Ouch!

Last updated on: September 9, 2013 at 9:12 pm By Scot McKnight

OK, Kathy Escobar, I get your point, but I’m a theologian and we like this question… but you are right, it’s often a veiled question designed to size up someone’s status in your own ranking …

truth be told, i have a lot of pet peeves. i can’t stand when people slurp when they drink out of a cup (worse than nails on a chalkboard for me), snow (that’s not in the mountains when i’m skiing) bugs the $*#^!&! out of me, and when i hear someone say “we let women lead” i go a little nuts inside. but my new #1 pet peeve at the moment is when people ask the question: what’s your position on _________? (homosexuality, same-sex marriage, abortion, gun control, hell, you name it). it’s the question of the moment not only for many church or ministry leaders but on facebook, blogs, and in certain christian circles.

we all know what that really means.

how can i determine whether i am aligned with you or not aligned with you?

how can i know if you’re on our team or the other one?

how can i sniff out whether i can trust you or not?

Our Past Makes Us Who We Are

Last updated on: September 10, 2013 at 8:02 am By Scot McKnight

I was thinking of the apostle Paul and how his past, so far as we can know, prepared him for his life as an apostle. God used his life in Tarsus to prepare Paul to be the great integrator, though it took an eye-twittering experience of seeing Jesus himself to accept the challenge.

Some people observe that Paul’s mission drove his theology, and they are right.

But what was Paul’s mission? How would you summarize it? Is there one word that grabs the whole of his mission?

There is an early Christian tradition, from the 4^th Century Christian father Jerome, informing us that Paul’s family was originally from Gischala in Galilee. As a result of a war in Galilee with Rome the family later moved to Tarsus (perhaps as slaves). Paul spent a decade or more in Tarsus but as a young man moved back to the Holy Land, to Jerusalem, to study Torah among Israel’s elite and sophisticated. Here is what Jerome said about Paul’s life:

Paul, formerly called Saul, an apostle outside the number of the twelve apostles, was of the tribe of Benjamin and the town of Giscalis [Gischala] in Judea [Galilee]. When this [town] was taken by the Romans he removed with his parents to Tarsus in Cilicia. Sent by them to Jerusalem to study law he was educated by Gamaliel a most learned man whom Luke mentions…. As Sergius Paulus Proconsul of Cyprus was the first to believe on his preaching, he [Paul] took his name from him because he had subdued him to faith in Christ…. (From Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, chp 5.)

When Saul, the Jewish name by which he was then known, moved from Tarsus to Jerusalem as a young man his life shifted from seeing Gentiles all the time to seeing Gentiles far less frequently. A good Gentile for Saul was a proselyte. His move to Jerusalem meant the wall between observant Jews and Gentiles got thicker and taller and everything we read about him suggests he thickened and heightened those walls. The irony and the single most important sign of grace in Paul’s life was that this builder of walls between Jews and Gentiles became the wall destroyer. Everything in Paul’s three-decades of ministry was connected in some way to his driving ambition to rip down the wall of segregation between Jews and Gentiles in the One Family of God, the Body of Christ.

What Paul envisioned then was a church in which Jews were Jews and Gentiles were Gentiles but they were with one another, a church in which slaves and free sat next to another, and a church where men and women were not defined by sex but by unity in Christ and their giftedness. He wanted unity with diversity. He didn’t ask Jews to cease following Torah nor Gentiles to learn to speak Hebrew or Aramaic. He didn’t ask men to become women or women to become men. He asked them to transcend all distinctions with a unity of fellowship in Christ.

Paul would weep to see the disunity of our churches, some of it fancied up by language about church growth principles. Paul had a completely different idea of “growth.”

Detecting Liberal Seminaries

Last updated on: September 2, 2013 at 7:24 am By Scot McKnight

From Mark Stevens:

Cliff Kvidahl over at ‘Theological Musings’ has responded to a rather evocative post outlining ways in which one can spot a liberal seminary (See: Beware of the Liberals! Marcan Priority and Inspiration). I have to be honest and say I felt incredibly sad when I read “How to Spot a Liberal Seminary” According to the author, if a seminary holds to a belief that the whole Bible is anything other than the “plenary and verbally accurate” (i.e. as a whole and in its parts), then it has no business claiming to be conservative. Furthermore, if it holds to Marcan priority, women in ministry, anything other than Mosaic authorship of Pentateuch, and doesn’t teach a literal 6 day creation, then it is liberal!

The author goes on to claim that if we train at such a seminary we are in danger of becoming un-equipped for ministry! Wow! That is a mighty big claim, no? The seminary I trained at taught critical scholarship of the Old and New Testaments as a way of better understanding the meaning of the text. It trains women for pastoral ministry, it believes in the authority of scripture but would never use the words inerrant or plenary to describe the bible. And yet, in spite of all of this is I would hardly call it liberal. It seems to me their definition of liberal is “whoever doesn’t agree with our pre-suppositions about the bible and secondary issues relating to the history and source of the text are liberal.” In my opinion this isn’t so much a conservative stance but more of a fundamentalist one. But hey, I could be wrong.

Now it might be true that your seminary is liberal but may I ask if that is a bad thing? I think of myself as a conservative (I hold to virgin birth, Resurrection, and even Pauline authorship of the pastorals!) but I am a pastor in what I would consider a liberal denomination. What I have come to realise is that word liberal shouldn’t be used to define someone’s faith. Rather it should be used to describe their tradition and approach (in much the same way one might use progressive, Pentecostal, Reformed etc). Don’t get me wrong, I disagree with a lot of the things my colleagues believe. It is downright hard at times. The reason I find it difficult is because I was taught to see liberals as wrong and even as unsaved! However, when I was left for dead (spiritually speaking) by the denomination that called me and trained me for ministry it was the liberals who played Good Samaritan. When I was lying on the side of the road ‘spiritually wounded’ they helped me back to health. They were my Samaritan! They paid the bills. They were Jesus to me in ways my tradition were not. I struggle in my denomination and at times as it can be lonely. But I know this is where God wants me. He led me here. So I rest in that.

