Journeywomen and the Sons of Thunder

April 3, 2022 Leave a comment

Post spoiler: The world hasn’t ended and the gates of hell have not prevailed against the church.

In preparation for a move, I went online searching for an Anglican church in a different state. I came across an interesting web article:

Beth Moore is not the first Baptist to journey to the Anglican Church – Baptist News Global

The article drew me in with the transition mentioned in the title. The first paragraph offered more detail about the move:

. . . Beth Moore left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021 and soon after was seen in a photo serving Communion at an Anglican church.

The article went on to disturb me as I read of the appalling way Christians treat other Christians. The author, Rick Pidcock, relates some of the ‘ex officio’ and corrosive reaction to Beth Moore prior to her leaving the SBC in 2021.

 At the Truth Matters Conference in 2019, which was a gathering to celebrate John MacArthur’s five decades of ministry, Todd Friel asked MacArthur to play a word association game with the two words “Beth Moore.” To which, MacArthur famously replied, “Go home.”

MacArthur’s henchman Phil Johnson added, “The word that comes to my mind is ‘narcissistic.’”

Then MacArthur jumped back in to say: “Just because you have the skill to sell jewelry on the TV sales channel doesn’t mean you should be preaching. … The church is caving in to women preachers. … Women are not allowed to preach.”

Dear God! A celebration of five decades in ministry and grown men on a stage mocking a woman in public? Is this how Christian men should treat a Christian woman and even when they think they possess all the Truth that Matters (and, apparently, none of the grace that matters)? I understand, though. Some men want to play Elijah.

One would think that after five decades Mr. Sola Scriptura would have learned that Christians were not given the Word of God for the purpose of belittling and calling down fiery scorn onto women of faith. The Word, its understanding by the spirit, and the fruits thereof are given to inform our love, our grace and our prayers for others along with our worldview.

It remains to be seen if John MacArthur and his henchmen are mature Christians. Was Beth Moore present to defend herself against the scorners? And, did those present smile and laugh in agreement? Will MacArthur speak to Beth Moore, confess what he did, and ask for forgiveness? It remains to be seen.

Women are not allowed to preach: MacArthur’s authoritarian intransigence reminds me of another insular authoritarian: Dr. Anthony Fauci. During the media’s COVID pandemic Fauci preached “the science” dogma. If you disagreed with “the science” you were declared a heretic, exiled from social media and from any and all discussion. Period. And like MacArthur, Fauci has a fan club to ensure that the doctrine-of-what-he-says is in your face. Science Matters.

The behavior of the Truth Matters men gives the appearance of a pride of place smack down, their use of authority and power as “Truth is what I say it is”.

Their behavior also recalls the either-or-or thinking of James and John – the “sons of thunder” as Jesus calls them (Mk. 3:17). Either you think and do as I say and get with the program or you are against us and we will demand that you stop. And if you don’t accept us then we will call down fire from heaven and burn you up, just saying.  

“Master,” commented John, “we saw someone casting out demons in your name. We told him to stop, because he wasn’t part of our company.”

“Don’t stop him,” replied Jesus. “Anyone who isn’t against you is on your side.”

As the time came nearer for Jesus to be taken up, he settled it in his mind to go to Jerusalem. He sent messengers ahead of him. They came into a Samaritan village to get them ready, and they refused to receive him, because his mind was set on going to Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Master, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and burn them up?” He turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.

Do those, who sit in the seat of scoffers (Ps. 1:1), think that Beth Moore is now a heretic because she serves in a capacity they adamantly deem to be unfitting for a woman?

Apparently so, as the article states:

When Reformation Charlotte recently discovered that Beth Moore was wearing a robe and serving Communion in her new church, they called her an apostate, posted screenshots of the service and of the church’s volunteer schedule, and reminded the world of their prediction that “it would only be a matter of time before Beth Moore becomes full-on gay-affirming.”

Slippery slope arguments are not arguments. They are cheap shot syllogisms done to create fear and disdain among the hearers. Slippery slope arguments are prayer avoidance techniques – why talk to God about this when I can foresee the future because I possess all the Truth that Matters? In this instance, it is the grease on the slopes of Truth Mattershorn.

No Christian woman should ever be treated in this way. And, certainly not by a group of authoritarian church leaders who believe they have rightly divided the word of God by cutting women out of heralding the Good News.

