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Positive Infinity New Testament
For more than a century, Bible translators have laboured to translate God’s Word into modern English. The Twentieth Century New Testament was the work of a committee of lay people and clergy alike who were products of the same educational system that produced some of the giants of English literature. It was a pioneering effort to place this portion of the Bible into an understandable vernacular.Now the Positive Infinity New Testament reproduces this groundbreaking work and enhances it with an outline of the history of the translation, an interesting presentation of the currency it used, and a guide to read the whole Bible in one year.
To order click here
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Roman Catholicism: Two More Reasons Not To Go Back
This week, Kendall Harmon featured two pieces on the Roman Catholic Church that caught my attention: one which made more formal some of the language used in the Mass, and another which forbids the use of “Yahweh” as the divine name.
A few notes for the uninitiated: all Catholic liturgies are composed in Latin as their “master” and translated into the various vernacular languages for use. Thus, the Mass changes don’t represent a liturgical change, although English speakers will certainly feel like they do. The latter change is, IMHO, a little disingenuous, since the use of “Yahweh” as the divine name was popularised by the Jerusalem Bible, one of the first approved Catholic translations directly from the original languages after the 1943 papal encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu which permitted such translations. (No, I don’t want to hear Petra fans claim that “Yahweh Love” is what did it.)
But back to the post. In the midst of all these pronouncements, at our General Assembly I met Wojciech Wloch, overseer of the Church of God in Poland, who came with Jonathan Augustine, Regional Superintendent and a frequent commenter on MissionalCOG. Wojciech and I have a good deal in common, and that’s based on the fact that both of us are exiles/refugees from the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. The confluence of all this has got me thinking again about the Roman Catholic Church, where it’s been and where it might be going.
One thing that’s hard for Protestants to understand is the bond that develops between Catholics and their church, even when the church isn’t very relational. That’s why I thought long and hard before posting this. It did get a pot shot from one “Hey Doc,” but he got his just desserts here. In any case, after posting that I have noticed more people openly proclaim their love for the Church of God.
That bond, however, can be hard to break. That’s why I advise people, when they minister to Roman Catholics, to focus on the three questions I ask here. You may well find that you get a lot of “help” from the Catholic Church in the way they end up answering the last one. That’s because Roman Catholicism more often than not discourages its faithful to be sold out directly to God: it gets in the way of the institutionalism that is central to its idea of itself.
That’s ultimately what happened to Wojciech and myself. And that was accelerated by the pontificate of Wojciech’s fellow Pole, John Paul II. It was his accession in 1978 that was the beginning of the end of the free-flowing, ecumenical Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Both of us found a “litmus test” presented to us in the form of devotions to Mary, which weren’t in the playbook before that. So now we find ourselves in the Church of God’s “book,” doing what God has called us to do.
Now we have another Pope who has his own agenda. He is exploring things his predecessor did not, such as open baptisms of Muslim converts, his dialogues with Anglo-Catholics and, with the two moves noted above, he is trying very hard to upgrade the sense of reverence that the sacred mysteries evoke. In doing so, he is setting the Catholic Church on a course that may be hard for Protestants to understand.
There are two sides to this.
His moves regarding the liturgy, in Protestant terms, evoke a question every church deals with: is it possible to change the form of worship without changing its substance? Benedict is basically answering this in the negative. Exhibit #1 in his favour is, of course, the Anglican Communion, which has seen liturgical accretions such as the 1979 BCP, with its “Contract on the Episcopalians” and other uninspiring innovations. The saying for this is “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi” (the law of praying is the law of believing) and, although this applies more to liturgical churches, it’s something that our worship and prayer leaders need to think about before changing how we worship or pray.
On the other hand, I’ve always felt that Roman Catholicism’s greater flexibility–and general informality–in the way it celebrated the Mass was a sign of strength. As I noted some time ago:
Having been Episcopalian (pre-1979 prayer book) and Catholic at various times in my life, I always frame this issue (the difference between an “Anglo-Catholic” church and a Roman Catholic one) in a simple way: the difference between my last service at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church and my first Mass at St. Edward’s Catholic Church, both in Palm Beach. I’ve dealt with this issue before but perhaps an illustration would make things clearer.
