Oblique Angles 2

[Anonymous (65.234.188.111)]

But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency,
All non-believers and men stealers talkin' in the name of religion
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.

? Bob Dylan, "Slow Train Coming," 1979

I guess it shouldn't surprise me.

I guess I should have seen this coming.

Still, what I am about to tell you illustrates remarkably well just how low our culture has plummeted, just how completely our institutions have been subverted, just how evil men's hearts are and just how blind we as a society have become to the depravity that surrounds us.

Next month, the American Academy of Religion will hold its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

At this meeting of the national umbrella organization for professors of religion, church historians, theologians, ethicists and so-called scholars in world religions, sadomasochism, transvestism and polyamory will be promoted as a way to better communicate with God.

I was alerted to this outrage by a courageous whistleblower who travels in such circles ? Robert Gagnon, Ph.D. and associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

As he put it: "Here the slippery slope is greased by the very persons who previously denied even the existence of such a slope."

The Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group within the AAR has set for its theme for the program: "Power and Submission, Pain and Pleasure: The Religious Dynamics of Sadomasochism." It also has another session on the program, half of which is devoted to transgenderism.

Last year, Gagnon says, the group featured a session on the topic: "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing: Varied Views on Polyamory." (Don't bother looking up that last word in the dictionary. It's not there yet. It means having sexual relations with more than one partner at a time.)

About the "Power and Submission" topic, the program explains:

Sadomasochistic or bondage/dominance practice (sometimes also referred to as "leather sexuality") ... offers a particularly potent location for reflecting on gay men's issues in religion.

One of the papers presented by Justin Tanis of the Metropolitan Community Church, a homosexual "denomination," if you will, is titled "Ecstatic Communion: The Spiritual Dimensions of Leathersexuality."

"This paper will ... look briefly at the ways in which leather is a foundation for personal and spiritual identity formation, creating a lens through which the rest of life is viewed," explains Tanis. "All of this based within the framework of a belief in the rights of individuals to erotic self-determination with other consenting adults, rather than apologetics for those practices and lives."

It gets worse ? and more bizarre.

Another paper, by Thomas vs. Peterson of Alfred University (though I have to wonder whether it's not really Alfred E. Newman University), focuses on "S/M Rituals in Gay Men's Leather Communities: Initiation, Power Exchange and Subversion."

"This paper uses S/M rituals within the gay men's leather community to explore how ritual may subvert cultural icons of violence by eroticizing power," the scholar explains. "Those who exercise power and acquiesce to it in leather rituals meet as respected equals and negotiate the limitations of power according to mutual desires."

Translation: Violence is OK when it is eroticized in a relationship of "respected equals" in which each partner can take turns victimizing the other in ritual harm.

Then there is the contribution to spiritual understanding by Chicago Theological Seminary's Ken Stone: "You Seduced Me, You Overpowered Me, and You Prevailed: Religious Experience and Homoerotic Sadomasochism in Jeremiah."

"(Jeremiah 20:7-18) can be construed more usually as a kind of ritual S/M encounter between the male deity Yahweh and his male devotee," writes Stone, who, in my opinion, runs a good chance of being turned into a stone by the male deity Yahweh. "This possibility provides a lens with which to interpret both other passages in the book of Jeremiah and the dynamics of power and submission in religious experience."

Translation: God relates to His people through sadomasochism.

There are many more sessions and they get even more extraordinary in their blasphemy. All I can tell you is I wouldn't want to be within lightning strike distance of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio on Nov. 20-23.

by Joseph Farah

[JF (66.90.181.249)]

Sign me up! Be there or be square! (And Henry B. would be proud, lib that he was...) And I live within lightning striking distance...

[RJ (151.203.157.69)]

So Karen's post isn't lost among the garbage, I shall repost it here

KDuhamel (24.60.78.215)
Friday, October 08, 2004 - 08:04 pm
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I found Brian McLaren's Web site. Following is an excerpt from a reader's e-mail that I really like.

John 3:31-32:
"The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard… (“The Message” translates this passage as: “The earthbound is earthbound and speaks earth language; the heavenborn is in a league of his own. He sets out the evidence of what he saw and heard in heaven...”)

"The primary reason I ever attend a church service (or, frankly, even have serious or long conversations with Christians) is the hope that I will hear something proclaimed out of heaven, something that carries the majesty, the revelation, the heart and breath of God. I want my heart to burn with a word from Heaven. I want to hear something which rumbles through the corridors of His chamber and then creates a sonic boom when it enters my “earth space.” I am not interested in a 3-point guide for living or recycled Oprah or political perspectives or even a Bible study or exploring “styles of worship.” And, I’m not looking for more apologetics and theology. I want the sound of Heaven to invade my heart, scare the hell out of me, and split me wide open."

God keeps drawing me to the gospel of John. I find endless treasures there.

-Karen


RJ (151.203.157.69)
Friday, October 08, 2004 - 08:30 pm
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Excellent Karen...love the words in the email...I know how the writer feels.


Bob Brinton (70.17.128.228)
Friday, October 08, 2004 - 10:40 pm
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Karen, I love John's gospel. It's always seemed to strike a deep chord in me.


KDuhamel (24.60.78.215)
Saturday, October 09, 2004 - 07:07 am
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"Doubt: The Tides of Faith" Written for Christian Single Magazine by Brian McLaren

(BTW--McLaren has a church--Cedar Ridge Community Church--in the Baltimore-Washington area, as he states below in this article.)

Doubt. It’s like a spiritual drought, a starless night of the soul, a low tide when faith seems to have retreated forever. Nearly all of us experience these dry, dark, difficult times when God doesn’t seem real and it’s hard to keep going, much less growing. Sometimes these low tides of faith are connected with events … the death of a loved one, a broken relationship, the loss of a job, a prolonged illness, questions raised by a book or professor. But sometimes they seem to come out of nowhere; it’s sunny and bright outside, but inside you feel dark , cloudy, gray, empty.

As a pastor, I have to deal with matters of faith and doubt on a daily basis. But it’s not just other people’s faith struggles I have to face; I experience my own high and low tides of faith even in the midst of an active ministry. Through it all I have learned that doubt can be a doorway to spiritual growth.

Before becoming pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church here in the Baltimore-Washington area, I was a college teacher in a secular university. I was struck there by how superficial many of our Christian answers are in light of the profound questions being asked. Ever since, I have wanted to help Christians have a deeper, more thoughtful faith, and I have wanted to help spiritual seekers get good answers to their probing questions to help them come to a faith that is honest, vibrant, and growing.

