Bandits No More

Mark D. Roberts, pastor of a Presbyteran Church in Irvina, CA writes intelligently and Christianly on politics. I can identify with what he desires – a “non-partisan” church. In our congregation we have active and dedicated Republicans AND Democrats. This election we have a member running for congress as a Democrat. Last time around the church had another member running for congress as a Republican.

We do have more to learn, I believe. We achieve our peacefulness by simply avoiding all political talk – even of the intersection of Kingdom of God interests and political interests.

Thom Rainer, a teacher of evangelism at Southern Seminary in Louisville has done intensive study of people who were formerly unchurched. He wanted to know what it was that made the biggest difference in their becoming Christians and part of a church. To his suprise he learned that a church’s doctrine and their stance toward it made a huge impact on them. When the content of the doctrine was matched with a seriousness toward it and seeing the people live it out, it makes a huge dufference.

A story about loving a sinner – in a way that the sinner recognizes as love.

Here are the comments of another new Bishop on doctrinal issues in the UMC.

Like other mainline Protestant denominations, United Methodists have grappled with issues surrounding homosexuality. At their general conference last spring, in Pittsburgh, they reaffirmed their doctrine against ordaining “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals,” and against same-sex marriage.

Asked if he agreed with those decisions, Devahdar, who as a delegate cast secret ballots, would not say.

“I will not say whether I support the blessings of same-sex unions or the ordaining of gays and lesbians,” he said. “My duty is to be loyal and guard the doctrine of the church … As a United Methodist bishop, I am committed to be faithful to the discipline of the church.”

I think when he says something like, “My opinions are irrelevant” he is on the right track. I’m not a bishop, but my opinions are also irrelevant to the issue of UM doctrine. I submit.

I just took a “Belief-O-Matic” online test telling me what religion most closely fits my beliefs. I heard about it from a friend, and have to admit curiosity got the better of me, so I tried it. I’m not going to tell you which particular religion the internet thinks fits me best, but will admit that I am squarely within the Christian camp. This column, rather, is about how we got to the point that religion can be reduced to a 20 question multiple choice test.

For years now I have been concerned that our educational system seems so caught up with standardized multiple choice tests. Does one’s ability to darken appropriate squares really translate into one’s ability to succeed in life?

Even more than my lack of faith in standardized, multiple choice tests, I am extremely skeptical of anyone who thinks that religion can be so simply summed up with a set of beliefs deduced therefrom.

Don’t get me wrong; what one believes does matter. And I enjoy theological discussions, even debates as much as the next person. But I have also learned over the years that God is not nearly so worried about my ability to correctly articulate my beliefs as He is about my living in a relationship with Him.

Jesus even said in Matthew 25, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, that what is important is what one does, not what one says. He is interested in how we live our lives more than in how well we explain what we believe.

I admit, though, that this attitude of mine comes from this very basic belief: there is one God, and He lived among as Jesus to teach us how to live as humans in relationship with God. Whether or not you’ve got everything figured out, God still loves you and wants you to know that.

Some are inclines to interpret the doctrinal warfare of the past egeneration as a mere expression of a lust for control. When we see property fights like this emerge, we have to admit that on at least some levels comtrol is a very real issue. I only know UM polity (and I’m no Jack Tuell on that), so I’ll stick to our situation.

The practice of having local congregations hold their property “in trust” for the whole church (in the legal entity of the Annual Conference) is very long standing in Methodism, dating back to John Wesley’s Model Deed. The basic thought is: We want our churches to remain our churches. We don’t want outsiders coming in and usurping authority and taking them from us. In Wesley’s day, the fear was that usurpers would come from below – from the local preaching places (since Wesley never left the church of England, the Methodists didn’t have “churches” in his day). The phenomenon in California is very different. From the perspective of the congregations, the usurpation has taken place at the top. The problem: there is no theoretical space in United Methodism to conceptualize usurpation from above.

The UNited Methodist system is, to a large degree, defined and structured around distrust. The Congregations don’t trust the Annual Conference or the General Church. The General Church doesn’t trust the congregations. The laity don’t trust the clergy, the clergy don’t trust the laity. The bishops and their cabinets don’t trust the preachers, and vice versa. We’re thoroughly top down in our leadership structure. As Lyle Schaller noted in his book Tattered Trust, this distrust is destroying us.

What our polity has hidden from us (and here it is abbetted by the fact the the UMC is very much in the thrall of modernity) is that the buildings and intsitutions – the things with dollar signs attached – are not the only things held in trust. Our doctrinal heritage is also held in trust, and I would argue it is of much greater importance. Some of our Bishops and other leaders want to maintain the right to be completely free with their doctrinal proclamations while restricting the local churches’ freedom with their property. A betrayal of trust is a betrayal of trust – which ever way it works.

