The 14th of July this year (2014) is the 225th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the iconic event of the French Revolution.
This is not only a significant day for people who are French or of a French background (or who are otherwise Francophones, Francophiles, or both). The 14th of July, 1789, is one of those watershed dates in human history, one of those dates that divide history into two periods: "before" and "after".
Before the French Revolution, the majority of the massive atrocities of human history can be blamed on governments, movements, and individuals who saw themselves as acting in the interests of their particular religious faith. Thus, we have the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty Years' War in Germany, the bloodbath in Ireland under Cromwell, etc.
After the French Revolution, the majority of the massive atrocities of more recent history were the result of governments, movements, and individuals who saw themselves as acting in the interests of non-religious ideologies and - frequently - in the interests of markedly anti-religious ideologies. If people were moved (pre-1789) to commit atrocities in the name of their God or gods, they were moved (post-1789) to commit atrocities in the name of nationalism, or race, or class, or economics. The "gods" whose devotees committed the bulk of post-1789 atrocities were idols with such names as "National Pride", "Racial Purity", "The Class Struggle", or "Free Enterprise".
In fact, the main role for classical religion (for classical religions of all sorts) in the post-1789 world was a humanitarian role. People of faith (people of all faiths) saw their role as binding up the wounds (both literal wounds and social wounds) caused in the name of these secular conflicts.
If you read any media personality with an axe to grind against religion, you'll frequently find them emphasising those tragic events pre-1789 such as the Crusades and the Inquisition. You'll rarely hear them mention such post-1789 figures as Martin Luther King, William Wilberforce, Mother Theresa, Father Damian, Mary MacKillop, John Flynn, Mahatma Gandhi, ... etc.
14th July 1789 was a watershed moment in history, not only for the people of France but for the whole world. Let's remember the major shift in history which it represents.
Monday, 30 June 2014
Sunday, 29 June 2014
A hymn for "boat people"
O God of mercy, at whose call
the ocean waters rise and fall,
protect the people on the sea
who from oppression seek to flee.
O hear us as our prayers we speak
for those who safe asylum seek.
They come from
lands where tyrants reign
to seek a refuge
from their pain.They look to us to give them scope
to build a life of peace and hope.
O hear us as our prayers we speak
for those who safe asylum seek.
Yet
politicians mock their plight
and
commentators whip up fright.Now let their noise and lies depart:
convert each demagogic heart!
O hear us as our prayers we speak
for those who safe asylum seek.
God
bless this nation, “girt by sea”,
with
broader hospitality. May gen’rous hearts around this land
obey with love your great command.
O hear us as our prayers we speak
for those who safe asylum seek.
Robert J. Faser, 29th June 2014
Tune: Melita,
88.88.88
I wrote this hymn in response to news reports of a boat of asylum seekers being in distress off the coast of Christmas Island and of the inaction of the government in response to this tragedy-in-the-making. The inaction of the government is all the more tragic, given the prominence in the current government of politicians who wear their Christian faith on their sleeves.
I wrote it with the hymn “Eternal Father, strong to save ...” (Together in Song, 138) in mind, with the repeated refrain: “O hear us as we cry to Thee / for those in peril on the sea.” As a result, the hymn is written with the tune Melita in mind.
While I write this hymn as a Christian, I’ve deliberately written it as a hymn that can be sung with integrity by Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith.
This hymn is available free-of-charge to any congregation, denomination, ecumenical gathering, or interfaith gathering who wishes to use it in worship, particularly in a service focusing on our response as people of faith to asylum seekers.
Monday, 23 June 2014
“A cup of cold water …”: a sermon (Matthew 10:40–42)
Water is crucial for sustaining life,
particularly in a dry climate. Jesus
lived in a dry climate, a climate where water is crucial for sustaining
life. The climate affected the culture,
as climate always does. Being a person
of his own culture, Jesus spoke about many things in the terms understood by people
in his own culture. He spoke about
welcome and about hospitality in terms of the sharing of water.
