Amazing speech

Amazing, inspiring, gut-wrenching, God-honoring...all this and more:

Recommended reading

I'd like to share a few interesting articles from around the web that I've been reading recently that are worth a look:

1) HERE is a piece that examines how the "Prayer After Communion" in The Book of Commmon Prayer can be read and understood in light of the Eucharistic theology of the great Medieval theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas.  Emphasis is on how much common understanding of the Eucharist there can be between Roman Catholics (who tend to follow Thomas) and Anglicans.  Methodists, of course, inherit much of Anglican theology and liturgy, as we are an offshoot of Anglicanism.

2) HERE is a great little piece on the connections between freedom and the intellectual life and reading the classics.  I've been trying to get back into a more regular discipline of reading The Great Books (or at least excerpts from them) for the sake of improving my mind.
A year or two ago my mother got me an antique set of 10 volumes of "The World's Famous Orations," which contains a nice overview of famous and influential speeches from the legendary speech of Achilles in Book IX of The Illiad, down to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and beyond.
I recently read a speech by Edmund Burke: On Conciliation with America
Burke, an Irishman and member of British Parliament in the 1700s cautioned the British Parliament against a war against the American colonies.  I think his description of the American love of liberty - it's origins and character - is quite perceptive (and God willing, still holds true!).

3) An interesting article from Scientific American asserts that Science will never answer the philosophical question: "Why is there something rather than nothing," which is (in my view) one of the great basic questions that can turn our minds toward the contemplation of God.  Many insightful thinkers have long noted that - while Philosophy languishes as a discipline (with many colleges cutting it back or removing it altogether from their offerings) in our age of reliance on science and technology - science is always actually dependent upon philosophy for its first principles.

4) Many Libertarians will tell you that anti-discrimination laws are an unacceptable intrusion into and curtailment of our natural right to free association. Others argue that they are necessary in a diverse society to prevent "tyranny of the majority".  Recent Anti-discrimination laws and court rulings punishing religious believers for refusing to take part in 'gay weddings' have raised questions about how these laws may indeed impact our freedom to associate (or dissociate) with whomever we like.
So, THIS ARTICLE asks, if a Christian or Muslim baker is legally compelled to help celebrate a gay wedding by creating a wedding cake, does it follow that a Jewish baker is legally compelled (by anti-discrimination laws) to make a cake for a Nazi party?  After all, many of them ban discrimination based upon political ideology - and National Socialism is indeed a political ideology.

5) Along a slightly similar vein, This Article from The Federalist (more libertarians) presents Alexis de Tocqueville's critique of socialism, which may be timely food for thought given the popularity of Bernie Sanders, a self-described "Socialist Democrat."
A quote from the end of the article (which is really a quote from Tocqueville), expresses so very while why many of us distrust socialist or "nanny state" governments as essentially inimical to individual freedom and personal autonomy:

 A third and final trait, one which, in my eyes, best describes socialists of all schools and shades, is a profound opposition to personal liberty and scorn for individual reason, a complete contempt for the individual. They unceasingly attempt to mutilate, to curtail, to obstruct personal freedom in any and all ways. They hold that the State must not only act as the director of society, but must further be master of each man, and not only master, but keeper and trainer. For fear of allowing him to err, the State must place itself forever by his side, above him, around him, better to guide him, to maintain him, in a word, to confine him. 

6) I've written before about my concerns both about the militarization of our American Law Enforcement in recent years, as well as the erosion of the political power of Congress - the legislature being the branch of our government that is most broadly representative of the people and (for that reason) was entrusted with most of the power by the Framers of the Constitution.  THIS ARTICLE about the creeping militarization of American society and the rise of the imperial presidency resulting from our imperialistic policies overseas, touches indirectly on both issues.  Students of history know that Rome degenerated from a Republic to an Empire in the decades before the birth of Christ.  Numerous thinkers are now asking the USA: Are we farther down that same road than most people realize?

Being "pastoral"

When I was in seminary, people often used the world "pastoral" when they meant "comforting."
People would say "I'm not doing systematic theology right now, I am doing pastoral theology" which roughly translated as:
"What I'm saying may not fit with our church's theology, or correspond with what the Bible actually says, but it is comforting to those who hear."

