

    BearWit states that it makes sense, "given Jesus' Jewishness, to imagine that he thought of himself as a prophet but not as Messiah." Is our preaching to be based on the committee's imagination? And if on their imagination, why not mine? or the Mormons'? or Mohammed's?

    Now my imagination is open to the idea that the Jew Jesus was also the eternal Word and very Son of God. And what I can imagine here the Christian Church has steadfastly confessed for 20 centuries. This faith seems to be missing from BearWit's exegesis and argumentation. Thomas Oden's judgment is relevant here: "Historical inquiry into Jesus has not yet rigorously begun in our time. It will not begin until the premise of theandric union--that Jesus is truly God and truly human--is taken as a serious hypothesis by exegetes" (After Modernity...What? Agenda for theology, Zondervan, 1990, p. 103).

    While admitting that Mark's Gospel presents Jesus as a son of man as in Ezekiel 2:1 "while suggesting more than humanity (as in Daniel 7:13)", BearWit concludes in its first guideline that "Jesus was a first century, Palestinian Jew. We begin by remembering this fact. Jesus cannot be understood apart from the Judaism of his time and place..."

    This is arguable and partly true, but even in the context of the Judaism of his time and place Jesus cannot be understood apart from the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, whose message in New Testament Scripture is that Jesus is also the Word of God who is God (Jn 1:1)--the risen one whom we are moved to call "my Lord and my God" (Jn 20:28). And as God Jesus is finally incomprehensible; for as Augustine said, if we understand God, it is not God whom we understand.

    Bearing Faithful Witness does not affirm St Thomas's confession. It even recommends that when you invite a rabbi or a knowledgeable Jew to preach the sermon, you should "select hymns to emphasize praise to God, avoiding a Christological focus." What kind of a service of worship can it be that avoids Christ? The red Hymn Book contains Isaac Watts' hymn, "I'm not ashamed to own my Lord"(188). Voices United omits it; one wonders if the committee would approve of the omission. Certainly one of its members as Moderator was not ashamed to deny that Jesus is God. It therefore seems that the document's Jesus is too small.

In a section entitled "What about Christian Jews or Jewish Christians," BearWit states in bold type, "The United Church does not seek to convert Jews. ... It is recognized that conversion from Judaism to Christianity is not needful for salvation."

    Granted that Judaism is in a unique relationship to Christianity, faith in Jesus Christ is ordinarily needed for salvation. As the Basis of Union Doctrine puts it, "We believe that faith in Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive Him, trust in Him, and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered to us in the Gospel, and that this saving faith is always accompanied by repentance, wherein we confess and forsake our sins with full purpose of and endeavour after a new obedience to God" (Art. X).

    I am not aware of the United Church's official structures (with the exception of one double-barrelled portfolio) seeking to evangelize anyone, let alone Jews. Many United Church ministers and congregations do engage in evangelism, notably with the Alpha program, and I know one United Church minister who was born a Jew and converted to Christ. I know that he would agree with me that faith in Jesus Christ is ordinarily needed for salvation.

    I believe he would also agree with me that when practising Jews put their faith in Jesus Christ, their faith in God's Old Testament promises is assured of growing fulfillment, their hope becomes a living hope and their love is inspired and enlarged by the Holy Spirit. Already sons and daughters of Abraham they become living members of the Christ whose day Abraham rejoiced to see. Not to share this good news with practising Jews seems to me unloving, not to say unfaithful. Not to share this good news with secular Jews seems faithless, disobedient and indifferent.

One exegetical passage in BearWit deals with the problem of freewill in Pharaoh's hardening of the heart. Maimonides noted that between the fourth and fifth plagues Pharaoh ceased to harden his own heart and God hardened it for him (Exodus 9:12, which seems to be the sixth plague; also, Pharaoh hardened his own heart after the 7th, see 9:34). The point is whether or not Pharaoh has free will. It is a difficult problem, and BearWit cites Rabbi Gunther Plaut's commentary and mentions Mainonides, but fails to remember one of the most powerful treatments of the problem, namely, Martin Luther's The Bondage of the Will (1525) in answer to Erasmus. (See the translation by J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston, published by Jas. Clarke, London, in 1957, esp. pp. 205-212.)

    Guideline 6 for the use of Scripture has this astonishing statement: "If we would honour the integrity of the Hebrew Scriptures and the activities of God to which they witness, we would not seek to diminish them by simply 'Christianizing' them." How does giving a Christ-related interpretation of an Old Testament passage "diminish" it? It would seem to enlarge it. Unless Jesus Christ never really rose from the dead and never really was the Messiah. Is this what the committee has come to believe? Certainly one of the committee members as Moderator shocked Christendom by denying Jesus' real resurrection.

    Guideline 6 goes on to assert that "to follow Psalm readings with a trinitarian 'Gloria' is ... distorting." Only if the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not really and eternally the One who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and whose triune nature could only become known after the incarnation of God the Son. And if you believe that God is not really the Holy Trinity, then you have left both the catholic faith and the United Church's Basis of Union doctrine.

I know that the committee members see themselves as having an "evolving faith." But a faith that tries to be nicer than Jesus and more secular than Henry Morgentaler would do well to ponder the difference between development and degeneration, and to consider whether it is really developing in accordance with the mind of Christ or degenerating into yet another example of 20th Century Culture-Christianity.

    Despite helpful and reasonable points about respect for Jews and about interpreting Scripture remembering that Jesus really was a Jew, Bearing Faithful Witness suggests a largely unitarian belief in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. That is why I am compelled by the evidence to say that it is unfortunately very much of a sell-out.

    So much official denial of the faith has taken place in the last ten years in the United Church (and in many other denominations) that I can say one thing for sure. I know something of what the psalmist felt when he said, "Rivers of water run down from my eyes, Because men do not keep Your law" (Ps 119:136). And I am compelled to ponder what meaning the Lord's word to Samuel has for us today, when he said, "How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?" (1 Sam 16:1. Cf. Rev 2:5; 3:18)
 
 

REVIEW ARTICLE

Can a Bishop be Wrong? ed. Peter C. Moore. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1998. Pp xviii, 188. Paper. US$17.95. Reviewed by Graham Scott.

    Much of the text is occupied with summaries of or quotations from Spong's many books. Spong's most recent summary of his own beliefs can be found on his website in A Call for a New Reformation from which I quote his twelve theses or issues for debate:-

    "1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

    "2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.

    "3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.

    "4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

    "5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted by a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.

    "6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.

    "7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.

    "8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.

    "9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.

    "10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.

    "11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.

    "12. All humnan beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination."

    These beliefs may well strike the reader as essentially those of a secular humanist. Certainly they recall former Episcopal priest Joseph Fletcher's position, reflected in his Situation Ethics (1966)and in the Humanist Manifesto II (1973), which he signed along with Isaac Asimov, Sir Alfred Ayer, J. Lloyd Brereton, Anthony Flew, Betty Friedan, Alan F. Guttmacher, Sidney Hook, Sir Julian Huxley, Corliss Lamont, Jacques Monod, Henry Morgentaler, Herbert J. Muller, Gunnar Myrdal, Kai Nielsen, Eleanor Wright Pelrine, B.F. Skinner, and Edwin H. Wilson.

    With the above beliefs in mind, it is not surprizing that ten scholars would critique Spong's messages. Because many denominational leaders seem to share Spong's beliefs, it is important that we be able to reply to these beliefs, which contradict the Church's common faith. This book is an invaluable resource in doing that. It is a must-read.

    Peter C. Moore was known to many of us as rector of Little Trinity Anglican Church in Toronto and some of his articles have appeared in TD&O. He is now Dean of Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. His introduction tells us that the essays were written for the educated layman rather than scholars and that the authors have the united confessional stance of basic creedal faith.

    In Moore's view Spong agrees that the world sets the agenda for the church and believes that the church's task is to bless and sanctify life as it is. Against this Moore quotes Cardinal Ratzinger and William H. Willimon:

    "You know neither the church nor the world if you think that they could meet without conflict or that they could even coincide. [The task of the Christian] is to recover the capacity for nonconformism." (Ratzinger, 1985)

    "Too often Christians have treated the modern world as if it were a fact, a reality to which we were obligated to adjust, rather than a point of view with which we might argue. The Bible doesn't want to speak to the modern world; the Bible wants to convert it." (Willimon, 1977)

    Moore thinks that Spong "has uprooted both Judaism and Christianity from their historical foundations and reshaped them into variations on the twentieth-century myth of progress."

    Bishop James M. Stanton of Dallas is the first essayist and focuses on the essential Spong. And that is that for Spong all theological statements come down to personal truths--"He is entirely subjective."

    Spong can also be inconsistent. For example, he regards the Priestly writer (P) of the Pentateuch as the farthest removed from the original form of Hebrew religion and wholly disreputable in his legalism, patriarchy, anti-femininism and hunger for power. At the same time he says that the enduring Word in the bible "is heard in the biblical story of creation." "It is the Word proclaiming that life is good, that everything that is shares in the divine origin and must therefore be celebrated and affirmed."

    But this story of creation in which God affirms the goodness of his creation happens to be written by disreputable, legalistic, patriarchal, anti-feminist and power-hungry P! Spong is here as inconsistent as Moderator Bill Phipps when he tells us to obey Matthew 25 and then praises the Jesus Seminar, who voted that Jesus did not say Matthew 25.

    In his essay "Flight from Transcendence," William G. Witt notes four ways in which Spong uses the word myth, traces his theory of knowledge back to Scheilermacher and Kant, and quotes this summary passage from Spong's Resurrection: Myth or Reality: "What is real...is that behind our religious systems, our holy words, our power claims, and even behind our fears lies an experience that transforms, deepens, and calls us into what Paul Tillich has called 'the new being'." Spong's ministry seems to be to get behind everything to unearth the real thing.

    The real thing for Spong seems to be himself. Witt quotes a revealing passage from Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: "How can one worship the source of being, the great 'I Am,' except by having the courage to be the self God created each of us to be? The Christian is the one called so deeply into life, into love, and into being that he or she can say with Christlike integrity, I AM!" (Shades of Emerson's journal entry of May 26, 1837! See Stephen F. Wicher, ed., Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson: An organic anthology [Boston: Houghton Mifflin/Riverside (1957) 1960] p. 62. See also his Divinity School Address of 1838.)

    This passage reveals also Spong's monist assumption (that God and the universe are one) and a corollary that God can be incarnate in all human beings. (James B. Nelson's Embodiment {1978} develops this corollary, which lies behind the new sexual ethics. See the Commissioners' Covenant, 4.2, in Faith Statements on website www.itcanada.com/~theology or in TD V/3, Aug. 1990, p.2 and commentary on pp. 8-9.)

    Witt counters this popular idea, saying that the doctrine of a transcendent Deity "provides the context for the doctrine of the incarnation of God in Christ. ...the biblical God is so radically transcendent (neither part of the greater whole of created reality nor a competing nature within that created reality) that he can become fully human in Christ in such a manner that neither the completeness of his incarnate humanity nor the completeness of his transcendent deity is compromised."

    Retired Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison's "Modernity or Christianity?" notes that the only reason we have an understanding of the Jesus' humanity is that the early church withstood the then modern mind which wanted a wholly divine Christ. Today's modern mind affirms the humanity of Christ while resisting his full divinity.

    Allison exposes some of Spong's short-comings: ignorance of the missionary studies of Stephen Neill, Max Warren, Hendrick Kraemer and others; writing off all prayer until modern times, thus losing the heritage of St John Chrysostom, St Augustine, St Bernard, St Francis, Thomas Cranmer, Lancelot Andrews and George Herbert; ignorance of when John Newton actually wrote his hymn "Amazing Grace". He replies to Spong's denunciation of Scripture's acceptance of slavery: "Blaming the church for living with slavery is like blaming the Russian Seventh Day Adventists for living under Stalin or Jack Spong for living with the Berlin Wall."

    Two popular books from the modern mind that Spong so champions are judged to trivialize God: Karen Armstrong's A History of God and Jack Miles' God: A Biography. "Both authors are ex-Roman Catholics who write as though God were an object for us to study, whose actions and 'growth' are evaluated by our standards. Allison recommends instead Donald McCullough's Trivialization of God: The dangerous illusion of a manageable deity (Navpress, 1995) and William C. Plancher's The Domestication of Transcendent Thinking About God (John Knox, 1996).

    To put Spong's influence in measurable terms Allison reports that when Spong came to the Diocese of Newark in 1978 there were 44,423 communicants; in 1995 there were only 24,648. This shows a loss of 44.5%.

    Ephraim Radner aims to rescue the Bible from Bishop Spong. The basic question is: Does God speak? Radner sees Spong "intent on affirming a vision of the world in which divine aphasia, a God who cannot speak, determines the basic shape of religious existence." Radner notes that Spong's descriptions of God are abstract: Ground of Being, Source, Life, Love and that "the kind of God Spong affirms is a semantically nonsensical abstraction. Therefore, anything Spong has to say about Scripture is, religiously speaking, bound up with nonsense." "Spong's God is incoherent, and Scripture is not: obviously they cannot come together in his mind."

    Spong thinks that by seeing in Scripture what was deeply important to other people, we can gain some insight into what can also be important to us. "And so, for Spong, Scripture is a collection of stories and literary images expressive of the historical experience of its various authors' 'God consciousness.' In and of itself, this collection has little historical or moral or dogmatic value: it conflicts with the clear findings of science, critical historiography, and evolved social reasoning."

    By way of contrast, Genesis teaches that the world "is the way it is in its concrete variety and hard edges because it is a product of God's character to communicate: '...and God said, Let there be...' The world in which we speak to one another is the way it is because it is a world brought into being by the one who speaks to the world. This, in fact, is the central Judaic claim orienting the Scriptures and the tradition of Israel that passed them to the Christian church."

    Moreover, "the possibility of divine communication is established by the fact of divine love." "There is a striking continuity between these three basic Christian affirmations: God creates limited worlds out of love; God speaks in various limited ways to portions of these worlds; God gives himself to the world in a painfully limited way in the absolute fullness of that love." Spong's exclusion of the particular words of Scripture as God's words means the exclusion of divine love, "the love that enters the world as it is and dies for it."

    Russell R. Reno argues that Bishop Spong holds certainty and conviction as sinful ways of thinking. Ezra and Nehemiah typify the sin of fundamentalism. Virtue is being oneself. As Spong says, "The Word of God in Jesus is a call to me to be myself, my whole self, without apology" (Living in Sin?, 162).

    Reno concludes that "when we take a considered view of Bishop Spong's jeremiads against scriptural faith and traditional moral teaching, we see that, for him, sin is what Ireneaus and Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin, Cranmer and Newman called faith."

    Canadian Edith M. Humphrey, a recent keynote speaker at the fifth Faithfulness Today Conference in Hamilton, focuses on Spong's treatment of the virgin birth. In an extended image she likens Spong's work as the demolition of a castle in order to build a bungalow. The castle must go because it defends patriarchalism. The virgin birth must go both for the same reason and because it is bad biology.

    Humphrey makes a comment that resonates with William Witt's observation that Spong uses the word myth in four different ways without clearly distinguishing between them. She says about Spong's Born of a Woman, "What makes this work so difficult to analyze is that the bishop constructs his edifice with different tools, at times calling strongly for 'straight reason,' at other times speaking playfully about the imaginative possibilities of ancient Scripture, if only we will not be bound by our previous theological prejudices, and at still other times calling with the voice of the revisionist for a reading that will suit the ethical and ideological demands of our day."

    Spong of course declares, "No recognized New Testament scholar, Catholic or Protestant, would today seriously defend the historicity of these [birth and infancy] narratives." Humphrey replies by calling to mind I.H. Marshall's commentary on Luke and Raymond Brown's note of "the probable presence of items of historical value" in the stories (Birth of the Messiah, 702). Brown refers to Spong, commenting, "Spong is complimentary in what he writes about me as a NT scholar;...I hope I am not ungracious if in return I remark that I do not think a single NT author would recognize Spong's Jesus as the figure being proclaimed or written about" (704).

    Like other essayists Humphrey calls Spong to task for his misuse of the term midrash. Spong says that the birth and infancy narratives cannot be taken literally and are really midrash. But Humphrey notes that midrash is basically exposition of Old Testament texts, and the birth and infancy narratives are not that.

    Spong likens the annunciation to Mary as "a tale of divine sexual aggression, acted out upon a compliant Jewish peasant girl" and goes on to argue that Jesus was married. Humphrey points out that Jesus is also the Lamb to whom the church, as a whole is married. The danger of such a mystical marriage including real-life marriage can be seen in David Koresh's unions with young women. She says, "Part of Jesus' self-giving...is the self-denial of this great delight and good in human life because of his devotion to God's people and to us."

