Shooting around the mark

Being the pastor of a very traditional Lutheran congregation for some time, I've noted a phenomenon that may be worth sharing. It works like this: We begin by worshiping God, holding Him/Her to be the ground of being (to use Tillich's phrase). Since we hold God to be holy, the things close to God, that is, proximate to God, also partake of this same holiness (things such as the bible, the Church, the sacraments, Law and Gospel, the liturgy, the Creed, perhaps even clergy in some minds).

And then something curious begins to occur. After a time, our worship focus begins to include those things which are proximate to God. So that we begin to place the bible or our liturgy or the Law on a level near to or even equal to God Himself. And suddenly the bible in our view becomes something without error, and our liturgical worship becomes something that must not change, and the Law becomes a focus of worship in its own right. And God Himself, who began as the proper focus of our worship, begins to be surrounded by idols of a more subtle sort than the usual idols of money, power, and coercion that we have learned through hard experience to be wary of.

Major Premise: We worship only God
Minor Premise: Things close to God are not God
Therefore: We do not worship things close to God

Although we may of course reverence them.

Just a thought.

Blessings,
Pastor Garry

Spirituality again: Consistency

Here's a thoughtful article on consistency for those who try to have a spiritual life without participating in a congregational family.

www.jacksonsun.com/article/20100707/LIFESTYLE/7071302/Being-a-Christian-cannot-be-separated-from-being-in-church

Solo Christianity is something like being a solo quarterback. You can have wonderful skills in passing and running and playmaking, and you can discuss football in convincing detail. But you can't ever actually play the game without the rest of the team present.

Attending church again once you're out of the routine takes effort. But if you decide to go back to church or to try a new church, I bet you'll be warmly welcomed!

Peace,
Pastor Garry

Are we smarter than God?

For a follow up to the last posting:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/3/were-smarter-than-god/

Peace!
Pastor Garry

Self versus God

As is true of most pastors, I have preached about the spiritual dangers inherent in our modern preoccupation with materialism, consumerism, and wealth. But until the environmental, social, and economic sea change (pun intended) that is now occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, I don't think I fully realized the extent of our modern arrogance. It has taken the utter lack of a "back up plan" from BP -- despite the enormous depth at which that and other oil companies are drilling for oil -- to finally give me a wake up call.

BP is hardly alone in its corporate myopia and preoccupation with itself. Consider the enormous experiments our society is embarking upon, with little or no reflection on the consequences for our civilization. It's pretty easy to name just a very few other experiments, in addition to drilling on the continental shelf. How about: research on human cloning, dramatic changes in our definition of the family, dramatic changes in our acceptance of alternative sexualities, a decline in concern for the welfare of human beings in the context of financial concerns for corporations. And for many Christian denominations, another sea change in the deterioration of the primacy of scripture and tradition as over against the organizationally useful, and ethically and morally worthless, notion of "bound conscience."

Is anybody else fed up with our societal, ecclesiastical, corporate, and individual hubris?

Grrr.

Pastor Garry

New policy statements from the ELCA

The new policy statements from the ELCA concerning the denomination's expectations for clergy are now published and available. The changes were necessary in order to accomodate the most recent Churchwide Assembly's vote to allow publicly LGBT (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) individuals in a committed relationship to serve as clergy in the ELCA. You can find an article concerning these changes on page two of the "Core Connection" newsletter available at lutherancore.org. The full documents are available from the ELCA's web site (use the search engine and enter "Visions and Expectations."

I knew it was coming, but was still a bit shocked when I read it. It somehow seems ... starker ... when the policy changes actually appear in print. Especially the substitution of "this church" for "scripture."

If you're a member of the ELCA, continue to reflect on the role of scripture in the daily life of those who follow Christ. If you're not an ELCA member, pray for us: this division in our communion runs deep.

Blessings,
Pastor Garry

Lutherans Persisting now inactive

Dr. Michael Root has announced that the Lutherans Persisting blog is at least temporarily inactive because his duties call him out of country. He notes that the blog may not be re-activated upon his return. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Root and Dr. Yeago for their comments into the latest troubles to beset the ELCA. Their comments have been a source of valuable insights for me and for many others. I hope that the blog will become active once again upon Dr. Root's return.

Church and culture

I've been powerfully reminded on more than one recent occasion of the truth of Lyle Schaller's remark that the Church is is wonderful shape today -- if today is 1954.

The life of the Church is always in tension between two poles. One one hand is the great Tradition of the Church, and many of the traditions of the local congregation as well. On the other hand is the ongoing need for the gospel to be proclaimed in terms that to some degree are understandable to the culture in which the Church resides. Cultures differ, and the Church necessarily takes on something of the cast of each culture. Similarly, individual congregations not only have their own traditions, they also reside in a specific community and take on some of the characteristics of that community.

But what happens when the Church does not adapt to changes in the larger culture? What happens when the local congregation does not adapt to changes in its community? I strongly suspect that when the Church does not accomodate cultural changes to some degree, when the local congregation does not change to reflect the changed needs of its community, that both run the risk of becoming increasingly irrelevant. And that for me is a serious concern.

A serious concern, because the Church must be grounded in the world view provided by scripture or it will cease to be the Church. The world view of scripture is normative for our Christian living, and yet the world view of scripture is increasingly different from that of our changing culture. I might even suggest that the world view of scripture is radically different from that of our culture.

Both the Church as a whole and the local congregation live on the margins of culture and the local community. To paraphrase Stanley Hauerwas, congregations are colonies of the Kingdom of God. And that gives both congregations and the larger Church of which we are a part a perspective that the culture itself does not - and indeed cannot -- have. Size does not matter -- Christianity seems to thrive as a minority. What matters is Christ, the Word of God, and the world view of the Kingdom of God that He came to proclaim. What matters is that the good news of God continues to be proclaimed, even when the culture or the local community -- or sometimes portions of the Church itself -- has trouble hearing it. Or doesn't want to hear.