So we hear Jesus say in today’s gospel lesson:
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.
Jesus tells us the quality of our welcome to others and our hospitality – even in little things like a glass of water – reflects the depths of our spirituality. And, if we hear this comment alongside other things Jesus said in the gospels, we hear:
When we are most fully being ourselves, the Christian Church is a people who shares food and drink.
Now, this is something that is good news for many congregations, because hospitality and welcome are things that churches – and other faith communities – are frequently very good at. Whatever the denomination, whatever the faith, hospitality is one area in which many congregations excel. People of faith tend to be people who frequently share food and drink.
In our outreach to the wider community and to the world, this is also seen. People of faith put great energy into efforts to share with a world in need at its most basic level of need. We are a people who shares food and drink.
Particularly for ourselves as Christians, hospitality is at the heart of who we are. This is the case whether the hospitality extends to
And this hospitality is radically counter-cultural. In the last few decades, from the Reagan-Thatcher era in the nineteen-eighties onwards, we’ve all been taught the big lie that greed is good. We hear it from politicians. We hear it in the media. We get a big dose of it particularly from reality TV. There are even a few churches that are pushing this line. But we hear a radically different message from Jesus … a very different message from what you’ll hear on reality TV. Generosity, hospitality and a warm sense of welcome are the way of Jesus.
As congregations, on those occasions when we are privileged to have children in our midst, we have the opportunity to encourage the children around us to follow the way of Jesus. At one level, this includes teaching them to pray, helping them to develop some understanding of the beliefs and stories of the Christian faith, and developing a link with the worshipping congregation so that the children feel a sense of belonging among the church as we worship. But encouraging a child to follow in the way of Jesus doesn’t end with the religious stuff. In many ways, the religious stuff is the easy bit.
The hard bit will be for us to encourage in the children we encounter those qualities of generosity, hospitality, and welcome that are central to the way of Jesus. The reason that this is the hard bit has nothing to do with the children themselves or with ourselves, but with the culture in which we all live. Much of our western culture in twenty-fourteen is an active denial of these qualities. Thus we have the difficult task ahead of us:
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.
Jesus tells us the quality of our welcome to others and our hospitality – even in little things like a glass of water – reflects the depths of our spirituality.
So we hear Jesus say in today’s gospel lesson:
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.
Jesus tells us the quality of our welcome to others and our hospitality – even in little things like a glass of water – reflects the depths of our spirituality. And, if we hear this comment alongside other things Jesus said in the gospels, we hear:
-
The quality of our welcome and our hospitality says far more about our spirituality than the amount of time we spend talking about religion to other people.
- The quality of our welcome and our hospitality says far more about our spirituality than the length of our prayers.
- The quality of our welcome and our hospitality says far more about our spirituality than the details of our beliefs, however orthodox or however pioneering they may be.
- The quality of our welcome and our hospitality says much about who we are as Christians.
When we are most fully being ourselves, the Christian Church is a people who shares food and drink.
Now, this is something that is good news for many congregations, because hospitality and welcome are things that churches – and other faith communities – are frequently very good at. Whatever the denomination, whatever the faith, hospitality is one area in which many congregations excel. People of faith tend to be people who frequently share food and drink.
In our outreach to the wider community and to the world, this is also seen. People of faith put great energy into efforts to share with a world in need at its most basic level of need. We are a people who shares food and drink.
Particularly for ourselves as Christians, hospitality is at the heart of who we are. This is the case whether the hospitality extends to
- a cup of cold water,
- a cup of hot coffee and a biscuit,
- a counter meal and a glass of wine,
- a box of assorted groceries for people in need locally,
- or the funding of programmes assisting people in Third World countries to become more self-sufficient in their own food production.
