I am weak in the faith; strengthen me.

I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent, that my love may go out to my neighbor.

I do not have a strong and firm faith; at times I doubt and am unable to trust you altogether. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in you.

In you I have sealed the treasure of all I have.

I am poor; you are rich and came to be merciful to the poor.

I am a sinner; you are upright.

With me, there is an abundance of sin; in you is the fullness of righteousness.

Therefore I will will remain with you, of whom I can receive, but to whom I may not give.

Amen.

Here on Internet Monk, Michael has made no secret of the fact that he is a huge fan of pastor, author, and professor Eugene Peterson. And I am right there with him in my admiration of Peterson’s writings.

If you would like to go back and read some of what Michael has said about the man and his writings, here are some posts from the iMonk archives about Peterson:

March 4, 2005
August 22, 2007
January 31, 2008
Sabbatical Journal I
Sabbatical Journal continued
Sabbatical Journal conclusion

Though best known in popular circles as the author of The Message paraphrase of the Bible, it is Peterson’s earlier works on what it means to be a pastor and his devotional books and Bible studies that I have long loved and treasured as encouragements for my spiritual life and ministry.

The other day I received my copy of Eugene Peterson’s new book, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ. In this work, Peterson has his readers contemplate the message of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians to help us learn what it means to, “grow up to the full stature of Christ.”

This is the final book in Peterson’s “Conversations on Spiritual Theology” series. Each book is deeply insightful and well worth reading. The other four are:

1. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology
2. Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
3. The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways that Jesus Is the Way
4. Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers

I plan to put up several posts on what Eugene Peterson has to say in Practice Resurrection. I hope you will join the conversation.

In my view, Eugene Peterson has been one of the most thoughtful and eloquent critics of American Christianity. In the introduction to Practice Resurrection, he takes on the subject of how we have handled spiritual growth.

We cannot overemphasize bringing men and women to new birth in Christ. Evangelism is essential, critically essential. But is it not obvious that growth in Christ is equally essential? Yet the American church has not treated it with an equivalent urgency. The American church runs on the euphoria and adrenaline of new birth—getting people into the church, into the kingdom, into causes, into crusades, into programs. We turn matters of growing up over to Sunday school teachers, specialists in Christian education, committees to revise curricula, retreat centers, and deeper life conferences, farming it out to parachurch groups for remedial assistance. I don’t find pastors and professors, for the most part, very interested in matters of formation in holiness. They have higher profile things to tend to.

Americans in general have little tolerance for a centering way of life that is submissive to the conditions in which growth takes place: quiet, obscure, patient, not subject to human control and management. The American church is uneasy in these conditions. Typically, in the name of “relevance,” it adapts itself to the prevailing American culture and is soon indistinguishable from that culture: talkative, noisy, busy, controlling, image-conscious.

…Not long ago a pastor who has made an art form of pole vaulting from church to church told me that I was wasting my time on this, there was no challenge to it, it was about as exciting as standing around watching paint dry.

I suggested to him that most of our ancestors in both Israel and church have spent most of their time watching the paint dry, that the persevering, patient, unhurried work of growing up in Christ has occupied the center of the church’s life for centuries, and that this American marginalization is, well, American. He dismissed me. He needed, he said, a challenge. I took it from his tone and manner that a challenge was by definition something that could be met and accomplished in forty days. That’s all the time, after all, that it took Jesus.

For far too long now, with full backing from our culture, we have let the vagaries of our emotional needs call the shots. For too long we have let ecclesiastical market analysis set the church’s agenda. For too long we have stood by unprotesting as self-appointed experts on the Christian life have replace the “full stature of Christ” with desiccated stick figures.

That’s a powerful critique.

Peterson’s counter-cultural answer is for the church to “practice resurrection,” to learn to walk with Jesus in a reality that is not of our own making or controlling.

I can’t wait to see what he has to say. Hope you’ll join the journey and the conversation.

St. Peter’s also makes notes available to use while watching. Download notes here. (MOD: With regard to downloading the notes, clicking the link on St. Peter’s page will take you to another link at the bottom of the page. Right click (or Ctrl-click for Mac) to download the PDF file.)

Instructed Eucharist from St. Peter’s Anglican Church on Vimeo.

If you haven’t read the current post at The Master’s Table, I want to say a big thanks to my FRIEND Clark Bunch for such a kind post.

My situation is serious. Sleep is a big issue. I need rest and it is hard to get. This cancer situation is not going to give my old life back. It may take the life I have. I choose whatever mission God has for me, the utmost need is a simple prayer on my behalf.

If what I am going through reminds you of what you have been through what you what been through in the past, I pray for you and hope others will be the same.

I am home most of the time but I am on the road on almost every day to various doctors. Tomorrow I finish my first found of chemo and have a fell week off. I am so proud to have come through radiation and to this point.

Thanks for all donations. I will no longer be able to acknowledge them through Paypal. Denise will try to acknowledge all that come via denisespenc@gmail.com.

Once again: Very, very serious. Pray, give and pray. Thanks to all who are buying the book in advance. It will be at Amazon but eventually everywhere. Almost 100% new material.

This post took almost an 3/4 of an hour to write and correct. That’s how much I have changed.

This reflection from last spring seems a timely word to all who are struggling to make sense of the recent Haiti disaster. May we send our curses in the right direction.

I was doing the annual spring yard clean-up this past spring.  My wife had done most of the raking and left them in neat piles for me to come behind and bag up.  I’m a manly man, so I didn’t think I needed to wear work gloves to pick up a few leaves.  What I didn’t expect, as I thoughtlessly grabbed handfuls of leaves to stuff into the bags, was that she had also pruned the rose bush nearby and buried the thorny branches in the same pile of leaves.

Ouch!!!

As the thorn punctured my hand I couldn’t resist cursing the ground under my breath.  Before I could feel guilty for my foul choice of words, I was immediately reciting scripture in my head.  Yes, my careless yard work incident had suddenly transported me into a moment of deep theological reflection.

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field” (Gen 3:17-18).

As I continued to bag leaves — this time more cautiously and using a rake rather than bare hands — I made the following two observations:

1. The lingering, deep-seated effects of that primordial Fall are ever before us. In a culture that all too often entertains utopian visions of human progress, we Christians need to remind the world that, apart from the grace of God and the redemption project begun at Calvary and to be finished at Christ’s return, we are still working in a broken world full of painful thorns and thistles.  Apart from divine rescue, the odds are stacked against us.

2. We need to curse in the right direction. When people encounter suffering in this life they often curse in two wrong directions.  Many well-meaning Christians who have, I believe, a mistaken view of God’s sovereignty, ultimately end up blaming God for much of the pain and suffering in the world.  If God controls EVERYTHING, they reason, then God is responsible for every circumstance — whether good or evil.  Other people, especially those who leave God out of the picture, are left only to blame human beings for every unfortunate situation.  While God is responsible at times and human beings at other times, there are many circumstances where we just need to curse the fallen world we have inherited. (Not to mention Satan and the spiritual powers of evil.)  We are still living outside of Eden.

• When cancer steals away life in its prime, curse the Fall.
• When earthquakes claim entire cities, curse the Fall.
• When one loses a child in childbirth, curse the Fall.

Oh, how the reputation of God has been twisted by well-meaning people who try to find God’s mysterious providence behind so many natural evils that are so utterly contradictory to the character of God.  And, oh, how many people’s lives have been ruined by overbearing burdens of self-imposed guilt and self-loathing for things outside of their own control.

So, the next time you find yourself wrestling against nature in the garden, let us curse the Fall and then turn our hearts and hopes quickly toward heaven remembering that God is a gardener, too.  For although “all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Rom 8:22), we know that since that first Easter morning God has been laboring beside us as “the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay” (Rom 8:21).

So, let us not curse God for the thorns and thistles.  But let’s keep cutting them down, bagging them up and hauling them away to the nearest landfill!

Today’s post is by guest blogger, Chaplain Mike

Those of you with sensitive ears, cover them for a moment. I’m about to utter a dirty word.

OBLIGATION.

Let me give you another one.

DUTY.

I confess to being partially accountable for the fact that these are dirty words to many today, for I grew up in the American Baby Boomer generation. We came of age in a society of rules and manners, of authority and expected norms of behavior. And we rebelled, hard.

My generation wrote “Question authority” on blackboards across the country. We grew our hair long. We wore jeans with holes and patches and girls cast away their bras. We publicly protested the war. We dug rock ‘n roll and advocated the recreational use of drugs. We promoted free love. “If it feels good, do it,” was another of our slogans.

We didn’t believe in respecting our elders simply because they were elders. After all, most of them were hypocrites, living by somebody’s made-up code on the outside, screwed up on the inside and behind closed doors. And don’t even talk about how messed up their politics were. For us, conformity was the worst crime (at least conformity to the norms of “good” society).

I saw this change happen and I remember when things were different. When I went to junior high, we had a dress code. For boys, no hair below the tops of the ears. Shirts tucked in. Belt required. No blue jeans, no sneakers. You said, “Yes, sir,” and “Yes, ma’am” when addressed by an adult. You asked permission to speak, and when you did you called grown-ups by their last names and appropriate titles.

You also went to church. That’s what good people did. It was your duty. It wasn’t your job to question such things, especially if you were a child or teenager.

But we didn’t like or accept this society of rules and duties. We felt obliged to nothing. Our duty was to be true to ourselves. We didn’t care about appearances; we wanted things to be “real”. We craved “authenticity.” We sought “experience” and when we copped a good high on something, we called it “truth.”

I had a spiritual awakening in 1974, became a pastor in 1978, and for more than three decades now have seen how this thinking has affected the church, particularly in the area of worship.

In most of evangelicalism, the old rules have been simply thrown out. The church has rejected principles of objectivity, tradition, form, repetition, and authority, and has replaced them with notions of subjectivity, spontaneity, freedom, and personal preference. It is no longer “the Divine Service,” it is “my worship.”

With an ever-growing bag of technological tools at our disposal to make it happen, Christians have more and more become a people for whom worship simply is not worship unless it gives me a tangible “high.” As a worshiper, I must have an “awesome experience” of God’s presence and power to feel like I’ve worshiped. God’s “truth” is defined as that which comes home to my heart with powerful emotions and a sense of being somehow “transformed.” The worship music of the past 40 years has by and large unashamedly focused on cultivating an ecstatic intimacy with God. Anything rote or not immediately appealing to the “heart” is cold, formal, and dead.

Pastors have joined the “get real” movement. They no longer wear the robe or hide behind a pulpit, but wander around a stage dressed casually, talking “authentically” about their own lives, dealing with topics that are “relevant” to their target audience.

In every area of the church’s worship—architecture, seating, music and the arts, order of service, sacraments, etc.—we seem intent on reworking and manipulating our practices so that they produce the most bang for the buck. For example, Willow Creek used to say the goal in their services was to create “moments” for people, moments of spiritual breakthrough, “aha!” moments, “wow” moments.

There is a whole lot of theology we could chew on with regard to this subject, but I simply want to introduce one contrarian notion to all this rubbish that says, “What I don’t feel can’t be real.”

Obligation.

Why do I worship God? Why do I attend a worship service and participate in it? The bottom-line answer is simply this: “Because I am obliged to do so.”

I owe it to God. I come to the worship service to give him his due. It is my obligation and duty as one created by God, redeemed in Christ, and baptized in the Holy Spirit to present offerings of worship and thanksgiving to him for who he is and what he has done for me.

Each week in the liturgy, we say:

Leader: Lift up your hearts.
People: We lift them to the Lord.
Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
People: It is right to give him thanks and praise.
Leader: It is indeed right, our duty and delight…

Note the emphasis here. It is “right” to lift up our hearts in worship to the Lord. It is “indeed right.” It is our “duty” to do so. Only when we’ve established that fact do any words of emotion or feeling enter in—“It is our duty and delight…” In fact, it may be that the “delight” only comes as part of fulfilling the “duty”!

We resist this because we do not understand the concept of “obligation” or “duty.” Many of us, when we hear those words, think of something that is required of us that we really don’t want to do. An obligation means a burden of responsibility that is unpleasant and unfulfilling. To fulfill a duty means to perform a tasteless task while gritting my teeth and wishing I were somewhere else. And all because of somebody’s “rules.”

These words need to be redeemed.

I worship God because it is my obligation to do so. But this is not because some cruel taskmaster has laid an unwelcome duty on me. No! It is my obligation because of the very nature of things. It is “right” because it is is congruent with reality.

• Because of who God is and because of who I am.
• Because he is the Creator, and everything in this universe, including me, was made by him.
• Because he sustains me every day of my life, granting me each breath and heartbeat.
• Because he is my Redeemer and Savior.
• Because he took note of my sinfulness and brokenness, took pity on me and gave his Son to die and rise again on my behalf, conquering sin and death for me.
• Because he is my Comforter and Guide.
• Because the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in my life, assuring me of the divine promises and writing God’s laws on my heart so that I may obey them.

Since everything I am and have has come from his hand, I am obliged to say “thank you.” It is my duty to bring my offering of praise. I owe it to him. I am fully aware that I can never repay him, and that is the last thing on my mind. I am simply recognizing my eternal debt to the One who made me and saved me.

Grasping this takes worship completely out of the realm of coming to a service to seek out an “experience” with God. Whether or not I have a “moment” is simply not the point.

The traditional liturgy of the church is designed first of all to enable worshipers to fulfill the obligation of giving thanks to our Creator and Savior for who he is and what he has done.

Whether I feel like it or not, I owe it to God.

Now I know some of you are going to point to the prophets and to Jesus and start throwing verses at me about the danger of going through the motions without putting your heart in it. And you are right. But you are talking about the diminished definition of “obligation” that we all grew up fearing.

The fact that something is a duty or obligation does not require anyone to do it as a mere formality. In fact, to truly recognize our obligation is the most foundational motivation of heartfelt obedience.

COMMENTS NOW CLOSED.

If anyone asks me why I go to church, I am not afraid to tell them: it is my obligation and duty. It’s simply the right thing to do.

Today, Chaplain Mike continues our discussion on the Scriptures by setting forth this classic IM post from Michael (1/08) on a foundational issue with regard to the Bible: What is the “canon” of Scripture?

UPDATE: I will not re-run the post on the Lutheran view of the canon (which Michael references below) at this time. However, if you want to read Josh Strodbeck’s post from Jan. 2008, go here.

After reading Mark Shea’s By What Authority? and revisiting Craig Allert’s A High View of Scripture? I started making some notes on my own ideas about the question of canonicity.

This post will be followed later by popular Internet Monk poster and famous Lutheran blogger Josh Strodtbeck, who will give us the Lutheran view of the canon. So this ought to be fun, interesting, and make the right people mad enough to call me an “invertebrate.” (Love those flashes of TR rhetoric.)

As some of you know, discussions about authority, who is the true church, what franchise operation did Jesus found and where should we all shop really give me the hives. Inerrantists, some Calvinists, most recent evangelical converts to the RCC and the entire Church of Christ in western Kentucky are all into this. Still, you have to think about these things. So get ready to discover that I don’t think the canon is as closed as most of you, and I am not nearly as afraid of tradition as some of you want me to be. The one thing I know is that on this bus, we’re all fallible, and that makes the subject interesting.

See you in the comments.

I’m no expert on the subject of canon, and I need to spend more time studying the subject, but I get a fair amount of questions from students about the canon and canon-related issues. Without trying to write a polished essay, I have several ideas about the canon I’d like to cover.

We have to be very careful with the concept of canon, because there is clearly a tendency to practice considerable anachronism with the whole business. Most of the questions I’ve fielded about canonization assumed that what were talking about is the approval of a list of books by some official and authoritative body, which actually becomes another discussion entirely. If we can hold off debating what denomination is the “true church” we can get much further with this idea.

Scripture itself has no formal table of contents in any book. In fact, the form of the scripture as a bound single book necessitating a table of contents is a construct of ours and not a specific command of God. On the other hand, those of us with an appreciation for tradition need to consider whether any view of tradition results in a final and authoritative “list of books in the Bible” that is never open for further discussion. The idea of “canonical” books is never as neat, simple and final as Christians would like it to be. No amount of posturing, shouting, waving Bibles or citing votes will make canonicity simple. It is, and always will be, one of the most difficult of Christian beliefs.

Canonization as event makes for a nice chart or lecture, but reflection on the nature of the writings we have in front of us will remind us that we can’t be talking about a particularly neat process, but one that is very organic and spread out. For example, consider a book like Jeremiah. We begin with Jeremiah himself and his sense of call. Then we move to his belief that God is speaking a particular message to him and through him. That message is written down, let’s say by Baruch, who is also convinced that this is from God. All of this is a kind of “canon,” in seed form.

Jeremiah’s disciples read what is written and share it with others. It is copied, shared, recopied, sent to other communities and spread even more through the Jewish community. At every point, a decision is made both individually and corporately that “this is God’s word written.” This is canonization in process. There is no insurance that the inspiration of the writing will cause universal acceptance, but this is not required perfectly at every level for canonization to happen.

As Jeremiah’s writing gains more and more acceptance within the community that believes God speaks through his prophets, his “scroll” is used in worship, reading and teaching, it will gain more recognition by the informal authority structure of Judaism at the time. The recognition of divine inspiration and purpose grows through experience, repetition and use.

This kind of canonization process is not the parallel of church councils or popes, but seems to be the consensus of rabbinical authorities in particularly influential communities. It is unlikely anyone can put a date on canonization as an “event.” This consensus is reflected in the inclusion of Jeremiah in collections of inspired writings and the references to Jeremiah as “scripture” within that community. (Again, it is important to remember that this consensus is likely not unanimous, nor does it need to be for the writing of Jeremiah to be “scripture.”)

For Christians, Jeremiah’s canonical status comes from the acceptance and use of Jeremiah as scripture by Jesus and the Apostles. In the case of the book of Jeremiah, there are obvious examples in several places. This is not, however, true of all of the books in the “Old Testament” canon. Books such as Esther and Ecclesiastes do not have specific Apostolic attestation in the New Testament, but it appears that the canon used by Jesus and the Apostles was the canon of the Septuagint. While there may have still been canonical debate and disagreement among rabbinical schools, it is clear that the concept of canon extended to “Law, Prophets and Writings” as commonly- though perhaps not uniformly- understood by the Jewish community. This makes debate on the status of books not quoted in the New Testament- like Ecclesiastes- a bit of a moot point.

It is important, however, to note that the term “scripture” was not synonymous with “approved canon.” It is apparent that Jewish writers could use the term “scripture” in a much broader sense than we would use the word “canon,” and that books not included in canonical lists might be referred to as scripture. This seems to provide strong evidence that there are books- such as the Apocryphal books- that may have been quoted as “scripture” while not appearing universally on all Jewish lists of canon. In fact, it’s clear that the Jewish canon was never as settled as the retelling of the canonical tale might sometimes imply. This suggests that the category of “beneficial, but not authoritative” should be applied to some writings, and that supplemental collections of non-canonical books and readings are appropriate.

In the matter of a New Testament canon, much the same kind of organic process of creation, use, collection and canonization occurs. Christianity, however, developed a more rigorous authority structure with more “official” status given to the idea of canon and to the importance of canonical inclusion and restriction. This seems to be for two primary reasons.

First, canonical pronouncements were a way for heretical teachers to garner power, as Marcion demonstrated with his abbreviated canon. This necessitated more canonical pronouncements on the part of early church leadership in order to prevent false teachers from defining the apostolic faith.

Secondly, a canonical consensus was needed for a confessional consensus. Christianity was a faith with a strong sense of “oneness,” and while this did not eliminate diversity, it made diversity of some kinds more problematic. The witness of early Christian literature is of a diverse church that reaches for doctrinal unity through a continuation of apostolic authority in elders, bishops and councils. Christian history has proven that doctrinal disagreement often has implications for what we consider scripture.

Was the New Testament canonical debate an expression of an infallible church decision expressing God’s will regarding “closure” of the canon? Or do canonical issues remain open? Consider the canonical status of Mark 16:9-20 as it applies to the continuation of spiritual gifts or the necessity of baptism for salvation. I do not consider these verses to be apostolic or to go back to Jesus, and this affects how I respond to the use of these passages. For me, there are still canonical questions in play.

Within particular church communions, the question of canon is largely inseparable from the question of church authority. This is not surprising, nor is it surprising that many who join particular denominations find the question of “who defined the canon?” to be persuasive. For those who reject the concept of human infallibility and who believe the process of canonization to be a combination of God using scripture as His own Word and humans recognizing the inspiration of God, the canon is, as R.C. Sproul said, “a fallible collection of infallible books.”

Such language will make claims of an infallible canon produced by an infallible church authority all the more attractive for some, but those who want to approach the subject of canon honestly will, in my opinion, find Sproul’s conclusion to be truthful and helpful. Those who must have an infallible settlement of the canon question will find one in several places, along with a tendency toward an uncritical acceptance of tradition being in an extra-Biblical, superior relationship to scripture.

It is important to remember that the process of canonization exists at all the levels described earlier in this post, and continues in some ways even today. The pronouncement of one church that “Tobit” is canonical does not make it so within the experience and communities of believers that encounter the book. It is far more likely that the broader idea of “scripture” is functioning at the same time as the narrower concept of “canon.”

It is obvious to me that the canonical discussion is never entirely “locked down” and over in the church as a whole. The discovery of other Gospels and other first century Christian literature will continue to make the canon a subject of debate at every level. The discovery of another letter of Paul would quickly demonstrate that the votes of councils or denominations do not end the discussion.

If our approach to canon is focused on the canon as affirmed and formed by Jesus and the Apostles, we will find that the canonical discussions that were going on in the early church are still alive. Should a text in Hebrews carry as much weight as a text in the Gospel of John or Romans? Should extra-canonical citations in Jude bring about the inclusion of those books in the categories of “scripture” or “canon?” Was Luther’s criticism of the Epistle of James out of line, or are such discussions still valid? Should Revelation and II Peter be in the canon, given the doubts about them in the early church? Should a letter like I Clement or a teaching like The Didache be considerd “scripture” in some sense? If not, why not? If the author of the Fourth Gospel was Lazarus, and not the apostle John, would this affect its status in the canon? Are sayings of Jesus from outside the current four Gospels of any value to Christianity? Can Protestants still cite the witness of the early church in the construction of the canon without admitting the Roman Catholic view of infallible authority? Does the RC view of canon as stated at Trent stop the RC Christian from adjusting his/her view of the content of holy scripture based on textual discoveries regarding passages that were accepted at the time of the council, but are not in the Greek text now? These are important questions regarding the canon that are still in play today.

The Lutheran approach to the canon has been more of a “middle way,” suggesting that we should be more conservative in regard to issues of apostolic authorship in particular. Recent evangelical discussion of the canon has suggested that a recognition of the difference between the use of the term “scripture” and authoritative pronouncements of “canon” may be important for Protestants to accept. Anglicans read books in worship that most evangelical Protestants exclude, but do so from the standpoint of values other than strict canonicity.

Thoughtful consideration of the issue of canon will lead the post-evangelical to see the effect the printed Bible has on the concept of scripture. To be able to hold up A BOOK and say “this is the word of God” is, from the standpoint of what God has actually inspired, misleading. God’s revelation was not of “the Bible” as a book, but of the writing that the Christian community considers to be Holy Scripture in its various forms. The continuing canonical conversations are not a witness against God speaking his Word to his people, but an expression of the conviction that God has spoken and works through his Word.

Hard, clear and authoritatively pronounced lines drawn between what is the “Bible” and what is not are very attractive to a person seeking certainty in regard to “what is the right church and the right doctrine.” A more open, dynamic idea of canonicity- that includes the fallibility of human canon-makers while emphasizing connection to Jesus and the Apostles- is far less attractive by way of certainty. If we are to constantly see the scriptures as being given to us by Jesus and through his Apostles, then a middle way is the right way to avoid the ditches of narrow authoritarianism and individualistic chaos.

Questions:

1. So do you believe in an open canon?

I believe the word canon implies a long process that is not controlled by any vote or event, but that goes on dynamically as God’s people encounter God’s Words in various ways. I believe that the process of canonization is not entirely closed, but for all practical purposes it is. Even though questions, issues and future events remain, the current consensus within the major communions is strong.

2. Could something produced by a modern prophet be scripture?

No. It isn’t connected to Jesus and it isn’t Apostolic.

3. So we don’t know what God’s Word is?

First, you’re probably assuming that God’s Word is a single book. That’s seems to me to be an artifact of recent technology. God’s Word comes to his people in the writings that faithfully attest to Jesus Christ and the Gospel.

As to your specific question, I don’t entirely know the boundaries of what may be scripture. There are canonical questions that remain and I do not believe pronouncements at various times in Christian history closed the door on the boundaries of what Christian may consider to be scripture.

But certainly the scriptures that all Christians agree on provide more than sufficient attestation to the truth of Jesus and the Gospel. There is no central Christian doctrine at stake in any possible canonical discussion.

God’s Word is Jesus Christ. Beyond that, proceed with caution. God knows what he has given as his inspired Word, and it does what he set it into history to do.

4. What about the Gnostic Gospels or the Gospel of Thomas? Don’t these threaten our view of Jesus?

The Gnostic gospels clearly fail the test of canonization, and the presence of some authentic material would only make these writings of “interest.” They could never be Christian scripture. The Gospel of Thomas is the most interesting of these writings, but only a few marginal Christian groups would even attempt to make a case for some kind of canonical inclusion.

Ehrman’s suggestion that the scriptures of the diverse communities of the first century provide a very different picture of Christianity than what many Church historians want us to see seems like a valid point. But to suggest that the “Nicene” faith is overthrown by these writings is simply untrue. These Gospels are too late, unconnected to Jesus and unconvincing in any claims of Apostolicity.

5. Does the Protestant view of the canon depend on the Roman Catholic Church?

No, it doesn’t.

Protestants and Catholics disagree on whether the actions of the early church substantiate all the claims and dogmas of today’s Roman Catholic Church. Protestants need not reject the early church, the value or place of tradition, or the significance of actions by the church in order to reject the claim of infallibility. Protestants can have a canon by its affirmation by Jesus and the criteria of Apostolicity, though as I said in the post, the best we can have is a “fallible list of infallible books.”

Certainly, I believe a more “catholic” view of the why and what of scripture is appropriate. Scripture wasn’t canonized by the Southern Baptist convention, but by the church before it was sundered by division. Athanasius and the early church councils belong to all Christians. These are important milestones in how Protestants view scripture today. These are “windows” into some of the history of some of God’s people. But if God himself were writing the history of his people, I am not sure we would be reading the history of Roman Catholic canonization alone. I tend to believe the process in very organic, broad and diverse in ways no one denomination can ever completely see.

COMMENTS NOW CLOSED.

Today’s guest post is by Chaplain Mike.

UPDATE: Scot McKnight is discussing this over at Jesus Creed today as well. I encourage you to check out his perspective and those of his readers.

MY SPORTING LIFE
I grew up fully immersed in sports. Sports were a part of almost everything I did, every friendship, most activities. I became a jock. I got pretty good at basketball, and played competitively through my junior year in high school, capping off my career with a team that won the first regional championship in school history.

But I was especially focused on baseball. At the time of my conversion, as a senior in high school near Baltimore, I played for a school with a storied tradition. That year we again had a talented team that won our conference, beating out our rival, the school that would produce Cal Ripken, Jr. a few years later. I was honored as County Player of the Year, and there was little I loved more than baseball.

That was also the spring I met Jesus.

For some reason, at that time in my life, I thought this spiritual awakening meant that my life was supposed to change completely. Not just internally. Not just “spiritually.” Not just morally. Totally. Like the first disciples, I was being called to drop the nets, climb out of the fishing boat,  leave the family business behind, abandon it all and follow Jesus.

To me, that meant I was through with sports. I don’t think anyone told me that specifically, but nobody said differently either. When I graduated and started thinking about studying for the ministry, no one suggested I find a school with a baseball team. It was all about the Bible. It was all about following the Lord. It was all about spreading the message. And so I went to Bible college. Our school had a soccer team and a basketball team, but I never seriously considered playing. In fact, I rarely even attended games. Sports were now outside my radically narrowed focus. I was headed in a different direction.

Our first church was in a tiny mountain village in Vermont. My wife and I didn’t have a TV in our home by choice, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because reception was non-existent. Occasionally I listened to the Orioles or the Cubs on the radio when a distant AM station would come in, and once or twice we went to Fenway to see a game, but sports was no longer a regular or central part of my life, my thinking, or my interest.

We continued in this vein when we moved back to Chicago for seminary. Life for us was all about school, work, church, having babies, and learning about family life. While there, we got caught up a little bit in the fun of watching the Chicago Bears win the Super Bowl, and we occasionally watched games at friends’ homes, but sports remained on the periphery.

Then our children started growing up. Girl’s basketball games began appearing on our schedule. Then, even more significantly for our future lifestyle, we started Little League baseball with my oldest son. After more than 15 years of living, for all practical purposes, without sports, we entered a season of life in which, for the next 20 years, sports once again became a prominent focus. In fact, it would not be overstating it to say that, except for the church, nothing filled our lives so much as interest and involvement in sports. Whether spending time at facilities cheering on our children, coaching, watching sports on TV as a part of our family experience, or attending professional sporting events as special occasions, we had become a “sports” family.

That culminated this last fall when my son played his final college football game. Our role as “sports parents” is suddenly over. It remains to be seen what will happen with the next generation, our grandchildren. But the lifestyle is still a big part of who we are. We continue to watch sports on TV and follow various teams. Having grown up in Chicago, I remain a lifelong Cubs and Bears fan. Living near Indianapolis, we root for the Colts and enjoy attending games at our Triple-A baseball park. I check scores daily. The remote is used regularly to flip through channels in hopes of finding a good competition to watch. We host or attend parties for big games. As a chaplain, I have found that sports can be a bridge for building friendships and creating opportunities for ministry.

So, sports remains a central part of our lives and daily conversations these days.

Sometimes, though, I feel twinges of spiritual concern.

SPORTS AND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
Like yesterday, when I read the thoughtful article by Shirl James Hoffman in Christianity Today entitled, “Sports Fanatics: How Christians have succumbed to the sports culture—and what might be done about it.” I encourage you to read it too, and see if doesn’t raise issues for you about our American preoccupation with all things sports.

Hoffman writes:

Americans are consuming sports on an unprecedented scale. The ancient Romans, long considered the gold standard for how sports-crazed a culture could be, were dilettantes compared to the sports fans of this century. The Romans could squeeze 50,000 spectators into the Coliseum for gladiatorial contests—a quaint assemblage next to the 107,000 seats regularly sold for University of Michigan or Penn State home football games. In 2006, Americans spent over $17 billion on tickets to sports contests and $90 billion on sporting goods, over double what they spent on books ($42 billion). Sports magazines take up prime space on bookstore shelves; the granddaddy of them all, Sports Illustrated, sells as many copies in a month (13.2 million) as To Kill a Mockingbird has sold since its publication in 1960. A tenth of The World Almanac is devoted to sports, more than is allocated for business, science, and politics combined.

None of this has been lost on evangelicals, who have been quick to harness sports to personal and institutional agendas. Less than a century ago, major segments of the evangelical community considered sports a cancer on the spiritual life; today their denominational progeny lead the parade to stadiums. The cozy coupling of sports and evangelicalism shows itself not only in the outsized athletic complexes that are common features of church architecture, but also in the ease with which sport and its symbols show up in the sanctuary. Pastors incorporate pithy sports metaphors into their sermons. Famous athletes are invited to pulpits to tell how their faith helps them compete. Some churches celebrate Super Bowl Sunday by canceling the evening service and assembling in the sanctuary to watch the game on large-screen TVs. “Faith nights” sponsored by local baseball teams draw entire congregations to the ballpark. Evangelistic organizations that center on the public’s fascination with sports flourish.

However, Hoffman later opines:

Variously described by those inside and outside as narcissistic, materialistic, violent, sensationalist, coarse, racist, sexist, brazen, raunchy, hedonistic, body-destroying, and militaristic, big-time sports culture lifts up values in sharp contrast with what Christians for centuries have understood as the embodiment of the gospel. There are simply no easy, straight-faced, intellectually respectable answers for how evangelicals can model the Christian narrative—with its emphases on servanthood, generosity, and self-subordination—while immersed in a culture that thrives on cut-throat competition, partisanship, and Darwinian struggle. If evangelical ethicist R. E. O. White is right to assert that self-absorption is behind all wrong social relationships and, for this reason, self-denial is the first ethical condition of discipleship, then elite athletes immersed in the self-consumed atmosphere of sports, where self-denial is a recipe for competitive disaster, face a fundamental problem.

…If indeed sport is marching toward Gomorrah, it seems to have escaped the attention of large portions of the evangelical community, which continue to bask in the reflected glory of Christian athletes. Much evangelical commentary glorifies athletes and sports, but becomes timid in situations that warrant indictment. Rarely does the evangelical press ask touchy questions about tensions between the moral culture of Christianity and that of big-time sports. The silence is deafening.

In its vision of sports, bolstered by the large number of Christian athletes who have joined professional and collegiate teams, the evangelical community has yet to ask how the influx of believers has affected the morality of sports. There may be no more vivid illustration of historian Mark Noll’s “scandal of the evangelical mind” than the way the community has neglected to think Christianly about sport, or has excused itself from crafting a sensible philosophy that will help them mine the spiritual riches that sport has to offer. [emphasis mine]

MERE “SPORTIANITY”
Back in 1976, Frank DeFord wrote a series of Sports Illustrated articles called “Religion in Sports,” in which he asserted, “Sunday has become a day of games rather than worship, but churchmen are adapting.”

In those articles, he coined a phrase, “Sportianity,” to describe a “new denomination” of Christianity that has embraced sports, has intentionally infiltrated its arenas for the purpose of evangelism, but which may have become, in fact, sports’ handmaiden.

Unlike DeFord, I am not qualified to speak on the complex relationship between sports and religion in America. My concerns are much more personal and pastoral. It seems to me that sports represents one of those areas of American pop culture that has simply inundated Christianity and left us helplessly going with the flow.