Bethesda wasn’t quite an Anglo-Catholic church then, but the undertow was there: very formal liturgy (and trained acolytes to help with it,) paid youth and adult choirs to make sure they got it right, and very long (~1 hr 30 min) Holy Communions with all of Cranmer’s antique prose topped off by the 1928 Prayer Book’s prayer for the dead. And everyone dressed up for the occasion.
St. Edward’s was a whole different story: modern liturgy (the Novus Ordo Missae had only been official for two years,) no music at many Masses, no intonations of “Gawd” from the altar like the Episcopalians did. Without music and with the right celebrant, thirty-five minutes and the sacred mysteries were done, at which point all of the men stampeded out in their golf shirts, presumably having made a tee time at the Everglades Club or the Breakers. (Catholics’ way of dressing down for Mass was way ahead of its time.)
Anglo-Catholicism always liked a “frillier” form of Christianity, presumably because it looked and felt good and because it helped to drive home the sacredness of what they were doing. Roman Catholicism can certainly do the ceremonial when the occasion calls for it, but the efficacy of the sacraments is driven by the nature of the church, not because of how elaborately the sacred mysteries are celebrated.
What Benedict is doing is taking a kind of “Anglo-Catholic” approach to reformalise the liturgy. In doing so, is he admitting that the general view of the church is not strong? I’m inclined to think this is the case.
Beyond that, as we all know part of the purpose of our worship is to communicate the things of God to people. Central to communication is imparting things in a form that people understand. The more “traditional” we are, the greater the risk we run in being incomprehensible. Adjustments such as the ones at the top of this post will gladden the hearts of Catholic traditionalists (who are very vocal these days) but may not be helpful to those they’d like to reach.
And that includes those of us they’ve run off. We continue onward, knowing that with each passing day the Vatican shuts the door ever more tightly. Now there are two more reasons not to turn back and to “…press on to the goal, to gain the prize of that heavenward Call which God gave me through Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:14)
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Little Children
I’m back on the podcast trail this week with Little Children, from Cookin’ Mama’s New Day album. This group was very progressive and the music is still fresh and moves after all these years.
I’ve featured this album before, but now it’s hosted on this site, and you can find it here.
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Maybe That’s Why Christianity is Becoming a Non-Western Religion
Robert Easter (who is sorely dissappointed that I’m not planning on formally reverting to Anglicanism any time soon) made a very good point in his comment on my piece Is Charismatic Culture African?
Your source on the “Sola Panel” scares the bejabbers out of me. A parallel statement would be, “This whole business of an opennesss to the Spirit of God is just not properly British, and as such I’m quite comfortable with the idea of maintaining my own withdrawn reserve as (at least) equally ’spiritual!’”
Perhaps this is why Cromwell’s Puritanism led to so much political bloodshed and persecutions while the Wesleyan Holiness movement transformed nations?
I noted that none of my Pentecostal bretheren caught this. Perhaps they were too caught up in the excitement of our General Assembly.
Robert has touched on two very complicted issues: Oliver Cromwell and the whole business of how the Spirit moves in and interacts with different cultures. There’s a doctoral dissertation in both of these, but I’ll try to cut to the chase.
It’s true that virtually all of the religious wars in Europe that stemmed from the Reformation were fuelled by Reformed theology and the reaction to same, and that would include Cromwell. The whole Reformation can be seen as a conflict over Augustinianism, with Luther and Calvin taking Augustine’s anti-Pelagian theology to its logical conclusion. Looked at that way, it’s not a pretty picture.
Wesley’s genius was to “cut the Gordian knot” of Reformed theology by admitting that people do make meaningful choices in this life and that we should be about helping them make those choices. His solution was rooted in Anglicanism’s birth. That solution is transforming nations.
