Reconciling Ministries Network

Reconciliation and Love's Definition

By Peter L. DeGroote

Jesus’ Prime Directive of loving God and others points us toward reconciliation. Standing in our way is the hopeless jumble of definitions for love that include emotional infatuation, pious devotion to prayer, and much in between.

At the heart of the problem is our theological fracturing of love’s meaning by use of three of Greek philosophy’s several categories:  

• Agape: The self-sacrificing love of God or Jesus.
• Philios: Arising out of freindship of men, particularly through shared military and work experinece.
• Eros: Having to to with the sensual and sexual.

These categories often lead to wacky conclusions. Three of the more obvious examples:

• We can think love is central to romance and sex even when those relationships can be filled with aggression, manipulation, and a sense of conquest.
• We can think that our works of charity define us as loving people while we ignore the structure of human relationships that cause poverty, homelessness, and hunger.
• We can sing If We Only Had Love while meaning "if only everyone thought the way I am thinking."

As for the Bible:

• Hebrew Scripture defines God’s steadfast love largely in terms of God’s activity; human love has to do with either following the rules of God or in acts social justice and personal mercy.  
• The Apostle Paul provided some characteristics of the loving personality, such as patience and kindness and the lack of arrogance, boasting, and resentments. While pointing to underlying principles, they do not define love. Also, in one of his more mystical moments Paul observed that while everything else passes away, love never ends. Eternal dimensions are difficult to define and measure (See 1 Corinthians 3).
• Jesus’ conceived of love within a matrix of human motives and values that frame all relationships, a matrix that inextricably tied our relationship with God to our relationships with each other. (John Wesley said it this way: Don’t tell me you love God if I can’t see it in the way you treat others.)

Instead of an objective definition, Jesus told us to take action that would result in our discovery of what he was talking about. Not only did he build the front porch to a household of reconciliation, he handed us the keys to the front door, to a reconciling way of life.  

Those keys included forgiveness, turning the other cheek and praying for our enemies, to name only a few.

The prayer for enemies is particularly revealing when coupled with the instruction to love our enemies, a revelation that God does not share our feelings about our enemies. We are pushed along to grasp that loving God means to join God’s expectation and hope for all humanity. Living in harmony (love) with God seems to mean living in harmony with others, with all of God’s creation. This is called reconciliation.

As I explore Jesus’ instructions, the word “love” increasingly falls by the wayside. Its definitions are so broad as to become meaningless. Harmony with God and others, harmony with God and God’s creation becomes useful. Accepting the understanding that God has the same hope for others as God has for me, I increasingly say, honors God by honoring others and respects God by respecting others.

There is much to explore. 

 

From Ingoring to Illustrating

by Peter L. DeGroote

At first, I ignored a UM pastor’s blog raising questions about women in ministry. Then, I saw it as an illustration of some basic biblical understandings that reconciling people need to think about.

First, a summary of the posting:

• On the premise that controversy is the only way he can get dialogue on his blog, the pastor asks if women should be in ministry  (See August 6, 2009 posting on http://raymcd.blogspot.com/).

• He cites three passages of scripture: 1Corinthians 14:33-35, Galatians 3:26-29 and Matthew 28:26-29.

• He concludes: “These are three Scriptures used for either side of the debate. Are there others? What do you think? Is there a difference between being on a pastoral staff and being a lead pastor? Should there be any restrictions?”

• Comments are diverse. A common opinion is that women should not be lead pastors.

• The pastor’s response to comments includes a complaint that all but one commentator failed to give a reason for their opinion; the one asserting the position of the UM Church was found insufficient. He also notes that he has not yet shared his own opinion. 

Second, how does this posting illustrate important insights about biblical study that reconciling people need to think about?

• The presentation of three different quotes that represent divergent opinions clearly illustrates that we can usually find a proof text in scripture that supports our own views. 

• It also illustrates how reliance on scriptural lists reduces the Bible to a cookbook from which we can select a recipe of our own choosing. In the debate on ordaining women, people threw biblical passages at each other. Likewise, lists of biblical quotes were used to justify as well as oppose slavery. LGBT folks are well aware of the technique: we find lists of biblical passages thrown at us and we collect our own to throw back (other battles have been or are being fought with these lists). 

• Further, it brings to mind how very often we have to turn to other sources to resolve our conflicts in applying Jesus’ primary directive. An illustration of this was John Wesley’s turning to developments in 18th Century philosophy to oppose slavery. 