The church I serve is composed of about 55% people who are new to a committed Christian faith. One of the great things about these people is that they haven’t learned how to be dishonest yet, spiritually speaking. For example, I remember how one woman, a growing Christian for several years now, came up to me after church one Sunday and said, “Brian, please pray for me. I’m going through one of those stages again when I don’t believe that God exists.” Really, although that kind of honesty is rare, those kinds of doubts aren’t rare at all. I’ll bet some of you are nodding your heads right now, saying, “Yes. I’ve been there” – or “I’m there right now.”

When committed Christians come to me to talk about their doubts, one of the first things I say to them is this: doubt is not always bad. Sometimes doubt is absolutely essential. I think of doubt as analogous to pain. Pain tells us that something nearby or within us is dangerous to our physical body. It is a call for attention and action. Similarly, I think doubt tells us that something in us … a concept, an idea, a framework of thinking … deserves further attention because it may be harmful, or false, or imbalanced.

Maybe you think I’m suggesting that doubt can actually be virtuous. I suppose I am – but not always. There is a dark kind of doubt, an exaggerated and self-destructive kind of doubt, that leads to despair, depression, and spiritual self-sabotage. I think of it like this: an imagination is good, but imagination out of control is called psychosis. Fear is healthy, but fear out of control is called paranoia. Sensitivity is a wonderful gift, and anger is a necessary emotion, but sensitivity or anger out of control can lead to depression. Doubt is the same way. Out of control, it becomes unbelief, a hard heart, an arrogant or defeatist cynicism. But in balance, it is our Geiger counter for error. Without it, we’d be gullible, naïve, stupid … not great spiritual qualities! It’s a lot like guilt. Francis Schaeffer used to say that guilt was like a watchdog – useful to have around to alert you to danger. But if the watchdog turns and attacks the homeowner, it needs to be restrained and retrained.

So, if you ask, “Is doubt good or bad?” I’d have to answer, “Yes.” It can go either way. Frederick Buechner expresses this ambivalence about doubt beautifully: “Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving” (Wishful Thinking).

I have found this to be true in so many ways in my own life. For example, I am constantly getting emails and letters from people who read my book Finding Faith. Many of them have been hardened agnostics and atheists all their lives, and many others have been Christians who have “lost their faith.” But God has used the book to draw them into a spiritual search. They tell me that I understand and address their questions, or that the responses I give to their questions are so much more helpful than the “easy answers” they’ve heard in the past. In every case, the only reason I’m able to help them is because I’ve had the same questions – doubts, in other words – that they have had, and I have refused to pass on answers that didn’t work for me. As Buechner said, my doubts kept me moving.

I think of it like this: all Christians are committed to lifelong spiritual growth. That means that five years from now, your set of beliefs will hopefully be different from today’s … your beliefs will be more fine-tuned, more tested, more balanced, more examined. What causes you to examine a belief and test it – against the whole background of Scripture (not just a proof-texted verse taken out of context), against the wise thinking of the Christian community at large (both now and through history), and against the realities of your experience? It’s that something inside you isn’t at rest about a belief … something in you doubts that belief. By doubting it, and then examining it, you can either call it a keeper because it passed the test, discard it, or adjust it.

For example, when I was a boy, I was taught a version of the Christian faith that saw science as “the enemy.” To be a good boy in my Sunday school, I had to believe that the earth was very young, that the whole fossil record was a hoax, that biologists and archeologists were in a scientific conspiracy against God, and that sort of thing. I believed that until I was in high school, but then I was overcome by doubts. The scientific evidence against that belief system seemed so strong. This caused me to really begin thinking and reading and questioning. I was given the freedom to do that, and the result has been a vigorous faith that has grown for the last 30 years – firmly rooted in the Bible, but not afraid in any way of the findings of science. I realized that my problem wasn’t with what the Bible says, but with what some Christians said the Bible says. As a result, I feel free to question “dogma” from either the church or science – because I believe that God wants me to seek the truth, and because everybody – preachers and scientists alike – can be wrong. I actually assume that right at this moment I’m wrong in hundreds of my beliefs, and I hope that God will keep leading me to doubt those beliefs so I can embrace better ones.

Some people might disagree. They might ask, “Well, won’t that openness to doubt lead to spiritual instability and insecurity?” I’d respond by asking the opposite question: couldn’t an unwillingness to question lead to a false security that would be even more dangerous? For example, imagine it’s 1860, and you’re a Caucasian Christian in the American south and you are taught in church that dark-skinned people are inferior and therefore should be “our” slaves. The Bible is used to buttress this belief as a moral absolute, and to doubt it is seen as treason against not only the state but also the church. Don’t you think a person would be a better Christian for doubting that belief? Or think of Galileo back in the late Middle Ages. He doubted the church teaching (“proved” absolutely by the Bible) that the sun rotated around the earth. Would he have been a better Christian – not to mention astronomer – if he had refused to doubt?

The science/faith issue is a major stimulus to doubt, but I think you’ll agree, it’s not the biggest doubt-instigator. That distinction would have to go to the problem of suffering and evil. You come into work and check in with CNN online, and you read about another shooting in Columbine, Wedgewood, Atlanta, or Dallas, or you see still photos of the latest earthquake in Turkey or Taiwan, and you can’t help but ask, “How can a good and all-powerful God let these terrible things happen?”

Another major doubt-inspirer is bad behavior among Christians and churches: the shoddy behavior of the religious frequently raises doubts about the legitimacy of the Christian faith. That’s huge, for churched people as well as unchurched. Another is the question of what happens to people who don’t believe. It feels so unjust and uncompassionate when some Christians seem almost glib in their willingness to consign most of the human race to hell. The very fact that caring Christians grow to really love their neighbors makes them doubt this calloused, glib attitude toward their neighbors by preachers like myself. Sensitive Christians feel there must be a better answer.

If you came to me with any one of these tough issues, the very last thing I’d want to do is offer you a short, easy answer. To do justice to your doubts would involve us developing an authentic relationship, engaging in real conversation, and going through a rather lengthy process. In each case, I think I’d begin by affirming the good thing that you are after – truth, authenticity, honesty, compassion, justice. Then, rather than giving answers, I’d help you devise a number of possible answers; I’d help you create options. Then, together, we’d evaluate the options in light of Scripture, experience, things we’ve read or heard from wise people. Instead of coming in as the big teacher with all the answers, I’d try to come alongside you as a companion in the search for those good things – truth, honesty, justice, and all the rest. And this is very important: I’d try to help you keep praying through the process, because ultimately, faith isn’t just about answers or concepts – it’s about admitting that many of life’s greatest truths are going to be mysteries to us, due to the limitations of our tiny intelligence. It’s about reaching out to God to guide us, and asking for God’s help so we can be honest, good-hearted seekers. That’s what child-like faith is, in my opinion. It’s not gullibility or intellectual laziness, but asking questions and having an insatiable curiosity for truth, and reaching out to someone who knows more than we do.

