Janet Edwards asking about baptism and ordination

Presbyterian Pastor Janet Edwards asks a question, “Baptism—How important is it?” She gives the wrong answer because she asks the wrong question. She could have asked does baptism qualify Christians for ordination. And that is actually the question she answers and that wrongly. So I will look at how important baptism is, and then explore the issue of what qualifies the Christian for ordination.

Baptism is an ultimate issue, not because it saves or regenerates but because it is a sign and seals what God has done and what God will do as in the baptism of an infant who is included in the family of God.[1]

As John Calvin puts it, it is “an external sign, by which the Lord seals on our consciences his promises of good will toward us, in order to sustain the weakness of our faith, and we in turn testify our piety towards him, both before himself, and before angels as well as men. We may also define more briefly by calling it a testimony of the divine favour toward us, confirmed by an external sign, with a corresponding attestation of our faith towards Him.” But there is nothing in this that speaks of ordination.

Edwards uses Gal. 3:26 as her leading proof text, but that too is wrong. And 26 is helpful, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” The verses Edwards quotes are 27-28, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

If we are adults first comes our faith in Christ, (given by the Holy Spirit), and then if we have not yet been baptized baptism. We are clothed with Jesus Christ; he is our righteousness, our life. And we are made children of God because of what Christ has done for us on the cross.

Edwards writes, “The Presbyterian Church bases its practice of infant and adult Baptism upon references in Scripture. And Presbyterian tradition is clear that our Baptism is the primary qualification for service in any office of the church.” Edwards’ first sentence is true. Her second one is not. I wish she had referenced that because others have stated that also, but I do not believe one can find it in Scripture, confessions or the Book of Order.

The Book of Order in G-6.0106 states that those called to ordination, “in addition to possessing the necessary gifts and abilities, natural and acquired, those who undertake particular ministries should be persons of strong faith, dedicated discipleship, and love of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Their manner of life should be a demonstration of the Christian gospel in the church and in the world.” This does not leave out moral or faith issues. To call Christ Lord implies obedience to his word which includes all of Scripture. To demonstrate the Christian gospel is to live lives changed by the renewing work of Christ on the cross. Those espousing sin of any kind as good are not demonstrating the Christian gospel.

In G-6.o202, which gives the names of the various expressive duties of the ministry, this is included, “As it is his or her duty to be grave and prudent, and an example to the flock, and to govern well in the house and kingdom of Christ, he or she is termed presbyter or elder. As he or she is sent to declare the will of God to sinners, and to beseech them to be reconciled to God, through Christ, he or she is termed steward of the mysteries of God.” One cannot be an example nor declare the will of God to sinners, and at the same time insist that any sin in their life is not sin.

In the Book of Confessions of the PC (U.S.A.) in the Second Helvetic Confession it states; “Not anyone may be elected, but capable men distinguished by sufficient consecrated learning, pious eloquence, simple wisdom, lastly by moderation and honorable reputation, according to the apostolic rule which is compiled by the apostle in 1 Tim., ch. 3, and Titus, ch. 1.” (5.150b)

In the same section the Confession explains the difference between the priesthood of the believer and those who are ordained to office:

“To be sure, Christ’s apostles call all who believe in Christ ‘priests,’ but not on account of an office, but because, all the faithful having been made kings and priests, we are able to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God through Christ (Ex. 19:6;1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 1:6). Therefore the priesthood and the ministry are very different from one another. For the priesthood, as we have just said, is common to all Christians; not so is the ministry.” (5.153a)

I should add that standing against LGBT ordination is not telling others to go away as Edwards insists. Instead it is insisting that those who function under ordination as servants for the church must be willing to be examples of living a Christian life. When they sin, and they do sin, they must call it sin and repent.

Baptism is a sign and seal of what God has done in the life of a person. The Holy Spirit illuminates the work of Christ to us and woos us to the Father and the Son. The Father reveals the Son. The Son reveals the Father. It is a dance, but the dance does not end in sin but in forgiveness of sin. Those who are called are not only given gifts but also duties one of which is to live before the church and the world as a demonstration of Christ’s cleansing and forgiving power.

[1] Calvin sees faith planted as a seed in the infant which will grow with maturity. But it is nonetheless the faith that regenerates not the water which simply seals God’s action and becomes a sign to the baby and the community.

