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Philipp Reiff foresaw it as “the triumph of the therapeutic” in the ‘60s; Robert Bellah named it as “expressive individualism” in the ‘80s; Charles Taylor now calls it the “Age of Authenticity”. Each person recognizes the background of contemporary culture that presupposes that self-expression as the highest good – “You’ve gotta make your own kind of music, sing your own special song; you’ve gotta make your own kind of music, even is no one else sings along” – as the ‘60s song taught us old timers. Indeed, at PLNU faculty spends a tremendous amount of energy to teach students to obey the faculty by having the students make up their own minds as an individual student. It’s kind of like a Sprite commercial, giving us images to tell us that “image is nothing; thirst is everything.” So, as Bob Dylan once wrote, “You’ve gotta serve somebody; it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’ve gotta serve somebody.”

This helps us move into our Scriptures for this evening, Scriptures that speak of the significance of obedience to will of God the Father, of course seen in God the Son, through the power of God the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. To start with the Ezekiel passage, move to the Gospel and end with the Epistle provides a good way of going at this.

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

Unfair! is one of our favorite cries. How many times is the word used in the Ezekiel passage, and by whom? How does the Proverb, quoted by Ezekiel, express this idea? What is “fairness”? When we think about it, do we really want “fairness” exercised toward ourselves? Do we really want God to be fair with us? What is God’s response to the complaint? How does the call to repentance respond to the cry for “fairness”? By the time the passage is over, what is God’s real concern in calling for obedience?

Matthew 21:28-32

To whom is Jesus speaking? Follow the story – how does Jesus respond to the answer that “they” give to his question? What does John have to do with it? (Hint: coming kingdom of God in Jesus)! What is the difference between the two sons in their attitude toward the “Father”?

Philippians 2:1-13

How does the Philippians passage read when read immediately after the Gospel reading? What does it focus our ears to hear and eyes to see? What is it to have the “same mind” as Christ? How would that bring about consolation in love, sharing it the Spirit, compassion and love, and having one mind? What is the purpose of Jesus’ “emptying himself” in this passage? What is it, then, “to work out one’s salvation with fear and trembling”?

What is it to be “obedient” to God in Christ concretely? What must result in us if obedience is to continue? We live in a day where we want to approach the practices of the faith as “options” according to what we like – maybe you could end by reading Matthew 28 and asking how would the Spirit have to make us over to be obedient to Christ as described there?

Have a wonderful evening!

Posted by johnwright at 4:02 PM | Comments (2)

The last week has been very busy as usual. I traveled to Bluffton University to participate in the Fides et Historia conference, and sat on a panel on Tal Howard's German Theology and the Making of the Modern University (Oxford, 2006) -- a wonderful book. I traveled with colleagues from the history department, which was a great joy as well.

On the way our rent-a-car broke down on I-75 about 12 miles out of Bluffton. We got to stand on the side of the highway over the midwestern fields -- a nostalgic moment, as I even got to see a path made by groundhogs and deer in the background of a harvested field. We eventually got picked up by a policeman (with whom I had a common acquaintance yet in Ohio!), and had the joy of riding in the back of the police car. I returned home Saturday, and the past two days have been full getting back into the flow of church and school.

Before I left, I received a copy of the Houston Catholic Worker. It had an article written by Michael Baxter in it that reviewed the publication of Dorothy Day's personal journal -- it had been sealed for 25 years, and had recently been published -- including a last journal that was still in the bedstand in the room where she had died until it was discovered over twenty-five years later. She journaled up till a week before she died -- intermittently, but always with the intent.

I haven't read it, but I have leafed through it. I want to include a long excerpt, from pp. 427-28, from September 1968:

'There is nothing new under the sun' "Men have always warred, at home or abroad.' Christianity is 2,000 years old and a thousands of years are as one day.

It is part of age, the depression which comes with age, to realize so keenly the horror and suffering around us. What early Father of the Church said that if we could sit on a mountain to and see the misery and evil in the world, life would be unbearable to the sensitive. Thru radio, television, all modern communication we do just that. So many try to drown out the sound of man's screams with the fratic music, dizzying lights and colors. Speed, and rushing from one end of the world to the other, to try by words, by reason, to bring repose.

It is time to study history, to study the lives of great men and women and to realize we begin with ourselves.

With all the tumult going on now against the church, the 'institutional' church, it is as tho adolescents had just discovered their parents were fallible and they are so shocked they want to throw out the institutions of the home and go in for 'community' as a salvation to all their own pressing problems, including the children that are arriving (if they are) as part of the ever-recurring problem of marriage. They call them 'young adults' but it seems to me they are belated adolescents with all the romanticism that goes with it.

