Category Archive

I finally finished reading the rest of the Agenda for Synod 2008, and here are my highlights: (not that the material left out is unimportant):

The Candidacy [for ministry] Committee examined the issue of the status of ministry associates. It was their understanding that being a ministry associate does not automatically allow one to preach, [167]  but is determined by the mandate of the position the MA fills. Synod 2007 decided that MAs can be called as solo pastors given that “economic need” is present and the other relevant Church Order articles could not be followed. [170] The Candidacy Commitee recommends dropping the “economic need” clause, [171] and adopting a guideline to give a standard for whether it is appropriate to call a MA. [171]

The Contemporary Testimony revision seems excellent. They revised the report to avoid cliches and keep the wording meaningful, also responding to new issues in our changed contemporary situation. Scriptural references are listed at the bottom with explanatory sentences rather than footnotes in the text, which turns out to be very nice. As they changed some of the thematic developments, the report discourages word-for-word comparison with the 1986 version. [211] I don’t have the patience to study the whole document, but it reads well and is clear and relevant, as is its goal.

The Faith Formation Comittee had in its mandate two issues of most interest: children’s communion and infant dedication. Children’s communion is studied intensively, but no recommendations are stated for this year; they plan to end up producing thorough documents about this. [241] They plan to organize communication about topics in this area: putting together a web site, sending discussion points to councils, and organizing representative correspondents. [239-240] They put forth an interesting recommendation that Synod hold a discussion about these matters in the form of a luncheon. [241]

There were a few overtures concerning the new hymnal, slated for release in 2013. Overtures 6 and 7 deal with some proposal not to include the confessions in the hymnal; I didn’t see anything about this (perhaps I just missed it). Overture 8 wishes to ensure there is a seperate Psalm section in the hymnal, as in all previous. I think this issue has sides that are about balanced - having a seperate Psalm section reinforces the importance of singing the Psalms, however it also makes them harder to find, discouraging their use.

Overture 9 asks Synod to establish an “Environmental Policy Task Force”, to write up a list of guidelines for those that wish to live environmentally responsibly. I would have thought this should fall outside of Synod’s juristiction, however it is painfully obvious even at my own church this is needed, as people do not all see environmental responsibility as the important moral issue that it is. I strongly urge Synod to adopt the recommendation in this overture.

If I forgot anything important, be sure to let me know!

Do we need an “evangelical manifesto”?

I definitely think so.

Based on my own experiences, I have markedly seen evangelical Christianity looked down upon. Based on most of what I see, I would too.

Some evangelicals irked much of the mainstream through their creation of what is now called the “religious right”, trying to put Christian morality into of modern conservative politics. Some philosophers note that this is misguided, as Christianity and modern politics have completely different presuppositions. To many this looks like infringement upon civil liberties.

And this group, though less vocal, has seen some negative media coverage. For example, the movie Jesus Camp, released in 2006, portrays a certain evangelical/charismatic Christian retreat. People therein pray over bowling balls, pass out tracts to random people, participate in an anti-abortion protest, and pray over a cardboard George Bush. One feels that evangelicals are very much out of touch with reality after watching this. (It is a very excellent documentary; if you haven’t seen it, you need to.)

Therefore, evangelicals have been blasted twice: once because of a few that embark on a misguided political project, then again when a similar group seems very aloof and uninvolved with real issues. This is obviously not an accurate view of all the churches and people that would be grouped under evangelicalism. However, especially these few, through the megahorn of the media, have begun to define evangelicalism for many people.

Therefore, this needs to be corrected by something. The recently-released Evangelical Manifesto, though not perfect, counters these perceptions very well in the second and third sections. It is a way for evangelicals to regain the ability to define themselves, instead of the media or people’s developed biases doing so for them. However, I am quite unsure of whether it could have any lasting influence.

As for a closer examination of the content, James Smith did a far better job than I ever could, on the Generous Orthodoxy blog.

