Slow Blogging Week…

Hey people.

The short work week, normal job stuff, along with writing the weekend sermon will keep me absent from the blog. In other words, this is it. I’m preaching Sunday about forgiveness (the whys and hows). I plan to use “Positively 4th Street” by Bob Dylan as my starting point. Hilarious song – here’s a link if you’ve never heard it. Some of the funniest lyrics of all time:

“Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you”

If you’ve got any input, I am always open to it…

In an Unprecedented Business Move, GPS Makers Copy the Holy Spirit…

When we go on trips, we often take Beth’s TomTom along with us to help navigate the way. This is a good thing: I have the worst sense of direction on the planet. I forget where I’m going mid-route at least once a week. I know…you’re thinking, “Sam, they have medication for that.”

Beth has her GPS set to this female British voice named “Jane.” I have to admit that I find it kinda sexy. “Just tell me where to go Jane. I’ll do anything you say…” Luckily, Beth is not threatened by my romance with Jane. But when Jane talks, I listen. There are often times when I can see a route change up ahead, but she doesn’t tell me where to go until I am a little closer. It makes me rather nervous and sometimes I talk back to her: “Come on, Jane! Tell me where to go!” Other than the fact that you now think I need counselling for my Jane “problem,” I started thinking about how this was similar to the Christian walk. I’m sure other people have made the same deductions as well.

“Jane” is a lot like the Holy Spirit to me. Some of the reasons are obvious. I make the choice to listen to Jane. She doesn’t force me to follow her and I have to listen closely to hear her. And she usually gives me several chances to follow her instructions (”at 800 yards, turn left…at 400 yards, turn left…”). But there is one similarity that interests me more than the others. When I veer from her predetermined path, Jane adjusts her route to incorporate the decision I had just made. She can do this because she is programmed to assume that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of alternate routes arriving at my specific destination. Of course, she tells me I just missed my turn – she even tells me to turn around a couple of times. But then she picks up a new route to complement my change of plans. Though she has a preferred route, my personal decision to go straight instead of turning right doesn’t affect her overall goals and objectives for the trip. This happens several times each trip – at a closed intersection, a construction area, and sometimes I simply can’t get over in the right lane fast enough. The trip may be longer or more costly (either through traffic or toll roads) but Jane always gets me there either way.

I think the Holy Spirit deals with us in the same way. For the sake of analogy, if God desires your arrival in Los Angeles, you can get there through Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, or Houston – it doesn’t matter. Heck, if you want to be a real model of inefficiency, you can fly to Tokyo and then Los Angeles. The key is that you make it to Los Angeles. Our lives are full of decisions that affect us in small ways. Generally, the Bible is concerned about how we respond in those insignificant situations, not really the decisions themselves. How you behave once you arrive in Los Angeles is more important than the route you took to get there. Or, as another example, it’s not as important where you work as it is not to steal office supplies once you’re there. But even in the big decisions of life, there are many “routes” that eventually lead us to our destination.

I can only speak for myself, but I obsess over life’s decisions as if they will make or break my relationship with God. We act as if missing one of life’s turns will cause “Jane” to yell at us for not obeying, turn her power off, and never speak to us again. Or better yet, she’ll deliver us into the “hands of Satan” so that we may learn not to blaspheme. Such obsessing keeps us from doing the basics of the Christian walk, as if we’ll be moved from “sheep” to “goat” status with little notice.

But by approaching the Holy Spirit this way, it teaches us to relax a little. And it’s at our most relaxed that we do our best listening. In the end, we have to trust that God’s ego is not bruised by a foolish blunder, a missed opportunity, or a weak moment of temptation. The key is simply to get up, dust yourself off, and get back on the road. Okay…so you missed Jane’s voice at that last turn. The question then becomes: will you be listening when she calls again?

Thornley Is Better Than You…

I’ve been listening to a great  album the last few days: Ian Thornley’s Tiny Pictures.  I “discovered” Ian Thornley while searching for bands who regularly used twelve-string bass guitars on their records. Thornley’s former band Big Wreck came up. Needless to say, I was in love – I still listen to The Pleasure and the Greed every couple of weeks. Big Wreck broke up after two albums (just to spite me, I suppose) and Thornley went into hiding until Thornley’s debut Come Again was released: a straight-ahead Canadian rock album with some of the most cutting guitar sounds I’d heard in a while.

