Living Wittily

Denominational amnesia and loss of convictional integrity

Now I don't want to trivialise  denominationalist, post denominationalist arguments. But I can't make up my mind whether this cartoon is saying something funny in a serious way, or saying something serious in a funny way.

But for myself, I remain passionately committed to the diversity of the Body of Christ, and a yearner for its unity to be expressed in the co-ordination and harmonic actions that embody the presence of the risen Christ in the power of the Spirit to the glory of the Father. The reasons why a denomination was first formed can of course lose their validity and convictional hold for later generations - but not necessarily so. And not if those reasons continue to express distinctives made authentic in convictional practices that are to the enrichment of the whole body. Something about if the whole body were an ear where would be the sense of smell.....

The cartoon is on page 62 of the Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality, Evan B Howard, (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2008). Don't be fooled by the title - this "Introduction" is 500 pages of double column large format hardback. It's a superb resource and very, very good value - The Book Depository has it for around £13 including postage.

Gordon Fee as Exegete: Giving Paul his due and the importance of word order

Two examples of Fee's no nonsense exegetical comments:

"R F Collins argues (unconvincingly) that Paul has here taken over an earlier formula and adapted it to his own purposes. While all things are possible, not all possible things are equally probable. Indeed, it is of considerable interest that the most creative theologian in the early church is seen as not capable of being creative at points like this, but must be assumed to be borrowing from others - and that without evidence."

............................

On Paul's use of charis and shalom in the greeting:

"Paul salutes his brothers and sisters in Christ with "grace to you - and peace." It is worth noting that this is the invariable order of Paul's words, not "grace and peace to you" as in most translations. Very likely there is significance to this order: the grace of God and Christ is what is given to God's people; peace is what results from such a gift. Hence "grace to you - and peace."...The sum total of God's activity towards his human creatures is found in the word "grace"; God has given himself to his people bountifully and mercifully in Christ. Nothing is deserved, nothing can be achieved. The sum total of those benefits  as they are experienced by the recipients of God's grace is "peace", God's eschatological shalom, both now and to come."

......................

If the task of the exegete is to enable later readers to hear as clearly as possible, the voice of the one speaking in the text, then these two brief quotations are good examples of why Gordon Fee is a trusted guide. For myself, I wholly concur with his pedantic care in translating Paul's greeting "grace to you - and peace". Allowing the brief pause between the two both distinguishes and connects them in a way that is profoundly theological.

On another note, the Scottish Baptist College Blog is being revived into a discussion forum for issues that we as part of the Scottish Baptist community want to explore in conversation. In particular we want to explore areas of theological education, ministry formation, discipleship in 21st Century Culture, and we will include occasional book reviews. It will also contain news and comment from our College community and have some guest posts from students and others now and again. You might want to go look - I'll occasionally flag it up here as new material is added. 

Induction, covenant and celebration - Catriona has arrived in Scotland!

Every induction of a minister to a pastorate is an event to be celebrated, a covenant to be sealed by promises, a confirmation yet again of the surprising call of God to all too human people to serve the Body of Christ, the Church. As Baptists we gladly hold to the practice of making covenant. A church is a gathering of believers who in their membership of the local church, embody the promise to walk together, faithfully, after Christ. And the call of God is to do so together, and to persevere and work at it even if at times it exhausts patience and breaks the heart. And to do this while also knowing that in the shared fellowship of the journey, they have discovered joy, the understanding of others, the generosity that humbles, and that one surprise, repeated so mercifully often, that one surprise of being loved.