In an earlier post, I highlighted Todd Hiestand’s essay about being church in suburbia. I discovered that he indeed was putting these ideas into practice in a church, called The Well, in which he serves as one of the pastors. The Well is situated in the suburbs of Philadelphia (Feasterville).

The Well chose to have a warehouse as their building, as they put it “a new kind of church building that we believe will allow us to best be a blessing to our community”. This is because they see fostering the arts as an integral part of their mission:

More than likely you’ll notice a lot of really diverse and exceptional art on the walls when you come in. We use our space as an art gallery and concert venue for the local and greater Philadelphia artists and bands. This is a way for us to be a blessing to the world around us and allows us to simply try and be representatives of Jesus Christ in our world. While people who do not call The Well their church home do much of the art, we do have a number of gifted artists in our community. Often, you will see some of our artists painting during the service.

It is well worth looking at their flickr stream. Especially considering it is a warehouse, this is a beautiful place!

They also have an emphasis on the service as a time of community. This is something that has been bothering me at my church, where people hold almost all their talking until after the service, which I think negates some of the value of having a service. I very much enjoy their approach to ensuring this doesn’t happen:

People often say that the centerpiece to our Sunday morning is community. Whether it’s the 5-10 minute conversation/greeting time in the middle of the service, worshiping together or even a Q & A time during the message we understand and want to practice the fact that we are in this “faith thing” together.

To ensure they are continuing to examine their role in their context, they hold “midrash mettings” quarterly:

Because we believe that theology is best discussed in the context of a community of faith, we come together four times a year to discuss issues of theology and practice that are important to our community so that we may be more effective in being a part of God’s kingdom becoming a reality on earth as it is in heaven.

This all ties into the church’s suburban location, which Hiestand’s article shows has individualism at its core. Art fosters community by being an accessible expression of someone else’s feelings and thoughts. Including fellowship into the worship service provides an environment for community to grow. And the church values being continually relevant through regular re-examination of its context.

“In a world where celebrity equals talent, and where make-believe is called reality, is is most important to have real love, truth, and stability in your life”
–Bernie Brillstein (on my Starbucks cup)

In my past post examining this issue, I expressed my view that the new Doctrinal Covenant is a positive step for the CRC. I still hold to this position, though I wish to highlight some of the rather well-presented and opposing views I found among the overtures in the Agenda for Synod 2008, which have lead me to see that some changes are necessary.

There were six overtures and one communication concerning the Form of Subscription. However, Overture 19, presented by Classis Northcentral Iowa, I thought presented an insightful view of why the new Covenant needs at least revision.

Their first concern was the replacement of orthodoxy with postmodernism. They had issue (as I did) with the report saying that “A regulatory instrument is needed to keep us orthodox … is increasingly being called into question“. They raise the very valid point that in the relativistic postmodern times, the church needs to be a haven for absolute truth, which means it needs to hold that doctrine is still valid today.

They were also concerned with the divide between “contextual” and “timeless” truth. I enjoy their point that “the ambiguous statement that our historic confessions are merely ‘faithful expressions of the gospel in their time’ leaves open the question of whether the gospel itself changes over the years.” They note that flexibility is antithetical to the point of subscribing to a form/covenant. I think this point is very valid, yet see a danger in declaring the doctrinal standards “timelessly true” - I find this hermeneutically troubling. For example, in Article 36 of the Belgic Confession, the Anabaptists are put grouped with anarchists. This statement was properly footnoted in 1985, as this was not longer applicable at that time. Although parallel examples are not many, we must have the ability to say that certain parts of the confessions are historically conditioned and need interpretation in that context.