In typical five-year fashion, Thornley disappeared again, making the wait for a new album a form of torture for fans. Tiny Pictures came out in February. As someone who loved the Big Wreck sound, I was pleasantly surprised to find him return to his folksy/bluegrass (not country) and eclectic use of dobros, mandolins, sweeping vocals, and “wall of sound” guitars that graced those albums. This album isn’t as dark and has the slight imprint of his record label’s influence (started by Nickleback’s Chad Kroeger). Kroeger’s willingness to keep Thornley on his label almost makes Nickleback’s existence something I’m willing to tolerate for the greater good.

Here’s the video single for “Make Believe.”

You can hear audio clips of most of the album here.

Be advised: Ian doesn’t exactly love Jesus, if you know what I mean.  Big Wreck and Thornley albums aren’t the cleanest in the world.

New Evolutionary Discovery

I posted earlier this month that I’m reading a lot about science and faith. An article in the Wall Street Journal caught my attention this morning about a new fossil discovery. The article is here. If you read it, notice that there are already two “camps” of thought in regards as to the direction of common descent. Interesting stuff…

My Children Cause Me to Sin!

Children have a strange effect on their parents. Mine do. I thought I’d discuss one of the most unique ways my children have impacted my life.

Most Christians were taught to not take the Lord’s name in vain. After all, it is one of the commandments, you know. We normally assume this means not saying the phrase, “Oh my God” or something similar. Of course if you believe taking the Lord’s name in vain has something to do with stringing a particular set of words together, you may be missing the point of that commandment. It might have something more to do with actions than words alone (just a thought). But in the deep South, we have acceptable forms of “taking the Lord’s name in vain” that don’t apply everywhere else in the world. We have phrases like “Lordy, Lordy!” or my personal favorite: “Oh, good Lord!”

I say, “Oh, good Lord” all the time. My children elicit this colorful, yet worshipful response from me, particularly when attempting to get them dressed, to clean up their room, and most often at bedtime (specifically after the third call after I have told them to go to sleep). But I’ve noticed something. My traditional phrase has slowly developed a life its own with extra words being added depending upon the severity of the infraction being described. First came, “Oh, good Lord in heaven above!” Then came, “Oh, good Lord of heaven above and creator of all we survey!” No joke; I’ve actually said that.

However, last week, I hit the pinnacle of Southern “name-in-vain” taking. In a moment of abysmal desperation (caused by Annagale, no doubt) I said the following words: “OH, GOOD LORD IN HEAVEN AND CREATOR OF ALL WE SURVEY WHO HAS WROUGHT WITHIN OUR SINFUL HEARTS THAT BLESSED EVENT AFFECTIONATELY REFERRED TO BY MANY AS SALVATION!!” Or something like that.

That moment in time was a personal best for me. “Ninja skills” in taking the Lord’s name in vain, if you will. I believe Napoleon Dynamite would be proud of my newly acquired skills. The girls certainly were. The above phrase is at least the Southern equivalent of that time-honored Catholic phrase: “Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints!” It also may replace my previous personal best: “Son of a motherless goat!” which sounds much worse than it actually is.

Just another example of how my children push me to new heights of greatness. It is in these moments that I am most thankful for my children.

The Need for Christian Ritual

I was talking with a friend the other day who was upset at some critical comments made about the traditional symbols and rituals in our church. I agreed with my friend that the criticism was inappropriate, but I also understood the other point of view – one that I previously held for many years. Formerly belonging to a charismatic form of Protestantism that emphasized the “inner workings” of the Spirit, I had little need for tradition as well. But then things started to change for me. I read a book by Tom Driver called The Magic of Ritual that helped but, more importantly, I also began to listen to those who saw value in church tradition.

Ritual is important to keep the body of Christ together. See, as with most symbols, the object is not the issue – it’s the memory those traditions hold and how they provide a seamless story of our Christian past that’s important. The church wreaths, Easter candles, or Christmas ornaments are not the important part – it’s the fingerprints from the ten generations of Christians that used them before us that matter. Similarly, we resonate with the millions of Christians that came before when we say the Lord’s Prayer. Did Jesus say the Lord’s prayer so that we could all repeat it back to him? No. But with each reciting, we affirm the fact that we aren’t the first and won’t be the last.  

Call me a liberal if you must, but I believe that the innate universal desire for experience resides in everyone…and often finds voice in ritual. I’ll give you an example: my daughters. We have a friend who just returned from Thailand after teaching English at a Christian school for two years. Now, my girls love this guy – they think he hung the moon. During his absence, they had a picture of him in their room. The girls mentioned him every few weeks and looked at the picture in their room…and then they did something that amazed me. They found some scotch tape and placed a piece on the picture after each remembrance. After two years, that picture had so many pieces of tape that it was hard to see the image underneath. They created a ritualistic memorial on their own.

