My take on Obama’s health care speech

I sat listening to the President last night deliver what I believe to be a long overdue speech on health care and the direction he wants a proposed bill to go.  My wife and I have talked about this some and I told her almost from the get-go that he was making a mistake not to hand Congress at least the skeleton of an actual bill to work from, instead allowing that bickering bunch to cobble something together on their own.  People need direction and Congress has demonstrated they are incapable of rising above party ideology to get anything significant accomplished.  But anyway, I thought Obama delivered the speech well and did a good job of explaining why health care reform is needed.

First of all, I’ll reveal my biases, both past and present.  I’ve grown up Republican.  I’ve never voted for a Democrat for President and can’t think of one I would have supported in the elections that have occurred in my lifetime.  My default switch is set toward finding a way for private entities and the free market to solve problems.  In my experience, when the government takes over something, it tends to get mired down in red tape and bureaucracy, is terribly inefficient and doesn’t deliver the same quality of service as a private entity does.  On the other hand, health care seems to be in a totally different category than other things for me.  I have a hard time believing that if someone posed the question “Is health care a right or a privilege” to Jesus, that He’d come down on the side of  ”privilege” and expect people who can’t afford decent insurance coverage to just go bankrupt or throw themselves on the mercy of a (hopefully) charitable doctor or hospital.  So to that end, I believe universal health care coverage is a worthwhile and noble goal.  I’m just not sure how to get there.  The systems in Britain and Canada don’t impress me because as with all things that are free (or at least are perceived to be free since there’s no transaction at the point of service), supply can’t keep up with demand and rationing begins either in the form of long waits or some treatments simply being unavailable.

So when President Obama talked last night I found myself agreeing with him on a lot of what he said.  Those of us who have health insurance are still seeing it increase by way too much each year.  There are the headaches with “gotcha” clauses in the coverage.  People get dropped over technicalities when it appears the insurance is about to have to cover some expensive treatments.  A person changes jobs and their new health plan won’t cover them because of a preexisting condition that the previous employers plan was covering.  Coverage is expensive even when the employer pays most of the cost, so people who don’t make enough money can’t afford coverage.  Others work for employers that don’t offer coverage at all.  The self employed find it extremely expensive to pay for a good health plan.  It’s a tough situation.  And I thought he did a good job of compromising and being pragmatic as to how to achieve what he laid out as his ultimate goals, drawing from ideas originating on both sides of the political aisle.

But in the end, we have to look at cost.  Almost $1 trillion over the next 10 years.  And such estimates are notoriously low when it comes to major government spending programs.  Even assuming that Obama’s figures are right on the money, can we actually pay for this simply with cutting out waste, fraud and abuse and increasing efficiencies in the current health care system?  No tax increases?  Really?  Not sure I believe that.  And if the projections for the next ten years of cost are accurate, how do we avoid the bloat and explosion of growth in costs that inevitably seem to follow government programs that have been around for a while?  Because such programs are also notoriously hard to get rid of once they’re in place and people are dependent on them.

I’m all for insuring everyone in a manner they can afford and gives them good coverage.  I do think that Christ would have us figure out a way to help “the least of these” in such a manner if it’s within our power to do so.  But the question is, is it really within our budget and capabilities to pull it off without demand vastly outstripping supply, the quality of care overall going down and the costs shooting through the roof?

What do you think?

Adaptability or Consistency?

I just finished the book Christianity’s Dangerous Idea by Alister McGrath.  First of all, I highly recommend the book.  It’s an excellent treatment of the issues surrounding the Reformation and all its major players from Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Bucer and others.

One of the things it talked about was how Protestantism, outside of the Lutheran and Calvinist camps especially, as been so remarkably adaptable to different times, different countries and different cultures.  For sure, there have been eras of missteps in missionary efforts where too much emphasis was placed on transplanting a Western European style of Christianity into countries where the cultural norms and such are vastly different.  But the overall history of Protestantism has been one of amazing malleability.  And to most Protestants, this is a sign of it’s vitality and a source of great strength.  Aside from being centered around a sermon, you can encounter scores of different styles from country to country or even within one city.  You might walk into a Baptist church that’s very “countrified” with Southern Gospel style hymns and right down the road walk into another with all the high church pomp and circumstance you’d see in a Catholic service.  And right down from that would be one with a kickin’ rock band leading worship, congregants in jeans and t-shirts and the pastor sporting a faux-hawk.  And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the predominantly African-American congregations.

On the other hand, worldwide, Catholic and Orthodox churches are largely the same.  This was especially the case prior to Vatican II and the Mass being in the vernacular.  You could go anywhere in the world and the Mass was spoken in Latin and was in the same form.  Even with the vernacular, because the form of the Mass is consistent, most experienced Catholics can follow the service fairly easily even with the language barrier.  And this consistency is viewed by Catholics as a sign of strength and vitality as well.  They feel they adapt in more subtle ways to each culture (such as Mass in the vernacular) but that the more consistent liturgy and emphasis promotes unity and cohesiveness in the Church.

And this adaptability vs consistency thing doesn’t just apply to different cultures and countries now.  Outside of high church Lutherans and Anglicans, Protestantism is nothing if not willing to change.  No matter what era Protestantism finds itself in, there seems to be a near constant desire to change and seek to be “relevant.”  This is especially true of the last 30-40 years or so, since those first hippies started coming to Christ during the Jesus Movement, but whether it was John and Charles Wesley, Charles Finney and Dwight Moody, the rise of Pentecostalism or the New Calvinists, this is has been a hallmark of Protestantism.

Catholicism (and to a similar degree Orthodoxism) on the other hand has been marked by its ties to history and (little “t”) tradition.  Some of the rites, creeds, prayers, music and other facets of Catholic worship have been around since the earliest days of the Church.  Many others have been in consistent use in Catholic services for centuries.  There’s a connectedness and a feeling of being anchored in something bigger than oneself but more importantly, bigger than “right now.”

To be honest, I’m torn over which is the best approach.  I’ve mentioned my feelings numerous times…how I lament the lack of historicity and the sense that we’ve lost something in all this manic striving to be culturally hip and relevant.  I find a depth and richness in traditional, liturgical worship that just seems lacking in much of contemporary styles.  But at the same time, I realize that everyone is not like me.  No matter how much you explain to some people the richness and deep meanings of the liturgy and its ancient roots, they don’t get it.  And it’s not that they don’t get it because they are non-Christians unattuned to the things of God.  These are wonderful, growing, sincere believers in Christ.  They might be able to appreciate elements of traditional worship from time to time, they prefer the more casual, modern style.  They feel like they connect with God on a more personal level in that kind of setting and that their relationship with God is much better partly because of the willingness of churches to loosen up and not be bogged down with attachments to songs and styles and cultural trappings that are no longer a part of modern life.  I even felt that way myself at one point, but as this blog attests, that’s changed with me.  It doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a well-done modern worship service, I just have different tastes and different things that matter more to me.