Our church is currently looking at The Jesus Creed. In Scot’s chapter on ‘Believing in Jesus’ I shared some thoughts with our church which came out of my reading of that chapter about what it means to believe and what belief looks like:

Faith is not about believing the right things about Jesus, nor is about looking right, acting right or being right. It’s about believing in Jesus.
It isn’t about what we believe; it is that our belief leads us into relationship with Him.
And when we come to the table we identify ourselves as disciples, or friends, of Jesus! Our doctrine, our theology or anything like it does not open up a place at the table for us. We must hold our theology lightly and respectfully.

I realise that this post has gone beyond that of the original thoughts related to seminary but one gets the feeling that under-girding the critique is the notion that liberals are not Christians. If a person calls Jesus Lord then I personally am happy to call them a brother or sister in Christ. If they are pro-gay marriage, don’t believe in the resurrection, if they believe someone other than Paul wrote 2 Timothy then I will agree to disagree and do my best to understand why they believe what they do. However, I will also stand firmly on the things I believe to be true of our faith but I will endeavour to respectfully dialogue with folks about those beliefs.

What I will not do is, and what I think is bad Christian practice, is to allow my beliefs to define another person’s faith. Our tradition, in my case conservative, should define what we think not whether another person is saved or a Christian. This is not an easy road to walk and I still carry many questions about how this works. It seems to me this is what God requires of any person who leads a “love God, love your neighbour as yourself” kind of life. And hey, it is the way I wish to be treated by those colleagues who disagree with me! When will we get it? Being brothers and sisters in Christ is about Jesus and not what we believe about him. Let us not forget that sometimes who is liberal and who is conservative depends upon where stand!

Personally I’d love to hear from others who have walked this road or from those who have some thoughts on how conservatives and liberals might live together in respect and with respectful dialogue. All I ask is that comments do not become personal or abusive against me or any other commentator. 🙂

Weekly Meanderings, 31 August 2013

Last updated on: August 31, 2013 at 9:40 am By Scot McKnight

Jack Levison on sending kids back to school: “My mother used to say, without fail, that she hated to see autumn come around. She always felt melancholy when the kids went back to school. Us too. We’ve never wanted them back in the drudgery of yellow buses and seven hours of sitting. So much of school seems to consist of teaching kids to listen for hours on end. Instructing them in the art of large group compliance. Training them to relent. Kids should be relentless–not behaviorally modified to relent, to give ground, to concede and cave. Education should train them to be insistent, curious, inquisitive.”

Do women really make 77 cents on the dollar men make? Just hold on.

Stories of conversions from Brian Chilton, including three atheists-now-apologists: “One of the amazing things about God is how God is able to transform a person from one pathway to a completely different pathway…a better pathway. I recently spoke to an individual who told me of an inspirational pastor. This pastor was originally from California and was actively involved in gangs. However, the one-day pastor would have an experience with God through Jesus Christ and would experience a complete turn-around. The individual now ministers in West Virginia and has adopted children born in tough circumstances to give them a better life. This should not be surprising, because God has an amazing capacity of turning something good out of something bad. It should not be surprising to hear when someone is transformed to a different mind-set either. There are in fact many individuals who are now Christians who once were agnostic or of an atheist mind-set. There are three examples that we offer to show how God can transform the mind, as well as the heart….I close with this thought: it could be that many who are angry atheists now will become the leaders of the church tomorrow. This is well within the realm of possibility. God can transform a heart that is bitter and fill it with forgiveness. God can transform a heart that knows only hate to a heart that is open to love. This is well within the power of God. So for the Christian, I would simply say: don’t become angry with those who are antagonists to the faith. Pray for them. They may very well be your colleagues in the faith very soon. It could be that the next great evangelist, like Billy Graham, has not come to faith yet.”

Kittens are the culprits: “Two kittens ran onto subway tracks in Brooklyn Thursday, and the MTA halted trains on two lines for about an hour as workers in reflective vests tried to corral the felines, witnesses and officials said. But as it turns out, NBC 4 New York can confirm that herding cats is a difficult feat. Video obtained by NBC 4 New York shows the kittens — one black, one white with gray stripes — racing up and down the tracks near the third rail, darting around empty bottles and other debris, at the B/Q Church Avenue station in Prospect Lefferts Gardens around midday.” (HT: LEMB)

A good sketch of the rise of evangelical progressivism: “During the first decade of the twenty-first century, scholars of American religious history showed an increasing interest in the evangelical left–particularly younger scholars with some affinity for that brand of evangelicalism. Brantley Gasaway, for example, recently completed a dissertation on contemporary progressive evangelicalism that will soon be published by UNC Press. Further, fellow Anxious Bench blogger, David Swartz, has penned Moral Minority (2012), the best work on the topic to date.”

How much does it cost for our soldiers’ health?

America’s food flag — hot dogs!

A good sketch of American evangelicalism’s eschatologies.

Puffer fish pastors: “When a predator approaches, a puffer fish can expand to several times their normal size. It’s a defense mechanism to keep him safe. In 1 Corinthians 8:1, Paul warns a group of Christians that knowledge puffs up. Today, it’s not just knowledge that cause pastors to puff up. We puff out our chests about the size of our church, the number of baptisms, the health of our team, the model of ministry we’ve chosen, and the list goes on. Too many of us are like puffer fish, blowing up to keep ourselves safe, when other pastors come near. We are puffer fish pastors.”

Need to delete some account? Find it difficult? “It was after marveling at some fed-up users’ tweets about how incredibly difficult it is to delete a Skype account that a U.K. developer named Robb Lewis decided to lend a hand. So he built a website that takes the adventure out of account-deletion. It’s called “Just Delete Me,” and it’s as simple as Skype’s account-deletion procedure is convoluted.

Go to justdelete.me and find the service from which you want to delete your account.
Click on the service’s name and follow the instructions on the screen to delete your account.

Step three is optional: If the instructions on the site itself aren’t clear, you can click “show info” on the Just Delete Me page to learn in plain English exactly how to delete your account. Never again will you be forced to wonder, after 20 minutes of clicking around fruitlessly in your Evernote app, whether it’s even possible to delete your Evernote account. (It isn’t, though Just Delete Me will take you to a page where you can at least deactivate it.)”

