The Confession of the Church 6

The Confessing Church of Germany found that to declare the Declaration of Barmen they also had to declare they were indeed the true Church in Germany. Arthur C. Cochrane, in his book The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, in the chapter on the nature of a Confession, emphasizes this with his 6th point.

“6. In and with its Confession of Faith the Church claims to be the one, true Church. Outside this Church, there is no salvation for one who willfully and knowingly separates himself from it. Of course the extra ecclesiam nulla salus does not imply that the one, true Church in which salvation may be found has not existed in other times and places. Nor does it mean that the Church is the indispensable mediatrix of salvation or a ‘redemptive society.’ It means that outside the Church that confesses Jesus Christ there is no revelation, no faith, and no knowledge of salvation. However, where Christ and his salvation are present in the Church’s Confession of him, and where a man has encountered Christ in it and then has deliberately and consciously separated himself from that Church, for that man there is no salvation. For him there remains the threat of damnation.”

Cochrane goes on to state that, “The genuineness of a Confession is reflected in the willingness of its confessors to venture and to stand by this stupendous claim.” Interestingly enough it is his view that, “Throughout the Church Struggle the Confessing Church did not take its stand upon the Reformation Confessions but upon the Barmen Declaration as the only legitimate interpretation of the Reformation symbols. For this reason it claimed to be the true evangelical Church in Germany.”

In several long pages Cochrane gives a history of the struggle for Barmen with the Lutheran Confessionalists, (Not the same as the Confessing Church), lead by Hermann Sasse, Werner Elert, Paul Althaus, and Biship August Marahrens. A part of their argument was that the Synod of Barmen had no authority to declare what was true doctrine and what was heresy.

At the same time the Confessing Church was assailed by the Reich Church Government. Cochrane notes that, “The method was to explain that an emergency situation prevailed in a certain provincial Church which necessitated the intervention of the Reich Bishop. Ministers were dismissed or suspended from their parishes, and many were placed under ‘house arrest.’”

In later moves beyond those taken by the Bishop the church endured, “the alarming growth of paganism in the press, radio, theater, and schools,” and the “secularization of public life.” The state placed “hundreds of pastors in jail or under house arrest.” “Professors were dismissed from their chairs, notably scholars like Otto Schmitz, K.D. Schmidt, Gunther Dehn, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans Iwand, Edmund Schlink, and Karl Barth.”

Out of all of this turmoil, which included the Reich Church Government officials setting up committees that continued to advocate false teaching, the Confessing Church was forced to claim the position of True Church. They were also forced to insist that “Church administration is an office of the Church. Therefore it can be called and installed only by the Church. Its office-bearers must be obligated to be obedient to God’s Word in keeping with the Church’s Confession.”

The important point here is that a Confession of the Church can only be made by the True Church which will itself become a dividing point between many. It does not come as a great political maneuver to pull the whole Church together nor is its focus meant to solve simply a social problem but rather it speaks to that problem which is tearing apart the faith and unity of the Church. That will be the subject of the next post.

The Sermon of Jeremiah Wright and Some Questions

Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile at his blog Pure Church has an extremely interesting posting entitled "Confusing God and Government" . He is linked to another site which features the full sermon of Jeremiah Wright that has been in all of the media. The interesting part of this is Anyabwile's questions about the sermon. He writes, "I'd be interested in your thoughts about the sermon, not just the reactions already circulating around the media, but your technical critiques as a preacher or a consumer of preaching. All are welcome."

One of Anyabwile's questions is "Do the major points/content of the sermon grow out of the text itself? Are the preacher's points the same points made by the text?" The comments on this posting are very interesting and very good. I suspect, I know, that Pastors in the PCUSA will benefit from reading them.

Go to Pure Church and scroll down.

A different kind of Easter

Easter Sunday I found myself putting on jeans and driving to the ER at my favorite hospital (almost all my babies were born there) instead of putting on a spring dress and heading to my favorite Church. Back home the ham and the deviled eggs awaited but Easter Sunday dinner with the usual crowd was not to be I’m sorry to say. I just returned yesterday afternoon after the doctors got a handle on my kidney infection and blogging will be a bit slow for awhile. So since I was unable to paticipate in our Church ritual of saying “He is Risen Indeed” I will say it now, “He is risen indeed!”

Phillis Wheatley and the "mercy in the Son of God."

Thabiti M. Anyabwile in his book, The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity writes of Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784). Although a slave from the age of six, she was highly educated and a Reformed Christian. Anyabwile writes that, "Her most famous collection, simply entitled Poems, reflects a rather sophisticated knowledge of Scripture and theology."

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I am posting a poem she wrote entitled, "To the University of Cambridge, in England." Wheatley wrote it when she was about thirteen years old. I believe it is a fitting poem for this Holy Week.

