Day 4 - The story of 1 Corinthians 8

In the days of Paul just as now people worshipped idols and offered meat as a sacrifice.  It might be a big celebration where they sacrificed the meat to the idol and then ate it in a big feast.

Some Christians who were strong in their faith were invited by their non-Christian associates to join them at the temple during these celebrations. Now they might think, “This is a good socializing opportunity, and, hey, I’m a Christian, I know that the food sacrifice is as meaningless as the idol.  I might as well go and have a good time …and solidify my friendships over a meal. I might even have an opportunity to be a Christian witness to them.”

Well, some of the people who see you partying at the temple might have been a Christian only for a short time and recall when they ate at that temple of the idol as a form of worship themselves. We might say they are new students of the Good News. Maybe their resolve and conscience is still weak and they look to us as examples of good Christians and leaders of the faith.

We know eating the meat is harmless and the idol is futile, neither can bring us any closer to God. But what if seeing us eating at the temple convinces our friends that they should partake of the food of the idol and perchance slip back to their old ways?

If we strong ones do this, our knowledge of good and evil may destroy the weaker brother or sister without our knowing it. In fact if this happens, we have sinned against Christ and become a stumbling block to them. Nobody needs a millstone around one’s neck.

So the better way is if the meat causes my brother or sister to fail, I should avoid the meat.

Now, we all know that Paul was talking about a real situation in his letter with the meat and the idols, but Paul was a skilled pastor and writer, he is offering also a lesson about life.

What do you think might be some of the “food for idols” we encounter?

Here are some examples to think about:

1. I go to the 7-11 with my new buddy at the Shelter to buy an 6-pack of soft drink. They are on sale for $2 plus the 19 cents tax. I give the cashier a five expecting $2.81 back. By accident the cashier gives me $3.81. Now, we all know the guys who own these 7-11 stores are milking us with overpriced stuff, so I keep the extra dollar.  What lesson am I teaching my buddy?

2. We get a job painting a room in a house. The owner gives me $50 to go to Ace to pick up tarps, primer and rollers expecting me to bring back the left-over change. I take my new buddy along and pick up everything. I see a painter’s coat for $10 that would help me keep clean and I can use it later, so I pack the coat with the other stuff I’m buying with the $50 and bring back the change.  What lesson am I teaching my buddy?

Nobody needs a millstone around their neck.

Day 3 - Getting your feet wet

James 2:14-17   “… Can faith save you?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. “

How do we understand this passage about faith and grace?

I was reading a part of a book by Richard R. Niebuhr I picked up a time ago, Streams of Grace - studies of Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William James, The Second Neesima Lectures, May 10,14 and 28, 1980. Kyoto, JP: Doshisha University Press, 1983. The book is out of print and good copies may be hard to find.

Dr. Niebuhr in a scholarly way seeks to explain that on its deepest level the way we perceive and understand grace is fundamentally connected to the way we perceive meaning in the world.

He observers, “Each one of us is like a mother who carries the world as a child. The world lives in us according to the purity and fidelity of our imagination (and as such) we become…living symbols of our world. If we imagine faithfully and critically, then the world comes to new life in ourselves; and we in turn give something of ourselves to the world.  (This is) the great responsibility we all have on this green earth…the responsibility of seeing…of imagining.”

In this view, God’s action is identical to individual action. One cannot distinguish in a human God’s action from the human action. (Sounds pretty much like Calvin.) God or any religious discernment, even grace, can be known and experienced (in this human action) but not be quantified.

Grace then is an individually perceived thing, it cannot be defined externally, one simply receives it. Therefore fundamentally, knowledge of grace comes by experience and tradition (more on tradition later).  If one seeks some objective content about grace, one must accept that only history and sheer immediacy of experience are available for communicating the objective context of grace. 

William James opposed the two worlds of scientism (all that is known is known by science) and rationalism (all that can be known is that which is rational, i.e., can be sensed by reason.) James offered a parallel thought (to RRN above) that bears on grace, it can be known only by experience.

Religious experience remains human emotional experience that can be described and analyzed. Thus for James, religious experience is another emotion. Grace is real, it is a human emotional experience. When it happens, it must be manifested in the specific temperament of the person experiencing it.

In other words to know grace is to act and live in the world with imagination that we are symbols of the world. Knowing God's grace is walking in the world as Christ walked - as a mother carrying the world as a child.  One must accept that only history and sheer immediacy of experience are available for communicating the objective context of grace.