Light sown like seed

‘Light is sown like seed for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart.” (Psalm 97:11)

I love to think about this verse because I love planting seeds and watching as each unique plant emerges and grows. But more so because this is a promise of what God will do for his Church. It is not new light but a light that has already existed before time. Light from light as the Nicene Creed puts it.

Christ is the church’s gladness and his joy will be given to her in abundance. Christ is her light and that light grows as his church grows. And that growth is a growth of conforming to his life, suffering, death and resurrection.

Psalm 97 begins with images of the glory of God. He reigns over all. Two important images of the Lord emerge in this Psalm. God is veiled in clouds and darkness. He is there but he does not reveal himself in every way. He is transcendent. Everything else is beneath him, and separate from him. Worship is demanded of all, even of those that are called gods.

On the other hand, from this Psalm we understand that God’s throne, his authority, is founded on his righteousness and justice. He judges and demands worship. We do know something about God from this section of his word. And the Lord gives warning.

“Let all those be ashamed who serve graven images, who boast themselves of idols; Worship him all you gods.”

Two other images emerge. Idolatry and wickedness are contrasted with hating evil and (being glad in) loving the Lord. God’s people are to hate what is evil, which in this text is idolatry, serving and boasting about anything which takes the place of God. The believer in this psalm is called to a life given over totally to the Lord. They are told to be glad and give thanks. But creation is also included in this contrast of evil and goodness.

The earth and the islands rejoice. “The heavens declare his righteousness and all the peoples have seen his glory.” But it is his people that receive his promises just as it is the idolaters who receive his judgment.

Another Old Testament picture of his light and his gladness is the latter part of Malachi. It also makes a pointed distinction between “the righteous and the wicked” and the “one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”There God promises he will write in his book the names of those who fear and esteem him and speak to each other about him. The picture could be of God reading Facebook busy with his pen.

In chapter 4 God speaks of the arrogant and of judgment but also promises his children healing and joy: “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.”

But notice in this that it is those who fear his name. That is those who understand their need of the Lord, their need of forgiveness. They see the difference between wickedness and evil and find their needs are met in him.

And taking this further in the New Testament there is still that division of the wicked to be judged and the righteous to receive gladness and light, yet now it is made very clear that light is given to those who walked in darkness and goodness belongs to those who were once the wicked.

“For you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of light. (For the fruit of the light consists in all the goodness and righteousness and truth,) trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.”

In Christ, the Light, we can walk with gladness because it is his righteousness and his goodness that cover the church. His is a steadfast light that grows in the faithful church of Jesus Christ.

But His name is Jesus

Every word I write seems empty of usefulness.
But his name is Jesus and he is exulted to his Father’s throne.
He is the Word-confess him.

Every thought I have lies silent, unshaped.
But his name is Jesus; all things were created by him and for him.
He is the Word-confess him.

Everyplace my hands move grief follows hope.
But his name is Jesus; he saves his people from sin, giving a new name.
He is the Word-confess him.

Perhaps, because it is Lent, darkness rides on our shoulders?
But he, Jesus, King of peace rides into Jerusalem on a donkey,
And the children outdo our stony hearts; they cry hosanna.
His is the word-praise him.

Perhaps, because it is Lent, we sleep, over our meatless words?
But he, Jesus, the Bread of God, feeds the hungry with his flesh.
He wakes the sinner and tells them eat and drink.
His is the word-praise him.

Perhaps, because it is Lent, tomorrow is unwelcome?
But he, Jesus, the beloved Son of the Father loves us from eternity,
And will love us in all tomorrows.
He is the Word-love him.

A Review of 'A Time of Departing'

A Review of
A Time of Departing: How ancient Mystical Practices are Uniting Christians with the World’s Religions by Ray Yungen

Ray Yungen’s book A time of Departing is supposedly about a connection between New Age Mysticism and Evangelical ministries. The author believes that the new age is infiltrating the church through some pastors and their methodologies or spiritual practices.

But the book fails on several levels. Many of the Evangelical ministries Yungen points to do not fall within new age thinking. And the extreme problems with new age spirituality are belittled by connecting the movement to Evangelical ministries. Additionally it turns the Christian reader away from material that would be beneficial to their growth in Christ.