• In summary, we discover that we can make opposing lists only because the Bible reflects different points of view—that is why we can make the lists. 

Biblical analysis isn’t easy if we are to seek out spiritual insights and honor those who wrote and assembled the text. In particular, each book must be examined from the perspective of the community out of which it came, that community’s social context, the author's theological perspectives, the literary disciplines of the time, and other such considerations.  It is not an exercise in destroying truth, but in discovering truth in a particular time and place, honoring those discoveries, and determining how they might apply to us in our time and place, both personally and communally. It is a challenge.  

Many of us were raised with the idea that the Bible is the unquestioned and unquestionable Word of God. Recognizing its internal diversity leads us to discover the Bible as a spiritual sourcebook rather than a rulebook, one that invites us to enter into a diverse spiritual world of ideas and practices. We are drawn into discussions both ancient and current, helping us to find our way to meaning for both ourselves and our communities.

When John Wesley Went Beyond His Bible

by Peter L. DeGroote

John Wesley had to go elsewhere when he could not use his Bible to oppose slavery. His response is a model for our own day when searching for ways to think about LGBT people in society and the church.

Wesley's active opposition to slavery and the slave trade developed late.  Despite signs of his concerns over slavery from his very early days, Wesley showed no focused anti-slavery effort until publication of his extended pamphlet Thoughts on Slavery in 1774, 17 years before his death at the age of 88. It became a perennial favorite of anti-slavery advocates for the next 30 years and went through 13 printings to include American editions and translations for European readers.

Wesley did not write it. Instead, Granville Sharp, an English anti-slavery advocate who understood Wesley’s skills in what today we call “mass communications,” urged him to edit the work of Anthony Benezet, an American Quaker, and others. Wesley’s abridgment put many of the anti-slavery arguments of the day into compact and readable form. Inevitably, he seasoned it with his own moral outrage.

Thoughts on Slavery rests on the 18th century philosophic concept of universal human rights which served as the foundation for the American, French, and many subsequent revolutions. At the time, the idea of universal human rights had not permeated social and legal thought or the Christian consciousness, nor had it become relevant to biblical interpretation. For example, Wesley’s earlier Notes on the New Testament (1754) has only one comment on slavery (1 Timothy 1:10).   Wesley was silent about all of the other biblical references to which we would turn to today to demonstrate the evil of slavery; he did not see the relevance (Examples: Galatians 3:28, 1 Corinthians 7, Colossians 3, numerous Gospel passages, etc.).

Wesley did bring one theological understanding to the discussion: We are all created in the image of God. This fact of creation was in conflict with the traditional view that the Bible justified slavery as a natural condition in human society.  In resolving that conflict, Wesley became a leader in a new morality that would eventually lead to a new understanding of Scripture. 

It was not a matter of the biblical competence of this man of one book. It was the broader problem of not yet being able to draw biblical implications to a contemporary, moral problem. Religious leaders of the day understood biblical mandates and traditional religious practice to be in support of the legal and economic arguments supporting slavery. John Wesley found his own religious experience and moral instincts pushing beyond those common biblical understandings and traditional religious practices. 

Wesley’s willingness to reach out and incorporate the work of those advocating universal human rights at a time when the world around him opposed such ideas is a model that can be applied to many situations.  In particular, it relates to today's struggle for the rights of LGBT people in both church and society. There are certain moral imperatives derived from the fact of creation even when we unable or unwilling to see them in our Scripture at the moment.

  

___________
As the above is but the briefest of summaries, the following will help to fill out the story behind Wesley’s encounter with slavery.  

Jennings, Theodore W. Good News to the Poor, John Wesley’s Evangelical Economics. Nashville, Abingdon, 1990, P. 82ff.

Marquadt, Manfred. John Wesley’s Social Ethics. (Tranlators: Steely and Gunter.) Nashville: Abingdon, 1992. (Marquadt is a Professor of Systematic Theology at the Methodist Seminary in Reutlingen, Germany.)  P. 67ff.

A brief biographical summary of Wesley related to slavery can be found at http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/wesley.htm. Included is a bibliography and useful links to related sites.

