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The Proclamation of the Gospel: Nothing Less than Power for Salvation |
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Written by The Reverend Dr. Richard A. Ray, PFR’s Consultant for Theological Enrichment
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Friday, 26 February 2010 04:49 |
To download this article in PDF format for printing, click here.
 We are all fascinated with the concept of power. We can describe a movie, a concert, or even someone’s personality as “powerful.” When a disruption occurs in our electrical service we say that we have “lost power.” But have we?
Electrical current is actually one of the least influential forms of “power” in our lives. Consider the roles played by the Niagara-like force of historically conditioned culture as it flows through our lives and the momentum of values such as patriotism and loyalty. And consider the power of our “need” for love in directing and misdirecting human relations. It can hardly be estimated. Such intangible forces of human power may be, in fact, some of the most difficult to comprehend and assess.
But even further beyond the boundaries of empirically measured physical power and the compelling tugs of socially construed influence is God’s unpredictable and uncontrollable decision forming impact, a truly super-natural force that consistently frustrates any claims we might make to understand his mysterious choices. Therefore, when the survey writers in the PC(USA) Department of Research Services recently framed a Presbyterian Panel question exploring the extent of our belief in the authority of Jesus Christ and the unqualified force of his power, they may have asked the wrong question.
Asking whether “only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved” clearly stepped beyond the biblical, confessional character of personal faith into a domain which is significantly more medieval. Such a question is theoretical, scholastic, and marked by a limiting, permissive tone. It could have been construed by many faithful Presbyterians as entirely ambiguous. It certainly did not engage the passion of those who could positively declare that they had “encountered the sovereign power of God in Christ over sin, death, and the devil,” a far more traditional affirmation. And that, precisely and decisively, is the critical question today: Can we honestly profess our unwavering faith in the immeasurable, unpredictable, uncontrollable power of God, and is that what we affirm, unique and independent of all lesser physical and emotional power, in our commitment to representing the victorious, conquering, redeeming Christ? Our approach to that question will have everything to do with whether or not we have anything of significance to say to the currently prevailing culture and, ultimately, whether our denomination survives or perishes.
The power of the holy Trinity that comes into our lives through the Holy Spirit’s application of the work of Christ is potentially so intriguing that it could be clearly seen as the magnet that draws persons into the most compelling intellectual search imaginable. Taken from the historical context of the Church out of which they were wrenched, the core doctrines of the Christian community can be seen as the transparent windows through which the most amazing refractions of Christ’s saving power are both delineated and depicted as he himself comes to grapple with the challenges that confront us. Such doctrines as those involved in Christology, justification, salvation, the atonement, etc. provide lenses through which the sparkling illumination of the Holy Spirit’s power comes.
This power can normally be symbolized as Paul did in 2nd Corinthians 12 when he spoke of “inexpressible words” that cannot be spoken in conventional ways. This power reaches further depths in Colossians 3 in which readers are urged to “seek what is above” rather than what is on earth.
The text of Scripture and the doctrines of the Church become, as it were, verbal icons through which we are drawn into a different reality, perhaps what Paul refers to so curiously as a “third heaven.” And who among us would not like to go there this very day? That is precisely what John Calvin invited us to do when he discussed our being raised far beyond the measurable limitations of our empirically observed lives into a mystic union with Christ. From within the spiritual force field of those relationships mysteries too great for words emerge. That brings us to the question of the proclamation of the gospel among those who know so much but who are not yet there.
Brian Greene, one of the brightest and most articulate physics professors at Columbia, a graduate of Harvard and Oxford, and author of the scientifically compelling book, The Elegant Universe, was quoted in the January 2010 issue of The Atlantic as arguing that life after death was implausible. He referred to the dying circuits of a defunct computer as the model of humans passing into nonexistence. “That is,” he noted, “the brute, cold, hard fact of the universe.”
The empirical project reaches its painful limits and a different kind of empiricism, a transcendent one open to broader mysteries, becomes a spiritual opportunity at this point. But it will not be easy.
