John H Armstrong

Trinity Sunday

Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost Sunday in the Western Church. Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday. I love the way the cyclical and seasonal Church calendar requires the people of God to remember the great historical facts and doctrinal truths of the Christian religion. I grew up in a conservative church and yet I do not ever remember a serious discussion of the Trinity, much less a Sunday given to the celebration of the doctrine of the Triune God.

Following the lectionary I will preach this morning at First Reformed Church in South Holland, Illinois, from Matthew 28:16-20. This is one of those rare texts where you have all three persons in the Godhead referenced in one sentence. And the words are attributed to Jesus by the Gospel writer Matthew. We are to baptize those who embrace the Christian faith in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Notice, Matthew does not say "names."

Jewish hearers would not have been shocked at hearing the Father's name here. And most would not have been troubled by the reference to God as the divine Spirit. But to link the Son, namely the one who "has been given all authority in heaven and on earth," to the Father and the Spirit is a stunning confession. It is the very kind of text that required the Church to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity against all kinds of errors.

I am calling my sermon today: "Mission: The DNA of the Church." I am impressed that mission is as much a mark of a church as anything else. If you have the gospel, for example, but do not have Christ's mission, you are a gospel club or association but not a living church. More than anything else I think this is the DNA marks the life that we share together as a congregation gathered to worship the Triune God. We gather to be sent.

It is heartening to see that many evangelical Christians are beginning to recover the doctrine of the Trinity. It has not been a major truth in our movement in so many ways thus our involvement with other Christians, like Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, underscores how much we miss by relegating this truth to a small corner of our liturgy and life.

I can still recall an evangelical leader telling me that he had met with about a third of the Roman Catholic cardinals around the world at some point. The one question they asked him first, as an evangelical, was almost always the same: "Do you affirm the confessional and historical Christian doctrine of the Trinity?" Apparently, evangelicals had not sufficiently impressed these cardinals so that they really believed evangelicals shared this truth or they would not have been asking this question. I pondered this discussion for some years. Recently I have come to realize more clearly why they asked such a question. I encourage you to ask it and to make sure that you do not answer it too flippantly and quickly. To say that you believe the Trinity is not the same as to say this truth is powerfully important to your faith and Christian practice.

Is Big Oil the Problem or the Solution?

Big Oil is taking a beating these days, especially now that gasoline prices are above $4 a gallon in most areas of the U.S. It is as common as “daily workplace chatter” to attack the major oil companies for their greed and huge profits, all the while blaming them for some, or even all, of the economic problems that we currently face.

Last week the congressional Democrats blamed Big Oil with their usual attacks while they did nothing serious to address the need they have never addressed for over thirty years—the production of more energy within the borders of the United States. So, expect to hear the same message that we have heard in every election since the 1960s–“we must find more energy (alternative sources) within the U.S.”–but this time expect that the next president and the Congress will finally have to do something about it. We cannot depend on alternative energy for decades so something has to be done with oil supply now. It is really that simple.

The problems will come when he solutions are offered and then, if ever, passed. The Democrats want to repeal $17 billion in tax breaks for the oil companies over 10 years and then impose a windfall profit tax on those same companies that do not invest enough in new energy sources. Cal Thomas is correct to call this “political expediency at its worst.” And President Bush visited Saudi Arabia this week asking the Saudis to produce more oil for America.

But the facts are these. We have not opened a new refinery in the U.S. since 1976. Eight-five percent of offshore drilling is off-limits. It is argued that this is all about protecting the environment. I am more pro-environmental than most of my more conservative friends but I think this confuses the issue seriously. This is not an issue between oil and the environment. Some of Europe’s strongest pro-environment nations—Denmark, Norway and the U.K.—all lease offshore locations for oil exploration. People falsely worry about offshore drilling. During hurricanes Katrina and Rita a 1,000 offshore wells were destroyed but not one of them leaked. I would call that a safe source for more American oil but we still refuse to get serious about it. 

