Blogging the EFCA National Conference: Installment Last (Shaking Hands with Jack Spong)
June 30, 2006
Quentin Stieff, pastor of an EFC in West Des Moines, used this as his text this evening:
“I thank Him Who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because He judged me faithful, appointing me to His service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me witht he faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him to eternal life. To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
He asked us two questions, asking us to ponder our answers: “why me?” and “why the Gospel?” I am not deserving; why me? I am unworthy; why me? I fail regularly; why me? I am not all that smart, not all that talented; why me? I am not as loving as I preach we should be, not as faithful as I proclaim is the standard, not as prayerful as a pastor should be, not as pure of thought as is appropriate, not as…well, anything as I should be—but it is because of His grace. Period.
Why the gospel? Well, let me begin by saying that I would love to shake hands with Jack Spong. Yes, that Jack Spong, otherwise known as John Shelby Spong, former Episcopal bishop in New Jersey area, the poster child for contemporary American liberal religion. John Shelby Spong denies most everything I hold to be true; he is, from my vantage point, a heretic par excellence. I read yesterday an interview with the man, and there wasn’t much he said that I don’t take strong exception to. But I’m really not going to spend time running him in the ground or tackling the points he made.
But I do want to shake his hand.
I want to shake his hand because Jack Spong, who denies original sin, made the statement that he’s never met a single person who has been helped by hearing it said that that person was a sinner. I want him to meet his first person of whom that statement is true (and I have a hunch that there were a whole lot of people at conference who he’d do well to meet as well…
Why the gospel? Because I am a sinner; I stand guilty before God; I have no hope apart from the intervention of a holy God, a God Who is rightly wrathful against my sin, but Who understands and exemplifies love to a degree far beyond that which I (or Jack Spong) can imagine. Because Jesus can take a vile, guilty sinner (like “Chief Paul”) and transform him into a shining beacon of love and light and truth. Because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. Because the gospel is the only hope that we have to offer anyone.
Like Haddon Robinson said to kick off the conference, the message of Ecclesiastes is that life is meaningless, in that we can’t possibly hope to figure it all out—but God is sovereign, God is good, and God is just. And the gospel says that that same God is both just and, at the same time, the justifier of all who believe. And if God can both be just and also justify sinners like Paul and me, then the gospel is the best news we could ever hear.
Yeah, I’d like to shake Jack Spong’s hand, because if he’s never met a person who has been helped by being told that he was a sinner (and then, further, by being told that the ransom had been paid at Calvary by our God named Jesus), then it’s high time he did. And it’s high time that other people made that same discovery. That’s “why the gospel”.
Blogging the EFCA National Conference: Installment 5
June 30, 2006
After Ricardo Palmerin delivered a solid message this morning—further evidence of the broadening of our movement, today’s message was the first delivered by an EFCA pastor that had to be translated (unless it happened at one of the three national conferences I’ve missed in fourteen years)—we had a tad of controversy in our afternoon business session just now. Now understand: “controversy” in the Evangelical Free church is just about non-existent. Our business conferences back when I was in the Southern Baptist Convention were sometimes humdingers; in the EFCA, it’s generally the Friday afternoon snooze-a-thon insofar as controversial elements are concerned. In times past, I’ve been tempted to make a motion—any motion—just to shake things up a little.
This year, though, we’ve entered into the process of revising the Statement of Faith, an admittedly tricky thing, honestly, but in my judgment a healthy process; SOF’s are “time-dated” to at least some degree; they reflect responses to the theological issues contemporary to a given time period, and ours is no exception. But, as you would anticipate, this process is not without its critics. We really didn’t get to the SOF itself today; we are still revising and won’t actually receive, for voting purposes, the final copy until next year in Minneapolis—and then, we won’t actually vote on it until 2008 at the earliest. But there are some who didn’t care for the process, the way the whole thing was initiated. That’s fine; I suppose we can have intramural debates on such issues, and we all have our opinions, and we’re all folks with feet of clay, so hey, maybe the process could have been a little better; fine. Personally, I am beefless as to the process; it all went down fine by me.
But here’s the thing: we’ve just read about the Episcopalian struggles to deal with the renegade left in that movement, with the ECUSA’s lack of resolution to an issue that is ripping the entire denomination apart. The PCUSA is dealing with the same thing, as are the United Methodists, the American Baptists, and others. Many of these denominations jettisoned a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture many years ago (with, of course, the exception of many fine individual churches, it ought to be noted); with that jettisoning, the door was opened to rank heresy, and many have walked right through.