For a copy of Wesley’s Thoughts on Slavery” go to:
http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/thoughtsuponslavery.stm

John Wesley’s Notes on the New Testament can be found in many libraries and United Methodist churches. An electronic version is available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/notes.i.i.html. Printed copies: Grand Rapids, Baker Books—Usually available through Cokesbury bookstores.

 

A Good Question!

By Peter L. DeGroote

1. Some of Jesus’ followers were threatened by a man who was not of their group healing in Jesus’ name and asked if they should stop him. How might we answer the question today? 

When others who are not of our church, denomination, beliefs, or faith do as Jesus taught, should we denigrate their motives, try to stop them, or take pleasure in their activity?
The way we answer these kinds of questions affects our definition of reconciliation.

2. The earliest gospel, Mark, reports that Jesus said, "Don't stop him! Whoever is not against us is on our side" (9:40).  The other gospels reveal a difference of opinion in the early church:  

A. Matthew: "The one who isn't with me is against me, and the one who doesn't gather with me scatters" (12:30).

B. Luke uses both: 
(1) "Whoever is not against you is on your side” (9:50).
(2) “The one who isn't with me is against me, and the one who doesn't gather with me scatters" (11:23).

4. Did Jesus teach contradictory ideas? That seems unlikely.
So, what is happening here?

A. The inclusive version (if you're not against us, you're with us) reflects the earliest gospel tradition. Corresponding to Jesus’ efforts to tear down walls between people, it is in harmony with his prime directive of loving God and others, the path of reconciliation.

B. The exclusive version (if you’re not with us you're against us) reflects the suspicion, oppression, and even violence directed toward the early church. Needing to know who they could trust and where they could feel safe, they sought to clearly define their group in relation to others. The upshot was (and usually is) the erection of barriers around their (our) group.  Erecting barriers around groups is a survival skill from our early tribal history. Defining “we” often means defining “them” as a threat to our survival. They become our enemies.

5. Several strains in Christian history and tradition introduce several conundrums for a follower of Jesus, three of which follow: 

A. Christians have rejected, demonized, and even killed those who differ with them. In direct conflict with Jesus’ prime directive to honor and respect God and others, (love) it is difficult to understand how a claim of being followers of Jesus is possible.     

B. A preoccupation with our own salvation can result in self-centered, self-satisfied, and self-righteous attitudes, something Jesus warned us about in any number of ways.

C. We can be led down the path of thinking that confessing Jesus as our Lord and Savior is sufficient. Jesus taught a way of life, not a creed. How can we call him Master or Teacher if we do not do what he said? 

6. The task of Jesus’ followers is to apply his prime directive in their time and place. Our history reveals many steps and missteps. Each generation is faced with questions that require attention. In our time and place, such questions would include the following:

A. Are non-Christians who honor God and others (love) with or against Jesus; with or against us?

B. Do we demand that people accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior before we will honor and respect them?

C. How do we deal with others (creations of God) who think differently than we do?

C. Are we to demand that people believe what we believe or are we to be like leaven in the world?

D. Do we dare to say that God is with us, but not with others?

E. If Jesus is the way to God; do we insist that we are the way to Jesus?

Note: Scripture quotes are from Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels. NY: Macmillan (Polebridge), 1993.

Are we okay with the status quo? Why?

By Dr. Darrell Spurlock

One of my areas of interest as an academic is about the ways in which we justify the status quo.  That is, how we accept, implicitly or explicitly, the way things are, even when we may disagree with them.  For example, how do well-meaning people, LGBT and straight, accept that fact that there is fundamental inequality in that, in most states, loving LGBT couples have essentially none of the same automatic legal rights that married couples have?  Surveys show more positive attitudes toward marriage equality now than ever, but why aren't folks compelled to fix what is remains wrong with how most states actually treat LGBT couples?

I would suggest that one explanation is system justification.  System justification theory deals with the ways in which we adopt attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors which perpetuate - and sometimes bolster - the status quo.  Not only do those in the majority group (in this case, straight persons) justify the status quo, but those in the oppressed group do as well.  When LGBT persons would rather not publicly demonstrate or provide legal challenges to the social and legal inequalities they suffer, do their actions appear to justify the status quo (though they may have good reasons for not wanting to be activists)?  When people striving for marriage equality view the increased support for civil unions as evidence that the dominant group is coming around when in fact there has been little positive change in state laws on marriage, are they justifying the status quo?  In reality, for every state that moves toward marriage equality, two or three move away.