When the Alaska pipeline was built radical environmentalists argued that the caribou would be wiped out by the pipeline. I think their concern was not unimportant. But the facts are these—it has, quite simply, not happened. The caribou is alive and well. There is a serious difference between “good” green policy and the kind of environmentalism that sounds like a religious creed. It is hard to tell the difference at times.

Besides this issue there is the sense of entitlement that most of us have the right to “cheap gasoline.” While we have had it quite easy for years Europe has paid three to four times as much for fuel. This is why they drive more fuel efficient vehicle, vehicles that many Americans laugh at in their cavalier disdain for all things European and their desire to drive huge cars. If the price of oil keeps rising the market will correct itself and we will finally alter our lifestyles to fit the new reality. One thing here is sure—the days of cheap oil are over!

What about our U. S. energy companies? They are already spending large sums of money on exploration for new sources of energy. Look, these are businesses that must produce profits for their shareholders. They will spend what makes sense and they will produce profits. This is the way the system works and those policies that recognize this will do the best to produce supply so that demand will be met. If the government tries to force change this scenario by taxing and punishing profits the results will bring back the scenario that we saw in the 1970s under President Carter. (Anyone remember waiting for a half hour to an hour just to get gasoline? Or do you recall the signs out front which said, “No gas today?”) Between people learning restraint, and the oil companies being urged to further drill and develop new energy sources, there is a solution. The question then is simple: “Will we be smart enough to find it?” If we aren’t then this problem alone will add to our considerable woes in the Middle East.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy our oil production has fallen 40% since 1985. Meanwhile our consumption has increased dramatically. Government estimates are that we have enough oil to power more than 60 million cars for 60 years. The reason we do not get this oil is the surrender of U. S. policy to the radical environmentalists. It appears to me that these arguments are, in many cases though certainly not in all, bogus. Now we have a U. S. president going to Saudi Arabia begging for more oil production. Cal Thomas concluded earlier this week, “The specter of a president of the United States going hand-in-hand to Saudi Arabia to plead for more (and more expensive) oil from the dictatorship that underwrites an extreme form of Islam that is out to kill us is obscene. President Bush ought to be rallying Americans, not embracing people who don’t allow women to drive cars.” I think Cal is right. 

Do You Really Believe in Freedom of Religion?

A 24-year old Assyrian Christian woman, who is a citizen of Iran, was recently rejected for a job as a flight attendant with Air Iran, the state-run airline. What was the reason for her rejection? She had not read the Koran. Her comment about her rejection underscores a major point that I believe is true with regard to all religion in public society. “Religion without the freedom to reject it is not a true religion. It makes life very claustrophobic.”

Christianity has not always recognized this principle clearly, given the history of certain events that followed the conversion of Constantine and the millennium long developments of European Christendom. Christendom plainly had long periods where there was little or no freedom in European states that allowed a person to openly “reject” the Christian faith without real personal and social consequences.

But there is a fundamental difference here between Christianity and Islam. The teaching of Jesus makes it explicitly clear that faith cannot, or should not, be coerced. We are all invited to freely choose to follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We can also freely walk away from his claims. There is no conception in the New Testament of a government that can require, or should induce with societal incentives, conformity to the teachings of Christ. Christian faith, in its essence, is a faith that promotes real liberty. This is why the West has evolved, after numerous wars of religion and false Christian practices, into a context where governments (generally) protect freedom in the area of religious faith and practice. This is true in most liberal democratic nations, with America having been the real leader in this area for well over two centuries.

In Islamic cultures, especially where the overwhelming majority of the people practice Islam and the government is built upon it, this is not the case. The Koran says that “there is no compulsion in religion” but issues of religious freedom still cling to Islamic cultures like super-glue. Can Islam change? Some scholars think so. I surely hope so. I embrace these reformers and pray they will have a greater impact upon Islamic cultures in the coming years. I think it is good for Christians and governments to encourage such reformation in a proper way, that is without coercion. 