They are trying to throw out all the wisdom of churchmen and philosophpers in their emphasis on 'the world.' 'Romanticizing the secular,' one Protestant writer accuses them of. Disregarding the primacy of the spiritual they thnk to begin with the secular which is so much an important part of the job of the layman. (To make the kind of society where it is easier to be good, as Peter Maurin said.)

The trouble is Americans want too much. Yes, the (priests) are men of desires, as Daniel was, and so are beloved of God. But why do they want to be laymen too and do the work of laymen. They want everything -- to good, physical life, food and drink, comfort for the flesh, including wife and children, and a homre to shelter their loneliness, and they want too to be in on all the demonstrating which is going on today -- to play the prophetic role as well as the priestly.

Yet reform in the church has always come about not thru the mob, mob action, revolutionary action, which without prayer and penance means violence. Jesus Christ showed the way. Scripture, the gospels, show the way. Prayer and fasting. Penancne, acknowledgement of our personal sin, which is part of the sin and disorder of the world. Whence come war and strife among you?

I love the story of the two hermits of the Desert -- 'Let us have a quarrel.' And theother, the uncritical Father who on going into an untidy cell exclaimed, 'How this monk must be absorbed with the things of God!' and on going into an orderly one, 'What peace in this soul.'

But what means so much to me, such stories and the lives of the saints who so influenced their times, and lived in such peach and joy-- do not reach people today. Nor the Gospel either, tho there is much talk of 'Jesus and Buddha,' put on a par.

People need to be rediscovering the Gospel. They have to find them thru people who find their joy in them, and who accept the crosses of this life as preparation, as the inevitable in the way."

Posted by johnwright at 2:57 PM | Comments (3)

When Bible Study begins, I probably will be approaching Bluffton, Ohio, where I will participate in the Fides et Historia Conference. I am directly active in a panel on Saturday morning. It has taken up much time, but been a joyous effort. The society is a group of North American evangelical historians, and it will be good to join in their conversation. After a long trip there, I will stay for about two days before winding up at home on Saturday night – three days, two nights, with almost two of the days spent traveling!

The lectionary continues to move us into the Gospel of Matthew, with the accompanying OT reading – this time from Jonah. The Epistle reading moves us into Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Perhaps it might be interesting to read Jonah and Matthew together, then Philippians, and then notice ask why the difference that exist, do exist.

Jonah 3:10-4:11

We must hear both the humor and irony of the Jonah story. Why is Jonah upset at God’s mercy? What do you notice about Jonah’s request after stating God’s mercy? How does God respond? What course of action does Jonah undertake? What is ironic about the bush? What kills the bush? How does Jonah respond? Assess Jonah’s emotions? To what end is God trying to form these emotions? Why?

Matthew 20:1-16

Notice again that the kingdom is like the landowner. How would you characterize the landowner? Who complains about the landowner? Why? Why do some persons find the extent of God’s mercy so offensive? What is the cause of such emotional responses to mercy? What does it tell about the person who objects to this mercy?

Philippians 1:21-27

Steve Fowl, in his commentary on Philippians, calls the letter an “exhortation to martyrdom” – remarkable in a letter committed to joy as well. How does Paul’s attitude compare/contrast with the workers in the Gospel narrative and Jonah’s in his story? What is the difference? What do you notice about the two different approaches to life that each shows? What is the different range of emotions? Why do the emotions differ so?

One final note: As we head toward the end of the month, particularly with the economy sinking deeper and deeper into negative territory, more and more persons in our neighborhood will be coming to us in need of food. We need additional help in driving and in insuring that the food is distributed in love. Tuesday we had 380 persons through the distribution. My guess is that this will continue and that on Saturdays, we will approach 600 persons again. Your presence in the courtyard and outside greeting persons in the line makes a difference – as well as those that it takes behind the scenes to fill and empty the truck. If you know of other places that we might beg to get more food to distribute, let us know! We haven’t had “too much” yet and we’ve shown that we can distribute 9 tons of tomatoes in 36 hours!

Posted by johnwright at 8:50 PM | Comments (1)

How does one command forgiveness? How can you command even yourself to forgive? You can order someone to “kiss and make up” or “to shake hands and let it go.” But forgiveness is not an external act; it is an internal virtue. Forgiveness is trickier than we often think– what is the line between forgiveness and co-dependency? Tough, tough issues. A whole area of philosophical, even psychological studies, of forgiveness have arisen in the past 10 years. Interestingly, theology has remained, not entirely, but largely on the sidelines. The church has been much more interested in psychological adjustment to the world or throwing off oppression and justice than forgiveness. When forgiveness issues are treated, they are often treated in relation to these two human realities of our age, rather than from the inner core of the faith revealed to the saints.

Yet the opportunity for forgiveness remains one of the most pressing realities of our lives. Not a day or hardly even an hour goes by when the opportunity for forgiveness does not arise. If we begin at the Gospel, the readings this week take us into forgiveness; then the Psalms reading (we usually don’t read from the deuterocanonical works as part of our worship, though the readings may be profitable for us); and finish with the reading from Romans 14.