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Students, to you 'tis giv'n to scan the heights

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Above, to traverse the ethereal space,

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And mark the systems of revolving worlds.

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Still more, ye sons of science ye receive

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The blissful news by messengers from heav'n,

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How Jesus' blood for your redemption flows.

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See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;

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He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:

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What matchless mercy in the Son of God!

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When the whole human race by sin had fall'n,

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He deign'd to die that they might rise again,

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And share with him in the sublimest skies,

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Life without death, and glory without end.

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The picture above is the "Frontispiece from Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

Dr. Ben Witherington Writes about Deepak Chopra's New Book

Dr Ben Witherington, on his blog, has posted some information about Deepak Chopra's new book The Third Jesus. Witherington explains that its a Buddhist and pantheist view of Jesus. Not all of his comments are about the book but they are extremely helpful for those attempting to speak to a society enmeshed in new age thinking that includes foggy and wild ideas about God. For instance he writes:

"Jesus did not, and does not come to take us to a higher spiritual plane, so that we might better get in touch with the little bit of God that is in us all or our own God-consciousness. Indeed, he seeks to lead us to have a relationship with the God he called Abba who is wholly other, and who urges us to recognize the Creator Creature distinction. We are not God, nor is God inherently in us or a part of our being. The end result of navel gazing is that we may well get more in touch with 'our inner child', but we do not get more in touch with the 'outer' God who created the universe and all that is in it. The former sort of spirituality is a form of narcissism, or at its worse, self- worship. The latter form of spirituality reinforces the Creator/creature distinction and leads to worship of the one true God." More:

Broken People Leading a Broken Conference: The Results

My husband and I enjoy watching the television show “Numb3rs” on Friday nights. It is a detective show but includes among its characters several math professors who help solve problems. Often right in the middle of a scene they stop the action and use all kinds of diagrams to explain how they can obtain information to help solve a crime. Thinking that direction I want to stop the presses and explain at least three concepts before writing about a secular conference entitled “The 9th Annual White Privilege Conference (WPC9).”

(1)Abusive Social Groups: The first has to do with abusive social groups, some religious and some not. Throughout the sixties into the seventies various Christian ministries and even some secular groups participated in what was called “cult ministry” or sometimes for the secular groups “cult watch.” In one very secular anthropology class I took in college we studied “cults,” including, as a prototype, the rise of Nazism in Germany.

Definitions and ministries move on and with some wisdom I think. Secular groups rarely use the term cult and Christian ministries refer to “New Religions” alongside World Religions. However, one Christian sociologist who writes about Christian churches on the fringe, those who manipulate and attempt to control their members, refers to them as “churches that abuse.” On the other hand there are groups which are not religious in the classical sense of that word yet they operate as a tight social group and are also abusive.

(2)Pluralism & Christianity: There is a huge debate going on in both the Church and secular society about pluralism and Christianity. Most people who are non-religious and living in our pluralistic society cannot comprehend why Christians should insist on saying that Jesus Christ is the only way to know God or the Divine.

Seeking to be tolerant in society seems to mean being intolerant of Christianity. Or to put it another way, if one wants to appear tolerant in post-modern Western society it seems important to insist that an exclusive Christianity is intolerant.

(3)Racial Ethnic Relationships: Since the latter half of the civil rights movement, among Christians, other faiths and even secular movements, a split has occurred concerning the way various groups and people look at race relations. The split has even occurred within the African American community.

On the outer fringe of both white and black society are those who insist on separatism, each race looking at the other with disparaging thoughts, words and actions; albeit, African Americans with somewhat more reason and integrity.

Still, the center, those who seek integration, while at the same time respecting the other’s culture, is certainly the biblical viewpoint.

But, as racial and religious ideas move on in this society new words and different definitions of old words are developing. The new terms and definitions enter into our debates and lead to conversations where we are all talking past each other without understanding what the other person is actually saying. Thus even the name “white privilege,” as the conference I am writing about is called, may mean different things to different people.

The 9th Annual White Privilege Conference:
This year’s conference is titled “Critical Liberation Praxis: Creating Transformation for Social Justice.” Although held in Springfield, Massachusetts it is linked to a site at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and is sponsored by the UCCS Matrix Center. Several Church and academic groups are recommending this conference. A promotional piece at the Massachusetts’ Bay District of Unitarian Universalist Churches calls the conference the "White Privilege, White Supremacy and Oppression: Critical Liberation Praxis."

The Conference, about racism, seems truly important. It is a subject we all need more information on and more help dealing with or overcoming. But there are also many problems with both the workshops and some of the groups in this conference.