And this hospitality is radically counter-cultural. In the last few decades, from the Reagan-Thatcher era in the nineteen-eighties onwards, we’ve all been taught the big lie that greed is good. We hear it from politicians. We hear it in the media. We get a big dose of it particularly from reality TV. There are even a few churches that are pushing this line. But we hear a radically different message from Jesus … a very different message from what you’ll hear on reality TV. Generosity, hospitality and a warm sense of welcome are the way of Jesus.
As congregations, on those occasions when we are privileged to have children in our midst, we have the opportunity to encourage the children around us to follow the way of Jesus. At one level, this includes teaching them to pray, helping them to develop some understanding of the beliefs and stories of the Christian faith, and developing a link with the worshipping congregation so that the children feel a sense of belonging among the church as we worship. But encouraging a child to follow in the way of Jesus doesn’t end with the religious stuff. In many ways, the religious stuff is the easy bit.
The hard bit will be for us to encourage in the children we encounter those qualities of generosity, hospitality, and welcome that are central to the way of Jesus. The reason that this is the hard bit has nothing to do with the children themselves or with ourselves, but with the culture in which we all live. Much of our western culture in twenty-fourteen is an active denial of these qualities. Thus we have the difficult task ahead of us:
-
to encourage children to live a life of generosity in the midst of a culture that says “Get everything you can for yourself”;
- to encourage children to live a life of hospitality and welcome in the midst of a culture that increasingly teaches us to fear the stranger and to hate the person who is different; (and in a culture where, sadly, even some churches teach us to fear the stranger and to hate the person who is different.)
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.
Jesus tells us the quality of our welcome to others and our hospitality – even in little things like a glass of water – reflects the depths of our spirituality.
Saturday, 14 June 2014
The Uniting Church in Australia and its on-going ecumenical task
In a post I wrote around this time last year, during the week preceding 22 June (the day many congregations of the Uniting Church in Australia celebrate the anniversary of the UCA's inauguration in 1977), I posed the question, "Has the Uniting Church lost its ecumenical 'mojo'?" In this post, I made the point that the Uniting Church was becoming overly "comfortable" as a denomination and needed to recover its earlier ecumenical enthusiasm. I suggested that the UCA could begin this recovery, at least in part, by rediscovering the gifts and graces of its three parent denominations.
Following on from that earlier post, I believe that some of the concerns of the UCA's three parent churches can help us define our ecumenical task today.
One of our parent churches was Congregationalism. The Congregationalist Church was part of the legacy of 17th century Puritanism in both England and in North America. While the Puritans as a group were not without their glaring faults, with examples of these faults in evidence on both sides of the Atlantic, they were also a community with a strong sense of personal and communal integrity. The legacy of Puritanism carries on today not only in Congregationalism (and in the Congregationalist influence in such churches as the UCA), but in a variety of other faith communities. A more conservative approach to the Puritan heritage can be seen in the Baptist churches, while more "liberal" or "progressive" approaches to the Puritan heritage can be seen among the Quakers and Unitarians. Our Congregationalist forebears enjoyed a continuing relationship with each of these Puritan strands of Christian faith.
Following on from our Congregationalist heritage, I believe that one of the UCA's ecumenical tasks today is to engage in relationship with communities of Christian faith that are outside the Christian mainstream, whether these non-mainstream communities see themselves as more conservative (either in their faith or in their social attitudes) than the rest of us (evangelicals, charismatics, Pentecostals, Latter-Day Saints ...) , or significantly less conservative than the rest of us (Quakers, Unitarians, various gatherings of "progressive" Christians, ...). The aim would be to provide a means of communication between these various groups of Christians and those communities that constitute a "classical" understanding of the Christian faith.
Another of our parent churches was Presbyterianism. This strand of Christian faith and practice saw teaching as an essential dimension of Christian ministry. Accordingly, Presbyterians always gave a high value to scholarship. An educated ministry was not an "optional extra", but something that was crucial to the well-being of the Christian church.