What do you think?  There are pros and cons to both approaches I believe.  What is more important…cultural relevance in worship style or a connection to the past and our Christian brethren from times gone by?  As long as the Gospel is being taught and people are being discipled and matured in the faith, should the form in which those things are conveyed matter?

How do you prefer Holy Communion (The Eucharist)?

This morning we had a really good service and the sermon in particular was very thought-provoking and convicting.  One of the best since we started attending this church.

At the end we had Holy Communion together and even though we were in the contemporary service, it was handled much more reverently than in times past.  And I got to thinking about the different ways I’ve seen the Eucharist handled in various churches.  In Catholic and Anglican churches, people come up row by row to the front and receive the bread directly from the priest/rector (or sometimes lay ministers in larger congregations) and drink the wine from a common cup.  In the more formal Methodist church of my upbringing it was similar except the minister and associate minister walked down the row of people who’d come up front with a plate of the bread and a tray of individual communion cups.  The people would take one of each themselves, eat and drink it right there, then return to their pews.

Since then in various places I’ve seen all sorts of variations such as going to various stations around the room to get the bread and the cup and then return to one’s seat and wait until everyone has the elements so we can all take together.  Or one where everyone remains seated while the ushers or deacons pass the tray with bread and individual cups down the rows and the people either immediately ingest the elements or they wait for everyone to take together.

My question is, is there one superior way of doing this from a theological perspective?  I know I can appreciate the symbolism in some of the variations.  I like the common cup and the act of receiving the Eucharist (as opposed to just getting it yourself) because it seems to befit an act that is primarilyone of God initiating His grace toward us rather than us “grasping” for it.  Then again, I like the communal aspect of us all having the bread and wine and taking it together as the minister invokes the words of consecration.  It takes some of the individualism out of it.  And from a practical (not to mention hygenic) perspective, the individual cups make some sense.

What do you think?  Is there some God-ordained way this absolutely has to be done outside of using the proper elements (bread, “fruit of the vine”) and treating it with reverence and the typical Scripture references from Corinthians or the Last Supper being spoken?

I’m still around

Just haven’t been inspired to write anything in particular lately and things are in sort of a holding pattern with regard to church.

I am reading Christianity’s Dangerous Idea by Alister McGrath on the Protestant Reformation so I will probably be blogging on some of that stuff here soon.

I Wish I Believed…

Back in the age of dial-up, when regular people were just beginning to get on the internet, the first things I discovered were message boards. There were tons of them. And the ones I seemed to gravitate to the most were theology boards and ones devoted to debating Christianity with atheists and agnostics. Generally speaking those debates generated way more heat than light, but every now and then you’d have a conversation that went deeper, perhaps via email off the boards or in private messages. And more than once a more level-headed, non-angry atheist would say something about how they appreciated my approach and kindness (I wish more would have felt prompted to say that about me, but I sometimes struggled to keep my temper and sarcasm in check) and that they looked at me or others on the boards and wished they could believe.

That always seemed to be so odd to me. Someone who looks longingly at Christian faith and sees beauty and peace and something desirable, but can’t bring themselves to say they actually believe it. It seemed so sad. All I could do was pray for them and try to answer whatever questions I could and encourage them to keep an open mind on it. You can’t just make someone see something they don’t see. I can’t imagine not believing in God so sometimes it’s hard for me to really put myself in their shoes and feel what it would be like to really NOT believe…until now.

I’m starting to understand where they are coming from, but it’s not what you may be thinking. I’m still a believer. The world literally makes no sense to me without God in it. I can’t “unbelieve” such a thing any more than I could unbelieve that my wife and children exist. But I do wish that I could believe something. My friend is so certain and so at peace with his decision to become Catholic. He did his homework, read a ton and came to the conclusion that the Catholic church was the church Christ founded and that it’s the church we all should seek to be reunited to. I on the other hand have read far more and for a longer time than he did, but I’m still wandering in the wilderness. I admire so much about Catholicism and find much about it to be so attractive. I have similar admiration for other traditions such as Orthodoxy, traditional Anglicanism and Lutheranism too, but particularly on the latter two (in addition to traditionally minded Reformed churches) I still run into the question of authority. Who has the ultimate authority to decide between widely divergent interpretations on Scripture and Christian doctrine? It just seems that splintering over and over becomes inevitable no matter which tradition you choose, except Catholicism.

But though I look longingly across the Tiber at what seems to be a much more stable and solidly rooted faith, I find myself thinking, “I just wish I could believe…” And the wishes are about many things. Among them, I wish I could believe:

…that the Pope and Magisterium truly were infallible on matters of faith and interpreting Scripture.

…that the bread and wine in the Eucharist truly were the literal body and blood of Christ.

…that the Marian dogmas were true and that asking her and other saints for their intercession was truly effective rather than idolatrous.

…that I could agree with the Catholic Church fully on their stances regarding divorce and contraception.

…that if I chose to cross the Tiber, that I wouldn’t be sitting there 5-10 years from now unhappy again and wanting more out of church and the Christian life but now being completely befuddled as to where to go next.

I could go on and on I suppose but I guess what this really speaks to is that I’m so tired and weary. Nearly exhausted mentally and emotionally. I’m tired of being restless in my spirit and mind. I’m tired of not feeling like I can really jump in with both feet somewhere because of all these unsettled theological questions.  I’ve been through the emotionalism of my Pentecostal days, the intellectual high of Calvinism and Reformed theological study and the seemingly endless quest to be “culturally relevant” (which seems to be closely related to some vague notion of “hipness” sometimes).   Right now I’m just attending church but I don’t feel like I can really engage with my whole heart because I question everything.  I just feel like I’m in this state of suspension with no solid foothold anywhere, not because there aren’t several options purporting to be solid footholds, but because I’m in a crisis as to which one to trust.  I believe the Bible, but on the deep stuff, it’s increasingly unclear as to who is viewing and interpreting it properly. It’s wearing me out. I just want the truth. And I need a place to stand.

I just wish I believed…

Internet Monk: The Value of Liturgy

There’s an excellent discussion over at iMonk’s site about liturgy.  I wanted to highlight one response from a Baptist minister in particular because he comes from a decidedly “non-liturgical” background.  I’ve said similar things in describing why I like liturgy to my anti-liturgy friends but he does an even better job.  Go check the full post at iMonk’s blog though to see the responses from the Eastern Orthodox, Methodist, Lutheran and Catholic contributors as well.  Here’s the snippet I liked the best:

I think I’d want to start with the inevitability of liturgy. Here is something I’ve learned after a lifetime spent in churches that pride themselves in being free of liturgy and dead ceremony (terms used interchangeably in some places): the premise is absurd. There is no liturgy-free worship, and the monikor “non-liturgical” makes about as much sense as “government intelligence.”

