Scripture, Me and the UMC

The interpretation of Scripture is at the heart of many of our societal and denominational woes. As much as I enjoyed A.J. Jacobs’ book, The Year of Living Biblically, and its experiment of Jacobs trying to follow the Bible verbatim with resulting hilarity at times, I am disturbed by our culture and church’s extremely low view of Scripture. With as much information as we possess, we are terribly ignorant of God’s Word.

I even need a fresh start. We all do, so I’m going to buy a new Bible. Thirteen years ago I bought 3 identical Bibles so that they could be interchangeable with the same translation, format, print size and font. I wish that I had bought 5 or more. It’s time to replace these tattered and well-worn treasures with my illegibly scribbled notes obscuring the printed words. I hit Amazon a few minutes ago to see if I could purchase my favorite and was shocked at the prices.

My Bible of preference is published by Oxford University Press, New International Version, single-column, and no red letters for the words of Jesus. The words of Jesus are important, but if we believe, like Paul, (2 Timothy 3:16) that ALL Scripture is God-breathed and inspired then I don’t want to have red-letter highlights that distract me from the whole message.

Speaking of The Message, the Bible paraphrase by Eugene Peterson, it is easy to understand its popularity. It sounds cool, hip, up-to-date, but I prefer a translation over someone else’s paraphrase any day. There’s a big difference between interpretation and translation. I had 2 semesters of classical Greek at USC, 3 more years of NT Greek in seminary, plus 3 years of Hebrew. I like languages, have a knack for them. In college, I minored in French and took two semesters of German so I could pass the German Reading Test to get into grad school. French and German haven’t been that practical, although I pull out my French Bible once and awhile. Spanish would have been much better! Greek and Hebrew have been invaluable!

A good translation, therefore, is important to me. None are perfect. All have some bias, but they at least address the latest textual and linguistic discoveries when offering us a fresh translation. Some are downright unbearable to me. I was asked a few years ago to review the CEB (Common English Bible). That didn’t go well. I couldn’t get over their switch of Jesus being called the “Son of Man” to “The Human One.” The Human One – give me a break! The New Revised Standard Version is good, albeit, more politically correct in places as it stretches the meaning of the actual Greek or Hebrew. Just an opinion. The New International Version does a better job of translation and doesn’t shy away from textual variants when it offers, for instance, that the Septuagint, the Greek version of the OT, might have a different word in a certain text.

One of my personal tests of a translation’s quality is to look up certain texts. A key one is Revelation 2:23b, “Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds…” which actually in Greek is Νεφροὺς καὶ καρδίας, “kidneys and hearts.” In the King James Version it reads “reins and hearts.” When I think of reins, I think of reins on a horse, when the word actually means “kidneys” as in renal failure. The actual meaning in Greek thinking is that your soft parts á la kidneys/belly is the seat of emotions as in “belly laugh,” “butterflies in one’s stomach,” or “punched in the gut” with a sudden death. The heart was thought of as doing our thinking. So the text should appropriately be translated, “I am he who searches your thinking and your feeling…” Therefore, I may not like the KJV’s rendition of Revelation 2:23 and its use of “reins,” but I do like the King James’ poetic rendition of the 23^rd Psalm.

Why is any of this important? The subject of Holy Writ, the Bible, Scripture, and inspiration versus infallibility is terribly important these days as people of every denomination determine their position on hot-button issues. What does the Scripture say about homosexuality? What do “malakoi” and “arsenokoitai” really mean? Did Jesus talk about same-sex marriage? Are same-sex relationships condoned or condemned in Scripture? Bottom line, how far does our Biblical hermeneutics (methods of literary interpretation) allow us to pull a Thomas Jeffersonian Jesus Seminar-like cut and paste of what God’s Word contains? Is the Bible God’s Word or just contains the words of God?

Adam Hamilton, well-respected UM pastor and author, does not impress me with his attitude toward Scripture. I appreciate him, but his notion that there are “three buckets of Scripture” is past the point of orthodoxy in my opinion. His book Making Sense of Scripture contends that one bucket of Scripture contains “Scriptures that express God’s heart, character and timeless will for human beings.” Bucket two, he says, contains, “Scripture that expressed God’s will in a particular time, but are no longer binding.” He describes his last bucket as containing, “Scriptures that never fully expressed the heart, character or will of God.”

That statement is beyond my personal ability to comprehend so I am not going to waste my words undoing his undermining of the Word. Rather, I will take heart in what the UMC’s Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith say. Article V of the “Articles of Religion” says that “Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not required…” Article IV of the Confession of Faith says similarly, “The Holy Bible… reveals the Word of God so far as it is necessary for salvation.” Further it is the “true rule and guide for faith and practice…”

I think that these statements of the UMC promote a high view of Scripture that does not leave room for separate buckets that diminish the ability of the Bible to speak accurately and completely to both salvation and current issues. To use Hamilton’s words that there are, “Scriptures that never fully expressed the heart, character or will of God,” is very contrary to Scripture’s own self-declaration and to the God who inspired it all.

