John Meunier

I looked up Isaiah 55:8 in five or six translations. In everyone, it said something like “my thoughts are not your thoughts.”

Then I looked in my new Common English Bible. It says, “my plans” instead of thoughts.

Anyone out there who actually knows Hebrew who can explain the novel choice by the CEB?

Marcus Borg has a way of getting my goat. A recent example can be found in an interview at Patheos:

There also are some passages in the Bible that, even when we understand them perfectly—they are wrong. Just to pull out one example: In 1 Samuel 14, God commands Saul to kill all the men, women and children of the Amalekites, a neighboring people with whom they are at war. Now, I can’t believe that God ever commanded anyone to go do that. Kill all the babies? I don’t think there’s any point in trying to explain away that passage and say that somehow God isn’t commanding actual death. No, the verse is perfectly clear. It says God commanded Saul to go kill all the people, including the babies. And I think we must say: That’s plain wrong. God never commanded Saul to go kill infants.

I believe Borg meant to reference 1 Samuel 15, not 14, which is a story about Jonathan being spared after violating the king’s orders. Nonetheless, I understand why Borg recoils at the notion of God ordering infants killed, but he knows quite well that the single verse he highlights is not an isolated incident. I’ll bring up the binding of Isaac, the Exodus, the destruction of Sodom, the flood, Joshua’s conquests, and the death of David’s child as a short list.

Lots of children and babies face death in the Bible.

Do I understand this? No, not at all. I am horrified by it. Does that mean I’m ready to take out a razor blade with Borg and slice 1 Samuel 15 and other verses out of the Bible? No.

Out of curiosity, I went to see what John Wesley wrote of this passage in his Notes on the Old Testament.

Here is the key verse from the King James version: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” (1 Samuel 15:3)

And here is what Wesley wrote about the verse by key word:

Destroy – Both persons and goods, kill all that live, and consume all things without life, for I will have no name nor remnant of that people left, whom long since I have devoted to utter destruction.

Spare not – Shew no compassion or favour to any of them. The same thing repeated to prevent mistake, and oblige Saul to the exact performance hereof.

Slay, &c. – Which was not unjust, because God is the supreme Lord of life, and can require his own when he pleaseth; infants likewise are born in sin, and therefore liable to God’s wrath. Their death also was rather a mercy than a curse, as being the occasion of preventing their sin and punishment.

Ox, &c. – Which being all made for man’s benefit, it is not strange if they suffer with him, for the instruction of mankind.

Yes, Wesley wrote that killing infants was a mercy as it spared them from God’s wrath for the sins they would commit as they grew to maturity. We can be horrified by the thought, but I am not willing with Marcus Borg to declare Wesley wrong because I struggle to reconcile the testimony of Scripture with my own ideas about God. I’m not willing to do that out of hand.

This is deeply troubling and challenging, but my deep sense is that any simple and easy answer – whether Borg’s or Wesley’s – misses something fundamental. I’ll keep my razor blade for my chin whiskers.

I’m one of those people who always thinks of the thing I wish I had said three minutes after a conversation ends.

The other day a person was talking about some people whose conduct was upsetting. The person said, “Enjoy your time in Hell.”

At the time, I said we should always pray for people. I wish I had been stronger in what I said.

I wish I had said that Christians never, never take any satisfaction or joy in the thought of anyone being condemned to Hell. Doing so is the opposite of loving our neighbor. Whether a person stand or falls is between them and their Lord. We do not condemn anyone to Hell and do not wish it for anyone. We do not relish the thought of anyone suffering under the power of sin and death in this life or suffering through eternity.

I pray I will be quicker to speak next time.

Pastor preaches on authority of leaders. Congregation speaks out against him. Applause. Confrontation. Wow.

News story about the church here.

My former bishop used to say United Methodists are people of five books: the Bible, the United Methodist Hymnal, The Book of Worship, the Book of Discipline, and the Book of Resolutions.

Dan Dick may not agree with that, but he does call on UMs to dig out our Book of Resolutions to understand who we truly are:

And this is why our church is in the state it is in.  At least for United Methodists, we lost our way when we jumped the mission and social justice ship for the church growth cruiser.  We denied our core identity (read the 100 paragraphs in the 2008 Book of Discipline — YES, including the Social Principles.  Then see if you can hunt up a copy of the 2008 Book of Resolutions.  While not a codifier of individual beliefs, these documents do define what it means to be “United Methodist,” — though, because we stopped teaching these things in our churches, most people don’t know that this is what the UMC is all about…) and drifted off course to look more and more like independent, non-denominational, congregational churches and less and less like a connectional church committed to being Christ for the world.  Oops.