 The degree of the challenge is bluntly suggested by the cover story in the January 30 issue of The Economist. The cover pictures Steve Jobs calling our attention to his new iPad. His progressive, come hither smile beckons to us from where he stands cloaked in a sumptuous liturgical gown. Hanging around his shoulders like a contemporary pastor’s idiosyncratic stole is a sash covered with minute hands that lift the forefinger signaling the evangelical indication for one way. Around his head a halo sends golden rays of quasi divine glory out to illumine the world. In the text of the article the author refers to the iPad colloquially as the “Jesus Tablet,” and he remarks that when Steve Jobs blesses a market it takes off. The symbolism is obvious. It indicates that the most interesting source of creativity is expressed through a mythical link through solar paganism and that it surpasses the lordship of Jesus Christ. Who would have seen this impotence of the classic Christian doctrine of salvation to prevail in a confrontation with culture coming?
At least one did. And it was fifty eight years ago to be exact. The French philosopher Jacques Maritain, teaching at that time at Princeton, attacked the issue head on in an essay entitled “The Meaning of Contemporary Atheism.” Maritain called for Christians to engage in a serious struggle for the meaning of the Church’s faith. With the observation that from now on a “decorative Christianity” was not enough, he declared that to believe in God must now mean “to live in such a manner that life would not be possible if God did not exist.” That is very close to the meaning of martyrdom. His essay concluded with a quotation from Blaise Pascal, “We always behave as if we were called upon to make the truth triumphant, whereas we are called upon only to struggle for it” (A Maritain Reader, 1966). There can be lots of decorative, triumphal drama going on, what John Calvin called reliance upon the “theatrical trifles” in worship services, but what Maritain saw as necessary was a diligent effort to expound the core doctrines of the Christian gospel with intellectual struggle, personal cost, and disciplined vocational service.
Did Paul also see it coming? In 1st Corinthians 1 he reminds people who may feel that they have become quite sophisticated that the message of the Cross is “the power of God for those who are being saved.” On the other hand, those who regarded it as foolishness, wrote Paul, were the ones who were “perishing.” Perishing. And what that means for us in our culture is an empirically oriented limitation of power and death.
Calvin centered the proclamation of salvation not around an argumentative, scholastic approach but around a very personal sense of mystical union with Christ. It was the core source of a transcendent power, implanted by the Holy Spirit, expressed in a death and revival of the soul, and productive of a clear grasp of the meaning of God as heavenly Father. It would eventuate in the conviction that a very strange and unanticipated exchange had occurred in this spiritual resuscitation in which Christ’s life becomes ours before the bar of God’s justice. Today we are given, in salvation, a radically different kind of armor. For the proclamation of the Christian gospel of salvation within a culture growing increasingly content with an atheistic posture involves a spiritual combat in which we may often fail but in which Christ will ultimately be victorious.
Ours is a mainline denominational culture where martial imagery and the summons to victory have been steadily removed from the congregation’s devotional language, and we should confront that subversive tactic and deal with it very explicitly. Interestingly enough, we can look back to the verve of Jacques Maritain’s style for clues. Converted to Roman Catholicism as a young adult, his deep intellectual drive was given direction from Thomas Aquinas’ unhesitating way of challenging the heretical questions before the Church. With a model like Aquinas before him, Maritain showed absolutely no hesitation in confronting the philosophical nihilism and scientific materialism that were scornful of traditional Christian culture. Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin were no less vigorous and combative in their day, and the additional models which they set before us, as different as their Church setting was from ours today, can still provide courageous and provocative examples.
In our day, we are more like prize fighters who have lost their courage than we care to admit. We eye our opponents warily, hesitant about stepping into the ring with them, hoping that they will see that we really affirm them as persons, and that they won’t hit us too hard. The difficult thing about proclaiming the Christian gospel of salvation in a permissive and tolerant age is that we must be willing to declare that the opposite of salvation is to be lost into metaphysical and spiritual dimensions of life for which the Christian tradition has had the most excruciating and painful symbolic imagery. Justice is not to be ignored, sin is deeply imbedded in the ontological structure of our personal existence, responsibility for righteousness is unavoidable, and the fear of the Lord that is brought into fullness by love is still the beginning of wisdom.