Their last concern was that the Doctrinal Covenant does not call for officebearers to actually believe the confessions personally. Thus, they explain, it falls short of being effective at being an instrument of orthodoxy. This, I believe, is a point that requires consideration by Synod. I never saw this before, but this is extremely critical for the Doctrinal Covenant to include. However, it is again quite difficult to include this without saying something like the old FoS: “we sincerely believe [the doctrinal standards] … fully agree with the Word of God“, which is again a bit hermeneutically troubling to me, but so is the language in the Doctrinal Covenant, saying officebearers need “to be shaped and governed by them“.

Therefore, I would propose the following to revision to the third paragraph in the Doctrinal Covenant:

With thankfulness for these expressions of faith we promise, in being shaped and governed by them, to wholeheartedly act in accordance with them and to promote them in our various callings: preaching, teaching, writing, and serving; making grateful use of the church’s testimony of faith for our time, Our World Belongs to God: A Contemporary Testimony.

I think this would resolve most of this last problem. By not trying to regulate belief, interpretations are allowed to vary somewhat. However, this would keep belief within the bounds of what one could call orthodoxy, saying the expression of those beliefs needs to accord with the confessions. This keeps the unity of action that the CRC values as a confessional church, while allowing for diversity in interpretation.

Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

I was reading the Boff brothers’ excellent book about Liberation Theology this past week. I highly recommend this book, even though liberation theology seems to have already had its heyday. The common perception of Liberation Theology constrains it to the Latin American situation, but the Boffs show that it goes far beyond that.

Liberation theology sought to liberate the oppressed, especially the poor. But the Boffs how that there are two types of poverty. Those who make less than a living, the socio-economic poor, first come to mind. The process of liberation here brings these people out of their poverty.

However, there are also those that Jesus described as poor in spirit, the Boffs’ evangelically poor. Unlike socio-economically, those who are not poor in spirit are the oppressed; people are liberated into this poverty.

After looking at this exposition, I saw that both types of liberation are brought about by the same thing: generosity.

To solve the extreme problem of socio-economic poverty, we need to be generous with our resources. We are to give things as money, grain (especially with its recent surge in cost), and prayer. We must also speak out against the injustices that our capitalistic system brings about in some parts of the world. However, I wish to remind all that it is a fallacy to say that this is the complete solution to poverty; personal involvement of many is very necessary as well. If anyone is looking for a very worthy cause in this area, have a look at Emmanuel’s Wish, a small charity which supports African orphanages; also don’t forget your local homeless!

But to be poor in spirit, we must go beyond just our resources, instead giving away our very selves. To be poor in spirit is to counter our natural tendency to hoard ourselves, instead by being devoted completely to God (as Paul put it, a “living sacrifice”), and following his command to love our neighbour. And liberated from the oppression of individualism, Christians can form a community of the truly free.

This is where the second part of the Beatitude comes into play. The poor in spirit have the Kingdom of Heaven, for they make it up, and set free from self-interest, are ready to create it anew together.

And the first part of this is casting off oppressive ideologies. Both the physical and spiritual elements of life can be appreciated, throwing away both the Platonism in some Christianity and the denial of the spiritual in humanism. Each individual can be appreciated in their own peculiar way, as preference and prejudice can be disposed of. This creates the opportunity for vibrant and rich community.

Basically, the church becomes a community in itself, but inside the communities of the temporal world. But, because the church is the medium in which the Kingdom is developed, it shows to the temporal community what it ought to be like, and in its life, persuade the temporal community and its members that the Christian way is better. Francis Shaeffer put it this way:

“…We must exhibit that, on the basis of the work of Christ, the Chruch can acheive partially, but substantially, what the secular world wants and cannot get. The Church ought to be a “pilot plant,” where men can see in our congregations and missions a substantial healing of all the divisions, the alienations, man’s rebellion has produced.” (Pollution and the Death of Man, 81-82)

This is the dream of the missional church. For the world is starving spiritually in a way as severe as the hungry. The compassion demanded by our love in Christ ought to extend to all the oppressed: both the economically poor and the spiritually rich. And in generosity, we have the tools to live this compassion out.

I happened along Francis Schaeffer’s excellent short book Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology. I will offer a short summary of some of his many profound points made therein.

His argument begins by connecting religion with ecological position. He describes an article where a history professor argued that Christianity, with the view that man was given dominion over the earth, poisoned the modern post-Christian view that created the ecological mess; changing this religious base would resolve the problems. Schaeffer agrees fully with this second part, the first he later shows is not fully representative of a proper Christian view.

Schaeffer moves on to describe two ideas that have been prevalent as a basis for ecological positions. The first he examines is pantheism. In this vein, he examines an article that calls for recognition of morality as extending to humankind’s full environment, including the natural world, instead of the traditional view of just person-to-person. In a broader sense, the pantheistic view sees the essence of mankind and nature as one and the same. Although he recognizes the merit of this position in putting humankind and the natural world on the same plane of existence, he shows that it, by failing to enjoy the particulars of being human or nature, reduces the universe to an absurd system.

He also offers a rebuttal of Platonic dualism, especially in the context of the modern church. He explains that a Christianity concerned only with a “higher” spiritual life, seeing nature as only a proof of the greatness of God, essentially say that God’s creative work is insignificant! I enjoyed very much this story:

…Some years ago I was lecturing in a certain Christian  school. Just across a ravine from the school there is what they call a “hippie community” (though they aren’t real hippies!). On the far side of the ravine one sees trees and some farms. Here, I was told, they had pagan grape stomps. Being interested, I made my way across the ravine and met one of the leading men in this “Bohemian community.

We got on very well as we talked of ecology and I was able to speak of the Christian answer to life and ecology. He paid me the compliment (and I accepted it as such) of telling me that I was the first person form “across the ravine” who had ever been shown the place where they did, indeed, have grape stomps, and the real pagan image they had there, which was the center of the rites. …

Having shown me all this, he looked across to the Christian school and said to me, “Look at that; isn’t that ugly?” And it was! I could not deny it. It was an ugly building, without even trees around it. The thing was ugly!

It was then I realized what a horrible situation this was. When I stood on Christian ground and looked at the Bohemian people’s place, it was beautiful. … Then I stood on pagan ground and looked at the Christian community and saw ugliness. That is horrible. Here you have a Christianity that is failing to take into account man’s responsibility and proper relationship to nature.

So then what is a Christian view of ecology? Schaeffer says right away: Creation. God created everything, both the human and natural, therefore both mankind and the world “are equal in their origin”. Recognizing God as creator, our relationship to the natural world is through him; in Schaeffer’s language “upward” instead of “downward.

Schaeffer goes on about the implications of this. Recognizing God as Creator, in whom all things have their being, means that neither mankind nor the natural world is autonomous. Things have no meaning in themselves; rather because they were created by God, they have the role that God assigned to them. Therefore the Christian sees the natural world, in its natural God-given order, as good. This means God (and we also, if we are wise) deals with things in their own way, as diverse beings with their own function.

Interestingly, he identifies the ascension of Christ as a central part of the affirmation of the worth of the natural. Christ’s natural body in the ascension, became hidden in the unseen, “spiritual” realm. As such, the two “worlds” of the physical and spiritual are not antithetical, but are both good parts of God’s creation.

Thus the Christian view satisfied what Schaeffer identified as needed: it explains why humans ought to feel an affinity with nature, and respects the diversity in kind that exists.

Hunting around for some examples of Gothic art (inspired by James Smith’s post about why he loves Gothic architecture), I stumbled upon the incredibly beautiful Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (the Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry for those who don’t speak French). I have used the pictures of the crucifixion and resurrection in previous posts; but I would like to post one of my favourite pictures in there (many of the other stunning pictures are on Wikimedia Commons).

This entire piece is one great work of contrast. Foremost, Job is naked and half-buried in mud, whereas his friends are richly robed. The house behind Job is made of mud and falling apart, but right beside it is a castle, complete with moat (and curiously a fence that is partially knocked down). In the frame, there are skeletons, and smaller pictures of a grave-digging and a funeral processon, but the frame itself is intact and finely detailed.

But notice also that the “tone” of the picture is not extremely somber, like it seems the subject matter demands. The very bright colours, and especially the bright and clear sky in all the pictures, gives a vivid contrast to the pit of despair that Job is in.

But to me this is where the illustrator “hides” his message. It exposes the disconnect between circumstance and the hope we know we have. In both Job’s situation and in ours, despair is met with and is even present in despair.

Todd Hiestand, in this paper as posted on his blog makes an excellent exposition of the challenge of the suburban environment for ministry. He first describes the concept of the “missional church”, and shows that a very important context for a missional church is suburbia. He notes (though maybe not this strongly) that several values of the suburban dream are antithetical to Christian beliefs, namely individualism, escapism, and especially consumerism. He details four of the major missions of the church in this environment: rejecting individualism, deconstructing comfort, confronting consumerism, and pursuing justice.

He pulled a few of his quotes from Albert Hsu, who blogs here.

I live very near a very large all-suburban area, and my church is situated within; I am looking into the ideas others have had to work to the benefit of this rather spiritually barren place, thus this interests me greatly. Any pointers to elsewhere are very welcome; as of now I know very little about this.

[edit: I mistakenly attributed the post to Alan Roxburgh instead of Todd Hiestand.]

[edit 2: I linked to Hiestand's blog instead of a repost by someone else.]

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

At Easter we celebrate the coming of this messenger. For the women visiting the grave, this was the angels by the tomb. For the disciples, this was the women. For the people, it was the disciples. For us, this is the written Gospel.

For great indeed is this news. There is peace between God and mankind, we are set free from the condemnation of death – our salvation is made real. For today the God of Zion has shown that he reigns over death. And on this day it becomes ours!

The voice of your watchmen – they lift up their voice;
together they sing for joy;
for eye to eye they see
the return of the LORD to Zion.

When Solomon built the first temple, when the Ark of the Covenant was brought inside, “a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.” (1 Ki 8:10-11 ESV)

In Ezekiel 10, Ezekiel sees this glory of the LORD leave the temple in a vision because of the idolatry of the people. In a later vision, that of the perfect temple and land, he came again to his residence in his city – “And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory.” (Ez 43:2 ESV)

The glory of the LORD has taken up his residence now inside the temple of each of our hearts. This we can see firsthand in ourselves, as watchpersons, “eye to eye”. The Easter event facilitated the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost; the Spirit, at our conversion and throughout our Christian lives, orchestrates the “dying away of the old self” and the “coming to life of the new”. (Heidelberg Catechism QA 8 In this way the Easter event is yet ongoing inside each of us.

Break forth together into singing,
you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the LORD has comforted his people;
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The LORD has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.

In the resurrection of Christ and the hearts of his chosen, the LORD shows his power. The LORD showed again the “mighty hand and outstretched arm” (cf. Dt 26: with which he brought the people out of Egypt with; he showed his power now over the evil and death which are intrinsic to our world. For his power reached even the “waste places”, where this evil and death is seen the most. Are we not “waste places” also? Then may we “break forth together into singing”, be driven to praise, because of the peace and redemption the LORD has brought to us troubled people. And may we be the examples of “the salvation of our God” which “the ends of the earth shall see”.

Depart, depart, go out from there;
touch no unclean thing;
go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves,
you who bear the vessels of the LORD.
For you shall not go out in haste,
and you shall not go in flight,
for the LORD will go before you,
and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

(Is 52:7-12 ESV)

This passage alludes to the (then yet to come) return of the people and vessels to Jerusalem from exile. The Persian king Cyrus told the people to return and rebuild the temple, giving them back the vessels (cups, bowls, and such) used in the temple. (Ez 1) The LORD would facilitate this by protecting his people from harm, as a guard.