Dan’s post makes me wonder if you can group United Methodists in part by where we look in history when trying to define who and what we are. Some of us keep going back to Wesley. Dan appears to be reaching for the early to mid-20th century. Some folks say there is no answer to “who we are” and look to the future for us to create it.

I don’t know if this kind of historical geography is helpful, but it might at least help us understand our disagreements.

A commentary at the UM Portal by Lovett Weems and Tom Berlin highlights the clarifying power of the words “so that” for a congregation.

Lovett remembers well the first time he asked a group of church leaders to try a so that exercise at an annual leadership institute held by a major teaching church. Participants were evenly divided between pastors and laity. He invited each of them to complete the following sentence: “Next summer our church will have a vacation Bible school (VBS) so that . . .”

They began working. Few people were writing anything. They were looking around or staring at their paper. When he asked participants to share, the first volunteer reported: “Next summer our church will have a VBS so that the children of our church will experience a VBS.”

The second example offered was: “Next summer our church will have a VBS so that children will experience church as fun.” Lovett’s first thought was, “I’m not sure you need curriculum for that.”

Lovett asked the participants to break into small groups to complete the task. After a time there was one that captured well the purpose of the exercise. That statement was: “Next summer our church will have a VBS so that the children of our church will come to know and love God more and that we will reach children in the community with God’s love whom we have not reached before.”

Thank goodness. “Okay,” Lovett said to the group, “let’s work with this one for a bit.”

I recall a similar experience at a church by asking the question “why do we do that?” A group of harried and worn out leaders were talking about a community supper they used to host and wondering if they should bring it back.

Why do we do that?

The actual answer was that it was a form of church member recruitment. They hoped that some people would come to the dinner and then visit for worship.

I said that if that was the reason why we hosted the dinner, then we could probably find better ways to spend our energies on evangelism.

As a contrast to illustrate the point of the question, I said that if the goal of the supper was to feed people in the community, as Christ commands we do, then we might likewise find better ways to use the limited resources of our small congregation to provide food to the hungry in our community.

The “why” question was quite helpful because it brought to the surface the worthy but not optimally effective goal of the activity and allowed us to talk about other possible goals and methods of reaching them.

The trick with this, of course, is when you start asking people to explain “so that” about sacred cows.

So here’s a game to try: “We worship together each Sunday so that …”

Christian Century offers its report from Wild Goose. I don’t know if the story is a good overview of the event, but I’m sure the magazine is at least sympathetic to the impulses behind the festival.

A few quotes that caught my eye.

Diana Butler Bass, an Episcopalian author who studies decline and renewal in the mainline church, spoke of a “new spiritual awakening” afoot in which Amer­ican Christians are being profoundly alter­ed by contact not only with Chris­tians from other parts of the globe but also with Hindus, Buddhists and nature spiritualists. Citing the late church historian William McLoughlin, Bass said this new religious syncretism might constitute the nation’s Fourth Great Awakening.

And:

The Wild Goose Festival also featured a Native American sweat lodge where people squeezed into a small tent for a hot, intense period of communal prayer.

“I believe that the kingdom of God will be here, and I look to Native Americans as a model for how it will be here,” said Karen Barletto of Norfolk, Virginia, during a session with Richard Twiss, a Sioux pastor and activist from South Dakota. “A lot of us are unlearning our Christian ways. The beauty of this festival is that we’re opening up to the idea that there isn’t just one authoritative way.”

And:

But the festival was much more successful at attracting gays and lesbians and even people who don’t claim to be Christian than it was at attracting ethnic minorities. Bray picked up on that fact, joking about a sandwich board seen throughout the festival that had the letters godisnowhere, forcing the reader to decide whether it says “God is nowhere” or “God is now here.” It might say, “God, is snow here?” Bray said, “because all I see is white people.”

And:

But Wild Goose attracted its fair share of cynics about the church. “I’m beginning to think that Christianity at an institutional level is a complete failure,” said Gayle Evers, a 55-year-old Texan raised in the Church of Christ, married in the Catholic Church, em­ployed in a Meth­odist finance office and a former student at a Quaker seminary. “I am searching for Christians who believe we’re called to live sacrificially. . . . I am here because I have become disillusioned with the power and the hierarchy.”

