Syrian Church Leaders call for day of prayer, May 11

From here:  

Syrian church leaders have called for a day of prayer for their country and its people on Saturday, 11th May. Primarily, they are calling for prayer for peace to be restored to their country, enabling all Syrians to live in harmony within their own country.

As violent conflict continues, there are no precise figures for the number of those killed (most estimates state 70,000 or more), injured, internally displaced within Syria or who have fled to neighboring countries and beyond. It is generally reckoned that over one million have left and at least another million have been internally displaced, all from amongst a population of approximately 23 million. Atrocities have been committed by many parties.

During 2012 there was a subtle shift in how Syrian church leaders typically interpreted events. Claims of the deliberate targeting of Christians for religious reasons increased as the year progressed. Initially, most were careful to stress that there was little religious targeting. However, church leaders are increasingly fearful of the growing extremist elements within the opposition movement (e.g. Jabhat an-Nusra), and fearful that a Sunni take-over of power in Syria would lead to greater restrictions on Christians. Some fear that the Iraq scenario (involving increased levels of sectarian attack and corresponding flight of Christians) could be replicated in Syria. Church leaders have called on Christians not to leave, acknowledging that significant emigration had already occurred.

Fears within Christian communities have increased following the kidnapping of two priests (Michel Kayyal of the Armenian Catholic church and Mahar Mahfouz of the Greek Orthodox church) on 9th February and the subsequent 22nd April kidnapping of two bishops, Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church [a member of the SAT-7 International Council, see SAT-7 News Release 30th April,] and Metropolitan Boulos Yaziji of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Syrian Christians request that we join with them in prayer, asking that:

1. Violent conflict will end, and reconciliation processes will begin
2. Those bereaved and traumatized will know the healing touch of Jesus
3. Those displaced will know the provision and protection of the Father; and those supporting them will know the wisdom and enabling of the Spirit
4. Those from all communities who have been kidnapped, including the two bishops and two priests kidnapped, will be released unharmed soon
5. Unity amongst Christian communities will be strengthened and that Christians will know the Lord's equipping as they respond to the overwhelming needs around them
6. All those choosing to use violent methods will know the Spirit's conviction of sin and respond to the Father's offer of forgiveness and new life in the Son.

Source: Middle East Concern, 9th May 2013, www.meconcern.org

We need to keep Syria in our prayers, not only on May 11, but continually.
 

He ascended into heaven...

This coming Thursday is the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord, and parishes around the world have a vital decision to make:  Do we extinguish the Paschal Candle on Ascension Day or on Pentecost?

This question may sound like a liturgist's version of the game, Trivial Pursuit, but there is an important biblical and theological lesson to be learned.

The traditional view is that the Paschal Candle is extinguished on Ascension Day.  This view is described in the Catholic Encyclopedia:

From Holy Saturday until Ascension Day the paschal candle is left with its candlestick in the sanctuary, standing upon the Gospel side of the altar, and it is lighted during high Mass and solemn Vespers on Sundays. It is extinguished after the Gospel on Ascension Day and is then removed.

 One parish described their practice this way:  

Our acolytes have been trained to stand by the Candle, wand in hand, as the Gospel lesson (Luke 24:44-53) is read.  Just after these words: "Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven" the Candle is extinguished as the reader pauses.  Then the final sentence of the Gospel is read:  "And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God."

But in parishes that follow more recent liturgical innovations, it has become the custom to leave the Paschal Candle lighted until Pentecost Sunday.  The change was prescribed in the rubrics for Novus Ordo, the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969, after the Second Vatican Council.  The change was subsequently adopted in other liturgical churches such as Anglicans and Lutherans that had liturgical renewal movements during the 1970's.  Traditional Anglicans, among others, have opposed this change.

The Physical Reality of the Incarnation 

The theological trend that has coincided with these liturgical revisions has been to spiritualize Christ at the expense of his humanity.  The Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, which takes place on January 1, marks the day when Jesus, in accordance with Jewish tradition, would have been presented for ritual circumcision.  