As far as the business of culture and the move of the Spirit is concerned, there’s no question that different cultures worship in different ways. In this hemisphere, the descendants of African slaves have had a big impact on modern Pentecost, and that’s led in turn to changing lives and eroding racial boundaries. Wasn’t one of the promises at the first Pentecost that the Spirit be poured out on all flesh?
But it’s not just the Africans who worship exuberantly: they just dominated GAFCON. If you go to Latin America or the Far East or anywhere else, you’ll see exuberant worship. When our lives are touched by God in a deep way, it will come out, both during our worship and in our daily life.
Christianity today is a relay where the baton is being passed from the “West” to the “Third World.” If that’s what it takes to bring people to Christ–and I think it is–then so be it. Let’s just celebrate and keep moving forward.
My local church has its International Prayer Centre, and its director is the Rt. Rev. Brian Barnett (the “Rt. Rev.” part is because he’s English and went on to be an Administrative Bishop in the Church of God.) He made a comment to the effect that Anglicanism is a great religion, but the Anglicans don’t believe it. Much of the problem, IMHO, that has brought the Anglican world to its present state is that too many in the West didn’t and don’t believe it. It’s been heartening to me to see the large number of Anglicans who do believe it and who are willing to fight for it. That’s something to get exuberant about. And it will come out in our worship–everybody’s worship, no matter where their ancestors came from.
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Rowan Williams and the High Price of Riding the Fence
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is back in trouble again, this time for his “real” position on same sex relations:
However, in an exchange of letters with an evangelical Christian, written eight years ago when he was Archbishop of Wales, he described his belief that biblical passages criticising homosexual sex were not aimed at people who were gay by nature.
He argued that scriptural prohibitions were addressed to heterosexuals looking for sexual variety. He wrote: “I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness.” Dr Williams described his view as his “definitive conclusion” reached after 20 years of study and prayer. He drew a distinction between his own beliefs as a theologian and his position as a church leader, for which he had to take account of the traditionalist view.
The letters, written in the autumn of 2000 and 2001, were exchanged with Deborah Pitt, a psychiatrist and evangelical Christian living in his former archdiocese in South Wales, who had written challenging him on the issue.
In reply, he described how his view began to change from that of opposing gay relationships in 1980. His mind became “unsettled” by contact as a university teacher with Christian students who believed that the Bible forbade promiscuity rather than gay sex.
That, in turn, led to this comment from Andrew Brown at the Guardian:
He does not believe what his church teaches on this issue, but he does – so far as anyone can tell – believe that the church really does teach this and that bishops ought to believe what they teach. It’s not exactly a crucifixion, but it is something like being trapped in an Escher staircase of descending logic. Any two of those two things could be true, but not all three of them together.
Looked at another way, what Williams is doing is “riding the fence” on this issue. And this practice is well established in the Anglican world. It is the one thing that frustrated me about the Episcopal Church more than anything else, especially as a teenager looking for answers. It is one reason why I “swam the Tiber,” because even I at this tender age understood the difference between a complex and nuanced position and a contradictory one. (That, youth pastors, should be a warning to you attempting to “accomodate” the external struggles and unsavoury outbursts of your young people.)
Unfortunately the fence of same sex relationships is a barbed wire one, which has made riding it a painful one for Williams and many others in the Anglican/Episcopal world.
Although one would like to see the Archbishop see daylight on this and realise that the commitment level of same sex relationships isn’t relevant to the discussion, at this point it would be better for Williams to be flat wrong on this issue and attempt to impose his personal position on the Church of England. It would detonate the long-feared split, but then everyone’s position would be clearer and we could then find out who would end up on the “ash heap of history.”
As they’re saying in Beijing these days, let the games begin!
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Reflections on the 2008 General Assembly
Another Church of God General Assembly is, as I like to say, “in the can.” The “preachers’ watering hole” in the lobby at the Marriott Rivercentre (the bar, for my Anglican friends, was Starbucks) is quiet now, having been the place to be for much of the Assembly. All you had to do was to just sit there and you could see everyone: outgoing and incoming members of the Executive Committee and the Council of 18, pastors and seminary professors, and just about everyone else. If the General Assembly is the family reunion for the Church of God, the Rivercentre lobby was the denomination’s temporary great room.