As John Ortburg said, "If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat."

This is how you know grace: Get your feet wet!

Day 2 - Everything I learned, I learned before I was five

(This is actually the post for Tuesday Dec. 11, but I was distracted and saved, not posted yesterday.)

Have you ever thought about your "social language?" Social language is what you learn before you are 5. In fact, were I to ask you to tell me when you learned the method you deal with people, you likely would not be able to offer a good answer. You learn it before you are even aware of "being taught."

Let's consider an example.

You are in the office at your desk and the boss calls you to his office. He begins by lighting into you about some action you did that he/she feels was a mistake. You hear it all, outrageous allegations that raise the hackles on your back, but you reply, "I understand your point, but I'm not too sure you have all the information. Can I collect some data and get back to you?"

Or, you respond, "That is so much crap! I kill myself to make this company work and here you come to me and give me crap without ever thinking the guy who gave you that information is out to get me. Man, this is so over the top, you see what I do, don't give me any more of this, or I'm out of here!"

If you were raised in a nice, middle class or wealthy family, you might well have learned that a little dose of restraint backed up by facts illustrated in the first response is the best way to resolve a conflict between what one person says and another claims. You might even decide to start looking for a better job to take in due time.

If you grew up on the street, you might well realize that any challenge to your standing carries a threat to your well being, especially if you project weakness. You learned before you understood it, that the appropriate  response to an in-you-face attack is aggression.

Unfortunately direct aggression that may preserve your life on the street may in the work place lead to loss of your job and re-entry into the slide to despair and alienation. To learn controlled assertiveness may well make you the boss some day.

This is the nature of our learned social language. To move from one economic/social status to a "higher" one  and comfortably live in it it requires learning and using a new language.

New Time: Day 1 - An Old Friend

I have left an old friend. My blog, Down in Mississippi catalogued a profound experience for me with the wonderful people of Mississippi and from across the country who changed me more than I can possibly describe. They changed my life and hopefully those words will continue to be a learning experience for all who read them.

The experience was what for some lucky ones may be trivial, the realization, revelation or what you wish to call it, that grace is found in action, not in the stasis of inward pious contemplation.  Now that I’ve completed seminary and am back in Chattanooga working towards a plan of action, it seems appropriate to bring that blog to a close with the ruach seemingly pushing me on.

It is fortuitous (Can a Presbyterian say such a thing?) that my url, knockatthenarrowgate.blogspot.com
is actually more apropos now. I am calling this continuation, The Narrow Gate. I look forward to reading your comments there.

Day 786 Evangelicals – The “E-word”

I was in a long discussion today in our philosophy/ethics after-hours group, I call it “philo-after hours.”

We meet every other Friday for an hour or so of discussion. Actually it all started the week before when we met to discuss the reaction of some segments of our church to Margaret Miles who gave three highly stimulating, well thought out lectures in the Union PSCE Sprunt Lecture series.

Just so you know, Dr. Miles grew up in a highly conservative and fundamentalist Baptist tradition and is now a member of the Anglican Church. She is retired but has been Dean of the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, CA, and a faculty member at Harvard. She is well read and the author of a number of historical books dealing with the role of women, religion and values in the early church and today.

Dr. Miles wrote a very insightful book that is completely historically founded, well worth reading regardless of where one stands on women and sexuality in the church. To reduce a book to a capsule, always an unfair thing to do, Dr. Miles discussed how up until the late middle ages, Christian art and image represented salvation in the female nursing breast, in particularly Mary’s. The breast (the only method of sustenance of children in that time) carried great import as a symbol of nurture and sustenance, not as a sexual object. For a number of ecclesiastical and societal reasons, the woman’s breast became secularized and turned into an object of erotic interest while the cross became a primary object of significance in Christian imagery.

While some highly opinionated writers in the Layman claim she proposes to substitute the female breast for the cross, this is a complete fabrication of her position. (She also was highly offended to be called a "radical feminist," something I assure you she is not.) She states because of the secularization of the breast and change of culture it is not possible to recover that original symbolic imagery (If you chose to comment I encourage you to be informed first and read her book, “A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750”). For this book she has been vilified to the extent some of her religious critics, if it were lawful, would be the first to light the bonfire at her burning as a heretic.