Following on from our Presbyterian heritage, I believe that one of the UCA's ecumenical tasks today is to advocate for the need of all Christians (both ordained and lay) to be well-read and well-informed about our faith, and about how our faith relates to the world around us, and to offer opportunities for all people to become better-informed about the scriptures, history, and theology of the Christian faith.
Finally, the UCA's largest parent church, and the one most influential in the life of Australian communities, was Methodism. Methodism developed as a reform movement in Britain in the 18th century. Much of the motivation behind the reforms of the Wesley brothers and the early generations of Methodists was found in their rejection of much of the theology of John Calvin, particularly Calvin's understanding of God's grace and of human nature.
Following on from that earlier post, I believe that some of the concerns of the UCA's three parent churches can help us define our ecumenical task today.
One of our parent churches was Congregationalism. The Congregationalist Church was part of the legacy of 17th century Puritanism in both England and in North America. While the Puritans as a group were not without their glaring faults, with examples of these faults in evidence on both sides of the Atlantic, they were also a community with a strong sense of personal and communal integrity. The legacy of Puritanism carries on today not only in Congregationalism (and in the Congregationalist influence in such churches as the UCA), but in a variety of other faith communities. A more conservative approach to the Puritan heritage can be seen in the Baptist churches, while more "liberal" or "progressive" approaches to the Puritan heritage can be seen among the Quakers and Unitarians. Our Congregationalist forebears enjoyed a continuing relationship with each of these Puritan strands of Christian faith.
Following on from our Congregationalist heritage, I believe that one of the UCA's ecumenical tasks today is to engage in relationship with communities of Christian faith that are outside the Christian mainstream, whether these non-mainstream communities see themselves as more conservative (either in their faith or in their social attitudes) than the rest of us (evangelicals, charismatics, Pentecostals, Latter-Day Saints ...) , or significantly less conservative than the rest of us (Quakers, Unitarians, various gatherings of "progressive" Christians, ...). The aim would be to provide a means of communication between these various groups of Christians and those communities that constitute a "classical" understanding of the Christian faith.
Another of our parent churches was Presbyterianism. This strand of Christian faith and practice saw teaching as an essential dimension of Christian ministry. Accordingly, Presbyterians always gave a high value to scholarship. An educated ministry was not an "optional extra", but something that was crucial to the well-being of the Christian church.
Following on from our Presbyterian heritage, I believe that one of the UCA's ecumenical tasks today is to advocate for the need of all Christians (both ordained and lay) to be well-read and well-informed about our faith, and about how our faith relates to the world around us, and to offer opportunities for all people to become better-informed about the scriptures, history, and theology of the Christian faith.
Finally, the UCA's largest parent church, and the one most influential in the life of Australian communities, was Methodism. Methodism developed as a reform movement in Britain in the 18th century. Much of the motivation behind the reforms of the Wesley brothers and the early generations of Methodists was found in their rejection of much of the theology of John Calvin, particularly Calvin's understanding of God's grace and of human nature.
- There was a rejection of the notion that God's grace was selective, and that God only chose to extend his grace to some people, and not to all.
- There was a rejection of the notion that people were somehow "predestined" to follow (or not to follow) in God's ways, and that we had no choice in the matter.
- Increasingly, there was a rejection of the gloomy notion that people were irredeemably corrupt in our very nature (or, to use the Calvinist jargon) "totally depraved", affirming instead the much older Christian belief that we exist in the image of God.
- that God's love is infinite and universal,
- that people have the capacity to choose to follow in God's way of love, and
- that we all exist as the image of God.
Monday, 9 June 2014
What’s so important about the Trinity?: a sermon for Trinity Sunday
What’s so important
about the Trinity?
For centuries, many
mainstream Christian churches – in the West at least – have tried to
rationalise and “explain away” the Christian belief in God-as-Trinity as if it
was some sort of religious embarrassment.
For many Christians, who for years (ever since their own childhood) have
heard children’s talks in worship on Trinity Sunday that minimise, limit or “explain away”
the understanding of God-as-Trinity, they have developed an attitude of “We
don’t really believe in the Trinity any more.