Mohammed Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and the former vice president of Iran says: “If you force religion down people’s throats, it makes them less religious, not more.” He maintains this is why so many young people in Iran are turning away from practicing an active faith in the teachings of the Koran.

Freedom of religion is the right of a person to form personal religious beliefs according to his or her own conscience and to give public expression to these beliefs in worship and teaching, restricted only by the requirements of public order. Religious liberty differs from toleration in that toleration presupposes preferential treatment of a particular creed by the state because it is an established church or, in some cases, is the predominant religion of the population. Some Muslim countries practice a form of toleration, at best, but there is little if any freedom of religion, except perhaps in a place like Turkey. (Even here pressure is mounting against the secular state from the Islamic Right.)

I think healthy Christianity never needs the state to support it in any sense. In the best case scenario the state should stay out of religious matters that involve the choice of citizens to practice their beliefs. The government should allow the market to solve the problem, to borrow an apt economic metaphor. This is one reason why religion flourishes in America where people can make up their own minds about what they will believe, or not believe, without state interference. Many Christians, both liberal and conservative, have forgotten this basic truth and by seeking to wrongly establish one religion as the state’s choice they have thereby violated the great principle of true liberty in religion. In the end the Christian faith will thrive best where we allow people to hear the claims of Christ accurately presented and then see what a Christian community really looks like in action. This is what mission is all about, not creating Christian states who seek to force faith, or religious decrees, on anyone.

John Hagee and the Catholic Church

John Hagee, an influential Texas televangelist, is a huge supporter of the state of Israel. His theology is plainly dispensational and his support of Zionism is well-known. The same could be said about the views and practices of many other evangelicals. What has created considerable public conflict, in Hagee's case, is his endorsement of John McCain. John Hagee's anti-Catholicism, not his pro-Zionism, has been made an issue in recent weeks. Since McCain had previously accepted Hagee's endorsement the media has made strong comparisons between Hagee's anti-Catholicism and Jeremiah's Wright's anti-Americanism.

This issue became even more contentious when the association of Jeremiah Wright with Barack Obama was made an issue over the last few months. This support of McCain by Hagee has been compared to the Wright-Obama matter, even by Obama's campaign on several occasions. It seems to me that fair-minded people, who are not blindly committed to either one of these two candidates, can see an obvious difference here. Whereas John Hagee met with McCain and then endorsed him, Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright go back together for more than twenty years. But all this aside, the debate over Hagee's views about the Roman Catholic Church is actually worthy of further consideration.

So far as I can discern John Hagee's anti-Catholic views are actually rooted in several real historical facts. The Crusades and the Inquisition, as well as the Holocaust, all have some connections with Catholicism. But Hagee has also blamed Protestants for the having similar connections with the Holocaust, which they did, at least via the German Lutheran Church and the anti-Semitic statements of Martin Luther. Thus this kind of accusation is correct, at least in some sense. Yet even these connections are sometimes overstated by many who want to make way too much out of them. To say that there is some truth to these connections is not to fully embrace anti-Catholicism or anti-Protestantism. It is simply to be truthful with the facts of history, as I've said.

But John Hagee's comments seemed to go beyond these historical realities to include the notion that Rome is still guilty of these terrible sins against the Jews and that this was as true of the Church today as it ever was in the past. (Many Christians, and many Christian churches, have openly admitted the sins of past anti-Semitism, including both the Roman Catholic Church and some Protestant churches!) So this kind of confession is really not new.

Hagee put all of this to rest last week when he apologized after meeting with 22 religious activists, virtually all of them Roman Catholic. Said Hagee, "In my zeal to oppose anti-Semitism and bigotry in all its ugly forms, I have often emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholics and Protestant relations with the Jews. In the process I may have contributed to the mistaken impression that the anti-Jewish violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition defines the Catholic church. It most certainly does not."

William Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, not only accepted Hagee's apology but urged Catholics, and all others, to do the same. This should put the matter to rest but in a political season I would not bet on it.