When I was preparing to transition to my second appointment - to pastor my first conventional church (my first appointment was as a college campus pastor) - I read St. Gregory the Great's Book of Pastoral Rule.  I wanted to learn more how to be a pastor from the Early Church Fathers, and Gregory is known as "the Great" for a reason - he was a potent leader and pastor in the ancient church.

One of the things that most resonated with me about this book is Gregory's basic approach: the role of the Pastor is to be a shepherd of souls.  Our job is to help people grow closer to Christ, to help them turn away from sin, to help them walk on the Way, embrace the Truth, and cling to that "Life which really is life."

Another thing that Gregory did well was to emphasize moderation: that a pastor should neither be too severe nor too indulgent in addressing the spiritual needs or spiritual brokenness of the church members (this section reminded me of the "Golden Mean" of Aristotle in his Ethics).  A pastor should remember his own failings in dealing with others (and so, live according to the Golden Rule in Matthew 7:12).

What people sometimes need from a pastor is a word of comfort.  But sometimes what is truly needed for the health of the soul is a word of challenge, a word of confrontation with the truth.  As most of us pastors by nature like people and want to 'get on well' with others, I suspect our temptation will often be to offer soft comfort and cheap grace when piercing truth and transforming grace is needed (though I've heard some pastors who seem to delight in shocking and upsetting others, and they may need to learn from Gregory to moderate in the other direction; or simply to love their flock).

I was thinking of this tendency to reduce "being pastoral" to "tickling men's ears" when I read these words from 19th-Century Scottish pastor (and author) George MacDonald:

"To make a man happy as a lark might be to do him grievous wrong; to make a man wake, rise, look up, and turn, is worth the life and death of the Son of the Eternal."
               - From Consuming Fire, April 9th

Charles Wesley quote

“Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn.”- Charles Wesley

Bonhoeffer quote

"My thoughts and feelings seem to be getting more and more like those of the Old Testament.  It is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ; it is only when one loves life and this earth so much that without them everything seems to be over that one may believe in the resurrection; it is only when one submits to God's law that one may speak of grace..."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Letters and Papers from Prison 

Jesus: Yesterday Today and Forever

This week I watched an old sermon from Sam Wells when he was at Duke on one of this week's lectionary Bible passages: Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." I wanted to share a great quote, but then I heard another and another. This sermon is just full of brilliantly phrased affirmations of deep truth. So check it out! Below is one of the quotations, and the video of the full service at the majestic Chapel at Methodist-related Duke University.

"We long for unchanging, rooted, things we can trust eternally, forever; but we also need things that change in time, accompanying us at every point. What Hebrews is saying is, Jesus is both of these things. Jesus is eternally trustworthy forever. But Jesus is also a being in time, who meets us in our laughter and joy, because in his resurrection he knew laughter and joy, and meets us in our grief and fear, because in Gethsemane he knew grief and fear. There’s nowhere we can go that Jesus can’t meet us, and nothing we can feel in which Jesus can’t come close to us. To say, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” is to say the Jesus of Galilee, the Jesus to whom I say my prayers, and the Jesus I shall see face to face on the last day, are all the same person, and are a person I can trust like no other being."

Wisdom from Wesley (and the Early Fathers)

One of the advantages to Christian theology in the Wesleyan/Methodist 'dialect' is that Wesley's own theology tends not to be Wesley's at all; his writing is a great collection of the teachings and wisdom of a much older tradition - classical or 'catholic' Christianity - the faith of the whole Christian community across the ages, that Wesley was trying to apply afresh in his own time.

I thought of this again as I was reading "Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity" where he says (section 7): "It was a common saying in the primitive (ancient) church, 'The soul and the body make a man; the Spirit and discipline make a Christian' - implying that none could be real Christians without the help of Christian discipline..."

On the holiness of Christian leaders

As mentioned a while back, I am currently reading (at a ridiculously slow pace, I confess) The Book of Pastoral Rule by St. Gregory the Great. I am hoping to learn a bit more about spiritual leadership and the care of souls from the wisdom of the ancient church than what was included in my seminary training. In keeping with a suggestion I received, I will from time to time be reflecting and commenting on this ancient text.