We’ve just kept the language”
There's been this widely-held notion that the affirmation of God-as-Trinity is something that only concerns the more conservative sort of Christians (and then, probably, only the more intellectually adept of the conservatives). This situation has only changed fairly recently.
In recent decades, a growing number of mainstream Christians have rediscovered the Trinity and found it to be a source of real creativity, renewal, and dynamism for the life of the people of God. Increasingly, the study of theology today includes a much greater emphasis on the understanding of God as being God-as-Trinity.
In recent decades, a growing number of mainstream Christians have rediscovered the Trinity and found it to be a source of real creativity, renewal, and dynamism for the life of the people of God. Increasingly, the study of theology today includes a much greater emphasis on the understanding of God as being God-as-Trinity.
In my own case, my initial
theological education did not involve a great emphasis on the Trinity (except
in studying ancient controversies about the Trinity in church history). It was a period of study leave in 1988 at the
Irish School of Ecumenics, almost nine years after I was ordained, when I
discovered the possibilities of the understanding of God-as-Trinity as a basis
both for ecumenism and for Christian involvement in the life of the wider
world.
However, many
people who were brought up in the era of explaining the Trinity away still ask
“What’s so important about the Trinity?”
And so, I want to
say that the Christian idea of God-as-Trinity is vitally important for three
reasons:
1. The Christian idea of God-as Trinity is
vitally important because it shows us that relationships are vitally important
for God.
2. The Christian idea of God-as-Trinity is
vitally important because it shows us that our Christian faith has continued to
develop after the scriptures had been written – and still continues to develop.
3. The Christian idea of God-as-Trinity is
vitally important because it demonstrates for us the importance of our using
our intellect and our creativity as part of our faith.
***
1. The Christian idea of God-as Trinity is
vitally important because it shows us that relationships are vitally important
for God.
God does not exist
in splendid isolation. The Christian
idea of God-as-Trinity tells us that God lives as a loving community of Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit: as Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of Life. Further, the love of the Father, Son, and
Spirit spills over into creative compassion for the world. In fact, the Christian idea of God-as-Trinity
tells us that the very existence of humanity and, indeed, the wider universe is
because of the overflowing love of the Trinity requiring more and more
recipients of the divine compassion.
Because God exists as Trinity, relationships are vitally important for
God. God does not exist in splendid
isolation.
As a result, God
calls each of us to live in community with others. Living in splendid isolation is not an option
for those of us who worship God-as-Trinity.
This has implications for our ecumenical life, in which we are called to
promote the unity of all Christians and, indeed, of all people of faith. Just as the Father, Son, and Spirit belong
together, so too do all people of faith belong together.
As well,
God-as-Trinity calls us to an ethic of community and co-operation as we
participate in the wider society. We
live in a time when current social, economic, and political fashions promote
competition at the expense of co-operation and individuality at the expense of
community. Nevertheless, the model of
God-as-Trinity points us as Christians to a social ethic of community and
co-operation, even if it’s not fashionable among our society’s movers and
shakers.
Of course, other
faiths such as Judaism and Islam also have a strong faith that God is
compassionate. Both Judaism and Islam
also have a strong commitment to an ethic of community, co-operation, and compassion. In each case, they do so without a belief in
God-as-Trinity. For us as Christians,
our belief in God-as-Trinity underscores dramatically our commitment to an
ethic of community, co-operation, and compassion in the name of God whose
deepest inner life is the loving relationship of the members of the Trinity.
The Christian idea
of God-as Trinity is vitally important because it shows us that relationships
are vitally important for God.
***
2. The Christian idea of God-as-Trinity is
vitally important because it shows us that our Christian faith has continued to
develop after the scriptures had been written – and still continues to develop.
We don’t find the
Trinity in the Bible. It just isn’t
there. That’s why the lessons found in
the lectionary for Trinity Sunday each year are really so indirect regarding
the Trinity.