I must admit that I am not a huge fan of John Hagee, whose theology and ministry are not all that close to my own on many points. But I have to say that I have to truly admire anyone who will sit down with offended parties and seek personal and open reconciliation. This is far more than what I have seen from many similarly conservative leaders within the evangelical world. I thus believe that John Hagee should be honored for his courage and humility. I have changed my own view of him considerably as a result of his actions this past week. I wish more Christians would follow this excellent example. If they did the unity of the Church in America would again be seen, by more and more of us, as a precious gift from God to be preserved as much as possible.

The Rise of a New Ecumenism

The word ecumenical has suffered great harm over the past 100 or so years. A movement that bore this name began well in the early 1900s but it came to represent something that had less to do with the gospel of Christ and much more to do with alliances for political and social change after World War II. In opposition to these more liberal tendencies in the worldwide ecumenical movement more conservative Christians raised up various groups to unite their churches and constituencies around the gospel.

The most noted group for unit was the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), born in the 1940s. It has now, at least to my mind, come to mean very little at this point. NAE was once “a white male club,” back in the 1980s when I attended its meetings actively. Now it has adopted an agenda that sounds much more like a politically left-leaning evangelicalism, in opposition to the equally politicized Christian Right movement.

Much more important to the mission of Christ has been the work of the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF), which has helped unite various groups and causes for the spread of the gospel and for unified efforts by the Church to reach people in dire poverty and difficult and life-threatening straits. WEF has even produced some good theological work, something NAE never did seriously.

The word ecumenical actually comes from the Greek word oikoumenē, which means: “the inhabited world.” The concept behind ecumenism is correct. The Church of Jesus Christ is one. It covers the whole earth. That oneness must be pursued by Christians in good faith. Dialog is one step in this process and formal statements have been another. At the most basic level ecumenism means that you and I seek out Christians of all types in personal friendships and learn to listen to them as our brothers and sisters. It also involves learning from the whole Christian tradition. Learning, to be effective, must be mutual. Ecumenism is hard work. It demands that you put your own agenda on hold and seek the good of others above your own.

In recent years a “new ecumenism” has developed. This ecumenism is rooted in what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity.” It rejoices in the common core of faith that we all share through faith in Jesus Christ as our one Lord. It respects the one baptism of Ephesians 4:5. Common to virtually all churches engaged in any level of ecumenism is the recognition that baptism in the Triune name of God, performed in a Christian Church that is really Christian (i.e., not a cult), is Christian and thus acceptable. All other Christian baptism is acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church, for example. They do not require a “re-baptism” when a Protestant converts to Rome.

The reverse is also true in almost all but the baptistic churches, where this issue is more about the mode and subject of baptism.  Even the most conservative Reformed Churches, for example, will generally accept the baptism of both Roman Catholics and the Orthodox as Christian baptism when people join their congregations from these different backgrounds. (This, in itself, is quite interesting since these same churches often refuse to call Catholics “Christians” but if Catholics become Reformed, or evangelical, Christians their previous baptism is a non-issue in joining the local church!)

This baptism issue underscores something very important. If we can accept the baptism of one another, and we do this at the church level, then why can’t we at least accept the Christian faith of one another without the rancor and severe hostility that often attends much of what we do with other churches than our own?

This “new ecumenism” is much less about politics and disputation than about mission. How can we recognize one another in a manner that answers the prayer of Jesus in John 17? How can we “love one another” as Jesus and the apostle John so clearly taught us? How can we form informal alliances and friendships that allow us to show the world that we love and care about each other? And how can this help us to complete the task of evangelization?

 
This “new ecumenism” recognizes that our differences are still very real and that we should not give up firm biblical beliefs in order to “just get along.” It argues, with C. S. Lewis, that we live in a large home that has many rooms. We can meet and share in the common great room, or the large central hallway, of our common Christian home and still have our different rooms. (The hallway, or great room, is defined by the earliest creeds.) The day may come when the different rooms will matter less and less. (I think that it likely will come but this will likely be in a time very different from the present.)