    Humphrey writes, "The proper antidote to literalism is to come to appreciate the Scriptures in their fullness, to search them not simply as quarries to buttress doctrines we have already learned, but to allow them to engage us at all their different levels, whether biographical, symbolic, typological, or theological."

    It is fortunate that George R. Sumner Jr's essay follows Edith Humphrey's, because she deals mainly with Christ's virgin birth, he deals mainly with Christ's resurrection, and Karl Barth says that "it is no accident that for us the Virgin birth is paralleled by the miracle of which the Easter witness speaks, the miracle of the empty tomb. These two miracles belong together" (CD I/2, 182. Compare the title of Raymond Brown's The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, 1973).

    Sumner disputes that Spong is the popularizer of modern theology and argues that he is instead on the cutting edge of the 19th Century, when in the 1830's David Friedrich Strauss wrote about the resurrection as an edifying myth about religious consciousness. For Spong the resurrection is an event that occurred only in the minds of the disciples.

    Spong argues that since the empty tomb is not found in Paul, it is a later, literalizing addition. Sumner replies that this is an argument from silence and neglects the probability that as a first century Jew Paul would assume that any resurrection would be a resurrection of the body.

    Moreover, Sumner says, "To affirm that God brought Jesus back from the dead is to attribute to God something only comparable to the act of bringing the world out of nothingness in the beginning of time." And "To say that Jesus was not bodily raised is to disconnect the God of the Old Testament from his action in creating the world."

    The implication of Spong's spiritualizing or subjectivizing the resurrection is "a refusal to see the disposition of our bodies as truly integral to our spiritual lives" "The reason that we Christians are not free to do as we please with our bodies is that they are the locus of God's work in us. They must be conformed to his crucifixion and resurrection, for the sake of our being 'reclothed' for eternity (2 Cor. 5:1ff.)."

    Sumner concludes, "Christian theology, the science of the resurrection, is a rational and credible enterprise in this dying world that is also the real world in which Jesus was raised. The supposedly strict Enlightenment dichotomy between proof and irrationality offered by figures like John Spong is merely quaint."

    David A Scott focuses on Spong's teaching on sexuality. He sees Spong as "a fatalist in relation to cultural trends: humans are helpless before them; we must accomodate or die." According to Spong the church must embrace divorce, homosexuality,and pre-marital sex or die. But Scott notes that many feminists today are saying that Jesus' and the church's traditionally strict teaching against divorce tended to protect women from the impact of divorce on them. Similar points can be made in regard to homosexuality and pre-marital sex.

    Spong's approach to Scripture is like his approach to Jesus. To say that Jesus is the truth means that Jesus was free to know who he is and had the courage to be himself. Thus the prescriptions of Scripture are avoided in favour of a general message of self-affirmation. David Scott says that one outcome of importing the modern affirmation-of-life wisdom into Spong's plan for the church is that he has nothing new to say to modern secular people; "all he has to say is that God agrees with them in their affirmation of life."

    Stephen M. Smith focuses on Spong's monism as contrasted with Christian theology's doctrine of creation ex nihilo. A monistic view regards reality as ultimately one and creation is seen as a sort of emanation from Being (God) to the realm of beings.

    Smith tells us that Spong describes himself as standing "in a place very similar to that occupied by John A.T. Robinson...whose works the reader will soon discover were powerfully influential on my own development as a priest and as a scholar." Robinson's Honest to God attempted to replace Christian theism with an alternative monist worldview. On reading this book three times Spong says, "I have never been the same since. I was driven to my roots and forced to think again about everything I believed."

    Despite Spong's references to Robinson and Tillich, Smith notices that Spong "totally and consistently ignores the vast influence of Karl Barth at the scholarly level and C.S. Lewis at the popular level."

    Spong argues that the church must embrace a theology with "no discernible fixed points," by giving up the "narcotic of religion" that offers certainty, and by embracing the "relativity of all truth." His gospel is that "God is the ground of all being" and "the source of life". Creation is good and to be valued. We see the God who is the source of life in Jesus, who as God's Word makes creation's goodness real and apparent. That is what salvation is all about, according to Spong.

    "Spong does not offer his proposal as a relativistic hunch. He is a committed religious monist who means business--even as he inconsistently contends that all knowledge is relative!" Smith concludes with a quotation from Alister McGrath's A Passion for Truth:

    "Spong constructs a fanatasy world, in which his own vision of a politically correct culture leads him to impose stereotypes upon the New Testament with a fierce and uncritical dogmatism and a lack of scholarly insight."

    The last essay concerns Spong's views on euthanasia and is written by Daniel A. Westberg. In his diocesan magazine Spong writes "In Defense of Suicide" (Jan./Feb. 1996). Westberg quotes from this article two curious statements about the sacredness of life and the image of God:

    "The sacredness of my life is not ultimately found in my biological extension. It is found rather in the touch, the smile and the love of those to whom I can knowingly respond. ..." The reader may note that in this view the sacredness of life depends not on God the Creator, but on other people and Spong's ability to respond to them.

    "...I believe that the image of God is formed in me by my ability to respond to that calling Deity. If that is so, then the image of God has moved beyond my mortal body when my ability to respond consciously to that Divine Presence disappears." Westberg sees this view as implying "that (1) the image of God is not related to our being but to our function, (2) the image of God disappears when our ability to respond to it ceases, and (3) our personhood exists in our ability to respond, not in God's character and unchanging relationship with us." Westberg comments, "Such a notion of personhood excludes many who are at the beginning, end and margins of life."

    I might add that, surprizing as it may be to western Christians, the Eastern Orthodox usually regard the body as part of the image of God, not, of course, that they think God has a body. Timothy Ware (Bishop Kallistos) quotes St Gregory Palamas: "When God is said to have made man according to His image, the word man means neither the soul by itself nor the body by itself, but the two together." Ware says that since man is a single unified whole, the image of God embraces his entire person, body as well as soul. Moreover, the creation of man was an act of all three persons of the Trinity, and therefore the image and likeness of God must always be thought of as a Trinitarian image and likeness (The Orthodox Church, Penguin 1991, pp. 225, 223-224).

    Westberg analyzes the Newark Resolution and the Dutch experience.

    He considers suffering, death and the image of God. About suffering he says, "A Christian perspective must accept that things may not actually make sense here and now. There is an eternal dimension in which all our experiences have meaning. But if we insist that our sufferings are to be seen as fair and meaningful in the light of our present experiences, then we are going to be frustrated and disappointed."

    He quotes from John F. Kilner's Life on the Line (Eerdmans 1996): "When people find meaning only in those things that they experience as meaningful, they have made themselves God. At that point their experiences rather than God's will become authoritative, in line with the utilitarian spirit of the age."

    Westberg notes that institutional experts who are more liberal on social issues than the average lay person tend to be more conservative on euthanasia. Physicians, theologians and even government officials who have explored the legal and social implications and moral analysis of euthanasia are more aware of its dangers than the public. Certainly the United Church's thoughtful and sound study, Caring for the Dying (DMC 1994) bears this out. (See also Paul Miller's article on euthanasia in TD&O XII/1, Jan.-Mar. 1997.)

    But Westberg judges that in their statements in support of active euthanasia, "Bishop Spong and the Diocese of Newark seem to capitalize on public perception of the issue rather than on the positions taken by those who have studied it carefully."

    Each of the ten essays in this remarkable book contributes to a careful and scholarly response to Bishop Spong's declarations and denials. The bibliographies at the end of each chapter should be a mine for students' research. It is a must-read for lay people who want to understand what is happening to their denomination. More important the essays re-state the gospel in exciting ways and so build up our faith. In a manner reminiscent of Dorothy Sayers, Edith Humphrey suggests that the gospel according to Spong is humdrum, whereas an orthodox telling of the gospel is gripping:

    "But here is drama: in the unretouched story of the Scriptures, the story of that One who was rich, but for our sake became weak, who tinged with an ineluctable glory the womb of his mother and our whole world, who suffered the inevitable fate of the meek and obedient in this life, who plumbed the depths of hell--and then emerged in an enexpected and before-time resurrection, showing to all with eyes to see that God's new age, God's intimate dwelling with humanity, has in fact begun and will be brought to completion" (p. 102).
 

Cosmic Visions and Christian Freedom

    Syncretism \ flagrant compromise in religion or philosophy; uncritical acceptance of conflicting or divergent beliefs or principles; the union or diffusion of one or two or more originally different forms... (Webster's)

    Strange events are happening in Canada. Events that one might expect to encounter in China, or Cuba, or the former Soviet Union, but not in this country, where cosmic visions are threatening Christian freedoms, both Protestant and Roman Catholic.

    Both the Globe and Mail and the Ottawa Citizen have published complaints by Professor Thomas Langan, president of the Catholic Civil Rights League and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. Langan referred to growing encroachments on the civil rights of Canadian Christians. He told how two provinces, with the blessing of the federal government, were in the process of taking away minority rights that had been entrenched in the constitution, and that had enabled Christians to operate their own public schools. The British Columbia College of Teachers refused accreditation to the teacher training program at a Protestant university, Trinity Western, because the university's mission statement expected faculty and students to live in accordance with the Gospel, and therefore to refrain from cheating, stealing, homosexual acts, adultery, fornication, and such like. In the same province, anti-abortionists, mostly Christian, were debarred from coming near enough to abortion clinics for anyone even to see their signs.

    Attacks on Catholics were increasingly vicious. The host of the CBC's most popular radio talk show called the Catholic Church "the largest criminal organization in the world, after the Mafia." The tax-supported Vancouver Art Gallery showed two copies of "Piss Pope," large photographs of a bust of Pope John Paul bathed in an aura of the artist's own urine, presented in a context of "artistic protest against church oppression."

    But from several points of view the most serious attack on Christians ("this extraordinary marginalization of the Canadian majority in Canada," said Professor Langan) concerned their freedom of speech. It arose from the fact that television and radio space in Canada was under the absolute control of a government-appointed body, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Despite many applications, the commission had consistently refused broadcast licences to Christians. Last September several such requests had been turned down, and for one simple reason: they were religious. But on the same occasion an application by the American Playboy Channel passed easily. Among the unsuccessful applicants, and despite the requests of several cable companies to carry it, was the world's largest Christian broadcasting initiative, the Eternal Word Television Network.

    Evangelical Protestants had no luck either. Dominion Broadcasting of Edmonton was turned down for "lack of funding." The founders had already raised $525,000, and had received $100,000 worth of broadcasting equipment, thereby falling just $25,000 short of the required minimum, but the CRTC was quick to "question whether Dominion would be able to raise the remaining financing in donations. As a result the Commission (was) not convinced that Dominion would have the financial resources to fulfil its programming commitments."

    This state of affairs continued well into 1998. So desperate were the authorities to prevent single-faith broadcasts to be seen or heard in Canada, that one artificial obstacle after another were thrown in their path. For example, no other applicants were subject to a requirement that "any religious organization or foundation using the Canadian broadcasting system to solicit funds should be a (registered) charity." Placing Christian broadcasts on the same level as disseminating pornography, was an arbitrary rule that such broadcasts could only be "distributed to viewers on a discretionary basis and in such a manner that consumers must make a clear, positive choice to pay for them and receive them. Consequently, such services should be distributed in an encrypted mode."

    A last example of this extraordinary state of affairs in Canada was the fact that a licenced religious radio station could only broadcast music. "Spoken words" were verboten.

    Perhaps it was only an oversight on the part of the CRTC that Christians got away with the broadcasting of hymns, since hymns consist of spoken words. At a time when communication technologies were exploding in their variety, capacity and reach, Canada's regulatory practices in the field of religious broadcasting marked this country as one of the most backward within the world of communicating nations. How ironic that in North America, Canadians enjoyed relatively free trade in goods and services, but not free trade in ideas!

    The official excuse for the Canadian syndrome was that the CRTC had already licensed a religious broadcasting network called Vision TV, where air time could be sold to any organization professing a religion of one sort or another. Vision TV only offered limited exposure, but the main problem, from a Christian point of view, was that it was thoroughly syncretistic. Its function was to promote, both in form and content, an overarching cosmic vision. Whatever "religion" made use of Vision TV had to be seen, in effect, to accept the premise that its own belief system was a mere component or building block of a universal religion. It had to be seen to be acknowledging the equi-validity of every religious or pseudo-religious belief on this earth. Christians could be heard or seen, but only on condition, so to speak, that they first bend the knee to Baal. They might be relatively free in respect of the contents of their communication, but they had to embody and enfold their presentation in a syncretist setting and a syncretist format. Christians had to be willing to speak from within Baal's temple; speaking from without the temple was forbidden, unless (as we shall see) they were willing to build a similar temple.

    In other words, a religious applicant might succeed in securing a broadcasting licence, but only on condition that the organization became a clone of Vision TV. This became apparent upon examination of the only single-faith licence that had ever been granted in Canada, but as a gesture, a tokenism, because the successful applicant was a minuscule enterprise based in a small town in Alberta. The licence was only given on condition that the applicant provided (and if necessary, paid for out of its own pocket) fourteen hours of programming per week, including four hours of prime time, for the benefit of "other faith groups."

    The requirement applied even if such other "faith groups" hardly qualified as religions or were indeed anti-religious. This was the heart of the offence. If you wanted to be an evangelist you would be cut off at the knees, because it was virtually impossible to evangelize in such a setting. What commercial enterprise, one may well ask, would submit to such impositions in an analogous situation? The station would soon lose its advertising revenue. For example, many a contemporary "religion" that would have to be featured by a Christian single-faith broadcaster, is, as we know, wholly anthropocentric or this-world centred (and therefore antithetic to Christian belief). Witness what happened on November 24, 1988, when the American "divine," Matthew Fox, proclaimed, on Vision TV, that "homosexuality is a source of spiritual power." (That this latter-day revelation was neither unexpected nor incidental could be deduced from the fact that the broadcast followed an earlier transmission by the CBC's major religious program, "Open House," devoted to the same Mr. Fox. His message on that occasion was that in the Indian culture "it is well known that all the great spiritual directors of our great chiefs were homosexual.") Not to be outdone, the host of the Vision TV program allowed that "the Pope is a frustrated actor."

    The foregoing well illustrates the kind of atmosphere in which believing Christian broadcasters were expected to operate in Canada. They had to be willing to work within a framework that was calculated to trivialize the very essence of their faith. It was as if the British Broadcasting Corporation were only allowed to televise the coronation of the Sovereign in conjunction with equal air time for a virulent and scurrilous anti-monarchist rally.

    How then did a regulatory body like the CRTC get away with this kind of outrage?

    The answer is that the commission achieved its purpose by a deliberate distortion of a key provision of the Canadian Broadcast Act. The law called for the maintenance, in Canada, of a system (i.e., a broadcasting system as a whole) which provided for "a balanced opportunity for the expression of differing views on matters of public concern." The CRTC's trump card was a calculated mis-construction of the Broadcast Act, when the commission transposed the statutory requirement for a balanced system to a requirement for a "balanced" presentation by each and every aspiring single-faith broadcaster. This meant, in effect, that each and every religious broadcasting enterprise should first become, or be seen to have become, a microcosm of the world. Failing that, it had no right to be seen or heard. The law was amended in 1991, when the "balanced opportunity" requirement was removed, but the CRTC simply ignored the amendment and continued to use the "balance" rule to deny single-faith broadcasting licences. With the silent concurrence of the legislature, the CRTC became a law unto itself. And concerned Christians were unable to sway public opinion in their favour.

    What then would explain this strange turn of events in Canada, where something very fundamental seemed to be afoot? What was the origin of an apparent "all or nothing" syndrome which forced people, against their will, either separately or collectively, to become active agents of the whole? What was this unified whole or oneness in the public domain that did not permit of genuine "variety within a system" but compelled people to, in effect, either become a microcosm or be silent? Could this be anything other than a reversion to a form of ideological fascism, a fascism that insisted on a unification of opposites, a short-circuiting of differentials? Surely, in a healthy society, contending particularities are allowed to operate freely and independently, while constantly competing and interacting with one another. In a healthy society, trade-offs have to occur. But nobody expects the trade-offs to take place within each entity. If that were possible, there would be no need for political institutions.

    A vital clue to the Canadian broadcasting conundrum emerged from the same Vision TV program featuring Matthew Fox in November 1988. Vision TV had only barely started to operate, and it was still in the process of acquainting Canadians with its purposes. The clue was encapsulated in the following statement: "Canadians must be empowered by a cosmic vision...when cosmology comes alive again, there are many visions." Soon thereafter, on December 28, 1988, a Vision TV announcer stated that the uniqueness of the only notable Canadian televised religious broadcaster lay in the fact that it was "the world's first venture in multi-faith television: a first in values programming." Canada became the first, and possibly only, country to determine that this kind of exercise, an all-embracing exercise in cosmic visioning, could and would be the only basis upon which a religious broadcaster might be licensed (and even then not by right but as a favour). The totality or ensemble of Vision TV's smorgasbord was what constituted its essential character. The very format in which Canadians were to receive their religious programs was designed to present, and represent, the desired predominance of a universalistic world view, a universalistic and humanistic religion. You would only be permitted to be seen or heard if you associated yourself with, and implicitly accepted, the primacy of this overarching, ostensibly inclusive, visionary religious model.