Two of the three reasons Jesus summoned, appointed, and named twelve “apostles” was 1) to be with him (as eyewitnesses), and 2) to be sent out as heralds (of what they witnessed). (Mk. 3:13-15). * Let us be reminded that many, many of the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection were women. They heralded what they saw:

Some of the women were watching from a distance. They included Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome. [From the beginning] They followed Jesus in Galilee, and had attended to his needs. There were several other women, too, who had come up with him to Jerusalem. (Mk. 16: 40-41)

After Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, and when the sabbath was over, it is Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome who bought spices so that they could come and anoint Jesus. They find the stone rolled away. They are greeted by a herald.

The angel tells them to go herald the news (Mk. 16: 7):

But go and tell his disciples – including Peter – that he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You’ll see him there, just like he told you. (What, Jesus talked to women? Women receive revelations from God?! Isn’t that setting up a slippery slope scenario?! And go tell the Matterhorn of the church?!)

Does anyone think that these women – and so many other female eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus, e.g., Mary and Martha and the resurrection of Lazarus – does anyone think that these women didn’t herald in their community and synagogue what they witnessed?

And who can forget that two disciples (Cleopas and one unnamed- likely a woman named Mary) met Jesus as they were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the day that Jesus rose from the dead. They invited Jesus to come home and eat with them. (Luke 24)

Women are not allowed to preach. Huh? What about the female apostle Junia (Romans 16:7)? Junia minsters in partnership with Andronicus and Paul, is well known to the apostles and is a fellow prisoner (for preaching?). It is very likely that Junia had seen the risen Lord.

You may not hear this acknowledged in your androcentric church: beyond a Proverbs 31 characterization of the “good wife”, women are featured prominently in the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection narratives in the gospels. And women, like those mentioned above, continued to herald the events of those narratives to the growing church and to all who would listen. (I use the word “herald” in the Apostle-choosing sense noted above so as to not trigger certain males with the word “preaching”.) The topic of women in ministry deserves a dedicated post.

Now, I don’t know much at all about Beth Moore. But with regard to the ongoing slander of a Christian sister, I agree with the apostle Paul: When people persist in sin, rebuke them openly, so that the rest may be afraid. (1 Tim 5:19).

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As mentioned above, the article drew me in with the transition mentioned in the title. The author uses Moore’s evolution to relate his own journey from Baptist to Anglican. He notes at one point that he is no longer Anglican because his spiritual journey kept going beyond where the Anglicans were willing to go. He goes on to say . . .

The Anglican Church drew me in from my Baptist heritage because it acknowledged my exile and gave me space to move. While I was there, it gave me a taste in the particular for what is true everywhere. But ultimately, it allowed harmful voices within its walls to speak to my children and built walls for women and LGBTQ people that I believed needed to be knocked down.

Pidcock goes on to acknowledge My Baptist-to-Anglican journey may be different than others. 

My own church progression has been from Baptist to Evangelical Free to Anglican. My journey has also been about breaking down walls but not in the sense and direction that Pidcock is willing to go to – I will not be an LGBTQ activist. The walls that kept me from growing spiritually were within me and surrounded the outer court – the church setting.

For example, the Bible church services I attended during much of the sixties and seventies seemed to reenact the ‘62 and ’71 Billy Graham crusades in Chicago. Sunday services had calls to walk down the aisle and commit your life to Christ. Then, it was understood, one was supposed to go to church, straighten up and fly right. Church approved options were “go into ministry” and “become a missionary”. Church approved options for women: women could dream of being a pastor’s wife or a missionary wife. Tra-la.

Wasn’t there more to the Christian life than talk of sin, judgment, and salvation and producing more expositors of sin, judgement, and salvation? What did it mean to walk in the spirit and to abide in Christ? To grow up in Christ? And, I never once heard a sermon about serving Christ as an engineer, high school band director, artist, writer or poet. Secular occupations were not deemed Godly enough, I guess.

There was and still is a part of Just as I Am before my commitment to Christ that needed to grow and not linger in the aisle of salvation sentimentality. I became disheartened and disillusioned by the church. I felt intellectually and spiritually stunted just being there. Sure, there was plenty of Bible teaching. But getting Bible knowledge was not enough for me. (Sounds heretical, doesn’t it?) And, it seemed that the church wanted to remain Just as It Was. I wasn’t the only one to notice.

During the late ’60 and into the ‘70s I was involved in the Jesus People movement in Chicago. Our local group often read from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. The contrast between the church in Acts and the church I was attending was stark. I didn’t respond well to the disparity.