Italy’s food flag:

Starts with a “bang” but the immensity boggles. “The farther away we’re able to look, the more galaxies we’re able to see. As far as our instruments have ever taken us, we’ve always found more and more galaxies filling up the darkest depths we’ve ever been able to peer into. Even the darkest, most devoid-of-light areas we can find, if we look for long enough, will eventually reveal these island Universes to our telescopes….”

One Pastor per Church?

Last updated on: August 26, 2013 at 6:57 pm By Scot McKnight

Most any reading of the earliest period of the followers of Jesus, say from 30-50 AD, reveals a more charismatic ordering of a local church. Most any reading of the 3d Century church reveals what many call a Monarchial bishopric, where we have an authoritative teacher “ruling” the local church. How did this happen?

Everett Ferguson, in his The Early Church and Today (vol. 1: Ministry, Initiation, and Worship) maps various moves in the rise of the monarchial bishop. Ferguson operates with an almost “cessationist” theory, namely, that apostles and prophets particularly died out and the church was then ruled by local bishops and elders.

What do you think of this development? Was it inevitable to become more organized and administered or was it a “fall”?

First, a time of extraordinary inspired ministers. Here he sees three primary gifts, found in 1 Cor 12:28: “apostles, prophets, and teachers.” His definitions of each are standard: special call and plenary inspiration for apostles; prophets had a less abiding inspiration. Teacher had a word of knowledge and locally exhorted and instructed.

Second, a time when both inspired and “uninspired” (he means something special here) dispensed the Word. He sees Ephesians 4:11 as a time of transition: evangelists (universal gift) and pastors (local churches). These did not require a miraculous gift (this is what he means by “uninspired” — though I think this choice of terms is not helpful). Pastors are elders or bishops.

Third, a time when the uninspired became permanent. Here he points to 1-2 Timothy and Titus. The inspired gifts are dying out and we get “offices.” Churches are ruled by presbyter-bishops (elders). This is a permanent feature of the church after the inspired apostolic, prophetic era of revelation. Women were teachers but he thinks they were not permitted to teach in the public assembly. [I disagree with Ferguson here because it seems to me he’s got a more rigid sense of church assemblies than I would have.]

Fourth, a time when there was a decline in universal and missionary work so that local officers ruled the entire church. Fifth, single bishops (episcopos) arose in distinction from local elders (presbyters). Sixth, the monarchial bishop was established.

This 4-6 period is when “apostle” is used almost exclusively for the Twelve. “No one called a contemporary, not even the bishops who were regarded as successors of the apostles, by the title ‘apostle'” (28). I must add here that I find the present use of “apostle” by some groups to be flat-out weird and uninformed. The prophetic order, Ferguson argues, also dies out at this time. He speaks of the “extinction of the prophets” (28). Teachers appear but he finds the inspired teaching gift fading and was submerged under “episcopal domination” (29). In other words, leaders were called “bishops” not “teachers.” Evangelists fade, too, and he sees this as a problem complicated by the growth of local church ministries.

The result was that one man was recognized in each local church as the bishop. He is the chief among equals at first but eventually gains status to become the single bishop of the monarchial bishop.

Carmen’s Story

Last updated on: August 3, 2013 at 8:43 pm By Scot McKnight

From Carmen Jordan, one our fine Northern Seminary students who is also pastoring.

It was Mother’s Day, 2012, after preaching a sermon on The Pursuit of Jesus, from Mark’s account of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years (Mark 5:21 – 31) that I first began to think about pursuing a doctoral program. After the sermon, my pastor extended an invitation to Christian discipleship and there were so many women and men who came forward, not only to receive Christ, but also for prayer. I was in awe of the power of the Word of God and the conviction of the Holy Spirit to lead so many people to respond and seek transformation. Later in the evening during my typical reflection period at a local park, I reflected on the worship service as a whole, and in particular the sermon that God empowered me to preach, and the congregation’s response it. I thought that there had to be more to preaching than I was consciously aware of, and I wanted to know more. I had been preaching for 5 years, but never had any formal training. I had recalled seeing an article on the seminary’s website about a Doctor of Ministry in Preaching and Congregational Leadership, and this filled my mind as I reflected on the sermon and the outcome. I believe that this was God calling me to pursue a doctoral degree. Immediately I began to wrestle with God because I did not want to continue with seminary after completing the Master of Divinity. I wanted to finish seminary, begin pastoral ministry, start a family, and live happily ever after! As God continued to nudge me, I began praying for wisdom and discernment, and asked my weekly prayer partner to join me in this prayer as well. The following fall I enrolled in Dr. Michael Quicke’s two preaching classes.

The preaching classes had a lasting impact on how I viewed, approached, and studied scripture, not only to teach and preach, but for daily edification and understanding. The content of the readings, the self discovery, the collaboration with my classmates, the lectures, preparing and preaching sermons without notes, and the feedback from the professor and my peers all confirmed to me that there was more to learn and I said ‘yes’ to God’s leading me to pursue a Doctor of Ministry program. I believed at that time that it would be in Preaching and Congregational Leadership. Like many times before, God had different plans, and I see now that I was being prepared for what was to come next.

I recently took Dr. Scot McKnight’s Women in Ministry class. As a summer intensive, I knew that it would be intense in all sense of the word, but I never imagined the revelations that I would receive. After the fourth day of class, I sat in my hotel room and thought, ‘there are so many biblical truths that I never knew, so many half-truths that well intended preachers and teachers of my culture mislead me into believing, and I thank God that my eyes are now open’. I reflected upon the week and how we learned about theories of interpretation, biblical context, and what this means for women in ministry and the Body of Christ, and my heart began to pound. I had a great desire to know more; more about the historical context of the bible, more about Jesus, more about myself, and more about this journey that God has me on. That night I began to read more about the new DMin in New Testament Context cohort, and sent my prayer partner an e-mail asking her to join me in prayer discernment for my next steps in my ministry journey as my heart was beginning to change. All things came together for me during the last class, as we were talking about biblical love. Before I share how they came together, I have to give you the context of my ‘aha’ moment.