    Why have Canadian Christians not rebelled? Canada is an interesting case study of how a political leadership driven by a religious vision may ultimately transform a society's way of thinking, so that the members of even long-established denominations may see nothing wrong with either the purpose or the effect of the kind of regime described in this article. One may argue that the ground work for the Canadian metamorphosis had been laid as far back as in May 1964 when a group of people led by one Pierre Elliott Trudeau (the Jesuit-trained "father" of Canada's new Constitution of 1982) published a manifesto that was to guide their political vision for Canadians.

    First referring to Canada, the manifesto announced that "we do not attach to its (Canada's) existence any sacred or eternal meaning." What was "sacred and eternal," and to be sought in stead, was a nation-wide turning "toward more enlightened humanism, toward various forms of political, social and economic universalism." "Canada," the manifesto argued, was "a reproduction on a smaller and simpler scale of (this) universal phenomenon." If Canada could not make the grade in this respect, it would be "to admit one's unworthiness to contribute to the universal order." In the manifesto's own words, it was "an affirmation of faith in man."

    In this way was the ground prepared for a systemic and endemic Canadian cultural transformation, an ideological transformation, a Canadian journey on the road to a cosmic humanism, a humanism that saw "man-as-creature-and-servant-of-the-cosmos," defined by the cosmos, a function of the cosmos, and living in a cosmopolis (with Canada as model). In other words, a distinctly religious construct, starkly in contrast with the Christian belief that unique persons are made in the image, and function only subject to the grace, of a personal God. To some extent these distinctly humanistic sentiments had been inspired by the writings of Teilhard de Chardin. In his Milieu Divin, Teilhard (whom surveys have identified as the single most influential writer behind current New Age thinking) embraced a world Christ, a cosmic Christ, where "the sacramental Species are formed by the totality of the world."

    As an outcome of this new universalistic, all-encompassing, vision for Canada, one finds that in the field of communications, as well as more generally, Canada's political and cultural establishments have consistently touted the country's unique calling to serve as a model for the world, as a microcosm of a desirable cosmos, and with distinctly salvational overtones. For years, this kind of vision has underpinned major aspects of Canadian foreign policy. One example was the so-called North-South campaign, waged in collaboration with Mexico, in which Canada made common cause with Third World countries in opposition to the American hegemony. At a National Forum on Multiculturalism in Broadcasting held in Toronto, broadcasting elements were described as "building blocks of a world model society...facilitating openings towards enlightenment." On July 12, 1988 a member of the federal cabinet told the House of Commons (the Canadian parliament) that "Canada is in essence a microcosm of the world." A joint publication sponsored by two Canadian government departments centred on "the role of 'moral exemplar' which Canada has played from time to time on the world stage" (a role that would "deeply infuse all Canadians.") Close to hubris was a ridiculous statement by an External Affairs minister that "the loss of Canada would be a loss to the entire international community" since "our success at diversity" was "the envy of the world." Madness was afoot.

    Those who know their history ought not to be surprised. As Eric Voegelin (the Austro-American political philosopher) has so eloquently explained, the imposition, by philosopher-kings, of universalistic and cosmological visions goes back to more than eight hundred years before Christ. Invariably those tendencies are associated with a loss of liberty, as Canadian Christians are losing their independence. Such visions are, in their nature, intolerant and oppressive. They mark the difference between a closed and an open society, a subject that Karl Popper too explored at great length. As Voegelin shows, the open society (which he contrasts with a society driven by cosmic visions) is truly democratic because it is highly articulated. By that he means that the open society thrives on recognizing and maintaining clear differentials. It permits numerous voices to speak freely, individually, and independently.

    Literally, free citizens are able to articulate, the antithesis of speaking in a forum, and as a member of a chorus, of mixed-up and muted voices.

    In the wake of the universalist-cosmic visions to which Canadians succumbed after 1964, Vision TV became a religion in its own right, a religion whose function, taken as a whole, made it the world's first officially syncretistic broadcaster, and the only religious broadcaster (bar the token licensee in Alberta) which was permitted to claim Canadian television space. Different models of religious broadcasting would be wholly unwelcome. To grant several single-faith broadcasters clear, distinct and independent voices would be to invite an increasingly articulated society, a freer society.

    Not surprisingly (least of all it would have been to Eric Voegelin), religious cosmology-in-action has turned out to be highly intolerant of particularisms, and especially allergic to a Christian world view beholden to a God who is a Person; to a human being who, in his (and her, of course) search for salvation, is sovereign; and to a path to salvation that is both narrow and exclusive, a salvation that is not the handiwork of a redeeming world spirit.

    The Vision TV Network "so loved the world" that it consistently and formally objected to the licensing of any other single-faith broadcaster on the ground that it would lose market share to potential new entrants - religion as business! What Vision TV (and its guardian angel, the CRTC) could not admit was that it itself was a single-faith broadcaster, except that this single faith was the acceptance, practice and promotion of an all-encompassing, universalistic and therefore monolithic, humanist-cosmic world vision. While professing inclusiveness, both the intent and the effect were exclusive and intolerant.

    Foreigners may find this tale passing strange. It shows how easily a nation with supposedly Christian foundations may lose its hard-won freedoms when it succumbs to a cosmic and syncretist world-view. Neither Protestant nor Catholic is immune.

Editor's Note: After this article was written the CRTC granted Crossroads Family of Minitries, Burlington, ontario (the 100 Huntley St. people) a licence for a 24 hour a day television station.  Crossroads TV plans to begin broadcasting in the fall of 1998.  We hope that the unjust restrictions mentioned in this article do not impinge on Crossroads TV.  We pray that this venture of faith will be blessed byt the God of all mercy.
 
 

A Conversation Between an Enquirer and a United Church Minister

Enquirer: I am interested in joining the United Church.

Minister: You're interested, you're in.

E. You don't have any requirements for joining like accepting a creed or a statement of faith?

M. Not really. We put the Statement Of Faith we did have on hold. We are a very inclusive church accepting of a variety of opinions.

E. What about the Apostles' Creed?

M. It's in our hymn book but no one says it anymore. Kind of a nod to the past.

E. You don't have a creed?

M. We do but it is not binding on anyone. We call it A New Creed. Have to move with the times, you know. None of this "I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth." Our new creed begins with "We are not alone." Much more therapeutic don't you think?

E. What about the belief in the Trinity? I thought this was important for Christians.

M. It isn't anymore. Not inclusive enough. We are working on changing the wording. Instead of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one of our centres for theological study is pushing for God, Goddess and Goodness. Much more inclusive.

E. What about this business of Jesus fully human/fully divine?

M. We've moved beyond that. Do what you want with the fully divine. We are emphasizing Jesus as fully human. Our best scholarship tells us that he was somewhat of a hippie. Much more down to earth view of Jesus, don't you think?

E. Does the New Testament really say that about Jesus?

M. No, but the New Testament is no longer our final authority. Other ancient writings give us a picture of Jesus which is much more acceptable to our thinking.

E. What about the Cross and the Resurrection?

M. The Cross, nothing unique about that. Lots of people went to the cross in Roman times. Besides it emphasizes suffering and who wants to push something that smacks of a martyr complex. We have to be more positive, more celebratory.

E. And the Resurrection?

M. NEvverr happened. Believe me.

E. What about genuine differences of belief in the church?

M. Not to worry. There are in the United Church what we call "different pockets of spirituality". You in your small pocket and I in mine.

E. I must be up front with you. I am Buddhist.

M. That's O.K. We are not exclusive. Some of our churches are thinking of calling a Buddhist as their minister.

E. I feel relieved about that, after all, we are living in an increasingly pluralistic world. Also, I hesitate to mention this but I have always felt that society has paid too much attention to Christians' special days.

M. You can relax on that score. Many of us feel that we should petition our General Council to close the churches on Christmas and Easter. I am certain we can generate enough emotion on this so that it will go through.

E. I think I can feel at home in the United Church. I am not sure, however, about my wife.

M. I am sure that we can accommodate her. I should say, however, that we have one requirement.

E. What is that?

M. If you become a member, you must no longer refer to her as your wife.

E. What should I call her?

M. She must be referred to as your"significant other" or "partner".

E. I might find that change rather hard. Habit you know.

M. Well bad habits have to be overcome. We are quite insistent on this one. From head-office down, it is expected that we will not use any other term than "significant other" or "partner". This is written in stone.

E. I am reluctant to bring this up, but I have been married three times. I'm sorry, I mean, I am on my third "significant other" relationship.

M. You could run for Moderator! You belong to a significant constituency in our church from which no one as yet has been nominated for the Moderatorship. You would be a shoo-in!

E. Speaking of church government, how are decisions made?

M. We are a very democratic church. We try to hear every voice. At Conference and General Council we have table groups where everyone can participate. Our Committees are broadly representative to insure that the grass roots is heard.

E. But how are decisions made?

M. We have leaders whom we trust. They know what is best for us and we go along with whatever direction they choose.

E. I must say that it sounds a bit like a church of sheep. Excuse me, I didn't really mean that. Speaking of sheep, what will your church's stand, I mean your leaders' stand be on human cloning?

M. It's a straight "human rights" issue. Every person has the right to be cloned. It's a simple matter of justice. The United Church of Canada will go to the streets on this one.

E. I must thank you for this. I can't think of a church more inclusive, more open, more courageous, more perfectly in step with the times than the United Church.

M. We aim to please. Have a good day.

Third Sunday in Lent
1997
 

Conversation Two:

Between an Enquirer and a United Church Minister

Enquirer: Thanks to our recent conversation I am going to church.

Minister: I am very pleased to bear that our talk has led you to church.

E. One of the first things I observed is that you have a new hymn book, VoicesUnited.

M. Yes, it took several years to produce. What do you think of it?

E. It's awfully big.

M. I don't see that as a major problem.

E. Didn't Jesus say something about "suffer the little children to come unto me". How are they going to come to Jesus if they can't carry their hymn books?

M. The national office is considering bringing out little wagons.

E. What color will they be?

M. Red, like the hymn book with a United Church logo on the back.

E. Still, it's awfully big.

M. Well, it had to be big to hold more than 700 hymns, Psalms, and other worship material.

E. Why so many hymns?

M. Remember, I told you that the United Church allows for a variety of opinions. The new hymn book provides for this. One of the worship consultants put it this way, "There is something for the many pockets of spirituality in the church."

E. Yes, I remember you saying,"You in your small pocket and I in mine." Does that mean there are 700 pockets of spirituality in the United Church?

M. No, it means you sing the hymns you like and ignore the rest.

E. Does that mean that if a hymn doesn't suit my taste I just stand there and hold this big hymn book?

M. Actually, you will find that you will like most of the tunes.

E. But what if I don't like the words?

M. Never mind the words you sing, just listen to the tune.

E. It seems to me that the words of the hymns might be helpful in learning more about the Christian faith.

M. The hymn book has some concern about the words we sing. It makes provision for people to sing words which are more compatible with their particular view.

E. For example?

M. Take the well known hymn Amazing Grace. In the first line you can sing "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me", or you can sing the suggested alternative, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved and strengthened me".

E. What happens when I am singing who saved a wretch like me" and the person next to me is singing the alternate words?

M. You sing louder.

E. I thought this was to be voices united?

M. Just a catchy title.

E. It seems to me you could get quite a babel of words. Come to think of it doesn't the Bible say something about a Tower of Babel? What does it mean?

M. Let's move on.

E. Before we do, why was it necessary to suggest an alternate wording for wretch?

M. The author was a slave trader. He should have put a more positive spin on his wording. The word wretch is such a downer. Actually, they were going to leave it out altogether but a lot of wretched people protested.

E. An elderly woman next to me in church pointed out that some of the older hymns have had their words changed.

M. The words have to be compatible with our feelings now so they changed them.

E. I thought you said, "Never mind the words you sing just listen to the tune".

M. Some words are so offensive you can't escape them, for example, Lord and King.

E. How are they offensive? Isn't Lord the name used for God and Jesus in the Bible?

M. Lord is oppressive and hierarchical!

E. It seems odd that the translators or the Bible would use a word that makes God and Jesus oppressors. Were the translators being faithful to the original text?

M. Yes, but it's a general rule when we translate to let our preferences take priority over the original meaning.

E. How can you be inclusive if you purge words like Lord and King? Aren't you in danger of being seen as exclusivists?

M. Heaven's no! We are inclusive of everything that we judge to be acceptable for the United Church.

E. Pardon me for saying this, but it sounds a bit imperialistic. Whatever, one piece of religious music I do know is, Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. If words like Lord and King are no longer in fashion, what happens to "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords" in the Chorus?

M. The words will be changed to be made more to our liking.

E. Changed to what?

M. The rule of thumb is to stick in God when you come to hierarchic and patriarchal words. That way no one should be offended.

E. So the change would be?

M. "God of Gods, and God of Gods".

E. Let me see ... hmnn, by the time the choir gets through the Chorus they will have sung, "God of Gods " sixteen times. Isn't that a lot of gods?

M. Actually, the Committee bent over backwards to make exceptions. In some cases they left in Lord and King. For example, Charles Wesley's hymn, Rejoice the Lord is King.

E. Funny you should mention that hymn. We sang it on Sunday and I couldn't help but notice that when the woman behind me came to those words she didn't sing them, she just grunted, Rejoice the ungh is ungh.

M. Well, if you know some words are going to make you choke do you allow it to happen?

E. I suppose not but its seems Voices United is not only introducing new words but some new sounds into hymn singing. During the hymns there will be a lot of grunting, ungh, ungh, ungh. M. When you have so many pockets of spirituality in the church you include every response.

E. Do you think they might make some of those little red wagons for children available to adults and include a package of ear plugs?
 

Palm Sunday 1997
 

Conversation Three: Between an Enquirer and an United Church Minister

Minister: I haven't seen you for sometime. How is church?

Enquirer: Fine. I seem to have started something with my little red wagon and ear plugs.

M. Yes, apparently since introducing Voices United there has been quite a run on wagons and ear plugs.

E. I have only one complaint.

M. What is that?

E. Some kid stole my red wagon! I had to buy another.

M. A sign of the times. Somebody steals my rubbers from church regularly.

E. I do have a question. I notice that at the back of Voices United there is a section called Services of Daily Prayer where they suggest alternative versions for the Lord's Prayer?

M. Remember, we are an inclusive church responding to the different pockets of spirituality.

E. One version begins, Our Father-Mother. I thought Christians always began the Lord's Prayer with Our Father.

M. Father smacks of patriarchy so we had to balance that off with Mother.

E. So are we to pray now to a God who is a creature, half man, half woman?

M. We try to keep God's transcendence intact but in the interest of gender fairness we have hymns and prayers which speak of God as Mother.

E. Why didn't Jesus see the importance of gender balancing?

M. He was a Jew.

E. What difference did that make?

M. He believed in a God who was not gender specific.

E. What does that mean?

M. God transcends all human categories, including that of sexual gender.

E. Why did he use the name Father if he knew God was not male?

M. The name was a relational thing with him signifying closeness. Actually he used a very intimate word, Abba when he addressed God.

E. Sounds Greek to me.

M. The word is Aramaic. Jesus spoke Aramaic. Actually it doesn't matter. He really didn't say the Lord's Prayer at all.

E. You mean all this fuss about patriarchy, gender balance etc. is over something he didn't even say!? flow do you know he didn't say it?

M. The beads tell us.

E. Excuse me, am I hearing correctly. Did you really say, "The beads tell us."

M. Yup, our best research scholars tell us what Jesus said or didn't say by tossing one of four beads into a box If they throw in a red bead, he said it; pink - possibly; grey - the ideas are his but he didn't say it; black- no way.

E. How much of the Lord's Prayer did he say?

M. Father.

E. Father! You mean he stopped there and couldn't go any further. Did he have a mental block?

M. Possibly, but the rest is somebody else's words. Likely Q.

E. Who in the world was Q?

M. He was an unknown person whom scholars call Q.

E. I'm getting a bit confused. You mean Jesus got the prayer started and then this person Q finished it off. Shouldn't it be called Q's Prayer?

