John Meunier

John Wesley preached “On Charity” about the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13, which was on the lectionary for Jan. 31. I did not read it before I preached on that topic.

Here is John Wesley’s conclusion:

The sum of all that has been observed is this: Whatever I speak, whatever I know, whatever I believe, whatever I do, whatever I suffer; if I have not the faith that worketh by love, that produces love to God and all mankind, I am not in the narrow way which leadeth to life, but in the broad road that leadeth to destruction. In other words: Whatever eloquence I have; whatever natural or supernatural knowledge; whatever faith I have received from God; whatever works I do, whether of piety or mercy; whatever sufferings I undergo for conscience’ sake, even though I resist unto blood: All these things put together, however applauded of men, will avail nothing before God, unless I am meek and lowly in heart, and can say in all things, “Not as I will, but as thou wilt!”

Is being dishonest on your taxes a sin? How big a sin is it? What would you say to a church member who asked these questions?

Since few are likely to come forward and ask, should pastors in the United States talk about that issue with their congregations?

Warren Buffet is one of the wealthiest men in the world and a guru to aspiring billionaires. His observations about business and finance are often ignored by the broader market – he saw the great recession coming a few years in advance – but are usually pretty sound.

Here’s something he wrote in 1989 about the perils of institutional inertia in the business world:

My most surprising discovery: the overwhelming importance in business of an unseen force that we might call “the institutional imperative.” In business school, I was given no hint of the imperative’s existence and I did not intuitively understand it when I entered the business world. I thought then that decent, intelligent, and experienced managers would automatically make rational business decisions. But I learned over time that isn’t so. Instead, rationality frequently wilts when the institutional imperative comes into play.

For example: (1) As if governed by Newton’s First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated.

Institutional dynamics, not venality or stupidity, set businesses on these courses, which are too often misguided.

How well does this describe the behavior of the UMC over recent years? Inertia and herd-following: Do these sound familiar to anyone?

The director of communications at Claremont School of Theology sent these two links in a comment thread. They in response to recent UMC actions regarding the school.

Here is a news release about it.

Here is the president’s blog post about it.

The president said concerns about consultation with the UMC and financial matters should not be real concerns. He suggests a different reason why the UMC might be rethinking its relationship with the seminary:

The more pressing issue, it seems, may be possible questions about the School’s emerging vision to open our minds, our hearts, and our doors even wider to a rapidly changing world. Our mission is to educate students toward “ethical integrity, religious intelligence, and intercultural understanding” in order to bring about a more harmonious world in an age of violence and brokenness. I can understand how these might be uncomfortable ideas, but it is through such leadership and application of core Wesleyan principles that I believe the Church can move forward into a religiously diverse world.

Yes, Talbot. You told me.

Jeremy Smith has a fascinating post about experiential faith of clergy in the Viriginia Conference. He pulls out some really interesting comparisons between elders and local pastors around issues of spiritual disciplines and the degree to which they report an sense of God’s presence in their lives and ministry.

I don’t want to split up the conversation by talking about the issues on my blog.

Click here. Read it. Comment there.

“These go to 11.”

One of the great movie lines of my lifetime expresses well the way we often read the Bible.

The problem is not literalism. Reading the Bible for the literal – or as Wesley would say “plain” – meaning of the text is never a bad idea. Much of the Bible was written with intention that it be read literally.

The problem is looking for that key word or phrase that assures us we are getting “that little extra push over the cliff” out of our Bible reading.

Most blokes when they are struggling through their life of faith, they get to that point where they want a little more certainty. They want to know for certain that what they think is true about God or their salvation or the unrighteousness of the guy in the next pew or the woman down the street. But they can’t get there. That’s when you pull out your favorite verses and key terms. They are like the magic number 11 on the Spinal Tap amp. They tell us we are louder than the next guy. Look! It’s right there. My amp goes to 11. My Bible says I’m going to heaven and you are not. My Bible taught me five sure fire principles for a happy marriage. My pastor says those people across the street don’t understand God at all. He’s got 11 Bible versus that prove it.

All this is on my mind because lately I’ve been wrestling with “the classic Protestant” understanding of justification. For the last couple of months, I’ve been reading John Wesley’s sermons. As I’ve written before, I find them a rich resource with many insights into faith and Christian life. Reading them, of course, has given me a real tour of the Protestant understanding of justification – at least as Wesley articulated it.

Set against this has been a Bible study I’ve been a part of the last few weeks. The Short-Term Disciple Bible Study of Romans is fascinating and frustrating. It is frustrating because the overt aim of the study guide is to offer an alternative to the classic Protestant reading of Romans, but it does so without really engaging in a deep exploration of the issue. It skims quickly over deep questions and asserts much more than it argues. In the process, it gives pretty short shrift some doctrines that many Christians – and the United Methodist doctrinal standards – hold dear.

But it has gotten me to spend some time going back through the Bible trying to see how the different books speak of sin and faith and new birth and the place of works. I’ve even spent some time with the Apostolic Fathers seeing how – if at all – they raise the issues that Luther and Wesley do when they read Romans.

