Come Let us Use the Grace Divine

When I was in college I one day stumbled across an interesting looking book at Barnes & Noble called Swear to God: the Promise and Power of the Sacraments by Scott Hahn. Hahn came out of the Reformed tradition (which also shaped Anglican views - including John Wesley's - of the Sacraments) though he had later become a Roman Catholic. True to Hahn's reputation, the book contained plenty of apologetics for the Roman Catholic Church, but I really resonated with his teaching on sacraments that was exciting, Biblical, and fresh.

The sacraments are signs of the covenant (like Circumcision) and they are "covenant oaths" - or pledges or promises. In recieving the sign we recieve certain promises from God and simultaneously make our own pledges of faithfulness to him as well. "I will be your God and you will be my people" is that refrain that echoes throughout the Bible.

It is very much like an exchange of rings during a wedding ceremony. The exchange is symbolic, but in the act of "doing" the symbol itself (what Hahn and others call "a sign-act") we do something else. In giving and recieving rings, we "wed" (from the old ceremony: "With this Ring, I thee wed"). In the sacraments we commit ourselves to Christ and recieve - in a solemn covenantal way - his grace-filled commitment to us. Undertaking the sign-act changes our relationships and therefore our identity (like with the rings).

Hahn lays out the Biblical case for this understanding of sacraments in great detail, starting from Genesis and going all the way to Revelation. One simple passage that may uniquely illustrate it is 1 Pet. 3:21 "And baptism, which [the great flood] prefigured, now saves you - not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ..." Now the phrase translated "as an appeal to God for a good conscience" can also be rendered "as a pledge to God of a good conscience." (Compare the RSV with the NIV here). So you can see that in the same sentence baptism is both our appeal, asking God to give us cleansing grace, and also our pledge of faithfulness to live in that grace. The baptismal promise is tied here (as in Romans 6 as well) to the power of the Resurrection of Jesus for its efficacy.

The Eucharist or Lord's Supper, then, can be understood similarly: we make a "covenant remembrance" calling upon God to remember his gracious promise over us and renewing our own vows to him; and in the Holy Communion we also recieve heavenly nourishment to live out our promises - the nourishment that is the presence of Christ.

I was delighted to discover, after having read and been convinced by Hahn's approach, that this is also the Wesleyan and Methodist approach to sacraments. Consider this statement from Hoyt Hickman's little pamphlet "United Methodists and Communion": Our Confession of faith states: "We believe the sacraments, ordained by Christ, are symbols and pledges of the Christian's profession and of God's love toward us..." The term [sacrament] is taken from the Latin sacramentum, which was a Roman soldier's pledge of allegiance. A sacrament is God's pledge of allegiance (love and faithfulness) to us, and our answering pledge of allegiance to God.

A beautiful statement of the covenant nature of sacraments (as well as their efficacy as "channels of grace") can also be found in the Charles Wesley hymn, "Come Let us use the Grace Divine." Though included in the Baptism/Confirmation section of the hymnal it can be understood eucharistically as well, as at my seminary, where the SMU Wesley Foundation had a weekly communion service that always began with this hymn before the Great Thanksgiving prayer:

Come let us use the grace divine and all with one accord,

in a perpetual covenant join ourselves to Christ the Lord;

give up ourselves, through Jesus' power, his name to glorify;

and promise in this sacred hour, for God to live and die.

The covenant we this moment make be ever kept in mind;

we will no more our God forsake, or cast these words behind.

We never will throw off the fear of God who hears our vow;

and if Thou art well pleased to hear, come down and meet us now.

Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, let all our hearts recieve,

present with Thy celestial host the peaceful answer give;

to each covenant the blood apply which takes our sins away,

and register our names on high and keep us to that day!

(United Methodist Hymnal #606)

The College Gender-gap

As male students fall further behind, the higher-ed gender gap will have far-reaching social consequences. Check it out.

Favorite Short Theology books

I love small books. They are easy to carry around, can somtimes fit in your pocket, and usually are pretty quick reads - which gives me a feeling that I've accomplished something very valuable with my life. What are your favorite/most influential short (around 150 pages or less) theological or spiritual writings?

Here are a few of my favorites in no particular order:

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

The Lord and His Prayer by N.T. Wright

On the Incarnation by St. Athanasias (introduced by C.S. Lewis)

Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail by Robert E. Webber

Eight Life-Enriching Practices of United Methodists by Henry H. Knight III

Announcing the Reign of God by Bishop Mortimer Arias

Of True Religion by St. Augustine

Many of the 90-ish page small books of the Upper Room Spiritual Classics Series are quite good as well. These books provide an easy way to dip into the writings of, say, St. Augustine or John Wesley or the Desert Fathers & Mothers.

The 'Wired' Pastor

I have a number of friends (including some younger clergy) who are all caught up on the latest gadgets and ways of being connected. I, on the other hand, am hopelessly behind the times (my phone has no internet!) and because of the little Luddite inside of me, part of me likes it that way. These up-to-date friends of mine, through their all purpose mobile device, are constantly in touch with email, facebook, twitter, blogs, texts, voicemail, Myspace, Google and (lest we forget) phone calls. This sometimes makes uninterrupted conversation with these individuals frustratingly difficult to sustain. I sometimes wonder, and with an uneasy feeling, about the spiritual effects of today's hyper-connectivity.