M. Scholars are working on it.

E. Would Q begin Our Father-Mother?

M. By the time our scholars are through with Q it will be Our God-Goddess.

E. I am curious about those little beads. How much of the New Testament contains Jesus words?

M. Very little, less than twenty percent.

E. If that's the case what does the New Testament contain?

M. Mostly the reconstruction of what the early Christians think he said and did.

E. And that's not good?

M. No. They were into power tripping, propaganda and bureaucratic control.

E. How do you know?

M. Our most up-to-date scholars tell us so. Let me quote you from one of their latest books, Honest to Jesus: To put the matter candidly, the gospels endeavor to authenticate the leadership of the church then in power... (We should) declare the New Testament a highly uneven and biased record of various early attempts toinvent Christianity.

E. So where does that leave the matter?

M. They tell us we are going to need a new Bible.

E. Composed of what?

M. Those selected texts which give us a picture of Jesus that they believe is appropriate.

E. That sounds like a pretty big step. Do you think the church is going to go along with this?

M. Of course. We believe in going beyond the boundaries, boldly.

E. You must have a great deal of admiration for these scholars.

M. Yes, we feel it is a great privilege to belong to their ranks.

E. Particularly when they are about to bring in a new Bible.

M. Yea more, a new faith!

E. What do you think they will call this new Bible?

M. There will have to be some recognition of our inspired leaders in the title. Perhaps a combination of their names, like the Crosspunk Version. No, come to think of it, that would not be appropriate because the cross will be down-played in the new Bible. I think that a better title would be the Spunkdom Version.

E. How thrilling to be on the threshold of an authentic Bible and a new faith!

M. Well, I have to tell you, it's not hard to take.

E. I can see already that there is a kind of glow about you.

M. It's funny you mention that. Others have said that the followers have a certain beatific look about them.

E. Do you have a special meeting place? It must have a certain aura of holiness about it.

M. California.

E. Whereabouts in California? San Diego?

M. No, it varies, but we make two pilgrimages a year to some chosen spot.

E. How do you get the word out?

M. We haven't had to worry about that. We are quite a hot item with the media. Some of our Fellows are in big demand by the press, talk shows, and T.V.

E. How do I become a member?

M. You just need some red, pink, grey and black beads and you are in.

E. I have some colored balls from Chinese Checkers. Will they do. I don't mind finding some other use for them as I am not very good at the game.

M. They will do. Don't worry, we'll tell you how to place them.

E. The United Church is opening up whole new vistas for me. A new Bible, a new faith, little red wagons and colored balls. I can't tell you how excited I am!
 

St. Borino
Maundy Thursday
1997
 

Conversation Four: Between an Enquirer and a United Church Minister

Enquirer: The minister where I am going to church has been giving me material to read.

Minister: Like what?

E. A document called Mending the World. He says it will be coming before General Council for approval.

M. Yes, it is a fine document, years in preparation. It outlines our position in relation to the world and other faiths.

E. Some critics say it smacks of Arianism. What is Arianism?

M. The name comes from a man called Arius.

E. Sounds like one of the signs of the zodiac. Who was he, anyway?

M. He was a parish priest who disagreed with his bishop.

E. That was pretty risky, what was it about?

M. He didn't like the bishop's sermon.

E. Since going to church I have heard some lousy sermons. What was so upsetting about the bishop's sermon?

M. He preached a sermon on the Divinity of Christ.

E. From what little I know of Christianity that's a pretty orthodox position.

M. It wasn't for Arius. He believed that Christ wasn't divine. In saying so, he set the cat amongst the pigeons. Everyone took sides. Some were for the bishop, some were for Arius.

E. Sounds like a lot of fuss over a sermon. Why did it become a big deal?

M. The dissention became so widespread that the Emperor Constantine decided to intervene.

E. So what did the Emperor do?

M. He said, "Get your act together!"

E. So what happened?

M. In 325, they called this big Council of bishops at a place called Nicea.

E. Is that where we get the name, Nicene Creed?

M. Yes, they made some decisions which resulted in the Nicene Creed.

E. It must have been an important meeting to result in a creed.

M. If you are into creeds, it was.

E. Who won out, Arius or the Bishop?

M. The Bishop preached good sermons but he was a poor debater. A young guy called Athanasius defended the Bishop's position.

E. What position was that?

M. Jesus was fully human/fully divine.

E. Who won?

M. Athanasius. He got the Creed he wanted and ever since it has been the basis for orthodox Christianity.

E. What happened to poor old Arius?

M. On the surface he lost but he started the ball rolling. His spirit is alive and well today in the United Church. Why do you think you never hear the Nicene Creed repeated?

E. I have no idea. Is it because it talks of Jesus as fully divine?

M. Partly, but let me read you some of the Creed to give you some idea why it isn't used. It's actually in the new hymn book! We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,eternally begotten of the Father... true God of true God, begotten, not made, ofone Being with the Father.

E. That's a lot to digest. What were they saying?

M. They were trying to say that Jesus Christ is identical with God, or as they put it, possessed of the same nature or substance as God. As you can see, it was very archaic language and terribly patriarchal.

E. What about their point that Jesus Christ is of the same nature or substance as God?

M. The defenders of the faith at Nicea got carried away. For us today, Jesus is the man for others and not of the essence or being or whatever of God.

E. Does this explain why the name Jesus Christ is seldom mentioned in our worship service?

M. Jesus is O.K. but Jesus Christ is no longer where it's at.

E. Does this have some affect on what you call the Doctrine of the Trinity?

M. The Trinity served its usefulness in the past in keeping the church together. Now that we are into world-wide ecumenism it is a real embarrassment in our conversations with other faiths.

E. In what way?

M. Well, it sounds down right arrogant to say Christ is the Son of God or that God was in Christ. How are you going to enter into dialogue with our Jewish and Hindu friends if we make such absolutist claims? No one will want to cooperate with us in seeking justice and making a better world.

E. If I understand you correctly, we shouldn't hold our beliefs too strongly or we will be seen as dogmatic and exclusivist. Instead of bringing harmony we will upset people and cause conflict.

M. You've got it. In the United Church we stand for a non-moralistic, non-exclusivist, non-evangelistic and therefore a non-conflict causing faith.

E. It must give you a lot of pride to be part of a church that doesn't make moral judgements and doesn't hold strong religious convictions because they might exclude and divide.

M. The world would be a better place if people followed our standards.

E. If I may, I would like to return to Arianism. I am a little puzzled. You seem to be saying that if we accept Arianism then we are no longer Trinitarian?

M. You've got it.

E. And, if we are no longer Trinitarian then does it follow that we are Unitarian?

M. Yes, I suppose so, strictly speaking. I like the term Theocentric It sounds better.

E. If other faiths discover you are no longer Trinitarian in your convictions what do you think their response will be?

M. Hopefully, they will follow our example and he more accommodating in the interest of inter-faith relationships.

E. For example?

M. Well, Muslims could still say, There is no god but Allah, but instead of saying, and Muhammad is his prophet, they could say, Muhammad is one of his prophets.

E. Wouldn't they be giving up what they feel is essential to their faith?

M. Possibly, but you have to be prepared to give a little for the wider good.

E. Sounds like we need another Constantine to make us come up with an ecumenical creed that will be acceptable to all. It might begin with, I believe in God, Goddess and Goodness.

M. An excellent proposal. We wouldn't have problems with that but the Jews and Muslims might have trouble with the Goddess part.

E. How about, I believe in God who reveals nothing and accepts everything.

M. I like that! It captures the basic direction of the United Church.
 

Good Friday
1997
 

Conversation Five: Between an Enquirer and a United Church Minister

Enquirer: When I first spoke to you I expressed some unease about society paying too much attention to Christian special days, like Easter.

Minister: I told you to relax on that score.

E. I recall you said that enough emotion could be generated to petition General Council to close the churches on Easter.

M. That's what I said and I wasn't whistling Dixie.

E. Just how would you go about doing that? I thought Easter was central for the Christian faith.

M. The key word here is process.

E. What is process?

M. It's a way of giving people a sense of participation while getting what you want.

E. How does it work.?

M. Well, the leadership decides what they want and they set the process working.

E. How is that done?

M. Have someone, a church, or a presbytery submit a petition. This way it can be said that they are listening to the grass-roots.

E. If I follow you, this is all that is necessary to get the process going?

M. Yup. Once the process starts you can forget about the grass roots.

E. It would seem important to have them involved in the decision making.

M. The process gives them that sense without having them effect the outcome.

E. How do you manage that?

M. Process persons. You develop a core of process persons throughout the church.

E. What is the criteria for being a process person, knowledge of the faith and wisdom?

M. Heavens no! The only criteria is being a good process person.

E. I am curious as to how this works.

M. Let's return to the "how to" of getting the churches to close on Easter...

E. Pardon me for interrupting, but it seems to me that there would be quite a ground swell against this and that it would be strenuously debated.

M. Don't worry about the ground swell; that can be handled.

E. Wouldn't it be a significant enough issue to have debate on the pros and cons of removing Easter from the Church calendar?

M. The first rule is don't allow the issue to be debated. If you do then people might begin to think, to examine Scripture and Christian tradition.

E. I would have thought that these were important for the church in making decisions.

M. Not anymore. Why do you think we have pushed for the Wesleyan quadrilateral?

E. What in the world is that?

M. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said the authority for the Christian is Scripture, Tradition, Reason and evangelical experience.

E. Did he rank them all the same?

M. No, he put Scripture first. We changed the order and elevated experience to first place.

E. Evangelical experience?

M. No, our own subjective experience. It determines what is acceptable.

E. I don't see what this his to do with process and decision making?

M. Everything. If we can get people into the experiencing mode rather than reflecting on the faith then the right decision is assured.

E. How is this done?

M. Table groups.

E. Table groups! I fail to see the connection. Am I missing something?

M. Table groups are the means for getting people to share their personal experiences.

E. What happens then?

M. Well you build up a sense of community by getting people to talk, to say who they are, what's happened to them recently, etc.; bare their feelings.

E. I am beginning to get the picture. Reminds me of the encounter groups of the sixties. Once people have shared their subjective experience they feel they are part of the group. They become uneasy about upsetting the feeling of comraderie and acceptance. They are reluctant to do any boat rocking.

M. Yup, you've got it. Process is geared to the achievement of our goals through the sharing of experience and feelings. This is very important. It is used at every level of the church.

E. Surely, you have study documents where people exercise their critical faculties?

M. Yes. The study documents lead you in the direction and the conclusions desired. We do ask for feed-back, however.

E. What happens to the feed-back?

M. We record it on foolscap and then throw it away. The process is already in place so things will unfold as expected regardless of the feed-back.

E. How do you assure the desired decision gets through the various committees, presbyteries and General Council?

M. Well, let's return to Easter. Firstly, there is a cadre of people in the church in leadership positions who are convinced the Resurrection and the divinity of Christ are no longer viable. To get this to the feeling or experiential level the point is made that Easter is not good for inter-personal relations with people of other faiths. Someone picks this up and a petition is brought forward.

E. From our conversation, I think I can anticipate the next step. A study document goes out whose underlying premise is that in a pluralistic society it is arrogant for Christians to push their agenda on others. Easter being a case in point.

M. You are getting the picture. When the document comes before the church the table groups appear.

E. People look at the document?

M. Not really. The key is the process. Get people to talk about their positive experiences of people of other faiths. At certain points it is well to have some prominent Christian or past Moderator say, It is arrogant for Christians to celebrate Easter! If you can raise the thought that perhaps Christians are being exclusivist in their observance of Easter or even unjust towards others in doing so than you have won the day.

E. Won't some people protest?

M. By now, who wants to risk not being accepted by their table group and be seen as an exclusivist!

E. How do you inform the media that churches will be closed on Easter.

M. You tell them ahead of time to be on hand for this historic movement of the Holy Spirit. Alert them to have their cameras ready as delegates rise and sing, Jesus Christ is finished today,Hallelujah!

E. What happens if after all of this someone doesn't go along.

M. Hard to believe that anyone can resist the process. If they do we just say, "They are not a process person." That's as close to being a heretic as you can be in the United Church.

E. My constant prayer will be, "O God, help me to be a process person."
 

Easter Sunday
1997
 

Conversation Six: Between an Enquirer and a United Church Minister

Enquirer: You have a new Moderator. Already he has made the headlines!

Minister: Yup, one of our boys made it! He embodies what we have been waiting and hoping for.

E. The Word made flesh, so to speak.

M. Yes, I like that! It gives his election theological justification.

E. Since his election his statements in interviews questioning the divinity of Jesus and the Resurrection have stirred up quite a whirlwind of controversy.

M. The conservatives always find something to object to.

E. I believe the National Office has said that grave concerns were coming from quite a wide spectrum of church people.

M. Could be. We find it strategic to label any who differ with us as literalists, dogmatists, traditionalists and conservatives.

E. How would you identify yourselves?

M. We call ourselves the liberal progessive wing of the church.

E. It sounds so avant garde, so with it. What about those who would see themselves as main stream, orthodox Christians?

M. We are labeling them traditionalists or conservatives.

E. What happens if orthodoxy is looked upon as passé?

M. It will eventually be seen as out of date and laid aside.

E. Which reminds me, in our earlier conversations you indicated that you felt that enough emotion could be generated to close the churches on Christmas and Easter.

M. Push the right buttons, add a little process and mission accomplished.

E. You must be pleased that the new Moderator pushed the right buttons when he spoke of Jesus as not fully divine and questioned the Resurrection.

M. Yes, this opens the door for a petition to General Council to dispense with Christmas and Easter.

E. If I recall our earlier conversation, denying the deity of Christ moves the church in the direction of Arianism and Unitarianism.

M. Yup, we're on our way. The Moderator has given things a big push in the right direction.

E. How do you respond to those who say the Moderator has stepped outside the boundaries of the Christian tradition?

M. We remind them that we have many pockets of spirituality in our church.

E. Some are saying the Moderator has some pretty big holes in his pockets.

M. Our leaders have sown up the holes by saying that what he has said is not outside the broad mainstream of United Church belief.

E. I thought that questioning the Incarnation and the Resurrection would be outside the broad mainstream of the Christian faith?

M. There is a wide latitude of personal interpretation enjoyed by members and clergy in our church.

E. Critics are saying, How wide can you get? By the way, I thought that if I were to join the United Church I should read the doctrinal articles of the Basis of Union. I have to confess that I haven't read them in years.

E. I must say they clearly affirm the deity of Christ and Jesus' resurrection from the dead.

M. The Moderator doesn't want us be frozen in the past. He wants us to come to a more mature and enlightened faith.

E. As Moderator, shouldn't he be in basic agreement with the Basis of Union?

M. But that would be to muzzle the Moderator!

E. I take it then that agreement with the Basis of Union is not that important?

M. Not really. However, we still ask candidates for ordination and the ordained from other churches if they are in essential agreement with the Basis of Union.

E. It would seem to make sense for the church to ask those who represent it to show some acceptance of its foundations.

M. If we did we would end up having to ask the Moderator and several of our previous Moderators to resign!

E. It sounds like you are saying that the Articles of Faith are not that crucial for the Moderator. Does that mean that the office sanctifies the holder thereof?

M. Yes, The Moderator is our Article of Faith.

E. Come to think of it, the Moderator does seem to feel that the credibility of the church is tied to his personal beliefs. Do you think that he sees himself as another Bishop Spong?

M. It wouldn't surprise me. Bishop Spong, who is a great favourite amongst us, does his own thing and remains a Bishop.

E. There has been talk, in some quarters, of the Moderator's resignation but I understand that only the General Council can officially ask the Moderator to resign.

M. It wouldn't. In fact, one of our former Moderators is certain they would say, We love you Moderator!

E. It sounds like, Our Moderator right or wrong, our Moderator.

M. Yes, such positive strokes give the Moderator impetus to fulfill his term in the manner of the song, I'll do it my way. In fact, some of the General Council Executive and College principals are drafting a hymn in his honor, How great thou art!

E. Do you think he is having a problem with the all the media attention?

M. No way! How often does one get a chance to be the media's poster boy?

E. I was under the impression that the Moderator is elected not only to give spiritual leadership but to strengthen the whole church and not to further his own special interests?

M. What's wrong with politicizing the office? The General Council has been politicized for years.

E. Do you think that the church will be divided further by the controversy over the Moderator's statements?

M. Yes, but this is secondary to making sure our issues and our theological perspective gets into our congregations.

E. I understand that being a united and a uniting church has been one of the distinctive characteristics of the United Church?

M. For us, mending the world is more important than being united. This is why justice is number one on our agenda.

E. In my attendance at worship and other functions of the church, I have noticed that justice has become something of a buzz word in the United Church.

M. It took us awhile to get it through to people that justice will save the world. This is why the Moderator in breaking the bread during Communion says the words, The bread of justice.

E. In the Communion services I have attended, the presiding minister breaks the bread with the words, The body of Christ broken for you.

M. It all depends on what you want to be ultimate. The Moderator is taking the lead in changing the liturgy of the church so that it will be centered on justice. That's where it's at and we are ready and willing to follow.

E. What about those clergy who aren't prepared to follow?

M. If they want to get along they had better go along.

E. I have asked this before, but what about being attentive to the convictions of the membership of the church on such matters?

M. I have already explained to you how the membership is handled, process!

E. Thank you for making the picture clearer for me on joining the United Church. As I understand it, if I become a member I would be wise to join the ranks of the liberal progressives. As a liberal progressive and a good process person, I will become part of a great movement to make over the United Church, indeed the world, like it should be. And, I will have the privilege of being led by a hallowed Moderator.

M. Who could ask for anything more!
 

Christmas
1997
 

The Twenty Articles of Faith, 1997

    2.0 We the Representatives of the 39.5th General Council of the United Church of Canada do hereby set forth the substance of the Christian faith as commonly held among us. In doing so, we discard the foundation of the apostles and prophets, deny the Scriptures of the Christian and Hebrew traditions as the primary source or ultimate standard. We acknowledge that the teaching of the ancient creeds of the church, and the evangelical doctrines of the Reformation are woefully inadequate, and represent a period in history we would rather forget. Instead we would summarize our common faith, and recommend that all the members and adherents of the church and the world at large ignore it and believe whatever gives them the most sense of affirmation.

    2.1 Of God. Some say yes, some say no. We all agree that god is spelled with three letters, so trinitarians can take heart. Though god can't be known, if you want to imagine what god is like, go ahead. But if you try to tell us that god is actually holy, just and loving, you are probably an idolater.

    2.2 Of Revelation. Scripture is infallible where ever it agrees with us. When Scripture lets us down we turn to nature, especially stories about caterpillars and butterflies to inspire us. When really pressed, we rely on what we feel about god. And if you try to tell us any different you're an arrogant person, and we're not listening so NYAH, NYAH.

    2.3 Of the divine purpose. God is a useful term when we want to blame our problems on something else. We believe the purpose of God so embraces all events, so that while we can take credit for all the good that happens, we know that if anything goes wrong it's because god gave us bad parents, not enough money, or too difficult a problem.

    2.4 Of Creation and Providence. People are free to choose between good and evil, and a good thing too, since we don't have the slightest clue which is which.

    2.5 Of the sin of Man. We believe that earlier generations were really confused on this point. There's actually nothing wrong with us. And even if there was, Genesis clearly teaches that it is someone else's fault.

    2.6 Of the grace of God. God has been real nice. God has stopped caring about whether we steal, lie, commit adultery or murder, just as long as we feel good about who we are.

    2.7 Of the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that Lord is a bad term. Apart from that, we believe that Jesus was nice, really nice. After Jesus came people who believed in him added a bit to his teachings. We reserve the right to obey only those teachings which sound good at the moment. Jesus died for a variety of political and criminal offenses. Better him than us, we say.

    2.8 Of the Holy Spirit. God is in everything, and god talks to us by god's spirit, which some people call "our Conscience" and other people call their "dog." Which ever way God speaks to you is O.K. by us, and isn't it great that there are no long distance charges?!

    2.9 Of regeneration. Sounds good. Or reincarnation, or recycling. "As long as it works for you," that's our motto.

    2.10 Of faith and repentance. Faith is believing in yourself. If you can't believe in yourself, who can you believe in? Repentance is has to do with change, and one thing everyone can agree on is that change is difficult. Leave this one out if it sounds too tough.

    2.11 Of Justification and Sonship. Humanity is like god, in that we can justify just about anything. As for sonship, we all have an inner child, and you just need to name your issues.

    2.12 Of Sankafication.. This article refers to coffee hour, when we enjoy fellowship together. Most congregations no longer use Nestle products.

    2.13 Of Prayer. It is important to spend times of silence, centring on the spirits. Heck, you can even talk to god, but knowing that humans are just specks of dust in a vast cosmos, you might as well focus your attention on yourself. Somebody has to. You didn't think god was gonna listen, did you? What a dork.

    2.14 Of the Law of God. Back when humans were a lot stupider, god gave them some pretty complicated instructions. You're smart enough to figure it all our for yourself. As the prophet said, "the times, they are a changing."

    2.15 Of the church. The church is where ever people are. It should not be narrowly defined by conditions. Sincere seekers are going to be attracted to others as lost as themselves.

    2.16 Of the Sacraments. Everybody loves a baptism. Every body loves a big wedding. Everybody needs a funeral. Stick to the products there is a market for.

    2.16.l Baptism is a great way to get young families into the church. Statistics show that most people will identify themselves as belonging to the church they were baptized in, no matter what. By this sacrament, The United Church of Canada can continue to be hailed as the largest protestant church in Canada long after we've sold all the buildings to pay the salaries at head office.

    2.16.2 The Lord's Supper is a little light on both variety and volume. The menu has not changed for 75 years, and the serving size is abominable. Work is underway to replace Communion with the sacrament of Pot-Luck Suppers.

    2.17 Of the Ministry. Our leaders should be especially lost, as an example to the congregations and the world at large that "Everyone is o.k. with us, don't change even if you feel like the slime at the bottom of your vegetable drawer."

    2.18 Of the church order and fellowship. Exciting times are ahead. We may be heretics, at odds with the Christian church throughout the world and history, but stick with us. It could be worse, and with little effort, it will be!

(Next section: 2.20)

    2.20 Of Christian Service, and the final triumph. For what it's worth, we believe that Christians should be nice, recognizing that from time to time "nice" means different things. Put a good spin on what you do, and the next generation might adopt your standards. Keep up with the times, and you'll be applauded by people everywhere. Have a nice Day!

    (The original Basis of Union contained an irrelevant section 2.19 entitled "The Resurrection, The Last Judgement, and Eternal Life" which for the sake of brevity and plausibility has been deleted.)
 

Shall we sing faith--or heresy?

    In the article, "Voices United: A hymnary corrects Jesus and the prophets," in Theological Digest & Outlook, Jan.-Mar. 1997, I pointed out that the new United Church of Canada hymnary makes four major moves in the name of inclusivity.
    1. In its hymns it diminishes the Father.
    2. In its psalms it diminishes the Lord.
    3. In both hymns and psalms it diminishes the Trinity.
    4. And it even goes beyond the fourth century heretic Arius in making room for the Mother Goddess.

Those who hold an orthodox biblical faith are appalled by these moves. But the denominational leadership likes to "celebrate ambiguity" by pretending that while the new hymnary is "new" and "exciting," it is not extreme. A comparison of the 1996 Voices United with the red 1971 Hymn Book, the 1990 evangelical Worshiping Church, and the 1997 Canadian Presbyterian Book of Praise reveals that Voices United is a very extreme example of a politically-correct hymnary. The Comparison Table below tells the story.
 
 

    1. "LORD" in the Psalms. Of the four hymnaries only Voices United replaces the biblical "LORD" with the generic "GOD". One might well ask if there isn't an implicit anti-semitism behind this move. Both the heretics Marcion and Arius would rejoice. And surely in a pluralistic society we should "name" the God whom we worship. Israel did.

    2. "Father" in hymns. The extreme extent to which "Father" was removed from Voices United can be seen in the fact that the 1990 evangelical hymnary uses this word ten times as frequently, and the recent Presbyterian hymnary uses the word over six times as frequently. When you consider that Jesus directed every prayer to his Father, you can see how severely Jesus has been "corrected" in Voices United.

    3. "Father, Son & Holy Spirit." When both the United church Moderator and the Executive of General Council suggest that the denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ is within the "mainstream of the United Church," you can understand why there are only two hymns in Voices United that retain the name of God in which we are baptized. In comparison the evangelical hymnary contains "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" 61 times and the Presbyterian book 45 times. Again, it is Voices United which is out of step.

    4. "Mother" God, "Father-Mother." While the 1971 red Hymn Book and the 1990 evangelical Worshiping Church contain no examples of the politically corrected radical feminist "God language," Voices United has nine examples, and the new Presbyterian book has three. The Presbyterians do not include the most blatant examples, but their three do reveal the United Church influence in that they contain any at all. Some hymns in the Presbyterian book have had the personal pronoun "Him" changed to "God" to please the language police. Many congregations will find these unnecessary changes to be very irritating.

    Both the 1990 Worshiping Church and the 1997 Canadian Presbyterian Book of Praise have a wider selection of new evangelical hymns like "Shine, Jesus, shine" and choruses which younger people enjoy, as well as a wider selection of old evangelical favourites. These two hymnaries are in fact more truly "inclusive" than the United Church's Voices United in that they include the new evangelical music which is the music of the growing edge of the worldwide church, and they exclude only the heresies which are promoted by the leadership of former mainline--now sideline--denominations. It may not matter that dying churches sing heresy, but if the mainline churches don't get the exciting good news of Jesus Christ straight in the next decade, there will be very little left to rise from the ashes in the next century.

    Editor's Note: We have been asked what a congregation that has rejected Voices United can do. In light of the above article, the board might consider the evangelical Worshiping Church (1990) or even the Canadian Presbyterian Book of Praise (1997). We recommend retaining the red Hymn Book, which is still an excellent resource, though dated. A congregation that has managed to keep the old United Church Hymnary has yet another excellent resource. But a new book (or a set of transparencies and a license to reprint hymns) seems advisable.

    When a congregation has actually rejected Voices United, there will likely be some hurt feelings that need to be addressed with courtesy and understanding. The good news involves bearing with one another in love.

    A congregation wishing to have a licence to reprint hymns and songs would be well advised to consult Christian Copyright Licensing, Inc. 1-800-234-2446 or visit the CCLI website at www.ccli.com.
 

BUILD UP EACH OTHER

 A Note on Intercession

   Fackenheim's answer moves me, and moves me again because of the answer he didn't give.  He is, let us remember, is one of Jewry's most profound thinkers on the holocaust.  He is tormented by the recollection of children separated from their parents and thrown alive into the ovens, their captors not bothering to waste gas on children.  He is tormented by the recollection of boxcar after boxcar of his people degraded, then exploited, then tortured, then finally gassed and burned.

   Yet we must note one thing: this horrific development does not undermine the faith of someone who stands in the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; does not expose worship as mere wishful thinking.  Yet if prayer is not 'heard', the entire enterprise of faith is rendered fraudulent.  According to Fackenheim believing people can cry with Job, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him!"  But believing people cannot cry, "Though he hear me not, yet will I trust him!"  We can contend with the God who slays us, says my old friend; we cannot do anything with the God who ignores us.

   Prophet and apostle exhort us to pray at all times and in all places.  Paul reminds us tersely, "Pray constantly."
 

    I: -- Yet as soon as we attempt to "pray constantly", reservations about the enterprise may flood us.  We suspect prayer of being a childish attempt at magic, all the more embarrassing because it is now an adult attempt at magic.  How many adults have ceased to pray, having concluded that intercessory prayer is the modern disguise that cloaks primitive attempts at magic?

   Then it is all the more important that we understand something crucial about this topic: the people who were most eager to uphold the necessity and efficacy of prayer (Israel) were the very people most eager to repudiate magic.  The torah scorns magic.  The prophets denounce it.  Magic is the attempt at using power for selfish ends.  Magic is the attempt at manipulating whatever power-concentrations there might be, at however many levels of the universe there might be.  Magic is disdaining our vocation as servants of God at the same time that we think we can harness God to be the servants of us.  The torah prescribes the severest penalty for magic.  The prophets denounce magic-traffickers as "liars and deceivers".  Isaiah calls them "the offspring of the adulterer and the harlot".  Jeremiah comes upon some people who think there is magical potency in their incantation, "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord."  People mumble the incantation relentlessly and mindlessly thinking that their mumbo-jumbo mantra, multiplied indefinitely, will spare them the judgement of God that has come upon their nation.  "Only if you truly amend your ways", corrects Jeremiah, "only if you truly execute justice and do not oppress the stranger or shed innocent blood"; that is, "only if you truly repent, turn around, will you be spared.  But as long as you rely on the incantation you haven't repented; as long as you rely on the incantation you remain self-deluded."

   Luke tells us in the Book of Acts that there was a sleazy fellow named Simon (not to be confused with St.Peter) who impressed many, telling them that he was "somebody great".  Simon saw the power at work in the apostles who were engaged in the work of the kingdom, and decided that he would be "somebody even greater" if he could get hold of such power for himself.  He offered the apostles money.  Peter, enraged, shouted at him, "You and your money be damned, for you think you can buy the gift of God."  The Israelite mind, always eager to commend prayer, is equally eager to condemn magic.
 

   And yet it is easy to confuse prayer and magic.

    (i)  We confuse prayer and magic whenever we invoke God's blessing on what is not of his kingdom.  We do this most pointedly in war.  George Orwell (an agnostic who never pretended to be anything else) knew better.  Orwell wrote, "War has never been right; war has never been sane; but sometimes war has been necessary."  Exactly.  Sometimes necessary, but never right; never a sign of God's kingdom, never an anticipation of the Messianic Age, shalom, when swords are beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks.

   In the ancient world Israel was surrounded by nations that believed in temple-prostitution.  These nations maintained that sexual union with a priestess united the worshipper with the divine.  Israel's prophets denounced this practice as magic, since temple-prostitution invoked the blessing of the deity on what didn't reflect the nature of the deity.

   (ii)  We confuse prayer with magic whenever prayer is not linked to obedience.  It's easy for me to intercede with God for the spiritual quickening of the congregation.  But if I am cavalier about exemplifying myself what I want for the congregation then I am relying on magic.

   (iii)  We confuse prayer with magic whenever we pray and yet are unwilling to be used of God in his answering our prayer.  We read of a shocking injustice or evil in our society and then rail at God, "How can you allow this?" -- when all the while that is the very question God is addressing to us.  We teach our children to intercede for the afflicted of the world.  But if have already made up our mind that the afflicted are never, simply never, going to claim anything of our time or money or energy then we are schooling our children in magic.

   (iv)  We confuse prayer with magic whenever prayer becomes a substitute for work.  When our foreparents maintained that we are to work as though everything depended on us and pray as though everything depended on God, our foreparents weren't being clever to the point of being smart-alecks.  Our foreparents were profound.

   Karl Marx maintained that those who pray for the kingdom of God spinelessly tolerate all the evils that contradict the kingdom and oppress people.  Marx was wrong.  My observations suggest precisely the opposite.  I have found that those who pray most for the kingdom of God are those who do most on its behalf.
 

   Then when does prayer differ from magic?  Prayer is non-magical when we pray "in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord."  Now by that I don't mean that we add these eight words to anything we have asked for; after all, we all know by now that incantations are one more attempt at magic.  "Name", in Hebrew, means nature, purpose, reputation, reputation vindicated.  To pray in the name of Jesus Christ is to pray in conformity to the nature and purpose of God as God has vindicated himself in that Son whom he has raised from the dead.  To pray in the name of Jesus Christ is to pray for anything and everything that is in accord with his rule and will and purpose.

   In the written gospels some people come to Jesus and ask him childishly, naively, almost superstitiously for this or that or something else.  (Like the mother of James and John when she wants privileged recognition for her two sons.)  Yet our Lord never ridicules or dismisses such people.  On the contrary, in his company they learn to ask for more than they asked for at first; they learn to ask differently; they learn that the kingdom of God isn't national prominence or frivolous luxury or privileged recognition.  And so they learn to plead with God not from the perspective of their shallow "gimmees" but from the perspective of the kingdom, from the perspective of God's vindication of himself in a world which thinks it has humiliated him and marginalized him.  In short, we learn to pray on behalf of those concerns of ours that are first concerns of God's.
 

   II: -- What are we to say about intercessory prayer itself?
   In the first place we must admit that most prayer is intercessory; we are pleading with God on behalf of ourselves and others.  Yes, there is the prayer of adoration, the prayer of thanksgiving, the prayer of confession.  At the same time, prayer is overwhelmingly intercession.  Martin Luther was correct when he said, on his deathbed, "We are beggars; this is true."  Before God we are beggars -- and always shall be.  You must have noticed that once we are past the salutation of the Lord's prayer ("Our Father who art in heaven") the remainder of the Lord's prayer is all intercession.  We are asking God for forgiveness, for daily necessities, for protection against trials too severe for us to withstand, for the spread of his effectual rule among men and women.  Paul tells the Christians in Philippi, "...in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made know unto God."  Prayer is intercession, finally.
 

   In the second place we must admit that God commands us to pray.  The act of prayer is not rooted ultimately in our need (i.e., we pray because we need help -- although of course we do need help).  The act of prayer is not rooted ultimately in our aspiration (i.e., we pray because we long for God -- although of course we do long for God).  The act of prayer is rooted ultimately in our obedience: we pray because God insists that we pray.

   This lattermost point is important.  Because God insists that we pray we must never think that our praying makes no difference.  It is inconceivable that God requires of us, and requires of us relentlessly ("pray constantly") something that is finally pointless.  The fact that God commands us to pray can only mean that God has rendered us agents (under-agents) in his governance of the world.  We have not been created mere spectators of God's governance of the world, as if we were spectators at a play, merely watching the real actors on the stage.  We are never to be mere spectators; we are part of the play itself, and -- this is the breathtaking aspect -- we even have a part in the directing of the play.  To be sure, God alone is sovereign.  He governs the world and all that occurs in it.  But God's governance isn't akin to that of a dictator coercing a state; God's governance is much more like an artist creating a work of art, bringing into it every contribution from every person, including the prayers we offer.  Our prayers are part of the "stuff" that God takes up and uses in his furthering his own will in us and others.  In short, God wills to have our wills affect his will.  Since he wills to have our wills affect his will, we must will in that special form of willing that is intercessory prayer.     Does this mean that apart from our praying, the work of God is inhibited?  Does it mean that if we neglect to pray, the work of God is restricted?  A sobering notion, isn't it!  Then we must look at Mark's comment (6:5,6) concerning our Lord's frustration in one particular town, where people were spiritually inert.  "And he [Jesus] could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them.  And he marvelled because of their unbelief."

   In a way that remains mysterious to us God has made us under-agents in his governance of the world.  Precisely how our intercession is gathered up in his sovereignty we cannot plumb.  But that our intercession is a factor -- by his ordination -- in his weaving together the myriad other factors; concerning this I have no doubt at all.  Then pray we must, even as we must pray unceasingly.
 

   In the third place we must admit that Jesus makes the most astounding promises to intercession.  "If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven." (Matt. 18:19)  What a stark promise!  "Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith." (Matt. 21:22)  "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." (Mark 11:24)  The promises made to intercession appear utterly unqualified; the promises are astounding -- and for this reason, the shattering disappointment that so many people undergo is heartbreaking.  The matter of (apparently) unanswered intercession may be an intellectual puzzle when we are musing in our armchair; but it is something else when our child is dying.

   Then what are we to do?  Are we to stop praying, stop interceding, on the grounds that our life-experience exposes our Lord's affirmation as fraudulent?  I have not stopped praying, for I continue to believe that God adopts, takes up, our intercession and uses it somehow, in mysterious ways we cannot penetrate, in blessing men and women in ways that we often cannot see now but shall surely see on that day when faith gives way to sight.

   A woman in my first congregation had a recurring problem with mental illness.  She had had shock-treatments and drugs and had been institutionalized several times.  Following one of her downturns I added her name to the list of people for whom I pray every day.  She was institutionalized once more.  A few weeks later she disappeared from the hospital.  The authorities contacted her husband.  "Where might she be?" they asked with much anxiety and much more embarrassment.  He told them to drag the river in front of the hospital, since she had attempted to drown herself once before, telling them as well that they would find her remains there for sure.  He was right.  She had drowned herself, as her husband had known she would.

   In the few days between suicide and funeral the talk of the town (which I couldn't help overhearing) was, "What is Shepherd going to say?  Will he tell us that by her act she has bought herself a one-way ticket to hell?"  I said something very different at the funeral.

   At the graveside, after the committal, when most of the people had dispersed, a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother approached me.  Very hesitantly the younger woman said, "I too was a patient in the provincial hospital.  In fact I was Jane's roommate.  She was a good woman, a devout woman, a godly woman.  I knew I had to attend her funeral.  But I have just been discharged myself and I am very fragile.  For several days I have been in torment wondering what interpretation you were going to place on her death and how I was going to endure it.  You will never know what comfort and encouragement I have received through what you said today."  Had I prayed in vain?

   When Jesus was in Gethsemane he pleaded, "Father, let this cup pass from me."  The cup did not pass.  His specific request was not granted; we cannot pretend anything else.  But was he himself ignored?  To be sure, his request was not granted in the manner he had requested.  But he himself was resurrected; his sacrifice on behalf of the world was sealed; his lordship over the cosmos was established.  His prayer was in fact taken up into the purposes of his Father as the Father honoured his plea.

   When Jesus tells us, his followers, to ask, seek, knock, he does not promise that we shall receive precisely what we ask for when we ask for it.  But he does promise that we shall never ask, seek, knock in vain.  God will never taunt or tease his people; he will never insist that we plead, only to smirk and say that our pleas are finally futile.

   "Why do we have to ask at all?" someone queries, "Do we have to tell God what he does not know?"  Of course not.  "Does he need to be reminded?"  No.  "Do we have to pester him, badger him, in order to pry something out of him?  No.  "Then why do we have to ask?"  Because our asking reaffirms our dependence upon him at all times; because our asking on behalf of others is a measure of how much we care for others; because our asking is necessary in view of his having created us not mere spectators in his governance of the world but rather as under-agents whose wills affect his will.
 

   No doubt you will want to tell me that there are days when anxiety, grief, guilt, bodily pain or mental anguish have so overtaken you that you cannot find words to pray with.  On those days you are in good company.  The apostle Paul has been there, and therefore can write, "...the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words." (Romans 8:23)  When we are terribly distracted we cannot think or speak.  We can only sigh or groan or cry or scream.  In those moments God takes up whatever inarticulate expression we utter and renders it effectual intercession with him.

   I once visited a friend in hospital just before she was to undergo major surgery.  A few weeks earlier her eight year old son had been at the Sunday School picnic, held on the front lawn of the church.  The children ate their lunch of hotdogs, then ate their dessert of cake and ice cream, then started a game of tag.  With his over-full tummy the eight year old fellow vomited, choked, and died on the spot.  As I spoke with his mother, now ill herself, she told me that ever since the incident, whenever she tried to pray all she could do was weep. We talked together at length about this verse of Paul's that had arisen from his own anguish and heartache: "...the Spirit helps us in our weakness...for the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words."  When we have no words, God will honour our tears!

   I intend to go on praying.
 

Dealing with thorns

    In my more foolish moments, I have sometimes thought that what each of us needs is one glaring sin­some wrong so evident that it would prevent us from ever claiming purity and righteousness for ourselves over-against our opponents. Then we could not divide the church into us and them­into those of us who know the truth and practice it and those who are totally in error in their thoughts and actions. Then perhaps we might realize that good and evil are characteristic of us all, that there is a graciousness in our opponents that we have not acknowledged and faults in ourselves that we do not see, and that finally all of us are nothing more than poor sinners in the eyes of God, desperately in need always of his forgiveness and his mercy. We all are, at one and the same time, the just and the unjust, the good and the evil, upon whom God in his lavish grace causes his rain to fall and his sun to shine (Matt. 5:45).
 

    God's other way

    But yes, such thoughts are foolishness. The Lord God does not want any one of us to sin in order to teach us humility. Rather, as we can read in 2 Cor. 12:1-9, God chooses another way. He lets us live with our thorns in our flesh.

    As Paul writes in that 2 Corinthian passage, he had lots of which he could boast. Not only, "as one untimely born" was he given a revelation of the risen Christ, but he tells us that he also was caught up into heaven in a prophetic vision and given a glimpse of the wonders of paradise. Few saints through the ages can match that experience. Yet, says Paul, to keep him from being too elated by the abundance of revelations given to him, he was given a thorn in the flesh, "a messenger from Satan," to bother him constantly.
 

    The mystery of the thorn

    We do not know what that thorn was. There have been endless speculations about it. Some have thought Paul had epilepsy or some other physical ailment. Others suggest that it was a speech impediment, or recurring depression, or some spiritual temptation. A few have suggested that Paul had sexual cravings of some kind or other. Whatever the thorn was, Paul considered it a chronic "weakness" that interfered with his ministry. Thus, he could call the thorn a tool of Satan that was attempting to subvert his mission.

    Three times the apostle prayed to God to remove the thorn from him, and we would think the Lord would do so in order to further the cause of Christ. But always the answer to Paul's prayer came back, "My grace is sufficient for you." In short, God used that thorn to further the gospel, to show that the power of Christ was greater than any thorn, to convince Paul that he was totally dependent on his Lord, and to keep him humble, boasting not in his own strength but in the strength of the Lord. Glory would thereby be given to God and not to the apostle.
 

    Our thorns

    We all have our own thorns, don't we­little "messengers from Satan" that interfere with our witness to the gospel and our Christian living. For some of us, it is self-righteousness and pride, for some it is a physical ailment. For others it may be guilt over a past abortion or a homosexual inclination. Some may even be haunted by fear and self-doubt when asked to witness to Christ. Whatever our own particular thorns, spiritual or psychological or physical, we would like to be rid of them so we can be better disciples, and we sometimes pray for God to remove the thorns and to make us whole.

    But the answer comes back to each of us as it came to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." God's support of our ministries, God's working through us, God's forgiveness of our impediments, is more powerful than any hindrance that Satan may put in our way. And the fact that we are not whole, that we are not pure, that we are not perfect and wholly good, is evidence of the fact that we do not spread the gospel and transform lives. God does. But nevertheless, God graciously uses us in his purpose.
 

    Victory over thorns

    So the message is clear to each of us, struggling with our thorns. We need not give in to them and succumb to self-righteousness or fear, to sexual sin or past abortion's guilt, or to any of those inclinations that would turn us from God's way for life. We need not let our thorns defeat us and discourage us from ministry. God's power is greater than Satan's. To be sure, he does remove some thorns from us that can be done away. But God also gives us grace to endure and triumph over those thorns that are with us always. Until the kingdom comes, and until that which is imperfect is made perfect eternally, you and I will always have our thorns. But God's might is greater than any wound in ourselves that we endure. By his grace, we can live with the thorns and not let them defeat us and our ministries. For God's power is manifested in our weakness.
 

    Reprinted with permission from Presbyterians Pro-Life NEWS, Spring/Summer 1998
 

The Message of Jesus and the Message of Paul

    Is there a difference between the two, as some have claimed? Did Paul change the message? Did he distort it? Did he invent his own gospel?

    Some have thought so, though such critics have usually been outside the church tradition.

    Thomas Jefferson, for example. To him Jesus represented simplicity; Paul added complexity. Later priests taught lies and slander. Jefferson wanted to go back to Jesus and take the "diamonds from dunghills" out of historical Christianity. And so he got busy with scissors and paste on the Gospels, making his own selection of what he considered Jesus said.

    Nietsche put it even more strongly. "Paul embodies the very opposite type to that of Jesus". His message was "a god who died for our sins, and redemption by faith, resurrection after death­all these things are a falsification of true Christianity".

    On the whole, the critics are willing to accept much of the moral teaching of Jesus and recognize its sublimity, but they will not allow Jesus to express anything that savours of the supernatural or of a God who works wonders.

    On the early pages of the Gospels we find sayings like "The kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent and believe the gospel" and "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart...and thy neighbour as thyself". There is certainly simplicity and clarity in such commands, though no one would claim that either was easy to practise.

    However, Jesus went on to teach his disciples other things, especially about his own person and mission, and these were not easily grasped by them, or palatable when understood. "The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many". "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected...and after three days rise again". The way in which they are reported makes it hard to believe that these sayings were put into the mouth of Jesus by the early church. The synoptic Gospels state specifically that on three separate occasions Jesus sought to convey this teaching about his death. On one of these occasions Peter rebuked Jesus and Jesus uttered a stern rebuttal.

    Much of what Jesus said the disciples found hard to take. "Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went with him" (John 6:66). The disciples discovered that, after starting to follow Jesus, there was much to learn.

    The fact of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus was the climax of Jesus' ministry, and it was not apparent to the disciples during his life on earth. Considerable sections of the Gospels are devoted to the description of this climax. The action of God in sending a saviour was not complete until these final events had happened.

    Paul lived on the other side of the crucifixion and resurrection, and the role that God gave Paul was a very necessary one. It was to stress this culmination, and to throw light on its significance. Far from his perverting the gospel, Paul's teaching, given after the death and rising of Jesus, and the continuing activity of his Spirit, is necessary for the understanding of the gospel and that we might have it in its fullness. Paul is the interpreter of the meaning of the Lordship of Jesus for faith and morals. If we imagine that his emphasis is only on such doctrines as redemption by faith, we have to notice that throughout his epistles his teaching on morals is very rich.

    If it seems that the kingdom of God designates the central theme of the message of Jesus, whereas Paul and the apostolic church proclaimed Jesus himself, there is no contradiction in the two messages. Hints of the coming identification are already apparent in the Gospels. Jesus himself is the crucial figure in the kingdom.

    We all desire simplicity, especially for the practice of our religion, and Jesus said: "I thank thee Father that Thou hast kept these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes". Yet we have to grow in understanding. There is in the gospel a wisdom for the mature as well as nourishment for the beginner. There are profound things in the gospel that challenge experience and thought. The words of Nietsche above describing the message of Paul as "a god who died for our sins, and redemption by faith, resurrection after death" are truer than he realized.
 

Why I Left the Order of Ministry

    On December 31 last, I resigned from the Order of Ministry of the United Church of Canada, to which I had belonged since June 11, 1941. The Editor of this paper asked me if I would care to write an article explaining why I "wanted to be taken off the roll of Presbytery, thus resigning from the United Church of Canada." Having been a charter member of Church Alive I welcome the opportunity to do so. Actually, however, I have not resigned from the United Church of Canada. I have resigned from its Order of Ministry. I am a member of the Cayuga Pastoral Charge in the Erie Presbytery. Whether I should be is a moot point. I suppose that the Erie Presbytery could advise the pastoral charge of which I am a member that it ought not to be harbouring a member who has decided to opt out of the discipline of a court which has oversight of the said pastoral charge. I doubt whether this will happen. A church whose highest court will not discipline its moderators for heresy is not likely to reprove an aged retiree for intransigence. If this happens I shall leave the denomination quietly. I cannot afford to sue.

    The fact that my resignation followed upon the brou-ha-ha created by the Moderator's interview with the Ottawa Citizen last October suggests a connection between the two events. The Moderator, however, should neither take credit nor accept blame for my defection. I had my resignation written out a year before he declared that he did not believe that the fullness of the godhead dwelt bodily in Jesus Christ. Readers of TD&O will recall that on December 17, 1996 a former Moderator, Marion Best, with the signed support of every President of Conference, sent a pastoral letter to the congregations stating that "our very first priority" must be to "stop slashing the safety net" which, she added, "was and is the means by which we joinged God in making justice and peace concrete among us." I believing that it was in the person and work of Jesus Christ that love had been made concrete among us and justification achieved, wrote my own Christmas letter to the secretary of Niagara Presbytery asking whether room still remained in our church for what I considered an evangelical understanding of the gospel. "May I hear further from the court about this?" I asked. After some prodding, my letter was forwarded to the Faith and Order Committee which proposed to the April meeting "that Niagara Presbytery affirm that the first priority of the church is to proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and risen, who commanded us to make disciples of all nations, and who commanded us to love our neighbour as ourselves." This proposal was debated and adopted, whereupon I put my draft letter of resignation in the file of unfinished business.

    I add that I have never questioned that right and duty of church leaders to challenge the worldly powers. No man or woman has ever risen to leadership in the UCC without a social concern. This is as it should be. But building a world with a better economic-political order is neither the priority nor the monopoly of Christians. Everybody should be working away at that. The priority of the Church is to declare that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not to itself.

    Actually the timing of my resignation, when it came, was the result of a very secular development-- a change of residence. In the summer of 1996 the City of Niagara Falls acquired for park purposes the high ground on which my wife and I had lived for ten years after retirement. Although there was no immediate need to relocate, we decided that we had better find a new roof over our heads. Preferably away from Casino town. Last September we moved to Cayuga, a village on the Grand River south of Hamilton. In this village I was born and baptized and have some relatives who are also friends. Cayuga has all the amenities­running water, electricity, telephone, even Cable TV. While Hamilton nearby is not Athens, it does have on its brow in Redeemer College, a Pascal Institute where the understanding of reality is sought and nourished through faith in Jesus Christ rather than through human reason supplemented by salad bown religion. What more does a retired minister need?

    A Presbytery apparently! Which "ordinarily" should be the Presbytery in which one resides. Here I faced a hiatus. The Manual (Section 011(G) ) now makes provision for a retired minister to belong to a local congregation. I wrote my friend, Russell Plumley, the secretary of Niagara Presbytery, telling him of my intended move and desire to join a local church. He replied saying that this would be a good thing to do but reminded me that I would remain under the discipline of Presbytery, in this case, Erie. He added that "I am sure that Erie would benefit by your sage admonitions, delivered in your usual strong resonant manner."­an observation which I accepted as a compliment rather than a barb. Thus there was lodged in Russell's mind, quite naturally, the expectation that Victor Fiddes would be transferring from Niagara Presbytery to Erie. My mind, however, which up to this point had been moving in tandem with Russell's, now shunted on to a siding. I find a kind of an anomaly in Provision 011(G) of the Manual. How can a member of a local congregation "enjoy all the rights and privileges" of its membership without being under its discipline? And why should a retiree remain under the discipline of a court to which he or she by reason of distance, night driving or indifference is not likely to relate himself or herself? Why not simply resign from the Order of Ministry and revert to the status quo ante of being an ordinary lay member? What I should have done, of course, was follow the advice: "Never explain; just do it!" I felt, however, that I owed a court which had profited so greatly from my admonitions, something more gracious than a curt resignation. So on December 31 I sent the following letter to the secretary, assuming that it would find itself on the agenda of the January meeting as an item of correspondence requiring action from the court:
 

Dear Russell,

    Thank you for your letter of November 5 concerning the transfer of my membership from Niagara Presbytery to Erie. The long delay in replying is the result of indecision on my part as to where my membership in the Church should be now that I am living outside Niagara Presbytery.

    Having been a member of The United Church of Canada since its institution on July 10, 1925, I am naturally reluctant to sever a denominational affiliation of such long standing. In recent years, however, I have come to feel that an understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ which I believe to be biblical and which I find to be essential to the exercise of ministry does not appear to be shared by the leadership of the denomination. I hasten to add that Niagara Presbytery, which always constitutes its sessions "in the name of Jesus Christ, the only head of the Church" has never deprived me of a forum for my evangelical views, and this I appreciate. You will agree, however, that being on the defensive is no way for a minister of the gospel to end his or her days. I was not ordained to debate the gospel but to preach it.

    After much thought, I have decided that what remains of ministry should be exercised in the membership and under the discipline of a local congregation. I ask, therefore, that my name be removed from the roll of Niagara Presbytery, and that the secretary of Hamilton Conference be advised of this action.

    To have served congregations of the United Church of Canada for over half a century has been a wonderful privilege for which I shall always be grateful to God, and at this season which focuses the fulfilment of the promise of God to visit and redeem his people, I convey warm and affectionate greetings to yourself and every member of Presbytery along with the prayer that Christ the Spirit will continue to bless the life and work of the Church which is His body.

Sincerely,
Victor Fiddes

    To my surprise this letter was never read to the court. It was passed on to the convener of the committee on Ministry and Personnel for consideration. When I learned about this several weeks later, I phone the secretary and convinced him that I had resigned from the ministry and that this obviated the need for a transfer to Erie or any other presbytery. On January 27 Russell replied: "If it is truly your desire to leave the United Church of Canada, then Section 365 provides the means for doing so in a clear unambiguous manner." I then sent the following letter:
 

Dear Russell:

    Availing myself of the provision in Section 365 of the Manual, I herewith submit my resignation from the Order of Ministry of the United Church of Canada.

Sincerely,
Victor Fiddes

    On March 13 Russell wrote that Niagara Presbytery had passed a motion consenting to my resignation from the Order of Ministry of the UCC. He added that "the Motion was passed with sadness and regret."

    I still think that the letter of December 31 stated the why of my resignation and that it should not have been necessary here to go into the how of it.

    After the Second World War was a subtle shift of emphasis took place in the UCC as the denomination moved away from the proclamation of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour to an emphasis on the relevance of faith to the needs of a hurting world. The plea "Listen to the world" gradually replaced the hope "UT OMNES UNUM SINT" in Christ. My impression is that the year 1968 was the watershed. The 23^rd General Council elected the redoubtable layman, Bob McClure, its Moderator thereby lending further ambiguity to its understanding of ordination and sacraments. It also put a damper on union discussions with the Anglicans. The same council embraced a statement of faith which soon became a creed which intellectuals could embrace without the embarrassment of holding irrational biblical images of divine conception, hell and ascension. Soon the Catechism which defined the Church as "the body of Christ in which he continues his saving work in the world" was shelved. During the last twenty years the changes have assumed flood proportions with radical surgery applied to The Lordship of Jesus, The Authority and Interpretation of Scripture, Sexual Orientation, Lifestyle and Ministry ,and now Mending the World (the rewrite of Toward A New Understanding of Ecumenism, about which Bob Smith says, "We tried to put both the church and the world at the centre".)

    The net result of these changes has been to move the denomination away from its place in the vanguard of a truly catholic ecumenism in the direction of becoming a deconstructed sect. In the March '98 issue of TD&O Phil Cline, a former General Secretary, suggested that the "United" Church has become "untied."

    While all these changes which, in my judgement, add up to the denigration of the gospel, may or may not have been a factor in emptying the pews of some of its devoted members (I am not sure that in this secular day and age a return to the biblical understanding would fill them!), there can be no question that the present generation of church goers is completely ignorant of the basic themes of the New Testament relative to the person and work of Jesus Christ­atonement, justification, sanctification, redemption. All this is foreign language in the church today. "So what?" I have been told. Did not Jesus himself sum up the law and the prophets in the one commandment to love and does not God's unconditional love remain the theme reiterated in all our churches? The Moderator, in his interview with Gail Reid of Fellowship Magazine said:

I envision every UC congregation becoming a safe place for people so that everyone and everybody, no matter who they are or where they come from, is welcomed in our churches, and is loved as a child of God. A safe setting where they know they aren't going to be judged. I think everyone needs that, and if our congregations can truly become those kind of places, they'll be doing what they're supposed to do.

    The secretary of Niagara Presbytery took exception to my statement: "I was not ordained to debate the gospel but to preach it." He responded:

It seems to me that any debatable matter is automatically an opportunity to state one's personal views; ergo, preaching the gospel. The recent publicity over Bill Phipps' remarks have created a number of opportunities for me personally to articulate beliefs in God, Jesus and resurrection. Far from causing pain, it has actually strengthened my joy about the freedom we have
in the United Church of Canada, and I wonder how strong is the faith of those who are so quick to criticize the Moderator.

    I have no objection to defending the gospel in the right place. Indeed, since retirement I have used some efforts of my feeble brain for this purpose (see Footnote). But the defense of the gospel should not have to be made inside the ramparts. It should be made outside where the enemy is supposed to be.

    On May 7 I found myself in the Admitting Room of the Port Colborne General Hospital where an amiable nurse was filling out my consent form for cataract surgery (There are others who agree that my vision has long needed correction!). "Are you a Jehovah's Witness?" she asked. "No, I am a member of the United Church of Canada." "Oh! So you are a freethinker," was her reply. I no longer find this reaction amusing. It has happened so often that I finally decided in fairness to my calling, to separate what is left of professional ministry from the general public's expectation of it in the United Church of Canada.

Footnote:

During my lifetime an intellectual attack of the magnitude of a holocaust has been launched against the biblical understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ with such success as to excise his name from every area of secular academia interest. Although academia is not my field I have not been totally ignorant of what has been going on there. After my retirement in 1984 I decided to devote much of my time to a defense of the Christian gospel in a field that interests and fascinates me­theoretical physics. With the encouragement of T.F. Torrance my manuscript, Science and the Gospel (Note the title which is not Science and Religion) was published by the Scottish Academic Press as Volume 6 in Torrance's series of "Science and Theology at the Frontiers of Knowledge." The purpose of this thin volume was to expand the claim of the writer of Hebrews 11:3 that it is "by faith we know that the worlds were framed by the word of God, etc" and to relate this understanding to the fantastic scientific knowledge of our day. The book was panned by most reviewers, not because of my ignorance of theoretical physics, which is considerable, nor even because of a fiderstic claim which scientists of the stature of Albert Einstein and Michael Polanyi support. The book was panned because I affirmed that faith must seen understanding in the field of God's self-disclosure, who is Jesus Christ. The intellectual does not want this singularity to restrict or enlarge his understanding. For the past few years I have been working on another serious manuscript, The Necessity of Prayer which, if it is ever published, will be panned for the same reason­that prayer, which is the praxis of faith, must be made in and through the operative field of god's self-disclosure who is Jesus Christ, the word made flesh­whether the name is invoked or not. Unfortunately this understanding of the gospel remains, as it always had been and perhaps always will be, an embarrassment to the intellectual community. Indeed when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on the earth?
 

An editorial feature:

Palms & Scorpions

Cheers & Tears

    We expect to make mistakes in the course of this editorial feature. We will publish letters demonstrating a mistake and/or unjustifiable cries of outrage. To date we have not been made aware of any serious mistakes. We expect to miss many worthies and we know that we have done so; their reward is in heaven or hell, as the case may be.

    It is because we believe that there is a hell--Jesus is said to have preached more about hell than any other biblical figure--that we call those apparently heading there to repentance and to reconciliation with God, who does not want anyone to perish but turn from his/her wickedness and live. We try to check our sources to ensure accuracy.

    We invite readers to submit nominations with stories and sources. Please write us or E-mail us. See page 2 column 1 for the current editorial address.
 

[PALM] Bob Blackburn, retiring secretary of the National Alliance of Covenanting Congregations, for seven years of faithful service. In the course of his term he met and married Verna Morgan, who designed the the first NACC calendar for 1998 and is hard at work on the 1999 calendar. The Blackburns can be contacted at blckbrn@planeteer.com
 

[PALM] John and Dawn Trueman, retiring Community of Concern president and corresponding/outreach secretary respectively, for eight years of conscientious, faithful service in the cause of reform and renewal according to Holy Scripture. An outstanding historian at McMaster University, John proved to be an outstanding layman in The United Church of Canada, devoting himself to reform and renewal with dedication, conviction, clarity and courage. Dawn not only wrote thousands of letters to grieving United Church people who wrote to the Community of Concern, but also set up a team of letter-writers to help in this mammoth task.
 

[SCORPION] The National Task Group on United Church-Jewish Relations, not for trying to redress longtime misunderstandings and to improve United Church-Jewish relations, but for reducing Jesus Christ from Messiah to some kind of prophet in their report, Bearing Faithful Witness. Their Jesus is even less than the Moslems affirm, for they at least acknowledge his virgin birth. Of course the Lord Jesus remains who he is: the eternal Son of God incarnate and risen from the dead. And of course the Basis of Union Doctrine continues to confess him so in accordance with Scripture and Creed. But the committee cannot even give Jesus the confession that the title Christ involves and deserves.

    In the process the committee uses the principle of interpretation known as the hermeneutic of suspicion, and the suspicion is that the New Testament is riddled with anti-Semitism, which, considering that the bulk of the NT was written by Jews, is absurd.

    The 36th General Council affirmed the document and authorized its study throughout the denomination, thereby adding yet another contemporary statement that contradicts Scripture, Creed and the Basis of Union Doctrine.
 

[SCORPION] Bill Wall, executive secretary of Saskatchewan Conference, for slandering the reform and renewal groups and for ideological dogmatism. In his July/August Observer Front Page article, "Liberal or faithful?" he stated that some of the renewal groups' material "contained attacks on other people, particularly gay and lesbian people." We question that the material contained attacks on other people. We know that refutations of assertions made by the gay/lesbian caucus and friends are interpreted by some as attacks on themselves, but there is a difference between personal attacks and refutations of untenable assertions. Bill Wall is wrong in saying that the renewal groups attacked people. Ironically he himself is attacking renewal people by slandering them.

    Second, Bill Wall stated that in the General Council Executive meetings following the 1988 General Council, "The pressure from those who opposed the General Council decision was intense. ... We had to fear those who would use the situation for their own ends, to assume power." We wonder if Wall is judging the Community of Concern leaders by himself. From what we know and experienced first hand, assuming power was the last thing any of the renewal leaders wanted. What they and we wanted was return of the General Council to Scriptural morality and belief, so that we could bear witness to Christ in our own congregations in peace and with integrity. We believe that Wall is slandering honest and courageous United Church people in this regard.

    As for his ideological dogmatism, we note that he regards being just as more important than being liberal, and he has a point here, but in context he is identifying justice with the gay/lesbian ideology. Those who oppose it or call it into question are unjust. This is ideological dogmatism. The particular dogmatism in this case is contrary to Scripture, Creed and the Basis of Union Doctrine.

    Later in the article Wall champions clear thinking, conviction and the willingness to take a stand. He has no monopoly on that! What on earth does he think Church Alive and the Community of Concern were doing except engaging in clear thinking, conviction and taking a stand? Wall champions "saying no to those who destroy truth and love." So would we; in fact that is what the reform and renewal groups did. We exposed the falsehood of the assertion that 10% of the population is homosexual, when in fact it is somewhere around 2%. We exposed the falsehood that homosexual orientation cannot be changed. We exposed the falsehood that Scripture doesn't really regard modern homosexual behaviour as sin. We said no to those who published falsehood in Sexual Orientation, Lifestyles and Ministry and elsewhere.

    Moreover we did it out of love, first, for Jesus Christ and the truth of the Gospel, and second, for love of any who would be injured by the falsehoods perpetrated by the ideologues. To cite just one example, we remember with particular vividness the love shown by Dr William Wan in his remarks to the 1988 General Council. In him was certainly and manifestly exhibited the grace and love of the Holy Spirit. His brief intervention and attitude of loving and caring will remain forever in our mind as one of the few redeeming features of that otherwise appalling experience of corporate darkness. And it was out of love, again, that we shed many tears and ripped our clothing in grief that so many well-meaning commissioners could be so misled and manipulated into gross error.

    Charlie Brown--or was it Linus?--once asked Lucy, "Have you ever considered that you might be wrong?" For ourself we can say we have done so many, many times, for we want to be faithful both to the words of Scripture and the mind of Christ, and also to the pastoral responsibility and trust that bears on the eternal destiny of those who respond to our preaching and example.
 

[CHEERS] The National Task Group on United Church--Jewish Relations Today, for attempting to improve United Church--Jewish relations, for reminding us that God has not cast away his people forever (Romans 11:1), and for reminding us of the Jewishness of Jesus.
 

[CHEERS] Peter C. Moore and friends, for providing a clear-thinking critique of Bishop John Shelby Spong in their book, Can a Bishop Be Wrong? (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1998. Cdn $26.95)
 

[CHEERS] Gary Badcock, for winning a God Uses Ink Award in the Non-Fiction (Theoliogcal/Reference) category, for his book, Light of Truth and Fire of Love (Eerdmans).
 

[TEARS] That a Bermuda judge should find that the United Church of Canada "has, in its articulation of its formal theology and its fostering of its day to day operative theology, contravened the 25 Articles of the Methodist Church" which were written by the Reverend John Wesley. "This infringement has occurred many times and not witlessly by inadvertance but adopted intentionally as successive positions and policies. Since 1988 this divergence and disparateness occurred very rapidly and these differences are so 'fundamental' and deep-seated as to be irreconcilable." The judgment was dated June 10, 1998.
 

[CHEERS] That friends of Dr Victor Shepherd have set up a website with his sermons and various writings. Those on the internet can call this website up at this address: www.victorshepherd.on.ca
 

[CHEERS] The Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, for coordinating this year's International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church in Canada. The date is Sunday, November 15, 1998, and the theme is "Breaking the chains." A kit including a video produced by Prayer for the Persecuted Church is available at $20 (after September 15, $25) from EFC, M.I.P.Box 3745, Markham, ON L3R 0Y4 Tel 905 479-5885
Website: www.efc-canada.com/rlc.htm
E-mail: rlc@efc-canada.com
 

[CHEERS] The 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Thursday, December 10, 1998. Although the UDHR is written in secular language, it presupposes the transcendent basis for human rights. In this regard it counters the assumption of many today that the state is the source of all rights. First Things, April 1998 issue, celebrates the UDHR's 50th with articles about its origin and implications, notably the Ramsey Colloquium's statement "On Human Rights."

    The Colloquium notes that "Because religion most directly addresses the foundation of human dignity, religious freedom is the source and safeguard of all rights and freedoms." It also states that "an integrated reading of the Declaration makes clear that it is neither individualistic nor statist, but a charter of rights for the flourishing of persons in community." May the Canadian judiciary take note.
 

[TEARS] Philip Shea has launched a human-rights complaint against evangelist Ken Campbell and the Globe and Mail for publishing a full page ad on Saturday, April 18, with the headline, "Canada's Supreme Court has no business imposing 'bathhouse morality' on the churches and in the nation's living-rooms!" In a June 9 release Shea called the ad a "hateful full-page diatribe aimed at lesbians and gay men." The ad featured a manifesto of hope by HOPE (Homosexuals Opposed to 'Pride' Extremism), whose website address is www.virtualbyte.com/por (E-mail: hopenow@hotmail.com). Our tears are for Shea's intolerance of Christian conviction and of fellow homosexuals who happen to think differently.
 