I come away with the sense that the classic evangelical reading is “a” possible reading, but not the only one. In the service of a certain understanding of justification by faith some things get “interpreted” to keep all the ducks in a row. (John Wesley does this in his sermon on “Justification by Faith” when he has to take into account Paul’s assertion that doers of the law will be declared righteous even if they do not know the law.)

I’m far from through with this inquiry. The good news is that I’m only 42, so I have a few more decades to work on it.

But it does make me wonder how often we are guilty of “going to 11″ when we find a summary of the gospel that works for us. We latch on to those verses that prop up our reading. We hold on to them until that day comes when we need that little extra push in the face of doubt or conflicting readings or some other moment when being able to turn our spiritual dial up one more notch would be a great help.

I believe in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead, and buried. On the third day he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven where he sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Dan Dick talked to a bunch of people about sermons. Here is part of what he learned from them:

A sermon, at its best, should clarify, demystify, raise questions, and illuminate. Where there are multiple readings and interpretations, a sermon should present them all fairly and objectively, with some guiding questions to help people make up their own minds. Sermons that are dogmatic and declarative are the least appealing. Absolutely no one likes sermons that state definitively, “this you must believe, or else!” Sermons should be like topographical maps that help hearers explore — they should not be like prepackaged tours that lead only to predetermined destinations.

Ever since Dan first published this on his blog, I’ve been trying to figure out how that looks in practice. I’m not sure I’d want to listen to this kind of sermon week after week. For one, the sheer range of questions and issues that you might encounter around any one text is immense. In presenting a laundry list of different readings, how do I possibly give the congregation enough background and context to make sense of the ways in which all the readings differ from each other?

The first line of quote above says I should clarify, demystify, raise questions, and illuminate. I’m trying to imagine what that means – especially since in the course of clarifying I’m supposed to present multiple different readings of the text.

I have hard enough time studying the text, relating it to the congregation in a meaningful way, and constructing a message that holds the interest and attention of the congregation. It sounds like the real bad news is not that I struggle to do this well, but that I’m doing the wrong things.

Here is an interesting point and counter-point about the justice of the American war in Afghanistan through the prism of Niebuhr and Yoder.

Ron Buford calls on Reinhold Niebuhr to help explain his defense of American military action in Afghanistan. Niebuhr, he notes, did not accept the notion that all evils were equal. He saw a hierarchy of lesser and greater evils. War is evil, but sometimes there are greater evils that require war.

Kim Fabricius – citing John Howard Yoder – takes exception to Buford’s framing of the issue and even his reading of Niebuhr. Fabricius argues that the central issue is whether the nation or the church is the bearer of history. It is the counter-cultural church, which works “with the grain of the universe,” that must remain true to its Christ-given pacifism.

I find it interesting that in this exchange, Buford summons the lessons of World War II and Fabricius summons the ghosts of Viet Nam to make their points. Fabricius’ use of Viet Nam is particularly interesting to me because he reads Niebuhr’s response to it as a refutation of Niebuhr’s position, but this does not make sense to me. Niebuhr would have been the last person to be surprised that a nation might find itself doing all sorts of bad when it had intended – at least in its best moments – to do good. Niebuhr’s robust doctrine of sin allowed quite easily for the idea that all our attempts at positive action can end up a hellish nightmare.

Neither the state nor the church is sinless. Both can fall into great evil. Both sometimes rush into great evil with passionate glee.

The question – it seems to me – is about the relative depth of evil. Is all evil equal? Or are some evils worse than others? When Jesus healed on the sabbath was he not saying their are some goods that are greater than others? Does that not imply that some evils are also relative?

I do not have  fully formed theology on this. I’m sure Yoder and Fabricius would say I am missing something essential or not thinking clearly about it.

Here is what I do see. In Haiti right now there are men with guns who are there to shoot people if they try to steal the food aid that is meant to be distributed to all who have need. That is a good thing. It is tragic that it is needed, but it is still needed. The fact that before the earthquake there were men with guns who spent their time trying to suppress political dissent or protect a corrupt system does not change the facts on the ground right now.

To say that the men with guns in Haiti are doing a necessary – and relatively good thing – now does not extoll order through violence as a Christian ideal. It merely notes that people need food, shelter, and clothing and the only way to give it to them is to get our hands dirty.

As John Wesley wrote in his pamphlet on Original Sin the mere existence of war is a sign of the falleness of humanity. But fallen we are. Until all are perfected in faith, we will have to live and act in a world in which choosing the lesser of two evils is a more holy option than passing by the side of the road with clean hands.

I feel that so much of what I encounter in the church is a reaction to some Baptist preacher that people had bad experiences with some time in their past.

Some Christians are so frightened of “exclusivist” language that any doctrine or even translation that suggests belief in Jesus Christ is important for salvation is rejected. But why must we toss out not just much of the Bible but centuries of Christian theology because we don’t want to say Muslims and Buddhists burn in Hell?

I do not understand the reaction. I think it is bad for Christianity. It is bad for us. It makes void the gospel.

Thus ends the rant.