Woops! Your Theology is Showing

Ever since the Lord told Moses to make a tent of animal skins, David wanted to build a house for the King of Heaven, Peter wanted to make a place to camp out with the transfigured Lord or Paul met in a hall or rented space for debating, believers have been shaped by the physical structures they gather in as much as they have shaped those structures themselves. While repugnant to many spiritual purists, ecclesiastical iconoclasts and architectural docetists, it remains that the how & what of shape, form and design is loaded with symbolic, spiritual and theological meaning and significance whether a gathering is in  Chartres Cathedral, a main street store front or a living room with bean bag chairs. In the past a focal point has been the altar:

or the pulpit (such as this at Sinclair Seaman’s Presbyterian in Belfast):

or the cross:

Now it seems to be the drum set:

What might we conclude from this drum set (on steroids) claimed to be the largest drum set in the world by a church in New York state?

And are those lava lamps?

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

“God dwells in eternity but time dwells in God.  He has already lived all our tomorrows as He has lived all our yesterdays.”
A.W. Tozer – “The Knowledge of the Holy”

What’s the Big Idea…about Christmas?

“The Son of God became flesh by the Holy Spirit in order that the sons of Adam

might become sons of God by regeneration and adoption by the same Holy Spirit.”

Bah Humbug Awards (Deja Who?)

I know its the Christmas season ’cause every musician/singer with talent or no talent is trying to massacre Christmas songs in some sort of “new-creative-fresh approach” that end up more grotesque than over-boiled asparagus.  I’d rather listen to cats howling at midnight in a tin shed. My second “Bah Humbug Award” goes to all those singers who should have left well enough alone, such as:

Stevie Nicks (whose version of “Silent Night” does sound like cats howling in a tin shed)

Bob Seger (Little Drummer Boy?)

Lynrd Skynyrd (Santa Claus is Coming to Town!?)

James Taylor (Jingle Bells ?!?)

Ted Nugent (Deck the Halls !?!?)

and Willie Nelson, Guns N Roses, The Kinks, R.E.M., Queen and yes, even Father Guido Sarducci

The list goes on. To that I say,

Bah Humbug Awards

I enjoy the holidays. I do. But there are times like Ebenezer, I want to say “Bah Humbug!”  My First “Bah Humbug Award” this year goes to my neighbor who insists on sharing her gaudy, musical  tree display music full blast with the rest of us at 6:30AM.

To that I say “Bah Humbug!” & maybe if I’m good Santa will bring me a laser guided missile to put the display out of its misery…

Stay tuned!

A Veteran of a Different Stripe

 I recently finished an older book entitled “Blood and Fire: The Story of William and Catherine Booth and the Salvation Army” by Roy Hattersley (Doubleday, 2000).  I have wanted to learn more about the Booths, the founders of the Salvation Army since (as family history tells it) my maternal, Scottish great grandfather, Moncrieff Galloway, signed the “Articles of War” or “Soldier’s Covenant” of belief and practice after surviving the Boer War in S. Africa in 1902. He later moved to the U.S. in 1909 and worked in a factory as he continued to preach and serve in “the Army” as a Sgt. Major. I have a small pocket New Testament of his with one of his sermon outlines written in pencil on the inside of the cover.  

While best known today for their social work and the storefront Christmas bell-ringer and change bucket, in their times, the Booths were unconventional, radical and shocked the stolid church establishment. They were routinely attacked by the press and church leaders as rude, crude, and socially un-respectable even as their adherents from the working classes, once decimated by crime, poverty, prostitution and alcohol were physically attacked by mobs and gangs organized by liquor manufacturers and bar owners. Like many trailblazers and leaders they were autocratic, insensitive and demanding but worked with a clear sense of  drive and mission that was almost apostolic in spirit.  

            Reviewer Wendy Smith writes, “They preached in the streets of London accompanied by brass bands, appropriating the methods of ungodly popular entertainment to draw working-class sinners to righteousness. They founded soup kitchens and people’s halls to feed the hungry and give them a place to congregate other than the tavern. William Booth (1829-1912) and his wife, Catherine (1829-90), outraged polite society with the establishment of their Christian Mission in 1865. Rechristened the Salvation Army in 1878, the organization challenged the smug Victorian status quo by insisting that sin sprang from unjust social conditions. British writer and Labour Party stalwart Roy Hattersley vividly conveys the political and religious context within which the Salvation Army operated without scanting the forceful (not to say peculiar) characters of its founders. William was authoritarian and self-righteous, yet he often deferred to intellectual, strong-minded Catherine, whose instinctive sympathy for the poor and belief in women’s equality before God shaped their ministry. They were hardly warm people, yet their marital love was unshakable and absolute. The Salvation Army survived their autocratic leadership to flourish into the 21st century: ‘It is not necessary to believe in instant sanctification,’ writes Hattersley in a characteristically balanced summing-up, ‘to admire and applaud their work of social redemption.”