That’s why I am so convinced that doubt can be a doorway to spiritual growth. Unfortunately, like most avenues of growth, it is often painful. Intellectual pain is an underrated cost of following Christ. If I didn’t care about following Christ, I wouldn’t care so much about being honest, seeking truth, facing reality … I would be more tempted to simply go with the flow, take the easy way, maybe anesthetize my intellectual pain instead of persevering through it toward the truth.

If you’re going through that kind of intellectual pain right now, again, I want to encourage you to pray about it … to lay it all before God. You see, the kind of dependence on God that you are exercising now, in the midst of intellectual uncertainty and confusion, may be the purest kind of faith found on planet earth. It involves an act of will and courage which I think must be far more valuable, maybe even heroic, than we normally realize. In addition, I would encourage you to find a circle of friends with whom you can be transparently honest. I remember once during my college years pouring out my doubts to a good friend. I was doubting the Bible, Jesus, the value of the church, my salvation, the whole thing. He listened, and I’ll never forget what he said: “Brian, right now, none of this looks real to you. But sitting across the room from you is a friend whose faith is strong right now, and I can see that God is bigger than your doubts. So if you need to, you can rely on my faith for a while, and I know we’ll get through this together.” His presence and friendship helped me outlast my low tide of faith.

One other thing I want to do for you, if you are going through a low tide of faith. I want to encourage you to step up to a new level of Christian thinking by investigating some new authors and speakers. Obviously, if the thinking you’re already being exposed to were sufficient to address the questions you’re asking, you wouldn’t have a problem. The fact that your faith is struggling means that you need some new teachers. That means at low tide you have to accept the challenge to think more, not less, to think deeper, not shallower. So, it might mean you’re ready to read C. S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft, Phillip Yancey and Romano Guardini, Lesslie Newbigin and Nancey Murphey, St. Augustine and Blaise Pascal, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Walker Percy and Thomas Merton. You’ve probably heard the quote that goes something like this: a mind that stretches to take in a new thought never shrinks to its previous dimensions. In times of doubt, there’s no way around it: you’re going to have to do some stretching.

But again, isn’t that the way it ought to be? Shouldn’t a growing Christian have a growing understanding? Isn’t a vibrant, honest, tested faith worth some intellectual pain? In Finding Faith I talk about this in some detail. I describe how faith seems to grow in a kind of iterative, ascending spiral that has four stages. I call the first stage simplicity, where everything is simple and easy, black and white, known or knowable. Then there’s complexity, where you focus on techniques of finding the truth – since the scenario has gotten more complex. Then there’s perplexity, where you become a kind of disillusioned learner, where you doubt all authority figures and absolutes, where everything seems relative and hazy. I used to call the fourth stage maturity, but a friend pointed out it would be better called humility, because in stage four you come to terms with your limitations, and you learn to live with mystery, not as a cop-out, but as an honest realization that only God understands everything. You carry out of stage four a shorter list of tested and cherished beliefs that you base your life on, and a lot of your previous dogmatisms are now held more lightly. In a sense a person keeps finding faith and then becoming frustrated with it and in a sense losing it, and then finding a better version of it, and so on, maybe like a software upgrade….

That’s what has happened for me. At this stage in my life, I have sifted and re-sifted, and some beliefs I’ve had to release, while others have proven themselves as “keepers.” This is where Jesus is so wonderful and helpful to a person whose faith is in low tide, because Jesus looked at the whole religious system of the Pharisees, which was enormously complex and full of inconsistencies, and in essence, he doubted it. He sifted out a lot of clutter, and boiled all the rest down to some beautiful essentials … like loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself. I would rather have someone be sure of those few essentials, and live by them, than have them be sure of a million fine points of systematic theology, and not live by Christ’s call to love.

I sometimes think that our churches are like California, built on a San Andreas fault of suppressed doubt. Under a beautiful surface, the pressure of unexpressed, unresolved doubt is building for more and more people, and sooner or later, the whole landscape will crack and crumble. The situation is intensified by this precarious point in history in which we find ourselves, this transition between a waning modern world, and an emerging postmodern world. As I see it, all of us have been discipled in a thoroughly modern version of Christianity, and here we are in the middle of a transition to a postmodern world. As a result, our modern apologetics and systematic theologies seem increasingly outdated for those of us who are more postmodern people. That’s why I believe we are approaching a time of real upheaval, with people raising new postmodern questions that modern Christians haven’t begun to answer yet.

But here’s where faith comes in – a faith that leans on God himself, and not on our own understanding, including our own theological understanding. We have the challenge of believing that good answers are out there, if we only have the courage to press through the intellectual pain of questioning, seeking, learning, and stretching. I believe Jesus when he said he’ll never leave us or forsake us – and that includes even when we question. Or as Paul said, even when we are faithless, God remains faithful. It’s ironic: the more free I am to doubt my specific beliefs, the more free I become to hold on to that personal faith in God. At the point where the tide of faith seems the lowest, if we hang on and don’t give up, we’ll see it come in again.

[Anonymous (65.234.188.193)]

Thanks for setting the rest of us straight (or would that be homophobic?).

[RJ (151.203.157.69)]

XO 65...*s*

[Anonymous (65.234.188.63)]

FIRST-PERSON
The Da Vinci Code & the new Gnostics
By Alan Branch


KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP)--The Da Vinci Code has now sold more than four
million copies and sales continue to rise. The novel revolves around a
Harvard professor, Robert Langdon, who is accused of murdering the
Louvre's curator. Using clues found in Leonardo Da Vinci
paintings, Langdon and his compatriots begin a quest for the "holy
grail" while avoiding police. However, in Dan Brown's world the "holy
grail" is not a cup, but is the womb of Mary Magdalene that "carried
the blood of Christ." One may ask, "How can this be?"

According to The Da Vinci Code, Jesus was actually married to Mary
Magdalene, who bore a child. The "royal line" of Jesus was then
secretly perpetuated in France. In the novel, Langdon and friends
search for documents, purportedly hidden for centuries by the Knights
Templar, which confirm that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married.

The book can best be described as a bizarre mix of conspiracy theories,
historical inaccuracies, goddess worship and neo-Gnosticism.

The Gnostic influence in The Da Vinci Code should be noted very
closely. During the last 30 years, a number of academics have argued
forcefully that Gnosticism was unfairly rejected by the church.

For example, about 10 years ago, participants in The Jesus Seminar
published The Five Gospels which argued for the inclusion of the
Gnostic work The Gospel of Thomas into the canon of Scripture. More
recently, Princeton professor Elaine Pagels has published "Beyond
Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas."