There is the wilderness—always the wilderness waiting for us. And it is instructive to consider how often saints have felt called to abandon themselves to a fresh discovery of God’s will in that wilderness. Could God be calling us to recover a new sense of his power by the humility that inevitably must be borne by any of us who find our way to some contemporary form of wilderness? Is it possibly our time to enter the wilderness, to leave behind the fragrant oasis where the low hanging fruits of neo-atheism, neo-immorality, and neo-pluralism have long been dangling around us, tempting us to taste their deceptively nuanced opinions and to become magically sophisticated in the eyes of our opponents, who in the end will be no more than serpents who are waiting to see us fall?
God’s reality, Christ’s commission, the consequence of the Holy Spirit’s persuasive power; it always comes as a brutal jolt. There are struggles in which to be engaged, opponents to overcome, voices to hear, temptations to spurn, and Scripture to learn. It is within the disciplines of the training camp in some forlorn circumstances that we never wanted that the Lord meets us and prepares us to climb over the ropes and into the ring once again. It could all seem to be quite strange and unfamiliar. After all, sometimes a voice comes out of a burning fire, a Scripture passage rockets into our mind with great force, a light appears out of nowhere, a prison guard trembles, and the Word of God turns out to actually be sharper than a two edged sword within our trembling hands. If this does not entail spiritual warfare, the rising and falling of nations, what on earth would?
To refocus on some of the missing traditional imagery, the defeat of sin, death, and the devil is, of course, resisted. The battle is first launched against ourselves, in the wilderness, where there is no place to find refuge, where it is far less likely that we will be able to hide behind our degrees, our positions, our certifications, and our liturgical finery. But when we begin to find our strength again, we will have learned that when we rise to step into the pulpit or into the ring again, we will never be under powered or empty handed. And the warfare will be no less powerful for having been transformed into the most piercing form of love. That which has threatened the world with the darkness of sin and hate will, in the end, be renailed on that same cross on which Christ died. That is the power which the proclamation of the gospel switches on with the most magnificent light for the salvation of the world.
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"Job One" |
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Written by Donna Marsh, Ministry Associate at The National Presbyterian Church Washington, D.C, and a PFR Board Member
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Friday, 26 February 2010 04:27 |
 One of the most interesting Facebook conversations I’ve seen in a while was sparked by Tim Keller’s lecture at the National Cathedral here in Washington, DC last November. Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City, a 5,000+ member congregation that is full of young adults, growing rapidly, and planting congregations by the dozens.
Several clergy from National Capital Presbytery attended Keller’s lecture, and much Facebook-style amazement and handwringing followed. Here are some verbatim excerpts:
Clergy #1: The church breaks all the ‘conventional wisdom’ about attracting young adults in a secular urban setting: He is conservative, somewhat doctrinal, not flashy, charismatic, or contemporary. His sermons are a pretty steady diet of Reformed theology from a rather conservative perspective. But he is clear, compelling, affable and talks about the lives of real people. . .
Clergy #2: When I hear of 1,000 mostly young adults coming [to the lecture] and a church that has grown by 5,000, I keep grasping for just how that occurs. Is there something I am missing? Something the PC(USA) is missing?
Clergy #1: I wish I had insights from last night on this question. His lecture was great, but not brilliant, and he seemed nice, but not particularly charismatic. Go figure.
Reading this conversation, I couldn’t help but think of the moment in the Dr. Seuss classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas when the Grinch “stood puzzling and puzzling: ‘How could it be so? [Christmas] came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!’” My colleagues were astonished that Keller’s prosaically packaged, theologically conservative Gospel message could have broad appeal, particularly to young people.
In a shrinking and deeply divided denomination, Presbyterians are right to wonder what is missing. They are right to wonder how preaching fits into the life of the Church, how it can effectively communicate the Gospel to the broader culture, and even how it can help to heal the rifts in our denomination.
This series of articles from PFR is designed to refocus Presbyterians on what is missing, or at least neglected, in many of our congregations: the simple and straightforward mission spelled out in the six “Great Ends of the Church.”