I began a prodigal journey that, like the parable account, brought me all kinds of loss. Looking back, it wasn’t until I began attending an Anglican church in my fifties that I began to lead a redeemed and productive journey. The author of the above-mentioned article put it this way regarding his own transition to an Anglican church:

For many people who come from conservative Baptist backgrounds, finding the Anglican communion feels like coming out of exile and returning home to everything that had been growing in you for years. 

Those words resonate with me in this key regard: the Anglican church I attended offered the Real Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the pinnacle of the Anglican liturgy, not preaching. I realized that that is what I have been looking for all of my life: a confirmation of the presence of the Lord in the elements and in me as I partake.

“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.” T.S. Elliot, Little Gidding

In the Anglican church setting the Book of Common Prayer informs the liturgy with readings, collects, the prayers of the people and rites. I savor this type of intellectual atmosphere. The liturgical format allows me to listen and think and grow. Rick Pidcock put it this way:

While my theology was shifting, the liturgies felt like anchors that were keeping me from getting swept away. And in the liturgy of the Eucharist, I could receive an experience of the presence of Christ with all my senses.

How did this transition happen? Before coming to the Anglican church, I tuned out Bible teachers. I cleared my head. Preaching and personalities were getting in the way of my understanding. I avoided the either-or thinking of the John MacArthurs. I stayed away from “red in tooth and claw” Christianity.

As revealed above, there are those “sons of thunder who believe they have a right and are justified to talk and act the way they do because they walk around with their body of truth and must defend it from outliers and Samaritans. During much of my life I operated the same way. I was judgmental, lacked grace, and hurt many along the way. I was just like the “sons of thunder”. But Jesus would have none of that.

I acknowledged my own sorry disposition and began a self-imposed apprenticeship to understand Jesus and his worldview. I read extensively outside what I have been taught, assessing the new knowledge against the old. Walls were breaking down. I began to view the Christian life as a series of spectrums. (See the article’s quote of Thomas McKenzie’s The Anglican Way.)

During the apprenticeship process, my eyes were opened to many things, including . . .

-The either-or thinking that uses the pulpit to make fun of others and speaks of grace as something only doled out when you are acceptable.

-The reductionist young earth creation account that I was taught in ‘Bible” churches. A “plain reading” of Genesis is vastly different for the ancients who read Genesis than it is for moderns who impose their version of “plain reading”.

In short, Genesis begins, not with the material creation of the universe, but with the ordering of and function-giving to the preexisting non-functional material creation. The ancients reading Genesis understood that a cosmic temple was being built.

What happens within the 7-24-hour days? Day One God gave humans the function of time. Day Two God gave humans the function of weather. Day Three God gave humans the function of food. Each function is necessary for a human-oriented world.

Days Four to Six parallel Days One to Three but now roles are assigned to functionaries. Humans are given the image of God imprint.

Day Seven is when God has complete setting up his temple and now sit down (the earth is his footstool) to oversee his work. Humans are given the responsibility to care for the cosmic temple. This is where God and man are to dwell together.

-The certainly of the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. Scripture says this is so and I have experienced it. My life has changed.

-God declared (imputed) me “righteous” in the law court scenario Paul presents in Romans.

-There is no such thing as the “rapture”. That is a misreading of the text. God will not abandon his creation. He is rebuilding the temple: Don’t you see? You are God’s temple! (1 Cor. 3:16)

-We are saved not just so that we get go to heaven when we die. More reductionism. Rather, we are born again so that Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. As new creations we are to advance the kingdom of God on earth, reflect God’s glory on earth, his cosmic temple, and wait for our Lord’s return to put things to right. “Heaven” is just a short-term way station before “new creations” return to earth with the Lord.

-Memorizing large portions of Scripture enables me to meditate, gain insight, instill the word into my life, and cross reference and contextualize Scripture. I have memorized four Psalms and the first five chapters of the Gospel According to Mark.  

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I will always have a desire to explore and push myself further than where I am now. Once I know what is out there, I will reflect back on where I started and understand it using my new knowledge.

Having gathered what I have learned and the tools acquired over time, I have become a journeywoman for Christ. Where the Lord uses me is up to Him. When he does, the world won’t end and the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

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* Could it be that one reason Jesus chose men to be apostles was not for a “created order” motive but for very practical ethical reasons. Spending 24/7 time with women would raise questions and offer temptations to everyone involved.