A tireless advocate for the Gnostic "gospels" and Thomas in particular,
Pagels argues that the church affirmed the complete deity and humanity
of Christ for pragmatic reasons not grounded in the life and ministry
of Jesus of Nazareth. The Da Vinci Code makes a similar theory
available for a wide audience. A character named Teabing claims that
until the council of Nicea "Jesus was viewed by his followers as a
mortal prophet" and it was only after Nicea (325 A.D.) that he was
recognized as the Son of God.

Prior to 1945, most of what we knew about Gnosticism came from the
church fathers who opposed them. However, in that year an ancient
Gnostic library was discovered in the Egyptian desert which contained
several of the Gnostic "gospels." Known as the Nag Hammadi library,
these works have basically confirmed the church fathers' description of
Gnosticism. In short, when they told us that Gnostics were heretics,
they were telling the truth!

Contrary to Dan Brown, Elaine Pagels and The Jesus Seminar, these
"gospels" were not rejected by the church out of secret agenda to
consolidate power. The Gnostic gospels were rejected because they are
not true. They are forgeries that include just enough real data from
the life of Jesus to dupe the uninformed. Essentially, pagan thought
"hi-jacked" Christian terminology and attempted to use Jesus as the
vehicle to transport their worldview. For example, pantheistic elements
are present in Thomas which claims Jesus said, "Split a piece of wood,
and I am there."

The assertion that Jesus was viewed as a mere mortal prior to the
Council of Nicea is perhaps the most obviously false claim made in The
Da Vinci Code. The entire New Testament is a testimony to Christ's
deity. All four of the canonical gospels are dated from the first
century and all four reference Christ's deity.

Furthermore, the earliest proclamation of the church was Christ's
death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-8). How can a "mere
mortal" be resurrected? Paul said Jesus was in very nature God
(Philippians 2:5). Hebrews says Jesus Christ is the radiance of God's
glory (Hebrews 1:3). James calls him the "Lord Jesus Christ" (James
1:1). The last book written, Revelation, focuses on the Lamb, Jesus,
who is the center of worship! One is left to wonder if Dan Brown has
seriously studied the New Testament.

The pagan worldview of Dan Brown has corresponding ethical
implications. For example, at one point in The Da Vinci Code, Langdon
argues that sexual immorality as part of pagan worship is really sacred
and holy. In contrast, the Scriptures teach that such gross immorality
is a reflection of the radical autonomy at the heart of the fall
(Romans 1:18-32).

Gnosticism is back. The overwhelming biblical illiteracy that pervades
our society will make more people susceptible to its claims. In
contrast to the supposed "secrets" of Gnosticism, we have a Gospel
based on what was "seen" and "looked at" and "touched" (1 John 1:1).
--30--
Alan Branch is vice president for student development at Midwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo.

[KDuhamel (24.60.78.215)]

Dorothy on Leadership

Or “How a Movie from our Childhood Can Help us Understand the Changing Nature of Leadership in the Postmodern Transition” by Brian D. McLaren

Originally Published in Rev. Magazine, November/December 2000

OK, I admit it. I spent most of the 80’s and early 90’s wishing I could be just like Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, or John Maxwell. They were successful. They appeared unflinchingly confident. They were powerful, knowledgeable, larger than life. I’d go to their seminars, and return home feeling wildly inspired and mildly depressed. How could I feel those two things at the same time? If you’ve attended their seminars, you probably don’t need me to explain.
But if you do need me to explain, think back to the Biblical story of David, when he tried to wear Saul’s armor. Imagine that he had actually tried to go to battle with Goliath wearing armor that was XXL when he was a regular M (or even S) guy. He would have come back looking like a partially opened (and partially eaten!) can of sardines.

I wasn’t the only one who thought that the best image of the successful pastor was the CEO, the alpha male, the armored knight, the corporate hero. Thousands of us tried on that armor, and the results – in our churches and in our personal lives – weren’t pretty. Of course, the suit fit some of us (for example, I think that Hybels, Warren, and Maxwell really are XXL’s), but most of us eventually realized that if we were going to be of any use to God, we’d better be ourselves. A novel idea!

About the time I was reaching that conclusion, I was going through my “postmodern conversion.” I was seeing the pattern or matrix of modernity giving way to a new pattern, and I was beginning to see how my whole understanding of Christianity fit snugly within the modern matrix. I wondered how ministry, theology, spirituality, and evangelism would change as the matrix changed. And I wondered how leadership would change too.

Somewhere in the middle of these musings, a strange memory returned … the scene in “The Wizard of Oz” when little Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal that the great Wizard of Oz is a rather normal guy hiding behind an imposing image. It struck me that the 1940’s world that produced the film was in many ways a world at the height of modernity, a world enamored with Superman, with the Lone Ranger, with Great Men. It struck me that by exposing the Wizard as a fraud, the film was probing an unexpressed cultural doubt, giving voice to a rising misgiving, displaying an early pang of discontent with its dominant model of larger-than-life leadership. And it made me wonder what image of leadership would replace the great Wizard.

The answer, of course, appeared in the next scene. No, it wasn’t the lion, the scarecrow, or the tin man. It was Dorothy.

At first glance, Dorothy is all wrong as a model of leadership. She is the wrong gender (female) and the wrong age (young). Rather than being a person with all the answers, who knows what’s up and where to go and what’s what, she is herself lost, a seeker, often bewildered, and vulnerable. These characteristics would disqualify her from modern leadership. But they serve as her best credentials for postmodern leadership.

In the world of Christian ministry, we could identify ten Wizardly characteristics of modern leadership. (You’ll notice the masculine pronoun used exclusively here.)

1. Bible Analyst: The modern Christian leader dissects the Bible like a scientist dissects a fetal pig, to gain knowledge through analysis, and in modernity, knowledge is power.

2. Broadcaster: Somehow, when one amplifies his voice electronically and adds a little reverb, his power quotient goes up in modernity. Being slick, being smooth, being big, being “on the air” – that’s what makes you a leader.

3. Objective Technician: The organization (church, ministry, etc.) is a machine, and the leader knows how to work the machine, how to make it run, how to tweak it and engineer (or reengineer) it. It’s the object, and he’s the subject.

4. Warrior/Salesman: Modern leadership is about conquest -- “winning” souls, launching “crusades,” “taking” this city (country, whatever) for Jesus, etc. And it’s about marketing, getting buy-in, selling (and sometimes selling out).

5. Careerist: The modern leader earns credentials, grasps the bottom rung of the ladder, and climbs, climbs, climbs – whether he is a stock-boy-who-would-be-CEO or a young preacher on the rise.

6. Problem-Solver: Come to him, and he’ll fix you.

7. Apologist: Come to him, and he’ll tell you why he’s right and your doubt or skepticism is wrong.

8. Threat: One of the most powerful and underrated weapons of the modern Christian leader has been the threat of exclusion. The sword is normally kept in its sheath, but through mocking caricatures and other forms of rhetorical demonization, a gifted orator can make you fear that if you don’t agree with/follow/submit to his leadership, you’ll be banished – like the Wizard bellowing threats from behind his curtain.

