Good news from far away

[I have not posted a newsletter from my missionary friends for awhile. So please enjoy. And there is an important prayer request at the end,]

Ministry Update

Life is definitely in a new phase for us since our youngest child is now in the U.S. preparing for university this fall. Our son will be starting at Seattle Pacific University on the 24th of September. We are so thankful that God provided a good summer job and he was able to spend a few months with his grandparents; making up for some of the time he has missed being with them during his years growing up in Thailand.

Our daughter, a college junior, is doing an overseas semester in China as part of her course in international business. She and 25 classmates from S.P.U have been doing a study tour through Hong Kong, Shiang Hai and Beijing. In the next few days they will travel to Chong Qing where they will spend the remainder of their time studying business and Asian culture at a Chinese university.

Here in Chiang Mai, the ministry to children in the Thai hospital has been put on hold temporarily due to the threat of swine flu. In the children’s cancer ward especially, the children are immuno-suppressed, so the hospital is trying to limit outside contacts. Some Thai schools here were closed for a few days but they cannot close school indefinitely. We will have to wait and see how long it takes before the H1N1 virus ceases to be a major issue.

We were able to visit a ministry home for disabled children, and found that the care-givers were Karen. They had quite a surprise when we started talking with them in their own language! As is so often the case, it is the Christians who seek to help the most needy and vulnerable people. For others who believe in Karma, these children are receiving just punishment for sins committed in a former life, and that is why they are born handicapped. What a contrast to see these lovely Karen girls who really love and care about these special needs children.

Being some of the “old timers” here, we are often called on to help newer missionaries with questions related to their visa, car registration, house rental, household employees etc etc. It can be helping someone through the process of getting a drivers license or just figuring out how to get propane delivered to their house for the kitchen stove. Often people need a listening ear and encouragement to “hang in there” when the cultural adjustments seem overwhelming. We want to help and encourage anyone that we can to stay and continue the valuable work and ministry they are involved with here in Thailand.

Could I please also give a prayer request for Grace International School where our children graduated from High School? The school, which serves missionary kids from all over Asia, purchased a sports club some years back and has modified the facility for use as a school. Now, several years later, a new Thai law which protects the rights of consumers has come out, and former members of the health club claim that the school has infringed on their rights to use the facility. The law is being applied retroactively, even though the school purchased the property legally. The school lost the first court case and it is now under appeal to take the case to a higher court. Pray that justice will be done and that God would provide the funds necessary to build a new campus in a new location. Relocating nearly 500 students plus teachers and classroom equipment will be no small task. You can read more about this situation at http://www.gisthailand.org/.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We truly believe that they make a difference!

Blessings,

[please go to the link, but I will also provide here the video about the school]

The Kingdom of God and the authority of his Christ has come

It is nearing 10 tonight as I write this. This has been a strange day, starting in a startling manner but full of the blessings of the Lord. I awoke this morning early as my husband leaned over me to say he had been up for several hours with chest pains. They were not so bad now he said but perhaps he should go to the hospital. We ended up at our doctor where an EKG was fine but his blood pressure was not. Brad working on hammers on a piano

He is on medicine now, and will have a stress test next week. I am sure he will be fine. After all he bounded down our eleven steps, past me, on the way to the car, as he always does. But one always thinks of the worst first.

That is why I thought of him first when somebody on my comment section suggested that conservative Christians don’t care for the needy. I wanted to blurt out, as I am doing now, but my husband spends his Sunday afternoons doing prison ministry, etc., etc., and he is there because another conservative Christian, the Chaplain cares so very much for all of those boys. And that story could go on and on and maybe someday will. But this is a different thought.

Because I was brought up short, as the saying goes, by the thought that those who belong to Jesus never have to defend themselves. They are safely tucked under the wings of their keeper. And he is after all their final word, as he is their refuge. Immediately verses from the eighth chapter of Romans came to me. But also Revelation 12:10-11:

“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.”

The 12th verse goes on to tell the heavens and earth to rejoice. This is a picture of the beautiful work of redemption that Jesus Christ has finished by dying on the cross for us and living again that we might have forgiveness of sins and eternal life. It is not our righteousness but his that matters. But because of his gift of righteousness and life we are being transformed into the sons and daughters of God.

Jesus has won for us the victory over sin, and death, and hell. Jesus has overcome the accuser; Satan has been defeated, the blood of Christ is our salvation. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

So here is a song to end my day and if you read this in the morning hopefully give you a morning blessing.

Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry, but who is the joke really on? Up-date

I read with enjoyment the Presbyterian News article “Mission Challenge ’09 speakers commissioned.” Hearing about missionaries and their work is always important. And, in fact, two will be coming to my Church on October the 18th. I am looking forward to hearing about the needs of the Roma people.