 And so to Hillhead Baptist Church on Saturday October 3rd, and Catriona's induction. Most people who visit this blog will know Catriona as the skinny fair trade latte blogger (see sidebar), minister till recently of Hugglescote Baptist Church (aka Dibley). I met her the year before she went to Hugglescote, and then several times more recently as she came up to Scotland to meet those who will now be the congregation amongst whom her ministry will be. The Induction service was built around the theme and the experience of making covenant. Catriona told her story, the Church told theirs, and we sensed how these stories coincided. And of course the church from which Catriona came, Hugglescote Baptist Church, they too are part of the story and they were there too. Then Catriona and the Church made promises, and in our prayers we laid hands not only on the new minister, but on representatives of the congregation, so that they set out together on their journey, in covenant with each other, and looking to God to lead, accompany and hold them true to themselves and each other. All of this gathered together by Ruth Gouldbourne, preacher for the day, under the deceptively simple command, "Be kind to one another". Except that kindness is patterned after the kindnes of God, who in Christ chooses to be kind, to come close, to empathise, to walk the way of human life.

Then there was the biblically mandated buffet meal. This is one of my favourite icons, depicting an early buffet meal, complete with angels unawares. The fact that the icon images the Trinity and the Triune communion of love and perichoretic purpose, enriches further the idea of hospitality. Food, good talk, laughter, the shared satisfaction of being together, the courteous recognition of the other, the welcome that makes the presence of another both wanted and felt to be wanted, - and all expressed with good food, the mutuality of serving, and the fun of not knowing everyone who is there, providing opportunities to reach out with the offer of our name and the gift of their name.

So the day closed around 8.pm and we made our way home. But only after taking time to acknowledge the spiritual potency of those occasions when you know you stand on the brink of new possibility. And however hard we try, and no matter how much we think we ourselves achieve, we know that those possibilities come to be, not merely or mainly through our energy, but because when it comes to kindness, God takes the lead. He is there long before us; his generosity has no inbuilt limitations, and time and again we discover to our embarrasment, his grace second-guesses our needs.

.  

John Colwell and biography as theology

Thanks to Andy Goodliff for flagging up the new title by John Colwell due to be published by Paternoster in December. John is one of our most original and constructively provocative Baptist theologians. His previous books on ethics, the sacraments and systematic theology through the Church Year are amongst the most valued volumes of those who've read them. Knowing the man, makes them even more trusted as the genuine wrestlings with faith and truth that they are.

This will be a book that combines biography, theology and pastoral reflection. John talks honestly of his experience of bi-polar illness, and does so as a man of faith seeking to make his human condition somehow capable of meaning within that faith. So the book will be theology lived, and tested in the valleys of deep darkness as well as the green pastures and occasional still waters. As one who teaches systematic theology, or dogmatics, or Christian doctrine, I am only too aware of how much theologising is so technically executed, so dependent on discourse as esoteric as any mystery religion, so inaccessibly beyond all but those who want to play the intellectual power games of the academy. So I'm always keen to find texts that have clear rootedness in and connections to the lived experience of people of faith. Only then do theology and biography enter a fruitful conversation to their mutual benefit.

One of my own research interests is the connection between Christian faith experience, church as community and people whose sense of self is different because of varied conditions that affect mental health.

Here is the information about the book with some significant endorsements.

Review

This book is a gift to anyone who has been touched by the darkness of bi-polar illness. Colwells willingness to write honestly about his illness will be an aid for those struggling with the condition, but even more important is his use of the psalms and attention to Jesus way of dereliction to locate how such illness is not pointless. This is a book that needed to be written. But only someone like John Colwell could write it. --Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School, USA

It is a well-known fact that the Church doesnt do depression. Melancholy just doesnt sit comfortably with our sanguine view of spiritual progress. Thank God, however, that John Colwell has the guts to attend to this erroneous state of affairs and offer us a spirituality that embraces the wintry as well as the sunny seasons of our lives. --Ian Stackhouse, Team Leader, Guildford Baptist Church, England

If the best theology is attentive to Scripture, focused on Christ, and meaningful for human life in all its messiness, then there are few better examples than this new book by John Colwell. --Steve Holmes, Lecturer in Theology, University of St Andrews, Scotland

Product Description

In this powerful book on the experience of desolation John Colwell focuses on Psalm 22, read in the light of his own struggle with bi-polar disorder and the Christian belief that God the Son suffered in his humanity, to offer existential-theological reflections on the experience of God-forsakenness.