9. Knower: The modern Christian leader is (or appears) supremely confident in his opinions, perspectives, beliefs, systems, and formulations. While the rest of us question and doubt, he is the answer-man who knows.

10. Solo Act: There’s only room for one in the Wizard’s control booth, and there’s only room for one at the top of the church org chart.

When you think of Dorothy, the picture is so different. Basically, instead of sitting pretty in a control booth, she’s stuck in a predicament – still a little dizzy from the tornado, lost, far from home, needing to find the way. As she sets out on her journey, she finds other needy people (actually not people exactly, but you get the point), one in need of courage, another in need of intelligence, another in need of a heart. She believes that their varying needs can be fulfilled on a common quest, and her earnestness, her compassion, her determination, and her youthful spunk galvanize them into a foursome (five, with Toto) singing down the yellow brick road together. Dorothy doesn’t have the knowledge to help them avoid all problems and dangers; she doesn’t protect them from all threats and temptations. But she doesn’t give up, and her passion holds strong, and in the end, they all get what they need. Maybe one of the film’s many enduring delights is hidden in Dorothy’s unwizardly leadership charisma. Maybe people in the 1940’s were just beginning to yearn for a way of leadership that now is becoming ascendant – a post-wizard kind of leadership:

1. Bible Analyst = Spiritual sage: As we move beyond modernity, we lose our infatuation with analysis, knowledge, information, “facts,” and belief systems – and those who traffic in them. Instead, we are attracted to leaders who possess that elusive quality of wisdom (think of James 3:???), who practice spiritual disciplines and whose lives are characterized by depth of spiritual practice (not just by the tightness of belief system). These leaders possess a moral authority more closely linked to character than intellectual credentials; they are more sages than technicians; it’s their slow, thoughtful, considered answer that convinces, not the snap-your-fingers-I-know-that kind of answer-man know-it-all-ness. Dorothy has this “softer” authority, a reflection of her earnestness and kindness as much as her intellectual acumen.

2. Broadcaster = Listener: In the postmodern world, it’s not how loud you shout; it’s how deeply you listen that counts. Just as Dorothy engages her traveling companions by listening to their stories and evoking their needs, the postmodern leader creates a safe place that attracts a team, and then she or he empowers them by the amazing power of a listening heart.

3. Objective Technician = Spiritual friend: Think of the difference between a scientist objectively studying chimpanzees, and a crusader dedicated to saving them from extinction. In modernity, a leader loves his organization and loves his ambition, his strategic plan, his goals; but on this side of the transition, leaders love their teams, and those to whom their teams are sent. (Or, more perversely put – in modernity, I Corinthians 13 would read, “If I have all love and would lay down my life for my friends, but have not knowledge, I am a wispy wimp and a poor excuse for a leader.” Beyond modernity, we return toward Paul’s original meaning.)

4. Warrior/Salesman = Dancer: In a world plagued by ethnic hatred and telemarketers, every voice adding stridency and sales pressure to the world is one voice too many. Nobody wants to be “won to Christ” or “taken for Jesus” in one of our “crusades,” and neither do they want to be subjected to a sales pitch for heaven, that sounds for all the world like an invitation to check out a time share vacation resort. A presentation of the gospel that sounds like a military ultimatum or like a slick sales pitch will dishonor the gospel for postmodern people. Instead, think of leadership (and especially evangelism) as a dance. You hear the music that I don’t hear, and you know how to move to its rhythm. Gently, you help me begin to hear its music, feel its rhythm, and learn to move to it with grace and joy. A very different kind of leadership, don’t you agree?

5. Careerist = Amateur: The root of the word “amateur” is “amar” – to love. Most of us in Christian leadership know that seeing ministry as a career can quickly quench the motivation of love. How can we keep that higher motivation alive? How can Christian leadership be for us less like the drudgery of a “job” and more like the joy of a day golfing or fishing or playing soccer or whatever … not something we have to do, but something we get to do? The professionalization of ministry will be one of the harmful legacies of modernity, I believe … a classic case of jumping from the frying pan of clericalism into the fire of professionalism.

6. Problem-Solver = Quest Creator: The man-at-the-top of modern leadership is the guy you go to for answers and solutions. No doubt, there are times when that’s what we need now too. But postmodern leaders will be as interested in creating new problems, in setting new challenges, in launching new adventures … as in solving, finishing, or facilitating old ones. Dorothy does this: she helps her companions trade their old problems (birds landing on the scarecrow, the tin man being paralyzed by rust, the lion faking bravado) for a new quest. Of course, this is what Jesus does too. He doesn’t solve the problems of the Pharisees (How can we get these stupid crowds to know and obey the law as we do?). He creates new ones (Seek first the kingdom of God….).

7. Apologist = Apologizer: Instead of defending old answers, the new kind of leader will often apologize for how inadequate they are. In modernity, you gained credibility by always being right; in postmodernity, you gain authority by admitting when you’re wrong (think of the Pope’s visit to the Middle East in early 2000) and apologizing humbly. That kind of humility, that vulnerability, was one of Dorothy’s most winsome – and “leader-ly” -- characteristics.

8. Threat = Includer: The only threat Dorothy poses is the threat of inclusion, not exclusion. She basically threatens you with acceptance; you’re part of her journey, a member of her team, unless you refuse and walk away. That kind of leadership strikes me as gospel leadership, and it reminds me of Someone Else.

9. Knower = Seeker: Oddly, Dorothy’s appeal as a leader arises from her being lost and being passionate about seeking a way home. Does it ever strike you as odd in contemporary Christian jargon that it’s the pre-Christians who are called seekers? Where does that leave the Christians? Shouldn’t the Christian leader be the lead seeker?

10. Solo Act = Team Builder: All along her journey, Dorothy welcomed company. She was glad for a team. By the end of their journey, the lion, the scarecrow, and the tin man have joined Dorothy as peers, partners, friends. Her style of leadership was empowering, ennobling, not patronizing, paternalistic, creating dependency. So effective was her empowering of them that they were able to say a tearful goodbye and move on to their own adventures.

I know, you’re thinking, why take a silly kid’s movie so seriously? You’re right – it’s just a movie. But I find the film’s repudiation of more traditional modern leadership to be fascinating, maybe an early expression of a cultural shift that we are more fully experiencing today.

And ultimately, of course, I find in Dorothy’s way of leadership many echoes of our Lord’s. After all, you can never imagine the great and terrible Oz washing his subjects’ feet, or his voice booming out, “I no longer call you servants, but friends.”