The point is this—this “new ecumenism” does not center on liberal theological agendas or conservative political affinity, though this has contributed to it in the areas of abortion and stem cell research, to name just two current moral issues. This “new ecumenism” is primarily a response to John Paul II’s call for a “new evangelization” and the respect that both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have shown for the recognition of other churches that are seeking to complete this same task of mission. It has also arisen in the hearts of a multitude of evangelicals who, like me, believe that something has happened in our lifetime and fresh wind is now blowing in our churches that will help us all complete the task of evangelizing the world in the coming decades. We have come a long way since the Protestant Reformation. I am not ready, in the least, to jettison the great gains of that renewal of the Church. But I am prepared to seek unity in ways that help us liberate the Church to do its work with greater faithfulness to Jesus. For this to happen we must pursue one another in love and respect. 

Preaching on Pentecost Sunday

This past Lord’s Day (May 11) was Pentecost Sunday. For many it passed with little or no recognition of this great truth of our Christian faith. But for me, and the congregation of First Reformed Church in South Holland (where I am preaching regularly until the new pastor is installed on June 15,) it was a great day to worship God the Holy Spirit in the fullness of joy.

I preached from the Lectionary and thus the Gospel text was John 20:19-23. This text seems not to be appropriate to the feast of Pentecost since the events presented here happened on Easter eve. But it actually fits perfectly with John’s great theme of “sentness.” This is connected to the Spirit’s power coming upon the disciples (corporately) in order to give witness to Christ and thus to speak with authority and power. This is John’s emphasis here without doubt. I think we sometimes get caught in a bind of trying to create a “harmony” of the four Gospels that defies the actual intention of the human authors and the Spirit himself. This is such a case in how we handle John 20:19-23. While Luke follows a rather chronological development in Luke–Acts the John does not do this fourth Gospel. The problem of the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit before Pentecost here is really no problem at all unless your reading of Scripture has to flatten everything to make it fit into your tiny grid.

The central emphasis here is clearly that the Spirit creates joy and peace in these disciples and then grants them authority and responsibility. And the promise to forgive or not forgive sins is not singular but corporate if this text is read canonically and correctly.

F. F. Bruce rightly wrote that “Post-resurrection there is not a note of hopeless sorrow in the New Testament.” Amen!

As I was leaving on Sunday the person who prepares the music and works with me on the liturgy of the worship at engaged me briefly on the way out the door. Laurie noted that if I saw her smile at times, especially during my sermons, it was her way of saying “I am amazed at how this all fits together at times. It just has to be God doing it.” I agreed with her. I believe we should plan a service of worship and that it should have common biblical elements in it; e.g., approach to God, confession of sin, pronouncement of forgiveness, greeting of one another, confession of the creed, worshiping God with our gifts, the sacraments, the proclamation of the Word of God, etc. When good preparation is united with the Spirit’s active work then we welcome God into our worship. When this happens there will be moments when we realize: “God is doing this!”

I said to Laurie, “At this stage of my life I work harder on preparing the preacher than the sermon. I have a good idea about how to preach most texts. I have few notes at all when I preach. I move from point A to point B to point C and then to the finish line but I am willing to wander here and there and pick up strands and free flowing thoughts as I go along. I can do this since I do not follow a manuscript. I said to her that by this means: “ I can hear the music, sing the words, enter into all the prayers and the precise moment of what is happening and then pray, ‘God speak through me as your servant and it just seems to happen.’” I believe this is the ideal way to preach. Young ministers will find this hard to do but they should strive for it. Preaching is not about a great script but about a great God speaking a great word to his people through a very weak human person who is entirely dependent upon him. What a great work preaching really is for those called to do it.