Many of the problems in the book occur because Yungen fails to use primary sources and instead uses the scholarship of writers who are new age. Such new age scholars often attempt to use Christians and their past writings to bolster their own new age belief systems, thus adding their own views as a gloss to the Christian works.

For instance, in an early section of the book Yungen attempts to connect the Desert Father’s ‘Jesus Prayer’ to Gnosticism and Hinduism.(42-43) Historically there is no connection. And in fact one of the great church Fathers, Athanasius, who fought valiantly for the deity of Jesus Christ, was a friend of one of the Desert Fathers, St Anthony.

Another example of improper research is the chapter on Pastor Rick Warren, “America’s Pastor.” I will quote a section and then explain what is wrong:

He [Warren] says that a relationship with God will never happen by just attending church and having a daily quiet time. He then offers an example of someone who learned this secret and had an intimate relationship with God. This person was a Carmelite monk named Brother Lawrence.

The fact that Brother Lawrence was in the Carmelite order means his spiritual practices were derived from or heavily influenced by Teresa of Avila who reformed that order in the previous century.

In a book titled Christian Mystics, Professor Ursula King makes the startling revelation that: “[G]iven her [Teresa of Avila ] partly Jewish background her thinking was also affected by Jewish Kabbalistic mysticism, elements of which can be detected in her writings.” (146-147)

Yungen is writing about the book The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. There is nothing in it that has to do with new age thinking. Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle is not at all like Brother Lawrence’s book. His is simple and practical while Teresa’s is complex and difficult. Of Brother Lawrence and his small book A.W. Tozer wrote and quoted him:

Brother Lawrence is well established in the affection of spiritual souls of all denominations and every shade of Christian thought. As a cook he learned to turn the modest service into a kind of worship. "We can do little things for God," he said. "I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of Him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before Him who has given me grace to work. Afterwards I rise happier than a king."

It is nonsense to call him new age or to even suggest that he has any kind of connection to Cabbalism.

Teresa of Avila is not easy to read. Her book The Interior Castle is definitely mystic, but it is Christian. Yungen uses a professor who specializes in Teilhard de Chardin to explain Teresa of Avila. I also had a professor who specialized in Teilhard. She turned all Christians into panentheists which is Teilhard’s worldview. An apologist for Christianity must read the works he is critiquing and not use secondary works as primary.

Since Ursula King, the professor who Yungen quoted is involved with comparative world religions she has attempted to give The Interior Castle a Jewish Cabbalistic slant. It isn’t true. But even so it has no connection to Brother Lawrence. And finally Yungen, by linking all of this together, is trying to make it seem like Rick Warren has some connection to Jewish Cabbalism or some sort of new age mysticism. Yungen hasn’t proved anything.

While Yungen writes about many new age gurus and spiritualities which the Christian should be aware of and concerned about there are better books to read. Here are several:

Revealing the New Age Jesus: Challenges to Orthodox Views of Christ by Douglas Groothuis

A Crash Course on the New Age Movement by Elliot Miller

On witchcraft-Wicca’s Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality by Edwards Sanders

Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be by Kevin De Young, …

On Sue Monk Kidd see my article, “A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to The Sacred Feminine”

Something new about the Goldstone Report

I have not seen this article on the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Facebook site. (Although they do put up article after article about the evil of Israel.) So, because it is very important I will.

The Washington Post yesterday in an opinion column featured Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor of the U.N. International Criminal Tribunals, who was the head of the committee that wrote the damning ‘Goldstone Report’ for the United Nations. That was the report that accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the Gaza conflict. The piece is entitled “Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and War Crimes.”

In the article Goldstone begins:

"We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document."

Additionally he writes:

“The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.”

Goldstone slams Hamas for their refusal to investigate their own crimes. He writes, “That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.”

He does condemn Israel for not being more open about their investigation but then once again points out the bias of the UN’s Human Rights Watch. He writes:

“Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.”

I would hope that this report would show up on the IPMN site … perhaps that is too much to ask, they like the Human Rights Watch are also biased.