In the course of our philo discussion of Dr. Miles book and the negative reaction of the more conservative element of our church, evangelism came up. I had just finished two papers on the nature of the African Brazilian and Asian Christian churches, as well as the growth of Christianity in the slave culture and the mission movements in America in the 1800’s. One thing that stands out in a fair reading of the history of these situations of rapid church growth is the evangelical nature of those churches.

A couple of my colleagues were quite put-off by my mention of Evangelism. They were put-off because I used the “E-word” that carries so much baggage. When I used the word “evangelical” everyone stopped, and the reaction was as if I had farted in the church pew on Sunday morning during the Great Prayer, or as a Caucasian man, used the “N-word” at an NAACP meeting.

I was perplexed but really understood the reason. The word carries so much very negative baggage to some because it is associated, perhaps unfairly, with the mean-spirited part of our church that is usually conservative (not a crime) but so highly opinionated and intent on forcing their beliefs on others that they alienate all but the few who are swayed by their rhetoric. The reaction of my liberal friends to its symbolic meaning to them was ironic, wasn't it.

That discussion started up again this afternoon, leaving a couple of us a “little” inflamed because I maintained we need a more evangelical perspective. We never got past my use of the word "evangelical" to the substance of the discussion because it was so polarizing to some of us. This is my take on the issue.

It is a profoundly bad reading of the New Testament not to conclude our Church was charged from its first days with the task of evangelism of the Word. To deny, delimit or circumscribe its meaning, obligation and practice is ethically and morally flawed. The issue though really lies at the heart of the several problems with our mainline protestant denominations, particularly many in the Presbyterian Church, even the conservative branches.

For some reason, Presbyterians are not comfortable with the idea of evangelism, at least in current times. We go to church, worship, pray, give of our money and abilities but usually do it using the Presbyterian Hymnal (Blue or Red), the organ, a chancel choir and an orderly, emotionless worship service where we sit quietly in the pew listening to the minister’s sermon. You’ve all heard it, the “frozen chosen.” We serve vicariously by supporting some missionaries who tend to adopt our own frozen style in a foreign country, which is not very effective.

Well, we are frozen and most everyone who seeks warmth in the church is looking elsewhere and leaving if they are members. For practical purposes, evangelism is dead in the Presbyterian Church. We are too quick to say defensively, “Oh, we can’t evangelize to an empty stomach. We have to feed them first.”

Yes, we have an obligation to feed the hungry, help the helpless and the prisoner. Yes, they should “know we are Christians by our love.” But the bottom line is, we should be carrying the message of salvation to the world, including next door. We can do it as it is so successfully done in Africa, Asia and South America, an active mission movement that seeds new churches and educates new local pastors. It worked once in America, you know.

The so-called “Evangelical Church” and the Pentecostal Church worldwide is growing by leaps and bounds. In the South (Africa, South America, Asia) it is the primary theological force. Ask the question, “Why is this?”

I propose the reason is that these Southern churches have so greatly succeeded in evangelism is that they have connected the spiritual feeling and emotion of the worshipper to the theological message of transcendent, saving grace. It may be personal testimony of a pastor or layperson to God’s grace in action, it might be things we are very uncomfortable with: guitars and drums, popular melodies and new lyrics, video projectors. It might be vocalization by church members during the sermon, an “Amen!” or “Yes!” or even more, even new words for our traditional beliefs and creeds.

“Oh, but that is all just emotion," one might object, "there is not any rational change in belief, it is all just the emotional pressure of the crowd of witnesses. What about the Apostle’s Creed, or the Westminster Creed? Or the Bible, we have to read their translations very carefully to be sure they don't slip some weird word in into it. But they believe in ancestors... It isn't real Christianity.”

Put-off by the E-word or not, or by new words for our older tradition, I suggest we get used to it and co-opt the word ourselves in our practice of evangelism and stick to the essential tenets of Christian faith. We ought to learn the lessons in the Southern World Church. Particularly we need to understand the Southern Church has “invaded” America. If that invasion serves no other useful purpose than to renew our attention to the great ends of the church, it has done its job. I am in the minority as a Presbyterian, a very small minority.

I am a victim of my past. I butted heads with family members, associates, and many tears over the left and right wing politics and racism of the 60’s, we all ended up bloodied by it. I learned one thing in all that. People do change their minds, not everyone, but enough do. They don’t do it because we beat them with a club. That tends to force people into more dogmatic, refractory positions. Radicalizing does not work well. People change their minds because of personal experience and the freedom of choice to think and do so. But those are not our focus, our focus is the unchurched.

Evangelism is a big word, it means more than just preaching revivals and handing out tracts. It means living a good life and inviting other to follow.

It means taking uncomfortable (for liberals) stands on things like pornography, excessive and improperly used wealth, consumerism at the personal level.

But it also means actually being excited and joyful to be a Christian and having people see and know that fact. That means changing.

It may mean being uncomfortable personally (it will for me!) for the greater good, to change our worship service to bring back the youth and people who left or never stepped foot in our church because it puts them to sleep. It may mean experimenting with worship styles, not just doing it so we can say we did it, but so we are participating. We might even find out we enjoy it.

As I said, my problem is, I am a child of the 60’s and some old memories will not get out of my head. Eldridge Cleaver was a little too far over the top for most when he said if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem but Bob Dylan came close to what faces us today in the lyrics of Times they are a changin’:

“Your old road
is rapidly agin’,
please get out of the new one
if you can’t lend a hand.

I’ve given no recipes. I don’t have any yet, maybe you do. I hope I painted a picture of our evangelical obligation. Christ’s church lives it, so should we.

Peace and Grace

Day 673 - Haiti II, Foreshadowed Danger

Most of you know the latest on the situation in Haiti itself, but a few ex pats, like Jessi Stit in Malawi, don't seem to get a lot of news so at the end on this entry you'll find an update.

The geologic situation in Hispaniola

[The following information is drawn from an article in Science, volume 327, 22 Jan 2010, p398, (go to www.sciencemag.org), and from USGS sources]

In 1979, a siesmologist named William McCann published a world-wide survey of the regions where there is a highest probablity of rupture of a fault in an earthquake. Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic) was identified as one of them.

The Caraibbean plate (South American side) and the North American plate slide past one another relentlessly at roughly 20 mm per year about a fault that passes through the southern edge of Cuba and along the southern edge of Hispaniola. This fault is much like the San Andreas fault in southen California. Unfortunately for Hispaniola, the two continental plates actually form two parallel faults here, one along the southern edge of the island, the other along the northern edge, pinning Hispaniola in a double grinding East-West twist.

A further misfortune of this double grinding is that it is causes relatively shallow earthquakes that create more physical damage than deep earthquakes. A third misfortune is that Port au Prince, much like Mexico City, is built on sandy sediments that fill a valley rather than on rock. When an earthquake hits, the sandy ground shakes like a bowl of jello. It actually behaves in a fluid-like manner grossly magnifying the shaking effect.

In the period of the 1700's there were major earthquakes along the southern edge of Hispaniola, in fact there was a 6.6 quake in Port au Prince in 1701. On October 18, 1751 a very large quake of 8.0 broke the fault in the southern ocean off shore to the East, the faulting then triggered a 7.5 quake in Haiti to the east of Port au Price, further breaking the fault on November 21. This quake destroyed Port au Prince. Then on June 3, 1770 another 7.5 quake occurred in the Port au Prince area, again destroying the city. In the early 1800's an 8.0 quake occurred on the northern fault in Haiti.

This is often the pattern, a part of the fault breaks and this transfers the stress in the fault to unbroken regions which may then eventually rupture in a domino effect.

In the aftermath of the 1751 quake 30,000 people died of hunger and disease.

As a result of the 1751 and 1770 quakes, at that time Haiti outlawed masonry house construction, allowing only wood construction. This obviously was not continued.

The 1770 earthquake of 7.5 magnitude formed the fault that partially broke this past January. The 1770 quake was five times more powerful than the 2010 quake.

In the past 240 years, the two plates have contined to march past each other at a steady 22 mm/year pace but locked together in Hispaniola and building up more and more unrelieved shearing stress in the Haiti-Cuba fault system. The plates have moved, more or less, 17 feet past each other with no major rupture to relieve the stress.

Dangerous times?

This earthquake on the scale of earthquakes was relatively moderate. Unfortunately, it may well be a precursor to an even larger one. The fault is a sleeping giant. After 250 years, is it turning in its sleep to get more comfortable for a while?

If you are interested in the seismology of the Caribbean, or your own backyard, I encourage you to go to the USGS site . You will see the Virgin Islands to the East are constantly active with small quakes, and appreciate why there is a volcano there.

Update for those expats living in caves:

Right now supplies and equipment appear to coming in at a fast rate. Monetary donations seem high.

The biggest issues look like the inability to move supplies inward from the airport and the absence of tents. Most people are still sleeping in the street, damaged housing or makeshift housing. Food supplies, medicine and water are getting in. There is an effort to move people into the countryside out of the city. Crime (looting) is beginning to increase in Port au Prince.

The seaport itself was heavily damaged but I think it has been repaired enough to take on some deepwater ships again. The roads are either full of debris, people or damaged and they have to use limited amounts of heavy equipment to move things. The injuries and inability to provide immediate health care, and destruction of most medical facilities is still a big issue. Over 100,000 people have been killed and buried in mass graves, or still are rotting in the streets and destroyed buildings. I imagine the toll will go higher.

There are bodies in the ruins and the potential for serious public health issues is great. Compounding this, as you may expect, there are many crushing injuries that require amputation, as well as head trauma. People remain untreated for long periods, leading to infection and gangrene; and the likelihood of poor/doubtful recovery. It was absolutely horrible to see seriously injured people all lined up on blankets lying on the sidewalk or in the courtyard of places where the few medical teams are. They may lay there for several days.

The US military has hospital ships off shore and are trying to meet some of the need.

Authorities are trying to move people out of Port au Prince into the country side to relieve the excessive crowding.

The infrastructure, as I can tell (water supplies, roads, etc) was already in very bad shape and now is basically worthless.

I have described it as if we are watching one of the twin towers collapse helpless to help - but in horribly painful slow motion. So much damage was done and the events have been launched in the area of health that can't be reversed, while we stand and watch holding all the medicine, equipment in our hands to help if we could.

I worry a lot about what will happen in Port au Prince - dysentery, cholera, etc, I may be the pessimist tho. I heard on PBS radio yesterday that the two major pre-existing medical problems in Haiti are tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. The Tuberculosis sanitarium was destroyed; much of the HIV/AIDs vectors were in the prison in town and that was destroyed and all the inmates have fled. People is the countryside who have HIV/AIDs are still managing to get to treatment but I can't speak for Port au Prince, itself. Other than the escaped prisoners, it appears many HIV/AIDS positive people are able to connect with treatment.

I immediately thought about heading down, looking for the right connection, but as I followed what is happening, I came to the realization, with some help from friends, I'd be in the way until I can connect with the right organization and we can get enough physical presence to create space to help. I think very soon it will be time to go though, and am still struggling with whether to take off and help or stay in seminary. Sometimes action is a better form of praying than sitting and studying.

I worry the most about whether this quake is a precursor to an even larger one in the relatvely near future.

Henry

Day 656 - The Text the Lectionary Avoids

I have resisted falling back onto “sermons” since I’ve been in seminary perhaps because I see the weaknesses in me that I so easily see in others. Nevertheless, the chaos in Haiti begs a connection to a biblical texts.

I think one is a very common text most of us might seize as justification to help Haiti. The other, to my knowledge, has never been part of the lectionary. I am going to be a little unconventional and ask that you review these texts in advance of my next blog entry.

What is unusual you will find when I’m done is how prescient these U.S. Senators were in 1974 when they introduced into the Senate a resolution to declare "a national day of humiliation, fasting and prayer;"
Mark O. Hatfield (R.-Ore.),
Pete V. Domenici (R.-N.M.),
Clifford P. Hansen (R.-Wyo.),
Paul L. Fannin (R.-Ariz.),
Dewey F. Bartlett (R.-Okla.),
Harold E. Hughes (D. -Iowa),
Jennings Randolph (D. -W. Va.),
Lawton Chiles (D.-Fla.),
John C. Stennis (D.-Miss.),
James B. Allen (D. -Ala.), J.
Bennett Johnston (D. - La.),
Sam Nunn (D. –Ga)

Readings:
The Pentateuch: The time of the Judges: Judges 21:25; and The Story of Jephthah’s Vow: Judges 11:1-40
(WARNING: Please be prepared for shock. The Jephthah reading is a loathsome text.)

The Gospel: Luke: 10:25-37 – Who is my neighbor?

If you have access to a good library, you may want to also look for an article by Phyllis Tribble: The Daughter of Jephthah, “Virgin in Gilead,” Chapter 4 in Text of Terror, Fortress Press, Philadephia (1984).

My next blog entry will be my exposition of the significance of these texts relative to not only Haiti, but also most of the interaction of our great country (and our denomination) in the world in the latter part of the 20th century and the early 21st century.

Peace and Grace,
Henry