Hey blogger experts. Let's welcome Gary Nelson who joined us just today on the SABA Pastors blog. He is new to this way of communicating, so take it easy on him! :) We are developing a good little discussion group here. Hey, encourage your other SABA friends to join us. It might take a little encouragement, but it could be worth the effort to have more voices added to the mix. Just have them email me and I'll get them started.
Blog on!
Jeff
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tozer on Topic
"The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape so he will have a way out if the roof caves in. What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day."
A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous
A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Romans 12 and Romans 13
What do we do with Romans 12 and then 13? Camp as an anabaptist-style approach wants to call on the government to embody Christian virtue, criticizing George Bush for leading the nation to war after 9/11 than leading us to prayer.
I myself heavily lean anabaptist and would have loved to see us pray and reach out rather than bomb. But that said, I'm torn by how on earth God uses governments to reward the good and punish the evil WITH THE SWORD. The tensions between Romans 12 and Romans 13 are a bit much for me.
Is the simple answer that Christians live as Romans 12 people and let the non-Christians do the dirty work of the Romans 13 world? Clearly Camp is bothered by Christians who wield the sword. It makes me uncomfortable too. But then that leaves me wondering what the alternative is for Christians - avoid working for public office, the military, the police, etc.???
REV
I myself heavily lean anabaptist and would have loved to see us pray and reach out rather than bomb. But that said, I'm torn by how on earth God uses governments to reward the good and punish the evil WITH THE SWORD. The tensions between Romans 12 and Romans 13 are a bit much for me.
Is the simple answer that Christians live as Romans 12 people and let the non-Christians do the dirty work of the Romans 13 world? Clearly Camp is bothered by Christians who wield the sword. It makes me uncomfortable too. But then that leaves me wondering what the alternative is for Christians - avoid working for public office, the military, the police, etc.???
REV
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Four Contrasts
On p. 27 (2nd ed., paragraph that began on p. 26 with "On the other hand")... Camp gives four examples of how he sees the historical church as having drifted from the biblical church and Jesus' vision for His church:
1. Ritual replaced discipleship
2. Protection of orthodoxy replaced body of Christ as church's purpose
3. heavenly reward replaced the transformed new creation life as "salvation"
4. Christendom replaced Christ-likeness
This resonates as quite true in my experience currently. In my previous experience church planting it did not, as we set a tone contrary to these new forms
Thoughts?
REV
1. Ritual replaced discipleship
2. Protection of orthodoxy replaced body of Christ as church's purpose
3. heavenly reward replaced the transformed new creation life as "salvation"
4. Christendom replaced Christ-likeness
This resonates as quite true in my experience currently. In my previous experience church planting it did not, as we set a tone contrary to these new forms
Thoughts?
REV
Lipscomb's gospel
Camp has already admitted his biases in favor of anabaptist understandings, Yoder theology and ecclesiology, and now also Lipscomb's anabaptist leanings. I appreciate that honesty in laying the cards on the table.
Page 23 (2nd ed.) states the following, "the Good News [proclaims] a kingdom that held to Jesus as its head: the kingdom of heaven as a real kingdom in the midst of time and history. It is in the world but not of the world, and thus would refuse either to submit to sectional war-making and racism, or to turn a blind eye to the needs of the poor."
This is my understanding of the NT as well. I too admit my biases in being heavily NT Wright/Greg Boyd/Stanley Hauerwas/Jim Wallis/anabaptist mushing and meshing in my approach as well. The radical mission of the kingdom has somehow been lost by the evangelicals among whom I minister. In four years of preaching and embodying the same kind of good news Camp espouses and quotes Lipscomb as having preached, I have found precious little progress. Some days I lament. Other days I am filled with hope from the Holy Spirit.
Thus far in the book I find myself enthusiastically agreeing with Camp. I don't want to beat up Jesus' bride, but I frequently find myself also saying, Jesus' bride needs a second Reformation. Thoughts? And thoughts on this gospel stated on p. 23 (2nd ed.)? Is it a gospel you proclaim? Do your congregants express such a gospel? If not, then at a minimum do they even understand such a gospel?
