Wondering about Worship

The article on John Calvin came out in Sunday's paper. Before sending it to the editor, I made a few changes and added the paragraph about executing heretics. You can see the published version here.

- - - - -

Two random thoughts about worship assemblies:

1. I think it would be better if prayer leaders finally stopped thanking the Lord that we can worship without the fear of molestation. To people under 50 years old that doesn't sound quite right. The word molest has changed in meaning since that worn-out phrase was invented. The older meaning of the word is not what teenagers think when they hear it.

2. I understand that in the Middle Ages the image of the church (or the individual Christian) being nursed by Christ was a common spiritual theme. It didn't seem weird to people who've gone before us. I suspect it was a healthy thing for them to use a feminine metaphor to speak of what the Lord means to us. When we do that, we remind ourselves that the Almighty is sexless, that God is not some cosmic male. However, as a song leader, I exclude all songs that have us singing about the breast of Jesus. If it's just one verse, I might lead the song, but will skip that verse.

What other things do we do or say in our assemblies that simply mis-communicate?

Article on John Calvin

I'll wind up revising the following article a hundred times between now and this weekend when I finally send it to the paper.

I actually came in well under the maximum word count. So there's still space for me to add a paragraph if I want. I've thought about putting in a section about Calvin's consent to the executions of convicted heretics, most notably Michael Servetus. Besides predestination, that's the other big thing Calvin is often remembered for. How do I include that and give it the context it deserves? Anyway, give this a read if you want and make any suggestions that come to mind. Thanks!

John Calvin (1509-2009)

“I have lived amidst extraordinary struggles. I have been saluted in mockery at night, before my door, by fifty or sixty shots from guns. Think how that would terrify a poor timid scholar such as I am.”

John Calvin never set out to live a hectic life in the spotlight. “I always longed for repose and quiet,” he said. Much less did he imagine he would change the world. Yet historian E. G. Leonard was hardly exaggerating when he concluded his book History of Protestantism with a chapter entitled, “Calvin: The Founder of a Civilization.”

Born in Noyon, France on July 10, 1509—five hundred years ago this Friday—Calvin was learning to read and speak Latin at the University of Paris by the time he was twelve. At first his father encouraged him to study for the priesthood. But when he had a falling out with the church and recognized the religious turmoil of the day, he insisted that his son pursue a legal career instead. Throughout his teens and early twenties, Calvin studied law and classical literature, solid preparation for the future that lay ahead of him.

In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenburg’s Castle Church, launching what would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation. Calvin wasn’t among its early leaders. He was still just a boy. By the time he converted to the new movement in the early 1530s, the term “protestant” had already been coined. Nonetheless, Calvin would eventually contribute to the movement two things it didn’t have before. First, he took the most basic principles of the Reformation—grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone—and organized them into a system which he clearly expressed in his most famous book, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Second, through his tremendous influence as a writer, preacher, and church statesman in his adopted hometown of Geneva, Calvin left behind a model of how his version of theology could penetrate and shape a society.

From around 1533 until his death thirty-one years later, Calvin lived as a religious exile from Catholic-dominated France. Most of that time he spent in Geneva. Many other Protestants who had fled their homelands for fear of persecution discovered the city to be a haven. There they found both refuge and a flourishing religious community led by Calvin and his associates. Once they returned to the places they came from, the future growth of the Calvinist branch of the Reformation was certain.

Most people remember Calvin for having advanced the doctrine of double predestination which says that God in his sovereignty has decreed that certain individuals will be saved and that all others will be lost. Americans, big on freedom and a person’s ability to determine his own course, have typically rejected this teaching. But don’t count Calvin out. In March of this year, Time magazine listed “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now.” Number 3 was “The New Calvinism,” a movement that has taken hold in large segments of conservative Protestantism in the U.S., especially among young people. The new Calvinists even have a representative Bible, the English Standard Version which was released last October and immediately sold out its first printing of 100,000 copies.

Calvin once called himself “merely a man from among the common people.” On his 500th birthday, he isn’t finished yet.

Considering Calvin

Over the next few days, I'll have a few things to say about John Calvin. That's because I'm supposed to write something about him for our local paper, the Amarillo Globe-News.

July 10th of this year will mark the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth. So I called the paper and asked the editor of the op-ed page if they'd like to have something about Calvin's life and legacy. He said yes, and that they'd like to publish it in the Sunday paper for July 5th, since Sunday's paper gives a lot more room for opinion pieces.

So now I'm going back to the Institutes of the Christian Religion (I'd forgotten it was so long!) and T. H. L. Parker's wonderful biography. Now for my questions to you:

1. What absolutely, positively has to be a part of any 700-word biography of Calvin?

2. When it comes to sources, besides what I've mentioned here, what else should I be sure to read?

My First Seder, Gene Shelburne on Baptism

I have a biblical Hebrew reading group that meets for a few hours almost every Tuesday night. One of the participants serves as the director of a Christian synagogue here in Amarillo.

He invited me to come to their Passover Seder which was held last night (Friday). Why not Thursday night? It has something to do with the new moon, counting days, etc. I took their word for it.

Anyway, Michele and I went and stayed for most of it. An interesting experience. One thing I notice is that the more I'm exposed to rabbinic interpretation, the more I get a feel for what's going on in the New Testament, how very Jewish it is.

Ever been to a seder? I know of some churches that have had them. Ever been a part of something like that? I'd like to hear about it.

- - - - - - -

People in the Churches of Christ think we have a point about baptism. Many of us don't want to be contentious or ugly about it (though some do). It's just that we believe the New Testament teaches that baptism isn't some command to be obeyed a couple weeks after you take Christ into your heart. To us, it appears that in the Bible baptism is an integral part of the salvation experience, a faith-repentance-baptism experience that marks off a person's entry into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

But how do you say that; say what we are convinced the Bible says, without picking a religious fight? I think Gene Shelburne did a very good job of it in today's Amarillo Globe-News. Here's his article, Baptism allows faithful a rebirth in the spirit of Christ.

Nicely done, Gene.

Column in the Paper, Letter in the Mail

Last Sunday's Amarillo Globe-News included an editorial I wrote. I was responding to an article by one of the paper's regular columnists.

His opinion is that Amarillo people act like thoughtless hypocrites when the majority of them claim some sort of Christian conviction, while at the same time favoring the Texas policy of executing those who have committed the worst of crimes.

My response came from this angle: you haven't necessarily lost your "Christian principles" (his expression) if you agree that at least in some cases capital punishment is appropriate.

One thing you find out when you publish something in a print paper or magazine: at least a handful of people track you down, usually to say something like "I agree, and thanks." Because of the trouble they go through, I tend to value their "comments." Most any time I published something in a Church of Christ periodical, within a couple weeks I would get a beautiful note from the late Hugo McCord. That always meant a lot to me.

This week I received a heart-rending letter from someone whose family members were murdered many years ago. This person also regrets that the criminal has received two stays of execution. In prison, said the letter, the convict has outlived most of the family. They have been denied whatever sort of closure or satisfaction that might have come from the execution of the murderer.

As I read those words, I was astonished at how quickly things left the realm of theory and moved much closer to reality. It was time for me to stop thinking like a debater and start acting like some sort of pastor.

I sat and wrote down the best things I could think of and sent them off with a prayer.

Anyway, if you care to read the exchange that appear in the paper, the first article, "Dead is dead, and justice suffers," by Greg Sagan is here. My article, in part a response to the first one, is here.

No, I didn't pick the title and don't like the photo either. Sometimes I wish I had an agent. Note to self: start writing things that people actually pay for.

Spring Break and Beyond

Last week was Spring Break for most schools around here, including the college. So, of course, we had planned to sell the house in Connecticut and buy the house in Texas during that week. While younger, less responsible people were out doing more-fun, less-responsible things, we would sit around signing documents we didn't understand.

But you know how it goes sometimes with excellent plans. Turns out we have a "buyer" who, for maybe-good reasons, isn't buying; or at least not yet. So, for the last several days, when I wasnt' talking to attorneys, real estate agents, and mortgage brokers, I've had to spend a lot of my time just meditating on "This too shall pass."

- - - -

Classes started again yesterday. So I was introducing Romans (at 9 a.m.) and then Psalms and Proverbs (at 10:30). When we came to the Proverbs, we talked about how the very nature of those little gems just doesn't leave room for the real complexity of life. As a result, two proverbs that are true enough might contradict one another. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and "Out of sight, out of mind."

Interestingly enough, the Book of Proverbs seems to announce this caveat implicitly in 26:4-5. . . . "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself" and "Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes."

Got a favorite proverb?

- - - -

The Saturday edition of the "Amarillo Globe-News" includes a complete section called "Faith." Last week's issue included a story about a preacher who stages professional wrestling matches between good and evil characters. The piece included a photo of said preacher flying off the ropes ready to land on some poor guy dressed up in a devil costume, horns and all.

I still say the writer's of "The Simpsons" are more like chroniclers. I also say that preachers who want to preach like the great prophets, including the greatest one, will at least occasionally use a prop. I regret that I haven't done more of that myself. When did we decide that even though Jesus used things like coins to get his point across, all we ever needed was words?

Across the page from the wrestling story was an opinion article by an elderly Methodist minister. He was blaming the steep decline of mainline Protestantism on, get this, not enough questioning. His solution centers on reading books by John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and their ilk. (By the way, don't you love the word "ilk"? It sounds so "ilky"). For those who've never read them, Spong, Borg, and company are the people who, in the name of academic integrity and authentic religion, try to undermine most every major truth claim of Christianity.
Hmmm.