No Word from the Lord

Lee at Verbum Ipsum: "Jesus never said a word about about highway appropriation bills or FCC regulations!"

His point (or at least as I take it) - this is intellectual laziness - whether from the left (never said anything about abortion, homosexuality) or from the right (never said anything about environmentalism or government subsidies).

I once made the point to someone I was helping interview who brought up the "Jesus never said a word about it" line re: homosexuality that any theology that could fit on a bumper sticker was suspect to me.

Anyhow, I'd like to play a game. Feel free to join in. The more outlandish the better.

Jesus never said a word about...

SUVs
antidepressants(so there, Tom Cruise!)
post whoring (or comment whoring, in blogworld)
breastfeeding in public (hi, Annette!)
Social Security
watching "R"-rated movies
fairly-traded coffee
maple trees
public broadcasting
the flat tax
illegal immigrants
bubble-gum flavored ice cream (I'm against it)
DVD players in cars (ditto)

Happy anniversary!

It's the 475th anniversary today of the presentation of the confession of the "Lutheran" party to the Imperial Diet at Augsburg - otherwise known as the Augsburg Confession.

To celebrate, I am going to assist at a wedding Mass for the first time in my pastorate. :)

Live-blogging from camp

This week I am a camp pastor at Camp Mount Luther, our Upper Susquehanna Synod camp. My family has been here much of the week, but they are at home for a couple of days and so I have time to sit and write for a little bit.

It was a very eventful couple of weeks. Our Vacation Church School was last week, and was successful. This is, I must admit, my least favorite part of being a pastor. Not the getting up in front of kids and acting silly part, but the planning and execution part. Nevertheless, with the help of an awesome staff, eighty kids had a great week.

Following VCS was our Synod Assembly. Both memorials to the Churchwide Assembly which oppose the Church Council recommendations passed without nearly the intensity of debate that I expected. I have a feeling that we all know what we are going to say about this topic anymore. In a way, that is too bad, for certainly a substantive discussion might be fruitful.

We also passed resolutions condemning torture and religious abuse (I wasn't sure about this one, but the speakers for the resolution convinced me), against the "Separation Wall" in Israel (abstained - although I understand the land grab issue, I also sympathize with the need of Israel to defend itself and can't help but notice that there have been not nearly so many suicide bombings since the wall began to go up - anyone want to disabuse me on my ignorance?) and other resolutions and memorials relating to supporting Augsburg Fortress, Christ-like living, evangelism, social ministry, etc.

I was on the Committee for Reference and Counsel this year, and am proud (not in the theological sense) to say that because of the commitment of our chairperson (not me), our hard detail work on the resolutions/memorials and our willingness to send them back to the originators if they were unsubstantiated or unclear, the process was a much smoother one than in years past.

I am using some of the down time I have this week to read Bonhoeffer's Ethics. I have been putting this off until I had some serious time to chew on it. I can only say that I am chewing. Yum, yum. I hope to be able to blog on the conclusions I come to and the questions that are raised.

Quiz results

OK quiz - not the best, but oh well.

You scored as Karl Barth. The daddy of 20th Century theology. You perceive liberal theology to be a disaster and so you insist that the revelation of Christ, not human experience, should be the starting point for all theology.

Which theologian are you?
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When Two Cultures Collide...Zen Judaism

Excerpts heard on Car Talk.

The Torah says,"Love thy neighbor as thyself."
The Buddha says there is no "self."
So, maybe you are off the hook.

more

Do we need to change the rules?

Lee links to Marcus's post on the inadequacy of traditional Christian sexual ethics and adds his own thoughts.

There seems to be this unspoken assumption in Marcus's post that for two thousand years Christians were behaving in accordance with the "traditional" sexual morality. IMHO, baloney. In every century there was tension and flagrant, cheerful ignorance of the Church's official position. What do you think those wonderful English madrigals are about?

To me, the "moderns won't accept a traditional Xian sexual ethic even though they can accept a three-tiered universe" is an argument about splitting a two-sided coin. Most non-Christians think we're too repressed. Most Christians I know actually believe sex is best saved for marriage, even though in their particular case an exception ought to be made. :) I assume our forebears thought basically the same things.

As for "what is sex for?" I could not read that other article from the Century. But the idea that "sex is for sanctification" seems a little optimistic to me. The phrase reminds me of what Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire Gene Robinson said about his sexual relationship with his partner. He said, "It's sacramental to me." I don't think that we ought to be elevating sex to sacramental status. It gives it an ultimate quality that frankly, the results don't bear out. Moreover, it does not address adequately the self-seeking sinfulness that frankly, I believe is part of even the best sexual relationship. We cannot fully throw off that old Adam even when we want to.

But I think that is what the culture (and I think many to most cultures across time) has done. We have reduced transcendence to orgasm, and fulfillment to variety, spontaneity and ecstasy within a monogamous relationship. Frankly, it is the consumer/technical mindset that pushes this especially in our culture, for the entire marriage/sex industry, non-pornographic and pornographic, is based on the premise that there is a better orgasm out there, and that if we're not having it, there's something wrong.

I protest!

Camassia provides more evidence why I like her style, by taking my Matthew Fox protest and addressing it far more intelligently and reasonably than I.

And speaking of protests, here's one my wife and son were involved in yesterday in New York.

The first three articles

Article One - God
Article Two - Original Sin
Article Three - The Son of God

The order of the articles, part 2

I really would like this blog to be a place where I can explore questions with other folk. Camassia's blog is the best example of this I can find so far. Lee's is good too. I really don't intend to rant and/or pontificate all the time (I'm just so darn good at it!)

But something I read over on Ut Unum Sint gets me back on my previous post on the Trinity being the first article of our Augsburg Confession. Matthew Fox, former Catholic priest who was banned from teaching by the Vatican in the mid-90s and currently is an Episcopal priest, will be teaching the Professional Leader's Event in the ELCA's Northern Illinois Synod this fall. Dr. Fox just was in Wittenberg, where he called for a new Reformation and posted "95 Theses" near the Castle Church Door.

In opposition to the original 95 Theses, Dr. Fox's make very little sense in a linear fashion. They alternate between rants against the Roman Catholic Church, bromides about homosexuality and economic justice, and promulgation of a neo-Gnostic pastiche which would probably make a second-century Gnostic twitch with laughter.

Among the most problematic theses:


1.

God is both Mother and Father.

I would affirm that God is neither male nor female. However, the term "Father" as a designation for the first person of the Trinity is part of our Triune Confession of God, the first of our Lutheran Confessions.

2.

At this time in history, God is more Mother than Father because the feminine is most missing and it is important to bring gender balance back.


5.

“All the names we give to God come from an understanding of ourselves.” (Eckhart) Thus people who worship a punitive father are themselves punitive.

6.

Theism (the idea that God is ‘out there’ or above and beyond the universe) is false. All things are in God and God is in all things (panentheism).

Panentheism seems to me to directly contradict the Christian notion of Creation by a God who is not this world but who creates this world.

16.

Christians must distinguish between Jesus and Paul.

But which Jesus? Certainly not the Jesus of John 17. Certainly not the Jesus of Matthew 28:16-20. Certainly not the one who says that those who indulge in porneia will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. In other words, that which accords to Fox's predetermined notion of Truth in Jesus and Paul will be used, and that which does not will be discarded.
23.

Sexuality is a sacred act and a spiritual experience, a theophany (revelation of the Divine), a mystical experience. It is holy and deserves to be honored as such.

What about the sin that dogs our sexuality from the word go - the desire to possess and use the other for our own purposes? Well, read on...

32.

Original sin is an ultimate expression of a punitive father God and is not a Biblical teaching. But original blessing (goodness and grace) is biblical.

33.

The term “original wound” better describes the separation humans experience on leaving the womb and entering the world, a world that is often unjust and unwelcoming than does the term “original sin.”

Contra article two of the Augsburg Confession.
Besides, this is totally illogical. If the world is often unjust and unwelcoming, then where did that come from? If "bad stuff" originates with the world, where did the bad stuff come from in the first place?

54.

The Holy Spirit works through all cultures and all spiritual traditions and blows “where it wills” and is not the exclusive domain of any one tradition and
never has been.

That God does work through other faiths than Christianity is a given. How God does so and whether Christianity has a superior claim is another question. I suggest that those who are Christians should believe that Christ is the self-revelation of God to humanity.
88.

When science teaches that matter is “frozen light” (physicist David Bohm) it is freeing human thought from scapegoating flesh as something evil and instead reassuring us that all things are light. This same teaching is found in the Christian Gospels (Christ is the light in all things) and in Buddhist teaching (the Buddha nature is in all things). Therefore, flesh does not sin; it is our choices that are sometimes off center.

1. What?
2. The fact that this guy calls himself a theologian is breathtaking. "There is no sin, there are only bad choices?" Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot? Auschwitz was a bad choice? Apartheid? Slavery? Gang violence is the result of bad choices? How about sex slavery in Asia? Child pornography? Even his favorite sins - economic injustice, etc? A bad choice is Folger's Crystals rather than fairly-traded organic coffee. A sin is killing rather than giving life, lying rather than truth-telling, taking rather than receiving.
3. The fact that this guy cannot distinguish the idea of "our flesh" as the poetic biblical term for the sin that dwells inside of us rather than denigrating the entire bodily existence is disturbing. The entire Christian tradition has been remarkably pro-body as an expression of God creating the world and seeing it as very good. However, it realizes that our very selves are turned away from God and towards ourselves, something that Fox represents to perfection but cannot see himself.

90.

"God” is only one name for the Divine One and there are an infinite number of names for God and Godhead and still God “has no name and will never be given a name.” (Eckhart)


Again, contra article one.

I am quite astounded and distressed that those in authority in the Northern Illinois Synod have chosen to invite this person, whose teaching and beliefs directly contradict the Lutheran Confessions, and in fact have their roots in the ancient heresy of Gnosticism, to teach their pastors and professional leaders.

In the seminaries, the Confessions are not treated as binding on our consciences. We do not study them in depth, we do not treat them as much more than historical documents which are interesting in themselves as a resource for where Lutheranism came from. We take vows to preach and teach according to them when we are ordained, but that does not seem to mean too much.

"Christians must distinguish" (to coin a phrase) between interpretation of the Confessions and unfaithfulness to the Confessions. And yes, we as Lutherans do owe loyalty to the Lutheran Confessions. We value them as "true witnesses to the Gospel." Or we used to.

When you invite a Matthew Fox to teach your professional leaders, a man who celebrates a "Cosmic Mass," a man who rejects the catholic faith as expressed in the Creeds, a man who openly states (among other things) that there is no such thing as sin, that we need no Savior other than ourselves, then you are no longer teaching and preaching according to the Lutheran Confessions.

Blogwatch Central

Eve responds to an email I wrote her on the use (and abuse?) of converts and conversion stories.

Clint at Lutheran Confessions weighs in on the virus that is "open communion" - the practice of explictly inviting those who have not been baptized into the Christian life into the fellowship meal of Christ with his Church.

Touchstone's Russell Moore writes on bringing up violent Christian boys. It is certainly an entertaining piece. He gets in a few good digs against Precious Moments and The Polar Express, a movie I knew I didn't want my kids to see the moment I saw the preview.


I really doubt that I would take four-year-old boys to see the latest Star Wars movie. I also do not allow gun-play in my house, even though I shot everything in sight when I was a kid.

But I fear that the latest wave of anti-war and non-violent rhetoric is not truly non-violent. It may be avoidance of responsibility for others and closing one's eyes because one does not want to see what is really there.

There is a certain way in which everyone is violent, in which one does not need to "learn" from society the methods of force. According to Moore and others, an aggressive spirit is simply part of maledom, and ordering such a spirit and directing it towards the good is the Christian task. There may or may not be a certain virtue in learning to fight and strive, controlling one's fear in order to defend the weak and helpless, and saying to those possessed of a truly violent spirit, "This far and no farther." That I believe is a Lutheran first use of the Law, and a Christian being an instrument in God's first use of the Law has been a Lutheran tenet from Dr. Martin himself.

I am reminded of a story that a friend told me. His son was being bullied at school, and had gone to teachers and so forth, but the bullying did not stop. He told his son one day, parked in front of the school, to tell the bully "no," and if he insisted, to hit him. His son responded, "You're nuts and I'm out of here," and got out of the car forthwith.

But he did it, and it worked.

Is this simply giving in to sin? Ignoring Jesus' own words on non-resistance? Or is there a sense in which one must first know one's own strength in order to give it up? And is there a responsibility, attested to in Scripture as well, that those possessed by a truly violent and chaotic spirit must be held in check by those who are able to master and command their own instincts to violence by the Word of God?

Both arguments appeal to me, and reason does not show me which is proper and correct.

The order of the articles

At last week's retreat of the Susquehanna and Chesapeake/Potomac chapters of the Society of the Holy Trinity, one of the presentations made mention of a book that is a required homiletics text at one of our Lutheran seminaries.

The book is titled "Trouble with Jesus: Christology, Feminism, and Homiletics" and advances the thesis, among others, that the trouble started when the early Christians began confusing the person of Jesus with his message.

Making disparaging comments about every single ecumenical council, the book claims that we are to use Jesus as the example and exemplar for our own efforts, that it is the quest of Messiahship that can be found in all of us. Or something like that.

The big revelation that I came to is that I've been used to thinking of the fourth article of the Augsburg Confession as the first important one. It's not. There is a reason that the first article confesses the nature of God. To the extent that we do not confess and understand God as Trinity, we are no Lutherans, no Christians.

To believe in Christ is to acknowledge the mystery of the Incarnation, to believe that, for us, God who is beyond time, space, and culture bound himself permanently to time, space, and culture.
In becoming human in Christ, the Word of God speaks God's language to us, but also speaks our language to God, representing us to God and bridging the divide of sin.

Unfortunately, this faith is being discarded as "primitive" in portions of our church. If it is not being flatly denied, it is being ignored as esoteric and divisive. It seems we have a choice, on one hand, between the bearded grandfatherly distant Deity who creates and sends us to find our way, and on the other, the Life Force within each of us, affirming each disparate, unique, and non-negotiable path.

Or is there a third way, old as Christianity itself, in our first article, affirming our creation by God; celebrating our adoption as the brothers and sisters of the Word of God who became like us in order that we might be
sons and daughters of his Father; and recognizing the Spirit that strives in us as in one sense alien and in the other transforming us to be truly ourselves in God?