In 2004, I went snorkeling in the Grand Cayman Islands with my sister and a good friend. Upon jumping into the ocean with my life jacket, goggles, and breathing gear, I proceeded to laugh hysterically for about 5 minutes. I could not explain my laughter, nor could I control it. After awhile I stopped and dove under water to experience the life of those whose environment I had just invaded. After we had finished and went to shore, I bought a souvenir plate that had fish swimming and the words “God has made everything beautiful in its time” (paraphrased from Ecclesiastes 3:11). It was not until we made it back to the states that I could identify my uncontrollable laughter with fear. I was in the middle of the ocean and I was afraid for my life. In my mind, there was nothing keeping me afloat except for the life jacket, and if it somehow fell off, I was going to sink to the bottom of the ocean. I wanted to scream, but the only thing that came out was a laughter that took control. Eventually, something calmed my spirit, and I was able to enjoy the experience, however it was 2010 before I came into full awareness of the experience, just 2 years after beginning the Master of Divinity program at Northern. At that time I had no idea of what God’s ultimate plan for my ministry was, however I was certain that I was not going to be a pastor. I had recently answered the call to ministry after 2 years of negotiating and wrestling with God, and I thought that we had an understanding that I would eventually become ordained, but I did want to hold the position of a pastor. I’m not sure if my objection had anything to me being a woman, but it was clear in my mind that I would preach and teach, but not be ‘the’ pastor of a congregation. Then one morning during the summer of 2010, I looked up at my souvenir plate that I brought home from snorkeling in the Grand Cayman Islands and I began to cry and said ‘God I am scared to be a pastor’ the next thing that I heard in my spirit was ‘just as I was with you in the water, I will be with’. I wept for what seemed like hours (I’m sure it wasn’t) with a heart of gratitude for this revelation of his grace and tender care for me. I had the assurance that God will be with me in the deep waters of pastoral ministry, thus I could trust him with my fears and move forward. It was still some time before I could verbalize this revelation to anyone, but from then on, I accepted God’s call to pastoral ministry, trusting and believing that God would be with me every step of the way. This would not be the last time that the assurance of God’s presence in the physical and symbolic waters would melt my heart and lead to a revelations of the character of God.

The final day of our class on women in ministry, the lecture began with a wonderful recap of the key components of our study on the history, context and issues surrounding women in ministry, followed by strategies on how to impact the local church as servants of God. He ended the class with a lecture on biblical love, and once again my spiritual eyes were opened. His first point was that “love begins with a covenant” and gave several illustrations of the covenant formula found in scripture. His second point was “love is a command to be with; it is a principle of presence”. He proceeded to give several examples of God’s demonstration of God’s love through God’s presence; however my mind went back to my time in the deep waters of the ocean, and God’s Spirit speaking to my spirit as he revealed his demonstration of his love through his presence with me then, now, and during the time of the pastoral ministry that I have so graciously been called to. I could not hold back the tears as God’s love for me flooded my heart and mind. Certainly this was not the first time that I was felt God’s love, however it was the way in which all things came together to reveal the nature and character of God in the midst of my real life experiences. For the second time in 1 week, I had a desire to know more. I thought back to my prayer the night before on discernment for which doctoral program to pursue. I thought ‘God that was quick’, and was pretty sure that I would proceed to apply to the DMin in New Testament Context. On Sunday afternoon after church, and after a blind-sighted, painful attack on my ministry, coupled with blatant verbal and nonverbal opposition to women in ministry, I believe these attacks were confirmation that going deeper into the historical context of Jesus and the Apostles would allow my witness, pastoral leadership, and service unto God to be rooted not in my past experiences of opposition, rejection and pain, but out of the richness and foundational truth of the Gospel message, God’s ultimate plan of salvation for all people, and God’s gifting of all people to serve with a heart for and like that of Jesus. So my journey continues by the grace of God and his continuous love and presence in my life.

A Pastor’s Husband regarding His Pastor

Last updated on: July 26, 2013 at 10:14 am By Scot McKnight

By Jeff Leach, whose wife (Tara Beth) is a Nazarene pastor and a student at Northern Seminary.

When I was a student at a Small Christian college in the Midwest, I encountered young women who would express a desire to be a Pastor’s wife. I don’t think I ever encountered a single guy that said it was their hope as well. I can’t say that it was a dream of mine to be a Pastor’s husband, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

I think Tara Beth and I are a bit of an odd couple. Then again, given that most people are not pastors, and even fewer still are female pastors, I don’t expect to meet many more people in our situation. Working as an engineer, which is typically a male dominated profession, I’ve never come across someone who does not respond with a “oh” type of response after learning what my wife “does” for a living. After the initial shock of my unexpected response, many people will ask more about my wife’s career with intense curiosity. I suppose I’m not surprised since women Pastors are still a minority.

Marrying a Pastor doesn’t come with a guide book, and marrying a female Pastor is certainly a rare frontier. There are many articles, support groups, blogs, books, and even conferences for Pastor’s wives, but when it comes to Pastor’s husbands, it is few and far. Being a Pastor’s husband has been a 7 year journey (our entire marriage), and it seems I learn something new every year. So what have I learned?

Stand Down: As most husbands do, I like to protect my wife. Let’s face it, pastors face a beating now and then. People say things and people do things that are hurtful. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, I often feel the need to shield her. Yet, I have to allow her to be the minister God has called her to be, and sometimes this means allowing her to work through her own battles with me in the background providing her support and comfort.

Live counter-culturally: It should be quite obvious where I stand on the “women in ministry” debate, but I must say I have been surprised by some of the reactions we’ve gotten over the years. There have been the light-hearted situations like when the Mormon team (on their mission) stopped me on the sidewalk and attempted to debate theology. The look on their faces was priceless when I stepped back and let my wife take over, which I think threw them for a loop because they didn’t really have anything to say in response. On the other hand, we have had those moments where individuals just can’t get past the typical stereotypes and questions such as how it could ever work to move for my wife’s job.