This is a combined group of peacemakers and missionaries and I clicked on the link to see who the peacemakers were. There is a list of them at International Peacemakers. I also looked at the picture there and found that instead of the eleven Peacemakers they had spoken of there were 12. But I think they just used an old picture, because Shehadeh Shehadeh is not mentioned in any of the 2009 lists. But there he sits. And I saw that he was an Israeli!

A man from Israel and I was excited because perhaps now a person from Israel who really cares about Israel or at least two sides of the story either had been or would be talking to Presbyterians. I found his biography. Read a bit of biographical information on the 2008 Peacemakers site.

Shehadeh, who is also a retired Episcopal Priest, in his bio states he is “vice chairperson of the general counsel of a political party called “Democratic Front for Peace and Equality ". So with my curiosity in hand I went looking to find out about that particular party. It is the Communist Party of Israel.

And so listed in every Presbytery newsletter, that I looked at, advertising Shehadeh’s visit is the information that he is Vice Chairperson of the General Counsel of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality. (The Communist Party) Oh well, his picture is there but I don’t think he was or well be commissioned this year. Hopefully.

UP-date- I just received an answer to an e-mail I sent to Dayna Oliver of the Peacemakers. Shehadeh was a participant last year, not this year.

Music for Monday

This is a busy Monday so since I missed putting up any music for Sunday- here is a delayed praise.

Belhar: four important reasons the PC(U.S.A.) should not adopt the Confession

The Presbyterian Outlook reported that the Committee to Consider Amending the Confessional Documents of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to include the Confession of Belhar in The Book of Confessions reached a consensus to recommend the addition. That means that the General Assembly in 2010 will vote on the recommendation.

If it passes at GA the Presbyteries will then vote, “needing approval from at least two-thirds of the denomination’s 173 presbyteries.” I have been writing on this Confession for the last year. I believe it should not be added to our Book of Confessions for four reasons:

1. Failure to focus the confession on the Lordship of Christ.

2. The issue of homosexuality

3. The Israeli and Palestinian conflict

4. The issue of pluralism

Before I begin explaining each of these problems I must insist that in South Africa with its problems of apartheid, which included the Church, such a statement was necessary. But there are problems with this Confession; the first and most important one being its failure to emphasize Christology including the Lordship of Christ. And it is this failure that causes all of the other problems.

Failure to focus the Confession on the Lordship of Christ: Various theologians have insisted that Belhar looks to Karl Barth and the Declaration of Barmen as its model. While this may be true the writers failed Barth’s and Barmen’s most important tenet, the insistence that a Confession’s main emphasis is to confess Christ. And in fact, Barmen would have been and is the better Confession.

The problem in South Africa within the Church was with the doctrine of the ‘Orders of Creation.’ That is, that in creating, God instituted certain institutions that could not be changed. In South Africa, the church using this system set boundaries for various races allowing the Church to fit within a racist state. In Nazi Germany the rights of government was emphasized in an attempt to allow the Church to fit within a totalitarian state.

But Barth’s word on that attempt was to insist that placing anything beside Christ, as he is found in the Old and New Testament, was a compromising position for the Church. Here Barth is referring to “Creation and Redemption, Nature and Grace, Nationalism and Gospel.” And Barmen, (which was largely written by Barth), supports his concerns while at the same time preventing the Church from falling into any kind of idolatry or antinomianism. And it does that by insisting, biblically, that “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and death.” (8:11)

And additionally Barmen states, “As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life. …
We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we could not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other Lords—areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.” (8:14-8:15)

This places the Lordship of Christ above all statements and yet Christ is tied to scripture. What falls outside of Christ’s Lordship is unacceptable. What falls under his Lordship is. For instance the racism of South Africa is seen as sin when one reads, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28)

But the Belhar Confession on the other hand emphasizes the unity of the Church which is not a confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, but a confession about what the Church is or must do. Therefore unity is not necessarily tied to Christ’s Lordship, since unity may be achieved by other means.

The issue of homosexuality: Because unity is the main point of the Belhar Confession others have insisted on using it for issues that are unbiblical. In a blog posting, The Belhar Confession & God's final revelation, I have pointed out that one of the contributors to Belhar, Allan Boesak, has sought to use it as a means to gain ordination for practicing homosexuals in the Uniting Reformed Church in South Africa. Quoting from the Banner, I wrote, “He dramatically insisted that the church’s Belhar Confession demands the defense of the full rights of gay members.”