The Christian
church defined its belief in God-as-Trinity at the Council of Nicaea in 325
AD. That was almost three hundred years
after the first Easter. It was more than
two hundred years after the last book of the New Testament was written. It was more than one hundred years after the
Christian church finally had a consensus about which books were part of the New
Testament scriptures.
Still, something so
central to Christian beliefs as the Trinity came along after the Bible was
completed. This is very important. It tells us that the Christian faith kept
developing after the time when the Bible was written. The Christian faith is still developing
today. The Christian faith is not
limited to the written scriptures. As
the hymn tells us:
The Lord has yet more light and truth
to break forth from the word ....
Because we
celebrate God-as-Trinity, we are freed from a necessity to interpret the
insights of the Bible in a strictly literal way, as if the cultural norms from the
times when the Bible was completed must still determine our response to the
religious issues confronting people of faith today.
The Christian idea
of God-as-Trinity is vitally important because it shows us that our Christian
faith has continued to develop after the scriptures had been written – and
still continues to develop.
***
3. The Christian idea of God-as-Trinity is
vitally important because it demonstrates for us the importance of our using
our intellect and our creativity as part of our faith.
The notion of
God-as-Trinity didn’t just drop down from the skies. It was the result of people arguing their
beliefs and their opinions with one another, and using their intellect and
their creativity to develop their ideas.
Today, there are
people in some sections of the Christian faith who discourage the use of human
intellect and human creativity in service to faith. You just believe. Faith is seen as conflict with human
reason. The nineteenth century writer
Mark Twain described that sort of faith as “the ability to believe twenty
impossible things before eating breakfast”.
That is not
authentic faith. Authentic faith works
in partnership with human intellect and with human creativity. It isn’t a denial of either.
The Christian idea
of God-as-Trinity is vitally important because it demonstrates for us the
importance of our using our intellect and our creativity as part of our faith.
***
What’s so important
about the Trinity?
The Christian idea
of God-as Trinity is vitally important because it shows us that relationships
are vitally important for God.
The Christian idea
of God-as-Trinity is vitally important because it shows us that our Christian
faith has continued to develop after the scriptures had been written – and
still continues to develop.
The Christian idea
of God-as-Trinity is vitally important because it demonstrates for us the
importance of our using our intellect and our creativity as part of our faith.
We don’t have to
rationalise or “explain away” the Christian affirmation in God-as-Trinity. We don't have to leave it to the more conservative sort of Christians only. Instead, all Christians can celebrate it.
Monday, 2 June 2014
The Promise of Pentecost: a sermon
I want to tell a story that isn’t second-hand, but third-hand.
I heard this story from a friend of mine named Rex Hunt, not the football commentator but a retired Uniting Church minister. He was a colleague of mine in Hobart and later was the minister of my former congregation in Canberra.
Rex tells this story which he heard from a friend of his named William Bausch, a Catholic priest in the United States. William Bausch told of a time when a young child caught his attention at Mass. It’s a great Pentecost story.
As William Bausch tells it:
I was watching a small child who was turning around and smiling at everyone.
He wasn’t:
Finally, his mother jerked him about, and in a stage whisper that could be heard during a high-school play, said: “Stop that grinning! You’re in church!”
With that she gave him a sharp and stinging slap on the legs.
And as the tears rolled down his cheek, she added: “That’s better,” and returned to her prayers.
William Bausch continued. . . .
Suddenly I was angry. It occurred to me the entire world is in tears, and if you’re not, then you’d better get with it.
We sing, “make a joyful noise unto the Lord’, while our faces reflect the sadness of one who has just buried a rich aunt who left everything to her pregnant canary.
I wanted to ... [tell] this child with the tear-stained face ... about my God,
I wanted to tell that little child that I too had received a few slaps on the legs for daring to smile in an otherwise solemn religious setting. By tradition, I suppose, one wears faith with the solemnity of a mourner, the mask of tragedy.