A similar thing happened a few months ago as well. My five year old is in a choir at church and her choir director sent her a present in the mail. It was a “glow-in-the-dark” cross. Though that means little to me, she loves it. Even though she knows all about Jesus, but the tangible element of the cross connected with her in a unique way. So she keeps that cross in her room and sleeps with it. She doesn’t see the cross as a substitute for the protection of God. Rather, it’s a representative object that reminds her of God’s goodness – a symbol for something she already understands amd embraces.

Christians need symbols and ritual. Of course, we don’t need to eclipse the reality of relationship with the Father by relying on ritual alone. But there is a significant place for it in the body of Christ, if for nothing else than to remind us of Christians who have gone before us. Ritual provides reinforcement of things we hold dear, whether it be the friendship of another or the love of our Savior.

A God of Discrimination and Nepotism

Mother’s Day has come and gone. Father’s Day is just around the bend. So, in honor of those celebrations, I thought I’d delve into some theological “musings” surrounding God and parenthood.

I read and interesting passage in the Bible the other day: Genesis 49. What struck me was the unusual words of Jacob as he says goodbye to all his sons. All the remarks are “colorful” but the remarks said about Joseph stand out above the rest. After giving mixed reviews of the other sons, Jacob gushes over Joseph and blesses him to the “heights of the eternal hills.” In the last moments before his death, his favoritism for Joseph was so great that he couldn’t even see it anymore.  That’s what got everyone in trouble in the first place. And the other sons had to sit around and politely listen to Jacob’s unchecked favoritism and put on a good smile for the old man. Over the top to say the least – nevermind how it made the other sons feel.

How it made the other sons feel. That’s the part the stuck out to me. We don’t think about the feelings of Jacob’s other sons too much, though we go out of our way to make sure we preach about their deceptions, mistakes, and fits of rage. But they also experienced the actions of a parent that would infuriate even the most docile of siblings: favoritism. Every parent tries to fight it, but often (to no avail) we end up “choosing” one sibling or family member over the others through our words, gifts, time, and consideration. That’s nothing new. Every family deals with it. Personally, I’ve been on both sides of that coin. You probably have, too. How do you think Joseph’s brother’s felt? The guy could do nothing wrong. Jacob favored Rachel and her two children over their own mothers and them. Things got bad when Joseph started to believe his own press in the form of dreams and visions. The Bible cleans this up a little for us, but honestly, it’s just a downright ugly scene. I’ll be honest: I’d get rid of Joseph, too.

But here’s what’s so great about that passage. What seems to be the most irritating human trait in our own families is critical for the world’s salvation in God’s family. God discriminates, favors, shows prejudice, partiality, and unashamedly proclaims his one-sided bias towards us. In fact, he would do anything for us – like a parent in love with a child that can do no wrong. In humans, it’s obnoxious. In God, it’s beautiful. All parents are hard-wired this way. I love my children in moments of incredible disrespect, fits of anger, and moments of extreme freak out.

God’s greater than that. He loves beyond what any normal parent could ever do. This is driven home by the fact that we can’t seem to love other children like our own. But his love is extended with that same intensity to all of us. We are all his – and that’s the point. God discriminates blatantly on a infinitely expansive level. Right now, we all stand in the center of his deeply personal bias towards us. Now that’s  a God I can worship.

Reading and Listening…

Time for a book and music update. I haven’t found a ton of interesting music in the last few months or so. But here’s a few:

The Bird and the Bee, Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future.

Audioslave, Revelations.

Lo-pro, Self-titled.

I’ve mostly been reading for my Sunday school class, specifically in the area of science and faith. This has been a huge challenge for me intellectually and spiritually. I grew up in a conservative home that forcefully stood up for the belief in a literal Genesis and saw science and faith as contradictory. Now, I know there’s a lot more to the Genesis account than the literalness one finds in a car manual. I also know that the measurable half-lives of uranium, potassium, and stronium put the date of the earth at 4.5 billion years. I believe science and faith can be affirming of each other - though I’m not sure of all the details. I’ll let you know how all of that turns out after I’m done. Anyway, along with frequent cyber-visits to the Faraday Institute, here’s my list I’ve been reading – it’s an enormous hodge-podge of various positions. I don’t plan to immediately adopt one over the others after I finish them all (I’m about halfway through), but I do have a responsiblity to relay each position accurately to the congregation I serve. Ordered by topic:

Intelligent Design:

Gonzalez and Richards, The Privileged Planet

Owen Gingerich, God’s Universe

Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box

Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution

Fazale Rana, The Cell’s Design

Dembski and Ruse, eds., Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA

Creationism:

Grady McMurtry, Creation: Our Worldview

John Whitcomb, The World that Perished

Theistic Evolution:

Francis Collins, The Language of God

John Polkinghorne, Quantum Physics and Theology

John Polkinghorne, Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion

David Snoke, The Biblical Case for an Old Earth

Secular Evolution:

Johnjoe McFadden, Quantum Evolution

Brent Dalrymple, The Age of the Earth

Other:

John Haught, God and the New Atheism

Brian Appleyard, Understanding the Present: an Alternative History of Science

Anthony Flew, There Is a God

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the relationship between faith and science as I prepare to teach my class. Are science and faith enemies or friends?

Spiritual Gifts and Reformed Theology: Can They Co-exist?, Part 2

3) Confining spiritual gifts to conversion: By the time of the Reformation, Christian mysticism had developed into several different strands. The mystical treatises previous to Luther’s time always emphasized the availability of God’s presence in a post-conversion state, similar to the doctrines of sanctification and the baptism in the Holy Spirit of the Holiness and Pentecostal traditions. But Luther consciously rejected these mystics and chose to draw from the work of John Tauler and the anonymous Theologia Germanica instead. Both of these works (and subsequently Luther) taught that all the gifts you need you receive at conversion alone. There is no post-conversion experience and the gifts these works cite are the Isaiah list passed down through Scholasticism. This is really the first place that the idea of “one baptism, many fillings” shows up in Christian history. Any experience a believer can have originates strictly at the salvation moment. There is no baptism in the Holy Spirit other than what the Holy Spirit does to enforce the saving work of Christ.

Because of all of this, Luther’s commentaries pass over most passages that describe Jesus’ healings in the gospels. Miracles have passed away and “no new and special revelation or miracle is necessary” since an “immeasurably greater and more glorious work and miracle” is found in salvation. Tongues is no longer given since the church speaks all languages and only “fanatical spirits and sectarians” would seek such a gift. Luther, like Gregory before him,  attaches merit to not seeking spiritual gifts since “nobody should presume to exercise it if it is not necessary or required.” The inference here is that since God determines all detailed events in life by his sovereignty, the need for signs and wonders should never arise. A miracle would contradict the natural order and ultimately contradict God’s predetermined will.

Calvin towed the line, stating that healing “had its beginning from the Apostles, which afterwards, however, was turned into superstition, as the world almost always degenerates into corruptions.” His cessation sentiments are similar to those before him: “[The possibility of spiritual gifts] either does not exist today or is less commonly seen.” Counterfeit miracles are determined by their association with wrong doctrine rather than their supernatural nature. For Calvin, the more charismatic gifts of 1 Corinthians have mutated into more permanent gifts of the intellect – tongues is seen as the ability to preach in a foreign language and the gift of discernment is the ability to rationally determine false doctrine. That sounds alot like the Reformed tendencies of today to me.

4) Modern expressions of these issues: Charismatics maintained a distinct post-conversion experience until the rise of the the Third Wave movement in Pentecostalism. Beginning in the 1980s with its influence continuing well into the 1990s, the basic premise of Third Wave groups is to embrace the move of the Holy Spirit, particularly the aspects of healing, deliverance, intimacy of worship, and spiritual warfare without disrupting the general church structures or denominations of which they are apart. The phrase was coined by C. Peter Wagner, who spearheaded the doctrinal emphasis of the movement. On a practical level, however, John Wimber and the Vineyard Movement were the driving force behind the Third Wave phenomenon. Wimber, once an associate of Chuck Smith, would eventually separate from Calvary Chapel due to his emphasis on spiritual gifts while choosing to retain a Reformed approach to doctrinal issues. Similarly, Wagner cites a Reformed-based approach to spiritual gifts in describing Third Wave doctrine. This is particularly evident in the Third Wave belief that the baptism in the Holy Spirit only occurs at conversion with multiple fillings that may resemble what Pentecostals would normally consider a second experience. Once again, “one baptism, many fillings” is directly imported from the Reformed tradition. Also, common the Third Wavers is the absence of the gift of tongues. Though the Third Wave movement made some charismatic manifestations acceptable in mainline denominations, it aggressively minimized the distinctive phenomena that had characterized the Pentecostal movement since its inception. Following its Reformed roots, the Third Wave essentially made Pentecostalism non-Pentecostal.

Many theologians, although accepting limited roles of experience, reject a secondary post conversion event. James Dunn, Max Turner, and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen restrict forms of Spirit baptism to the conversion experience. Unfortunately, even some Pentecostal theologians have gone along with the crowd. Assemblies of God theologian Gordon Fee followed the Reformed tendency to see sanctification as merely a “metaphor for conversion.” So even though charismatic manifestations are now acceptable, all historical attempts to integrate spiritual gifts into Reformed theology have consistently resulted in the diluting of spiritual gifts. Reformed attempts to integrate spiritual gifts have generally left charismatic Christianity a mile wide and an inch deep. History proves this to be true. And though it’s not the popular opinion, I just can’t accept that. I can’t help but feel that Christian spirituality is meant to be deep and event-laden. To minimize the charismata is remove one of the main points of intimacy between us and God. Though others see the gifts as expendable, I’ll take them every time. Can spiritual gifts and Reformed theology co-exist? If historical precedent is any indication, the answer is no.

Spiritual Gifts and Reformed Theology: Can They Co-exist?, Part 1

A little while back, I told some fellow bloggers here that I didn’ t think charismatic gifts (the traditional 1 Corinthians list) and traditional Reformed theology were compatible. Though you could write a book on this topic, I do want to address some the issues I believe make them difficult to reconcile. As always, you’re free to disagree and comment. Please know that I am writing this assuming a basic understanding of both topics at hand. I won’t be stopping for definitions and the like. I’ll handle the issues in this order: 1) allegorization of miracles, 2) the Isaiah gift list, 3) confining spiritual gifts to conversion, and 4) modern expressions of these issues.

1) Allegorization of miracles: Even though the gifts of the Spirit were still common during the postbiblical period (even by “scaffolding model” timelines), clergy began to substitute allegorical interpretations for actual miraculous events and charismata. The need for miracles and spiritual gifts began to be seen as an elementary approach to Christianity, similar to the way the Alexandrian school taught that literal interpretation of scripture was beneath a mature believer. Rather, God’s acts of creation and the ”healing” of the soul (conversion) became the true miracles of the church. Augustine, in his Homilies on the Gospel of John, stated, “The Samaritans had waited for no sign, they believed simply His word.” Emphasizing faith that does not require miracles, he stated that mature Christians have “believed on Christ through the gospel; we have seen no signs, none do we demand.” Earlier, disgusted with commoners’ use of amulets to cure disease, Augustine stated that we should “rejoice” when someone is sick “tossed about with fever and pains” in hopes that the gospel “placed at the heart” will “heal it from sin.” Sin was the most urgent “disease” facing humanity. The Reformers picked this line of reasoning up.

2) Substitution of the Christological gifts of Isaiah 11 for the 1 Corinthians 12 list: Around the same time, clergy began to teach regularly on the gifts in Isaiah 11:2-3. The Isaiah list (wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord) became the standard gift “list” associated with the Christian walk. Though it is difficult to speculate exactly why these gifts were chosen over the 1 Corinthians list, some reasons do come to mind. For one, the Isaiah list prophetically describes the giftings of Christ. The church at this time was highly involved in defining Christology against heretical movements and the Isaiah gifts reflected that concern. Secondly, the gifts in Isaiah had less of a supernatural element to them. Wisdom, for example, has a more natural element to it than say, tongues. Counsel could be gained through interaction with creation – the Augustinian vehicle for God’s self-revelation – as opposed to prophecy which required direct revelation and inner experience. Third, the 1 Corinthians gifts appealed to the direct experience of the individual believer – something most ecclesiastical authorities believed was dangerous, particularly after the Montanism “scare.”

The Isaiah list didn’t replace the 1 Corinthians list overnight. Beginning with the Alexandrian school, spiritual gifts were adapted to accommodate theological beliefs. Origen cited language, wisdom, and knowledge as gifts only available to “worthy receivers.” Ambrose, describing the sacrament of confirmation, emphasized the reception of the “sevenfold gift” – listing the traits of Christ in Isaiah 11. Augustine followed suit. Gregory the Great made this substitution permanent. In his famous Pastoral Rule, Gregory wrote a tremendous amount about love and self-control but steered away from any recognition of the power gifts listed in 1 Corinthians. In his commentary on Job, Gregory explained that the seven gifts act as armor against spiritual attack and other evils. In a homily on Pentecost, Gregory specifically addressed the gifts in 1 Corinthians, but in the postbiblical age, he stated they are considered the gift of the clergy alone. Parishioners would do better to focus on the seven gifts that promote fruitful Christian living rather than power gifts that could possibly lead to pride.

We find the consummation of the allegorical and sevenfold gift traditions in the Reformed tradition. Luther’s German translation of the hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus, while referencing the seven gifts, allegorically interprets the gift of tongues as preaching: “You are with sevenfold gifts/The finger of God’s right hand/You deliver the Father’s Word speedily/With tongues into all the lands.”  These ideas are still reflected in Reformed theology today.

I’ll discuss issues 3 and 4 tomorrow…