1968: A Year in Crisis

This past Saturday morning a conversation was hosted by the history department of Wheaton College in conjunction with alumni weekend at Wheaton. This event, with the title: "1968, a Year in Crisis: Evangelical Churches Then and Now," featured three highly regarded scholars and authors: Dr. Nathan Hatch, the president of Wake Forest University, Dr. Mark Noll, professor of history at the University of Notre Dame and Dr. John Piper, the highly esteemed author and pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Each man spoke for about ten minutes, outlining their thoughts about the year 1968 and then about what has happened to evangelicals over the past forty years since that tumultuous time.

Interestingly all three of these highly gifted men graduated from Wheaton College in the spring of 1968. This was the same year in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, as well as Senator Robert F. Kennedy. In fact Kennedy’s death came during graduation week at Wheaton. Later that summer the infamous Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago with riots and violence filling the city, as they did following King’s death in April. It was a time of incredible social upheaval in the nation and it was also a time of change for evangelicals. The question posed to each man today was this: “What is the nature of the changes that have taken place and where are we now, forty years later?”

All three were eloquent, clear and quite helpful. The perspective of Noll and Hatch was measured and fairly dispassionate. The critique of Piper, predictably, was passionate and not quite as measured. The discussion between the three, as well as from the audience, was also quite good.

Professor Noll quoted Plato’s Republic saying, “When the mode of the music changes the foundations shift.” He argued that the shift in the music of the church was a kind of paradigm for many other shifts. He also noted that the greatest changes had come in the global south and particularly in China. Today there are more professors teaching Christianity in China than there are professors of religion in all the schools in the United States. And on a given Sunday it is likely that more Christians go to worship in churches in China than in the U. S. Forty years ago this could not have been conceived by any one discussing this subject at Wheaton College or anywhere else for that matter. Simply put, “The Christian West is no longer the center of what God is doing nor it is the center of worldwide evangelicalism.”

President Hatch, who previously served as the provost at Notre Dame, discussed how evangelicals have renewed the great tradition of the Church by a new ecumenical engagement. This emphasis excited me since I feel like I am involved, at least in a small way, in these developments. Hatch also showed how we have adapted to popular culture, in good ways and in some not so good ways. My sense is that none of the three speakers was enamored with this trend. The shape of evangelicalism, they argued, was less ecclessiocentric and more driven by the marketplace forty years later. The movement, Hatch said, was “large and powerful.” I question this conclusion very deeply the more I read and study the issue. (This framed a question I asked that I will try to talk about in another blog later on.)

Mention was made of the recently published “Evangelical Manifesto” but little was said about it pro or con. Hatch warned that we often approach issues with the method of : “Ready, fire, aim.”

Dr. Piper said that he wanted to cite twelve positive developments within evangelicalism. He then proceeded to produce a marvelous list that was thought provoking and encouraging. But then he spent almost all of his time on twelve negatives. He stated that his read on the movement was shaped by two writers, whom he quoted liberally: David Wells and Os Guinness. Dr. Piper understands quite well that this thesis is widely challenged by the academy, even by men like Noll and Hatch, but this did not deter him from borrowing his fire for his analysis from them both. He fearlessly and boldly argued that the movement was like a tree with many branches but a rotten trunk. (One thinks of Iain H. Murray's thesis here as well, one which I would guess Piper would also agree with, at least in most points.)

As I listened to these three excellent men I concluded that having a historical background, which was the major of both Noll and Hatch at Wheaton, and also my major in the class of 1971, gives a different perspective than that of Piper, Wells and Guinness. Noll argued that these days were clearly, “The best of times and the worst of times.”

Piper was asked a question about “emergent” Christianity and proceeded to passionately attack it all as a denial of the core of Christian faith. He cited only two authors by name: Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones, both  from Minneapolis. After a few minutes of criticism he then added that the movement was fairly broad and included many more voices. Anyone with the remotest sympathy for anything emergent would have been completely put off by the way he dismissed the whole thing with a few sentences about relativism and denial.

When asked by a person from the audience about the attraction of many young people to Catholicism and Orthodoxy Piper would not grant much here either. He argued that the only pope he needed was the Bible, calling it “a paper pope” as he lifted it in the air for demonstration. Sadly, his arguments were reminiscent of the older anti-Catholicism of the past and not those of the new ecumenism of the present. It was quite clear that he was not having any serious part of the need for meaningful dialog with faithful Roman Catholic or Orthodox Christians.

Piper also was asked about the Southern Baptists and their recent history and expressed strong sympathy for the conservative movement in the SBC, calling those who led the SBC before 1990 “very liberal.” Noll and Hatch sat out most of this discussion but those who read their work can have a good idea about how they would have provided a more nuanced, and less dramatic dose of praise, for these Baptist movements.

My frustration with Piper is that he represents the “low” ecclesiology of evangelicalism and then argues that we should go back in our reading to old writers. But goes back only to the Puritans, never even suggesting that the Fathers, both East and West, were vastly more important for the health of the Church today. He also argued that knowing God, the Scriptures and the truth were central to everything. While I completely agree with his arguments here they were almost entirely rooted in a foundationalist epistemology and a heavily propositional approach. It seemed to me that John was arguing for a Bible that was quite clear to all who read it and that by reading it well we can all know the truth. I would argue that Noll was much closer to the Christian position when he said we know Jesus Christ as truth through the revelation of the Holy Scriptures. Pipe, however, is surely to be commended for his passion for mission and the gospel.

I asked him about the missional DNA of the Church being vital to its esse and he seemed to agree with me, offering the one reservation that “unreached peoples” must remain a priority and that we could lose this prioroity if we put too much stress on being the Church here at home. I found this point quite helpful and have to agree with him here completely.

All in all this was a wonderful morning for listening and learning. All three men were appropriately appreciated by the 400 or 500 hundred people crowded into the Barrows Auditorium at the Billy Graham Center. The morning was anything but boring. It was a great day to spend a lovely spring morning at Wheaton.

Israel's 60th Anniversary

My good friend, Jim Tonkowich, the president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), wrote a news release yesterday on the birth of the State of Israel, which occurred on May 14, 1948. Jim's statement about Israel's past and future reflects my own view of things there quite well. I believe this type of balanced perspective is called for when various confusing voices are raised regarding this important modern democracy in the Middle East.

Since I know Jim very well, and respect his comments profoundly, and because I serve on the IRD Board, I am pleased to share his statement with my readers:

Today the nation of Israel is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its independence, according to the Hebrew calendar. On May 14, 1948, as Great Britain relinquished its mandate over Palestine, Jewish leaders there proclaimed the modern state of Israel. U.S. President Harry Truman, overruling many of his top advisers, was the first to recognize the new nation.

Israel’s Arab neighbors immediately launched a war to destroy the nascent Jewish state. Israel survived that war and has survived three more wars and thousands of terrorist attacks over the intervening decades.

But hundreds of thousands of Arabs were displaced in the 1948 war. The plight of the Palestinians has become a permanent grievance. And many actors in the region—Syria, Iran, and the Hamas movement that controls Gaza—are still committed to the destruction of Israel.

Israelis have good reason to celebrate today, and U.S. Christians can join them. Israel is the longest-lived democracy in the Middle East. It enjoys a vibrant, multi-party system, an independent judiciary, and freedoms of speech and press. Jews, Muslims, and Christians practice their faiths with few restrictions.

After the Holocaust, Israel provided a refuge for Jews from around the world. Yet Israel’s Arab minority is freer than the Arab majorities in most surrounding countries.

U.S. Christians differ in their understanding of Israel’s place within God’s plans for human history. But the vast majority does glimpse some kind of divine Providence in Israel’s existence and preservation. We are grateful for President Truman’s courageous step in 1948 and proud of our nation’s role as one of Israel’s few reliable friends.