• Now churches schedule services and programs around sporting events and calendars, not vice versa.
• Now it is common for individuals and families to miss services and church activities to be involved in sports, whether simply watching or participating.
• In many minds, any specialness which Sunday maintains is usually more related to sporting events that are taking place that day than to Lord’s Day worship.
• People who would complain loudly of “legalism” or authoritarianism if the pastor suggested we dress up a little bit to honor God when we come to worship have no problem with wearing jerseys and other sports gear to church to show allegiance to their teams (picture the 80-year old woman wearing her Colts jersey, face paint and team-colored ribbons last week in our service).

But wait, isn’t most of this just harmless fun? Am I being too hard on God’s family here?

I am aware of the good aspects of sports, and I fully affirm them. After all, sporting fields and stands have been the context where I have sought to live out my faith over the past 20 years. But somehow, I wonder…

• Have we lost some perspective here?
• Was I completely wrong to have relativized sports, to have set it aside as a less worthy pursuit, when I was in the state of first love with Jesus?
• Has the Sportian lifestyle swallowed up a distinctive, counter-cultural Christianity?
• Do we live in a day in which it is simply impossible for pastors to admonish their congregations about a devotion to sports that has crossed the line, tying up their time, emotional energies, and finances in something which is not, in the final analysis, all that important?

Sportianity’s Holiest Celebration
And now we have come to Holy Week, which culminates on the holiest day of Sportianity’s year: Super Bowl Sunday. Here in Indianapolis, where we have a rooting interest in the game’s outcome, it’s just about all anyone is talking about.

• We’ll have our daily devotions listening to messages from sports pundits and talk-show hosts.
• We’ll have a special season of fellowship with our friends and coworkers, praising our team and encouraging one another with new insights into the game.
• We’ll share the good news with neighbors and coworkers that our team is best and will certainly win.
• We’ll utilize apologetics in commending our team against unbelievers, giving a reasonable defense as to why they will triumph.
• On game day, we’ll gather before the sacred flat screen altar, share the holy appetizers, and participate in the liturgy of watching the big game (and especially the commercials) with exclamations of praise and/or lament.
• We’ll go forth into the world on Monday to talk about our experiences and rejoice that we were together.

Then, on to spring training, the Final Four, the NFL draft, the start of baseball season, the NBA playoffs…

…with ESPN at our side, for he hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”

(Cartoon Copyright Gospel Communications International, Inc – www.reverendfun.com)

COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED.

Chaplain Mike posts today’s Open Mic question on behalf of the iMonk, Michael Spencer.

When I received this from Michael and was asked to post it, it reminded me that, often in my work as a hospice chaplain, I read the Psalms for my patients. However, I usually edit my readings. Why? The psalm Michael asks us to consider is a prime example.

Psalm 139 is a perennial favorite for Christians. Who doesn’t love the poetic picture it paints of God’s intimate knowledge and care of his people? Who doesn’t rejoice in its reassurance that we will never be without God’s presence? that he is constantly thinking of us and active in providing for us and protecting us?

But…but…

I guarantee you that I don’t read verses 19-22:

O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
those who speak of you maliciously,
and lift themselves up against you for evil!
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.

Why don’t we feel comfortable reading these verses?

Why do we feel compelled to “pick and choose” when we read the psalms?

Why do our minds try to justify or filter out such phrases as “I hate them with perfect hatred”? And what does a statement like that mean anyway?

How do we understand these imprecations in the light of other Scriptures, like the Sermon on the Mount, that say plainly, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”?

The mic is yours. Use it thoughtfully and let’s have a discussion about this.

Today’s post is from IM First Officer Michael Bell.

This past year has been a difficult one for me medically. In March I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, which for the uninformed means that I stop breathing while sleeping, for up to 90 seconds at a time, up to 60 times an hour. So now I have to sleep with a mask, which I absolutely hate. Then just before Christmas I got a flu bug. While things are not confirmed yet, it appears as if the virus attacked my pancreas. As a result I have become diabetic, and as of this writing the medicines have not been working, I am off work, and I may have to be started on insulin injections. One of the earlier symptoms that I was experiencing was a foggy brain, and making uncharacteristic mistakes at work.

So you might be wondering how I am feeling about this. Well, to be honest, not too bad. I think that recent events in Haiti, along with Michael Spencer’s current health difficulties help me to realize that I don’t really have much to complain about. I have a lovely, loving wife, three great kids, a house, a job, and a church I love.

The diabetes will eventually get under control. I have been losing weight and that should start to help with the sleep apnea. My life continues not that much different from the way it was a year ago.

Michael Spencer faces a much more difficult future. His income has ended, his health insurance is ending, and he faces some very trying times ahead with his cancer. Michael has given so much of himself to this blog over the last number of years.

As a community of Internet Monk readers, I would urge each of us to be a blessing to Michael Spencer. Please consider using the Pay Pal button to make a gift to Michael. Let us see what we can do to meet the needs of one of our own.