Matthew 18:21-35

What is the relationship between Peter’s question and Jesus’s answer – both the initial statement and especially the story afterwards? Why would the question be pressing for Peter?

To whom does the story compare the kingdom of heaven? To whom is Peter (and by extension, us the readers) compared? How does the master learn about how the one slave treated the other? What is the result? With what action of the king does Jesus tell the disciples to look forward as a result of the story if they don’t learn from it? What was the fault of the slave?

Psalm 103:1-13

Spend some time complaining together about, say, three tons of rotten green tomatoes stuck in a church parking lot (purely theoretical, mind you). See how many different angles from which you can complain. Now, read Ps. 103:1-13. What do those complaints sound like? Why? According to Psalm 103, why exactly should we “bless the Lord”? What does such an awareness do with something like forgiveness?

Romans 14:5-12

Paul here seems to still be talking about relationships between Jews and Gentile believers. What are the real issues? Why would such thing be a reason for conflict? What is Paul’s solution?

Why would Paul, in such a context, go into a discourse about life and death? What happens to minor things when faced with the issues of life and death? How is Jesus “the Lord of the dead and the living”? How does the final judgment of God make things look differently?

After reading the passages, how do the passages, by the Spirit’s presence, allow us to embody and live the forgiveness sought in the passages? What are the conditions for which forgiveness takes place? Can you force yourself to forgive? How does one then offer forgiveness to others? What is different from forgiveness and “whatever” or denial?
Have a wonderful eve

Posted by johnwright at 3:40 PM | Comments (6)

The readings this week take us to the heart of the life of the body of Jesus, and thus, the body of Christ lived within this age, and distinguished those who submit their body as a sacrifice, living, holy, and pleasing to God. Today I have spent much of my time reading on the French Revolution, and how the violence of the “goddess of Reason” that led to the cult of the “Supreme Being” in order to unify France and its armies. The “gods of the Revolution” (to steal the title of a wonderful book by Christopher Dawson), were a violent sort, calling for violence, even demanding violence, particularly against the supposed “irrationality” of the church, to belong to the body politic. The rise of the secular European liberal state and a civil cult of a god devoted to protect the interests of the state through violence belong together.

In the United States never was the god of the Revolution called “Reason” nor the “Supreme Being”. To my knowledge no “Temples to Reason” were ever built, nor festivals of the Supreme Being ever held, nor the metals of churches confiscated in order to finance the military forces of the state. Yet one sees the merging of appeal to the god of the nation and its merging with the Triune God most within American society most at the point of war and violence. Our passages call us to see beyond this merging today. What one hears, instead, is the call to truthfulness within the body of Christ to achieve reconciliation within the church, thereby allowing the church to “overcome evil with good.”

Ezekiel 33:(1-6)7-11

Who is the audience of the prophet? What is the role and responsibilities of the prophet? Who are the wicked and what does the “house of Israel” say? What is the result? What is the final purpose of the prophetic warnings? How does this final purpose align with the purposes of God?

Romans 12:9-21

It is important to read Romans 12:9-21 in light of what we have already read in vv. 1-8, or we can read it as a call to a type of individualistic moralism. Instead, the teaching of the passage relate to the unity of the body of Christ of which there are many members. Take each phrase and tell how these virtues help maintain the unity of the body of Christ and how it shapes the particular visible witness in the world. After this, go to Matthew 5-7. What do you notice about the two passages? How do all these teachings relate together? How do we allow the Spirit to make us in these ways? What would be the result? How does this passage make the unified body of many members the body of Christ and not some other body? Is this an ethic of “niceness”?

Matthew 18:15-20

The NRSV translation is a bit awkward here. What is the purpose of Jesus’ teaching? Spell out the procedure that Jesus endorses to deal with conflict. What is the goal of the procedure? What is the place of truthfulness in this procedure? Why do the last verses arise from the teaching on how to deal with conflict within a congregation? How does resolving the conflict make Christ present in two or three gathered in Christ’s name? How does this relate to the visible manifestation of the body of Christ in Romans?

Maybe some of you have listened or watched the American “political” conventions the past two weeks or read segments in the media about them. How does the mission of the “body of Christ” sound in relationship to the language used by the American right and left? Is the “body of Christ” interested in “America”? With whom is this body concerned? How is the God to whom this teaching witnesses the same and/or different from the gods heard in the speeches of these past two weeks?

Have a wonderful evening a Hien’s!