The same churches that will ostensibly operate beneath the feigned guise of “free” worship or “Spirit-led” worship will inevitably, predictably, and without fail fall into a liturgy that is so set it makes the Greek Orthodox look like wild-eyed Pentecostals on speed. I’ve heard Baptist deacons anathematize written prayers only to turn around and say the same prayer over the offering plates that they were regurgitating back when Herbert Hoover was in office (i.e., “Father we just…”, “bring into the storehouse…”, “our tithes and your offerings…”, “bless the gift and the giver…”, with about 10 more “just’s” and “umm’s” thrown in). I’ve seen the same Baptist people who mock the formulaic worship of the liturgical churches respond to small changes in the customary bulletin layout with a venom that makes Genghis Khan seem like Stuart Smalley. I’ve known pastors in churches which chide the physicality and symbolism of liturgical churches almost get martyred in the center aisle for suggesting that the flag be moved from the sanctuary, or for putting their Bibles on the communion table, or for projecting a song instead of singing from the hymn book. The same Baptist who will condemn the Catholics for their relics will threaten to murder you in your sleep if you move the black-and-white picture of Miss Bussie from the display cabinet in the foyer. I’ve met more Tetzels in Baptist land than outside it.

The only difference between the “non-liturgical” churches and the “liturgical” churches is that the former’s liturgy is (1) present but denied, (2) inherited instead of intentional, (3) culturally defined instead of ecclesiologically mandated, and (4) largely pragmatic instead of theological.

Vain repetition

A recent dustup on another blog inspired me to post something about this notion of repetitive or recited prayers. Typically, a certain canard gets thrown out when discussing liturgical worship with certain evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants. Catchphrases like “man’s traditions”, “dead ritual” and “repetition” are bandied about. You could set a sundial by this entirely predictable phenomenon. It centers around Christ’s commands regarding prayer.

But let’s examine the verse in question where Jesus talks about prayer, specifically repetitive prayer:

Matthew 6:7
“And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.”

The ESV does a slightly better job in my opinion of conveying the meaning of the Greek in this verse:

Matthew 6:7
“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”

The Greek word translated as “vain repetitions” or “empty phrases” literally means “to stammer.” It calls to mind more of what you’d imagine a Buddhist monk doing during Eastern forms of meditation such as humming or repeating this one syllable over and over again in an attempt to empty their mind completely. This is obviously not the idea behind Christian prayer and meditation. In Christian prayer and meditation, we’re actually doing the opposite…we’re filling our minds with something such as passages of Scripture, thoughts about some aspect of God and His character, recalling His wondrous works or His promises, focusing on events in the life of Christ (the Incarnation, the Passion, His death and resurrection). These are all good things.

But sticking just to this notion that repetition itself is forbidden in Scripture…it’s completely off base. For instance, take Psalm 136:

Psalm 136

136:1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
4 to him who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
5 to him who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
7 to him who made the great lights,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
8 the sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
9 the moon and stars to rule over the night,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
11 and brought Israel out from among them,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
12 with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
13 to him who divided the Red Sea in two,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
14 and made Israel pass through the midst of it,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
15 but overthrew [1] Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
17 to him who struck down great kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
18 and killed mighty kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
19 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
20 and Og, king of Bashan,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
21 and gave their land as a heritage,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
22 a heritage to Israel his servant,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
23 It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
24 and rescued us from our foes,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
25 he who gives food to all flesh,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
26 Give thanks to the God of heaven,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

Twenty-six times the phrase “for his steadfast love endures forever” is repeated. There are other Psalms with similar repetitive patterns. Then there is this passage from Revelation:

Revelation 4:6b-8
And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!” (emphasis mine)

Are these living creatures that “day and night…never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come” engaging in vain or meaningless repetition? Because we’ve already established that they are engaging in repetition. If God had something against repetition in prayer or worship, then He should banish these creatures from His presence right away so as not to contradict Himself!

The takeaway is this: Jesus did not condemn repetitive prayers. He even gave us one that we frequently repeat in church every Sunday known as “The Lord’s Prayer” (or for you Catholics, the “Our Father”). Repetition is not the problem, meaningless or vain repetition is the problem. Simply babbling a bunch of nonsense or repeating words over and over as if they are some sort of Christian equivalent of “abracadabra” that gets you what you want is the problem.

Don’t be put off or concerned about the misuse of the passage in Matthew if you like to use prayer beads, employ prayer books such as the Book of Common Prayer, follow the Daily Office or participate in a Liturgy of the Hours. Obviously, the content of the prayer is important (none of that mindless humming, people) and just as important if not moreso is the intent of the heart in praying. One can turn anything into meaningless repetition (even The Lord’s Prayer or a psalm) if they absentmindedly mumble their way through it thinking that merely uttering certain words scores brownie points with God. Spontaneity is not the hallmark of true prayer and worship. Meaning what you’re saying when you pray is where true prayer begins.

Your vote needed

My favorite blogger in the world, The Internet Monk, is in the Final Four of a “best blog” contest that SBC Voices is holding.  He can really use every vote possible to win this thing as there’s a big group of voters likely to start bombarding it and voting against him.  The prize is a $300 gift certificate that he is going to use to buy Bibles and books for his students if he manages to win.

Take a second and go here:  SBC Voices Blog Madness Final Four

Place a vote for Internet Monk and help him win this thing.  And pass this link along to anyone you think might be willing to give him a vote.  Oh, and bookmark his site.  Excellent stuff.

Prayers would be appreciated

For financial issues. We may be having to put a new transmission in our Honda Odyssey. I’m trying to see if Honda will cover any of it because they knew there were problems with these and extended the warranty coverage to 109,000 miles. We’re at 119,000. Based on estimates, this would eat up our entire tax refund, plus about $630 we had set aside to replace our 6-year old computer.

Pray for some leniency from Honda or that perhaps the transmission isn’t as bad off as our mechanic thinks it is (he doesn’t do transmissions so we’d be taking it somewhere else). As they say, when you have plenty of money sitting in the bank for emergencies, Murphy never seems to call.

I feel like I’ve been dodging bullets all week…a coffee maker on the fritz, a clogged garbage disposal/kitchen sink and a broken toilet. Somehow managed to fix the latter two myself and the coffee maker acts weird but is continuing to function for now. Then this hits.

I hate financial stress.