REV
Page 23 (2nd ed.) states the following, "the Good News [proclaims] a kingdom that held to Jesus as its head: the kingdom of heaven as a real kingdom in the midst of time and history. It is in the world but not of the world, and thus would refuse either to submit to sectional war-making and racism, or to turn a blind eye to the needs of the poor."
This is my understanding of the NT as well. I too admit my biases in being heavily NT Wright/Greg Boyd/Stanley Hauerwas/Jim Wallis/anabaptist mushing and meshing in my approach as well. The radical mission of the kingdom has somehow been lost by the evangelicals among whom I minister. In four years of preaching and embodying the same kind of good news Camp espouses and quotes Lipscomb as having preached, I have found precious little progress. Some days I lament. Other days I am filled with hope from the Holy Spirit.
Thus far in the book I find myself enthusiastically agreeing with Camp. I don't want to beat up Jesus' bride, but I frequently find myself also saying, Jesus' bride needs a second Reformation. Thoughts? And thoughts on this gospel stated on p. 23 (2nd ed.)? Is it a gospel you proclaim? Do your congregants express such a gospel? If not, then at a minimum do they even understand such a gospel?
REV
Monday, July 20, 2009
Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World
I picked up this book while we were wandering through the Mennonite Information Center in Lancaster, PA waiting to enter their life scale version of the Tabernacle. The subtitle is what caught my eye. I've felt challenged of late, both from Scripture and from the course of culture to wonder if there is not something more that God has for the Church, and for individual Christians, than what we are teaching or experiencing.
Personally, I believe the desire for more of God is supernaturally imposed on the believing heart as a direct result of the indwelling Holy Spirit's love for the Father and the Son. True love can never get enough of the beloved, I think. So when Scripture says that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, I think that that love must first and foremost be God's love and desire for God since it makes sense to me that God would love and desire God more than anything else, there being nothing of greater worthiness for love than God.
So, upon the heart redeemed by God and loved by God, there is imposed a hunger for God by the Holy Spirit. But the world acknowledges no hunger for God. The hunger is there, but it is refused, rejected, denied, dismissed, and overrun. The world rebels against the hunger for God which God built into creation ("he has put eternity in their hearts"). Too often, as I engage in the individual lives of Christians and continue in ministry in the local church, I perceive that that God-hunger dissipates when human beings satisfy their spiritual hunger with the world's vacuous sugar rather than God's substantial meat.
The idea of a "radical Christianity" intrigued me on those terms. I have encountered the phrase before, many times, but not in the context of a "rebellious world." I was hoping for a contrast of authentic Christianity and authentic worldliness. Often before, the contrast, when speaking of radical Christianity, has been between whatever the author or speaker meant by "radical Christianity" and whatever they meant by "non-radical Christianity." It was a Christian vs. Christian discussion that typical left me bored and unsatisfied. My expectation for this book is that there will be some description/definition of "rebellious world," and that that will form the backdrop for understanding "radical Christianity."
Halfway through the book now, I'm finding it interesting, but we're still dealing more with Christianity than world, but we are seeing how the world has impacted the "development" of Christianity into something that might not even ought to be called Christian.
Camp's ideas are an extension of those of one of his mentors, John Howard Yoder, who was his initial dissertation director at Notre Dame (the school, not the church.) I have not taken the time yet to Google Yoder, but a Lutheran friend of mine did, so I know the information is out there if we want to bring it into our conversation at some time.
I'm thinking to post a chapter at a time, discuss that chapter, then move to the next (and back, if necessary). Moving too far ahead and I suspect I'll lose track of the thread. I'm open to other suggestions.
Here are thoughts from the first chapter:
p. 16 "the genocide demonstrated--in graphic and horrific way--that the Western Christianity imported into the heart of Africa apparently failed to create communities of disciples."
Camp lumps all expressions of Chrisitanity in Rwanda into one category: "Western," and that category also seems to be predominantly Catholic. I would expect that Catholic theology would not create Christian communities, since there is little emphasis on personal spiritual transformation in Catholic practical theology. Does this categorization, which seems to ignore evangelical theology in mission, weaken the foundation for Camp's impending argument?
p. 16 "The proclamation of the 'gospel' has often failed to emphasize a fundamental element of the teaching of Jesus, and indeed, or orthodox Christian doctrine: 'Jesus is Lord' is a radical claim, one that is ultimately rooted in questions of allegiance, of ultimate authority, of the ultimate norm and standard for human life." This, I perceive, is the mission statement of the book, which he must now expound and apply. What do you think?