An abusive social group: First, is the intrusion into this conference of people who are involved in Re-evaluation Counseling, sometimes going by the name "United to End Racism," an organization which promotes a kind of counseling that is not validated by psychiatric organizations. At least five workshops are run by those involved in “Re-evaluation Counseling.”(1)

The founder of Re-evaluation Counseling, Harvey Jackins, was interested in collectivism and saw all societies as oppressive.(2) (See their article on Human Societies.) He was also at one time deeply involved in Scientology (3) before beginning his own counseling organization. (See the article on Distress/Hurts.)

Some of Jackins’ methods and concepts uncannily follow his earlier interests. For instance, members of his organization generally belong to communities which are in some ways controlled by his therapeutic ideas. At the same time mental health organizations are seen as oppressive. And his view of what causes problems in people as well as society has to do with past hurts (“distresses”) and experiences seen as real entities lodged in the brain which need to be “discharged” through one on one counseling. In their documents they write:

"Very early in life the first time, and repeatedly after that, we meet experiences of distress. When we meet one-whether the distress is physical (pain, illness, unconsciousness, anaesthesia, (sic) sedation, acute discomfort, etc.) or whether it is emotional distress (loss, fright, frustration, ridicule, boredom, etc.)-a particular effect takes place.

While hurting, physically or emotionally, our flexible human intelligence stops functioning.

The ability that is the essence of our humanness, our ability to see things as they are exactly and to contrive new exact responses to all new situations, is slowed down or becomes inoperative.

This is a simple, profound and important statement. It is a long-unfaced key to much that has been confusing about a human being's activities. You will find that it sheds light into many dark puzzles about ourselves." (Italics the authors)

The Re-evaluation text goes on to explain that information that comes into the brain at this time clogs up a part of the brain and effects humans in all kinds of ways including their intelligence and the way they treat other people.

Other aspects of this organization are very troubling including allegations of improper sexual relations with young people by the founder, Jackins.4

White Privilege, Christianity & Pluralism: Under the new term “white privilege,” several subjects are included. Sexual orientation and Christianity are two of them. That is, considering Christianity the true faith and homosexual acts sinful is thought to be arrogant and therefore a part of white privilege. For instance, in the multitude of workshops are two which cover Christianity. One entitled “The Everyday Impact of Christian Hegemony,” and led by Paul Kival, is described this way:

"This interactive workshop facilitates an examination and discussion of Christian Hegemony, the institutionalized system of Christian dominance in U.S. society which interconnects with sexism, racism, heterosexism, able-bodism, and anti-Arab and anti-Jewish oppression. . . . . The premise of this workshop is that one cannot accurately understand racism, sexism or other systems of oppression without coming to grips with the ways seventeen hundred years of Christian hegemony undergirds, shapes, supports, and obfuscates how power and violence really work in our society."

The other workshop is entitled, “Religious Pluralism and Christian Privilege,” and led by Jamie Washington. It is described this way:

"… Since 9/11/01, the issues of religious diversity and pluralism have been on our screen. However, seldom do we engage issues of religious diversity through the same lens we do other issues. Christian privilege is one of those taboo topics on most campuses. This session will create a space for us to begin to examine the dynamics of spiritual and religious diversity in the context of Christian privilege."

Racism and the Redefinition of Words: Aside from these troubling jabs at Christianity are disturbing political and social ideas. One of the most disturbing is a new use of the term “white supremacy.” Most people think of skinheads or the fringe “Identity” groups or even David Duke and the KKK when someone uses the term white supremacy, but now if you are white and disagree with some of the more radical political and social ideas of these presentations you are ranked with the above named fringe groups.

And in fact, like some other movements in our postmodern society, new word definitions have been totally absorbed into their ideology. For instance at this conference and other such ventures, race is not defined by skin pigment but along political and religious lines. Black is equated with inclusiveness, socialism (good), and community. White is equated with homophobia, exclusivism, capitalism (bad), patriarchy and individualism.

The 9th Annual White Privilege Conference and its workshops are a hodgepodge of well meaning and misguided efforts to produce a model society. The kind of movements, which create such conferences generally end up on the heap of all past movements attempting to create a Utopian society. Hopefully they won’t create disasters before they finish spinning out the details.

In the midst of so much confusion, mis-understanding and even hatefulness the Church can only stand beneath the cross.



1 See http://www.rc.org/theory/index.html.
2 See http://www.rc.org/theory/index.html.
3 See http://www.rc.org/theory/index.html, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-evaluation_Counseling.
4 There are many places on the web which focus on the troubling aspects of Re-evaluation Counseling. A helpful one is Re-evaluation Counseling Resources Site.

Life is Like That

Life is like that. Some days you go to Church fall off a bench and break your arm. But you still know that underneath are "the everlasting arms."

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"The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms." (Deuteronomy 33:27a)