Yet our joy is tempered by sorrow. We are mindful of the unresolved conflicts and unrelieved sufferings that date back to 1948. We pray that Israelis, Palestinians, and all their neighbors may finally know peace, security, self-determination, and justice. And we hope that our nation may be a peacemaker.

Jeremiah Wright is Your Brother

Like him or not Jeremiah Wright is your brother in Christ if you are a Christian. I know, some readers will choke and fume and react and then say, "That is simply not possible." I am really not talking to you because you have already  determined who is and is not a Christian based upon what you hear and read, not upon the New Testament criteria themselves. (It is not your vocation, I can assure you, to make these kinds of determinations in the first place but never tell that to a person who "knows" that they "know" who is and is not a Christian!)

The biblical criteria are simple: (1) Confess faith in Christ the Lord who is risen (2) Be a baptized follower of the Savior in the fellowship of his Church. Since none of us lives the life of Christ with even the remotest perfection then all such standards should be jettisoned by people of real charity. Wright, by these and many other standards, is my brother. I do not agree with him at times, as I have noted, but then I don't agree with a lot of my brothers and sisters about a lot of things.

This all comes down to charity, true Christian charity. You can dislike the man's statements, you can accuse him as you wish, but don't be surprised when you meet him in the presence of Christ someday.

Is it possible that we could agree on this much? In conservative white America I doubt it. The well is so poisoned by hate, and by vicious hate speech, that we do not care who might actually be our brothers and sisters. And yet we wonder why the younger generation is leaving the church in droves.

My good friend Jayson Byassee, who speaks for us at our first ACT 3 Luncheon in two weeks (see www.act3online.com to sign up), had an article in Christianity Today yesterday that sums up what I feel very well. I encourage you to read it for yourself.

Be Sure to Check Out Transformissional Church

Some of my readers know that I write on two different blog spots. Today I posted an article on the Obama campaign that asks a question that nags at me day-in and day-out as this election season unfolds. What should we make of all these young people flocking to the election this year? This is an impressive phenomenon. How should Christians respond? Check it out at www.transformissionalchurch.com. 

What is a "Bible-Centered" Church?

My wife and I go for exercise on many mornings. We walk, ride our bikes, etc. We pass by a lot of churches in the process. Today we saw a church which proclaimed by its slogans beneath its name: "A Christ-centered, Bible-centered Congregation." I asked my wife: "What does it mean to you when you read the phrase "Bible-centered?" She answered me as if she had been listening to me talk about this for some long time, which in fact she has.

I find this phrase puzzling at best and sectarian at worst. First, where in Church history, do we find a church that would use such a term until the early 20th century in America? The phrase is reallt code language for something like "inerrancy" or "a high view of the Bible" and the like. It is much more likely that it means, "the Bible is believed here, not like in those other churches that are not Bible-centered." Christ-centered I understand, to a point. But even that can be a slogan with little or no insight. Face it, the more provocative term of the two, by far, is "Bible-centered."

Second, if this church is "Bible-centered" then what happened to God? Could you be a Bible-centered church and not a Trinitarian church? Well, of course. The fact is that this is very often the case. I see it all the time. Could you be "Bible-centered" and not really understand the Bible's story very well? Absolutely. Such churches very often tell you they are "Bible-centered" when in fact they  are centered on a few things that draw out of the Bible.

Third, "Bible-centered" never tells me a single thing about how these folks actually interpret the Bible. I have an idea how they do but even that is deeply rooted in certain cultural contexts about how this phrase is used in America. More than likely "Bible-centered" means a whole list of things, many of which are not found in the great ecumenical creeds at all.

So I found this phrase put me off as I pondered it this morning. I do not think I would much like a church that says so abruptly: "Bible-centered." It sounds like all the things that I fear continue to divide Christian from Christian. By the way, this particular church has no denominational name so "Bible-centered" serves as a denominator. (This is true of a whole generation of such churches that came to the fore after World War II.) One might as well say "fundamental" with "Bible-centered" but then that word is not popular these days.