Santadolatry?

Alright, I am not the biggest "anti-Santa" fanatic in the world.  I used to be, then I became a youth minister that occasionally has to work with young children, and I had a young child of my own.  I mean, I see the Consumerism in the whole thing.  I also hate the Santa-Claus view of God, in which God is benevolent grandpa in the sky who only gives good gifts to good girls and boys.  And, I think that Santa, as we know him in 21st century America, contributes to both consumerism and the Santa ideal of God.

Yet, just as the idea of Saint Nicholas as been co-opted to become the Santa Claus of mass marketing, so also the Santa Claus can be co-opted back to teach about Saint Nicholas and the Spirit of selfless giving that flows from Christ.  If the "Santa Myth" can be "spun" for bad, then it can also be "spun" for good.  So, I do not mind Santa so much anymore.  He is a morally neutral tool that can be used used to serve Jesus just as easily as he is used to serve selfishness.

Luther, Nominalism, and the Nature of the Church

This is an odd post, because it addresses a couple of issues raised by an email from a friend (Steve) in which he asked about some recent posts. Regarding my recent post on Martin Luther and Reformation Day, Steve asked "How can you not like and respect someone that said 'Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men and drink more.....Sometimes we must drink more...and even sin a little to spite the devil....'".  Point taken Steve... I will address this below.

Also, Steve said that he is "very much leaning against the view that the Church somehow is the possessor and distributor of grace" (such as the Catholic view).  He is "much more now seeing that we are called to only be a Proclaimer, and especially a WITNESS as the Church... Anything else seems to me at present to somehow almost "interfere" with the work Christ". He also said that he is re-thinking the sacraments, and is very influenced by some views of Karl Barth regarding the Church and the sacraments.

So, I actually find all of these issues to be related.  In the following post I want to deal with Luther, then Karl Barth, and then the idea of whether or not the Church is a "Witness" to Christ (as Proclaimers), or the continuing "Incarnation" of Christ (as the Body of Christ).  

Could Hell be Redemptive and not merely Retributive?

The following way-too-long article started as a reply to a question about 2Thessalonians 1:8-9.  It morphed into a full-out defense of Hell as a redemptive process, not merely a retributive destination.  It is 9,500 words, and I would appreciate it if you did not comment until you have read the whole thing because some of your objections might be answered later on.

One of my older youth named Chris asked the question that got the ball of wax rolling.  It was basically:

WWCSLD?

Most people who have known me for long know that I am a CS Lewis junkie. I don't really do the Catholic "patron saint" thing, but CS Lewis would probably be my patron saint if I did. I have almost everything he has ever published except for the really expensive three volume set of his collected letters (only have volume 1... Christmas presents anyone?). For me, his books are just below Scripture, and he is one of very few people who write books that I will read more than once. So, just below the Holy Trinity is CS Lewis... Father, Son, Spirit... and "Jack".

Just kiddin' on that last sentence... But everything else is pretty much true.

A thought while cleaning up the Junior High Youth Group's mess...

As I walk around cleaning up bags of disposable junk food and Styrofoam cups left behind by kids who, while essentially good kids, are still so self-absorbed and used to other people picking up after them that they probably didn't realize how horrible they left their own youth room, the thought struck my mind:

In all our activities, all our ministries, we must seriously ask the question:

"Is this forming Christlike people?"

Sadly, I fear that for most of us (myself included) the answer is usually "no".

It is time for a revolution.

Happy Reformation Day

The following is a rant guaranteed to piss everyone off... It is mean, sarcastic, and over-simplified... and I'm not sure if I even believe it all... so read it with a grain of salt (and maybe a cold beer in hand):

Reformation day is a big day for me, because of the sheer magnitude of what Martin Luther was able to accomplish on the Cathedral Door of Wittenburg...

I mean, normally when I have pranked someone, we have put our feces in a paper bag and lit them on fire on someone's porch.  But, there was that one time the football team took up a "collection", and put everyone's feces in the cab of a guy's truck through the back windows.

But nailing feces to a cathedral door?  That is a great prank!  And 95 of them?  How was he able to do that without the vibration of the door causing them to fall of their nails?

Martin Luther is amazing, and will go down in the practical joke annals of all time!!!

Wait, what was that?

Theses, not feces???

Whatever... I guess never mind, nothing special about Reformation Day after all.  No, wait, I feel a rant coming on...

CONNECTING FAMILIES TO CHRIST

CONNECTING FAMILIES TO CHRIST

I love being a youth minister.  One of the most amazing things that I am privileged to do as a youth minister is to watch as young men and women give their lives totally over to the Lord.  To see that "lightbulb" go off over their heads when they realize that Jesus really is real, that He really does have a purpose for their lives, and that they really can know Him personally.  That is an incredible event to be a part of.  But, do you know what is even better than that?  When it happens to WHOLE FAMILIES!

Do you know why?  

Why do Anglicans baptize infants?