Sometimes I wish marriage were still a mostly religious institution and the legal aspects were just instruments of a civil society.  Reconciling and affirming faith groups could marry whomever they wished.  Faith communities who preferred not to marry such couples would have that right as an expression of religious freedom.  The state remains neutral on the issue and provides legal rights to anyone who enters into the proper contracts.  It all seems so simple. 

I'm not sure what it will take to counter the the paradox of (a) increasing public acceptance of LGBT relationships, coupled with (b) increasing numbers of states which deny legal rights to anyone seeking to have their relationships recognized by the state.  It seems perhaps a classic case of how our unconscious works against what we publicly profess to be true.  Do we value LGBT persons and the relationships they enter with others?  The polls would say, "Yes."  Are we as a country committed to fairness and equality in society?  The polls would say, "Yes."  Do we support fairness in marriage, so that loving couples, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, can enjoy the same legal rights as heterosexual couples?  The polls would say, "No."  Our minds and hearts must be at work carefully justifying the status quo in the face of what we can clearly identify as injustice.

Towards a theology of love

By Dr. Darrell Spurlock

In my faith journey, I have traveled a long road.  Relevant for this entry is my movement from more traditional views on social issues to more progressive ones.  When I think about why I was able to make that journey, a few things come to mind.  First, experience.  For many years, I worked as a nurse in hospitals in several states along the east coast.  I was able to meet a wide variety of people, and see that indeed, people different from me (and my Appalachian heritage) were likeable, interesting, and sometimes a true joy to know.  Many of the stereotypes I had about people from groups I knew little about proved to be inaccurate in most cases.

Secondly, education.  As I achieved more formal education in the health and social sciences (eventually ending up with a PhD in psychology), my ability to reason became more refined and I was able to support my changing attitudes with evidence of all sorts.  No longer did I rely only on the received wisdom handed down by my culture and religion, but I could consider scientific and personal ways of knowing.  Thirdly, as a part of the maturing of my faith, I began to see scripture in different ways.  No longer was I beholden to literalistic interpretation which seemed to often only bolster the status quo, but I could think more deeply and creatively about scripture.  A theologian-in-training friend of mine talks about scripture as literature.  Seeing scripture as beautiful narrative given by God to us in no way diminishes its relevance or importance to my faith.  In fact, I think it increases it.

 

Lastly, I began to study various Christian traditions and frameworks for belief that I didn't know much about previously.  This led me to study some of the early church leaders, the course of Christian faith over the centuries, and to see how that in many ways, people who follow Christ have been, since Christ's time, finding the relevance of faith in their lives.  That is what I was trying to do, too!  Now, the Methodists among you may recognize my, well, method, as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.  I used these ways of knowing, scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, to form my theology.  A theology of love and forgiveness, of diversity and openness, of peace and justice.  I find a certain freedom in a framework, such as the quadrilateral, which allows one to use the mind God has given them to form a more sophisticated and relevant faith.  And so, I hope to bring to this blog my thoughts - thoughts based on multiple ways of knowing and understanding - and thoughts which I hope convey God's love for all people.

Image © Swamibu

Can We?

By Dr. Pamela Lightsey

President-elect Barack Obama's decision to invite Pastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation is a hard pill to swallow.  I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it.

 His reasoning:

"It is important for Americans to come together.  Even though we may have disagreement over certain social issues."

Partly right.  Americans do disagree.  However, LGBTQ equality is not a social issue but a quality of life issue.  It is a justice issue that strikes at the core of who we are as Americans.  This is a disagreement that demands resolution...quickly. 

Warren has done good work in other areas such as global poverty, HIV/AIDS and global warming.  Nevertheless, if ever there was a case of a fountain spewing sweet and bitter water at the same time, Rick Warren is a classic example.  His public protest against LGBTQ rights as well as his homophobic utterances taint whatever good intentions he might proclaim.

As an African American, I have learned to shield my spirit from oppression.  My foreparents refused to listen to certain biblical texts used to keep them in bondage.  Unless Warren repents prior to his prayer, I shall question not only the "preacher" but the efficaciousness of his prayer. 

So what shall we do?  It is my hope that we can come together.  How about a new approach to the inaugural invocation?  Let's do change this way: Have Warren and an LGBTQ minister give a joint invocation.

How about that for progress "toward a more perfect union"?  Should we send this suggestion to the President-elect?