Yet God brought his people back from a greater exile, that of his condemnation, through the resurrection of Christ. Upon his death, the curtain in the temple separating the holiness of an inaccessible God from mankind was torn. (Mt 27:51) This is the great accomplishment of Easter. He still protects us by remaining near us (and in us), that we may not have fear.

And in the journey back from this exile, we carry the vessels of our bodies, as our instruments of worship. May they be used as such therefore, in special Easter praise, and in showing through ourselves always how great the good news we have received is.

I have attempted to research the movement known as the emerging church. This movement seeks to create a church that is relevant and engaging in our postmodern society, eschewing the traditional paradigms of what a church is. In my searches, I found an example of such church in Portland. It is called the Evergreen Community.

Like most churches, they meet every Sunday morning. Unlike many churches (some of which might be horrified at this concept), they meet in a pub. They explain that this location is indeed central to their mission link)

Why do you meet in a pub? Well, it’s pretty cheap  Honestly, our desire was to do our worship gatherings in a place that was both affordable and that fit with our philosophy of involvement in the life of the city of Portland. Also, being accessible to those we are trying to integrate into our community was pretty high on the list… And the pub does all that. It really breaks down barriers for people who wouldn’t think about walking into a more traditional church building. It has the added benefit of tending to keep away those who probably wouldn’t fit with our community anyway and might feel more at home in a more “traditional” community.

They describe what typically goes on therein:

A welcome by someone wherein we talk about an aspect of the community- one of our core values or something we are trying to do or be.

We’ll have a few moments of quiet, centering prayer… often accompanied by a reading (usually the whole group, in unison) of a Psalm.

After that, the fun begins…

We generally work through books of the Bible, but occasionally spend some time focusing on different topics. But even when we’re covering a topic, we tend to base it on a section of Scripture- we tend to work verse by verse through the whole passage.

And we talk a lot. For us, the sermon is (at least this is the ideal) the work of the community. We are teaching each other. Whoever is leading that morning still has a role in keeping things on track, doing the majority of the talking, but we do our darndest to get others talking to each other as well. In this way, as a community, we wrestle with the Scriptures.

We prefer this dialogical approach over the more traditional monologue of one person speaking sermons and feel it helps people learn and stay involved better.

However, they emphasize that their Sunday worship is definitely not the extent of their church. They have a set of core values listed, which make their priorities clear. If I can attempt to summarize these:

1.  Mission - The church is set up to be a mission to others - “we are here for the church which is here for the world”.
2. Justice - “The Evergreen Community aims to be a group of people who honor God the way that He wants to be honored, not necessarily in the way that is most comfortable or convenient for us. And that means actually doing something for the poor, because that’s what God wants, even if it pulls us far outside of our comfort zones.”
3. Community - The church “experience” is to move in a progression. Only at the beginning are we to be necessarily concerned with whether the church is something for us; it is imperative that progress beyond that to being something for other people.
4. Hope - “Drawing a picture for those we meet of who they could be, of the person God created them to be… and rather than pushing them towards that out of guilt or obligation, pulling them towards it out a sense of love and hope.”
5. History - “We also want to see ourselves not as a disconnected community, but as a group of people who stand in the stream of something much larger than ourselves: the Church down through history. As a result, we want to look back to that history and draw inspiration, resources and role models from it, while recognizing that we aren’t necessarily bound by it.”

And their community is fostered by their smaller size (I think about 130 people). They reflect this attitude like this:

Will you become a mega church and sell out? Our vision from the beginning has been to remain small as a community but grow through multiplication. Our goal is not to build one large church dynasty because it becomes impossible to remain personal and non-programmatic. Therefore, we seek to remain small enough as a community to where we can know and take care of one another, but at the same time we seek to grow through continually starting new communities where more people can gather and seek to love and serve each other and the neighborhood in which we meet and live.

The Emerging Church is something that interests me greatly; I shall in this too continue my research.