Contrast that with the fact that in the EFCA, we are quibbling a little over the process of amending the SOF, and we’ll quibble a little more over whether or not to retain as mandatory a belief in the premillennial return of Christ (I, a premillennialist, support the dropping of the plank), or exactly where our belief regarding the autonomy of the local church fits, whether in our SOF, or in our articles of incorporation only, or in a preamble to our SOF. Here’s the bottom line: we’re having a reasonably sane and congenial conversation about the specifics of the return of Christ; many other denominations are about to be torn apart on whether or not to ordain practicing homosexuals and other similar issues. Regardless of whether we change our SOF, or whether we don’t, the differences between the two positions is measured in micro-fractions. And for that I, for one, am very grateful.
This IS my Father’s World
June 29, 2006
True confession: I blew off the afternoon workshop session today (most years, I have to choose between 2 or 3 workshops that I really want to attend; this year, for the first time I remember, few of the workshop offerings really grabbed me) and went driving in the Rockies for a couple hours. I drove up to Boulder and then headed up Colorado 119 South. If you’ve never driven in the Rockies, let me just say that I highly recommend it. I don’t know how to describe it other than to say that taking this trip stirs up unexplainable emotions of awe. At times, I fairly gasped as a new vista appeared, whether that involved snow-capped peaks (several, in late June, mind you) or a mountain lake (the reservoir from which Boulder draws its water burst on me all of a sudden; beautiful), or a mountainside full of pine trees, or a waterfall, or a rushing roadside brook churning white due to the rapidity of its descent, or…well, it is just hard to put into words. But if you remember John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High”, trust me that a drive south along Colorado 119 makes that song make perfect sense. This is my Father’s world, and what a world of beauty it is.
Blogging the EFCA National Conference: Installment 4
June 29, 2006
Tonight, the task of proclaiming the Word fell to the big guy, noted Packer fan and president of the EFCA, Bill Hamel. Since he is a regular reader of this blog, I as writer am faced with the choice of
a.) Kissing up to the President, or
b.) I can’t think of what “b” should be…
Seriously, here’s the honest truth: I didn’t know what to think of Bill Hamel when he was first elected president 10 years ago. I walked by him in the hall once, and I’m sure I said “hi”, and I thought that he must have heard me, and then he didn’t say “boo” back, and so I jumped to a mildly-negative opinion of him.
Isn’t that stupid? Don’t we all face the temptation to do stuff like that? We take a teensy piece of “evidence” and build some sort of case out of it. That was dumb, real dumb…but nonetheless, it was my first impression of Bill; it wasn’t particularly favorable; I’m not even sure I voted for him his first time around as president (well, I didn’t vote against him, but I might have abstained in my pious silliness). But that’s just the honest truth: I thought Bill Hamel might be a little stuck up.
Now, 13 years later, I know Bill Hamel. Bill Hamel is a lot of things—some of them undoubtedly not good, just like all of us—but on the “stuck on himself” list, Bill’s name doesn’t register. I’m not sucking up when I say this; it’s just the truth: Bill is just a real guy, a fun guy, a guy who is both an encourager and, at the same time, the kind of guy who neither takes himself—nor will allow you to take yourself—too seriously. I appreciate that. Something else I like about Bill, and in this he reminds me of a favorite seminary prof, Dr. Richard Patterson. Dr. Patterson looked like a total egghead (no, Bill doesn’t look like an egghead; I’ll get to the comparison shortly), but even though the man could speak knowledgeably about long-dead languages (I think he could speak Ugaritic), he could also speak knowledgeably about the Cubs’ chances of making the World Series. Bill’s that kind of guy: he is a (sadly misguided) Packer fan—and a rabid one at that, as well as being a fantasy football player; at the same time, he preaches the Word, loves God, and cares for people deeply. I appreciate that in Bill. Further, he cares enough to call you out when you’re out of line. Bill in reading this will be the only one who knows what I’m talking about, but thanks, Bro…
To the evening’s message, Bill speaks from the heart. He’ll never be the most-polished speaker—though he’s good; he’ll never be the deepest preacher—though he proclaims the Word as it stands written. But he always, always, brings it from the heart, and tonight he reminded us that the Holy Spirit speaks for us—when we are clueless as to how to pray; the Holy Spirit speaks through us, and if He doesn’t, then nothing we have to say is worthwhile; the Holy Spirit speaks to us—and we’d be well-advised to shut our pieholes long enough to listen. Bill’s message gave me hope tonight; I’ve not yet blogged much about some big changes taking place in our lives (I’ll get to that soon), but he said some things tonight that I needed to hear. Thanks, friend.