A statement within the Confession of Belhar, “…we reject any doctrine which absolutizes either natural diversity or the sinful separation of people in such a way that this absolutization hinders or breaks the visible and active unity of the church, or even leads to the establishment of a separate church formation. …” is a very big problem. (Emphasis mine)

In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A,) the Witherspoon Society’s Eugene TeSelle in a “Special Report to Witherspoon Society and Friends” from the 2004 General Assembly, ga report by gene.pmd, writes of that part of Belhar, “While we’re talking about absolutizing natural diversity, we might refer the Belhar Confession to the Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity as it considers the PC(USA)’s prohibition on gay/lesbian.”

So in the PC (USA) we also will undoubtedly see this confession used in a way that is detached from the Lordship of Christ “as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture.”

The Israeli and Palestinian conflict: In another posting on my blog, Using the Belhar Confession to overcome Israel’s “racism,” and as a means to bring about repentance from those desiring a Jewish State!, I have pointed to speakers for the Reformed Church in America using the Confession as a solution for what they perceive as racism on the part of Israel. As one speaker, the Rev. Christo Lombard from the Uniting Reformed Church of South Africa, put it “If there is one situation in this world that contextually fits the antiapartheid struggle and its dynamics, for which the Belhar Confession was written, it must be the Palestinian situation, currently.”

Another speaker, Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, pastor of Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, also hoped that the Confession might be used against the State of Israel. And in the same way those in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who are advocating for this Confession may attempt to use it as leverage against Israel.

One of my first postings on Belhar was concerned with a faulty study paper on Belhar. It made reference to the United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance which met in Durban, South Africa from August 31 to September 8, 2001.

I began that posting, “At the coming 218 General Assembly the Advocacy Committee on Racial Ethnic Concerns is offering Rec-046, Resolution to study the Belhar Confession for inclusion in the Confessional Documents of the Presbyterian Church (USA).”A study paper was recommended by that committee,(Report of the Task Force to Study Reparations) .

The authors of that paper castigated the United States for walking out of the conference. What the author’s failed to write was that Israel also walked out of the Conference because it was an extremely anti-Semitic conference.

The then U.S. Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, wrote:

“Today I have instructed our representatives at the World Conference Against Racism to return home. I have taken this decision with regret, because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution that the Conference could have made to it. But, following discussions today by our team in Durban and others who are working for a successful conference, I am convinced that will not be possible. I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of "Zionism equals racism;" or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world--Israel--for censure and abuse.”

If members of the AACREC could so easily ignore the racism of this conference while recommending Belhar and their paper, it may be inferred that they may also use the Belhar Confession in the same manner as Raheb.

The issue of pluralism: And Raheb formulates the last concern that members of the PC(USA) may have with this Confession.

In a final and complete leap away from Barmen, Raheb divorces Jesus Christ from the Confession, writing “On several places in the confession the word “church” is replaced by another category called “the People of God.” The Belhar Confession uses this term to describe the church. My question would be, is it possible to expand this “People of God” terminology to encompass the “peoples of God,” including in this Jews and Muslims? And by this to provide a monotheistic platform for unity?”

Now, with this formula we have unity totally taking over the Confession as it shallows up the Church’s confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. In fact, Raheb’s formula does more than shallow; it empties and turns the confession into a hollow unfaithful paper, recommending apostasy.

A Confession of Faith for the Church must have as its main focus the Church’s Confession of Christ. All other important concerns of the Church, including her unity, must be subsumed under the heading 'Jesus Christ is Lord.' He is Lord over sin of any kind. Lord over adultery and homosexual practice. Lord over racism and anti-Semitism. Lord over all gods and powers. Jesus Christ is the Lord of his Church, within her, above her and leading her. That is the ultimate Confession for the Church of Jesus Christ.

Writing about the Jewish people and Christian theology - 2 (Used by God)

In my first posting on Christian Theology, the Jewish people and Israel, I stated that there is a Reformed theology that while insisting on the all sufficiently of Jesus Christ does not deny that the Jews are God’s chosen people. And this is not some recent phenomenon.

The Scottish pastor, Samuel Rutherford, (1600? – 1661), pays the Jews some honor with a bit of quaint exegesis when he writes of them as the older sister, “When they [the Jews] were in their Lord’s house, at their Father’s elbow, they were longing for the incoming of their little sister, the kirk of the Gentiles. They said to the Lord, ‘We have a little sister and she hath no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?’ [Cant 8, 8 Editor]” (Letters of Samuel Rutherford)

He goes on to exhort the recipient of his letter to pray for the elder sister that she might now have breasts and be seated with the Gentiles at the Lord’s Table. But to be clearer, the person who has given Reformed understanding its most important theological systematization, John Calvin, writes this about the Jewish people:

"For they [the Jews] are, as it were, the first born in the family of God. The honor due, on this account, must therefore be paid them, until they have rejected the offer, and by their ingratitude, caused it to be transferred to the Gentiles. Nor, however great the contumacy with which they persist in warring against the gospel, are we therefore to despise them. We must consider that in respect of the promise, the blessing of God still resides among them; and, as the apostle testifies, will never entirely depart from them, seeing that 'the gifts and calling of God are without repentance' (Rom xi 29)” (Institutes, book IV., Chapter XVI, 14)

So using the writing of Reformed Pastor David Torrance, brother of theologians James and Thomas Torrance, I will look at the ways God has used the Jews to confront all others, as they continue to be God’s people among the nations.[1]

The first thought in Torrance’s list has to do with “their remarkable preservation through history.” This preservation can point only to the hand of God. I once took a class on Jewish history from an excellent teacher. But I, even as a Christian, was troubled by her constant search for why the Jewish people had survived through their many persecutions and exiles. She never proffered the idea that God was at least a part of that reason.

I believe the Scripture that Torrance points the reader to is the answer.

“’If this fixed order departs from before me,’ declares the Lord, then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever.’” (Jeremiah 31:36)

The second way God is using the Jewish people is that in their presence among the nations we are reminded of all that God has done in their midst. They lend to us a living witness of Scriptures.

The third way has to do with Israel’s presence once again in the Holy Land. They remind us of God’s power to work his will. As Torrance puts it, “their presence back in the promised land-reminds us that we and the nations have to reckon with a living, personal God. He is a God who acts in space and time, a God of judgment as well as mercy.”

Going further, concerning their return to their land, the fourth way God uses the Jewish people is to show the peoples of the world that their destiny is not in their own hands. Governments do not bring about the destiny of nations, but God is truly in charge. His actions are a call to obedience.

Finally, Torrance states that in Israel’s “modern history” the nations may perceive that God is “over-ruling the continued sin of the world.” He is moving us toward a time when all nations will give a complete account of their actions. Looking at the formation of Israel in their ancient homeland after the attempt of Hitler and his henchmen to totally destroy them one perceives ahead of time God’s judgment and power. As Torrance puts it God is the Lord of history.

From a Reformed point of view God continues to use the Jewish people. They are chosen by him. Through them the Lord continues to both bless and remind the nations of his power and sovereignty. In my next posting on this subject I will look at the use Christians have made and must make of the Hebrew Bible in regards to the Jewish people.


[1] “The Mission of Christians and Jews,” James Torrance, A Passion for Christ: The Vision that Ignites Ministry, Thomas F. Torrance, James B. Torrance, David W. Torrance. (Handsel Press, PLC Publications, 1999)

Writing about the Jewish people and Christian theology

Christians have several theological directions when considering the Jewish people and the State of Israel. There is the dispensational view which is often connected to Christian Zionism. There also exists a Reformed view that does not reject Israel. The orthodox Reformed view does not deny the all sufficiency of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross but niether does it deny that the Jewish people are God’s chosen people.

I have written of Karl Barth’s view of them as chosen. Barth insisted that God’s choosing of the Jewish people troubled the world and led many in their jealousy to indulge in anti-Semitism. Yet he made the rejection of Jesus Christ, the Jew, the ultimate anti-Semitism. Not in the sense that the Jews rejected Christ by not believing in him as the Messiah, but in the sense that the world rejects the Jew on the cross as that particular One who suffers in shame and humiliation for the sake of the world. That is God’s call is to live only by his grace yet the world seeks some other way.

Christ’s death and resurrection is the ultimate out working of God’s free grace, the ultimate gift, the only way of salvation. But, we are brought to our knees by the sight of the Jewish people who are sustained through the years by the grace of God.

As Barth writes, “we find it uncanny that the Jews live among us and move like shadows through world history with the unheard-of historical permanence, yet without roots, without security; without roots because they are sustained by the free grace of God—so persistent because that grace holds them so firmly.”

Barth spoke those words a year after the birth of Israel. He undoubtedly saw their war for survival as a continuation of the sufferings of the Holocaust. And he certainly recognized the sustaining hand of God among them both biblically and from his experience.

And Barth understands how the two communities, Christians and Jews, are alike, not only living by faith but also offending those who reject God’s care and his chosen people. Barth writes:

“Without any doubt the Jews are to this very day the chosen people of God in the same sense as they have been so from the beginning, according to the Old and New Testaments. They have the promise of God; and if we Christians from among the Gentiles have it too, then it is only as those chosen with them, as guests in their house, as new wood grafted on to their old tree. The Christian community exists in the same way as the Jews; miraculously sustained throughout the years, it too is a people of strangers; and just as the anti-semites are offended by the Jews, so the Christian community will necessarily arouse the same feelings.” Against the Stream

I intend to look at some of the Christian theology that enfolds issues both about the Jews and the State of Israel. I will be posting on these subjects in the coming weeks.