The first “Great End” is “the proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind.” In an economy of words rarely associated with the Book of Order, the first great end contains all we need to know about preaching in the 21st century: how, what, and why. Put another way, this piece of the Presbyterian mission statement encapsulates the method, substance, and motive for all of our communication with the culture in and around us. How should we communicate? Proclamation. What are we to communicate? The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Why do we communicate? For the salvation of humankind.
Note that the first great end of the church says nothing about the preacher, and nothing about the medium for preaching. It is easy for conversations about proclaiming the Gospel in the 21st century to focus on the ribbons and tags, boxes and bags. “How shall we package the Gospel?” is a relevant technical question about preaching, but not the paramount theological or strategic question. To find our unique raison d’être in a world full of competing voices, we need to proclaim boldly the Gospel of Jesus Christ and do so with the urgent conviction that it is for the salvation of humankind.
To unpack the first great end of the Church, I sat down with the Reverend Earl Palmer, Preaching Pastor-in-Residence at The National Presbyterian Church. Palmer is an unabashed intellectual, a prolific author, and a pastor of great stature in the PC(U.S.A.), yet I daresay he fits the description of “conservative, not flashy, charismatic, or contemporary, but clear, compelling and affable.” His ministry has helped to stabilize and reinvigorate our 2,000+ member congregation during a difficult season. When I taught a new members’ class recently, not a soul was over the age of 45 (most were in their 20’s and 30’s), but those young new members cited his preaching as a key factor in their spiritual growth and choice of a congregation.
For all those who would stay true to the core mission of the Church, the proclamation of the Gospel must be driven by the Gospel itself. Anything less is the proclamation of opinion or advice. Opinions quickly join the cacophony of other opinions in the culture, distinguishable only by the personality of the pundit or their media packaging.
The proclamation of the Gospel is substantively different. As Richard Ray reminds us, Gospel power is “a truly supernatural force. . .the immeasurable, unpredictable, uncontrollable power of God” made both intimately personal and universally accessible in “the victorious, conquering, redeeming Christ.” Scripture is authoritative because it flows from that power. Proclamation is authoritative when it relies on Scripture to speak.
That is why Earl Palmer’s cardinal rule of preaching is, “Let the text speak.” He is a longtime practitioner and advocate of expository preaching, that is, working carefully through a biblical text in each sermon, drawing out its meaning line by line. Palmer’s eyes light up when he says, “The great thing about preaching from the text is that, if you do it right, the person in the pew gets the point a split second before you make it.” They are stirred to repentance, guided in the footsteps of Jesus, or given hope because the text, which is more powerful than any preacher, gives it to them. If the preacher’s message is mainly self-referential, “You should hope because I have hope,” it may be pleasantly inspiring but it will lack transformative power.
Is there hope for this approach to proclamation in a post-modern world fixated on the question “What is your story?” rather than “What is the story?” No one tells a story better than Palmer, and so he says, “Narrative fascination is good until it becomes obsessive and vectors away from the text. It shouldn’t keep us from doing the hard work of seeing what the text is saying.” Relevant, artful proclamation can and must rely on the power of stories; but will use those stories in service to the text, rather than using the text in service to a story.
What must not be overlooked is that the first great end of the church has its own great end. The Gospel itself, and its proclamation, are for the salvation of humankind. (See not just the Book of Order, but Romans 1: 16-17 and I Corinthians 1: 17-21.) The motive of good preaching is not to fill pews and church coffers; it is to populate the communion of saints in the present and in eternity.
This may be easier to affirm on paper than to embrace in practice. Even congregations staunchly committed to biblical orthodoxy may find their comfort levels strained by frank discussion of the possibility of “perishing.” Even the most silver-tongued preacher may find his or her courage and pastoral sensitivities tested by an emphasis on “the proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind,” as opposed to the more conventional and comfortable task of proclaiming the Gospel for the edification of the faithful. Speaking the truth in love is always a balancing act, and the first great end of the church does not abrogate our responsibility to speak the truth in love.
In any case, a genuine embrace of the first great end of the church will require every congregation to abandon any trace of withdrawal from the world. One cannot proclaim the Gospel which is the power for salvation to those whom one avoids. Likewise, a genuine embrace of the first great end of the church will call every Christian to abandon any trace of shame about the Gospel.