The short answer to this question is that we baptize children of believing parents because we feel it is more Biblical to do this than to make them wait until "adulthood" before making them part of the family of God. You see, the "Baptismal theology" of many Protestant groups (such as Baptists and Independent Churches) teaches that baptism is a sort of "acted out" confession of a personal decision to follow Jesus. It is an outward sign of an inward, personal choice to trust Christ. In short, it is a symbol of how we feel about God.

Roundtable on Unity and Authority

OK folks, I have several different types of folk who post on this blog. We are [mostly] Christians who acknowledge the Lordship of the Risen Jesus Christ. I am an Evangelical-Charismatic-Anglican. I have a few sort of emergent Restoration Christians who post. Recently we have been joined in conversation with some fairly conservative Southern Baptists from Fide-O. There is at least one Pentecostal brother who joins in sometimes. And we get liberals, conservatives, evangelicals, catholics, protestants, and everyone in between.

There are five main methods of attaining Christian Unity I know of:

New Look

One of my friends asked me to try something with a white background so it is easier to read long posts... and so, here it is.

Tell me if you like it / don't like it.

Also... does anyone know of another site to get templates? It would be fun to try something more interesting than what blogspot offers, but I don't have time to code the HTML for my own.

May the Lord bless, keep, and empower you, now and always. Amen.

Blogging etiquette and sloganeering

I believe that God made us to be filled with what some call "virtue", and what St. Paul calls "the fruit of the Spirit" (cf. Gal. 5:16-25) or even "the spiritual gifts" (cf. 1Co. ch. 12-13).  In all of these lists "Love" comes up as the first and foremost gift / fruit slice / virtue.  Love may look very different at different times, depending on the need.  Love sometimes comforts and consoles.  Love other times disciplines and rebukes.  The first and foremost thing that Love ALWAYS does is that it always puts the needs and the welfare of others before itself.  Second, it never lies about, curses, or belittles the person it loves, even if it may need to destroy a false idea or rebuke an evil action done by the beloved.

From this central virtue of love then flows various "academic virtues" which should be held to if one is going to participate in a debate on Christ's behalf, and if one does not use these virtues, they are not honoring Christ even if they utter true statements.

My theological history

When I get in discussions and debates with people, they often call me by a label that I think is completely off base.  Fundamentalists call me liberal.  Liberals have called me a fundamentalist.  Other times I get called a Catholic or an "Emerging Church" person.  So what am I?

I am like you.  I am embodied: I have a limited view of the world around me that is partially formed by my maleness, and I am a finite creation that has a hard time being "objective" about anything.  I am en-cultured: a product of a late 20th century Western consumerism that puts a whole lot of emphasis on personal choice and freedom, and still has a lot of hangovers from Post-Enlightenment modernism.  I am en-languaged: I have a way of thinking about things formed by speaking English, and reading Greek, Hebrew, and a smattering of Latin.  I am en-traditioned: I have come to view God and the world around me from certain traditions, namely the Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Anglican Traditions.  I am en-ritualed: I have certain rituals that I have developed and taken on myself from others that help me relate to my spouse, my child, my congregation, my friends, and my God.

Forum on the Holy Spirit

I posted an article on how the Holy Spirit has moved in the life of the Church, and it has generated some great conversation with Mike (http://mdmcmullin.blogspot.com/) and Matt (http://mtapie.blogspot.com/).  I would like to post that conversation here:

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Mike said...

Enjoyed your post. I stumbled onto your blog. Pentecostalism was a breath of fresh air in the stagnation of modernity. Unfortunately, the pentecostal and charismatic movements traded their fresh intimacy with the Spirit for credibility and respect from evangelicals. I have several friends who are a part of the Charismatic Episcopal Church. I am intrigued by the symbolism in formal liturgy and enjoy seeing Christ presented as the great mystery in as done in so many orthodox churches. I'd love to know more about your background. I am an emerging pentecostal seeking to find ways to bring a new depth into the worship service. I don't mind using formal liturgy as long as it leaves room for the Spirit to interrupt.
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Nate says...

Why I love to hate institutionalized religion

One of my youth asked me tonight about how we experience the Holy Spirit today in our world. That led me to tell a short version of how the Holy Spirit has been experienced in Christian history from the Apostles until now. The history went something like this:

Will Nate ever go Catholic?

A friend of a friend named Matt (check his blog here) sent me an email after reading my blog the other day. In it, he asked me a rather blunt question, but one worth answering and sharing with y'all:

"Can I ask you a question? Have you ever considered becoming Catholic?"

Given all the stuff I write on this blog in favor of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, I felt I needed to answer this publicly and not just privately. Here it goes:

SHORT ANSWER: Yes. I have considered becoming Catholic with a big "C" (i.e. Roman Catholic). I already consider myself catholic with a small "c".