Personally, I believe the desire for more of God is supernaturally imposed on the believing heart as a direct result of the indwelling Holy Spirit's love for the Father and the Son. True love can never get enough of the beloved, I think. So when Scripture says that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, I think that that love must first and foremost be God's love and desire for God since it makes sense to me that God would love and desire God more than anything else, there being nothing of greater worthiness for love than God.
So, upon the heart redeemed by God and loved by God, there is imposed a hunger for God by the Holy Spirit. But the world acknowledges no hunger for God. The hunger is there, but it is refused, rejected, denied, dismissed, and overrun. The world rebels against the hunger for God which God built into creation ("he has put eternity in their hearts"). Too often, as I engage in the individual lives of Christians and continue in ministry in the local church, I perceive that that God-hunger dissipates when human beings satisfy their spiritual hunger with the world's vacuous sugar rather than God's substantial meat.
The idea of a "radical Christianity" intrigued me on those terms. I have encountered the phrase before, many times, but not in the context of a "rebellious world." I was hoping for a contrast of authentic Christianity and authentic worldliness. Often before, the contrast, when speaking of radical Christianity, has been between whatever the author or speaker meant by "radical Christianity" and whatever they meant by "non-radical Christianity." It was a Christian vs. Christian discussion that typical left me bored and unsatisfied. My expectation for this book is that there will be some description/definition of "rebellious world," and that that will form the backdrop for understanding "radical Christianity."
Halfway through the book now, I'm finding it interesting, but we're still dealing more with Christianity than world, but we are seeing how the world has impacted the "development" of Christianity into something that might not even ought to be called Christian.
Camp's ideas are an extension of those of one of his mentors, John Howard Yoder, who was his initial dissertation director at Notre Dame (the school, not the church.) I have not taken the time yet to Google Yoder, but a Lutheran friend of mine did, so I know the information is out there if we want to bring it into our conversation at some time.
I'm thinking to post a chapter at a time, discuss that chapter, then move to the next (and back, if necessary). Moving too far ahead and I suspect I'll lose track of the thread. I'm open to other suggestions.
Here are thoughts from the first chapter:
p. 16 "the genocide demonstrated--in graphic and horrific way--that the Western Christianity imported into the heart of Africa apparently failed to create communities of disciples."
Camp lumps all expressions of Chrisitanity in Rwanda into one category: "Western," and that category also seems to be predominantly Catholic. I would expect that Catholic theology would not create Christian communities, since there is little emphasis on personal spiritual transformation in Catholic practical theology. Does this categorization, which seems to ignore evangelical theology in mission, weaken the foundation for Camp's impending argument?
p. 16 "The proclamation of the 'gospel' has often failed to emphasize a fundamental element of the teaching of Jesus, and indeed, or orthodox Christian doctrine: 'Jesus is Lord' is a radical claim, one that is ultimately rooted in questions of allegiance, of ultimate authority, of the ultimate norm and standard for human life." This, I perceive, is the mission statement of the book, which he must now expound and apply. What do you think?
Friday, July 17, 2009
Discipleship
What is discipleship? In Jesus' "great commission" the one imperative floating in a sea of active participles (as you are going, baptizing, teaching, etc.) is "make disciples." Disciple making IS the commission of Jesus' church - among others. So... what is discipleship? What are its marks? What should we be looking for and expecting?
It seems to me one of the traditional markers in the American church is "regular Sunday attendance" and another is "involvement in a class/Bible study/small group" - but is mere presence at activities somehow magically making disciples? Were Jesus' disciples of a totally different nature than this? Were Paul's? And does a potential radical change in how we understand discipleship mean we all become like Shane Claiborne's community?
Treading we hope and joy and yet great uncertainty...
REV
It seems to me one of the traditional markers in the American church is "regular Sunday attendance" and another is "involvement in a class/Bible study/small group" - but is mere presence at activities somehow magically making disciples? Were Jesus' disciples of a totally different nature than this? Were Paul's? And does a potential radical change in how we understand discipleship mean we all become like Shane Claiborne's community?
Treading we hope and joy and yet great uncertainty...
REV
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