Anyway, I’m going to read on and pray for the Holy Spirit to open my mind and heart (thinking and feeling), to God’s message to me today. I need it, and I don’t need a personal veto to muddy the water! There’s enough there that I fully understand to keep me from tripping over the parts that I can’t.

 

Knowing Right From Wrong – Christ the King Sunday

A friend sent me a quote recently from the author Oswald Chambers: (Satan) “does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view…” How true for me! The premise also seems to be true for lots of people. We have become so confused about what’s right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. Like scotch tape yanked away from a piece of paper, we have picked up more of the world than the world has picked up us.

This Sunday is Christ the King Sunday and if Christ really is King then we who are the subjects of the realm have usurped the throne! Does it appear that Jesus is in charge of our lives? Doesn’t anyone take responsibility anymore? I’m around clergy and parishioners as a District Superintendent who are often in conflict, and it seems everyone says its somebody else’s fault. I remember the old hymn that says “It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, O Lord – standing in the need of prayer…”

We need to take responsibility and personally put Christ on the throne of our lives every day! As United Methodists we use the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to do theology and determine if something is kosher, orthodox, or sinful. The Quadrilateral, a matrix used by our founder John Wesley, is a good determinant for right and wrong: Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason. Where I get fouled up is when I put Experience before anything else. The United Methodist, even Christian reality, is that Scripture is primary and is informed by and informs Tradition, Experience, and Reason. We get into trouble when we think of the Quadrilateral as an equilateral, as if all 4 components are of equal value. It would be much better from an orthodox point of view to think of the Quadrilateral as a three-legged stool with Scripture as the seat with Tradition, Experience, and Reason as legs. I would avoid so much sin in my life it I started with Scripture, recalled the teachings (Tradition) that the church has valued over the centuries, checked my actions via the lens of Experience, and finally asked if what I’m doing or about to do is Reasonable; i.e., “Rationally, what are the consequences of my actions?”

I remember hearing about 2 preachers who were talking one day. They usually rode past each other on their bicycles but on this occasion one of the ministers was walking. The other asked, “What happened to your bike?” The other responded, “I think one of my parishioners stole it.” His fellow minister said, “What you ought to do is preach on the Ten Commandments next Sunday and really bear down on the part about ‘Thou shalt not steal’- You’ll get your bike back.” The next week the 2 preachers met up and both were on bikes. The one who had given the advice said, “It looks like you did what I said and preached on not stealing and got your bike back.” His colleague said, “Not exactly. I did preach on the Ten Commandments, but when I got to the part about not committing adultery I remembered where my bicycle was.” Ouch, big ouch!

I think most of us would be hard-pressed to name the Ten Commandments, much less live them. We need to have a firm understanding that Scripture is more important in our ethical decision-making than experience or anything else. There is a cartoon which I’ve seen in several places. It shows a crucifixion scene, and depicts Jesus saying, “If I’m O.K. and you’re OK, then what am I doing up here hanging on this cross?” As much as we seem to hate to admit it, “We’re not O.K.” We need a Savior. We need Jesus and we need to drop our rationalizations and pretense of false innocence.

There was a big burly lineman for a NFL football team who really liked to sneak out of the confines of his motel room on the night before games. Despite the club’s curfew he would try to fool his coach as he made his rounds to do bed-checks. He would pile things under his blanket so that it looked like he was in bed. At one motel, however, he couldn’t find enough things to stuff under the covers so he stuck a floor lamp in the bed and took off. When the suspicious and wise coach peeked in way after curfew and flipped on the switch for the light you can guess what happened – the bed lit up! Our sins have a way of finding us out! We may think they are hidden, but the light of judgment is coming!

Christ the King Sunday reminds me that there is only One to whom I owe allegiance and it’s Jesus, not my own desires and wants. If Jesus is Lord and King, it’s high time we acted like it. Don’t let evil shift your point of view. Some things are wrong.

GC 2012 Observations

General Conference 2012 has come and gone and I am recovering. I wonder about our church’s recovery. This was my 5th rodeo and it felt like the most ornery bronking buck ever ridden. Dr. Scott Peck wrote an analysis of community building that stated that there are 4 stages: pseudocommunity, chaos, emptiness, and community. We started with pseudocommunity, “Hail fellow, well met,” and saw moments of truce along the way like during the Service of Repentance toward Indigenous Peoples. Dr. Peck says some groups stay in this safe place so that they avoid airing their differences.

However, United Methodists aren’t afraid to move out of truce mode and tear at the fabric of harmony. The Rules Committee report should have been a dire warning of what to expect. It usually is a breeze and takes a few minutes. It took a couple of hours this time. It set the tone of intractable deliberation. We hit the chaos stage and pretty much stayed there until Friday night when GCFA’s final budget reports were being made. I could feel the calm of emptiness fall over the most contentious General Conference that I have witnessed. Maybe then, and only then, did we approach true community and because of money of all things. How sad!