Here is a memorable line from Part I, section 4:

For no one who is imperfect should dare to seize a position of spiritual leadership, just as no one who staggers on level ground should set foot on a cliff.

Those who become pastors or shepherds should not be "imperfect" or else they endanger themselves as well as those under their charge. What we mean by "perfect" is something that is discussed frequently among Wesleyan Christians, since John Wesley insisted that we should all be "going on to perfection." He also required, and this requirement remains a part of our ordination process in the United Methodist Church, that those seeking to become Methodist clergy should affirm that they are "going on to perfection" and also that they "expect to be made perfect in love in this life" (see The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, 2008 para. 336; p. 246).

All of us who are ordained have answered "yes" to those questions, implicitly agreeing with St. Gregory's statement above. Some may have done so with fingers crossed, but many of us after meditating upon the nuances of meaning of the word "perfect" have done so with a clear conscience.

In Wesley's day, the 18th Century, it seems the word "perfect" had a bit more nuance than it now does in contemporary English usage. In once sense, it simply means "mature" or "grown up." In fact, today's Bible translations often render the Greek (telos) as "mature" where the old translations rendered it as "perfect" (for example, compare 1 Corinthians 2:6 in the NRSV and ESV on the one hand with the KJV). I do expect to be spiritually grown up or mature in this life, by God's grace, I hope to have already had a moment or two of maturity here and there.

On the other hand it seems that in 18th Century usage, as still today, "perfect" also had the sense of "utterly complete," "sublime," and "faultless." In Ephesians 4:13 we find this word used to describe being "grown up" (thus, "mature") but grown up into the image and full stature of Jesus Christ, who is the pure and sinless One, so that "mature" here also takes on the loftier sense of "perfection." I believe this is the destiny of every Christian in the coming age, though clearly it seems that not all reach it before death.

In seminary we were told that Wesley believed he knew other people who had reached this level of growth, but did not claim it for himself.

Of course, there is a line of connection between being spiritually mature and going on to the "full stature of Christ." The one who is spiritually mature is precisely the one who is most aware of his own faults and sins, yet who also is most determined to pursue holiness and Christ-likeness in his lifestyle. It is the one who is mature who wants to become glorious and luminous. Thus one can be perfect (spiritually mature and grown up) while still pursuing perfection (theosis by utter union with Christ) and freely admitting not yet to have attained it (see Phil. 3:12, and those being the words of Saint Paul, who was not only a saint, but also an apostolic leader).

This is basically the view of St. Augustine who wrote: "The Apostle (Paul) speaks of himself as both perfect and imperfect: imperfect when he considers how much righteousness is still wanting in him but perfect in that he does not blush to confess his own imperfection and makes good progress in order to attain it (perfection)." (On Two Letters of Pelagius, 3.19)

Perfection can mean maturity or it can mean attaining to the "fullness of the stature of Christ," and it would seem that "perfection" can also be used to describe the person "in process" - already mature, still pursuing Christ-likeness. Indeed we use "Christ-likeness" or "holiness" in just the same ways.

And, I believe, this is coherent with John Wesley's own teaching: "Christian perfection, therefore, does not imply (as some men seem to have imagined) an exemption either from ignorance, or mistake, or temptations. Indeed, it is only another term for holiness. They are two names for the same thing. Thus, everyone that is holy is, in the Scriptural sense, perfect. Yet we may, lastly, observe, that neither in this respect is there any absolute perfection on earth. There is no perfection of degrees as it is termed; none which does not admit of a continual increase. So that how much soever any man has attained, or in how high a degree soever he is perfect, he hath still need to 'grow in grace' and daily to advance in the knowledge and love of God his savior (see 2 Pet. 3:18)...He, therefore, who liveth in true believers hath 'purified their hearts by faith'; insomuch that everyone that hath Christ in him, the hope of glory, 'purify himself, even as he is pure' (1 Jn. 3:3)." - Sermon XXXV, "Christian Perfection," 1.9 & 2.6

So, to return to St. Gregory's point, let no one become a spiritual leader who is not holy and pursuing deeper holiness. For it will surely be difficult to train others in a way of living that we have not yet learned ourselves.

