The Anglican Church and Same-Sex "Marriage"

Countless weddings have taken place there. But this wasn't just another one at St. Bartholomew the Great in London. On May 31st, two male Anglican priests were "married" at St. Bart's in a traditional ceremony conducted by a fellow priest.

And what timing. In three more weeks, many of the world's Anglican bishops--some are refusing to attend--will gather at the University of Kent in Canterbury for the Lambeth Conference, held only once every ten years. They've got a lot to talk about. Their fellowship seems on the verge of becoming two different churches.

Henry Orombi, the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda has called the wedding "blasphemous." An out-spoken critic of creeping liberalism in his communion, he's also called on Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of world-wide Anglicans, to do something decisive.

Tom Wright, the celebrated New Testament scholar and Christian apologist, has spoken of what he understands as biblical condemnation of homosexuality. Now that he's the Bishop of Durham (appointed in 2003) he's one of the highest-ranking leaders in the Anglican communion. One can only wonder how far his influence and persuasive powers will go on this question.

In the meantime, conservative churches in the United States may see a few of their Episcopal neighbors showing up at their worship services. (The Episcopal Church is the name of the American segment of the larger Anglican fellowship). When Gene Robinson, an openly-homosexual priest, was elected Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, at least two members of nearby Episcopal churches showed up at the Church of Christ where I was then the preacher. I don't think they cared much for our low-church "liturgy." But they cared even less for what they saw as their church's abandonment of the Bible.

Stay tuned.

Oh, Yes! V.B.S.

We just completed a Monday-through-Thursday Vacation Bible School at the San Jacinto Church of Christ in Amarillo, TX. Here are a few photos, courtesy of Fred Cox . . .

Pictured here with their students, Lawanda Moore and Lynn Duncan are true Christians. They're typical of the teachers we have at San Jacinto: kind, thoughtful, Word-focused, organized, and effective.

The opening and closing assemblies included lots and lots of non-stop singing.


Getting to lead the songs at V.B.S. is pure joy.


Vacation Bible School has been a part of my life since before I can remember. I've mentioned this in my posts here and in my comments at other blogs: I think V.B.S. is one of the greatest church traditions ever. When it's done well, V.B.S. is a powerful time of teaching. It generates enthusiasm, promotes goodwill, creates lasting memories and, above all, leads to many Good-News moments.

We plan to extend our V.B.S. through at least the end of summer. All ages are welcome to join us each Wednesday from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Those in the Amarillo area who are interested in being a part of "Camp Wednesday" can get more information by calling the church office at 372-4682.

Got a V.B.S. story to tell?

From Laugher to Loser, and More!

I couldn't believe what I was watching last night as the L. A. Lakers fumbled a sure win to the Boston Celtics in Game 4 of the NBA finals. Boston's come-back set some sort of record for that sort of thing. Credit has to be given to the Celtics for what they did in the second half of the game. It was nothing short of amazing. Can you imagine the frustration of Kobe Bryant?

I think one reason we love sports so much is because it often mirrors life. Sometimes you think you'll never make it, but with persistent effort you make it (the thrill of victory). Other times you think you have it made, and everything just comes to pieces (yep, the agony of defeat).

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It's neither hot nor particularly windy in Amarillo today. (Here, wind speeds under, say, 25 miles per hour qualify as breezy. More than that, but less than a tornado, is called windy or gusty). Today's high is supposed to be 89. So I rode my bike to the Bible Chair in some of the most beautiful weather I've seen here in a while. Yea! Now if we could just get a soaking rain. Still praying for that. . . . .

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We're having Vacation Bible School at the San Jacinto Church of Christ next week. I'm leading the opening and closing assemblies. In between, Michele and I will teach the 4th and 5th grade class. I started going to V.B.S. about 45 years ago. Most summers since then, I've attended or worked in at least one. Some years, I helped to conduct as many as three or four. I love V.B.S. I think it's one of the greatest church traditions ever.

Benjamin's Baptism

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

--Romans 6:4

ResQ Online

Restoration Quarterly is the name of a 50-year old academic journal. It's written and read mostly by scholars and preachers from Churches of Christ. Every time a new issue shows up in my mailbox, I want to read it cover to cover. Right then. Few other publications are that important to me. Anyway, for a long, long time RQ was available only in print. More recently, some of its content from the past half century has been made available online. Check it out.

Two Weekends in New England

My week and a day in Connecticut went by so fast.

Yesterday was my twelve-hour travel day back to Amarillo. That's not the funnest experience (and, yes, funnest is a word), but it was sweet to see Michele when I got off that last plane.

Quick question: Does Chicago's Midway Airport just have short runways, or what? Landing there always feels like we're coming down on an aircraft carrier.

Anyway, here are just a few of the highlights from my trip, in random order and varying levels of importance:

1. As things turned out, I didn't take the course on "Judaism in the Time of Jesus." Sorry, nothing to report about that. However, if you go to the link for that course, you'll see another link that will take you to the syllabus, which is worth a look for those interested.

I hadn't realized until Monday morning that "Judaism . . ." was being offered as an afternoon class. I would have loved that one. But what I really needed was a morning class. I finally wound up going to a great alternative for me, a class called Reel Presence: Explorations in Liturgy and Film, taught by Dr. Teresa Berger.

Wow, what an interesting teacher. She's a German, Roman Catholic scholar, with two earned doctorates, who specializes in liturgical (worship) studies. As you might have guessed, everyone else in the class came from either Catholic or mainline Protestant backgrounds (Lutheran, Episcopalian, etc.). That's something I can count on at the Divinity School: always meeting up with people who come from places that are quite different from the places I know. That can be an education all by itself.

So, as it turned out, the movie buff in me got to learn a little more about reflecting theologically on the films we tend to watch as mere entertainment. Maybe I'll talk about that sometime. By the way, although most of what we actually watched in class were movie clips, one film we watched all the way through is called Whale Rider. Anyone else seen it? That could be a provocative one for churches, to say the least.

2. While in Connecticut, my kids and I got to visit some of our favorite places to eat, including this gourmet vegetarian place in downtown New Haven called Claire's Corner Copia. We followed that up with ice cream dessert at Ashley's. Woobie Doobie.

3. Over the weekend, Friday and Saturday, my boy and I got to attend the Northeastern States Men's Retreat, held annually at the Kent School up in the northwestern corner of Connecticut.

This year's speaker was J. J. Turner, a long-time leader among Churches of Christ and, yes, John Alan's dad. J. J. spoke about "activating Acts in the 21st century." In addition to presenting so many great reminders, he put his quick sense of humor to good use. It was good for me to hear those lessons, to sing with 250 other Christian men, to introduce my son to that experience, to see again so many church leaders from the Northeast.

Oh, and speaking of bloggers, late Saturday morning, as I worked my way through most of the items at the Kent Public Library book sale, I just happened to meet The Blog Prophet himself, Brian Nicklaus. Very cool.

4. Finally, last Sunday I had the exquisite pleasure of baptizing my son, Benjamin, into Christ. This was something he'd had on his mind for a long time, something we had talked about and prayed about and planned. How sweet. Photos to follow (when I can figure out how to copy them).

Back in Connecticut

It's late Sunday night, the end of an unusual weekend. Saturday was one of those all-day travel days. From Amarillo to Dallas to Little Rock to Chicago to Hartford. Four flights, two plane changes, twelve hours, and I was back in Connecticut.

This morning, I drove from South Windsor to Rocky Hill, where I picked up Chloe and Benjamin, my two older children. The three of us attended worship at the Ward Street Church of Christ in Wallingford. It was the first time we'd been back in a year or more. It was good to be with the people who were there this morning.

Anytime I step inside that white, picture-postcard church built by German Lutherans nearly a century ago, I open up the book that is my life and turn to one of its most significant chapters, a time in my life with some of the highest highs and all of the lowest lows.

The selfish side of me always wants to be welcomed back to that place as though I were some kind of Christian hero. Good things happened at Ward Street during the more than ten years I preached there. We grew by more than 50 percent, revived Vacation Bible School, ordained elders and deacons for the first time in the church's history, purchased a tract of land on which to build new facilities, had a fairly-successful capital fund-raising campaign. The list goes on.

There's only one problem. Those aren't the only reasons I'm remembered there. You see, Ward Street was the scene of my horrifically-bad divorce. It's the place where, for all of my preaching and teaching about faith, hope, and love, my life and my marriage became a source of doubt, hopelessness, and anger. I was officially divorced on the day after September 11, 2001. (That was one ugly week). Along with the house where I used to live, the Ward Street Church represents my personal ground zero. So visiting there always evokes so much inside of me. I'm not always prepared to handle it well.

After driving around a little, we had lunch in Wallingford and then went to pick up my youngest, Abigail. Then, the four of us came to South Windsor. I'm staying here because of the hospitality of Michele's parents, George and Elaine Caruthers. They're some of the finest people God has anywhere. What a pleasure to be their guest. I drive their car, and my kids and I come and go as we please. It was beautiful this afternoon and we spent a little time just hanging out on their back deck, which is where George took the picture above.

Tomorrow, I'll get up early (for me) and make my way down to New Haven for the first day of class. The course on "Foremothers in Faith" was canceled due, I think, to low enrollment. So I've switched over to what was my first pick, "Judaism in the Time of Jesus." I think it will be a good class. What I'm really looking forward to, though, is spending the afternoons and evenings with my kids, once we all get out of school.

My Heart Is With Them

I don't know John Dobbs. Not really. But sometimes it feels like I do.

I don't remember when I first came across his blog, Out Here Hope Remains. But I do remember that I really liked the title. Since then, I have gone there to read and identify with the thoughts and feelings of this guy who, by all accounts and my own impression, is a really fine Gulf Coast preacher. It's no accident that John is in the short list of blogs that I've managed to get into the sidebar here at Frankly Speaking.

I mention him today because of something you may already know. Yesterday, his dear son John Robert, only 18 years old, died in an accident. I can only imagine the emotional place where John and his wife and their family are right now. It brings tears to my eyes just to think of it.

Would you please mention them in your prayers today?

Dear God, you know that I can say nothing that will ease the pain that is beyond words. But you are called the God of all comfort. So I ask you in the name of your beloved Son to comfort and to help all the family of John Robert Dobbs, also a beloved son.

Biblical Language Requirements at Churches of Christ Graduate Schools

Is there a connection between studying biblical languages and serving faithfully as a preacher? I'd like to know what you think about this. A little background, institutional and personal.

There's an old assumption behind the traditional curriculum at those institutions entrusted with the task of training future ministers for the church; seminaries, divinity schools, graduate schools of religion and the like. The assumption goes like this: It's very important for the minister to be able to read, with no more than the help of a lexicon, the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament.

Although that sentiment squares with my own prejudice, I have no way of knowing whether "in real life" that requirement necessarily leads to a better, more-fruitful ministry of the Word. Because those kinds of standards were held up for me, and because I have since cleared them, I like to think that the training was worthwhile. I would be willing to say that in my bones I know that it is worthwhile and important. For example, when comparing different translations of the Bible, it's helpful to be able to look over the shoulders of the translators and have some idea if they did a good, mediocre, or poor job of rendering the Word of God in English.

My caveat is that I have nothing like social-scientific, empirical evidence to back up what I think and feel. In terms that people in the Churches of Christ can appreciate, I have no way of knowing if being able to parse a participle of the Greek verb baptizo makes one more likely to baptize others. (I know, I know, getting into water isn't the ultimate standard of discipleship).

What do you think, or what have you experienced regarding the connections between the study of biblical languages and the ministry of the Word?

By the way, I quickly surveyed most of the graduate schools of Bible connected with Churches of Christ. I wanted to know what the language requirements were for the Master of Divinity (M.Div.) a three-year professional degree which has long been the standard academic requirement for ordination in many mainline Protestant churches. In the following unscientific table, I start with the highest level of requirement and work my way down. Here's what I found out.

1. Pepperdine requires a year and a half of both Hebrew and Greek. Harding Graduate School requires two years of Greek, one year of Hebrew.

2. Freed-Hardeman requires a year and a half of Greek and one year of Hebrew.

3. Abilene Christian, and David Lipscomb require one year of both Hebrew and Greek.

4. Lubbock Christian requires one semester (a half year) of "Introduction to Hebrew Study Tools," and one semester (a half year) of "Introduction to Greek Study Tools."

Among those sets of requirements, which ones should be raised, lowered, or kept where they are? Why?

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For what it's worth, for the Associate of Arts in Religion, Amarillo College requires one year of language study. Among the languages that one may choose are several modern ones (Spanish or German, for example) but also New Testament Greek. In the future, we hope to begin offering one year of Biblical Hebrew. Then, we plan to change the requirement so that Religion majors will have to study at least one of the two main biblical languages for one year in order to satisfy the requirements for the degree.

And the winner is . . .

Two posts ago, I asked what sounded especially good to you from a list of courses being offered this summer. Several of you spoke up. Thanks. I really enjoyed hearing what you thought. I don't know if it was a "Great minds think alike" thing, or what. But to a one, your comments matched up with what I'd been turning over in my mind too. Anyway, I've decided to take the course "Foremothers in Faith: Women in the Hebrew Scriptures," taught by Dr. Carolyn Sharp. Here are some reasons, in no particular order:

First, the class taught by Christopher Beeley, "Pastoral Ministry in the Classical Tradition," is the one I took last summer. It was a great course. And I didn't flunk.

Second, over the years I've become more and more of an Old Testament person. And this course is about women in the OT. Oh, and I like women too.

Third, Dr. Sharp has already posted a reading list and daily schedule for her class. I like it when an instructor has a plan and a destination in mind.