Several years back, my wife was serving at a Church in Upstate New York and I was an engineer with a wonderful company. I will never forget my boss’s reaction when I told him I was resigning to move to a place where I would have no job lined up. In retrospect, maybe he did have some good points though, because I ended up working at an Olive Garden for 7 months until I found a job. Still even then, I didn’t second guess it, and never held Tara Beth to blame. For us it’s not about who will sacrifice for whom, because really we’re both sacrificing our agendas for where we feel God leading. I suspect it is the same for many Christian couples.

It’s our calling: Speaking of calling, I really do believe it is our calling. After all, the two shall become one, so how can we have different callings? Sure we have different gifts and edify the body in different ways, but my actions and how I live out my relationship with Tara Beth can greatly impact her ability to live out her calling to her fullest. For us, this can manifest in activities like talking through her sermon on a Saturday night, taking the boys out of the house for an entire day so she can meditate and write a sermon, whispering a prayer for her as she gets up to preach, reading the same theology book with her so we can discuss it, or caring for the boys and just letting her sleep in on a Saturday after a rough week of ministry. It is, after all, our calling.

Sure, there are those Sunday Mornings when I am trying to get the boys (we have two wild toddlers) ready for church after Tara Beth has already left that I wish she were home, but I have never once doubted her (no our) call. In fact, if it were easy and the sensible thing to do, I would actually start to question the perceived calling. I am not aware of many examples where God’s plan was predictable and easy.

While it can lead to some interesting situations (like having our 2 yr old yell “MOMMY” right during the sermon), it definitely places me in a unique situation to really see God’s plan in action. Though I didn’t know all that I was getting myself into, I wouldn’t even think about trading it. It is our calling.

Concerning Child Abuse and the Church: A Statement

Last updated on: July 19, 2013 at 5:22 pm By Scot McKnight

From GRACE, with Boz Tchividjian ([email protected]) and NetGrace:

A Public Statement Concerning

Sexual Abuse in the Church of Jesus Christ

Recent allegations of sexual abuse and cover-up within a well known international ministry and subsequent public statements by several evangelical leaders have angered and distressed many, both inside and outside of the Church. These events expose the troubling reality that, far too often, the Church’s instincts are no different than from those of many other institutions, responding to such allegations by moving to protect her structures rather than her children. This is a longstanding problem in the Christian world, and we are deeply grieved by the failures of the American and global Church in responding to the issue of sexual abuse. We do not just believe we should do better; as those who claim the name of Jesus and the cause of the Gospel, we are convinced we must do better. In the hope that a time is coming when Christian leaders respond to all sexual abuse with outrage and courage, we offer this confession and declare the Good News of Jesus on behalf of the abused, ignored and forgotten.

Through the media we have been confronted with perpetual reports of grievous sexual abuse and its cover-up. Institutions ranging from the Catholic Church, various Protestant churches and missionary organizations, Penn State, Yeshiva University High School, the Boy Scouts, and all branches of our military have been rocked by allegations of abuse and of complicity in silencing the victims. And while many evangelical leaders have eagerly responded with outrage to those public scandals, we must now acknowledge long-silenced victims who are speaking out about sexual abuse in evangelical Christian institutions: schools, mission fields and churches, large and small. And we must confess we have done far too little to hear and help them.

Holocaust survivor and author, Elie Weisel, once said, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim…silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” When we choose willful ignorance, inaction or neutrality in the face of evil, we participate in the survival of that evil. When clergy, school administrations, boards of directors, or military commanders have been silent or have covered up abuse, they have joined with those who perpetrate crimes against the “little ones” – often children, but also others who are on the underside of power because of size, age, position or authority.

It goes without saying that sexual abuse is criminal, but within the Church we also believe that it is the work of the enemy of our souls — evil, horrific sin perpetrated in dark and hidden places, forever altering lives and destroying the faith of the abused. How could such evil be present and overlooked in the body of Christ? Surely as his followers, we would do everything in our power to expose the deeds of darkness, opening the mouths of the mute, the afflicted and the needy. The Church must never hinder those who so desperately need to run to God and his people for safety, hope and truth, while also providing them protection from the great deceiver.

But we have hindered the victims. By our silence and our efforts to protect our names and institutions and “missions,” we, the body of Christ, have often sided with an enemy whose sole purpose is and has always been to destroy the Lamb of God and his presence in this world. Our busyness and inattention have often resulted in complicity in allowing dark places that shelter abuse to fester and survive.

We must face the truths of our own teachings: To be a shepherd in the body of Christ and blind to the knowledge that your sheep are being abused by wolves in your midst is to be an inattentive shepherd. To judge merely by outward appearances is a failure of righteousness. To fail to obey the laws of the land as Scripture commands by declining to report and expose abuse is to be a disobedient shepherd. To be told that wolves are devouring our lambs and fail to protect those lambs is to be a shepherd who sides with the wolves who hinder those same little ones from coming to Jesus. To fail to grasp the massive web of deception entangling an abuser and set him or her loose among the sheep is to be naïve about the very nature and power of sin. To be told a child is being or has been abused and to make excuses for failing to act is a diabolical misrepresentation of God. To know a woman is being raped or battered in hidden places and silence her or send her back is to align with those who live as enemies of our God. Protecting an institution or organization rather than a living, breathing lamb is to love ministry more than God and to value a human name or institution more than the peerless name of Jesus.

Dear church of Jesus Christ, we must set aside every agenda but one: to gently lead every man, woman and child into the arms of our Good Shepherd, who gave his very life to rescue us from the clutches of our enemy and from sin and death — who rose from the dead and called us to the safety of his side. As we follow this Good Shepherd, we will “eliminate harmful beasts from the land, make places of blessing for the sheep, deliver them from their enslavers and make them secure in places where no one will make them afraid” (Ezekiel 34:25-28). Surely it is for such a time as this that the Church has been empowered to boldly and bravely embody the Good News to accusers and accused alike, and to forsake our own comfort and position to love the hurting with an illogical extravagance.

To all who have been abused, broken, deceived and ignored, we have failed you and our God. We repent for looking nothing like our Lord when we have silenced you, ignored you or moved away from you and then acted as if you were the problem. You are not the problem; you are the voice of our God calling his church to repentance and humility. Thank you for having the courage to speak truth. May God have mercy on us all and oh may the day come when his church reflects the indescribable love and compassion of Jesus, even to the point of laying down our lives for his precious sheep.