Making a Feast of the day when Jesus was circumcised serves to underscore the physical humanity of Jesus as well as the Incarnation:  "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).  The circumcision of Jesus has traditionally been seen as the first time the blood of Christ was shed, and thus the beginning of the process of the redemption of humanity, as well as a demonstration that Christ was fully human, and also of his obedience to Biblical law.

However, more recent liturgical practice has been to make January 1 the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.  In the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church (USA) since 1979, January 1, is now called as the "Feast of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ."

In the Church of England, the calendar of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer stipulates a festival "The Name of Jesus" to be observed on August 7.  But, in the more recent Common Worship, the primary festival of the name of Jesus is on January 1, taking the place of the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ.  Many Eastern Churches as well as Lutheran Churches also celebrate the Festival of the Holy Name of Jesus on January 1.

While it is all very well to celebrate a feast for the Holy Name of Jesus, the effect of replacing the Feast of the Circumcision is to replace the commemoration of an act that demonstrates Jesus' physical humanity with something that is much more easily spiritualized.  (Although I have also long suspected that the impetus for the change came from clergy who were tired of having to explain to children what "circumcision" means.)

The tendency is strong in contemporary theology to shift our focus from the reality of God in the flesh to a "Cosmic Christ" or a spiritualized Jesus who can be shaped to fit whatever we want him to be.  (Just Google the term "Cosmic Christ," and you'll see the sort of thing I mean.)  [See also 1 John 4:1-3.]

The Physical Reality of the Resurrection

 

The tendency is seen much more clearly when we come to the events of Jesus' Resurrection and Ascension.  The trend in contemporary theology has been to regard Jesus' Resurrection only a spiritual and not a bodily one.  This necessarily has ramifications for what we believe about the Ascension.  

If Jesus' Resurrection is merely a spiritual symbol that he goes on living forever, then the Ascension of his body into heaven has no historical reality.  In that view, how much more appropriate is it, then, to leave the Paschal Candle lit until Pentecost Sunday, when the Holy Spirit comes to be the presence of Christ continuing to live in us?

Don't get me wrong:  I know of good, otherwise orthodox parishes that wait until Pentecost Sunday to extinguish the Paschal Candle.  But think about the symbolism for a minute:  How does extinguishing the Candle symbolize the coming of the Holy Spirit?  One doesn’t have to be a scholar in liturgics to know it better symbolizes the departure of our Lord.
 
The flame of the Paschal candle symbolizes the resurrected Christ as light of the world.  His physical presence in the midst of his people demonstrates his victory over death and the grave.  That physical presence—that resurrected body of Jesus—ascends to heaven 40 days later.  We miss the physical reality of the Resurrection if we take too lightly the testimony of the Scriptures and the Creeds that "he ascended into heaven."

The Aloneness of the Disciples

Another things we can miss if we overlook the reality of Jesus' bodily Ascension is that the disciples were left alone.  

In John 21, when Jesus appears to the disciples, what were they doing?  They were fishing.  But it wasn't fishing for recreation or to catch a few fish for a meal.  They had been out all night in a boat with a net.  This is commercial fishing.  In Jesus' absence, the disciples had returned to their old occupations.  

So in the account from Luke's Gospel, when Jesus prepares to ascend to heaven, he gives them some final instructions:

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.  But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:45-49).

 So when the Book of Acts begins, Luke picks up where he left off at the close of his Gospel, with the events of Jesus' Ascension:

He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.  And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:3-5).

He continued,

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”  And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.  And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,  and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?  This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:8-11).

Jesus tells them to stay in the city and not to depart from Jerusalem.  Why is he so explicit about this?  He is telling them not to go back to their old occupations (as they surely would have if they had returned to Galilee) but to await the power that would make them into apostles—that would make them into the Church.   There was no need for fishermen in Jerusalem—no bodies of water, no boats, no nets, no fish.  Staying in Jerusalem together meant looking forward to their new occupation, not returning to their old one.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was going to make them into what he had said when he first called them:  "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19, Mark 1:17).

