Tag Archives: Theology

Billy Abraham: Eulogies, Laughter, Loyal Opposition

Note from the Editor: The sudden news of Dr. William Abraham’s death sent Methodists around the globe reeling. Immediately, a flood a tributes began to pour forth in a kind of spontaneous online wake. Before Covid, wakes were still common in Ireland and also in Northern Ireland, Billy Abraham’s childhood home. In the remembrances that follow, four unique voices give tribute to the well-known scholar, preacher, and writer, joining the friends and colleagues gathering digitally who have instinctively touched on the loudest parts of traditional wakes – raucous laughter, robbed lament.

Dr. Billy Abraham

That is one theme that threads through stories, memories, hilarity, and loss – the sense of being robbed. Robbed of the opportunity to say goodbye; robbed of the opportunity to clear the air; robbed of the opportunity to say thank you. Robust affirmation of the resurrection of the dead does not lessen the shock of sudden loss, does not blunt that very human sense that something dear was stolen.

Like C.S. Lewis, Billy Abraham was a son of Northern Ireland who went on to study at Oxford. The same year that Billy “was selected to matriculate into Portora Royal School in his hometown,” 1955, Basil Mitchell succeeded C.S. Lewis as President of the Oxford Socratic Club. Around twenty years later, Billy began his doctoral work on philosophical theology at Oxford under the direction of Basil Mitchell. And if anything characterized the primary currents in which Abraham’s thinking sailed, it was the imperative that drove that famously lively club – to “follow the argument wherever it leads.” This intellectual habit requires confidence in truth and reason, yet it also requires discipline to pursue unflinchingly. If anything else characterized the strongest currents of Abraham’s intellectual navigation, it was the ability to engage in – and enjoy – rowdy debate with collegiality.

Lewis knew the importance of these disciplines in general and for people of faith in particular, famously commenting, “In any fairly large and talkative community such as a university there is always the danger that those who think alike should gravitate together into coteries where they will henceforth encounter opposition only in the emasculated form rumour that the outsiders say thus and thus. The absent are easily refuted, complacent dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by group hostility. Each group hears not the best, but the worst, that the other groups can say. In the Socratic all this was changed. Here a man could get the case for Christianity without all the paraphernalia of pietism and the case against it without the irrelevant sansculottisme of our common anti-God weeklies. At the very least we helped to civilize one another.”

It is difficult to conceive of a more timely commentary for those who live in the United States, and it is worth noting that Lewis made this observation on the nature of community and coterie long before social media or the internet could easily be blamed. The Christian who argues with civility should not be an endangered species. And disagreement isn’t inherently uncivil.

Where Americans sometimes found themselves surprised by Abraham was often in this very sphere. Those who knew him to be orthodox were sometimes surprised by his intellectual freedom – caught off-guard when his quickly lilting accent slipped in a reference to the Holy Spirit as “she,” and perhaps unaware of the ancient tradition he was following. Those who knew him to prize the message of holiness were sometimes surprised when they expected a teetotaler and found a bottle of red wine. Those who knew of his theology – not only anthropology but also epistemology – were surprised when they expected hostility and were met with a friendly offer to get dinner.

There is rich freedom in intellectual honesty – in following the argument wherever it leads; and there is rewarding freedom in the ability to engage in rowdy debate with good-natured collegiality that isn’t precious with its participation. Any who are tempted to mine Abraham for the convenience or prestige of his doctrinal alignment without subjecting themselves to those same rigorous intellectual habits will find it puzzling as to why the relative scope of influence varies considerably. He did not require the soothing, damning chorus of an echo chamber, nor did he buckle to the fear that practicing common decency would be perceived as liberal drift.

If the Church in North America needs the movement of the Holy Spirit, it also needs the fruits of the Spirit as they are lived out in the intellectual life: love of the truth, joy in studying it and in the existence of friends and opponents alike, peace that reason well-employed is a gift from God, patience in crafting thoughts carefully and in giving others space to change their minds, kindness toward those who don’t fight fair or who have been mocked by your side, goodness in loving the ethical working out of belief, faithfulness to Christ over base red meat or crowd, gentleness with whomever has less advantage than you do, and self-control in speech, in loves, in choices, and in action.

When those grieving his loss feel robbed, it is in part because he influenced so many scholars, members of the clergy, and laity (he was a steadfast Sunday school teacher, not the least of his contributions to the Church) on a very personal level at vulnerable points in their professional or spiritual lives. But those grieving his loss feel robbed in part because in some way, from some angle, he showed us how to be better. Better thinkers, better colleagues, better friends, better opponents, better Christians.

As I told a friend, “he made me want to be better without ever making me feel small.”

My friend Maxie Dunnam, Founding Editor of Wesleyan Accent, is mourning the loss of his close friend. In the following, we share reflections on the contributions and character of Billy Abraham from a member of the clergy and from academics; from those who generally shared his perspectives, and importantly from one mourning his loss who sometimes disagreed with him profoundly. It would be a disservice to the scope of his influence to overlook those friendships characterized by mutual respect and genuine affection that also stood in the difficult tension of that old phrase, “the loyal opposition.”

In raucous laughter and robbed lament, we honor our feisty departed friend.

Elizabeth Glass Turner, Managing Editor

Dr. Abraham’s funeral is scheduled for October 30, 2021, in Dallas. It will be livestreamed; find more information here.