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Miroslav Volf and N.T. Wright talk about the future of the Church:

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Modulation of VEGF Expression and Oxidative Stress Response by Iodine Deficiency in Irradiated Cancerous and Non-cancerous Breast CellsDownload

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“Episode_1743 economy, biolabs, Ukraine, serfdom, w/Steve Cortes, Don Jr., Dr. Naomi Wolf, Dr. Robert Malone, John Solomon”.

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Informed Dissent:

The COVID-19 crisis of 2020 to 2022 has exposed for all to see how evidence-based medicine has been corrupted by the governments, hospitalists, academia, big pharma, tech and social media. They have leveraged the processes and rationale of evidence-based medicine to corrupt the entire medical enterprise.

The illusion of Evidence-based Medicine (substack.com)

The paper of record has a terrible record:

Of course, the New York Times should be teaching by example. In fact, it has not supported free speech, protected the First Amendment, or allowed honest debate. It has not allowed competing perspectives about the most important issues of the day. It has been a mouthpiece for greedy corporations and corrupt government officials.

Mendacious New York Times’ warning about Censorship (substack.com)

Moderna’s co-founder created a quantum dot tattoo to track the vaxxed. The company is now using AI to generate endless mRNA jabs. Welcome to Transhumanism, Inc.

Vaxxed By Machines, Tracked By Machines: Humanity To Be Augmented One Cell At A Time (substack.com)

When you submit to irrational government COVID mandates, Christians suffer. Nothing in Scripture tells you that you have to submit to pagan nonsense.

Exclusive: Pastor Artur on his 51 days behind bars – Rebel News

Your (inflation) taxes increase . . . with Biden’s (not Putin’s) inflationary economics:

Inflation Will Cost Americans an Extra $5,200 This Year: Bloomberg (businessinsider.com)

Dehumanizing and objectifying women:

Women Should Never Be Reduced To “Bleeders,” No Matter How Much The Feminine Hygiene Companies Try | Evie Magazine

Another article by Rick Pidcock:

In this world of spiritual warfare, theological compromise and Republicans losing the White House, there lives a group of men, mostly white, who put on their armor, saddle up and ride into the glorious battlefield known as Twitter. They alone wear the belt of truth as they stand firm against the wiles of the Devil.

Who are these men? They are the Theobros.

Their mission? Correcting women’s theology on Twitter.

Meet the Theobros, who want you to know they’re right about everything – Baptist News Global

Sunday Funnies:

Sunday Strip – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)

And not funny at all:

There is a secret society that wants to control . . . everything . . .

The World Economic Forum and the Sovereignty of Mankind – Dr. Robert Malone (rumble.com)

End of the dollar empire:

Phillip Patrick – The New CPI and “The End of the Dollar Empire” (rumble.com)

Filed under 2022 current events, Anglicalism, Christianity, Jesus and women Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Grace Given to Each of Us

April 29, 2018 Leave a comment

 

My job is to make clear to everyone just what the secret plan is, the purpose that’s been hidden from the very beginning of the world in God who created all things. This is it: that God’s wisdom, in all its rich variety, was to be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places – through the church.” The Apostle Paul, Ephesian 3: 9 & 10

 

This weekend is our church’s 150th anniversary of the chapel. The church: St. Mark’s, named after the Evangelist.

St. Mark, the Evangelist

The Anniversary booklet states,

St. Mark’s origins go back to the earliest days of Geneva, around 1830, when Episcopal services were held in a log house belonging to Mrs. Charity Herrirngton, which stood at what is now State Street near River Lane. These were the first religious services held in Geneva [IL].

And this,

Early in 1868 plans were drawn and a contractor selected to erect a church in the Gothic style, built of local riverstone with limestone sills and hood moldings, to seat 250….

There is much more of St. Mark’s history to recount. But here, I’ll share my St. Mark’s experience and the photos I shot today after the 8:00 service.

 

I came to St. Mark’s after moving into the area. At the same time, I was moving away from attending Bible churches. Raised in Evangelical churches and then attending them for years as an adult, I became desirous of a higher church setting, one that honored the beauty of words, of music, of architecture and the sacred. The Bible churches and many others, it seemed to me, were becoming more and more like the surrounding culture in their desire to be relevant.