But they had to wait; they had to trust; they had to obey.  And, in the meantime, they were alone.

It is important for us not to miss the fact that Jesus left the disciples alone.  He had not forsaken them, but he had gone away for a season.  There are times when, though Jesus has promised that he will never leave us or forsake us, we do not experience him as closely as at other times.  In those times, we must do what the disciples did:    

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.  And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James.  All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers (Acts 1:12-14).

 When times of aloneness come to us, we must be obedient; we must remain together, wait on the Lord, and pray.

The time between Jesus' Ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit to indwell believers and form the Church was ten days.  The time when Jesus left the disciples and their need to remain obedient and await the fulfillment of Jesus' promise is important to remember.  We signify his absence as he ascends to heaven by extinguishing the Paschal Candle.  And, though the light be temporarily gone from us, we faithfully wait.

'Paris Syndrome' strikes Japanese

When I first read about this, I had to check the date on the news story to make sure it wasn't April 1.  But, no, it appears that "Paris Syndrome" is a documented phenomenon, an illness that is related to variety of other illnesses (such as Jerusalem Syndrome and Stendhal Syndrome) that can affect travelers who arrive at a destination and who, when their destination turns out not to be what they expect, can experience a disorientation so severe that it can cause psychological disturbance.  I found it to be an interesting (though strange) phenomenon, and I am wondering about the implications for missionaries who may experience culture shock. 

From a BBC report:

A dozen or so Japanese tourists a year have to be repatriated from the French capital, after falling prey to what's become known as "Paris syndrome". 
 
That is what some polite Japanese tourists suffer when they discover that Parisians can be rude or the city does not meet their expectations.

The experience can apparently be too stressful for some and they suffer a psychiatric breakdown.

Around a million Japanese travel to France every year.

Many of the visitors come with a deeply romantic vision of Paris - the cobbled streets, as seen in the film Amelie, the beauty of French women or the high culture and art at the Louvre.

The reality can come as a shock.

An encounter with a rude taxi driver, or a Parisian waiter who shouts at customers who cannot speak fluent French, might be laughed off by those from other Western cultures.

But for the Japanese - used to a more polite and helpful society in which voices are rarely raised in anger - the experience of their dream city turning into a nightmare can simply be too much.

This year alone, the Japanese embassy in Paris has had to repatriate four people with a doctor or nurse on board the plane to help them get over the shock.

They were suffering from "Paris syndrome".

It was a Japanese psychiatrist working in France, Professor Hiroaki Ota, who first identified the syndrome some 20 years ago.

On average, up to 12 Japanese tourists a year fall victim to it, mainly women in their 30s with high expectations of what may be their first trip abroad.

The Japanese embassy has a 24-hour hotline for those suffering from severe culture shock, and can help find hospital treatment for anyone in need.

However, the only permanent cure is to go back to Japan - never to return to Paris.

This. Changes. Everything.

Much has been written about the Easter blog post by the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C., Mariann Edgar Budde, in which she says:

To say that resurrection is essential doesn’t mean that if someone were to discover a tomb with Jesus’ remains in it that the entire enterprise would come crashing down. The truth is that we don’t know what happened to Jesus after his death, anymore than we can know what will happen to us.

Consider for a moment the Apostle Paul's words on this very subject:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.  Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.  (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)

The Gospel writers and the Apostle Paul are not merely telling us "how Jesus’ followers experienced his resurrection" (as Bishop Budde puts it).  It is quite clear from their accounts of the empty tomb and of Jesus resurrection appearances that they are telling us what happened, and they clearly expect us to believe it as fact.  If the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection are not factual occurrences, then these writers are not giving us stimulating material for our own spiritual journey, they are lying to us.  And it is a lie with terrible consequences.

The Apostle Paul describes consequences of there being no resurrection in these words:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.  We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.  For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.  (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)

How much clearer can he make it that the resurrection he is preaching is either factual or else it is the most serious lie of all time?  No, make no mistake about it:  Paul and the Gospel authors are telling us about a tomb that is really empty and a Jesus who is really risen. 

As much as I abhor the view of John Dominic Crossan, expressed in his book Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (pp. 123-124), that wild dogs dragged the body of Jesus away and ate it, at least he attempts to do what Mariann Budde doesn't, which is to explain the fact of the empty tomb!

Nevertheless, in an effort to draw meaning from something that may or may not actually have happened, Budde continues:

What we do know from the stories handed down is how Jesus’ followers experienced his resurrection. What we know is how we experience resurrection ourselves.

I am not sure what that last sentence means.  It is a kind of jargon that is in vogue among certain preachers when speaking of the resurrection--words designed to make us feel something spiritually profound while really meaning very little.  But the Apostle Paul's words confront us with the fact that, if Jesus did not, in fact, rise, all of our claims of experiencing resurrection are merely wishful thinking--and a dangerous self-delusion.

I want to propose that those of us who disagree with Bishop Budde on this issue pray for her--and I hope that it is understood that I am saying this sincerely and not condescendingly.  As one who came into the Episcopal Church 30 years ago, already a seminary professor with a PhD in Systematic Theology, I have had some astonishing conversations about the Resurrection with liberal Episcopalians more times than I can count.  When they find out you actually believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, they look at you in bewilderment.  When they realize that you think they ought to believe it too, one of two things happens: either they regard you with abhorrence, or else (in a small percentage of cases) they stop and think that maybe there is something about Christianity they might have missed.

Mariann Budde has probably read the comments on her own blog that respond negatively to her disbelief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and perhaps she is thinking one of those two things.  My prayer is that it dawns on her, just as it dawned on those who looked into the empty tomb or who placed their hands in Jesus' wounds:  "So it really happened after all!"  And their second realization:  This.  Changes.  Everything!


(P.S. There are plenty of contemporary resources out there for anyone who wants to examine the question of the Resurrection.)

For Us and Our Salvation...

I am reprinting a piece that I wrote in 2005, because I believe that the truth of what Christ has done for us cannot be repeated often enough, and because the grievous error of denying that Christ's atonement is a substitutionary sacrifice still persists.

On Easter Sunday 2005, I ran across the following (erroneous) statement in a theological forum:

"Substitutionary sacrifice, however, is neither Catholic nor catholic tradition. It was enshrined in popular piety by a tradition of preachers, long before Mel Gibson, who discovered how easy it was to preach and to use in a manipulative way."

In contrast to this erroneous assertion that Christ's death is not a substitutionary sacrifice and that it is not catholic teaching, The Catholic Encyclopedia, in the article on "Sacrifice" (See Part III, Christian Sacrifice), contains the following statement:

(1) The Dogma of the Sacrifice of the Cross
The universal conviction of Christianity was expressed by the Synod of Ephesus (431), when it declared that the Incarnate Logos "offered Himself to God the Father for us for an odour of sweetness" (in Denzinger-Bannwart, "Enchiridion," n. 122), a dogma explicitly confirmed by the Council of Trent (Sess. XXII. cap. i-ii; can. ii-iv).  The dogma is indeed nothing else than a clear echo of Holy Writ and tradition.  If all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, and especially the bloody sacrifice, were so many types of the bloody sacrifice of the Cross (Cf. Heb., viii-x), and if the idea of vicarious atonement was present in the Mosaic bloody sacrifices, it follows immediately that the death on the Cross, as the antitype, must possess the character of a vicarious sacrifice of atonement.  A striking confirmation of this reasoning is found in the pericope of Isaias concerning God's "just servant," wherein three truths are clearly expressed:

(a) the substitution of the innocent Messias for guilty mankind;
(b) the deliverance of the guilty from sin and punishment through the suffering of the Messias;
(c) the manner of this suffering and satisfaction through the bloody death on the Cross (cf. Is., liii, 4 sqq.). [Emphasis added.]

Further, The Catholic Encyclopedia's article on "Atonement" contains this statement:

The Catholic doctrine on this subject [Atonement] is set forth in the sixth Session of the Council of Trent, chapter ii. Having shown the insufficiency of Nature, and of Mosaic Law the Council continues:

"Whence it came to pass, that the Heavenly Father, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort (II Cor., 1, 3), when that blessed fullness of the time was come (Gal., iv, 4) sent unto men Jesus Christ, His own Son who had been, both before the Law and during the time of the Law, to many of the holy fathers announced and promised, that He might both redeem the Jews, who were under the Law and that the Gentiles who followed not after justice might attain to justice and that all men might receive the adoption of sons.  Him God had proposed as a propitiator, through faith in His blood (Rom., iii, 25), for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world (I John ii, 2)."

More than twelve centuries before this, the same dogma was proclaimed in the words of the Nicene Creed, "who for us men and for our salvation, came down, took flesh, was made man; and suffered."

Thus, according to this statement, the words of the Creed "for us and for our salvation" are implicitly substitutionary.

It is noteworthy that this understanding is entirely consistent with that expressed by evangelical author John Stott who writes:

When we review so much Old Testament material (the shedding and sprinkling of blood, the sin offering, the Passover, the meaning of 'sin-bearing', the scapegoat and Isaiah 53), and consider its New Testament application to the death of Christ, we are obliged to conclude that the cross was a substitutionary sacrifice. Christ died for us. Christ died instead of us.

Regarding satisfaction and substitution, Stott writes:

We strongly reject, therefore, every explanation of the death of Christ which does not have at its centre the principle of 'satisfaction through substitution', indeed divine self-satisfaction through divine self-substitution.

The cross was not a commercial bargain with the devil, let alone one which tricked and trapped him; nor an exact equivalent, a *quid pro quo* to satisfy a code of honour or technical point of law; nor a compulsory submission by God to some moral authority above him from which he could not otherwise escape; nor a punishment of a meek Christ by a harsh and punitive Father; nor a procurement of salvation by a loving Christ from a mean and reluctant Father; nor an action of the Father which bypassed Christ as Mediator.

Instead, the righteous, loving Father humbled himself to become in and through his only Son flesh, sin and a curse for us, in order to redeem us without compromising his own character. The theological words 'satisfaction' and 'substitution' need to be carefully defined and safeguarded, but they cannot in any circumstances be given
up.

--From "The Cross of Christ" (Leicester and Downers Grove: IVP, 1986), p. 159.

Thus, between faithful Catholics and Evangelicals there is substantial agreement, because the doctrine of the Atonement is one on which all orthodox Christians have agreed from antiquity.

Dissent from the idea of substitutionary atonement has come from the Socinians, an anti-Trinitarian, heretical sect, who rejected the notion of vicarious suffering and satisfaction as inconsistent with God's justice and mercy.  In their eyes the work of Christ consisted simply in His teaching by word and example.

The Socinians held that:

• that there was no Trinity,
• that Christ was not consubstantial with the Father and Holy Spirit,
• that He was not conceived of the Holy Spirit, but begotten by St. Joseph, and
• that His Death and Passion were not undergone to bring about our redemption.

Views similar to those of the Socinians have been seen also in the work of liberal theologians such as Horace Bushnell (1802-1876), Albrect Ritschl (1822–1889), and their modern-day descendents.  Indeed, among liberals there is, at best, a professed agnosticism regarding the effect of Christ's atonement.  At worst, there exists an outright denial of the biblical witness to the precious truth that:

• "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Galatians 3:13). 
• "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).  
• "Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit..." (I Peter 3:18).
• "...whereof is one Christ, very God, and very Man; who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men" (Article II).
• "for that thou, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world..." (BCP 1979, p. 335). 

As we remember once again Jesus' glorious victory in the events of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, let us confess boldly the truth of what God has done in Christ for us and for our salvation!
 

Alabama School Bans the Word ‘Easter’

Raging religiophobia.

From here: 

Boys and girls at an Alabama elementary school will still get to hunt for eggs – but they can’t call them ‘Easter Eggs’ because the principal banished the word for the sake of religious diversity.

“We had in the past a parent to question us about some of the things we do here at school,” said Heritage Elementary School principal Lydia Davenport. “ So we’re just trying to make sure we respect and honor everybody’s differences.”

Television station WHNT reported that teachers were informed that no activities related to or centered around any religious holiday would be allowed – in the interest of religious diversity.

“Kids love the bunny and we just make sure we don’t say ‘the Easter Bunny’ so that we don’t infringe on the rights of others because people relate the Easter bunny to religion,” she told the television station. “  A bunny is a bunny and a rabbit is a rabbit.”

There are two things wrong with this:  One, diversity is about including various perspectives and beliefs, not banning them.  It is positively Orwellian to censor or ban a point of view in the name of increasing diversity.  But the second thing wrong with this is that the Easter Bunny and Easter Eggs have NOTHING to do with Christianity or any other religion.  "Easter"merely designates the date or time of year when bunnies and eggs are used.  It's like a Thanksgiving Dinner or a Labor Day Picnic.  Simply referring to Easter bunnies or Easter eggs implies no endorsement of religion whatsoever.

What kind of understanding of freedom, free speech, and living in a free society are schools teaching children when they communicate that certain words--words alleged to pertain to religion--must be banned for the sensitivity (or imagined sensitivity) of others?  It is about time we got these religiophobic (yes, it really is a word) idiots to explain why they keep perpetrating this kind of nonsense.

Holy Week, Rob Bell, and the Pilgrim's Progress through Vanity Fair

As we approach Holy Week this year, my contemplation of those mighty acts by which Christ secured our redemption has followed a rather strange and circuitous route that began when I read an article on Stand Firm about former evangelical pastor, Rob Bell, speaking at a forum at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, and, during the course of his remarks, saying that he now supports gay marriage.  (As one commentator noted, that's like going to Iowa to announce your support for corn.)

It is astounding how much press Rob Bell has gotten since he denied the reality of hell in his book, "Love Wins," and since he resigned as pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids Michigan, more than a year ago.  Currently, Bell is reported to be working on a television series for the ABC network.

The piece I was reading concluded: "In 2011, Time magazine named Bell to its list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World."

How and why did the media choose to make a celebrity out of a pastor of a medium-sized megachurch in Grand Rapids, Michigan?   I know several megachurch pastors who speak to a great many more people each week and have been doing it a lot longer than Rob did at Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids Michigan.  But their books will never rank among secular best sellers.  They will never become one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World."  And they will never have a show on a mainstream television network.  Why is that?

It is an age-old question: "Lord,why do the wicked prosper?  Why do they have power?  Why do the godly seem to be silenced in their presence and ignored by the world?"

When I read about Rob Bell's latest pronouncement and reflected on his rise to fame, the immediate thought that came to my mind was from Luke's Gospel,

“And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”  And Jesus answered him, “It is written,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
  and him only shall you serve.’”  (Luke 4:5-8) 

Recipe for Satanic success:  1. Learn to speak really well.  2.  Constantly adjust your appearance to the latest fashion.   3.  Rise to prominence as a Christian pastor and then, once you have gained the public's attention, gradually begin to deny everything Christianity believes.

The example of Rob Bell solidified in my mind a realization that had been growing for quite some time, namely that there are individuals in this world who possess fame and power precisely because it has been given to them by the prince of this world, who has the power to do so, in order to advance his purposes.  It is no wonder that Rob Bell gets accolades from the secular world for telling them what they want to hear.

"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions..." (1 Timothy 4:3)

Listening to Rob Bell, the secular world can delude itself into thinking that all of Christianity will eventually come into line and validate their lifestyles.

The Apostle Paul speaks of "following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2), by which he means the devil.  

It should not surprise us that the values of this world are not reconcilable with the values of the Kingdom of God.  Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36).  But, when it comes to the great acts of redemption that are commemorated in Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, we must remember that Jesus, speaking of his death, said, "'Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.  And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.' He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die." (John 12:31-33)

The victory won during Jesus' Passion and Resurrection is a victory over sin but also over Satan's power and reign.  Jesus' death freed us from the penalty for our sins and broke the dominion of evil.  His death and resurrection life are freeing us from the power of sin and the influence of evil.  And his coming again will free us from the presence of sin and put us beyond the reach of evil for all eternity. 

But on the way to that Celestial City, we pilgrims on this earth must encounter our Vanity Fair.  Blessed is the one who is not deceived by it.  As John Bunyan, wrote:

Then I saw in my dream, that when [the two pilgrims] were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is "Vanity"; and at the town there is a fair kept, called "Vanity Fair"; it is kept all the year long. It bears the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 'tis kept is lighter than vanity; and also because all that is there sold, or that comes thither is vanity.  As is the saying of the wise, "All that comes is vanity."

 [...]

This fair is no new erected business; but a thing of ancient standing. I will show you the original of it.

Almost five thousand years agone, there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, as these two [pilgrims] are; and Beelzebub, Apollyon, and Legion, with their companions, perceiving by the path that the pilgrims made, that their way to the City lay through this town of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein should be sold of all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long. Therefore at this fair are all such merchandise sold: as houses, lands, trades, places, honours, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms; lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts...

Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town, where the lusty fair is kept; and he that will go to the City, and yet not go through this town, must needs go out of the world.

"Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world." 1 Corinthians 5:10

[Jesus], himself, when here, went through this town to his own country, and that upon a fair day too; and as I think, it was Beelzebub, the chief lord of this fair, that invited him to buy of his vanities; yea, would have made him lord of the fair, would he but have done him reverence as he went through the town.  Yea, because he was such a person of honour, Beelzebub had him from street to street, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a little time, that he might, if possible, allure that Blessed One to cheapen and buy some of his vanities.  But he had no mind to the merchandise; and therefore left the town without laying out so much as one farthing upon these vanities.

Rob Bell told the media that the evangelical subculture is dying.  No, Rob, it is liberal Christianity that is dying--look at the numbers.  But far more than that, the way of the world is death--eternal, spiritual death.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.  And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.  (1 John 2:15-17)

My prayer for all of us, including Rob Bell, is that we will turn away from the world's allure and consider the true cost of discipleship.  This week, we walk the way of our Lord, the Way of the Cross, and the way to eternal life.  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!

Flying with a Man of the People

Flying home from Washington, D.C. this evening (in clerical attire), I was sitting there (in coach, needless to say), and happened to think of certain religious dignitaries I am aware of who insist on flying first class and what kind of statement it makes concerning the common people they are supposed to care about and the Lord they are supposed to represent.  The irony was underscored when we arrived in Milwaukee, and I stood up to retrieve my bag from the overhead compartment to discover my wife and I had been sitting in the row behind Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker, who was also flying in coach, coming home after rocking the CPAC convention in Washington, D.C., with a speech some have described as "electrifying."  I don't know who was sitting in those first three first-class rows tonight, but it wasn't the chief executive of the great State of Wisconsin, of whom I happen to be very proud.

How do we who are in positions of public trust, whether it be in government or in the Church, act when we are spending other people's money?  I am reminded that air travel is how I first met Archbishop (now Cardinal) Timothy Dolan.  Unlike Anglican bishops who wear purple shirts, Roman Catholic bishops wear black shirts just the same as priests.  So I got on a plane to Milwaukee one time to find myself sitting across the aisle from a jovial clergyman (also in coach), only to realize that it was Archbishop Dolan.  What a great and humble man!  While his elevation to the archdiocese of New York and then cardinal was well deserved, many in Wisconsin think his time as Archbishop of Milwaukee was all too brief. 

I couldn't help but pull for Cardinal Dolan during last week's election of a new Pope.  However, the election of Pope Francis appears to be an excellent choice, especially given the burgeoning growth of the Roman Catholic Church in parts of the Global South such as Latin America.  He is, by all accounts, a man of the people also, who took the bus rather than a limousine as a Cardinal in Argentina.