Dr. Joy Moore, VP for Academic Affairs & Academic Dean; Professor of Biblical Preaching, Luther Seminary

I am grateful to join the chorus of witnesses sharing individual expressions of how our lives were among the many influenced by one. I am embarrassed to say my first recognition of  “exactly” who William Abraham was came years after I had publicly stolen a story from him. (No, this is not a preacher’s prerogative; and in all honesty, I had no idea the source of the illustration was sitting in the audience as I used his metaphor to underscore my point!)

When I finally did connect the dots, it provided an underscore to the kind of person Billy was: he never mentioned my faux pas. Instead, Billy shared his wisdom and perspective, providing me guidance as I made personal and professional decisions that would shape how I served the church and the academy. I will forever be grateful this author became a real person and friend in my life! Billy once introduced me before I spoke at a gathering with an honest evaluation of my style and substance that conveyed his knowledge of me was more than a superficial greeting at conferences or reading of my resume (yes, I shamelessly acknowledge that, because who wouldn’t want to say Billy Abraham introduced them publicly?).

I met Billy shortly after I began my doctoral work. His engagement with my then-incipient ideas provided soil that nurtured those seedling thoughts. Over the years of many stimulating conversations, Billy’s challenge, conviction, confession, and collegiality bore witness to truth-telling, tenacity, testimony, and tenderness that, for me, embodied a Wesleyan witness. As enchanting it was to hear theology expressed with an Irish twang (he did land in Texas), Billy captivated our imaginations with a confessional-critical interrogation of institutional and individual claims to a Wesleyan Christian practice that calls for a biblical imagination, theological integrity, and personal piety that boldly proclaims the faith in the Triune God.

As we pause together to grieve our loss and celebrate the gift of Billy’s presence in our lives, may each of us be challenged to live our lives with the integrity we experienced with Billy: lifting others to find their place at the table; examining, interrogating, and calling out claims of what is truth; and pointing always and only to Jesus.

Dr. Jerry Walls, Professor of Philosophy; Scholar-in-Residence, Houston Baptist University

Billy Abraham was trained in analytic philosophy at Oxford.  More recently, he was recognized as one of the senior spokesmen for “analytic theology,” a movement that applies the techniques of analytic philosophy to the discipline of theology.  The aim of analytic theology is to promote rigor and clarity of argument in the discipline. This emphasis is apparent in a number of Billy’s books, but I will highlight two examples.

First is his volume from several years ago entitled Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology: From the Fathers to Feminism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).  The very title of this hefty volume signals the important distinction that Billy wanted to clarify and defend, namely, a distinction between recognized canonical lists and epistemic criteria. A clear sense of this distinction is crucial to the argument, and Abraham lays it out for us at the very outset and reiterates it throughout his work.  An ecclesial canon is essentially a means of grace, whereas an epistemic norm is essentially a criterion of rationality, justification, and knowledge.

To accent this distinction, Billy takes pains to remind us of the complex canonical heritage of the Church.  For Protestants, the notion is associated almost exclusively with the canon of Scripture, but as Billy points out, there are several other kinds of canonical tradition deserving of recognition.  These include baptismal and Eucharistic rites, liturgical traditions, iconographic traditions, lists of saints and teachers designated as fathers and mothers of the Church, and finally, the episcopacy as a means of supervision.

 As Billy notes, however, there is considerable ambiguity surrounding the very meaning of canon.  At one level, the word simply designates a list of books or other material.  However, it can also signify some sort of standard which is used to measure and judge various doctrines, practices, and the like. This latter understanding of canon obviously has epistemic connotations and significance absent from the more modest notion of a list.  Not surprisingly, Billy prefers the more modest notion and believes it better preserves the intended function of canonical material as means of grace which initiate us into the life of God and transform us morally and spiritually.

It is worth noting that the “Wesleyan quadrilateral” is an interesting instance of this very confusion between canonical lists and epistemic criteria.  Whereas Scripture and tradition represent canonical lists, reason and experience are classic instances of epistemic norms.

The second example I will cite is his recently published four volume work entitled Divine Agency and Divine Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017-2021). Billy began working on this project over ten years ago, when he and I were both fellows in the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. Billy and I shared an apartment that year, which was a delight in itself.  Billy came to Notre Dame with a more modest plan, as he notes in the acknowledgments of the recently published fourth volume: “I had originally planned to write but one volume; within a month of my arrival at the university of Notre Dame it had sprouted into four.” Billy never hesitated to explore any relevant issues that arose in the course of his research, and it was a delight to watch him as he realized he had to put aside his original plan to write one volume and instead to produce four!

While philosophical issues frame the entire four-volume set, they are particularly emphasized in the first volume entitled “Exploring and Evaluating the Debate.” Billy notes there that much of the talk about divine action in contemporary theology is vague and elusive, hardly suited to do justice to the extraordinary claims of traditional Christianity. In contrast to all of this, he forthrightly defends a robust account of divine action that allows us to affirm unequivocally that Christ was born of a virgin, was raised from the dead, and will come again.

It is worth emphasizing that Billy wrote with grace, elegance, and winsome humor.  Many of his books are accessible to thoughtful lay readers who could read them with great profit.

Rev. Dana Coker, Senior Pastor, First UMC Bonham, Bonham Texas

Billy Abraham is often misunderstood by people that don’t know him well.  I also think he contributes to this misunderstanding. Part of the way he captured and kept our attention was by saying things in a creatively dramatic fashion. It was often hilarious if you happened to agree with him and anger inciting if you didn’t. I think, for Billy, it was worth it to make people mad because it frequently led to great debate and teaching opportunities. However, if this is the only side of Billy Abraham you knew (especially if you had lots of disagreements with him), well then, you just didn’t know Billy.

He was kind and attentive. Billy always looked me in the eye and was not only preceptive enough to notice if I seemed off, he would take the time to inquire and pray for me.

He was patient and generous.  Many of the conversations that literally helped shape who I am, only happened because he was generous with his time.  He made me feel welcome to come talk about whatever was on my mind in his office…or at his second office, La Madeleine.

He was a master at seeing potential and drawing it out.  He believed in me before I did, and he seemed so happy to watch me find my theological footing.

His curiosity created an openness in him, but I only perceived his openness when he felt he was only among friends. After class one day, I told him he was wrong about something he said in class about a group of people, and miraculously I was briefly able to out debate the great debater.  In amused frustration at his now grinning friend, he threw an eraser at me as I was walking out the door triumphantly.  I few hours later, he poked his head into the room where I always studied and said, “You were right.  I repent.”

In recent years, many things that he wrote and said publicly have been hurtful to me.  Though Billy has said otherwise, there are people on both sides of the Methodist divide for whom scripture and the creeds are the backbone of their faith. He has too frequently compared the very best version of his side of the divide with the very worst version of the other side. Honesty escapes you, if you don’t see both misbehavior and great integrity and faithfulness on both sides.

I was upset with him. I was mulling over how I would start the conversation with him. I’m sure it would have been an extra lively debate. In fact, there might have been some tears, at least on my part, but I have no doubt it would have been a loving exchange. 

Rest in peace, my friend!  You have blessed my life and ministry, and I will forever be grateful!

Dr. Jackson Lashier, Associate Professor of Religion; Chair, Social Science Division, Southwestern College

The news of the recent death of William J. (Billy) Abraham affected me deeply. I have so appreciated reading many of the tributes to his life written by his former students and colleagues; he was certainly an extraordinary man. Unlike many of my friends in the Methodist world, I did not know Dr. Abraham personally, so my sense of loss is less personal though still profound. His impact on my life, as for numerous other professors, theologians, and pastors, came through his theological work.

I read Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology, his most well-known book, in a systematic theology class in my first year at seminary. At the time, I was a sola scriptura Protestant Christian who thought that church history skipped from the Apostle Paul to Martin Luther and that “canon” was a weapon used in early American wars. I used scripture as little more than a justification for my particular beliefs and figured the purpose of this theology class was simply to strengthen those justifications. I was, therefore, a little skeptical when first engaging this work, not least of all for its comprehensive argument and sheer length.

But Dr. Abraham’s winsome way, no less present in his writing than in his speech, gradually won a hearing and, perhaps providentially, Canon and Criterion toppled all of my assumptions coming into that class and more generally seminary. Through reading this book—under the skillful and patient guidance of my professor, Dr. Chuck Gutenson, himself a student of Dr. Abraham’s—I came to see how impoverished my understanding of scripture and the theological disciplines were. Scripture was not simply a justification of a set of beliefs, Dr. Abraham argues, but a “means of grace” given to us by God “to initiate us into the divine life” (53). What an infinitely more beautiful and compelling image of the Holy Scriptures!

Moreover, Dr. Abraham showed me that scripture was not the only means of grace so given by God, but rather, the canonical tradition of the Church included a whole host of means, including the sacraments, creeds, iconography, saints and church fathers and mothers, and the like. Not only is it appropriate to utilize these means as Protestants, it is necessary if we are to become the disciples God calls us to be. After I finished reading the book, I wanted to know what these other means of grace were and I wanted to read scripture like Billy Abraham did.

I’ve come to realize that Canon and Criterion shifted my whole perspective not just on the purpose of scripture and the other canonical materials but also on theological education. It opened me up to the formative practices of heart and mind on offer at seminary. It helped me to realize that I wasn’t in seminary simply to gain some more good arguments for my particular brand of Christianity or even to gain a better understanding of the scriptural foundations of my beliefs and practices. Rather, I was in seminary to be formed as a disciple of Christ, to be further initiated into the life of God. So too did my understanding of the role of a pastor change, from a person who makes arguments and reflections on scripture to a person who, using the canonical materials, helps initiate others into the life of God.

Finally, Dr. Abraham’s tantalizing introduction to these canonical materials, what he calls a “grand symphony…which leads ineluctably into the unfathomable, unspeakable mystery of the living God” (55), set me on a course of study that changed my vocation. It took me into a study of early Church history, the formation of the creeds, and the lives of the saints, a course of study I am pursuing to this day as a professor and writer. Now I want to teach and write like Billy Abraham, though I harbor few allusions that this is the case. From what I have read and continue to read of his, and from what I know from friends who took his classes, Dr. Abraham stood alone.

Precisely because the Church’s canonical tradition is a grand symphony of harmonious parts, Dr. Abraham suggests that it is never fully closed. Rather, he writes, “new canonical materials and practices can be developed to enrich the life of faith so long as they fit naturally and appropriately with the canonical tradition already in place” (55). If this is true, certainly Dr. Abraham’s person and work now passes into the grand symphony; his work has so clearly served as a means of grace in my own life and in the lives of countless others. Well done, good and faithful servant.

Featured image of Queen’s University, Belfast, courtesy K. Mitch Hodge via Unsplash.

Reacting to the Image of God: Wesley and Worth

I try my best not to get drawn into the hot fire of the cultural moment. One of my great fears for our moment is that we will all become reactionary, driven more by emotions than reason (or if we are religious an overarching theological perspective). We react to culture, we react to others, we react to ourselves. Reacting like this often means that we don’t take time to stop, think, pray, and discern. In seminary, a professor named Dr. Knickerbocker said, “always watch what word we use. Do we say ‘I feel’? Or ‘I think’? Or ‘I believe’?” Our feelings may be valid, and reason is just as fallen and faulty as emotion. But in a reactionary moment, I try to stay non-reactive.

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve found that Wesleyan theology animates how and why I interact with people. One of the greatest theological works ever, in my opinion, is John Wesley’s sermon, “The Scripture Way of Salvation.” In this sermon, Wesley lays out a concept you may be familiar with: his understanding of grace – prevenient, the grace that goes before; justifying, the grace of conversion; and sanctifying, the grace of Christian growth.

There are so many takeaways from his theology but primary to me is the understanding that God is the first and primary actor in our salvation. We do not save ourselves by anything that we can do. God is the first actor. He calls us (prevenient), saves us (justifying), and grows us (sanctifying). Our very salvation is the work of God. In fact, in a recent sermon series on the Apostles’ Creed, we looked at how our very salvation is a Trinitarian act. We are brought to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. We are saved only through God’s work.

But here is why this matters in a reactionary culture. Why must God be the first actor? Why does salvation rest on God’s action, not on ours? The reason is original sin, sometimes called the doctrine of depravity. When Adam and Eve fell, they took all of humanity with them. (Romans 5: 12, 1 Corinthians 15: 20-21) This doctrine says that when they fell, we as humans fell with them. We are sinful, corrupt, whatever term or adjective you’d like to use. We are sinful. You. Me. All of us. It is part of the human condition.

Now here is the question. What does that mean? We know all humans are made in the image of God. (Genesis 1: 26-27) But sin has entered in. What does that do to the image of God within us? One theological perspective is that the image of God is completely destroyed: nothing good is left within us. From this perspective, we are completely dead in our sins. Sin destroyed that goodness of God. Yes, we are made in God’s image, but we most certainly are not good. That view is a dominant theme within modern American evangelicalism. As I’ve heard it said, a dead man can’t crawl out of a burning house, and the only thing we deserve is hellfire.

That way of thinking is not how Wesley looked at things. Wesley understood the reality of human sin, yes; but he believed that while the fall corrupted the image of God within us, it didn’t destroy it. Ted Runyan has a wonderful book called The New Creation that covers this subject in-depth. His entire point is that the fall corrupted that image of God within us – it is in need of redemption – but is not completely gone. We humans remain of great worth, and there is the hope for salvation for all. (John 3:16, 1 Timothy 2: 3-4)

This is the reason I am so drawn to Wesleyan theology. Without a doubt, we need salvation. And we are sinful. We can’t save ourselves. But that image of God, while corrupted, has not been completely destroyed. Prevenient grace extends to us an awakening of that image that allows us to walk toward God’s offer of grace.

This cultural moment would teach us to see other people as our enemy. To see people only deserving of judgment, especially those who are not Christians or those who we may disagree with. Those who may vote differently, live differently, act differently. We could easily take on the view of sin that casts them out and removes their worth. It is tempting to harden to our sides; they are over the line, they are on the other side.

Of course, I want to be clear. I believe in sin, judgment, and hell. No one comes to the Father but through the Son. (John 14:6) Sin is destructive; it destroys God’s prize creation, humanity. (John 10:10) This is not an apology for sin. It is a call to love all people in the way that God does. Our societal moment can take from us the desire to truly see the worth in others. The worth in those who are wrong. The worth in those we would see as even our enemies. The path of Christ calls us to love even the enemy. (Matthew 5:43-48; Romans 5:10)

As a follower of Christ and as a pastor, I want to speak against racism and also never discount the potential conversion and sanctification of the racist. And if I am their pastor, I want to be able to hopefully, through God’s grace, help them grow. I want to speak against immorality and also never discount the potential conversion and sanctification of the immoral. And if I am their pastor, I want to be able to hopefully, through God’s grace, help them grow. As a fallen human, my guilt is the same as anyone I preach to. In my calling, I want to hold out hope for redemption to those of infinite worth in the same way I respond to it myself. I never want to discount the worth of people, no matter who they are, what they do, or what they believe. Because everyone is truly loved by God who wants to redeem them.

I want as many people as possible to know the love of Jesus. Some would say that because of their sin, those who do not know Jesus are hostile to him and aren’t interested in knowing God at all. Maybe. But when I read Scripture, I see a lot of people who did not know Jesus but who wanted to know him. And today, I see a lot of people who do not know Jesus and who are very hostile to the Church. But there is still a fascination with Jesus and the Church. There is a yearning spiritually. It’s not surprising; Scripture says God has written eternity on the hearts of men. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Recently, I read a tweet that caused me to think a lot. By how I love others, do I make hell a more appealing place for folks to want to be than church? I want those who do not know Jesus Christ to be drawn to him and follow him. That is my one true desire for ministry. I want folks of all kinds to know their worth to Jesus. And if I all do is extend a metaphorical middle finger or kick sand in their face, how will know they know Jesus? Because that’s what I want more than anything else: for as many as possible to know Jesus.

I don’t want to get involved in hardening my heart at others, because I want all people, all people, to know Jesus. This world is calling me and you to harden our hearts to others. To write them off. To deem them as enemies. Maybe people in the church are calling us to do that. Maybe even preachers are calling us to do that. But I don’t believe that is right, and it isn’t Wesleyan. In one recent article, the author pointed out that for the first time in history, non-churchgoers make up the majority of the population in America. This is the context we live in now. We can choose to bemoan where we are. We can harden our sides and opinions. We can see our neighbors as our enemy and give up any hope for their redemption. We can harden our opinions, shout the loudest, and condemn the most. But I don’t think that’s the way of Jesus or the way of Wesley. I want as many as possible to know Jesus.

And that starts with each of us knowing our worth in Jesus and seeing others’ worth in Jesus. Even the folks we can’t stand.

Cómo es la Providencia

A veces parece que las personas que provienen de orígenes metodistas wesleyanos tienen una relación “a distancia” con la idea de la providencia. En su nivel más básico, la providencia es la actividad de Dios que lleva a cabo los planes redentores de Dios para su creación. Es Dios elaborando un plan de rescate para la creación, y la idea de que Dios está trabajando detrás de escena sin nuestra participación o cooperación es un poco desconcertante para la sensibilidad wesleyana. Porque después de todo, ¿no somos nosotros las personas que creemos en la gracia cooperante (es decir, que hay un grado de cooperación en el que participamos cuando se trata de la obra salvadora de Dios)? Somos el movimiento que enfatiza el libre albedrío humano y nuestra capacidad para elegir o rechazar el don de la gracia que Dios ofrece. “Providencia” simplemente suena demasiado a esa gente reformada o calvinista, pensamos. Pero si miramos más de cerca, vemos que el fundador de nuestro movimiento, John Wesley, tenía una comprensión muy sólida de la providencia divina. Entonces, ¿qué debemos pensar sobre la providencia como wesleyanos?

Describamos lo que no es la providencia. La providencia no significa que no tengamos libre albedrío. La providencia de Dios no descarta la libertad humana. La Providencia no se opone a la cooperación con Dios. La providencia no significa que estemos “fuera del apuro” o que no tengamos sentido de responsabilidad cuando se trata de crecimiento espiritual. Más bien, cooperamos con Dios a medida que crecemos en nuestra fe al practicar disciplinas espirituales, o los “medios de la gracia.”

Entonces, ¿qué es la providencia?

La Providencia está en el corazón de la teología cristiana. Los cristianos a lo largo de los siglos, aunque ha habido excepciones, han afirmado que Dios no es simplemente un relojero que puso el universo en movimiento y desde entonces lo ha dejado desatendido para sus propios fines. Más bien, la providencia afirma que Dios está obrando detrás de escena, a veces de manera imperceptible, pero obrando de todos modos. Basándose en siglos de comprensión cristiana, el difunto teólogo Thomas Oden definió la providencia como “la expresión de la voluntad, el poder y la bondad divinos a través de los cuales el Creador conserva a las criaturas, coopera con lo que sucederá a través de sus acciones y las guía en sus propósitos a largo plazo.” [1] La Providencia es tanto evidencia del amor de Dios por su creación como de su soberanía.

John Wesley tenía fuertes convicciones con respecto a la providencia de Dios. Con su enfoque de ambos / y, Wesley compartió una gran comprensión de la naturaleza de Dios y de la vida del discípulo cristiano a través del lente de la providencia. En su sermón, Sobre la Providencia, Wesley instó: “No hay casi ninguna doctrina en todo el ámbito de la revelación, que sea de mayor importancia que esta. Y, al mismo tiempo, hay pocos que sean tan poco considerados, y quizás tan poco comprendidos.” [2]

Mientras que los pensadores cristianos durante siglos afirmaron la omnisciencia y omnipresencia de Dios, Wesley reconoció que nuestro limitado entendimiento humano tiene problemas para comprender el concepto de la naturaleza providencial de Dios. Wesley enfatizó que deberíamos sentirnos humildes por el hecho de que Dios, infinito en sabiduría y poder, aún se preocupa por el bienestar de su creación. Wesley señaló que mientras que para Dios todas las cosas son posibles, “El que puede hacer todas las cosas no puede negarse a sí mismo.” [3] Aunque está dentro del poder de Dios destruir todo pecado y maldad en el mundo, por ejemplo, esto contradeciría La naturaleza de Dios. En particular, esto contradiría el hecho de que la humanidad fue creada a la imagen de Dios. Sin embargo, Wesley aclaró, aquí es donde la providencia de Dios entra en la ecuación. Si bien Dios permite que los seres humanos elijan entre el bien y el mal, la providencia de Dios es una obra, “para ayudar al hombre [sic] a alcanzar el fin de su ser, a obrar su propia salvación, en la medida en que se pueda hacer sin coacción, sin anular su libertad.” Wesley visualiza la providencia de Dios operando en un “círculo triple” dentro de la creación. [4]

Primero, observó Wesley, todo el universo está gobernado por Dios, incluidos los movimientos del sol, la luna y las estrellas, así como la vida animal. Más allá de este gobierno, Wesley describe tres círculos de la providencia de Dios. El primero de los tres círculos abarca a toda la humanidad. Dentro de este círculo, la providencia de Dios obra en el mundo … El segundo círculo incluye “todos los que profesan creer en Cristo.” [5] Dentro de este círculo, Dios está obrando … El círculo final y más íntimo, abarca, “verdaderos cristianos, aquellos que adoran a Dios, no sólo en forma, sino en espíritu y en verdad. Aquí están incluidos todos los que aman a Dios, o, al menos, verdaderamente temen a Dios y obran justicia; todos en los cuales está la mente que estaba en Cristo, y que caminan como Cristo también caminó.” [6] (Es interesante que Wesley argumentó que es dentro de este círculo que se realiza Lucas 12: 7: “Lo mismo pasa con ustedes, pues hasta los cabellos de su cabeza están todos contados. Así que no teman, pues ustedes valen más que muchos pajarillos.” [7] Él comentó: “Nada relativo a estos es demasiado grande, nada demasiado pequeño, para su atención.” [8] Mientras que Dios está preocupado por todos en su creación, Wesley creía que el Señor presta especial atención a aquellos que son seguidores totalmente devotos de Jesús).

A lo largo de sus escritos, incluyendo su diario y cartas, Wesley notó en muchas ocasiones el “tren de providencias” que Dios obró en situaciones particulares. A menudo atribuye palabras descriptivas adicionales como, “poco común,” “varios,” “maravilloso,” y “completo” para describir con más detalle estos casos en los que Wesley observó la mano de Dios obrando en la vida de los cristianos. Enfatizó que si bien Dios ha establecido leyes generales que gobiernan el universo, Dios es libre de “hacer excepciones a ellas, cuando le plazca.” [9] Para Wesley, el cuidado de Dios por la creación y especialmente por los seres humanos no se ve obstaculizado por las leyes del universo.

En la conclusión de su sermón, Wesley anima a los cristianos a poner toda su confianza en el Señor y no temer. La providencia de Dios significa que podemos confiar en él incluso cuando parece que nuestro mundo o el mundo entero se está desmoronando. Él no niega que enfrentaremos desafíos y dolores, sino que debemos caminar humildemente ante Dios y confiar en que “Para los que aman a Dios todas las cosas les ayudan a bien, a los que conforme a su propósito son llamados.” [10] La esperanza del cristiano es en el Señor que no solo gobierna el universo, sino que también se preocupa especialmente por los que siguen a Dios. Dios conoce la cantidad de cabellos que tienen en la cabeza. Ningún detalle escapa a su atención. La providencia de Dios nos da esperanza tanto para nuestro presente como para nuestro futuro. No se trata simplemente de decir que “todo sucede por una razón,” porque Dios no es la fuente del mal o el caos. Sin embargo, podemos confiar en que detrás de todo, Dios está obrando. No significa que todo nos irá bien, pero sí significa que Dios está con nosotros en cada paso del camino. Quizás esa fue la motivación de John Wesley en su lecho de muerte cuando pronunció las palabras: “Lo mejor de todo, es que Dios está con nosotros”. [11]

[1] Oden, Thomas C. Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

[2] John Wesley, “On Divine Providence” (1786), in The Works of John Wesley, ed. Thomas Jackson, 14 vols.,(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007), 6:315; hereafter cited as Works (Jackson).

[3] Ibid, p. 317

[4] This idea is from Thomas Crane in A Prospect of Divine Providence, which Wesley included in his Christian Library.

[5] Ibid, p. 319

[6] Ibid.

[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

[8] Ibid., p. 320

[9] Ibid, p. 322

[10] Romans 8:28. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

[11] Ken Collins, John Wesley: A Theological Journey, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2003), p. 268.

Featured image courtesy Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash.

La traducción por Rev. Dr. Edgar Bazan

The Startling Poetry of Madeleine L’Engle

Before the rumblings began to emerge around New Years’ (stories dripping out slowly from halfway around the world); before awareness of trouble somewhere became the startling realization that trouble was here – we could indulge ourselves in becoming blasé about tradition. Habits are sly: sometimes, we’re lulled into the off-key sense that traditions are a way of controlling a season. We begin to see them as the point instead of as a waypoint. At Christmas, we mumble, “round yon virgin, mother and Child,” so that young hearers don’t whisper loudly, “what’s a virgin?” We don’t know what to do with the truly awful passage about Herod ordering the slaughter of Bethlehem’s toddler boys, so we skip it. Then we stare open-mouthed at the news when natural disasters erupt in December, scissors halted halfway through the Snoopy wrapping paper. For many people around the world, last December – despite weariness or tight budgets or influenza – was one of the last waypoints of normalcy. Even for people who don’t avoid the awkward or painful, this year has been a chaotic overthrow of everyday simplicity. What voice can sound clearly through the chaos? We live in a moment aching for the holy iconoclasm of the poetry of Madeleine L’Engle.

Best known for novels, the late writer Madeleine L’Engle – born in a year much talked-about lately, 1918 – showed a knack for discomforting the comfortable and soothing the overheated, displayed well in The Ordering of Love: The New & Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle. There is nothing controllable about life on this planet, her words seem to shriek; no family recipe to follow carefully that will alleviate the cosmic chaos. And after all, she was born at the tail-end of World War I, during the 1918 flu pandemic, a child during the ’29 crash, a teenager during the Depression, a young woman during World War II, a mother in the tumult of the 50’s and 60’s, a grieving widow as the Information Age picked up steam. Her experiences shout loudly to our current world.

But L’Engle’s poems also bear the time signature of sacred rhythms: many follow liturgical seasons, or lectionary readings, or high water marks of living, like births, weddings, baptisms, deaths. Others cobble amusing little sketches of the absurd habits of selfishness, or glee, or fear, or comfort. She speaks to God as brashly and fearfully as a child who dares to shout at her parent before bursting into tears. Her joy, rage, mirth, and disappointment are pinned into place with her regular, irresistible return to Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. For an author best known for books on time travel, Madeleine L’Engle shakes us awake now as much as she must have while she was alive.

Consider a few fragments from “Lines Scribbled on an Envelope While Riding the 104 Broadway Bus:”

There is too much pain

I cannot understand

I cannot pray

Here I am

and the ugly man with beery breath beside me reminds me that

it is not my prayers that waken your concern, my Lord;

my prayers, my intercessions are not to ask for your love

for all your lost and lonely ones,

your sick and sinning souls,

but mine, my love, my acceptance of your love.

Your love for the woman sticking her umbrella and her expensive

parcels into my ribs and snarling, “Why don’t you watch where

you’re going?”

Your love for me, too, too tired to look with love,

too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person on the bus.

Expand my love, Lord, so I can help to bear the pain…

It is startling to encounter words that so quickly, easily puncture the day to day patterns that trouble us – whether riding public transport or hopping on social media: “too tired to look with love, too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person.” Her honesty strips bare what phrases like “compassion fatigue” cover up. It is tempting to think that new technology or novel new realities are to blame – but for words like these, written decades ago.

In “Instruments (2)” the woman who managed to write and raise children at the same time confessed,

Hold me against the dark: I am afraid.

Circle me with your arms. I am made

So tiny and my atoms so unstable

That at any moment I may explode. I am unable

To contain myself in unity. My outlines shiver

With the shock of living…

A sense of precarious fragility often goes hand in hand with dripping, fleshy exuberance in her thoughts. Reflecting during a time of hospitalization, L’Engle writes in “From St. Luke’s Hospital (4),”

She comes on at night,

older than middle-aged, from the islands,

to answer the patients’ bells…

At first she was suspicious, cross,

expecting complaints and impositions,

soon tender and gentle,

concerned about requests for help with pain…

This morning she rushed in, frantic,

please, please could she look for the money

she had lost somehow, tending patients,

forty dollars that was not even hers.

She had kept it, in time-honored tradition,

in her bosom, and it must have fallen out

when she was thinking of someone else’s needs.

She scrabbled in the wastebasket,

in the bedclothes, panted from room to room,

returned to mine with a friend. We said,

“Close the door, take off your clothes, and see

if it isn’t still on you somewhere.”

She did, revealing an overworked body,

wrinkled, scarred; found nothing; had to leave.

In a moment when work, medical care, and working women are much in the news, Madeleine L’Engle presents us with sketches that honor womens’ labor – even one brief, sly wink at a casually maligned person from Scripture: “Martha,” the prosaically distracted sister busy with a meal.

Now

nobody can ever laugh at me again

I was the one who baked the bread

I pressed the grapes for wine.

In a year when suffering, depression, and despair threaten to blow the lid off of theoretical pondering on theodicy and the problem of evil, L’Engle charges in where churchgoers fear to tread, in these selections from “Love Letter” –

I hate you, God.

Love, Madeleine

I write my message on water

and at bedtime I tiptoe upstairs

and let it flow under your door.

When I am angry with you

I know that you are there

even if you do not answer my knock

even when your butler opens the door an inch

and flaps his thousand wings in annoyance

at such untoward interruption

and says that the master is not at home.

I cannot turn the other cheek

It takes all the strength I have

To keep my fist from hitting back

the soldiers shot the baby

the little boys trample the old woman

the gutters are filled with groans…

I’m turning in my ticket

and my letter of introduction.

You’re supposed to do the knocking. Why do you burst my heart?

I take hammer and nails

and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood:

Dear God

is it too much to ask you

to bother to be?

Just show your hindquarters

and let me hear you roar.

Love,

Madeleine

What starts off like a cannonball blasted toward the stubbornly closed gates of heaven ends up landing with hoarse awareness: the fury driving her makes her own heart a target. I take hammer and nails and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood. So then. Rage at the suffering in the cosmos inevitably illumines our own complicity. In that case, just let me see even a glimpse of your backside, God; let me hear your power roaring.

The years heavy with her writing were years of upheaval; chaos; swift change; suffering. Her thundering world gave way to these lines from “First Coming” –

He did not wait till the world was ready,

till men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady,

and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.

He came when the need was deep and great.

He dined with sinners in all their grime,

turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came…

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Whatever the pain, whatever the fear, whatever the work waiting to be done; whatever the mockery, whatever the fury, whatever the suffering – we cannot wait until the world is sane. Christ did not wait until the world was calm and well-mannered before he arrived; we cannot wait until the world is sane, we can’t pause for a more opportune moment to lift our voices, to rejoice.

