Jesus, a former Marxist professor and me

My former headmaster, Toby S. (not the Marxist I am refering to in the title!), said this about the legacy of the Reformed Church.

"Our legacy is one of fat theology books and church splits. And of course there are notable exceptions, but generally, it appears we've done a fairly dismal job of putting hands and feet on our (supposed) theology. Our circles are primarily ideologically driven/maintained rather than geographically/parish focused."

That is so true and it is equally true that the most effective ministry (perhaps even the only ministry that is ultimately effective) is personal ministry. Jesus public death on the cross would not have meant a thing if He did not have a personal ministry to the disciples and others in his close circle. Jesus death has significance on all different levels, but if he had just been a hermit before he died, no one would have cared. The significance of his death goes far beyond the legal transaction that took place, the fact that he paid the debt for my sins. It is impossible to serve God without serving those around us.

I know a professor who says that he used to be Marxist, but now when he reads Marxists he can't get past their religion. He's frequently pretty cynical about teaching. He said that he might have trouble arguing with a student who answered one of his essay questions by saying, "Who gives a crap?" Of course the student doesn't have the credibility to say something like that, but this professor does. He said he doesn't get any real satisfaction from his job anymore, that his family gives him happiness now, but not writting for his peers. He made fun of the old professors who still stand around joking about how dumb students are, about how they don't know the basic facts of history, like what decade the Civil War was. "Of course they're dumb!" was his recognition. "Why should they care about Bizmark's rise to power aided by the king and on the backs of the working men?" which was something that he used to care about as a Marxist. The marxists believed that economics influenced culture, which influenced politics. "It was was a beautiful theory," he said, and that must be why he believed in it.

But now this particular professor, in his historiography class, which is a class about methods of historical analyis and writing, says that people who pick any one of those three things (economics, culture or politics) as being preeminant and controlling over the others, make him nervous. I guess I'll have to be careful not to be too precise in my methods! But as a Christian, and one who goes to a church with an optimistic eschatology, I tend to believe that culture is more of a substrata than either economics or politics. In the marketplace people exchange things, in the political arena they fight for things, but as members of a culture we adopt a way of living. Jesus started a culture, a way of living, accompanied by certain beliefs, but primarily a way of living, which has outlasted countless governments and changes in economy. And that culture is built on the foundation of personal ministry, beyond just the ministry to our families, though that is important. Therefore Christians have a historiography, which corresponds with their way of life, and that truly is beautiful! May thy Kingdom come, Lord Jesus!

Who we are

I love this statement about who we are in the CREC by Chris Schlect:

We in the CREC are recovering from 20th century fundamentalism and pietism. As pietists, we tried to be relevant to culture and to make a difference, but we learned that the more relevant we tried to become, the more shallow and fragmented, and at last, the less relevant, we became. As fundamentalists, we wanted to hold up the Bible as our standard of truth, but we came to learn that without owning the church as the “pillar and ground of the truth,” a high Bible is no longer a precious Covenant document, but Gnostic emptiness.

God protected us from ourselves. He protected us through all our silly political lobbying, our taste for Contemporary Christian music, and our media-frenzied vision for ministry, even as we neglected the church. He has been kind to show us our folly, and to restore us to our mother. We in the CREC are in love with our creeds and confessions and liturgies and our church government. For our merciful God has rescued us out of the 20th century.

Check out the rest of the CREC's history here.

A New Speaker for the 2007 Trinity Fest

Dr. David Field is going to speak at Trinity Fest this year.

Hesitant mission statements

I've been looking at some of the websites and descriptions of various Christian organizations here at WSU and many of them are very hesitant sounding. Consider this Presbyterian one:

"...a weekly worship service where university students get together to celebrate real life in Jesus Christ through song, prayer, teaching, and hanging out. It’s centered on making Jesus relevant, whether you are a skeptic, sitting on the fence, or actively maturing in your faith."

There's nothing wrong with hanging out for Jesus. All ministry must be personal or it is not effective ministry. But lets not start with the assumption that Jesus is irrelivant! Here's another one:

"...at WSU is an open and accepting Christian community (Koinonia) honoring diversity of persons and opinions, working for reconciliation and the integration of faith and learning for the Washington State University Community.

We are a group of seven Protestant denominations which have covenanted together to provide ministry opportunities to WSU students, faculty and staff.

The Common Ministry is an open and accepting Christian community: we strive to be in ministry with all people regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age."

That one doesn't even mention Jesus! I guess it wouldn't though, because it also uses its facility for the meetings of entirely different religions, such as Muslims.

Politics is the opiate of the masses!

Richard John Neuhaus, author of "The Naked Public Square," calls himself a catholic and ecumenical Lutheran. He wrote a book in 1984 that expresses many of the ideas and attitudes towards politics that I have learned since being at Christ Church and so its very interesting to find a few of them in a book that was written long before Leithart wrote "Against Christianity," which is my favorite political treatise besides the New Testament itself. Here is one of those ideas that I hold dear--the idea that a Christian's life gets bigger, not smaller as he watches less of Fox News:

"Largeness of life has little to do with the size of the space engaged. The person watching the evening political news about budget battles in Washington and bloodier battles in Beirut is not necessarily living more largely. Large horizons on life's possibilities might more likely be disclosed by listening to a Mozart concerto or taking the dog for a walk around the neighborhood." Amen to that!

The problem of individualism

A quotation from Doug Wilsons’ blog: “As a pastor, I have spoken many times with men and women who tragically believe that their personal identity is separate and distinct from whatever relationships that they might happen to be in. Individualism has persuaded many of the disastrous doctrine that personal identity is monadic or solitary. This is one of the reasons why we are dealing with an epidemic of divorce—men and women have come to believe they can walk away from marriage without touching or affecting what or who they are as a person.”

This very little light of mine

The Lord gave me a convicting thought yesterday while talking with a friend: When have I had the opportunity to share the Gospel with someone, not the idea that Christianity should be given more consideration in public life and not that that the Christian Worldview is unjustly targeted, but the Gospel--showing to someone how God’s grace can change their life and "save" them? It's clear that American Christians need to pray to the Lord for opportunities to declare His truth and to help grow His Church.