“Liturgy…lets me be”

If you don’t read Amy Welborn’s blog, you need to start. Especially now. I’m amazed at her bravery as she blogs through the aftermath of her husband’s unexpected death. It’s really powerful, emotional, cathartic and redemptive. This little part at the end of today’s post stuck out to me. I agree with the sentiment at any time or season of life, but seeing what she’s going through now only reinforces it.

I was also grateful for liturgy – Catholic liturgy, although it is certainly characteristic of almost all liturgy, by nature – that lets me be. That prays and sings and chants of God’s love and mercy, of repentance and forgiveness, of justice…and gives me the freedom to enter this place in whatever way I choose. That does not manipulate me or try to direct my emotions. That does not demand that I respond with a certain level or type of emotion. That does not make myself and my life the center of the drama, but rather points me relentless, but compassionately and authentically, towards Christ. And allows me the space to listen…and respond, out of freedom, in my own way, on my own time. To listen.

She’s on my blogroll list, but here’s the link too: Via Media

Repentance

Lent is a season of repentance. It’s a time to focus on drawing close to God. What it is not is a season to be morose or to beat oneself up about past sins already confessed and forgiven. As with many things in the Christian life, there is a balance to be found here between taking our sins as seriously as God does and not indulging in a form of self-flaggelation to try and make sure God knows just how sorry we are.

This song by Margaret Becker I think really captures God’s perspective on this. It’s titled “Just Come In” and is from her 1988 album Immigrant’s Daughter:

What do I see
You draggin up here
Is that for your atoning?
I know you’re sorry
I’ve seen your tears
You don’t have to show Me
What makes you think you must
Make that go away
I forgot
When I forgave
I wish you would

Just come in
Just leave that right there
Love does not care
Just come in
Lay your heart right here
You should never fear

You think you’ve crossed
Some sacred line
And now I will ignore you
If you look up
You will find
My heart is still toward you
Look at the sky
The east to the west
That’s where I threw this
When you first confessed
Let it go now

Just come in
Just leave that right there
Love does not care
Just come in
Lay your heart right here
You should never fear

I will forgive you
No matter what you’ve done
No matter how many times
You turn and run
I love you
I wish you’d come

Just come in
Just leave that right there
Love does not care
Just come in
Lay your heart right here
You should never fear

Arminianism and “Once Saved, Always Saved”

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up Methodist and then in my early teens became a member of the Assemblies of God. These two groups make up the first 24 years of my life as far as churches go. And both groups are firmly in the Arminian camp with regard to soteriology (the study of salvation and how it occurs). They believe that man has a free will and that while God does indeed reach out to us first, the moment that salvation first occurs comes when a person chooses to respond to God’s “wooing”, repent of his or her sins and accepts Christ as Lord and Savior and that it is not a result of unconditional election/choosing by God.

After college I moved to a new city and began attending an independent Charismatic church with a twist: they were Reformed/Calvinist with regard to salvation. They taught the doctrine of sovereign election and predestination in that salvation is all of God from beginning to end. Man’s will is so corrupted that he is unable to choose God. God therefore not only initiates in salvation, but because of man’s inability to choose Him, He chose before the foundation of the world those whom He would act upon and change their hearts so they would follow Him and respond to His call. Others, though His general call to salvation was given to them, were not chosen and would thus be left to die in their sins. The Calvinist would claim that unless God acts on some, no amount of mere wooing will cause a man dead in his sins to respond to God’s call. Since God is not a universalist (meaning He chooses everyone and no one ends up in Hell), He either acts on some to demonstrate His undeserved grace and purposes in the world or everyone dies in their sins and goes to Hell.

This was my first encounter where Calvinism was fully explained to me. I later attended a Presbyterian church and then a non-denominational one, both of which taught the doctrine of sovereign election and predestination, and in an even better fashion than the Charismatic church that first introduced me to it. I devoured books like The Bondage of the Will by Luther, The Sovereignty of God by Arthur Pink, Chosen By God by R.C. Sproul and others. For the next 10 years or so, I was an ardent Calvinist so far as the subject of man’s salvation was concerned.

Since beginning this study of Church history, I’ve come to realize there is actually a third path that Catholics, Orthodox and others take on this subject that is neither Arminian nor Calvinist. There are even some nuances between Calvinists and Lutherans on the issues.  And I’ve come to the conclusion that I can no longer honestly affirm the soteriology of Calvinism, at least not the way it is typically explained.  But that’s a discussion for another time that requires some deep thinking on Occam, Aquinas, Scholasticism and nominalist notions that I’m ill-equipped to discuss at the moment. My focus is the issue of eternal security, or more colloquially, “once saved, always saved.”

Growing up Arminian, this notion never made a bit of sense to me. But once I became a Calvinist, it made perfect sense. Why? Because if a person’s salvation is utterly dependent upon God choosing them, giving them the faith to believe and effectually calling them to Himself and is not a result of his own free will choice, then his it logically follows that his salvation is ultimately accomplished by God as well. In other words, his salvation never in any way depended upon his own efforts. It was all of God. Therefore, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it in Christ Jesus.” In this picture, God is the author, sustainer and finisher of salvation in all whom He has chosen. No one He chooses can fall away because it’s not ultimately up to them and their efforts.

But in an Arminian context, it becomes completely illogical. As soon as you insert the idea that God does not sovereignly choose some to salvation and that He merely calls/woos/persuades people, but the person makes a free will choice, you have to leave open the possibility that at some point down the road, a person can use their free will to “unchoose.” They can later reject God and His offer of grace and salvation and turn away from Him.  

Other non-Baptist Arminians affirm this in various ways. Without detailing all the nuances of difference, it generally works out something like this: A person could come to Christ, be “born again” and obtain salvation. And while they don’t generally believe that any one sin in and of itself would cause someone to instantly lose salvation, they would affirm that a pattern of unrepentant sin, over time, would have a corrosive effect on the person’s heart and eventually they would by their own actions and a change of their heart and will, have turned away from the faith. They will have “lost salvation” and if they died in that state, would be condemned to hell. And of course they would also affirm that it could be more explicit such as a person deciding at some point that they simply no longer believe in God at all, or even if God is real, they no longer wish to obey or serve Him. Such a person has made an explicit rejection of God and will have forfeited salvation as well. Even Catholics, though not considered Arminian, affirm that a person can “lose salvation” by their actions after the initial moment of repentance and justification. 

For all of the Baptist huffing and puffing about free will against the Calvinists, they completely deny human free will once a person has made a sincere repentance and has committed their life to Christ. I find it odd that they think that a person who has not been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, in their darkened state has the free will ability to choose God, but that once a person has done so, they no longer have a free will! They simply CANNOT decide to walk away from Him. And when you point out examples of those who came to Christ, lived for years as faithful believers, but then at some point walked away from the faith and rejected God or have lived for years in unrepentant sin then died, they say that the person simply never was truly a believer. Mind boggling.