Of course social change is always controversial these days to some – such as former-Fox News TV show hosts who reduce all issues to chalkboard comic characters and produce nothing but hot air. However, the work of mission and evangelism are false to the good news of the kingdom if they ignore the sad reality of the conditions of the real 99% and majority of the 7 billion of the world. The Booths grasped that the Gospel is truly transforming – a person who is new creation because of the Spirit of God will bring change to their family and community.  The Booths weren’t the first to grasp that truth of gospel transformation and thankfully they weren’t the last. Ministries that address practical solutions to child labor, prostitution, grinding poverty & unhealthy living conditions due to substance abuse as well as economic inequality are thriving from Guatemala to Tajikistan, from all corners of the earth because sin still is the source of human misery and the atoning work of Jesus Christ, his blood brings freedom from its consequences.

As the author Roy Hattersley points out, one does not have to agree with all the Booths believed (I certainly don’t) to applaud what they attempted and achieved. Hattersley is honest about their faults and the challenge for all strong, founding leaders – what happens when your gone. The Salvation Army survived family member defections as well as the inevitable process of a spiritual movement organizing into an institution. There had to have been something of the fire of God’s grace at work to reach a battle weary soldier’s heart in South Africa over a hundred years ago that led to a true confession of saving faith and brought blessings to his family for years to come . My great grandfather was promoted to glory in 1953. I am told that he prayed for many years for his family both born and yet un-born. I am thankful he did and I am thankful there was someone there that day in S. Africa, even if dressed in what was considered an odd & unconventional uniform, to point him to his Savior.

Some of the Galloway Family – John, Crief, Mary, Lilas and my Great-Grandfather, Moncrief

All together now!

Controversy and conflict are nothing new to the church. Some controversies make mountains out of molehills. Others truly matter. In an age when charm, slick looks, ticket sales and manufactured authenticity pass as the fruit of the Spirit, its helpful to recall the genuine controversies of truth from other times that are still crucial for our own. Martin Luther called the doctrine of justification “the article of the church by which it stands or falls.” John Gill adds with it “the church is in a well-settled and prosperous state; but if it loses ground and is rejected, it is in a ruinous one. It is the ground and foundation of all solid joy, peace, and comfort in this life and hope of eternal glory hereafter.”

So while I’ll sing “Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott” tomorrow, here’s a little ditty beforehand to remember when Martin Luther is said to have posted his theses against the sale of indulgences on what was the social media of the day, the door of the Wittenberg castle church October 31, 1517.

“The Reformation Polka” by Robert Gebel

[Sung to the tune of "Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious"]

When I was just ein junger Mann I studied canon law;
While Erfurt was a challenge, it was just to please my Pa.
Then came the storm, the lightning struck, I called upon Saint Anne,
I shaved my head, I took my vows, an Augustinian! Oh…
Chorus:
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

When Tetzel came near Wittenberg, St. Peter’s profits soared,
I wrote a little notice for the All Saints’ Bull’tin board:
“You cannot purchase merits, for we’re justified by grace!
Here’s 95 more reasons, Brother Tetzel, in your face!” Oh…
(Chorus)

They loved my tracts, adored my wit, all were exempleror;
The Pope, however, hauled me up before the Emperor.
“Are these your books? Do you recant?” King Charles did demand,
“I will not change my Diet, Sir, God help me here I stand!” Oh…
(Chorus)

Duke Frederick took the Wise approach, responding to my words,
By knighting “George” as hostage in the Kingdom of the Birds.
Use Brother Martin’s model if the languages you seek,
Stay locked inside a castle with your Hebrew and your Greek! Oh…
(Chorus)

Let’s raise our steins and Concord Books while gathered in this place,
And spread the word that ‘catholic’ is spelled with lower case;
The Word remains unfettered when the Spirit gets his chance,
So come on, Katy, drop your lute, and join us in our dance! Oh…

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation -
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

“…worship in the modern evangelical church is, by and large, pathetic. The church has left her biblical standard of worship, which is to glorify God and has embraced a man-centered goal, which is the enjoyment and pleasure of the viewer. A successful service is now thought to be one in which the participants are pleased. In a biblical service, the desire of the worshipper’s hearts is fulfilled when God is pleased. But once the goal shifts from the pleasure of God to the pleasure of man, the Church has taken the first step to liturgical idiocy.”

Douglas Wilson – “Mother Kirk”

 

 

“Though we encounter it as suffering, grief is in fact an affirmation. The indifferent do not grieve, the uncommitted do not grieve, the loveless do not grieve. We mourn only the loss of what we have loved and what we have valued, and in this way mourning darkly refreshes our knowledge of the causes of our loves and the reasons for our values. Our sorrow restores us to the splendors of our connectedness to people and to principles. It is the yes of a broken heart.”

 

Leon Wieseltier