Maybe some of us are trying hard to be something we’re not. Maybe we’re imitating styles of leadership that are becoming outdated, inappropriate. That’s not to say we don’t have a lot to learn, but maybe the best thing that could happen to us would be to have the curtain pulled back to reveal us not as XXL superheroes, but regular size-M men and women. Maybe then, with the amplifiers turned off and the imaged dropped, we’ll hear Jesus inviting us to learn new ways of leading in his cause.

Brian McLaren is a pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, MD (www.crcc.org). He is also a participant in emergent (www.emergentvillage.org). He and his wife, Grace, have four young adult children. He has written several books, including The Church on the Other Side (Zondervan, 1998, 2000), Finding Faith (Zondervan, 1999), A New Kind of Christian (Jossey-Bass, 2001), More Ready Than You Realize (Zondervan 2002), and A is for Abductive (with Len Sweet, Zondervan 2002).

[RJ (151.203.157.69)]

Love this article, Karen!!!

[KDuhamel (24.128.118.124)]

Some of you may find it hard to believe, but I am considered quite conservative by many of the people with whom I interface in my life.

For instance, I am writing a profile on a feminist activist at a nearby university. I have been following this woman around for several months, interviewing her on many topics, accompanying her in her outreach activities, and sitting in on meetings with student interns in the Women’s Studies program. Well, it seems that although I am sympathetic to many of the objectives of feminism, my unwillingness to see the world through that lens drives her crazy. She perceives my questions and concerns as threatening. M is a fundamentalist. There is no way to have an honest dialogue with her, because her defensive stance marginalizes me as an outsider.

Fortunately, not all of the women I’ve met through her have this attitude. For instance, I spoke with a young woman today who is a pro-choice activist, but admits to struggling with the reality of abortion. She has two small children—both boys—and she could never imagine taking the life of any child, no matter what the circumstances. We talked about the terrible situations that sometimes lead a woman to believe she has no other options. We discussed the kinds of programs that could help these women so they never have to make such a terrible decision. And finally, I shared my joy the first time I saw my daughter through the miracle of ultrasound—a mere two-week-old fetus. Just a blinking heart. My husband and I wept. What a tiny being—but clinging so powerfully to life.

Although I did not share my faith with this woman, I believe we had a divine encounter. Her open heart was a sign to me that God’s Spirit is working in her. And here’s the funny thing—she said she was not offended by the things I said, because she felt I was also open.

Please pray that the Lord provides another opportunity for us to speak together.

-Karen

[Bob Brinton (151.203.152.5)]

Isn't it interesting that true moderates are considered radicals by the radical elements of both sides? You either buy the whole company program or you are considered an infection. Like a lot of churches/denominations. Submit to the Pooh-bah or you're not submitting to God.

[KDuhamel (24.128.118.124)]

15 Theses for a New Reformation
by Wolfgang Simson

God is changing the Church, and that, in turn, will change the world. Millions of Christians around the world are aware of an imminent reformation of global proportions. They say, in effect: "Church as we know it is preventing Church as God wants it." A growing number of them are surprisingly hearing God say the very same things. There is a collective new awareness of age-old revelations, a corporate spiritual echo. In the following "15 Theses" I will summarize a part of this, and I am convinced that it reflects a part of what the Spirit of God is saying to the Church today. For some, it might be the proverbial fist-sized cloud on Elijah's sky. Others already feel the pouring rain.

1. Church is a Way of Life, not a series of religious meetings

Before they where called Christians, followers of Christ have been called "The Way". One of the reasons was, that they have literally found "the way to live." The nature of Church is not reflected in a constant series of religious meetings lead by professional clergy in holy rooms specially reserved to experience Jesus, but in the prophetic way followers of Christ live their everyday life in spiritually extended families as a vivid answer to the questions society faces, at the place where it counts most: in their homes.

2. Time to change the system

In aligning itself to the religious patterns of the day, the historic Orthodox Church after Constantine in the 4th century AD adopted a religious system which was in essence Old Testament, complete with priests, altar, a Christian temple (cathedral), frankincense and a Jewish, synagogue-style worship pattern. The Roman Catholic Church went on to canonize the system. Luther did reform the content of the gospel, but left the outer forms of "church" remarkably untouched; the Free-Churches freed the system from the State, the Baptists then baptized it, the Quakers dry-cleaned it, the Salvation Army put it into a uniform, the Pentecostals anointed it and the Charismatics renewed it, but until today nobody has really changed the superstructure. It is about time to do just that.

3. The Third Reformation.

In rediscovering the gospel of salvation by faith and grace alone, Luther started to reform the Church through a reformation of theology. In the 18th century through movements like the Moravians there was a recovery of a new intimacy with God, which led to a reformation of spirituality, the Second Reformation. Now God is touching the wineskins themselves, initiating a Third Reformation, a reformation of structure.

4. From Church-Houses to house-churches

Since New Testament times, there is no such thing as "a house of God". At the cost of his life, Stephen reminded unequivocally: God does not live in temples made by human hands. The Church is the people of God. The Church, therefore, was and is at home where people are at home: in ordinary houses. There, the people of God: -Share their lives in the power of the Holy Spirit, -Have "meatings," that is, they eat when they meet, -They often do not even hesitate to sell private property and share material and spiritual blessings, -Teach each other in real-life situations how to obey God's word, dialogue - and not professor-style, -Pray and prophesy with each other, baptize, `lose their face' and their ego by confessing their sins, -Regaining a new corporate identity by experiencing love, acceptance and forgiveness.

5. The church has to become small in order to grow big

Most churches of today are simply too big to provide real fellowship. They have too often become "fellowships without fellowship." The New Testament Church was a mass of small groups, typically between 10 and 15 people. It grew not upward into big congregations between 20 and 300 people filling a cathedral and making real, mutual communication improbable. Instead, it multiplied "sidewards", like organic cells, once these groups reached around 15-20 people. Then, if possible, it drew all the Christians together into citywide celebrations, as with Solomon's Temple court in Jerusalem. The traditional congregational church as we know it is, statistically speaking, neither big nor beautiful, but rather a sad compromise, an overgrown house-church and an under-grown celebration, often missing the dynamics of both.

6. No church is led by a Pastor alone

The local church is not led by a Pastor, but fathered by an Elder, a local person of wisdom and reality. The local house-churches are then networked into a movement by the combination of elders and members of the so-called five-fold ministries (Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Evangelists and Teachers) circulating "from house to house," whereby there is a special foundational role to play for the apostolic and prophetic ministries (Eph. 2:20, and 4:11.12). A Pastor (shepherd) is a very necessary part of the whole team, but he cannot fulfill more than a part of the whole task of "equipping the saints for the ministry," and has to be complemented synergistically by the other four ministries in order to function properly.