So to me, there are two groups being logically consistent with the beliefs they claim to hold. The Calvinists and the non-Baptist “free-willers.” The Calvinist can logically affirm “once saved, always saved” because salvation is effected by God alone and He is not wishy washy. He chose those whom He would save before the foundations of the world and all those whom He has chosen will persevere to the end, being upheld and sustained by Him. Methodists, Catholics and other free-will affirmers can logically affirm that because man must cooperate with the offer of grace to obtain salvation, if the same man later chooses to cease cooperating or to explicitly turn his back on God and reject that grace, he will have forfeited salvation. But this crazy idea that human beings can only choose God, but are not allowed or are unable to “unchoose” Him simply doesn’t add up.

Thoughts?

Ash Wednesday

May the Lord bless all of you as we move into this penitential season of Lent. I pray that He will grant you His grace as you enter this focused time of prayer and fasting, helping you grow in holiness and in the fruits of the Spirit.

I’ll leave you today with this collect from the Book of Common Prayer and hopefully have a new blog post up in the next couple of days.

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The role of feelings

The kids were sick this past Sunday and it was my turn to go to church, so I took the opportunity to go to the Anglican church. I needed some liturgy in my life.

Anyway, as I was in the service I was struck by how ruled by feelings I can be. The main part of the service, the Eucharist, was wonderful as always. But the rest of the service was less inspiring. First, the organ at the church they are using until their place is built has stopped working, so it was piano only (and they indicated that’s how it would be in the new building since they won’t have an organ right away). Then, I didn’t know any of the hymns and they weren’t particularly good (Anglican hymnody pales in comparison to that of the Methodists to me). And finally the main rector wasn’t there this week so there was a guest speaker. He was ok, but frankly, I’ve become quite used to hearing excellent teachers on Sunday mornings.

So I was sitting in the service, sorting through my feelings. I worry sometimes that I over-romanticize things, then get tired of it or bored when the reality doesn’t live up to the ideal in my head. Here I was in exactly the kind of church I’ve been dying to go to and everything was seemingly conspiring against me to make it less than inspiring.

It troubles me that I’m like this. And I’ll admit, it’s not just a concern for me with Anglicanism, but with any thoughts of becoming Catholic. I don’t want to feel this way. This is a big deal to drag my wife and family into a tradition that is foreign to them and totally different from either of our immediate family. It can’t be done on simply matters of taste and preference, which can then be so easily affected by the lack of an organ or second-rate hymnody. It’s got to be about something deeper. And I also understand that worship ultimately isn’t about me, it’s about God. I do benefit and receive many blessings from worshiping God, but the main reason for being there on Sunday mornings isn’t for me to get something, it’s for me to give something.

And on an intellectual level, I know that if I become convinced that certain beliefs are true and are important, and I know that the church I’m attending doesn’t believe that way but another option in town does, then I should start attending the church that teaches correctly. This becomes an even bigger deal if I become convinced of the claims the Catholic Church makes because it’s not just a matter of this doctrine or that one, but it’s a matter of believing that it is the Church that Christ and the Apostles founded and that it has been given the authority to interpret Scripture and determine correct doctrine and practice. If I’m convinced something of that magnitude is true, how much do my feelings on how inspiring the Sunday service is really matter? “Not much” is my educated guess. But it depresses me to think that I’d be locked into a style of worship that really isn’t open to debate the way it is in Protestant circles and because of my ephemeral feelings, I may grow bored with.

Maybe you think I’m worrying about nothing, but this is the way my mind works. I’ve jumped on trendy things in the past and have a natural bent toward things that are different from what most of my family or friends are into. Then about the time they begin to come around on it, I’ve moved on to the next thing. To some degree I wonder if my dalliance with Calvinism was that way. I was so convinced it was the right view of Scripture and salvation. Now, not so much. Would it be like this for this liturgy or Catholicism issue? Because that’s a whole lot of pain, stress and upheaval for something that could change in 5-10 years.

10 Really Bad Reasons Not To Have The Lord’s Supper

From The Blogging Parson.

My favorites:
7. We haven’t had it for so long that now it is weird.

10. Having done away with the old formal ways of doing the Lord’s Supper, we can’t decide on a new, less formal way of doing it that isn’t awkward and weird.

Read the rest at his blog.

Six Flags Over Jesus

“Yeah, that’s good. I guess I was thinking a little less theologically and more practical philosophy of ministry stuff. For example, missional is the opposite of attractional. The attractional church puts on the dog and pony show to get people in the door. Being a sacramental church seems to free us from the need to put on some other program. I’ve been feeling very whiny lately about the way modern evangelicalism has put a lot of pressure on po’ widdle me to provide a full service church for religious consumers. In a sacramental church I imagine I could say, “Look, I’ll minister the Word and sacraments. Y’know, the stuff that gets you to heaven? You want any of that other crap you can do it yourself.” ”

This was a quote from a Lutheran pastor on another blog. It encapsulates well one of the issues I have with the modern evangelical church model. I’ve been involved with various contemporary evangelical churches for over 20 years now. And as my previous mentions on my religious mutt background attest, they aren’t confined to one denomination or any denomination at all. These churches span the spectrum including Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist (my parents’ church, not mine), United Methodist, non-denominational charismatic and non-denominational non-charismatic. To varying degrees, all of them have a sort of “all things to all people” approach. Now, don’t take that to the nth degree or anything. All of them are solid, Bible-believing churches well within the evangelical mainstream doctrinally. And these churches are run by and attended by many, many people who love God. But their ministry approach definitely reflects this notion.

Here’s the problem: it is an exhausting and expensive model to maintain. Almost every one of these churches have activities and “ministry opportunities” going on all week long. There are home cell groups, men’s ministries, women’s ministries, Bible studies, children’s church, nursery, Sunday Schools, singles groups, divorce care, puppet teams, drama teams, a contemporary service, a traditional service. The sheer amount of manpower to head up all of these things and keep them running year around can be staggering. Factor in that when it involves someone that has the gift of teaching or another specific talent, and that there aren’t necessarily a ton of those people in a given congregation, the burn out potential is rather high for the handful that get called on all the time to run these things.

Then there’s the praise band, the orchestra, the choir, the audio/visual team, the props team. The bar has been seriously raised in this regard over the years. Not only do you need people with the expertise to do all this stuff, but also, it’s not cheap. Lighting, sound gear, video equipment, computers and software…the stuff you find in many contemporary churches rival what you’d see at a rock concert a few years ago.

And what is the effect on the congregants? I don’t want to paint everyone with one broad brush, but this game of oneupmanship between churches (state of the art technology, elaborate children’s ministry classrooms, etc) tends to create a consumerist mentality. We shop for a church based on superficial concerns. Rather than settling into a church where true fellowship happens, we get lured by the sheer deluge of opportunities. Collective activity replaces real community. Cool and “relevant” (the most tired and overused word in Christian circles) presentations and videos overshadow that which has sustained the Church for 2000 years: the ministry of the Word and the sacraments.

Also, the net effect of the money and manpower that it takes to keep all these plates spinning and working to their full potential is that there are a lot less people-hours and dollars going toward the church reaching past its own four walls and just ministering to itself and instead reaching its community. How often do we hear conservative Christians rant against government welfare programs and the taxes needed to sustain them while pulling up every Sunday to a concert hall with a pint-sized Six Flags Over Jesus right next to it?

What if the church focused on having a reasonable worship and educational space that is conducive to the sacred (read: you’re allowed to have it look pretty and have an aesthetic that denotes that it’s a place of worship, not a warehouse, gymnasium or someone’s oversized living room), resisted the temptation to just keep building and building rather than church planting and then focused those resources of people and money toward serving the community they live in? All kinds of possibilities come to mind but some ideas would be: weekly free car repair for single women/mothers, free tutoring services for kids in a disadvantaged area of town, organizing volunteers to help the homeless, linking up with existing ministries like Habitat for Humanity, putting our pro-life beliefs into practice by starting a program and fund to encourage women locally not to abort but to give their child up for adoption (and having many more Christian families consider this other than when they can’t have biological children), organizing and funding free health clinics for the uninsured.

I could go on for days. You could probably think of many others. These are the kinds of things we could be doing…if we weren’t taxing ourselves with programs, ministries and expenses that leave us tapped out both financially and physically. And I will guarantee you, if we started handling church this way, concentrating on being (as the quote put it) missional and sacramental rather than attractional, the reputation of the Church and Christians in this world would be much, much different. You don’t draw people to Jesus by your amazing technology and Swiss Army knife ministry approach. People are drawn to Him the same way they always have been, through love and serving.

Musical Disconnect

This will be quick. I’m in church this morning. We went to the contemporary service this week. It was fine for the most part. But sometimes I wonder if the worship leader pays attention to the lyrics of the songs he chooses.

After one song is done, the band goes quiet for a few seconds. Then the drummer starts in with a driving beat on the toms and kick drum. A drum solo of sorts. He does this for several bars and then the lyrics start:

In the secret,
In the quiet place
In the stillness You are there
In the secret,
In the quiet hour I wait only for You
Cause, I want to know You more

Shouldn’t lyrics talking about the “secret, quiet place” and the “stillness” where you wait on the Lord be accompanied by music that would convey that thought as well?

Call me crazy…

A Dilemma for Protestants

Here’s an interesting dilemma for Protestants. We argue against the infallibility of the Pope on the basis that no man can perfectly hear God and infallibly declare doctrine. There’s also some confusion about the difference between infallibility on matters of doctrine and personal sinlessness but we won’t dig too much into that.

Now, at the same time, we affirm the infallibility of a book…a book written by humans that we know were not sinless, that we believe nevertheless were able to produce infallible teaching as they were guided and enabled by the Holy Spirit.

The difference in these two views is only by a matter of degrees. One accepts infallible teaching and doctrine directly from a man who occupies a specific office and believes that the Holy Spirit enables him to speak infallibly on matters of faith and practice. The other simply accepts the same thing from a variety of men in written form. And on top of that, the one that believes in the infallibility of the Pope when speaking ex cathedra on matters of faith and practice affirms that such teaching still must not contradict anything in the Bible.

So my question is, if you can accept by faith that imperfect men could be infallibly guided by the Holy Spirit to produce an infallible Bible, why is the notion that the Holy Spirit could infallibly guide a Pope in the same manner such a non-starter?

Stuggling to Worship

I was attending the Methodist church this past Sunday and chose to go to the “traditional” service because I like the new pastor that teaches there and at least I get to hear some old hymns. All started out well with one of my favorites, “Praise To The Lord, The Almighty.”

But then we got to a point in the service where the music director typically makes a medley of hymns together that we sing. Today he decided to focus on heaven as the theme since the pastor’s message was on the Scripture text, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” The song line up was a trinity of perhaps my least liked popular evangelical hymns:

“I’ll Fly Away”
“When the Roll is Called Up Yonder”
“When We All Get To Heaven”

I struggle so much when songs like this are sung. And I don’t think I’m alone. As I scanned the congregation, I noticed a fairly consistent pattern. The older folks (those 60 and above, which included the music director) seemed to love it. They had smiles on the their faces and sang with some gusto, nodding or lightly bouncing to the music. Anyone under 50, and especially those 40 and under seemed at best subdued and at worst bored. The melodies and time signature just have that bouncy, happy-clappy hoedown feeling to them that sounds dated in all the wrong ways. In fact, the whole middle of the service, from a musical perspective, just not doing it for me. In addition to the above medley, the choir did the Southern Gospel classic, “Midnight Cry” (a popular song about the rapture coming any moment) which just made it worse.

But beyond the music itself, I struggle with the lyrics and subject matter. I struggle for a couple of opposing reasons. For example, a couple of verses from “I’ll Fly Away”:

Oh how glad and happy when we meet
I’ll fly away
No more cold iron shackles on my feet
I’ll fly away

Just a few more weary days and then
I’ll fly away
To a land where joys will never end
I’ll fly away

Is it unreasonable to feel that a mindset like “just a few more weary days and then…” and “no more cold iron shackles on my feet” when referring to this life is a tad pessimistic? And I guess for me, when I’m in church on Sunday morning, I want to worship God. It’s great to hear messages that encourage or convict me and help me grow, but my real purpose for being there is me offering myself, my worship to God. In a sense it’s great to look forward to eternity with Him, but it doesn’t feel like a worship song to me. Compare the lyrics of that medley to the opening hymn we did today:

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
The King of creation
O my soul, praise Him , for He is thy health and salvation
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near
Praise Him in glad adoration

Praise to the Lord,
Who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth
Shelters thee under His wings , yea, so gently sustaineth
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord,
Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him
All that hath life and breath,
Come now with praises before Him
Let the ‘amen’ sound from His people again
Gladly for’ere we adore Him

To me, that’s a song of worship…talking about God, what He’s done, His attributes and majesty. “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” just doesn’t compare to that. And that doesn’t even touch the explicit Left Behind style rapture theology of it and “Midnight Cry.” I just found myself straining to connect with the songs at all. Perhaps some of it is the age thing mentioned above. The closer you get to the end of life on earth, the more aches and pains and troubles you’ve accumulated or seen, the more you long to just get out of here. But when you’re young and have a lot of life ahead of you, you look forward to living it. You want to see your kids grow up, get married and have kids of their own. You want to do exciting and meaningful things for God down here. You’re not just waiting for the rapture or to “fly away.” It’s great to look forward to heaven one day, but sometimes people seem like they are “so heavenly minded, they’re no earthly good.”

Now, for that opposing reason. Setting aside the feeling that none of the hymns in that medley above really seem “worshipful” to me and taking them just as songs with a message…is there something wrong that I don’t feel more moved by them? At all? Shouldn’t I view myself as a “stranger and alien” here? I mean, I do want to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus. I do look forward to a time where I’m not fighting this constant internal war with myself over sin and I get at least some answers for all the evil and pain and misery that does exist down here (though being an American mitigates how much of that touches me directly). As I was singing these songs and trying to connect, trying to understand what the older folks were getting out of them, I felt guilty that it simply wasn’t happening. No matter how hard I tried to resist the “I hate these songs” urge within me and absorb the message, it didn’t work. They seemed escapist, defeatist, trite and unmeaningful. Yet I felt like as a good Christian, I shouldn’t feel that way.

Anyone else feel this way at church sometimes? Struggling mightily to squeeze whatever you can out of the service or the music or the preaching, largely failing, and all the while feeling guilty that you’re not “more spiritual and can see God moving in it? What do you do about it? As I continue to struggle with the desire to be in a more traditional, liturgical worship environment, but having to consider all of the needs of my family and settling for something different for the time being, this is the hardest thing I deal with. And I don’t want to feel this way every Sunday. I just want to worship God and connect with Him.

Protestants and "Spiritual" Means vs "Tangible" Means

I’m reading This Is My Body: An Evangelical Discovers The Real Presence by Mark Shea. It’s a short read, only about 50 pages long. But it’s really posing some interesting thoughts to me and one passage in particular stuck out. He’s speaking of the Protestant suspicion of anything that smacks of “works” religion or falling back into the same error the Galatians made over the issue of circumcision. This same sense of unease or outright suspicion is felt toward the Catholic doctrine surrounding the “Real Presence” in the Eucharist and seeing it as a “means of grace.” And Mr. Shea felt much the same way at one point. But he had some interesting thoughts as his evangelical pastor preached on the Bread of Life discourse in John 6:

Do not misunderstand. My pastor was certainly no exponent of Catholic theology. Rather, in classical evangelical fashion, this good man held that “the teaching of Christ is the true bread from heaven” and that the passage had no Eucharistic significance…he urged, we must become mature in Christ “by eating His word” and relying on the grace of God working in and through fellow Bible-believing Christians. Only thus, he said, could we hope to grow.

…It suddenly bore in on me that this grasp of biblical teaching as “food for maturity” was strikingly similar to the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. I saw at once that regular biblical fellowship and regular Holy Communion are both a form of ritual, both “means of grace.” The only difference is that in the former, God transubstantiates paper, ink, and the human voice into His Word; whereas in the latter, according to Catholics, He changes the bread and wine into something even more impressive. My difficulty, then, was not with the idea of ritual “means of grace” as such, but with a God Who might touch me in a non-verbal, non-cerebral, non-spiritual way.

This really is a crucial point. Protestants think in terms of receiving grace “by faith” and what we mean without explicitly saying so is that “by faith” means “intangible.” Grace in the biblical sense is only experienced by believing and trusting in Christ, not by any physical means. And this does explain much of our reaction against the Catholic view of the Eucharist as a “means of grace” (literally, a physical manner in which God’s grace is transmitted to us). Yet we also believe that we are spiritually fed and matured by tangible means such as reading our Bibles, sitting under solid Biblical teaching and fellowship and sharing life with other believers. What are these things if not tangible and physical? And in believing this, we certainly don’t mean to convey the idea that God does not transmit His grace to us in other ways such as prayer, the Holy Spirit quietly working on our hearts and so on. But we affirm the notion that God works through things in the physical world He created to nurture and mature us. These are “means of His grace” to us.

So why do we have such a problem with the Catholic notion of Holy Communion being a tangible way in which God actually gives us a measure of His grace? Why are we so suspicious of means that are “non-verbal, non-cerebral and non-spiritual” yet have this glaring blind spot when it comes to other such “Protestant” means like the written Scriptures, the teaching of the Word by our pastors or fellowship with other believers?

What say you?

Tim Russert 1950-2008

I know it’s off the normal subject around here, but I wanted to send my heartfelt prayers and condolences to the family of Tim Russert, NBC Washington Bureau Chief and moderator of Meet The Press. I can’t imagine Sunday mornings and news segments throughout the week, especially during this election season, without his insights, interviews and commentary.

Tim, you’ll be sorely missed.

Six Denominations in Six Weeks

Great article up on RelevantMagazine.com from a guy who has attended Southern Baptist churches all his life and decided he needed to branch out and experience how some of his fellow brothers and sisters worshipped on Sundays. In six weeks time, he visited a different Southern Baptist church than his own (with a different style as well), United Methodist, Presbyterian (PCUSA), Roman Catholic, Episcopal and Assemblies of God.

Go read the whole thing as it’s a really neat experiment and he’s a witty writer. I just wanted to share this excerpt on his Episcopal visit. I could have almost written this for him verbatim:

Then we recite the Nicene Creed, followed by the “Confession of Sin.” Together, as a congregation, we recite a wonderful prayer, including this passage:

We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

When we finish, the priest says, “Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you of all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ,” and it’s such a good reminder. I love this part.

For the Eucharist, we proceed a row at a time to the front. I hear the administrants’ voices: “The body of Christ, the bread of heaven. The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.”

I can’t overemphasize the satisfaction I get from this service. It’s contemplative, reverent and serious. There’s no swaying or hand-clapping, but the congregation participates through prayers, confessions and responses. I hear more scripture read than in any Baptist service I’ve attended…

The liturgy is different, but the words are deeply meaningful. I get the sense that the focus of the service isn’t on the music, or the preaching, or even on making visitors feel comfortable. It’s on Jesus. It’s crazy how that seems so revolutionary.

Exactly.

MASH HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE

Silence is golden

I’ve now visited two different Anglican churches and two different Catholic churches and there’s something strikingly different about the atmosphere before the service compared to the atmosphere before the evangelical churches I’ve been part of.

Walk into your typical evangelical church (especially if its of the more contemporary variety) and this is the norm: People are mingling and walking around waving to people across the room. There’s people chatting and catching up with friends. The pastor is likely milling around near the front greeting people or answering a few questions. The praise band might be making some last minute sound checks or getting instruments ready. The details might vary, but the common denominator is a buzz. Chatter. Hubbub. Noise.