Here is a really thought provoking blog post on the "wired pastor".
Here is a quote:

In response to our frenetic world, in which we can speak instantly to anyone around the world but have very little to say, I would argue pastors should be inaccessible more often than not. Part of our problem is that we get agitated if the email bell doesn’t go off every 30 seconds. Over against this, the pastor needs to teach us, to embody patience, or even silence. If my pastor, for example, is always instantly emailing me back, when is she praying for me? When is she quietly sitting in God’s presence, waiting for a word for us for Sunday? When is she nourishing her own soul in a way unrelated to her service to us, but just because God is good?

Now that I think of it, I wonder if part of my attraction to the liturgical church has been precisely as a reaction to the technologizing of every other aspect of life. Going to a worship service where all is basically as it was a hundred, even a thousand, years ago is spiritually refreshing somehow, like a hike in the deep woods where the sounds of highways and airplanes do not intrude.

On Tebow's Super Bowl ad

Here is an interesting article from a pro-choice woman (who therefore disagrees with Tebow's views) that nevertheless praises Tebow and blasts the National Organization for Women (NOW) over that whole "controversy" about Tebow's pro-life Super Bowl ad. After having seen the ad itself with its theme of "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life", it is hard to believe NOW really called it "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." I guess that's what happens when you take a strong stance on an ad you've never actually seen. No wonder groups like NOW are losing credibility with larger (more moderate) public.

N.T. Wright on hell

I found this video at the "Out of Ur" blog connected with Christianity Today. This is N.T. Wright's intersting take on 'hell' - which he gets into a little bit in his marvelous book Surprised by Hope . What he says reminds me a good deal of the ideas about the nature of hell tossed around by C.S. Lewis in his own marvelous book The Great Divorce and elsewhere.

Many Christians in the historic Protestant churches seem to have lost a language for talking about hell. It may be, as some have suggested, this is because we don't really believe in hell or don't really believe anyone will actually experience hell. If that is so, we should look more closely at the spiritual condition of the world around us. I also wonder if we've given much thought to the matter, or considered that hell might be a necessary corollary to some of our other beliefs - such as the freedom (by God's grace) to accept or reject the offer of salvation given us in Jesus Christ. Presumably a free choice - if it genuinely is that - must make us liable to actual consequences.

I personally don't much like the English word 'hell' - owing to its associations with torture in Medieval theology and also to its origin in Norse mythology that has no clear connection to any Greek or Hebrew concept deployed in the Bible (like Hades/Sheol, Gehenna/Tartarus, and so on). Yet I think it is important for us to learn a compelling way to speak about the state of those who have forsaken God, as indeed Jesus Christ and his apostles certainly do in the New Testament. I applaud N.T. Wright for attempting to do just that.

Of all the biblical images of hell, the one that makes the most sense to me is that of "outer darkeness" (see Matt. 8:12; Matt. 22:13; Matt. 25:30), since by our sin we seperate ourselves from the God who is Light and Life (see Is. 59:2), and so we will continue on in that state of darkness and death unless we experience the redemption of Christ Jesus.

I think the old word "damnation" may also be instructive here. The Latin means "finding guilty" or "condemn", but the root of this word was also used to mean something along the lines of "to suffer a loss" Perhaps we should think of the sufferings of damnation as the loss of God.

"In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question: 'What are you asking God to do?' To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But he has already done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They [do not will to] be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does.
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, chp 8 (p. 130)

Archbishop speaks sense on Equality Bill

The Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, recently addressed the House of Lords of the British Parliament with regards to an Equality Bill being debated. The bill addresses employment discrimination but many Christian leaders have worried that it does not contain enough protections for religious groups.

If passed it might have created great difficulties for Christian Churches. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, might have been prosecuted for employment discrimination owing to their refusal to hire women as priests; other Churches might have been prosecuted where their doctrinal or behavioral standards for clergy and staff might prevent non-Christians or homosexuals from being hired.

This is one area where a societal commitment to "inclusivism" in the abstract as a value, even a "right," may well come into conflict with the particulars of Christian faith and ecclesial practice. If the governing authorities do not make allowances for religious exemptions, then certain pieces of the Christian faith will have become criminalized, despite our Western societies' supposed commitment to religious freedom.

This is actually very worriesome to me because it could happen that non-Christian magistrates, who may not fully grasp the nature and coherence of the various aspects of Christian faith and ecclesial practice, may nevertheless be called upon to pass judgement on us and would do so from their own ideological commitments, creating in essence a clash of faiths within the legal system.

Anyways, here is an exerpt from the Archbishop's prepared remarks to the house of Lords:

The Archbishop [said]: "There are, I know, those who struggle with the concept of allowing any exemptions provision for religious organisations in relation to discrimination in the field of employment. But the argument is a very simple one: religious organisations, like all organisations, need to be able to impose genuine occupational requirements in relation to those who serve them.

"Successive legislation over the past 35 years has always recognised the principle that religious organisations need the freedom to impose requirements in relation to belief and conduct which go beyond what a secular employer should be able to require.

"Noble Lords may believe that the Roman Catholic Church should allow priests to be married, they may think that the Church of England should hurry up with allowing women to become bishops. They may feel that many Churches and other religious organisations are wrong on matters of sexual ethics. But, if religious freedom means anything it must mean that those are matters for the churches and other religious organisations to determine for themselves in accordance with their own convictions. They are not matters for the law to impose. Start down that road and you will put law and conscience into inevitable collision. That way lies ruin. "

As Edmund Burke said: 'Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.' The onus is on Her Majesty's Government to demonstrate why any narrowing of the provisions in existing legislation under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Sexual Orientation Regulations 2003 needs to be made.

Update: this bill failed to pass.