Fourth, my sense is that the important women of the Bible haven't always gotten the attention they deserve in Christian teaching and preaching. I'm all for the transition from "Faith of our fathers" to "Faith of our parents."

Fifth, it's safe to say that there will be some card-carrying feminists in the class. I've discovered that I'm much more "Christian" in how I think about and how I treat a certain perspective if I actually know someone else who espouses it. (I know, the word "spouse" is in there, which could be all kinds of fun).

Don't you think the world would be
more of what God wants it to be
if more people who don't agree
would just spend a few days together?

I do. Next summer: Spelunking with Osama bin Laden!

Marvin Morrell (1923-2008)

Marvin Morrell spoke up in class last Wednesday night. We were in John 15, where Jesus tells his disciples, I am the vine, you are the branches. Every branch, Jesus said, is expected to bear fruit.

We had turned to Galatians 5, which speaks of the fruit of the Spirit. Marvin noted a similar but shorter passage in Ephesians. That was Marvin: attentive and thoughtful, positive and giving. I remembered that about Marvin when, last Friday, we heard that he had suddenly died. What a shock. What a loss.

Marvin was a leader, one of my elders at the San Jacinto Church of Christ. He exuded love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. To say that he was a good man just doesn't cut it. He was a Christ-like man who had lived such a true life for so long that everyone who knew him had the same opinion of him. He will be missed.

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth.' "Yes,' says the Spirit, 'that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them'." --Revelation 14:13

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The following comes from the obituary that appears in today's (Monday) edition of the Amarillo Globe-News:

Services will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday in San Jacinto Church of Christ with Glen Walton, Brett McCasland and Dale Dennis officiating. Burial will be in Memory Gardens Cemetery by Schooler Funeral Home.

Marvin was born July 26, 1923, in Wellington, Kan. He lived in Amarillo for 48 years where he was employed by Santa Fe Railway as a right-of-way agent until his retirement in 1983. As a young man he served in the U.S. Navy as a yeoman second class during World War II.

On Feb. 19, 1947, he married Estalene Virginia Floyd. This marriage was blessed with three daughters.

Marvin was a devoted member and elder at San Jacinto Church of Christ and was very involved as a mentor to the prison ministry. He was an avid golfer and fisherman and loved woodworking projects that his children and grandchildren requested.

Survivors include his wife; three daughters, Linda Perkins and husband Charles of Abilene, Debra Risley and husband Ed of Cheyenne, Okla., and Patti Conner and husband Daryl of Lubbock; a sister, Dorothy Lauterbach of Wellington, Kan.; seven grandchildren and their spouses; and four great-grandsons.

The family suggests memorials be in lieu of flowers to Amarillo College Bible Chair, 2501 S. Jackon, Amarillo, TX 79109, or Key to the Kingdom, 4124 Business Park Drive, Amarillo, TX 79110.

Which One Would You Pick?

It's Finals Week at Amarillo College. Monday morning, the Introduction to World Religions class took their final. Monday evening, it was The New Testament final. Tuesday afternoon: Life of Paul.

I don't think I'll give the Elementary Biblical Hebrew class a test. But if I did they'd pass with the proverbial flying colors. About a dozen students were there for the start back in September. Now they're down to five. I'm so proud of them. Rhonda, Dayna, Mark, Sam, and Trent have come so far. And they're determined to keep going with me through the summer. They know that once we start working with poetry, it's going to be an uphill climb. But they're ready for the challenge. What a fantastic group.

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In early June, I'll be traveling to New England. My work provides for a week's worth of professional development, and I'm going to take advantage of that.

Each year, Yale Divinity School (shown in the photo) and the Institute of Sacred Music host a Summer Term that features week-long courses. To be specific, seven different courses are being offered during the Monday-Friday that I plan to be there. If you were going to one of them, which one would you pick, and why? Here's the list of courses and teachers:

At YDS

1. Foremothers in Faith: Women in the Hebrew Scriptures, Carolyn Sharp

2. Pastoral Ministry in the Classical Tradition, Christopher Beeley

3. Judaism in the Time of Jesus, Jeremy Hultin

4. Pastoral Care with Those Suffering from Depression, Jan Holton

At Yale Institute of Sacred Music

5. Reel Presence: Explorations in Liturgy and Film, Teresa Berger

6. A Fresh Look at Hymn Playing: Several Approaches to Enlivening Congregational Song, Bruce Neswick (clearly not planned with conservative Campbellites in mind!)

7. We Are Now One Body: Global Song, Patrick Evans

So these are the options. Any of them looks especially interesting to you?