I like Anglicanism’s emphasis on the Word and Sacrament along with the informing elements of tradition (the practices of the historical church) and reason (involving the intellectual). I like how the liturgy (worship hymns, reading of Scripture, offering, sermon, confession, the Creed, the Peace) points to the apex of the service – the Eucharist. In the churches I attended previously the service is centered around Scripturally illiterate sermons.

The words of The Book of Common Prayer have a stately beauty and sacredness to them. The wording should be so. We are petitioning royalty. Who in turn, points me to the Eucharist — the REAL Presence of Jesus Christ offered to me each week. It is the main reason I attend St. Mark’s.

The church has been a tremendous blessing to me over the almost eleven years I have attended. And, that is why I also must mention the many good people of St. Marks. They have been generous with their grace towards me. What they have received they have passed on to me.

One last word. I have spent many a time alone in St. Mark’s Chapel. This occurs during the Good Friday night vigil. I sign up for an hour alone before the cross, keeping watch. As such, it is a sacred time at 4:00 am. It is my time to come away and meditate on the cross. I come away from the chapel with a gift of grace, given to me “according to the measure the king used when he was distributing gifts. That’s why it says…

When he went up on high

He led bondage itself into bondage

And he gave gifts to people.

(Ephesians 4:7 & 8)

 

St. Marks’ is a gift of grace to me. Rulers and authorities would be wise to take note.

Pentecost mural by Louis Frederick Grell (1919)

Burning Bush

 

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Imagine 150 years of marriages and baptisms and confirmations and funerals and friendships and giving, and the Eucharist, and witness for Christ to the community. Imagine the Kingdom Continuum.

Filed under Christianity, community, The Church Tagged with , ,

“We’re On A Mission From God”

March 29, 2014 Leave a comment

Lent may be a good time for this discourse…

“If you live today, you breath in nihilism … it’s the gas you breathe. If I hadn’t had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.”
― Flannery O’Connor

I have not read Dr. Thomas Howard’s book “Evangelical is not Enough: Worship of God in Liturgy and Sacrament.” A Goodreads description about the book piqued my interest.

After reading the brief synopsis and a thread of comments about the book, I would have to say that I have perhaps made a similar journey away from formal Evangelicalism. My reasons may be similar to Howard’s, but, as mentioned, I haven’t read his book.

My own journey began with seeking wisdom and authentic Christianity. In my thirties I would find a wellspring of wisdom and a dose of ‘real’ Christianity from reading the works of Saint Teresa of Avila and some of the church fathers.

In 1984 I came across “A Life of Prayer” by St. Teresa of Avila. The book, the abridged edition out of Multnomah Press copyright 1983, was one in a series of “Classics of Faith and Devotion.”

The preface, written by Dr. James Houston a University Lecturer at Oxford University and later Chancellor of Regent College, notes that “The goal for the reader of these books is not to seek information. Instead, these volumes teach one about living wisely…Nor are these books “how-to” kits or texts…They guide us to “be” authentic, and not necessarily help us to promote more professional activities.” But I am ahead of myself.

“You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission.”
― Flannery O’Connor

I would like to share some of my journey, a condensed version, from formal Evangelicalism to Anglicanism with you. Where to begin? I’ll start like many of those who commented on Howard’s book: I was born and raised in an Evangelical Christian home.

While my parents were attending Moody Bible Institute as married students I was born. Voilà! Orbiting in such a universe my life rotated around daily Scripture reading, teaching and preaching. The ‘Word’ was heard it everywhere in my world – our small apartments.

The Word resounded from a tiny Zenith radio tuned to MBI’s flagship station WMBI. My mother had the radio tuned in and turned on every day while she worked around the house, prepared meals and changed you know who.

My earliest remembrances of the WMBI were of Aunt Theresa Worman and the KYB club (Know Your Bible Club). Through this and many other radio programs I would became bathed in Sola Scriptura at a very early age.

Later, along with my younger siblings, all of us sitting around the dinner table, my mother would read a chapter out of the book of Proverbs after each meal. And, often a missionary story as well. I also memorized tons of Scripture for Sunday School memorization contests.

With such an influx of spiritual truth each of us kids would become instilled with a desire to become missionaries or pastors or ministry involved from our earliest ages. For me, as I would later surmise, seeking wisdom, knowledge and a good understanding would be my life’s journey. I had to have the Truth – REALITY – and the discernment to know the Truth when I found it. I prayed for wisdom, knowledge and a good understanding every day.