Dated this 17^th day of July, 2013.

Click here to add your voice and sign this statement along with those listed below.

Carol Ajamian, Retired
Jim Arcieri, Pastor of Community Bible Fellowship Church in Red Hill, PA

William S. Barker, Professor of Church History, Emeritus at Westminster Theological Seminary (PA)

Steve Brown, Professor, Emeritus of Preaching and Pastoral Ministry at Reformed Theological Seminary, President of Key Life Network, Inc., and Author

P. J. (“Flip”) Buys, Associate International Director of the World Reformed Fellowship, South Africa

Rebecca Campbell, Member of the Board of Trustees at Biblical Theological Seminary

Alan Chambers, Founder, Speak.Love

Kelly Clark, Attorney with the law firm of O’Donnell Clark and Crew, LLP in Portland, OR

Julie Clinton, President of Extraordinary Women

Tim Clinton, President of the American Association of Christian Counselors and Professor of Counseling and Pastoral Care at Liberty University

Wentzel Coetzer, Professor of Theology at Northwest University (Potschefstroom, South Africa)

James Courtney, Ruling Elder at Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Rye, NY

Margaret Courtney, Co-Director of Family Ministries at Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Rye, NY

Glenn Davies, Bishop of North Sydney, Australia

D. Clair Davis, Chaplain at Redeemer Seminary

Chuck DeGroat, Associate Professor of Counseling and Pastoral Care at Western Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow at Newbigin House

Mary DeMuth, Author and Blogger

David G. Dunbar, Professor of Theology at Biblical Theological Seminary

Diana S. Durrill, Pastor’s wife and Sexual abuse survivor

Michael J. Durrill, Pastor of Valley Community Church in Louisville, CO

William Edgar, Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary (PA)

Rob Edwards, Pastor of Mercy Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Forest, VA

Mr. Rinaldo Lotti Filho, Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church of Brazil (Sao Paulo)

Elyse Fitzpatrick, Counselor and Author

Ryan Ferguson, Pastor of Community Connection at North Hills Community Church in Taylors, SC

E. Robert Geehan, Pastor of The Reformed Church in Poughkeepsie, NY (RCA)

Shannon Geiger, Counselor at Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Dallas, TX

Douglas Green, Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary (PA)

Fred Harrell, Sr., Senior Pastor of City Church in San Francisco, CA

Robert Heerdt, Chief Investment Officer at BenefitWorks, Inc.

Walter Henegar, Senior Pastor of Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Atlanta, GA

Craig Higgins, Senior Pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Westchester County, NY and North American Regional Coordinator for the World Reformed Fellowship

Justin Holcomb, Author and Adjunct Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary

Lindsey Holcomb, Author and former case manager for sexual assault crisis center

Peter Hubbard, Pastor of Teaching at North Hills Community Church in Taylors, SC

Carolyn James, President of WhitbyForum

Frank James, President of Biblical Theological Seminary

Karen Jansson, Board member of the World Reformed Fellowship Board Member and Treasurer of the Russian Orphan Opportunity Fund, USA

Kathy Koch, President and Founder of Celebrate Kids

Matthew Lacey, Development Director for GRACE

David Lamb, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biblical Theological Seminary

Diane Langberg, Clinical Psychologist and Author

Daniel N. LaValla, Director of Library Services and Development Associate at Biblical Theological Seminary

Samuel Logan, International Director of the World Reformed Fellowship, President Emeritus of Westminster Theological Seminary (PA), and Special Counsel to the President at Biblical Theological Seminary

Tremper Longman, Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies at Westmont College

Kin Yip Louie, Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at China Graduate School of Theology

Fergus Macdonald, Past President of the United Bible Societies (Scotland)

Todd Mangum, Academic Dean and Professor of Theology at Biblical Theological Seminary

Dan McCartney, Professor of New Testament at Redeemer Seminary

Scot McKnight, Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary and Author

Jonathan Merritt, Faith and Culture writer

Pat Millen, Member of the Board of Trustees at Biblical Seminary

Philip Monroe, Professor of Counseling and Psychology at Biblical Theological Seminary

Amy Norvell, Director of Classical Conversations in Bryan/College Station, TX, Pastor’s wife, and Sexual abuse survivor

Thad Norvell, Pastor at Community Church in Bryan/College Station, TX

K. Eric Perrin, Senior Pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Cherry Hill, NJ

Michael Reagan, President of the Reagan Legacy Foundation

Matthew Redmond, Author

Nathan Rice, Director of Middle School Ministries at First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Bellevue, WA

Tamara Rice, Freelance Writer and Editor

Adam L Saenz, Clinical Psychologist and Author

Karen L. Sawyer, Vice Chair and Chair Elect of the Board of Trustees, Biblical Theological Seminary and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Arcadia University

Scotty Smith, Founding Pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin, TN

Ron Scates, Preaching Pastor at Highland Park Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Dallas, Texas

Andrew J. Schmutzer, Professor of Biblical Studies at Moody Bible Institute

Chris Seay, Pastor at Ecclesia in Houston, TX

Mike Sloan, Associate Pastor at Old Peachtree Presbyterian Church in DuLuth, GA

Basyle J. Tchividjian, Executive Director, GRACE and Associate Professor of Law at Liberty University School of Law

Laura Thien, LMHC and Board Chairperson of the Julie Valentine Center in Greenville, SC

Jessica Thompson, Author

Rick Tyson, Senior Pastor at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Willow Grove, PA

John Williams, Ruling Elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Washington Island, WI

John Wilson, Pastor in the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, Australia

William Paul Young, Author

Weekly Meanderings, 13 July 2013

Last updated on: July 11, 2013 at 6:31 pm By Scot McKnight

Nine traits of intelligent leadership. “The model is based on an enneagram, a nine-pointed diagram within a circle that dates to 2500 BC in Babylon. These days, it is used for charting personalities, with each element corresponding to a distinct way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It correlates with other well-known personality and behavioural systems, but Mr. Mattone believes it provides more granular details about leadership development. The circle divides evenly into three groups of leaders: Heart leaders, head leaders, and gut leaders. If you stalled on trying to place yourself in that schema, there’s a reason: Everyone is guided by their heart, head and gut. At the same time, everyone has a tendency to predominantly rely on one of those aspects of their being in their leadership. In turn, each of those three forms of leadership breaks down into three possibilities. Heart leaders tend to be helpers, entertainers, or artists. Head leaders tend to be activists, disciples or thinkers. Gut leaders tend to be drivers, arbitrators, or perfectionists. In the end, one of those nine traits is your predominant behaviour, but the other eight are still part of your composition. As you mature, you evolve between traits.”

Shauna Niequist’s very honest lessons on dealing with criticism.

Speaking of criticism, read this post by Kathy Escobar, which is a testimony to the fortitude of women in ministry:

We have to stand up every time we get knocked down.
We have to stand up when we feel like maybe we were meant to crawl.
We have to stand up when shame flushes our face.
We have to stand up when we hear a voice in our head that tells us we are supposed to sit.
We have to stand up even when our legs are so very tired.

Because there are far more pressing issues for women in this world than whether or not we can preach from the front of North American churches, and we need an army of women who will get off their knees and stand up for dignity, equality and restoration in this broken world.

Brain exercises: “To keep their bodies running at peak performance, people often hit the gym, pounding away at the treadmill to strengthen muscles and build endurance. This dedication has enormous benefits—being in shape now means warding off a host of diseases when you get older. But does the brain work in the same way? That is, can doing mental exercises help your mind stay just as sharp in old age? Experts say it’s possible. As a corollary to working out, people have begun joining brain gyms to flex their mental muscles. For a monthly fee of around $15, websites like Lumosity.com and MyBrainTrainer.com promise to enhance memory, attention and other mental processes through a series of games and brain teasers. Such ready-made mind exercises are an alluring route for people who worry about their ticking clock. But there’s no need to slap down the money right away—new research suggests the secret to preserving mental agility may lie in simply cracking open a book. The findings, published online today in Neurology, suggest that reading books, writing and engaging in other similar brain-stimulating activities slows down cognitive decline in old age, independent of common age-related neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, people who participated in mentally stimulating activities over their lifetimes, both in young, middle and old age, had a slower rate of decline in memory and other mental capacities than those who did not.”

Mary Bowser, the internet, and careful research: “The story of the mistaken Mary Bowser reveals how an interest in history, especially women’s history and black history, can blind us to how much about the past remains unknowable. The paradox of the information age is that our unprecedented access to information feeds an expectation that every search will yield plentiful — and accurate — results. But the type of evidence that our 21st-century sensibilities most desire may be the least likely to exist. Uncovering the past is arduous work: Compare the ease with which an Internet search turns up the falsely labeled, cropped image of Mary Bowser with the number of sources I persistently contacted over a period of several years before locating the original cabinet card. Alas, in the age of the Internet, it may prove nearly impossible to curtail the use of that image as an avatar for the elusive slave-turned-spy, despite the definitive proof that it isn’t her.” (HT: CB)

The real money is in teaching: “Software programming? Yeah it’s an okay way to make a living. But the real money is in teaching. Or at least that’s the recent experience of Scott Allen, a programmer and teacher the tech-y online education platform Pluralsight.com. Allen has earned more than $1.8 million through fees and royalties from Pluralsight over the last five years. He says each monthly royalty check has increased in size over that period — the smallest increase being 10 percent month-over-month. That far outdid his expectations when he started making educational videos for Pluralsight. “It’s amazing,” he says.”

Harper Lee — a report: “Who would have predicted that, in her late 80s, Harper Lee would have to file suit to get the control of “To Kill a Mockingbird” returned to her? According to a lawsuit filed in May, Lee, in failing health, had been “duped” into assigning the copyright of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to her literary agent, a lawyer. That’s no small thing: A half century after its publication, “To Kill a Mockingbird” still sells more than 750,000 copies a year. In one typical six-month period in 2009, its royalties amounted to more than $1.6 million.”

The burrito pillow.

Church of England’s Bishops meet to discuss the church in England over the next two decades. “Bishop Steven Croft told Synod members the Church of England needed a “more outward focus” that implied action as well as reflection. He welcomed the rise in the number of younger vocations to ordained ministry, to 113 candidates under 30 in 2011, the highest figure since 1992. However, he said there needed to be more diverse vocations and more from different ethnic backgrounds. The bishop admitted the area of growing the Church and of making disciples was the “most challenging” out of the three goals. “The Church all over the world is having a similar conversation about the challenge of passing on the Christian faith in a global secular culture,” he said. “We urgently need to deepen that conversation in our own Church.” He urged the Church to pursue serving the common good, transforming ministry, and making disciples “with passion, with hope, with resources, and with courage”. “We need to recover the simple, deep disciplines of learning and teaching the faith to make disciples in annual rhythms and patterns in every parish throughout the land.”

Last words of 38 presidents.

Edmund S. Morgan, one of America’s best Puritan scholars, dies. “As a historian of colonial and revolutionary America, he was one of the giants of his generation, and a writer who could well have commanded a larger nonacademic audience than I suspect he received,” said Pauline Maier, a professor of American history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “He characteristically took on big issues and had a knack for conveying complex, sophisticated truths in a way that made them seem, if not simple, at least easily understandable.” Professor Morgan’s book “The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop” (1958) was for decades one of the most widely assigned texts in survey courses on American history. His “Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea” (1963) showed his unmatched talent for mining primary sources to illuminate an important concept, in this case the change in understanding among New Englanders of what it meant to be the member of a church.”

History of bread: “By the beginning of the Middle Ages the preference was to eat white bread made from wheat – medieval physicians also recommended it as being the healthiest – but poorer peoples would bake darker breads with oats or rye. If one needed too, people could also add rice, peas, lentils, chestnuts, acorns or other foods into the mixture. In medieval France, most people would eat a type of bread known as meslin, which was made from a mixture of wheat and rye. Writing from Baghdad in the 10th century, Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, gives his thoughts on the best kinds of bread to eat:

Wheat bread agrees with almost everybody, particular varieties made with a generous amount of yeast and salt and allowed to fully ferment and bake well. Such breads are lighter and digest faster. Jizmazaj (thin bread with tamarisk seeds) and ruqaq (very thin bread) are by comparison less nourishing and digest much faster. Bread baked in malla (pit with hot ashes and stones), tabaq (large flat pan) and any other similar varieties that do not ferment or bake well are hard to digest and cause stomach aches. Only people used to strenuous labor can eat them more often.

Terrence Scully notes “that bread was the basis of the medieval diet” and the amount that people ate throughout Europe was remarkably similar. He finds that records from England, France and Italy that workmen, soldiers and even patients in hospitals were supposed to get about two pounds of bread per day.”

How to talk like a founding father, and one way is to use this word: “mickle (n.): a large sum or amount, chiefly used in the proverbs “many a pickle makes a mickle” and “many a mickle makes a muckle.” In 1793, Washington referenced the Scottish adage that “Nothing in nature is more true … [than] many mickles make a muckle.” Predecessors of mickle include the Old Saxon mikil and Middle High German michel.”

Great article on Larry Doby. Speaking of baseball, John Rawls, eminent thinker about justice, totally understands it.

The Pine Tar Incident of George Brett now clarified.

Who Says What’s an Egalitarian?

Last updated on: July 1, 2013 at 7:15 pm By Scot McKnight

Before I get to “The Chart,” I turn to Katelyn Beaty, of CT:

Many scholars have noted that “traditional gender roles”—defined as a husband working outside the home while a wife stays home with children—are a relatively new phenomenon in human history. Take, for example, the world of the Bible, wherein most husbands and wives co-labored to scrap together a subsistence living. We don’t see Boaz coming home from the fields, propping his feet on the coffee table and asking Ruth to fix him dinner and put the kiddies to bed. In fact, their romance begins in a field, where Ruth works hard gleaning behind harvesters to provide for herself and her mother-in-law. And in the New Testament, we meet Joanna, “the manager of Herod’s household”—I wonder if she’s read Lean In—and Susanna, both of whom seem to be bankrolling Jesus’ preaching ministry (Luke 8:1–3).

So Strachan, Kassian, and other Christians who say that men must work outside the home while women must work inside it demonstrate a classic case of anachronism—and a troubling case of broken anthropology. Because when it comes to questions of what God designed us humans to do, some complementarians put women into a mold they were never obligated to fill….

Whatever you do, lady reader—and however much or little money you make doing it—do it with all your heart, knowing that you receive your calling and identity from God, not from fellow Christians who play exegetical leapfrog with Scripture.

Now speaking of “exegetical leapfrog,” I just have to bring up a most exhilarating conversation we had in my Women in Ministry class at Northern Seminary two weeks back. One day one of our students brought in Wayne Grudem’s chart of marital relations, which she called “The Chart” with the kind of emphasis that you know she lives in a world where plenty refer to The Chart. What I want to look at is how he defines Egalitarians, and it makes me wonder if he’s asked any what they really think, or if he’s ready any “egalitarian” literature, and before I get there this:

The word “complementarian” was used very early in this discussion — way back when the first breakouts and breakthroughs occurred — for what is now called “egalitarian” by “complementarians,” and the word “complementarian” meant “mutualist” and was preferred by those now called egalitarian. Confusing? Read on. Those egalitarian-complementarians saw marriages and men and women relations as complementary and equal and not hierarchical. So the early egalitarians among evangelicals saw themselves as complementarians and then the complementarians grabbed the term, and frankly it sounds better than hierarchicalists. But the fact is that the word complementarian today means hierarchalist while the term egalitarian can mean totally equal or mutualist. I really like the term mutualist. I remember studying this issue and it dawning on me that I was an old-fashioned complementarian, which meant different, equal and complementary, but not roles or hierarchy, and I felt flummoxed by the whole discussion. Then a friend pointed out to me that the egalitarians originally wrote a book called “complentarity without hierarchy” so I suppose you could say we have two kinds of complementarians: those without hierarchy and those with it.

Which leads to The Chart by Wayne Grudem, in his book about Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, endorsed by a number of heavyweights. Grudem cuts the world into three groups:

The Effeminate Left, made up of “No Differences” (=radical egalitarians?) and “Egalitarianism.”

There is the Complementarian Middle, made up “Equality and Differences and Unity” and “Male Dominance”.

And then there’s the far right “The Violent Right” where there is “No Equality.”

(I find it a strain, but I’ll accept it for the moment, that a complementarian sees himself as a the middle. He who writes the story controls the glory.)

I’m concerned today with how he describes Egalitarians. Here are his breakdowns:

Defined: “removing or denying many differences between men and women” (not a very good definition). Instead of carping, I’m going to ask You, o Egalitarian, what terms you’d use to define egalitarian. Notice Grudem uses negative terms: they deny things.

All I ask here is for you to define or describe each of these as an Egalitarian. I don’t care what others think of egalitarians; what matters first is how the egalitarians define these things. Let them speak. Go ahead, write up your words for each item on The Chart.

God: mutual submission in the Trinity.

Man, Woman: no gender-based role differences to marriage.

Marriage: mutual submission [which happens to be biblical, right there in Eph 5:21]. Grudem: “often husband as wimp and wife as usurper”

Children: children raised with too little discipline, little respect for authority.

Family Responsibilities: all responsibilities shared equally between husband and wife or divided according to gifts and interests.

Sex: men become unmasculine, unattractive to women; women become unfeminine, unattractive to men.

Natural Desires: moving ‘contrary to nature’ (Romans 1:26). (Leading, he says, to unlimited same-sex activity.)

Religion: no governing or teaching roles in church reserved for men.

Authority: suspicion of authority.

Sports: anticompetition.

Crime: criminal seen as victim to be helped, not punished; punishment long delayed.

Property: no one is allowed to be very rich; large-scale dependence on welfare state or government.

Education: systematic pressure to make boys and girls do equally well in all subjects.

Nearly all of the above is quotation from Grudem, and so is this: “This chart contains many generalizations and is only meant to show broad tendencies…”