A movement of Reformed music

I have written in the past about being a part of the Jesus Movement in the seventies and early eighties. That was a time when many hippies came to know Jesus Christ as Savior. My memories of those days are of friends who God called out of many horrendous life styles. I can think back now about wiccans, new agers, prostitutes and drug dealers who were grabbed by Jesus. And yes there were some whose lives seemed to be what others saw as ideal and even righteous. They like Nicodemus of old also found new life in Jesus Christ.

I have placed music videos from that time on my blog and it is fun to share them. Not only did they create Christian folk and rock, they were the first to begin singing praise songs in church. And at first many of those praise songs were filled with scripture.

But not many years ago, on the web, I began noticing young music groups forming who were singing the old hymns, which I love, but with different tunes. They were also creating a new kind of Christian music, and most of it was very reformed in its theology. The first group I discovered was Red Mountain Music. And they have one particular CD that is exclusively concerned with older hymns with new music, The Gadsby Project.

There are other groups; Indelible Grace is one of my favorites. In a section on their site they explain why they rewrite music and also their desire to reintroduce old hymns that have been forgotten. I was struck by this particular bit of information:

Many wonderful hymns have unfortunately fallen out of use and part of our love is searching old hymnals for hymns and hymnwriters that have been forgotten. How many today have heard of Anne Steele? She was the first female hymnwriter, the first to write hymns of lament without happy endings, and the first to meditate on the inadequacy of human language to express our love to God. Her hymns are incredibly relevant to what we often consider very modern issues and yet most hymnals include almost nothing by her. But when students read her words, now set to music that connects to them, they are blown away. They are able to have the incredible experience of communing spiritually with a saint who lived and suffered 300 years ago in a little town in the English countryside. All of the sudden, the kingdom of God grows bigger for them. They see that the Body of Christ is huge! We hope that you too can experience the "mystic sweet communion" with those who have gone before us.

The Lord is always working in his people. Here are a few examples of the music.

That is a very old hymn. Now here is a new and creative, but faithful piece by Sandra McCracken:

John Vest and dynamic history

John Vest has written two interesting posts. One is “Historical Myopia,” the other is “Change.” They fit together and deal with what Vest sees as reluctance by conservative Christians to accept change as well as what he views as their misunderstanding of church history, which he views as dynamic. Vest gives his broad view of religious history in general, going beyond the history of the Israelites, but then he ties church history to it as a part of the dynamic flow.

History has its historians. By that I mean there are historians who write about the history of writing history. Historiography is a fascinating subject. And what many do not understand is that there have been various ways of writing and understanding history. They all, however, have problems.

For instance the rather romantic idea that history can be written by looking at the lives of great men leaves out everyone but great men. A modern mode of history writing called the annales school began by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, is basically concerned with empirical evidence such as records and statistics. It often fails to find a unifying theme around which to write history. And often it is very dry reading.

One type of history observes the movements of nations, cultures, and institutions seeing history in dynamic movements, and often seeing such movements as progressive. But the problem with such a history is that everything is viewed not by solid structures or ideas but instead by dynamism. The movement is the thing. When this plays out in either philosophy or religion it can make havoc with any kind of reality.

Hegel and his Introduction to the Philosophy of History is an example of this kind of history. Of course he is extreme. History is the movement of spirit working out the ultimate ideal and the players, whether nations or individuals, are simply a means to that end. One can mix religion with historical dynamism. But the results will divorce the past from the future. And events will simply be stair steps toward some religious ideal. To see Christian history or even Christian theology this way is unthinkable.

Vest concludes his last posting with these words:

First, the subsequent 2000 years of dynamic history demonstrates that we have not been in a holding pattern at all. But more importantly, the nature of God to be discerned from this history suggests that this continuing change is deeply rooted in the presence of God in our midst.

In the same way that we must correct our historical myopia, we must remove the blinders that prevent us from recognizing the dynamic nature of our religion, a faith that responds to a dynamic God.

By viewing church history this way one is able to eliminate any solid foundations because there are no events worthy of permanence. Not only are creeds, such as Nicene, and confessions such as Barmen tossed aside, even Scripture is lost. The lives of past Christians become meaningless except as agents of change. The same is true of church councils and reform movements.

Church history is either the history of Christ building his church, which includes the fellowship of brothers and sisters who love Jesus, the Lordship of Jesus and adherence to apostolic teaching, or it is a dynamic progressive movement that constantly leaves all else behind.