How well are we the clergy (and other Christian leaders) doing here? Have we a deep knowledge of Christ and of things Spiritual? Are we deeply formed in God's Holy Word and shaped by prayer and the sacraments and the other spiritual disciplines? Are we people of genuinely pure, charitable, and holy character? I suspect we are in fact a very mixed bag.

Not too many days ago I attended a "Sacred Trust" training event about "boundaries" for clergy. In particular it reminded us not to cross unethical sexual boundaries. The presenter shared a number of horrifying anecdotes of clergy from her conference who had said and done a number of extremely inappropriate (not to mention sinful) things, some of it online. The fact that such a training event even exists to tell us things that are already taught in the Bible is a reminder of how far short any of us may fall of the heavenly calling we have received, and how very present temptation remains for each of us.

Yet the promise and the vocation remains before us, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me." (Phil. 4:13)

Bishop Willimon quote on Church

"I'll admit that church can be boring, unexciting. There are Sundays when the Holy Spirit is close and undeniable, and [there are] Sundays that are blah. I think Wesley would have me add that the church is not supposed to make discipleship thrilling; it's supposed to make it normal.

We go to church to practice the faith, to rehearse the faith, to get so good at it that obeying Jesus on Sunday - that joyful obedience - will become the most natural, noramal thing we do on Monday through Saturday."

-United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon from his book, This We Believe: The Core of Wesleyan Faith and Practice, p. 149.

Bishop Willimon has written several books on Methodist beliefs and Wesleyan Spirituality and this one is pretty good. He is here re-affirming something that the Church has taught through the ages, but which many in Western (particularly American) culture don't always immediately recognize because of our ubiquitous celebration of individual spontaneity:
rituals are powerful; habits and symbols shape our awareness of who we are and who we can become. This is why the liturgy of the Church works the way it does.

Feast of St. Jerome

Today is the feast day of St. Jerome, one of the great Western Fathers, who labored long to bring the Scriptures to the common man by producing his translation of the Bible into Latin, the language of the Western Roman Empire.

"Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" - St. Jerome

J.R.R. Tolkien on the Sacrament

"Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament...There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death - by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires."

-J.R.R. Tolkien, letter to Michael Tolkien 6-8 March 1941;
from Letters of JRR Tolkien (1981), p. 53-54

Thoughts on Cross-bearing discipleship

St. Luke the Evangelist (1st Century):

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:25-33, ESV).

St. Basil the Great (4th Century):

In recieving the Baptism of water, we make this same agreement when we promise to be crucified and to die and to be buried with him.

St. Symeon the New Theologian (10th Century):

[In times of peace, when there is no persecution] the cross and death consist in nothing else than the complete putting to death of self-will. He who pursues his own will, however slightly, will never be able to observe the law of Christ the Savior.

Father John Wesley (18th Century):

[On giving up all that we have]: Withdraw the affections from the creatures and enjoy them only in God; enjoy them only for God, only in such a manner as leads to God.

The lord bishop N.T. Wright (21st Century):

Many of Jesus' followers then as now, have owned houses and lands, and have not felt compelled to abandon them. But being prepared to do so is the sign that one has understood the seriousness of the call to follow Jesus.

Newman on Wesley

"...if you wish to find [among the Anglicans] the shadow and the suggestion of the supernatural qualities which make up the notion of a Catholic Saint, to Wesley you must go, and such as him”

-John Henry Newman

from: Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, vol. 1, pp. 88-91
(though, truth be told, Newman then expresses his distaste for Wesley's doctrines and his claims of inner assurance, but there it is).

Wesley on Communion

"...if we consider the Lord's Supper as a command of Christ, no man can have any pretence to Christian piety, who does not recieve it (not once a month, but) as often as he can."

-John Wesley, The Duty of Constant Communion, (section 21)

I thought it was an ironic quote since many United Methodist Churches recieve Holy Communion precisely only once a month.

I suppose, in so far as many of us don't yet practice weekly Communion, we do have a wonderul opportunity then to conform ourselves closer to Wesleyan theology, closer to the larger Anglican Tradition that Wesleyanism flows from, and indeed, closer to the universal/catholic practice of the Early Church: by taking up a weekly celebration of Holy Communion.

Good and Evil

I found this quote over at the Eastern Orthodox blog, Glory to God for all Things, (whose author was formerly a contributor of 'Pontifications'). I don't know the source, though it sounds very Lewis-esque to me...

Good and Evil
I think evil is always small, and that good is infinite. Evil closes itself to God and thus becomes even smaller; Good opens itself to God and thus becomes infinite. Evil cannot become so large as to fill even the universe. God became so small that He could fill Hell and then burst it asunder because it could not contain Him. Every good deed will have eternal remembrance, but even the largest deeds of the evil will be forgotten.

Chesterton Daily

I am a great fan of G.K. Chesterton and was delighted when my brother sent me this link: http://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/gkcday10.htm.
Here you can recieve a daily dose of Chesterton's witty observations.

Here is a recent example:

IN these days we are accused of attacking science because we want it to be scientific. Surely there is not any undue disrespect to our doctor in saying that he is our doctor, not our priest or our wife or ourself. It is not the business of the doctor to say that we must go to a watering-place; it is his affair to say that certain results of health will follow if we do go to a watering-place. After that, obviously, it is for us to judge. Physical science is like simple addition; it is either infallible or it is false. To mix science up with philosophy is only to produce a philosophy that has lost all its ideal value and a science that has lost all its practical value. I want my private physician to tell me whether this or that food will kill me. It is for my private philosopher to tell me whether I ought to be killed.

I have to wonder, in light of this statement, how Chesterton would have begun to sort through the numerous entanglements of religion/ideology and science/empiricism suggested by this extremely fascinating and (I suspect) important collision between empiricism, Darwinism, and our popular assumptions about human equality that actually have no empirical basis at all, but are derived from Christian and Enlightenment philosophical commitments. It is important because it has the potential to make us ask the question about worldview or ideology - what are we basing our values on in society? Is there, can there be, agreement on that?

Thomas C. Oden quote

"There is a quality of lightness, easiness, and in some sense blatant unseriousness that pervades Classical Christianity's dialogue with modernity. The Christian intellect has no reason to be intimidated in the presense of later-stage modernity. Christianity has seen too many 'modern eras' to be cowed by this one."

- from Tom Oden's powerful and prophetic book, Agenda for Theology.

This quote calls to my mind G. K. Chesterton, who had just such a levity about his writing. His delightful book, Orthodoxy, is now available online, along with many other classic works at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

C.S. Lewis quote of the day

"The fact that God can make complex good out of simple evil does not excuse - though by mercy it may save - those who do simple evil. And this distinction is central. Offences must come, but woe to those by whom they come; sins do cause grace to abound, but we must not make that an excuse for continuing to sin. The crucifixion itself is the best, as well as the worst, of all historical events, but the role of Judas remains simply evil. We may apply this first to the problem of other people's suffering. A merciful man aims at his neighbor's good and so does "God's will," consciously co-operating with 'the simple good.' A cruel man oppresses his neighbor, and so does simple evil. But in doing such evil, he is used by God, without his own knowledge of consent, to produce the complex good - so that the first man serves God as a son, the second as a tool. For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John."

-C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, chapter 7


It seems that lately I have been again and again approaching this question "(Where) Is God at work in the evil things people do?" I think Lewis is right - he essentially is asserting some kind of mystical double agency - God in his power and wisdom is able to take into account even the willful sins of men even while he is working "all things for the good of those who love him." On the other hand, we may freely choose to do good, yet we know that it is by his grace that he "works within us to will and to do his good pleasure." So that there too, both he and us are truly and freely at work.

It is as though when God's will is working through me this does not negate my own will, but most perfectly fulfills it, since my will was concieved by God and he knows, better than I, who I am and what I - when I am most truly myself (in him) - truly will.