Like my parents before me I attended Moody Bible Institute, in the ‘70s. I mainly studied Christian Education, music (I play the trumpet), Old and New Testament Scriptures and Koine (New Testament) Greek.

In my required first Personal Evangelism course I was taught that Catholicism was a cult just as Jehovah’s Witness and Mormonism are cults. It would be years before I eradicated that thinking from my head. In the mean time, though, I felt pretty proud of myself being an in the ‘know’ “Protestant.” I found out later that this smugness was a two-way street.

“Smugness is the Great Catholic Sin.”
― Flannery O’Connor

Now, after all of the jumbled background I’ve laid out here, let’s get back to the reason I ‘switched’ turf. Reading would play an important role in my ‘change.’

St. Teresa, a Catholic, wrote mainly about prayer and the inner life with God. Her work is filled with imagery, primarily three images:

There is the Journey or Pilgrimage of the soul: the coming home to the Truth, to the Presence.

There is the image of the Castle representing the wholeness of the soul where “His Majesty” dwells. As James M. Houston’s Editor’s Note points out: “For it is God’s presence within the soul of man that gives it such spaciousness and delight. How contrastive is Kafka’s Castle with its fearful absence of the landlord depicting not only the absence of the earthly father of the novelist, but also Kafka’s alienation from God.”
The soul St. Teresa depicts “is the domicile of His majesty.”

Water is the third image. Here Teresa refers to prayer. She will talk about water’s scarcity during the journey and water from a deep well of meditation, water as a conduit or viaduct poured into us as joy or as fresh rain, replenishing the parched soul.

Another image, one that I use often in prayer, is the garden of the soul. I’ll talk about this more in another post.

To put it mildly, back in the day, I wasn’t hearing anything like the above from the preachers or from the ‘Christian’ radio or from…Christians. What I was hearing, every single Sunday in E-Free (The Evangelical Free church) was that if you wanted to trust Jesus as your Savior or if you wanted to rededicate your life for the umptee-umph time to the Lord then raise your hand, walk down the aisle and kneel.

It seemed to me that people just wanted to relive their rebirth experience, perhaps vicariously through someone else. But, please don’t ask those in attendance to drink or eat anything but milk. The meat of the word was left on the side. After many years of this diet I hungered for more solid food.

And what I hungered for was the Eucharist. Not all the parading up and down the aisles.

The Evangelical Free church (E-Free Church) I attended would ‘celebrate’ communion once a month, like an after thought, like something you put on the calendar and can’t forget to do. Saving souls, replaying the salvation message tape over and over again every Sunday, selling hell fire insurance and eternal life real estate was the bottom line. That, and making ever bigger buildings to house wider aisles to accommodate the walking recycled.

Am I being polemical? Absolutely, as my Lord would be.

“I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I’m afraid it will not be controversial.”
― Flannery O’Connor

Now, there are churches called “Seeker Churches!” What in the world?

When I was involved in the Jesus People Movement in the ‘60s and ‘70s we would hold Jesus Rallies at public high school auditoriums. This was evangelization.

There would be worship music and Street-wise Preachers. We’d invite our high school friends. Many would come to belief in Christ. We would immediately baptize them in a pond nearby. One of them was my best friend Carl.

Today churches are trying to play culture catch-up and it’s a fool’s errand.

Three point sermons? Nope. Sermons as centerpiece of Sunday morning ‘service’. Nope

The church, the ekklesia, the called out ones, are to be fed, ministered to and to minister to one another: gifts, giving, koinonia, and NOT “let’s watch a Jesus flick this morning” or “let’s listen to a raging sermon that really tells someone off” or “You really need my homiletics to get you through the next week.” No.

The church is to gather to worship as One Body the Triune God. The church universal, with those in prison, with those hurting and alone, comes together to feed on HIM. THEN, the church, fed, recharged, goes out into the world to seek the lost. Evangelization is life after Eucharist.

I chose to go to an Anglican church because the Lord had placed in my heart, since day one, the need to receive His REAL Presence through the sacrament. Yes, I have the Holy Spirit dwelling within me. He is the one saying “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.” I wanted the Wisdom of God dwelling in me. I need this bread and drink every week, at the very least. Come Lord Jesus.

Yes, I need the liturgy. I am a Romantic-Rationalist. I need to hear the Common Book prayers read aloud and the scriptures read aloud. I need the formal hymns AND the folk songs of the church (I listen to David Crowder at home). I need the formality, the ritual, the pomp and circumstance, the expectation of His Presence leading up to the Eucharist.