    APOLOGY

    In this feature in the March issue we reported that one of the sponsors of CBC TV's blasphemous "Mike MacDonald's Politically Correct Canadian Christmas" was Shoppers Drug Mart. This is not true. We regret any embarrassment or inconvenience suffered by Shoppers Drug Mart as a result of this incorrect information. Our source has also apologized, noting that their source was the CBC itself.

A CHRISTIAN WOMEN'S DECLARATION

THE ECUMENICAL COALITION ON WOMEN AND SOCIETY

Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D.
Project Director
Phone: 703-367-0985

A project of
THE INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY
Diane LeMasters Knippers
President
1521 16th Street, N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D. C. 20036
Phone: 202-986-1440

"Above the clang and clamor
of those who would say
to be right is wrong
and to be straight is narrow,
a reasoned voice is rising.
This call refuses to besmirch those
who would disagree;
instead it offers hope to those who
pause to listen and choose to follow."

    Melanie Wood Cavanaugh

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, no part of this Christian Women's Declaration may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior permission.
Copyright, 1997
 

A CHRISTIAN WOMEN'S DECLARATION

WHO WE ARE
 

    First and foremost, we are women of faith and principle whose Christianity is founded, not on human invention, but on divinely-revealed truth. This truth enables us to experience the redemptive, transforming power of Jesus Christ who made freedom and dignity possible for all human beings ­ for women as well as for men. Because we are created in God's image and the grace of God is extended equally to women, we can join the company of those women who first wept in the shadow of the cross and later rejoiced at the empty tomb. Because the Bible is the most effective force in history for lifting women to higher levels of respect, dignity and freedom, we join an historic succession of women whose Christian faith is forged from biblical truth and whose lives are shaped into Christ's image on the anvil of obedience.

    As women we are beneficiaries, not victims, of our Christian faith, despite its imperfect outworking in history. Women of the early Church gave witness to Christ in boldness of speech, purity of character, and even the final sacrifice of martyrdom. Women of the medieval period enriched the Church through their writing and teaching and their examples of prayer and contemplation, self-discipline, and service to family and society. Christian women of the modern era have been pioneers in areas such as education, health care, business, artistic expression, social reform, and worldwide evangelism.

    And in every generation, godly wives and mothers have responsibly exercised God's mandate to fill the earth and subdue it and have freely offered their lives for the nurture and guidance of the next generation. We are indebted beyond measure to these women and we celebrate them all. We also honor those who have sought more opportunities and greater respect for women. It is by their efforts that we enjoy a more extended range of activities and opportunities than any previous generation.

    Many of the earliest and most effective advocates of women's rights and dignity were women of faith whose convictions were rooted in biblical truth. They recognized that all Christians, male or female, share certain obligations and benefits ­ that "in Christ there is neither male nor female." Therefore, it is in Christ that we seek to exercise our freedoms today. As individuals, we seek to develop Christian character and to live faithfully within our families, churches, neighborhoods, and the world. As members of the Christian community, we endeavor collectively to bring the love of Christ and authentic Christian freedom and justice to all ­ especially the weak and helpless who, too often, are denied the respect due all who are created in God's image.

    WE AFFIRM

    Our Christian faith has been nurtured in various denominations, but we consider ourselves to be one in Christ as members of His universal Church. Specifically, we affirm the following:

    We affirm the Triune God. We acknowledge God's sovereignty, righteousness, and love. We recognize that God is transcendent and distinct from ourselves, yet we bear God's image as His children created in love. We consider it a privilege to emulate Christ by addressing God by the name, Father, even as we acknowledge that God, who created sexuality, is neither male nor female. We will worship no other god but the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that we are not our own, but we have been bought by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We cannot create forgiveness, identity, purpose and hope by ourselves. Instead, it is Christ who by His death and resurrection supplies what we cannot. There is no person or force that can bring us to God as Jesus Christ has done. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the power and grace of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

    We affirm the authority of the Scriptures and the doctrines represented in the ecumenical creeds of the Church. We believe that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the divinely-inspired written Word of God for all people throughout all ages. From them we learn the history of God's saving acts toward Israel and all humankind, and so we have a reliable basis for understanding the divine plan and our place in it. From the Scriptures we receive God's commandments and counsel, so that we have authoritative guidance for individual behavior and social life. We are called to approach the Bible with faith in the Holy Spirit who inspired it and with a readiness to obey the Word that we hear.

    We affirm the natural, created order. We know God to be far greater than what we see in the world around us or experience within ourselves. For this reason we do not worship the Earth or anything in it, including our own selves. We find evidence of the Creator's design in the differentiation of light and darkness, sea and land, plant and animal, male and female. God pronounced it good that the human race is constituted by two complementary sexes ­ both created together in His image. We accept this pattern of human sexuality as a foundation for human society, and we celebrate the healthy relationships of mutual service that embody it ­ above all, the divinely ordained covenant of marriage between one man and one woman prepared to bear and rear each succeeding generation of children. Further, we acknowledge that various social institutions ­ including family, church, and government ­ are ordained of God and should operate within appropriate spheres of authority with prerogatives that are respected by the other institutions.

    We acknowledge human sinfulness. We acknowledge ourselves to be sinners ­ without the resources within ourselves to know or to serve God adequately. Sin is personal, as well as structural. Every person is guilty. No more and no less than men, we as women are dependent upon the mercy of God in Christ. Ultimately, we trust neither ourselves nor any other human power to defeat the forces of sin and death. Our salvation comes from the Lord.

    We affirm that we can achieve the highest and best for ourselves only through obedience to God and service to others. We believe that obedience to God is the pathway, not an obstacle, to our fulfillment as women. We affirm the joy that comes from practicing the timeless virtues that form the character of Christ within us ­ discipline, self-sacrifice, courage, humility, patience, charity, truthfulness, and personal integrity. The Holy Spirit is the source of the strength to control selfish impulses, thereby making us capable of living authentic Christian lives.

    We affirm the liberty that comes from the reconciling truth that we have already received in Christ. We are grieved by the disrespect, the abuse, the personal prejudice and institutional oppression by which humans so often dishonor the image of God in their fellow humans. This tragedy strikes us particularly because we are conscious of how often women have been the targets of such disrespect, abuse, prejudice, and oppression. We pledge ourselves to stand in solidarity with all who have been denied justice, freedom and opportunity. We know that, ultimately, the fullest freedom for women is to be found only in Jesus Christ. We believe that His Gospel ­ as an essential foundation for any other social or political movement or philosophy ­ has the power to change us and change the world, so that we all may be the good, strong, capable, dignified and faithful women that we aspire to be.
 

    THE CHALLENGES WE FACE

    Well-organized movements have developed ideologies that undermine and ultimately destroy the positive contributions the Church and culture have made in affirming women's dignity and equality. Detrimental Cultural Trends. Troubling and detrimental assumptions within the wider contemporary, secular society include:

• Epistemological (what is true) and moral (what is right) relativism that denies that any objective norm is available.
• Genetic, environmental, and cultural "determinisms" that assume behavior is beyond personal control and that repudiate the idea of personal responsibility.
• Oversimplified "group think" that views life as a struggle between oppressed victim groups and their oppressors.
• The elevation of individual rights over personal responsibility.
• The focus on the autonomous individual to the neglect of institutions of civil society, especially family.
• Excessive state power and other utopian attempts, whether of the left or right, to engineer perfect societies.
• The "therapeutic" view that sees the sole purpose of human life as pleasure and self-actualization.
• Materialism as the sole basis for human happiness and success, a materialism that is blind to the deeper joy that is possible in adversity or prosperity.

• The interpretation of "gender" exclusively as a "social construct." We recognize the force of cultural influences and individual choice on concepts of maleness and femaleness, but we affirm that sexuality is rooted in the biological designation of the two sexes ­ male and female.
• The definition of "equality" as "identical," with quotas establishing 50-50 representation of male/females in all institutions and public arenas. We advocate equal opportunity rather than prescribed outcomes.
• The view that women have been "empty vessels" shaped by "patriarchy." We recognize that some societies and cultures have unjustly limited women's full participation, but biblical, church and secular history record countless women of vision and tenacious faith who, through prayer and perseverance, overcame limitations of every variety to influence the shaping of human history.
• The portrayal of women as "victims, " the exaggerations of women's suffering, and the denial that advances have been made in recognition of women's rights. While we deplore all abuse and oppression, we gratefully acknowledge advances for women. As a whole, Western women entering the 21st Century have power, education and privilege unprecedented in human history.
• The idea that women are innately superior to, inferior to, or radically different in ability from men. We celebrate both our commonalities with men as fellow human beings and our unique differences as men and women.
• The glorification of sexual lifestyles without limits or consequences and views of marriage and family that contradict biblically-based faith and time-tested moral behavior. We affirm the wholeness and freedom that flow from sexual abstinence before marriage and lifelong, monogamous fidelity within the mutual covenant of marriage between one man and one woman.

• The movement to "re-imagine" 2000 years of Christian faith. We repudiate the assumption that Christian faith and teachings were first "imagined" by men and now should be "re-imagined" by women.
• The rejection of a balanced view of Christian monotheism, that has traditionally worshiped a triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) who is both immanent and transcendent. We repudiate the growing trend to embrace idolatrous tenets and rituals from non-Christian faiths and to intermix these with Christian faith and practice.
• The movement to reject any objective ultimate authority and elevate human experience as the only source of meaning.
• The exclusive focus on corporate and systemic sin, such as racism, classism, and sexism, while ignoring the commission of those sins by individuals who can and should be held accountable. The assumption of the innate innocence of the human person and human perfectibility leads to neglecting a call for personal repentance and Christian conversion.
• The substitution of orthodox liturgies, sacraments and hymnody with radical feminist rituals and songs that focus on women's suffering and victimization and obsessively glorify women's bodies and sexuality.
• The demand for rigid quotas for identical participation of women in church life and work.
• The promotion of easy-to-get divorces, abortion on demand and lesbianism as acceptable lifestyle choices. We repudiate tolerance for sinful behavior patterns that stem from making misguided assumptions that pleasure produces human fulfillment and that such fulfillment is the main object of life.

    OUR PERSONAL PRIORITIES

    There are those whose feminism is a means to power and self-actualization. Our vision of womanhood is different. True power and self-fulfillment are by-products of a rightly-ordered life, not its goals. As heirs of a tradition of strong, capable Christian women whose influence on the world has been positive and uplifting, our aspiration is to ennoble women in the service of Christ. Specifically, we pledge:

    To Live Holy Lives. Recognizing the imperative to live in right relationship with God, we will celebrate the atonement of Jesus Christ and declare our allegiance to His Lordship. Filled with wonder and joy, we will worship the triune God. We will aspire to the highest standards of Christian morality and virtue by living an "examined life" enabled by God's Holy Spirit.

    To Develop Strong Families. Whether we are married or single, we will choose a radical and sacrificial commitment to strengthening our families. Realizing that successful family life is integral to any other right definition of success, we will make the development of strong family life for ourselves and others a priority in our lives, including our time, interests and material wealth.

    To Embrace our Calling to Authentic Service to Others and the Church. We will consider it an obligation, freely assumed, to be diligent servants of God and stewards of God's world around us. We will help build strong communities, help strengthen mediating institutions and live justly among friends and neighbors. We will have special concern for those among us who are poor, defenseless, or who are suffering.

    To Be Good Citizens. We resolve to participate in public discourse about the issues and values that are fundamental to our Christian world view and to do so with civility and forthrightness. We will endeavor to live lives of integrity and to model the virtues that are necessary to perpetuate a democratic and civil society. We resolve to confront the divisive and destructive forces that could readily undermine our own democracy.

    To Fulfill our World-Wide Obligations. As Christians with an international perspective, we will offer the blessings of the Judeo-Christian moral order and the gospel of Jesus Christ to women and men around the world. We will support the oppressed, especially women and children, and those who are persecuted for their religious faith. We will stand with those of all races who aspire to freedom, peace, and justice.

    To Build the Church. We will uphold the "holy catholic church" as the body and bride of Christ. We will work through prayer and discipleship for the transformation of lives through Jesus Christ. We will be faithful to the Great Commission of the Church by proclaiming Christ's work and teachings, confident that these will produce profound spiritual and social impact.
 

    OUR CORPORATE PLEDGE OF ACTION

    Together, as women of faith, we will focus on three significant areas of engagement:

    We will Work to Reverse Detrimental Cultural Trends. We affirm Democracy as the type of government that holds the most promise for the just and good ordering of society and which best protects human rights and dignity. But we acknowledge that democracy, at its best, is a fragile and often flawed experiment. The greater freedom we enjoy in Western society has created an environment where the misuses of freedom have produced social disintegration. Every person, endowed with inalienable rights, is also obligated to exercise personal and social responsibility. Today, the democratic experiment faces perhaps its gravest threat ­- a cultural crisis that is at its core a crisis of faith.

    We will provide leadership toward responsible involvement in public life by identifying and responding to the dominant cultural ideas that destroy a just and good social order. We will work to counter the destructive movements that undermine the values and covenant relationships that are necessary to shape and nurture a democratic citizenry. At home and abroad, we will seek to serve as moral agents to build rightly-ordered and just societies respecting the dignity of all persons.

    We will Expose the Assumptions at the Foundation of the Radical Feminists' Philosophy. We are especially concerned about the effects on women of contemporary cultural trends. We decry the erroneous thinking about human nature, sin and utopian expectations of society that have produced a pervasive sense of emptiness. The notion of women's autonomy ­ including absolute control over our own bodies ­ leaves us with an unrealistic sense of human power and an exaggerated sense of independence from the consequences of our attitudes and actions. The denial of the transcendent God who orders the universe and directs our lives leaves us with societal chaos and the absence of any objective standard of meaning. Most especially, it is the authority of the one true God, in whose image male and female are made, that insures the dignity and equality of women and men.

    We will counter the influence of extremists within the feminist movement. We will make clear the agendas and programs that harm efforts to enhance the equality, dignity and freedom for women. And, we will expose and counter extreme, radical initiatives that demean rather than liberate women, that destroy women's lives and enslave their spirits.

    We will Press for a Renewal of Biblical Orthodoxy in the Church and for a More Central Role For faith in Society. Many of our churches are excessively influenced, and some even dominated, by radical ideologies whose agendas contradict the scriptures and historic teachings that are the foundation of Christian faith. The most likely outcomes of the radical agendas are often obscured by lofty sounding purposes and goals.

    We will unite with women of faith who will agree to press for the reform and renewal of our churches. We will be bold in proclaiming the gospel, the redemptive, transforming power of Jesus Christ. We will work to strengthen those aspects within the Church that affirm the time-honored truths of the gospel. While we proclaim the intrinsic freedom of each person in Christ, we will seek to rejuvenate the world-wide Christian witness.

    We will unite with women of faith to press for a more central role for faith in American society. The coarsening of our culture and the other ills of our society are the inevitable result of allowing faith to become, not just sidelined, but trivialized in American life. We will work to restore the solid foundation of American culture ­ biblical orthodoxy in the Church and faith both as a driving force in our personal lives and as a central building block of our society.

SELECTED ENDORSEMENTS
From Representative Women of Faith
 

[Organizations are listed for identification purposes only.  Listing does not imply institutional endorsement.]
 

Elizabeth Achtemeier, Union Theological Seminary

Roberta Green Ahmanson, Fieldstead and Company

Lilian Calles Barger, Fellowship of Professional Women in Dallas

Winnie Bartel, World Evangelical Fellowship

Mary Ellen Bork, Catholic Campaign for America

Janice Shaw Crouse, Ecumenical Coalition on Women and Society

Donna F. G. Hailson, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

Mary Terrell Haines

Mary Hays, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

Roberta Hestenes, Solana Beach Presbyterian Church

Helen Hull Hitchcok, Women for Faith and Family

Caia Mockaitis Hoskins, Focus on the Family

Carol Iannone, New York University

Joanne Kemp

Diane L. Knippers, Institute on Religion and Democracy

Coleen Kelly Mast, Author

Frederica Mathewes-Green, Columnist and Commentator

Joy Moore, Asbury Theological Seminary

Dale O'Leary, Author

Nancy Pearcey, The Wilberforce Forum

Carolyn Ridley, Media Fellowship International

Terry Schlossberg, Presbyterians Pro-Life

Ruth Baird Shaw, Trinity United Methodist Church

Faye Short, The RENEW Network

Jean Leu Stanley

Helen Rhea Stumbo, Institute on Religion and Democracy

Dorothy Taft, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, Center for Christian Women in Leadership

Charmaine Crouse Yoest, Author and Commentator

Leslie Zeigler, Bangor Theological Seminary