But there was more to this than just getting together: this Assembly was a kilometre marker in many ways. Let me take a look at a few.
Elections
The elections to the Executive Committee, Council of 18 and the departments were historic in many ways. I’ve harped on the importance of ethnic diversity and internationalisation, not because it’s politically correct but because that’s what the Church of God looks like these days. Working at Laity Ministries’ booth at the Convention Centre and simply watching and interacting with those who passed and stopped by, I was reminded just how non-white our denomination really is.
That being the case, it was gratifying to see Wallace Sibley become the first African-American to serve on the Executive Committee and Victor Pagan to become the first Hispanic Assistant Director of World Missions. From a personal standpoint, that was especially gratifying in the case of Dr. Sibley: I have worked with him at both Cross-Cultural Ministries and Evangelism and Home Missions, and have found him to be a great person. In the case of Victor Pagan, on Sunday evening he was a very busy man, shuttling between two banquets (World Missions and Chaplains Commission) to receive awards at both!
Beyond that, a generational change is taking place. Our ministers wanted change and expressed that desire in those whom they elected. But the men they elected are both new and familiar at the same time. The first task of our new leaders, and especially of our new Presiding Bishop, Raymond Culpepper, is to insure that our laity and clergy alike repose confidence in our denomination’s central governance. Such is necessary for the health of the Body of Christ. Our situation is product of a long process that is not the work of one individual or even a small group of men. That process is one which, frankly, all of us in this church are a part of.
Based on my knowledge of Dr. Culpepper in the time he has been our divisional liaison, I believe that he is suited for the task at hand. I for my part want to be a part of the solution and not of the problem, and I believe that many others are of like mind. Much of the focus now is on the budget and its reallocation. But I am looking beyond that to the time when people in this church view their International Offices more favourably, because if their impression of the central office is not optimal, they’re not receptive to what we have to offer, be that good, bad or indifferent. Under such circumstances, it doesn’t make much difference what the budget is.
MissionalCOG and the Church of God Blogosphere
There’s no doubt that the whole MissionalCOG effort had an impact on this General Assembly, even though they did not achieve all of their objectives. The number of pastors on the Council of 18 increased from 9 to 11, and the whole drama of the realignment of resources—which ended in the kind of move of God we always preach about and pray for—would have never taken place without the whole MissionalCOG effort, both the blog and the meetings during the General Assembly at the USO.
Having been both observer and participant to the Anglican/Episcopal world’s conflict—in many ways the first major church conflict fought heavily in cyberspace—I learned that the power of the Internet in general and the blogosphere in particular cannot be underestimated. The challenge to all of us in this realm is to remain both open in communication and constructive in intent. We in the Church of God don’t have the deep divisions of doctrine and life that our counterparts in Main Line churches do; we need to take advantage of that basic unity, and not squander it on things that don’t serve the long term interest of the mission of Jesus in our church.
Other Agenda Items
I took open positions on two items: the Exhorter’s licence and Doctrinal Fidelity. I was glad to see that the General Assembly turned down the former. In a centralised church, a local church certification doesn’t have the impact as it would in a congregational church like the Southern Baptists or the Assemblies of God. Our church is wrestling with the whole issue of entry level ministry credentialing; evidently there’s more study to be done. Personally I think we’re too worried about the high attrition rate at the Exhorter’s level. It’s better to find out that someone isn’t called of God sooner than later.
Concerning Doctrinal Fidelity, the unease that many of our ministers felt about this was evident in the responses on this blog, and that was reflected in the rejection of the part which would have entailed loss of credentials for lack of fidelity to the Declaration of Faith. One Administrative Bishop told me that he was concerned that the passage of the agenda item in its original form would have led to a great deal of petty ecclesiastical litigation fuelled more by rivalry than the maintenance of the faith. I still think this is an important matter, and was glad to see that speaking in other tongues being the initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit was upheld by our church. Given the doctrinal issues that normally arise in our church versus those in others, at this point this is not the life or death issue that it has become in, say, the Anglican/Episcopal world.
Laity Ministries at the Assembly
Our department had a good General Assembly, both in the friends we saw again, the resourcing we did at our booth, and at the Seminar and Laity and Clergy Luncheon we had on Friday. Leonard Sweet was an outstanding speaker, and my greatest regret is that, with our overcrowded General Assembly schedule, more people were not able to take in either or both of his talks (which should be available on CD shortly.) And it didn’t hurt that I got to take him to Starbucks!
One of the most memorable moments for us took place at our booth. We are working on expanding our offerings of resources in Spanish. Our State Lay Director for the South-east Hispanic Region, Carlos Jaffett, was explaining our materials to a group of ladies. I was busy with something else, but shortly turned to hear crying and praying from across the booth. Brother Jaffett was having an altar service right in our booth! Don’t wait for church to minister or be Pentecostal!
And As For Me…
One of the unique customs our church has is not to formally announce all of the appointed positions until the close of the Commissioning Service on Saturday morning. The new Presiding Bishop concludes the service, and everyone heads to the exits to get a little white booklet with all of the appointments—department heads, chaplains, missionaries, state and national Administrative Bishops, etc.
At this point, the books are opened…
Well, I found myself there in the same place as before, along with my superior Leonard Albert and our department. I am grateful to the Church of God for the opportunity for someone like me, not even the product of an Evangelical upbringing to say nothing of this church, to serve at this level.
Most of the life of this website—which celebrates its eleventh anniversary at the end of the month—has been directed away from the Church of God. The last several months have altered that to some extent. But through the emergence of the blogosphere in this church and the inclusion of this site in same, my relationship with the Church of God has been broadened and deepened in ways I had not anticipated. I’m looking forward to continuing the ongoing dialogue with others in this church. But my first purpose here was to reach out to others, and ultimately that’s what is most important—fulfilling the mission that Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to do. After all, isn’t that what all this “missional” effort is all about?
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No Podcast This Week
There will be no podcast this week. Lord, willing, I’ll be back with something different (I would say new, but most of what I podcast has been around for a while) next week.
In the meanwhile, check out the Music Pages. I’ve uploaded several albums to the site lately, and will be featuring some of these later in the year.
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Oh, Just Put the Big Engine Sound Through the Speakers
As giant European carmakers battle environmentalists and lawmakers over emissions curbs, makers of classic European sports cars like the Aston Martin DB9, Ferrari F430 and Porsche 911 are concerned the new laws will destroy their lifeblood.
Environmentalists say today’s supercars, with huge engines pumping out up to three times as much carbon dioxide as the average vehicle, have no place in a world struggling to rein in climate change.
But Lamborghini and its rivals contend that theirs is a rare art that needs protecting, blending classic European design elements with cutting-edge technologies that can help save the planet. They also argue that sports cars usually only leave the garage on the weekend, contributing just 0.3 percent of European Union car emissions.
But there’s a solution from the U.S.:
Although electric sports cars like the U.S.-based Tesla are available, customers might be slow to embrace that technology. “An Aston Martin is a very emotional drive, and how much of the appeal would be lost with an electric engine?” Yorke-Biggs said. “It would take time for our customer base to accept that.”
Actually, electric motors have one big performance advantage over their petrol or diesel counterparts: they have torque at 0 RPM, which means there’s no putting it in gear, revving it up or even having to start from idle to get it going. Just put the voltage to the motor and let it rip. The big problem with electric cars has always been the battery life, which explains the complexities of the hybrid.
Since a lot of the thrill of a petrol engine is the noise, one could simulate it through the speaker system. Most of them are loud enough to be felt; they vibrate the chassis. That may not be what refined Europeans are looking for, but it’ll work for some of the rest of us.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 