I went to Baylor’s home opener last Saturday, at which Baylor held on to claim their first victory of the year, defeating Texas State 24-17. That’s all the football I intend to write about here. I want to tell you about halftime.

Bands from both schools played. First, Texas State’s band played selections from Boston, a 1970’s rock group. Then, the Golden Wave Marching Band took the field and played music from Aerosmith. Though they are still fairly popular, Aeromsith is another 1970’s rock band. When I got home I told my 15 year old daughter that she could expect to hear college marching bands playing Eminem when she is 40.

I couldn’t help but chuckle and wonder if either band would have imagined 30 years ago that their music would someday be played by college marching bands as a halftime show for football games. My guess is no, they would not.

Rock wasn’t about halftime shows; it was about rebellion. The very volume of it screamed that! The artists wore their hair long and dressed in non-conforming ways. Some were militantly political, even anti-american, and mixed such views into their music.

Our society, however, has a tendency to domesticate almost anything. What was cutting-edge or even counter-cultural twenty years ago may be mainstream or even boring next year.
Have you noticed how “family” television stations merely bring back shows from at least twenty years ago and plug them as “family-friendly?” Some of these shows, at the time of their original release, were certainly not heralded as wholesome shows. By comparison with the current offerings, though, they are tame.

Christians, we too have to fight such a trend toward domestication in our own lives. Forces in society work toward making all of us the same. Everything anyone says is merely an opinion, and everyone is entitles to his or her opinion. “Religion” is relegated to the private, and everyone is free to believe whatever he or she wants to believe, but we are not to act according to our beliefs, unless they lead us to act the same way everyone else does.

Be careful you are not being domesticated by society.

New Methodist bishop envisions church growth – PittsburghLIVE.com

It sounds like Bishop Bickerton has a good record of growing churches. Should be good for Western Pennsylvania. One thing he says makes me wonder:

“Generally speaking, the United Methodist Church is an old denomination,” Bickerton said. “We have to work to find ways to be relevant today.”

Is he saying talking about (a) the fact the church was started in 1784; (b) the fact that our churches are full of older people with the average age of members going up every year? My guess is (b). I’m not sure how relevance connects with this. One could argue that we are being relevant – to old people. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, there are pleny of unchurched old people around that the church can be reaching. Or is he suggesting that we need to be relevant to younger generations?

I can’t help but think that if we’re obedient to God we’ll be relevant to the people around us. Of course, they still need the grace of God to recognize the church’s relevance.

Dan reiland always has something wise and provocative to say. In this issue of the Pastor’s Coach he lists several antitheses we need to pay attention to:

• You grow a church with talent and leadership. You impact a community with compassion.
• You grow a church on your terms. You reach a community on their terms.
• You grow a church by offering good programs. You reach a community by offering good relationships.
• You grow a church by investing in yourself. You invest outside yourselves to reach a community.

Another way to put this is that we’re in the people business. Read the whole piece for yourself.

“Driven” is the big word for Rick Warren. First he had The Purpose Driven Church. Now we’re looking at The Purpose Driven Life. His assumption is that every church and every person is driven by something. He lists several things people are driven by:

• Guilt
• Resentment and anger
• Fear
• Materialism
• Need for Approval

The alternative he proposes is – not suprisingly – a purpose driven life, a “life guided, controlled and directed by God’s purposes.” When we live this way, he claims, our lives will have meaning, be simplified, have focus and motivation, and we’ll be prepared for eternity.

Let’s take apart this whole concept.

“Driven” is a metaphor used to describe that which makes something happen. What is the best explanation for the way we live our lives? Why do we do what we do? What motivates us? When we rephrase and ask these questions we can get beyond the passivity of the “driven” metaphor. My car is driven. It has no choice where it goes. It responds directly to my action, although limited by its environment (wind, rain and ice affect ist performance). But we humans aren’t cars.

Knowing our purpose isn’t enough. We can know our purpose and still be “driven” by those other features: fear, guilt, etc. It is truly a good thing to know God’s purpose for our lives, but we must engage with those purposes intelligently. We must actively obey God. Again – we are not cars – not even to God. We are being made in his image. He doesn’t “drive” us. When we say we’re living a “purpose driven life” we’re saying that we are responding faithfully to what God made us for, whether that fits with our environment or not. Our environment may induce us to do what we do based on fear, guilt, need for approval, etc. We all have to deal with these motivations. Living the Purpose Driven Life doesn’t make these other motivatiosn unreal – it just makes it so that we chose to be motivated by something else – by God’s purposes.