We need more leaders like this in government and the Church who know whom (or Whom) they represent.  May their tribe increase!

North Korea exposes life in the USA

 국산이면 여러분, 이 읽어 보시기 바랍니다.

More food for thought as you pray for North Korea: What the North Korean people are told (falsely) about the United States.

Pray for North Korea

국산이면 여러분, 이 읽어 보시기 바랍니다.

I love making up funny captions for pictures.  When I saw this recent photo of North Korean troops on military exercises, I was tempted to label it "Camo FAIL!!!" because the whole point of camouflage is not to be seen, and these uniforms the North Korean troops are wearing make them stick out like beacons on the late winter terrain.
 

But as I viewed a whole slideshow of photos, my heart went out to the North Koreans.  Their government spends untold amounts of money on a military machine while their people go hungry.  Sources have reported for years that North Koreans are actually shorter than their South Korean cousins due to malnutrition.  The BBC recently investigated and confirmed this phenomenon.

For North Korea, the war goes on--a war (or the illusion of one) that serves the purpose of keeping the North Korean people militarized and constantly on edge, making them willing to sacrifice (i.e., starve) for the sake of the "glorious revolution," and allowing the government to classify the people into social categories based on their loyalty to the State.  North Korea groups its citizens into 51 social categories, graded by loyalty to the regime, according to The Economist.  Of those groups, 29 are considered to make up a mostly rural underclass that is hostile or at best ambivalent towards the regime.

And the tragegy is: Nobody wants to harm North Korea or its people--NOBODY!!!  If any military action is ever undertaken against North Korea, it will be to stop the madness of the North Korean leadership that keeps threatening its neighbors with nuclear attacks and selling weapons of mass destruction to other rogue states around the world.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (center) reportedly instructed his military to be ready to deal "deadly strikes" while visiting an artillery unit near the Yellow Sea border that has been the scene of several clashes between North and South Korea. Reports by the state media of Mr. Kim's base visits follow more than a week of aggressive rhetoric from Pyongyang, which has said it abrogated the 1953 cease-fire.

South Korea, for its part, would love to be reunited to its northern brothers and sisters and to live in peace.  And I am sure most of the North Korean people would like that as well.  If North Korea stopped their aggression and opened their borders, no one would invade their country.  They could enjoy healthy international relationships and the same freedom and prosperity as the South.  There are plenty of South Koreans who would love to share the love of Jesus Christ with them.  All they would lose is the dictatorial government that has held them prisoner for more than 60 years.  But there is the problem: those who benefit from being part of the dictatorial regime obviously don't want this to happen.

What can an ordinary Christian in the West do?  Pray.  Kim Jong-un is a young leader.  I believe he is receiving bad advice, and it is playing into his feeling that he needs to prove himself.

So how do we pray and act?

1. A united church in prayer will bring about a united Korea.  Christians of all denominations need to unite in prayer for this and other world needs.
2. Pray for wisdom for South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye, the first woman to be elected as President in South Korea.  (Park is the daughter of South Korea's 3rd president and saw both her parents assassinated--her mother by a North Korean agent in 1974, and her father by his own intelligence chief in 1979.)  Pray that she may have wisdom for such a time as this.  
3. Ask God to restrain the the North Korean military from advancing against South Korea.
4. Pray for Christians in both Japan and South Korea to stand together as one. 
5. Ask God to touch the heart of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and draw him to become a believer.
6. Pray for the persecuted church in North Korea. (See the very important article on North Korea's Christians linked below.)
7. Ask God to influence China, that it will no longer support this rogue nation.
8. Pray for those in the government and the military in South Korea to have wisdom and protection.   Ask the Lord for a great revival among the leaders.       

Also worth reading: a very important article on Christians in North Korea:
"A Christmas Prayer for North Korea's Christians," from The Wall Street Journal.