Everything that happens within the liturgy points to the Eucharist – The Great Thanksgiving. That is exactly why I attend an Anglican church – exalting His Majestic REAL Presence with us.

There is beauty in the liturgical season colors, the stained glass windows. There is beauty in the spoken prayers and Scripture. There is beauty in the truth of the hymns.

I need beauty wherever and whenever I can find it. We all do. Beauty reveals the Godhead. Beauty reveals the love of God towards us.

And yet, even though most of my spiritual needs (of gift and giver) are met at the Anglican Church, the Body of Christ can be so much more than this. The corporate church has become the church corporate – worldly configured and less Christ-centric dynamism. Think personally involved house-to-house koinonia-laying–on-of-hands-prayer and not sit-back-and-let government (or church) do “social justice.”

I have started several threads in this post. I can’t follow all of them here. Read Saint Teresa’s “A Life of Prayer.” Read the church fathers. Read Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood. Read N.T. Wright’s “How God Became King”. Read Dr. Luke’s The Acts of the Apostles.  Become His Church as Followers of the Way. Feed on Him in your hearts by faith and with Thanksgiving.

“You don’t serve God by saying: the Church is ineffective, I’ll have none of it. Your pain at its lack of effectiveness is a sign of your nearness to God. We help overcome this lack of effectiveness simply by suffering on account of it. ”
― Flannery O’Connor

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“Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the ‘most portable’ person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, ‘Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”

Flannery O’Connor on the Eucharist and Church History

 

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Filed under Anglicaism, Christianity Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Ping Revelation

March 29, 2011 1 Comment

Over the years my position on what I consider some major life issues has changed. This is one of those issues:

Born into an Evangelical/Baptist home I soon came to understand that communion, as it is called in the Bible Church, is to be celebrated about once a month. I was told that the church didn’t want to wear out its meaning by having the Lord’s Supper every week.  Later, I would understand this to mean that the Free Churches wanted to be different from Catholic churches.

As a student at the Moody Bible Institute, my Personal Evangelism teacher, Mr. Winslett, taught us that Catholicism is a cult much like Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness, Seventh Day Adventism and even demonism. I remember the teacher telling us that Mary, iconic Mary, was an idol. So, like many of my Free Church brethren, I became rather smug when it came to Catholics. They were beneath our Free Church ways. Besides, the Catholic Church had too much going on and the Free Church, striped of any vestige of symbol and ceremony was “Free” (and sterile) of all the trappings of Roman rigamarole. There is, of course, more history to the reformation than what I am describing here. One can read Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses for more information. But, indulge me, please, (and not as Johann Tetzel would) for the moment.

At the Bible Church I had attended you could come and get your spiritual fodder for the week. A sermon or two and a banquet here and there would deem to hold you over. Forget liturgy, we were free to stand up for a hymn, sit down for the announcements, listen to the organ during offering, stand up again for another pre-sermon hymn, sit down for the sermon and then walk the aisle – to the pulpit or out the door. Voilà, church. And, for me, church for fifty years. Throw in the opposing Continental and Analytic worldviews in modern thinking and I became sans joie d’vivre. My Sola fide needed not only to hear the Word of God, it needed to intuit God’s presence with me. And, this wasn’t happening for me at this church despite all of the contemporary emotive songs invoking God’s presence.

After this half-century of spiritual famine I came to realize that this poor diet – the Diet of Words – wasn’t sufficient for my life. And, the abundantly stocked shelves of Abundant Life Christian self-help books were of no help to me. I needed substance. Substance. Substance and Symbol.

At age fifty I began attending an Anglican church. Now, I regularly eat the Real Food and Drink of Life – the Eucharist. And, hearing the spoken Word of God, praying from The Book of Common Prayer, reciting the Nicene Creed, seeing the symbol of the cross and participating in the liturgy which points to the Great Feast of Thanksgiving (and not the sermon), my spirit has revived. I meet the Lord at this Well of Sychar where deep springs of Living Water come to the surface.

Phyllis Melanchthon (aka, Sally  Paradise)

http://anglicansonline.org/basics/thirty-nine_articles.html

“When Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being “in Christ” or of Christ being “in them” this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them: that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts –that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body. And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by the bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion…There is no good in trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.” C. S. Lewis

Filed under Anglicanism, Christian character, Christianity, Life As I See It Tagged with , ,