Where did the chaos that derailed us come from? Some want to blame back room shenanigans of people hammering out restructuring deals without everybody being at the table. We all need to remember to get together for the larger cause of holy conferencing and we all need to be at the table. The General Conference was hijacked by multiple agendas in an apparent effort to stall, filibuster, and question to death anything that came before it. It appeared that a deal was struck  between multiple constituencies well before any protesters came on the floor that if things could get bogged down enough then we wouldn’t have to talk about sex and expose our utter division. How Victorian! What an avoidance of speaking a prophetic word to society.

Victorian-era denial of human sexuality has precluded us from being theologically relevant to our society. Worse, we can’t even talk to each other about it. No matter what side you’re on, was our silence acceptable? We chose to let our present 2008 language stand rather than speak theologically to a confused generation that has turned the Wesleyan Quadrilateral into an equilateral. Experience has unseated Scripture as the foundational starting point of our theological method.  This isn’t a good strategy in speaking to the world. They will see us as do-nothing, irrelevant by-standers in a culture war for the soul of the cosmos.

The ruling by the Judicial Council has now put up an almost impenetrable wall around the agency silos. In the JC’s opinion only the superintending body of the Council of Bishops can offer guidance to the agencies. Doesn’t everyone know that the agency boards all have bishops on them now and their presidents are bishops? Episcopal presence and the possibility for supervision hasn’t been lacking. Paragraph 427.3 has been in operation although ill achieved. I’m not trying to lump all bishops or agencies into an ineffective amalgamation, but the Judicial Council ruling makes it almost impossible for us to ever do a new thing.

The only means left to gain alignment among the agencies could be very damaging in the long run. Money! If the JC says that only the bishops can have oversight of the agencies then all that the General Conference can do is cut off the money. This sole option will either create more competitiveness or cooperation among the agencies and I plead for the latter. By the way, I’m grateful for the work that a few of our agencies did to help craft a way forward. I plead for the bishops to continue in exercising their spiritual and temporal authority. God help us if this ruling means that the status quo remains! I am devastated that, except for a few changes, all we need to do is keep our 2008 Book of Discipline and put a 2012 sticker over the date. That is not acceptable, but it appears to be reality.

We may have just witnessed a historic tipping point of our denomination into the morass of failed enterprises. I pray not and pledge myself to work for us to regain our theological identity and traction as a movement. We will never, however, get to true community unless we let chaos do its painful work and then we embrace an emptiness where we give up our self-interests. What I experienced at GC2012 was the worst example of filibustering do-nothingism for the sake of selfish recalcitrance: “If you don’t play my way, I’m taking my ball and going home.” This wasn’t the first time the middlers of United Methodism were shut down.

It’s happened before. Is there much difference between hardliners- whether liberal, conservative, young, old, male, female, US, or Central Conferences? I guess that we all have non-negotiables about which we won’t budge. However, irreducible positions seldom move forward – most are stuck in the past and claim that it’s the future, and the real problem is that’s it’s supposed to be a shared future and taking hard-line sides doesn’t help. Some dare to say, and I heard this over and over again at GC2012, “It’s my church. I’m taking back my church!”  It’s God’s church not ours.  If anybody thinks that it is theirs, remember, it’s not.  Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build MY church.”

I pray that we can get beyond the past two weeks.  We must never let General Conference be hijacked again.  The basic rule of parliamentary procedure must be operative:  “The minority must be heard, but the majority shall prevail.”  I believe the majority is in the middle and wants what’s best for the church.

The New Normal

I was walking on Saturday morning in my daughter’s neighborhood. There’s not a lot of space between the houses or townhomes so there’s not much yard for kids to use for recreation. Something caught my attention in the semi-darkness of dawn. There was a basketball goal in the driveway of a small home, and there’s not a flat driveway in the whole neighborhood. You should have seen how that goal post and net tilted like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

One thought as I walked by was about the need for a neighborhood playground or rec area. Another thought centered on some poor kid who winds up being a great basketball shooter in his own driveway on an off-kilter goal, only to be the worst shooter ever on a real basketball court because he’s spent too much time aiming at a target that’s off.

We set ourselves up for failure when we aim at the wrong targets. Our New Normal is off in our society. The normal for the kid with the lopsided basketball goal will not help his shooting when he gets on a real court with a level goal. It doesn’t do us any good either if we aim at wrong targets. We learn bad habits and think they’re okay or normal because that’s all we know.

My hope this week is not to yield to a New Normal but to the old but fresh standard of God: Scripture. If I don’t stay grounded in what God’s Word says then I end up yielding and conforming to the culture around me. I remember the days when I would walk out of a movie theater if certain words were used; now I hardly change the channel when the same words are on the TV. I’ve been conforming to the New Normal too much. I want to get back to God’s standard and stay there. That’s my goal this week.