To Love Jesus is to Love His Body
June 29, 2006
I tend to gush over books, I realize, and I probably run the risk of being “the little boy who cried ‘book!’†or something, but that said, I’m reading a really, really good book. I plan sometime soon to post a list of “the ten best books I’ve read in the last four years (since I began making a list of books I read—my goal is to finish my 100th book in four years by January 1). Anyhoo, this book will make that Top Ten list. Rodney Clapp’s thesis is that the church needs to think of itself as being an alternative 
culture—not just some quaint cultural institution, or as “’sponsoring chaplains’ to a civilization that no longer sees Christianity as necessary to its existenceâ€â€¦â€What is needed is for Christians to reclaim our spiritual heritage as a peculiar people, as unapologetic followers of the Way.†Clapp is an evangelical Episcopalian, which is the kind of guy I need to read more of, by the way.
Anyhow, I read a quote today, near the end of the book, that I just had to publish. It deals with evangelism in a non-Constantianian way (read the book to understand how we’ve operated in the modern world from a Constantinian framework):
Evangelism in a non-Constantinian setting requires that evangelism be understood not simply as declaring a message to someone but as initiation into the world-changing kingdom of God. It is not enough to think of evangelism as proclamation. We must understand it once again as the earliest Christians did, as “the persuading of people to become Christians and take their place as responsible members of the body of Christ.â€
He goes on:
Evangelism in a non-Constantinian setting then requires that the convert understand that he or she is becoming a member of a new race, humanity, or family. Such evangelism must make it clear from beginning to end that there is no genuine Christian formation and life apart from the body of Christ. It makes no more sense to think of Christian faith as primarily private and hidden than it does to imagine national citizenship as something first and finally invisible to observers. Just as my full participation in the goods of American citizenship (voting, eligibility to run for office, receiving social security benefits, and so forth) demands public acknowledgement of my citizenship, so vital involvement in the life of Christ demands public confession and practice of my faith.
The more I understand of what it means to live as a follower of Jesus Christ, the more convinced I am that this notion that we can be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ absent vital involvement with another group of believers in some form of a church is a peculiarly American/modernist aberration, and utterly biblically indefensible. According to the statistics I read recently, 10 million Americans claim to be born again, and yet have no affiliation with a local church. Somewhere, somehow, we have failed to communicate what it means to live as a Christ-follower—and a good portion of that, I believe, stems from evangelistic methodology that focuses on the individual to the diminution of the body of Christ.
How can I love Jesus if I don’t love His body?
Blogging the EFCA National Conference: Installment 3
June 29, 2006
Dante Upshaw is a great guy, new to the E Free Church, and the leader of our African-American outreach ministries (okay, I don’t particularly care for any hyphenated term to refer to Americans, but I can go with it—it seems to be the “in vogue” term nowadays). He spoke this morning and gave a simple but needed message on the centrality of the cross; his key words were “Mission Accomplished”. Nothing we can add to the God-revealing, saving, liberating work of Jesus: nothing. The cross needs to be at the very center of our lives and our proclamation, and we forget that to our own peril.
Blogging the EFCA National Conference: Installment 2
June 28, 2006
Greg Waybright is the president of Trinity International University. TIU is affiliated with the EFCA, and is home to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, the seminary I only wish I would have attended. Dr. Waybright preached the opening message this evening, and his topic was the centrality of the gospel.
Dead-on, just dead-on, reminding me again of some things I’ve been thinking recently. I’m a pretty political animal; I follow politics with great interest, the goings on of the House and Senate, the electoral process, and the like. I listen with regularity to Glenn Beck, Mike Gallagher, and Sean Hannity (and sometimes to Rush, though his credibility is taking a pretty big hit, frankly). I don’t always agree with them; I lean Libertarian in my politics at certain points. But that aside, the main point is that I pay a lot of attention to that kind of stuff. But recently, the thought has come back to my mind that when it all comes down to it, all the politics we can involve ourselves in put together matters a whole lot less than the subversive character of the true proclamation of the gospel of Christ when it comes to making a real impact in this world. Essentially, this was the message of Eddie Dobson and Cal Thomas’ great book Blinded by Might, which was written from the perspective of insiders of the Religious Right. But in the end, it isn’t about politics.
And it isn’t about therapeutic approaches, and it isn’t about tradition, and it isn’t about “Judeo-Christian values” (by the way, you ever met a person who called themselves a “Judeo-Christian”? Me neither.), and it isn’t about returning America to its Christian roots, and it isn’t about intramural church squabbles or some particular parsing of the text of Scripture to make dogmatically make some obscure theological point, and it isn’t about anything other than the effective proclamation of the gospel of Jesus. Get that right, and get that foremost in our priority schemes, and other things will fall into place. Because when you boil it down, this gospel that is foolishness to the world is the power of God unto salvation for anyone and everyone who believes…period.
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Osborne: A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
Schlossberg: Idols For Destruction