The author writes, My concern in writing this book and in reading this psalm is to reflect on the felt experience of God-forsakenness, my own and that of Christ in the light of this psalm; to explore the theological and spiritual significance of this felt experience for myself, for Christ, for Christians generally. If this exploration proves to be helpful to me or to others then obviously I am glad, but I am not writing this book to be helpful but rather to be truthful (and perhaps hopeful). This is a personal journey of reflection with a psalm which I invite you, the reader, to share if you will.

John Bunyan on the proper "status" of Baptist ministers

Most Baptists, including myself, claim John Bunyan was a Baptist in the best and most important senses of that ecclesial descriptor. By 1669 his Bedford congregation were described as Anabaptist. Whether he would own the modern denominational term or not, he held in classic Baptist terms to a profoundly unclerical non hierarchical view of the church and her ministry, and has some uncompromising correctives for all those in whatever tradition, who want to link ministry with authority rather than service, and for whom office and status seem more important than gift and privilege.

The quotation below comes from The Minister's Prayer Book. An Order of Prayers and Readings, ed. John W Doberstein (London: Collins, 1964). This book is a wide and eclectic gathering of orders for daily devotions, shaped around aspects of ministry, supplemented by an anthology of readings. I bought it for 75 pence second-hand years ago and it has travelled most places with me as a focus for reflection and prayer.

The following extract from Bunyan is on page 191. Unfortunately it was culled from another anthology so I can't give the precise reference to Bunyan. It's from Solomon's Temple Spiritualised and you can find it online over here.:

"Gifts and office make no men sons of God; as so, they are but servants; though these, as ministers and apostles, were servants of the highest form. It is the church, as such, that is the lady, a queen, the bride, the Lamb's wife; and prophets, apostles and ministers are but servants, stewards, labourers for her good."

"As therefore the lady is above the servant, the queen above the steward, or the wife above all her husband's officers, so is the church, as such, above these officers."

Baptist Identity: who is God calling us to be now?

I continue to think about Baptist identity. Not agonise. Not worry. But think, evaluate, indulge in self criticism without indulging in self-denigration. So below I offer the final few paragraphs of my recent paper on Baptist Identity. It isn't the last word on anything, but it is a first word that needs speaking, and hearing, and then more thinking. But at some time the thinking has to become the intellectual and spiritual energy source for theological reconstruction and renewed denominational confidence. And of course I don't mean resurgent and divisive denominationalism - I mean owning and generously sharing our own identity, while encountering and humbly receiving the gift, presence and fellowship of other Christians, all equally faithful to their denominational identities. In that encounter of diversity something of the richly co-ordinated grace of God waits for us to discover - and be discovered. 

"Christian denominational identity of any kind, implies a particular theological style, a principled standpoint derived from past and present experience, and reflection on, and reinforcement of that theological style. The same is true of Baptist identity. Historic tradition judiciously re-appropriated, and contemporary practice of our living communities reconnected with core Baptist convictions, will only happen if, looking forward, we can answer the question – not who were we? - nor who are we? But who is God calling us now to be, in faithfulness to a Baptist understanding of the Gospel?

  To answer that question,

·        requires a willingness to explore and live faithfully within those historic Baptist traditions of radical discipleship that shaped and formed us

·        means being energised by Baptist convictions which will be inevitably but creatively disruptive of other evangelical ecclesiologies rooted in other than radical free church congregational principles

·        implies ongoing affirmation of the sole and absolute authority of Christ the head of the Church, and of each local church, and that as a distinctive Baptist witness radically lived out in local ecclesial community

·        is to hear and answer Christ's call to a discipleship of sacrifice, peace-making, reconciliation and imaginative following after Christ, by those whose baptism is their promise in response to God’s promise, and their dying with Christ a prerequisite of rising to newness of life.

·        To answer that question then – who is God calling us to be in faithfulness to a Baptist understanding of the Gospel – to answer that question in these ways, is to have begun to repossess that without which we are existentially disadvantaged – our identity as Baptists.

 But to do this will involve risk – of being misunderstood, of being thought old fashioned, of not paying attention and not listening to the wider constituency. The risk of denominational regression into narrowly conceived peculiarities no longer popularly owned, the risk of being accused of pushing a Baptist agenda at a time when the need for the Gospel  was never greater – as if Baptist identity and Gospel faithfulness were mutually obstructive rather than spiritually integral.

 Risk. At which stage we are called to row towards the waterfall, taking the necessary risks. As that maybe Baptist John Bunyan said, “I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of, and wherever I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot.” Baptist discipleship is simply and only that – being faithful to who Christ has called us to be, and to follow faithfully after Him, through the waters of baptism and into newness of life."

Baptist Identity - Seven Spiritual Values

Seven Spiritual Values Embedded in Baptist Identity.

 ·        Sole Headship of Christ as final authority in faith and practice, as revealed in Scripture

·        Baptismal confession of faith by believers in context of worshipping community

·        Covenant faithfulness to Christ within a living community of believers

·        Gathered community as the Body of Christ, competent under God to discern together the mind of Christ

        ·       Mission as bearing witness to the world through the lived practices of the Gospel in the

          power of the risen Christ.

·        Principled separation from State control and State privilege

·        Religious freedom and tolerance as the rationale for our own claimed freedom to witness to Christ.

Baptist identity is elusive. Ways of being Baptist are so diverse that, to avoid partiality and unfair narrowness, it would be more useful to talk of Baptist identities. But I still would want to argue that all of the above provide a cluster of spiritual values which, when taken together, are integral to Baptist identity. Or am I missing something - or claiming too much?

Baptist Identity and Rowing Toward the Waterfall

Off to the Fellowship of British Baptists, a kind of Baptist summit meeting that includes representatives from the BUGB, Baptist Missionary Society, the Baptist Union of Wales and the Baptist Union of Scotland. This year we are in Birmingham. It's always a good couple of days of discussion, reflection, shared hopes and concerns, prayer, friendship, laughter, and the kind of occasion that's all too rare in lives too thirled to diaries, deadlines and to do lists.

Amongst the things we'll discuss is Baptist identity - who Baptists are, why Baptists matter and who cares anyway? Well I do for one. Not because I'm a denominational dinosaur in a post-modern, post-christian, irreversibly pluralist, unabashedly consumerist and unrepentantly fluid world. But because I happen to think that important spiritual values and theological commitments are entrusted to those whose ways of following Christ are different from mine, and mine from theirs. This isn't about denominational narrowness, but about Christian diversity; nor is the concern for a strong sense of denominational identity a way of claiming Baptists are right and others are wrong. It's a concern that we each be faithful to those truths that are part of our history and witness, thereby conserving the essential diversity of the Body of Christ, which I think is a large part of what it means to speak of the church catholic.

I do think that in the conversations that take place between the different members of the family of God, the Baptist voice brings its own insights, its own story, its own witness to what it has meant to follow faithfully after Christ. Of course meaningful conversations only happen when listening takes frequent precedence over speaking, and when the stories of those others are heard by us with humility of mind and a receptive heart, and welcomed as the gifts they are. In other words I don't think my strongly held convictions as a Baptist require me to silence or out-argue the convictions of others in order for them to retain their spiritual and theological purchase on my own life and witness. Being secure in your own denominational identity doesn't depend on questioning or diminishing the identity of others. At least not as I've tried to live out my faith.

Anyway, I've been asked to lead off the discussion on Baptist identity. I've done a wee informal paper and given it a title based on that poem of Mary Oliver I quoted a couple of weeks ago:

Rowing Towards the Waterfall: The Necessary Risk of Being Baptist.

Might do a couple of posts on it later once it's thought through a bit more carefully and had the benefit of conversation, disagreement and the friendly correctives that always improve the way we say the things we feel strongly.

Just published: Baptist Theology. A Four Century Study.

This huge contribution to Baptist theology and history is just published. I've just ordered my copy. Obviously this is of more interest to Baptist readers of this blog - but indulge me. This is a landmark volume and it will be reviewed on the College blog in due course. here's the blurb as issued by the Baptist World Alliance Theological Commission:

James Leo Garrett, Jr., is writing a twelve-chapter, four-century history of Baptist theology, which is to be published by Mercer University Press, Macon, GA, and is designed to appear in advance of the Baptist quadricentennial in 2009. A coordinated and comprehensive history of Baptist theology from 1609 to the present, with an initial chapter on pre-1609 influences, it is to provide an integrated interpretation of Baptist confessions of faith, major Baptist theologians, and Baptist theological movements and controversies.

The volume is to focus on Baptist doctrine and will not encompass Baptist ethics, Baptist spirituality, or Baptist apologetics. Although it tends to be organized chronologically, it is not a narrative history but rather an interpretation of theology in various historical contexts. It gives major attention to England and the United States but also includes the Baptist theology of other nations. Although it is centered on distinctive Baptist theology, it also exhibits both theological beliefs held in common with most other Christian denominations (for example, the Trinity and the person of Christ) and the heavy influence of certain other confessional traditions upon Baptists (for example, the Reformed). The book does not defend a single thesis per se but does constitute a massive argument that there has been and is a Baptist theological tradition. It does not attempt to treat authors having rather limited influence or to interpret the beliefs of rank-and-file church members.

The volume is designed to serve as a textbook for courses in Baptist theology or the Baptist heritage in Baptist colleges, universities, seminaries, and divinity schools. It is likewise intended to be read by pastors, educators, and informed lay persons and to be purchased by institutional libraries and by local church libraries.

Garrett is distinguished professor of theology, emeritus, at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, having taught also in Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Baylor University, and Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary.

Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution - Martin Luther King's dream.

Today is an historic day. The inauguration of Barack Obama will mark another step towards the fulfilment of the most famously articulated dream of the 20th Century. On the obvious public, contemporary, global media level, the day belongs to Barack Obama - but in terms of history, human significance, Christian witness and political theology, the day belongs to the Baptist pastor whose dream, nearly fifty years ago, inspired others to dream.

So on this inauguration day, instead of quoting from Obama's autobiography, quoted below are important words with which he is required to engage if he is to be anywhere near true to the vision of Martin Luther King. The extract comes late on from a remarkable sermon in which MLK tackled politically embedded racism, world poverty and the tragic stupidity of the Vietnam war. I've inserted italics at a sentence which is not only quintessential MLK - it states the grounds of a Christian political ethic as a stance of Christian witness. The sermon is called

Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution

This is why I felt the need of raising my voice against that war and working wherever I can to arouse the conscience of our nation on it. I remember so well when I first took a stand against the war in Vietnam. The critics took me on and they had their say in the most negative and sometimes most vicious way.

One day a newsman came to me and said, "Dr. King, don’t you think you’re going to have to stop, now, opposing the war and move more in line with the administration’s policy? As I understand it, it has hurt the budget of your organization, and people who once respected you have lost respect for you. Don’t you feel that you’ve really got to change your position?" I looked at him and I had to say, "Sir, I’m sorry you don’t know me. I’m not a consensus leader. I do not determine what is right and wrong by looking at the budget of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I’ve not taken a sort of Gallup Poll of the majority opinion." Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.

On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?

There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of goodwill to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain’t goin’ study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.

***<<<>>>***

In a world where hope comes hard, expectations of this Presidency are understandbly but unreasonably high. But lovers of peace and makers of peace, dreamers of hope and makers of hope, those who hunger and thirst for that righteousness of acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with God, will today pray God that the newly inaugurated President will live up to his own rootedness in those ideals and values determined to use rather than abuse power.