Posted by johnwright at 3:46 PM | Comments (4)

Last night I finished Tracey Rowland's new book, Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Oxford University Press, 2008). Rowland is one of the premier interpreters of post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism, a champion of a "post-modern Augustintian Thomism" that seems to me to answer John XXIII's call for an "up-dating" that is really a "return to the sources." Of course, this is precisely the tradition in which I think John Wesley and H. Orton Wiley stand within. I do not think that the parallels between the American Holiness movement's and the Roman Catholicism's struggle against and within theological modernism are accidental, nor the social processes within American culture whereby both have moved from "outsiders" to "members in good standing" in terms of social upward mobility and self-understanding. Of course, Roman Catholicism has a much thicker history and knowledge and resources than the Church of the Nazarene. Yet the parallels between the Methodist/holiness movement and post-Vatican II's "new religious movements" have been an underlying current behind my interests in the past decade. While at least Rome and the Cardinals have withstood the "subtler languages" (to use Charles Taylor's terms) of theological modernism/post-modernism in the last 35 years, the Church of the Nazarene has largely succumbed in its academic and publishing endeavors to these resources through adopting "relational" languages that have grown out of what I have called "Tillichian pietism" of the 70's. These languages have allowed the Church of the Nazarene to embrace the church growth's movements distinction between "kernel" and "husk" for theological language to allow a thinly veiled Christian version of conservative American civil religion, with its personal, therapeutic emphasis, to "up-date" the worship of the Church of the Nazarene from the outdated hard core authoritarian revivalism of the post-WWII era.

Such a "kernel" and "husk" understanding of the language of the church has its origins in Romanticism. The Church of the Nazarene has its roots deep within the Victorian Romantic camp meeping movement. Romanticism is deeply embedded in our language and experience -- as it is in all Northern Atlantic Culture. Romanticism was a reaction against the arid Rationalism of the Enlightenment, a rationalism that finds its representatives in the secularists such as Richard Dennet and David Dawkins. The "kernel" and "husk" Romantic understanding tends to place the theological reality within the experience of the individual, an experience that can take a multiplicity of linguistic forms. "Theological pluralism" of various degrees has its anchor, not in a genuine pluralism, but in the Romantic "religious transcendental humanism" where God is experienced within one's self as a means of self-authentication and self-development. In this way, the church's language and worship can be constantly "up-dated" by finding new, more efficient language to express and draw forth what is always, all the time, within every individual human being. It is this "side" of the Church of the Nazarene that has emerged in the last thirty-years to bring the church more deeply in line with the "Age of Authenticity" (to use Charles Taylor's language again) or "The Triumph of the Therapeutic" (to use Phillip Reiff's). Names like Mildred Wynkoop and Ray Dunning and Al Truesdale and Rob Staples come to mind as crucial in this transformation, although they all maintain a transitional point to contemporary manifestations now. While they elicted a response through a type of biblicist Protestant Orthodoxy, they could rightly invoke Wesley against such a move as fundamentally foreign to the Wesleyan heritage of the Church of the Nazarene. Empowered by the tradition "Arminian versus Calvinistic" trope, this position "won" by default.

Yet there is another way in this Romantic reaction to understand our tradition. I'm reading Christopher Dawson's work, The Gods of Revolution (New York University Press, 1972) for a paper that I am giving in a couple of weeks. Dawson rightly understands the Enlightenment as a heretical Christian movement, and traces the "religious" commitments politically embedded in the French Revolution. He thereby notes that the nineteenth century revival of "religion" via Romanticism has its roots in the irrational theological violence of the gods of the French Revolution. No one is more theologically intolerant and violent than those who are committed to "universal" theological tolerance when they encounter those who are committed to a "particular" theological tradition.

As Dawson looks at 19th century Romanticism, he notes: "The movement took two different forms: on the one hand, as in the Catholic revival on the continent, and subsequently in the Oxford Movement in England, it was a movement of return to the tradition of historic Christianity—a Catholic Renaissance—which went back behind the Enlightenment and behind the Reformation to the religious faith and the religious art of medieval Christendom; and on the other hand it was a movement of innovation and change, which proclaimed the advent of a new religion in harmony with the spirit of the new age. . . . In spit of the apparent opposition of these two forms they are far more closely connected than one would suppose" (pp. 144-5).

I want to argue that, via particularly Wesley and H. Orton Wiley, the "movement of return to the tradition of historic Christianity—a Catholic Renaissance—which went back behind the Enlightenment and behind the Reformation to the religious faith and the religious art of medieval Christendom more deeply characterizes the tradition of the Church of the Nazarene than the current Romanticism of "innovation and change" to which the church has moved. As the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church (at least the curia) moved beyond the liturgical movements and transcendental Thomism's commitment to "innovation and change" in the years immediately following Vatican II, perhaps the Church of the Nazarene can likewise, if belatedly, make the same discovery, If so, perhaps we could be used by God to be among the first of the Protestant's to heal the tragedy, scars, and fragmentatoin of the Reformation.

Posted by johnwright at 9:28 AM | Comments (5)