What a fool, I thought, this woman sitting next to the only sign of hope - the only miracle - left in our civilisation.
If that child couldn¹t smile in church, where was there left to go?
End of William Bausch’s story.
We celebrate the Day of Pentecost, the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. (1)
At Pentecost, we celebrate the completion of Easter, the completion of the resurrection.
Pentecost is an opportunity we have each year to recognise the potential of what God calls us to be: Christ’s resurrected body in the world today; the real presence of the crucified-and-risen Christ:
This is the promise of Pentecost.
(1) Acts 2: 1 - 21
(2) See vss. 12 - 15 of the Acts 2 passage.
I heard this story from a friend of mine named Rex Hunt, not the football commentator but a retired Uniting Church minister. He was a colleague of mine in Hobart and later was the minister of my former congregation in Canberra.
Rex tells this story which he heard from a friend of his named William Bausch, a Catholic priest in the United States. William Bausch told of a time when a young child caught his attention at Mass. It’s a great Pentecost story.
As William Bausch tells it:
I was watching a small child who was turning around and smiling at everyone.
He wasn’t:
- gurgling,
- spitting,
- humming,
- kicking,
- tearing the hymn book, or
- rummaging through his mother’s handbag.
Finally, his mother jerked him about, and in a stage whisper that could be heard during a high-school play, said: “Stop that grinning! You’re in church!”
With that she gave him a sharp and stinging slap on the legs.
And as the tears rolled down his cheek, she added: “That’s better,” and returned to her prayers.
William Bausch continued. . . .
Suddenly I was angry. It occurred to me the entire world is in tears, and if you’re not, then you’d better get with it.
We sing, “make a joyful noise unto the Lord’, while our faces reflect the sadness of one who has just buried a rich aunt who left everything to her pregnant canary.
I wanted to ... [tell] this child with the tear-stained face ... about my God,
- the happy God,
- the smiling God,
- the God who had to have a sense of humour to have created the likes of us.
I wanted to tell that little child that I too had received a few slaps on the legs for daring to smile in an otherwise solemn religious setting. By tradition, I suppose, one wears faith with the solemnity of a mourner, the mask of tragedy.
What a fool, I thought, this woman sitting next to the only sign of hope - the only miracle - left in our civilisation.
If that child couldn¹t smile in church, where was there left to go?
End of William Bausch’s story.
We celebrate the Day of Pentecost, the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. (1)
At Pentecost, we celebrate the completion of Easter, the completion of the resurrection.
- At the first Easter, Jesus rose as an individual.
- At the first Christian Pentecost, Jesus rose as a community; Jesus rose as the church.
Pentecost is an opportunity we have each year to recognise the potential of what God calls us to be: Christ’s resurrected body in the world today; the real presence of the crucified-and-risen Christ:
- reaching out to the world with God’s love in Christ;
- modelling in our life together the divine multiculturalism of the Kingdom of God;
- combatting all those community-destroying Babels we find in our world today: ... the Babel of racism, ... the Babel of bigotry, ... the Babel of snobbery, ... the Babel of greed, ... the Babel of competing fundamentalisms (both religious and secular), ... and many other destructive Babels;
- being a community that expresses such exuberant joy in each other’s presence - and in God’s presence - that our neighbours just naturally assume we’ve been hitting the bottle a bit early in the day; (2)
- being a setting in which a child can safely turn around and smile at an adult - and find the adult smiling back.
This is the promise of Pentecost.
(1) Acts 2: 1 - 21
(2) See vss. 12 - 15 of the Acts 2 passage.
Sunday, 1 June 2014
Why I'm NOT an "evangelical" (at least in the way most people use the word today)
In the classical use of the word "evangelical", the word comes from the Greek word for "good news", or "gospel". It says that the Christian message is "good news". It says that the Christian faith is able to transform individuals and communities for the better. I would be happy to call myself an "evangelical" in this sense, in the sense in which John Wesley, William Wilberforce, and Martin Luther King were "evangelicals". (If only the word "evangelical" was used in this way today. ....)
However, the term "evangelical" today means something very different from this classical use of the word. While I am a minister in a classical "Protestant" church, I have never been an "evangelical" in the sense in which the word is used today. Thinking of the spiritual anxiety experienced by friends who are former evangelicals (or "recovering evangelicals"), I am grateful for my liberal Methodist upbringing (biblically literate, without being biblically literal), along with my youthful exposure to Vatican II Catholicism, High Anglicanism, and Reform Judaism. Because of my Methodist upbringing, and my contact with other healthy, life-affirming, life-giving faith traditions, I never really felt the compulsion to travel the conservative evangelical path.
While "evangelicals" frequently claim that their beliefs are simply "basic Christianity", this is not really the case. In reality, "evangelicalism" is not "basic Christianity". It is made up of a variety of beliefs and attitudes, some of which are grounded in the beliefs of particular Christian schools of thought, others of which originate outside Christianity.
For example, a typical "evangelical" Christian living in a western, English-speaking country today normally has a cluster of beliefs and practices including:
We need to reclaim the term "evangelical", so that it once again speaks of the way that the Christian faith can transform individuals and communities for the better, rather than using it as a code-word for a style of Christian faith which is based on an eccentric mixture of religious ideas, which has made a Faustian deal with far-right political movements, and which communicates itself using the razzamatazz of contemporary showbiz.
Until that time, I choose not to call myself an evangelical.
However, the term "evangelical" today means something very different from this classical use of the word. While I am a minister in a classical "Protestant" church, I have never been an "evangelical" in the sense in which the word is used today. Thinking of the spiritual anxiety experienced by friends who are former evangelicals (or "recovering evangelicals"), I am grateful for my liberal Methodist upbringing (biblically literate, without being biblically literal), along with my youthful exposure to Vatican II Catholicism, High Anglicanism, and Reform Judaism. Because of my Methodist upbringing, and my contact with other healthy, life-affirming, life-giving faith traditions, I never really felt the compulsion to travel the conservative evangelical path.
While "evangelicals" frequently claim that their beliefs are simply "basic Christianity", this is not really the case. In reality, "evangelicalism" is not "basic Christianity". It is made up of a variety of beliefs and attitudes, some of which are grounded in the beliefs of particular Christian schools of thought, others of which originate outside Christianity.
For example, a typical "evangelical" Christian living in a western, English-speaking country today normally has a cluster of beliefs and practices including:
- a theology of human nature with a strong emphasis on the reality of human sin (but without the balance of a similar emphasis on the reality of human virtue),
- a theology of the atonement based on the notion that the death of Jesus was a substitutionary "blood sacrifice" (but without reference to the many other ways in which Christians have understood the significance of the death of Jesus),
- an attitude (based on a misreading of the writings of the 16th century "Protestant" Reformers) that assumes that holding a system of correct beliefs is essential for a positive relationship with God,
- an doctrine of scripture that declares that the Bible contains infallible oracles from God, rather than human reflections about God,
- an attitude toward issues relating to gender, sex, and family life in which men are valued more highly than women, married couples are valued more highly than single people or unmarried couples, and "straight" people are valued more highly than LGBT people,
- a far-right-wing political philosophy, often closely related to the ideas of the novelist Ayn Rand (who also happened to be a committed atheist): i.e. "Greed is good", "Selfishness is a virtue", etc., and
- an attitude toward worship that is far more dependent on the values of the entertainment industry than on the practice of worship or spirituality in any mainstream Christian tradition.
We need to reclaim the term "evangelical", so that it once again speaks of the way that the Christian faith can transform individuals and communities for the better, rather than using it as a code-word for a style of Christian faith which is based on an eccentric mixture of religious ideas, which has made a Faustian deal with far-right political movements, and which communicates itself using the razzamatazz of contemporary showbiz.
Until that time, I choose not to call myself an evangelical.
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