Walk into an Anglican or Catholic church and the first thing you notice is the silence. Not just less noisy. I mean, really quiet. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a small or large congregation. Just quietness with people kneeling to pray or sit silently and prepare their hearts for worship. Sure, people are greeting each other, hugging necks and shaking hands…outside the building on the church steps or in the courtyard. Once you step into the lobby and walk through the doors to the nave, there’s a hush that comes over everyone and they silently take their seats.

Think about this: how many times do you have an opportunity outside of crawling into bed to go to sleep where you’re alert and in a conducive setting to just have glorious silence?

Now, I realize that church functions as a place of fellowship with fellow believers. We’re called to live this life with God in community with others. So I don’t wish to deny the importance of connecting with other Christians at church. But I do have to ask: what is the primary reason we go to church on Sundays? Or better yet, what should be the primary reason?

As important as fellowship and connecting with fellow Christians is, it doesn’t hold a candle to the most important reason: to worship God and give him the honor that’s He’s due. And part of offering proper worship involves taking time to focus on Him and not the hundreds of other things from our everyday life that clamor for our attention. It’s examining oneself and considering how the life we lived over the last week lines up with how we know He’s calling us to be. It’s pondering the blessings and provision that He’s given us and cultivating gratitude for it all.

I don’t know about you, but I find it terribly hard to concentrate and to do that with at least three conversations on the football game yesterday or the funny thing the kids did this week or the rundown of where she got that new purse and those earrings going on within 5 feet of me.

And I’ve actually tried. I haven’t gotten into this lately because I don’t want to be perceived as whining, but we’re attending the Methodist church for a while as the new senior pastor is reportedly going to be instituting some changes and bringing in more traditional elements over the next few months and my wife really wanted me to give it a chance. One time I went in to the auditorium before my wife to get us seats because she wanted to stop by the restroom. I knew I had a couple of minutes and decided to pray and prepare my heart for worship. I was concentrating so hard if I believed in ESP I might have moved furniture. But with someone talking on a cell phone on one side and two women laughing and catching up on the other, it was really hard. Another time I went to the “traditional” service alone because the rest of the family was getting over a cold. While there was no cell phone silliness, there was still the milling about and talking that made quiet reflection all but impossible.

Why are we evangelicals so averse to silence? If it’s not the big handshake and hug-a-thon at your local Baptist or Methodist church, it’s the filling of every quiet moment with music or worst of all, the tendency of my old Pentecostal days to assume that if things fell silent that it was a cue for someone to blurt out a “message” in tongues or a “word from the Lord.” It’s as if we’re scared to death of it getting quiet. We equate quietness with awkwardness or lack of activity. But the truth is, in quietness and stillness often comes some of the most powerful and enriching encounters with the Father. We assume He’s going to speak in the rushing wind or some other bombastic, obvious manner and instead He’s whispering in a voice that can only be heard when we’re quiet and listening.

And surrounding ourselves with constant chatter and background noise isn’t helping us hear Him.

Confession is good for the soul

I’ve been thinking about this recently. Right now, the groups or denominations of Christians that practice confession to a pastor or priest are Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, some Anglicans/Episcopals, some Lutherans and possibly one or two others. The vast majority of Protestants don’t do this for reasons we’re probably all familiar with: arguments about no mediator needed between us and God and so on.

My question is different though. I wonder if, as long as it could be understood rightly and that people didn’t take it being offered to mean they weren’t able to go directly to God on their own (a common misunderstanding), would this be a valuable thing for Protestants to start doing again?

I can think of some good things that might come from it:

1. It’s a good way to practice what Scripture teaches when it says “confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed.” It provides some accountability and helps us open up and be real about who we are on the inside rather than acting like everything is ok all the time.

2. It requires (if we do it correctly) us to be specific. Instead of glossing over our sins by being overly vague, we have someone there who expects to hear us be honest and can even ask follow up questions to make sure that we don’t minimize our sins when confessing them. Instead of “I’ve been struggling with my thought life” one would just admit, “I looked at pornography.” Instead of vague references to wanting to be “more Christlike in my attitude,” I admit that “I tend to be jealous of my friends who are doing well financially to the point that part of me is disappointed when I hear about the nice new things they are able to have that I’m not” or “I regularly curse at people while driving.”

3. We have an opportunity to receive wise counsel and be reminded of God’s Word regarding our struggles and sins. Sometimes in the fog of our guilt and doubt we’re not able to step outside that box and see things for how they are.

4. We get to audibly hear the words, “Your sins are forgiven.” The Anglican Book of Common Prayer has various ways the minister can say this but among them are some beautiful words to hear for someone that’s truly repentant and sorry:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has left power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive you of all your offenses; and by His authority committed to me, I absolve you of from all your sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”The Lord has put away all your sins.”

The exact wording isn’t quite as important as the message conveyed: God has forgiven you of your sins.

That can be a powerful thing. Of course I can read it in Scripture or think it in my mind, but hearing those words audibly can really drive the point home.

What do you think? Is this something that could work for us Protestants, framed and understood properly of course?

At an impasse

Well, the dreaded moment has come. I was hoping to avoid it but it’s here.

We’re at an impasse on the church question.

I’ve been visiting some different churches hoping to find something close to the Anglican one I enjoyed so much, but with a stronger children’s program and other elements my wife would like. But in this area, there doesn’t appear to be such animal. So we’re stuck between two choices: the Methodist church my wife prefers and the Anglican one I prefer.

It’s so frustrating because we’ve never been in this situation before. We’ve always been on the same page. But here we are and someone’s feelings and wants will have to give way to the other’s. One of us will have to die to self and make the best of it while the other one will try not to feel guilty for “making” their spouse be the one to sacrifice.

It sucks.

So many things to weigh. Would our children, as they get older, enjoy a smaller more formal and traditional church and all that it encompasses in terms of how they make friends who share our values and how they relate to and experience God? Or would they feel that it’s stuffy and wish it had more activities for them like a larger church would? Could I figure out a way to carve out a bastion of reverence and quiet and connection to Christian history in contemporary evangelicalism or will I be longingly be pressing my nose up against the proverbial window at what I really desire? Would the rather high socioeconomic status (which we are decidedly NOT) of the Anglican congregation be a hindrance to relating to others and getting to know them or would it be better in the more mixed economic demographic of the Methodist church? Or is having a service that’s oriented around the Eucharist as opposed to the sermon important enough to outweigh all the other factors?

There just aren’t any easy answers. Someone will be happy, someone will be disappointed.

When did choosing a church get so frickin’ hard?