LONG ANSWER: We have all seen Church "family trees" in our Church history classes. Usually the denomination / sect / tradition that you are (and I say this for any denomination) in winds up being the middle of the chart, and all other forms of Christianity are seen as deviations to the right or left, if not fallen off entirely. This makes your particular denomination the "truest" expression of the Church, the norm to judge all others.

And now for something completely different

2018 UPDATE: I disagree with much of the content in this blog now, and am keeping it online only as evidence of how I have evolved and grown in Christ. 

To make proper sense out of this blog, it might be best to read my original post on “Where have all the good heresies gone?”, followed by my (admittedly vitriolic) reply to Krister’s comments on that blog, found at “Houston, we have a debate”.

I have got to hand it to Krister, he is humble and honest once you get past the rhetoric. He listened to me in one of my feistier moments and had the intestinal fortitude to reply with intellect and honesty. For that, I say that I see Christ in your reply and your attitude, even if I am not (yet) sure where He is in your theology. Thank you sir, and now I will respond in a much more sane manner.

I am sorry my reply was so harsh. But I did it for a purpose: there is a certain agenda of false tolerance in the theological outlook of Krister and many I have found in so-called “liberal” seminaries. This agenda has to be struck right between the eyes to make it realize how false, non-enlightened, and culturally determined it is. Sometimes soft words speak most loudly. Sometimes loud words do. Jesus used both. I felt like loud words were best on the last post, and if I was out of line, I am sorry. I will try to use softer words here.

But, before I do, here is Krister’s kind response to my not-so-kind response to him:

Houston, we have debate!

2018 UPDATE: I disagree with much of the content in this blog now, and am keeping it online only as evidence of how I have evolved and grown in Christ. 

Y'know, if you want no one to care what you write, write it very carefully, nuanced, so that it does not offend anyone. If, however, you want to get a lively discussion going, make outrageous statements that are just on the cusp of being undefendable! A theo-blogger named Krister (check his blog out here) just got kind of ticked off at my blog on the current homosexual crisis in the Anglican Church and wrote this:

Where have all the good heresies gone?

2018 UPDATE: I disagree with much of the content in this blog now, and am keeping it online only as evidence of how I have evolved and grown in Christ. 

The current situation in the Anglican Communion grieves me. As someone who has come to know and love the communion over the last six years (I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church in December of 2000), it is like watching the family you have just married into be ripped apart by adultery. As someone who is seeking ordination to the priesthood, it makes me worry about my future livelihood and calling. What, after all, am I getting myself into? I look at other communions / denominations and their relative lack of drama compared to us, and I often wonder if I should jump ship. But everytime I do, God whispers two things simultaneously in my spiritual ears: First, a line from "Mere Christianity" and the Gospel of St. John: "What is that to you? Follow thou me." Second, the grass always looks greener on the other side, but every lawn is crawling with pests, and chances are you will be more miserable with their pests than your own. Stay where you are at, where I have called you.

Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason in Anglican Theology

So, how do Anglicans interpret all the Scripture we read? Anglicans are first and foremost a "Bible church", and that means that we cannot, and do not, deviate from the data we find in Scripture. Scripture is divinely given by God and is the constitutional document upon which all other tradition and meditation on God must be done. You cannot get to God without going through Jesus Christ (John 14.6 ff). And you cannot get to Christ without going through Scripture. 

We cannot go "over" Scripture by using forms of higher criticism, or "under" Scripture by removing its foundation in history and claiming it to be a mythical document, or by simply going "around" Scripture and saying that the content of Scripture is hopelessly tied to its time and place of composition, and can offer no enduring principals for 21st century humans. It is the only reliable data we have about who God is and how to live for Him. Yet, data does not interpret itself. Kind of like data on a computer disk. You could have the plans for a revolutionary invention on the disk, but if you do not have a computer to interpret it, it is useless. In the same way, the Bible is only useful when interpreted by God's family, the Church. We Anglicans believe that there are two or three tools God has given the Church to do this.

An Affirmation of Women's Ordination

In a number of Anglican Churches (especially in the U.S., Canada, England, and Africa) you will find female priests. Ordination of women was one of the most hotly debated issues in the Anglican Church from the 1960's to the 1980's. It is still hotly contested by many Anglicans. For instance, the diocese next to mine does not ordain women to the priesthood, nor do they permit women priests to minister in their diocese. Much ink, and not a few unkind words, have been spilled over this issue in the last four decades.

I will try to explain the basic reasons for, and against, women's ordination. Before I attempt this, I want to make three admissions: First, I believe in women's ordination and my writing will reflect this. I will try to be fair, but I am not objective. Second, I will probably over-simplify things. This is a vast subject with many books written on it. Third, I have friends who are against women's ordination, and I once was against it myself. I respect the position of anyone who honestly opposes women's ordination for the sake of Christ (though I disagree with them). If you are in a Church that opposes women as priests, please ask your pastor for his view on the matter. With that said, let us talk about the four most common objections to women's ordination: