intersections

How do you relate to Communion?

Each week I write a short column in the church bulletin called, The Pastor's Journal. Here's what I wrote this week. What are your thoughts?

It's Communion again. I don't know about you but the increased frequency of this celebration is beginning to have its effect on me. Approximately six months ago I asked the congregation, just before the sermon, what you would think of having communion more regularly. To my surprise, applause spontaneously broke out.

The reason it surprised me is that I grew up in a Seventh-day Adventist Church that had an ambivalent relationship with the Communion Meal. It always seemed to me that the attendance at church went down significantly on Communion Sabbath. I never understood exactly why. I eventually concluded that it had something to do with the heavy guilt message that usually accompanied the ritual. Many Adventists I know confess that Communion means little to them. On the other hand, I have met other Christians that wouldn't know how to relate to their Christian experience apart from Communion. How do you relate to Communion?

I wonder how you're responding to the increased frequency of Communion? Some of you have approached me to say that you really appreciate it and that it adds a kind of stability to our worship life. I would welcome your input if you care to share. I'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime, I hope that as we talk today about the presence and absence of God in the teaching of John 14:15-21, that your participation at the Lord's Table today will mediate the presence of God to you in a very real and meaningful way.

The Missing Doctrine of Hell

Many thanks to Ryan for inviting me as a guest blogger!

I don’t believe in hell.

I believe in hell.

Pardon?

That’s right. I don’t believe in hell while at the same time I believe in hell. I suppose this grants me some minor form of special power, immunity to fundamentalist revival preaching or some such. What is going on in my brain that such a strange belief could formulate?

I’ve been raised in the Seventh-day Adventist church, the denomination where I continue to pursue ministry. This church has excelled at defining our collective theological beliefs into an extensive list of fundamental doctrines; we’ve got a propositional answer for any question. Yet within these 28 Fundamental Beliefs there is not a single statement that mentions hell. For Adventists, and thus for me, there is no hell. We’re annihilationists.

There’s no denying the presence of hell in the Bible. Hell is a frequent topic in the synoptic gospels, and Peter speaks in the past tense of fallen angels chained and cast into hell. The Revelation of John spiritually describes a lake of burning sulfuric fire that receives the beast, the false prophet, the devil, death, and all of Hades—which begs the question of how can Hades be cast into hell? Perhaps this is hell itself being destroyed by God’s judgment. In any case, hell (of some form) is a reality to the biblical authors.

Here’s where questions emerge and where I begin to wrestle with the doctrine of hell, because for me a theology of hell not only has implications for human nature, but also impacts my view of God’s nature and heart towards humanity.

Is Our Gospel Too Small?

The Christian Vision Project has been asking recently, "Is Our Gospel Too Small?" They have several excellent essays posted on their website which you can see here. One that especially grabbed my attention that I would encourage everyone to read is by my friend Tim Keel, called "An Efficient Gospel?" In this article he challenges our reductionistic tendencies and our desire to make our gospel efficient.

One of the features of the modern world was "reductionism": the belief that complex things can always be reduced to simpler or more fundamental things. To reduce something is to take it out of context and to take it apart. Church leaders have become experts at reductionism. Ministries that are successful in one context are reduced to "models" that we try to duplicate in other contexts. Sometimes such reductionism is effective. But when we use reductionism indiscriminately, we end up in a world so simplified it is barely recognizable.

This reductionism directly effects the gospel. Tim discusses his gradual discovery of the deeper meaning of the gospel in this article. What he describes relates directly to something I've been saying for some time. Here's how Tim puts it...

A New Creation

I've been enjoying reading N.T. Wright's latest book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. I wanted to share this quote in advance of Easter morning, for your reflection.

The resurrection of Jesus offers itself, to the student of history or science no less than the Christian or theologian, not as an odd event within the world as it is but as the utterly characteristic, prototypical, and foundational event within the world as it has begun to be. It is not an absurd event within the old world but the symbol and starting point of the new world. The claim advanced by Christianity is of that magnitude: Jesus of Nazareth ushered in not simply a new religious possibility, not simply a new ethic or a new way of salvation, but a new creation....

We could cope – the world could cope – with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside his disciples' minds and hearts. The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God’s new creation right in the middle of the old one (67-68).

NT Wright on Heaven

NT Wright has a new book out (by the way, how does this guy do it? I'm in awe!) called, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. My copy is on its way from an Amazon.com warehouse to my door as I type!

Here's an really interesting article and interview with Wright from Time magazine. I highly recommend this short piece from Time. I'll let you know about the book after I read it, but as some of you know, NT Wright is something of a hero with me so I'm predisposed to agree with him. He's one of the top 5 people I'd like to meet someday.

Here's a short quote to whet your appetite. It has interesting resonances with Adventist theology of the nature of people, death, resurrection, heaven and hell.

Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I've called the life after life after death — in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth. Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will "awake," be embodied and participate in the renewal. John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves." That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom.

10 Ways Following Jesus Will Mess Up Your Life

For those of you interested in such things, my commentary on the Sabbath School Quarterly is now online at Spectrum's website. Though the Sabbath School Quarterly isn't a regular part of my life, I do enjoy writing these from time to time. Some of them have been very significant for me, like the one I did back in November 2004, entitled, "Civil Disobedience" (Daniel 6), which became a chapter in Peacemaking Remnant, a book published by the Adventist Peace Fellowship and edited by Doug Morgan.

As for would-be disciples....

In conversation with a friend many years ago, both of us wrestling with the issues of evangelism and discipleship in our respective churches, we wondered how this teaching of Jesus would go over in today’s church environment. The contemporary church, of which Adventism is a part, is very concerned—one could even say anxious—about numerical growth. Pastors will do almost anything, it seems, to make the teachings of Jesus palatable so that more people will join our churches.

My friend mused that, whereas we are prone to preach sermons like, “Ten Ways Being a Christian Will Improve Your Life,” Jesus was far more prone to preach sermons like, “Ten Ways Following Me Will Mess Up Your Life.” He repeatedly advised them to consider what Dietrich Bonhoeffer dubbed, “the cost of discipleship.” Why is it that we shy away from speaking clearly about this “cost?”

Instead of following Jesus’ example, the contemporary church has been so eager for converts that we have taught for generations that Jesus can fit in with your life and your plans. In fact, the church has even taught that Jesus’ purpose is to make your life work— to make you successful and happy. Yet I don’t find that anywhere in Scripture. To the contrary, those who came to Jesus with those expectations and conditions were discouraged from following him.

Read the whole thing here.

Talking with Paul Rauschenbusch

This Sabbath afternoon I'll be attending a lunch and conversation with Paul Rauschenbusch, great-grandson of the famed Walter Rauschenbusch, the father of the "social gospel."

The is what Progressive Christians Uniting said in their press release about this book tour.

In 1908 Social Gospel pioneer Walter Rauschenbusch rocked the nation with a powerful treatise he called “Christianity and the Social Crisis.” The crisis then was  marked by falling wages and worsening conditions for working people, unrestrained greed at the top, child poverty, lack of access to health care, failing schools, and a bellicose U.S. foreign policy.

Serious Christians at the start of the 21st century confront many of these same social conditions—along with heightened concern about sustainability, persistent racism, AIDS, and the resurgent nuclear threat.

Now the great-grandson of Walter Rauschenbusch—Paul Raushenbush, associate dean for religious life at Princeton—has re-issued his ancestor’s original text along with brief new manifestos by such contemporary Christian luminaries as Cornel West,  Phyllis Trible, Tony Campolo, Joan Chittister, Stanley Hauerwas, James Forbes, and Jim Wallis.  Renowned philosopher Richard Rorty—another Walter Rauschenbusch descendant--contributes the final essay for the new book.

The new book is called Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century. While I have not yet started reading this book yet, I feel that I have been unconsciously influenced by Walter Rauschenbusch. I've been wanting to read this book and now the 100th anniversary of this amazing classic is republished with chapters from contemporary theologians and practioners.

So, needless to say, I'm really looking forward to the time spent with Paul Rauschenbusch. I wish I had had the time to read this book before the conversation, but alas, I've been delaying in savoring another book which I'll write about soon - Evangelism After Christendom.

If you're in the Southland and want to catch Paul Rauschenbusch, here's the scoop:

Thursday, January 17, at 7 p.m.
First Christian Church of Orange
1130 East Walnut Avenue
Orange, CA 92867

Friday, January 18, at 7 p.m.
Redlands United Church of Christ
168 Bellevue Avenue
Redlands, CA 92373

Sunday, January 20, 10:00 a.m.
All Saints Church Pasadena
132 North Euclid Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91101

If you want to attend the Sabbath afternoon meeting - originally designed for clergy and a little smaller and more informal, please email me directly. I can probably get you in. It's in Studio City.

Off to Berkeley

This afternoon Elysabeth and I are going to Berkeley to attend the California Interfaith Power & Light "Energy Oscars" Award Ceremony. It seems I've been nominated to receive an award in the Public Policy category. I don't feel as though I've done that much work for CIPL, but apparently enough to get nominated. I flew to Sacramento a few months ago to lobby on behalf of some Global Warming bills that ended up becoming law, I'm happy to say. I also attended a meeting with some executives at Toyota here in Southern California to ask them to drop their lawsuit against California to block the Clean Car Law.

I'll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime,watch this short clip from CNN featuring Rev. Sally Bingham, the founder and President of Interfaith Power & Light.

If you are a pastor or a church leader you should seriously consider joining Interfaith Power & Light. Click here to see if your state has an Interfaith Power & Light program.

The Grace of Preaching the Lectionary

Today is Christ the King Sabbath - the last Sabbath of the Christian Year. Next Sabbath begins the new year with the season of Advent.

For approximately 13 months now I have been preaching from the Revised Common Lectionary. There are some amazing online resources that are incredibly helpful in preaching the lectionary. My favorite is a site called Text Week. In addition I have found the New Proclamation series of lectionary commentaries extremely helpful and insightful. But nothing replaces simply dwelling in the text and allowing the text to read your context and speak into the congregation's life.

I have been leading my congregation in the observance of Advent for the past 7 years and Lent for about the last 5 years, but this is the first year I have preaching an entire cycle through the lectionary.

I highly recommend this discipline. It is a rich gift that has been given to the church through the centuries. For myself and my congregation, we have found that God has met us in the text in surprising ways. Without fail the text for a particular week (and this year I have been strictly holding to the Gospel reading for the week) has been precisely what our community has needed. You would have to be here to fully appreciate the grace we have found in this.

The lectionary takes the the preacher out of the driver's seat and places the text of scripture in the central role. Rather than me trying to figure out "what my congregation needs to hear" we simply approach the text with hopeful expectation. I have preached more "difficult passages" this year than ever before in 13 years of ministry.

I frequently explain to my congregation what I am doing, but I'm not sure it has become part of their consciousness just yet. Others observe a change without directly referencing the lectionary. One member approached me with great surprise one day, saying that she heard some other preacher speak from EXACTLY THE SAME TEXT on Sunday that I spoke from on Sabbath. "Imagine that!" I thought to myself.

Next Sabbath begins my favorite season of the church year - Advent. It is also the richest season for Seventh-day Adventists. I will hopefully write more about Advent during the next four weeks. Hope is an Advent virtue, after all.

Anyone else out there preaching the lectionary?
If so, what have you learned?
Is anyone tired of trying to be clever week after week?

Bloggin' the 28 - Baptism: Naturalization in a New Community

About two weeks ago I wrote a piece on the doctrine of the church. In that piece I argued that the church is an alternative community – a distinct polis – called together (ekklesia) by Christ and sent to be witnesses to the reign of God.

In thinking about the doctrine of baptism – and in an attempt to turn our attention to the practice of baptism and the question of what baptism is for – I’d like to expand, briefly, on this notion of the church as a new society or a new polis.

In these series of essays on the 28 Fundamental Beliefs we are being asked to examine how our beliefs translate into action. That is, how does the official statement of what we believe lead us toward an understanding of Christian habits and practices? So, the crucial question is not what one believes about the church or about baptism or any other doctrine, but how one practices those beliefs and how those practices shape our life and witness in the world.

The practice of being the church is essentially the practice of being a distinct people (the people of God) with a distinct way of life (worship, Eucharist, hospitality, etc) and a distinct purpose (witness). The Apostle Peter gives one of the best descriptions of this:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge (1 Peter 2:9-12, NRSV).

Notice the repeated emphasis on being “a people” and the idea of aliens and exiles (or strangers). This is Peter’s theology of the church.

Baptism, then, is basically inauguration into this new community. In my Bible studies to prepare people for baptism we use the metaphor of naturalization.