Providentially, we rely not on our own strength to meet such Herculean demands of honesty and courage, but on God who is able to strengthen us according to the Gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ (Romans 16:25).
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Response to the September 2009 Draft of the Special Committee on Civil Union and Christian Marriage |
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Written by Presbyterians For Renewal
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Friday, 13 November 2009 05:59 |
TO: The Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Union and Christian Marriage
RE: Response to the September 2009 Draft of Preliminary Report
DATE: November 13, 2009
(To download a PDF version for printing, click here)
In our previous communication to the Special Committee dated August 13, 2009, Presbyterians for Renewal expressed our conviction that “marriage between a man and a woman is God’s good provision for human well-being, for the ordering of society and family life, and the only relationship within which sexual union is appropriate and blessed by God.” We continue to affirm this standard as the way of Christian discipleship given us in Scripture, taught in our Confessions, and held by the vast majority of Christians in all times and places. This standard is not a human invention, but the loving gift of our gracious God. Presbyterians for Renewal will continue to work, pray, and hope for the day when this simple standard will, once again, be joyfully and boldly be affirmed by the whole of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
We were saddened but not surprised to see that the Draft of your Preliminary Report indicates that the Special Committee is not able to make such an affirmation at this time. The Special Committee has compiled much useful information on laws governing marriage and civil union, how our understanding of marriage developed in the Reformed Tradition, the relationship between civil union and Christian marriage, and the effects of current laws on same-gender partners and their children. This was indeed part of your mandate from the General Assembly. But when it comes to the place of covenanted same-gender partnerships in the Christian community, the best the Special Committee can do is express the diametrically opposed viewpoints that are present in the committee: one holding the standard expressed above, and another that would “expand marriage to include same-gender couples” (p. 21). The report states, “This conflict is a crisis of conscience – on all sides” (p. 22).
Presbyterians for Renewal believes this impasse is regrettable but instructive; and perhaps God provides in it an opportunity. Could it be that the best service the Special Committee can now render to the denomination would be to help us understand the roots of the conflict? What are the biblical, confessional, and theological grounds for each of these positions? We urge the Special Committee to continue on the path of being descriptive rather than prescriptive. Let each constituency lay out their case for the denomination to see.
Presbyterians for Renewal believes the revisionist position that would bless same-gender relationships as the equivalent of marriage can only be defended by ignoring or rejecting the clear teaching of the Bible and our Confessions. At the same time, we wholeheartedly concur with the Special Committee that “it is our Christ-given duty to stay at the table, especially when we disagree” (p. 24). We call upon the Special Committee to help us disagree in a Christ-honoring way. Let us focus the dialogue on Scripture and the Confessions so the denomination can plainly see which position is genuinely rooted in the authoritative sources of our faith and life.
Finally, we commend the members of the Special Committee for your obvious commitment to respectful dialogue and Christian forbearance with one another. Your assignment is spiritually and emotionally challenging. Your covenant (p. 26) is a model for the whole denomination. Be assured that all members of the Special Committee are in our prayers for the anointing and leading of God’s Spirit.
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Aggregation or Congregation: What Will Come Out of Minneapolis? |
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Written by Paul Detterman, PFR Executive Director
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Saturday, 23 January 2010 20:03 |
 Welcome to another General Assembly year! In just a few short months, the 219th GA will convene in Minneapolis, MN. The full compliment of PC(USA) agencies and organizations will be there, staffing booths, handing out resources, explaining their mission and ministry. The press will be there too, reporting any precedent-breaking votes and trying to get the back story. Curious local Presbyterians will be there, taking advantage of the rare opportunity to see first hand what a denomination-wide gathering is like. What will they see?
We are still half a year out but already the landscape is taking shape. Many self-identified liberals are positioning themselves to take another run at ordination standards and the definition of Christian marriage. Many self-identified conservatives are coming to the Twin Cities ready to take yet another stand on these issues, but also with the proposed new Form of Government in the cross-hairs. A typical GA, right?
But the overwhelming majority of the commissioners who are coming to GA 219 are doing so in good faith, trying their best to navigate both information and information systems to accomplish the work they have been commissioned to do. What happens when everyone gets to Minneapolis? What will this Assembly be or become?