7. The right pieces - fitted together in the wrong way

In doing a puzzle, we need to have the right original for the pieces, otherwise the final product, the whole picture, turns out wrong, and the individual pieces do not make much sense. This has happened to large parts of the Christian world: we have all the right pieces, but have fitted them together wrong, because of fear, tradition, religious jealousy and a power-and-control mentality. As water is found in three forms, ice, water and steam, the five ministries mentioned in Eph. 4:11-12, the Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers and Evangelists are also found today, but not always in the right forms and in the right places: they are often frozen to ice in the rigid system of institutionalized Christianity; they sometimes exist as clear water; or they have vanished like steam into the thin air of free-flying ministries and "independent" churches, accountable to no-one. As it is best to water flowers with the fluid version of water, these five equipping ministries will have to be transformed back into new, and at the same time age-old, forms, so that the whole spiritual organism can flourish and the individual "ministers" can find their proper role and place in the whole. That is one more reason why we need to return back to the Maker's original and blueprint for the Church.

8. God does not leave the Church in the hands of bureaucratic clergy

No expression of a New Testament church is ever led by just one professional "holy man" doing the business of communicating with God and then feeding some relatively passive religious consumers Moses-style. Christianity has adopted this method from pagan religions, or at best from the Old Testament. The heavy professionalisation of the church since Constantine has now been a pervasive influence long enough, dividing the people of God artificially into laity and clergy. According to the New Testament (1 Tim. 2:5), "there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." God simply does not bless religious professionals to force themselves in-between people and God forever. The veil is torn, and God is allowing people to access Himself directly through Jesus Christ, the only Way. To enable the priesthood of all believers, the present system will have to change completely. Bureaucracy is the most dubious of all administrative systems, because it basically asks only two questions: yes or no. There is no room for spontaneity and humanity, no room for real life. This may be OK for politics and companies, but not the Church. God seems to be in the business of delivering His Church from a Babylonian captivity of religious bureaucrats and controlling spirits into the public domain, the hands of ordinary people made extraordinary by God, who, like in the old days, may still smell of fish, perfume and revolution.

9. Return from organized to organic forms of Christianity

The "Body of Christ" is a vivid description of an organic, not an organized, being. Church consists on its local level of a multitude of spiritual families, which are organically related to each other as a network, where the way the pieces are functioning together is an integral part of the message of the whole. What has become a maximum of organization with a minimum of organism, has to be changed into a minimum of organization to allow a maximum of organism. Too much organization has, like a straightjacket, often choked the organism for fear that something might go wrong. Fear is the opposite of faith, and not exactly a Christian virtue. Fear wants to control, faith can trust. Control, therefore, may be good, but trust is better. The Body of Christ is entrusted by God into the hands of steward-minded people with a supernatural charismatic gift to believe God that He is still in control, even if they are not. A development of trust-related regional and national networks, not a new arrangement of political ecumenism is necessary for organic forms of Christianity to reemerge.

10. From worshipping our worship to worshipping God

The image of much of contemporary Christianity can be summarized, a bit euphemistically, as holy people coming regularly to a holy place at a holy day at a holy hour to participate in a holy ritual lead by a holy man dressed in holy clothes against a holy fee. Since this regular performance-oriented enterprise called "worship service" requires a lot of organizational talent and administrative bureaucracy to keep going, formalized and institutionalized patterns developed quickly into rigid traditions. Statistically, a traditional 1-2 hour "worship service" is very resource-hungry but actually produces very little fruit in terms of discipling people, that is, in changed lives. Economically speaking, it might be a "high input and low output" structure. Traditionally, the desire to "worship in the right way" has led to much denominationalism, confessionalism and nominalism. This not only ignores that Christians are called to "worship in truth and in spirit," not in cathedrals holding songbooks, but also ignores that most of life is informal, and so is Christianity as "the Way of Life." Do we need to change from being powerful actors to start "acting powerfully?"

11. Stop bringing people to church, and start bringing the church to the people

The church is changing back from being a Come-structure to being again a Go-structure. As one result, the Church needs to stop trying to bring people "into the church," and start bringing the Church to the people. The mission of the Church will never be accomplished just by adding to the existing structure; it will take nothing less than a mushrooming of the church through spontaneous multiplication of itself into areas of the population of the world, where Christ is not yet known.

12. Rediscovering the "Lord's Supper" to be a real supper with real food

Church tradition has managed to "celebrate the Lord's Supper" in a homeopathic and deeply religious form, characteristically with a few drops of wine, a tasteless cookie and a sad face. However, the "Lord's Supper" was actually more a substantial supper with a symbolic meaning, than a symbolic supper with a substantial meaning. God is restoring eating back into our meeting.

13. From Denominations to city-wide celebrations

Jesus called a universal movement, and what came was a series of religious companies with global chains marketing their special brands of Christianity and competing with each other. Through this branding of Christianity most of Protestantism has, therefore, become politically insignificant and often more concerned with traditional specialties and religious infighting than with developing a collective testimony before the world. Jesus simply never asked people to organize themselves into denominations. In the early days of the Church, Christians had a dual identity: they were truly His church and vertically converted to God, and then organized themselves according to geography, that is, converting also horizontally to each other on earth. This means not only Christian neighbors organizing themselves into neighborhood- or house-churches, where they share their lives locally, but Christians coming together as a collective identity as much as they can for citywide or regional celebrations expressing the corporateness of the Church of the city or region. Authenticity in the neighborhoods connected with a regional or citywide corporate identity will make the Church not only politically significant and spiritually convincing, but will allow a return to the biblical model of the City-Church.

14. Developing a persecution-proof spirit

They crucified Jesus, the Boss of all the Christians. Today, his followers are often more into titles, medals and social respectability, or, worst of all, they remain silent and are not worth being noticed at all. "Blessed are you when you are persecuted", says Jesus. Biblical Christianity is a healthy threat to pagan godlessness and sinfulness, a world overcome by greed, materialism, jealousy and any amount of demonic standards of ethics, sex, money and power. Contemporary Christianity in many countries is simply too harmless and polite to be worth persecuting. But as Christians again live out New Testament standards of life and, for example, call sin as sin, conversion or persecution has been, is and will be the natural reaction of the world. Instead of nesting comfortably in temporary zones of religious liberty, Christians will have to prepare to be again discovered as the main culprits against global humanism, the modern slavery of having to have fun and the outright worship of Self, the wrong centre of the universe. That is why Christians will and must feel the "repressive tolerance" of a world which has lost any absolutes and therefore refuses to recognize and obey its creator God with his absolute standards. Coupled with the growing ideologisation, privatization and spiritualisation of politics and economics, Christians will, sooner than most think, have their chance to stand happily accused in the company of Jesus. They need to prepare now for the future by developing a persecution-proof spirit and an even more persecution-proof structure.