Adam Hamilton, pastor of United Methodist megachurch Church of the Resurrection, posted the following in an open Facebook group:

My own assessment of the UMC is that in the last twenty years we’ve shifted towards the center theologically and a reclaiming of our evangelical heritage. I believe the United Methodist Church is at its best when it is passionately evangelical, firmly committed to justice, and with a liberal spirit that is always seeking truth, always willing to question old assumptions, and always open to reform.

Part of what I love about the United Methodist Church is that we affirm the historic essentials of the Christian faith but recognize that the 3 lbs of brain mater we each possess is hardly adequate to fully comprehend the glory of God. So we tend to do theology with a bit more humility than some. My hunch is that when we get to heaven we may all be in for a few surprises concerning the theological convictions about which we’re willing to divide here on earth.

While there are some in our church who have capitulated on the historic essentials – this is a decreasing number of people. I know most of our bishops and few if any are where Sprague was. We have the most committed and gifted group of bishops in my lifetime – and most have a passion for Christ and care very much about the church’s faithfulness. This does not mean that they are socially conservative. But I am not certain that social conservativism is to be equated with Christian faithfulness and at some points I am confident it is likely opposed to Christian faithfulness.

Regarding the issue of homosexuality, this is, in my mind, an issue of differences over biblical hermeneutics and one’s theology of scripture. My personal belief is that twenty years from now most Christians will see this issue differently than we do today. I think this may be an issue about which God’s views may not be adequately summarized in the six scriptures that specifically address same sex intimacy in the Bible. If anyone is interested, check out my chapter on this issue in my book, When Christians Get it Wrong.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting with many of our young clergy in the UMC – mentoring some in the Young Pastor’s Network and meeting with others as I speak at annual conferences. They are overwhelmingly evangelical in their theological orientation and also overwhelmingly progressive in their social stances including their views on homosexuality.

I, for one, am more hopeful about the UMC than ever, and I believe our blend of liberal evangelicalism with its emphasis on both holiness and grace, the intellect and the heart, personal holiness and social holiness is one that stands the greatest chance of reaching a new generation of unchurched young adults.

Religion News Service has a good overview of the debate about whether the man who murdered scores of people in Norway is a “Christian terrorist.”

Prominent blogger Andrew Sullivan is quoted in the article:

Andrew Sullivan, the popular blogger and Catholic, also expounded on that point, writing that “it is obvious that Christians can commit murder, assault, etc. They do so every day. Because, as Christian orthodoxy tells us, we are all sinners. To say that no Christian can ever commit murder is a sophist’s piffle. … Do the countless criminals who have gone to church or believe in Jesus immediately not count as Christians the minute they commit the crime? Of course not.”

Sullivan’s point raises a issue that comes up prominently in John Wesley’s preaching. Wesley would disagree with Sullivan. Quoting 1 John 3:6, Wesley would say that anyone who abides in Christ does not sin. Or citing 1 John 3:9, he would say whoever is born of God does not sin. We all have sinned, Wesley would say, but those who are in Christ do not sin.

For Wesley, outward sins — and mass murder would certainly qualify — come about only as the result of someone who has fallen away from Christ. In his sermon “On Sin in Believers,” Wesley writes that sin remains in us even after its power is broken. We in the flesh will never be free of sin, but we are free from its rule. We will be tempted to sin, but we have in Christ the power to overcome it.

But Christians do not always overcome sin. We give reign to the sin that remains in us, which gives rise to the need for even justified and “born again” Christians to repent, as Wesley writes in his sermon “The Repentance of Believers.” We give room for inward sin to grow into outward sin. As Christ will not abide where sin is allowed to reign, we separate ourselves from Christ when we do that.

Having sinned, the justified Christian has in a real sense has been pulled away from or willingly turned his or her back on Christ.

Is such a person, in that moment, rightly called a Christian? I suppose the answer depends on what we consider the mark of a Christian. Is it the performance of certain outward rituals or public proclamations? Then only other rituals or proclamations, I suppose, would remove us from the name of Christian.

If Christianity is about inner change and the state of our heart, then that is the standard by which we call a person Christian.

The mass murderer in question remains a baptized member of the Church of Norway, but I do not see any way that he can rightly be called a Christian.