Aggregation or Congregation?
Even suggesting that the highest political gathering of the PC(USA) constitutes an aggregation may be offensive to some. An aggregation, after all, is a collection of many distinct things that are massed together into a whole. Think of a jar of marbles. What’s the purpose? For one thing, the kid with the most marbles usually “wins.” But even then what do you win? More pretty marbles. You add them to your jar and celebrate their diversity—admiring all the different colors and patterns, thinking how cool it is that you have more marbles than the neighbor kid. End of story.
In many ways that sounds like the Assembly many Presbyterians are preparing for. There will be opportunities for commissioners to mingle and meld; committee deliberation, group meals, plenary debates; gatherings for worship; but let the wrong issue be named in the sermon, the wrong special interest group feel slighted, or the wrong outcome be reported from a major committee vote, and de facto aggregation will ensue, if not protests, demonstrations, and worse.
A congregation is something quite different. Literally understood, a con-gregation comes together in mutual submission under foundational theological agreement; people drawn together for a purpose beyond themselves. They come in trust to participate in a purpose that is far greater than the sum of those participating, and they are bound together more tightly when all is said and done. Instead of a jar of marbles, think of a cluster of grapes. Grapes not only exist together they grow together drawing energy, life, nutrition, and substance from the vine—(John 15:5). And seriously, who ever grew grapes just to have more grapes. Grapes, as Alton Brown regularly reminds us, are self-sacrificing, power packed nutrient bombs—specifically grown for the health, strengthening, and enjoyment of others. The Great Ends of the Church tell us that is what the PC(USA) is designed to be.
Reality Check
So what can we expect to see in the Twin Cities this coming July? Marbles or grapes? Aggregation or congregation? Forming an aggregation is easy. People come, deliberate, vote, and leave. Building a congregation will take astonishing effort on everyone’s part, liberal and conservative, gay and straight, pastor, elder, educator, and staffer. Are we willing to bring our treasured ideology and impassioned dreams to Minneapolis only to lay them at the foot of the Cross and leave them there? Is any one of us capable of surrendering our plans and schemes to the will and work of our Savior no matter what the outcome may be? Do we trust the Holy Spirit to lead us through our current dis-understandings and division to a place that will bring glory to God and enjoyment to his gathered people? Can God make grapes out of marbles?
A Transitional Solution
Helping move the PC(USA) beyond persistent biennial aggregation is the intent, purpose, and vision behind the New Synod proposal from PFR. Some have voiced their suspicions that this is a covert action toward an eventual mass departure from the PC(USA). That makes no sense as there are far easier ways to walk away from the denomination than a restructuring at the synod level. PFR is comprised of individuals and congregations who are committed to staying where God has called us, proclaiming what God has revealed to us, and doing the hard work of transformational mission for which God has equipped us. Others persist in mislabeling this proposal a “cocoon,” suspecting it is a strategic retrenchment, an attempt to ghettoize the conservatives into a bureaucratic safety zone, with the unintended consequence of weakening the voice of orthodoxy in the denomination as a whole. This too makes no sense. If anything, many congregations with the means and the opportunity have self-ghettoized already, detaching themselves from every possible participation in PC(USA) connectional structures.
The New Synod proposal has at its heart re-connection for strength, mission, and witness, but through congregation; finding vision for mission, energy, and spiritual traction by celebrating our unity in Christ and loving God’s people, rather than “celebrating our diversity,” (whatever that means) and hoping to be hip enough that some part of the secular world still likes us.
Both of these objections to the New Synod proposal are based on conspiracy theories and both of them are missing the point. The New Synod proposal seeks to create “congregation” within the “aggregation” that is our current reality in the PC(USA). Short of epic revival, no one is going to surrender in our current ideological gridlock. There is far too much at stake. But if we persist without altering our current patterns, we are doomed to suffer increasingly irrelevant episodes of biennial déjà vu.
The New Synod proposal, if it is given the opportunity, will provide us all relief from our deepening denominational rut, re-congregate and actually encourage radical expressions of God’s justice, mercy, truth, and love, moving ahead into the far more important mission to which God is calling us.
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