15. The Church comes home

Where is the easiest place, say, for a man to be spiritual? Maybe again, is it hiding behind a big pulpit, dressed up in holy robes, preaching holy words to a faceless crowd and then disappearing into an office? And what is the most difficult, and therefore most meaningful, place for a man to be spiritual? At home, in the presence of his wife and children, where everything he does and says is automatically put through a spiritual litmus test against reality, where hypocrisy can be effectively weeded out and authenticity can grow. Much of Christianity has fled the family, often as a place of its own spiritual defeat, and then has organized artificial performances in sacred buildings far from the atmosphere of real life. As God is in the business of recapturing the homes, the church turns back to its roots, back to where it came from. It literally comes home, completing the circle of Church history at the end of world history.

As Christians of all walks of life, from all denominations and backgrounds, feel a clear echo in their spirit to what God's Spirit is saying to the Church, and start to hear globally in order to act locally, they begin to function again as one body. They organize themselves into neighborhood house-churches and meet in regional or city-celebrations. You are invited to become part of this movement and make your own contribution. Maybe your home, too, will become a house that changes the world.

You are welcome and encouraged to redistribute this article.

[Anonymous (69.143.68.103)]

Great article, Karen.

Boss Martian

[RJ (151.203.157.69)]

"Stop bringing people to church, and start bringing the church to the people"

Excellent article....Says it all!

[RJ (151.203.157.69)]

Rereading #14 kinda gave me pause...a little too stark for my taste

Christian who persecute other Christians seems to be a bigger problem.

[DC (207.156.7.90)]

"But as Christians again live out New Testament standards of life and, for example, call sin as sin, conversion or persecution has been, is and will be the natural reaction of the world."

God forbid that we should be so narrow-minded.

[KDuhamel (24.128.118.124)]

Roberta,

I think there are two kinds of "persecution" Christians experience in the world--one is because of their own insensitivity and failure to express Christ's love and mercy; the other is because some people hate Christ.

And sorry to say, persecution from other Christians is a sad reality. However, because of my work as a journalist, I have come into close contact with many different subcultures. It's not only Christians who are intolerant of other value systems. Sometimes it seems as if I am out of step with everyone I meet.

Tolerance does not imply acceptance or agreement. I try to build bridges of meaning between myself and others--to respect their "truths," even if I don't agree with them. My part is to abide in Him and to be true to my convictions in action and word, as He leads. Sometimes that means I rub people the wrong way--not pleasant, but at times necessary.

-Karen

[Bob Brinton (141.154.147.150)]

If you stand in something long enough, someone will throw a rock. The safest place to stand is in the big Rock Himself. Abide in Me and I will abide in you. If He stands as rejected, do we expect not to be? If we truly follow Him, we will experience rejection. Our acceptance is in Him. He is our point of reconciliation. Our comfort is from our Comforter.

Do we not believe that the Lord Himself would be rejected again today if He showed up at our churches? Would we ourselves easily receive His words when they seemed to contradict what we already thought? Are we not just another generation of Pharisees? Do we not have our own hidden faults, and some not so hidden? Our righteousness and our victory are not in ourselves, but in Him. He is our defense. He is our light, the message of who we are in spiritual reality. Our intelligence and work ethic and whatever else we 'bring to the table' are nothing outside of His hands but a weapon to be used against Him. The Spirit is at war with the flesh. He conducts that war within us. If the world is to be reached with who Christ is within us, then we must be conquered and utilised by God Himself, not by ourselves. We must seek to be focused in Him. In that focus, He will bring change. He can handle us. He 'has the tools'.

[rjfernalld (rjfernalld)]

bump

[minutus (minutus)]

There is no greater cause for rejoicing today than in the public repentance of Episcopal priest William Melnyk and the reported repentance of his wife, fellow Episcopal priest Glyn Lorraine Ruppe-Melnyk, of their involvement with Druidism.

Melnyk posted his letter to his bishop, Pennsylvania's Charles Bennison, on several conservative Anglican sites, as well as on a Druidism site. The full text is as follows:

Recently it has been brought to light by several agencies and individuals that I have been involved in work with Druid organizations in the United States and England, exploring the relationships between Christian and pre-Christian Druid spirituality and theology. These individuals and agencies have presented you with pages of documentation of my activities from the internet. You and I have discussed this material, and you have pointed out to me that it is the opinion of the church that my involvement, writings, and activities go beyond the bounds expected of a Christian and a Christian priest.
I affirm to you with all my heart it was never my intention to engage in such error, but only to help others who had lost connection to the Church to find a way to reconnect. I also thought that there was much in our early British heritage that could help those of us in the Church to broaden our understanding of Anglican tradition.
I was wrong. I repent of and recant without qualification anything and everything I may have said or done which is found to be in conflict with the Baptismal Covenant, and the historical Creeds of the Church. With God as my witness, I reaffirm my belief in the historical creeds of the Church, and the Baptismal Covenant, and reaffirm to you my faith, as expressed in that covenant. I am resigning my membership in the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, as a sign of my repentence.
I have been a follower of Jesus Christ since my Baptism in 1947, and a faithful deacon and priest of the Church, with the exception of the error admitted above, since 1981. It is my desire to continue as such, and I ask for the mercy of the Church, and of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To conservative Anglican sites, he appended this message:

I now take pains to publicly affirm this statement, and to thank the contributors to the various Anglican weblogs for bringing this to my attention and helping me to see the truth.
He also said, "My wife has sent a similar letter."

On the Druid message board, he wrote this:

I hereby resign from the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. I repent of, and recant, all posts on this Board, except in the many places where I have affirmed my faith in Jesus Christ. I ask that my membership in this board be terminated, and that all my submissions be deleted. May God bless you all, and keep you in health and peace.
The Philadelphia Inquirer's front page reports that Bennison "continues to review his options" and may remove or suspend the Melnyks as priests. Orthodox Anglican bloggers, however, are joyful and comforted by Melnyk's letter. They'll keep an ear out for what Bennison decides to do, but where they really want to see movement is in the Episcopal Church USA leadership, especially in the Office of Women's Ministries. Orthodox Anglicans are used to individual Episcopalians (including Bennison, actually) saying and doing un-Christian things. What was particularly noteworthy about this story is that a pagan liturgy with references to idols of the Old Testament appeared on the official Episcopal Church website with the denomination's press office promoting it for Sunday worship services.

On Monday, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's Erik Nelson issued a list of outstanding questions on the controversy. None had to do with the Melnyks themselves.

Likewise, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, head of the Anglican Church in the West Indies, saw the liturgy as a problem of the Episcopal Church USA, not simply of a couple of priests. He is apparently the only Anglican primate to publicly discuss the rites.

[bob_brinton (bob_brinton)]

To the truly oblique (love that word), all angles are. Learn to recognize the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary. God does it all the time. He loves to surprise us.

[bob_brinton (bob_brinton)]

bump. here's part 2.