L’Engle goads at every turn; upheaval is nothing new, no tradition can control it. Chaos, overwhelming loss, injustice, uncertainty – these are nothing new, no habits could contain them or master them. Millions of people around the globe would’ve been startled to realize last December that it would be one of the last calm or predictable months for a long time. Perhaps there was even a sense of boredom. In the absence – the stretching absence – of so much; in the absence of traditions, habits, routines, predictability, reasonable certainty, and guarantees, Madeleine L’Engle insists on the only stable reality: Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. Even while she is screaming at God’s silence, ultimately she lands, too tired to be cautious, in this reality:

He did not wait till the world was ready.

We cannot wait till the world is sane.

Featured image photo credit: Sigrid Astrada

Language About God: Interviewing Dr. Jackson Lashier

I first met Dr. Jackson Lashier when we were both seminary students. Unlike many of the students who were pursuing degrees to become local church pastors, he and I found ourselves in many of the same classes as we worked toward degrees that prepared us for ministries in academic contexts. At the time, I knew him to be thoughtful, bright, and adept in handling resources that sometimes felt remote across the vast stretches of centuries and also abstract in their presentation of concepts. For pastors or academics or laypeople, the combination of remote and abstract can seem forbidding; but Jackson’s strengths lend themselves to bringing the remote and abstract both near and accessible. He’s the kind of person who comes to mind when you want to talk about the language we use when we talk about God . How we speak about God matters, and his point of view and expertise are valuable resources in exploring why we speak about God, and how.

Jackson is now a theology professor; he is also a John Wesley Fellow, about which you can read more at A Foundation for Theological Education, here. He has a passion for connecting the historic doctrines of the church to everyday lives of Christians (see his short video on “Why Church History Matters for Discipleship”) and authored Irenaeus on the Trinity and numerous scholarly articles. Currently, he is Associate Professor of Religion and Chair of the Social Science Division at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas.

Initially we began this discussion before the pandemic hit, and I appreciate his sustained efforts through that upheaval. It’s a gift to welcome his insight today.

Elizabeth Glass Turner, Managing Editor

Wesleyan Accent: So – Americans talk about God, or describe God, in a lot of different ways. American Christians often share some commonality in the language we use about God, but even within Christianity there can be different emphases or language employed. Is there any point in trying to use common language about God, or does it matter how we speak about God? If so, why?

Dr. Jackson Lashier: I think the language we use when speaking about God or to God matters greatly. First, it reflects our beliefs about God. So to call God gracious or loving or simple or immutable or Father, to name a few common examples, is to reveal convictions about the nature of the particular God we worship that cannot be implied from the word “God” alone. Second, and related to this, when used in the liturgy or in a common place of worship, our language proclaims a shared understanding that both unifies us as the Church and marks us off from communities of other faiths.

Now, having a common language of God does not mean we must have a uniform language of God. So many times I hear in public prayer people using the same title or titles of God over and over again (“Father God,” for example, seems really popular among American evangelicals). There is nothing necessarily wrong with repeating the same titles, but this practice fails to engage the vast treasure of names and language for God provided for us by Scripture and tradition. Using names for God that we are not familiar with helps open our minds to other aspects of God’s nature that we can praise and think creatively about.

WA: In systematic theology classes, students delve into Trinitarian theology – that God is three in one, not just one God with three masks or not three Gods who are best friends. God is three persons, and often we use personal, relational language to attempt to convey that – language that is found in Scripture: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet Christians have also classically believed that God is spirit, which gives a different understanding of God than may be implied in the Trinitarian language which is exclusively male. Why might it be important to remember that Christians classically haven’t affirmed belief in what Marge Simpson called “Mr. Lord” or the common phrase “the old man in the sky”?

JL: I like your images, particularly the Marge Simpson reference, and I agree with you that assumptions that God is inherently male, even when we say otherwise with our qualifications, is a problem and skews our understanding of the nature of God. Because God is absolutely unique, completely unlike anything in creation (according to the basic distinction that God is the eternal Creator and everything else is contingent creation), our human language – even language used by Scripture – always falls short of fully encapsulating God.

Theological language is, as Thomas Aquinas taught, “analogical.” That is, it refers to God only by way of analogy. This is easy to grasp when we call God “a rock” or something of that sort, but it even holds true when we say that God is love. When we say that God is love, we mean that God is in some way like our human concept of love even though the love that is God’s nature transcends even the highest human examples of love. The analogical nature of our God language is crucial to keep us from bringing God to our human level and thereby to falsely and somewhat idolatrously assume the ability to completely know God in human terms.

This subject bears directly on the question of gendered language for God and male images of God that we seem to hold de facto. The Scriptures and the majority of church tradition use male titles for God (primarily Father and Son) as well as male pronouns for God. If we keep the analogical nature of theological language in mind, we can affirm that these male titles and pronouns demonstrate God’s personal and relational language (God is “Father” and “he” as opposed to an “it”). Yet we can affirm these titles without falling into the mistake of thinking that God is literally male. If we think that God is literally a male, we have failed to honor the transcendent nature of God, which, as your question rightly expressed, is affirmed in the Scriptural teaching that God is spirit.

WA: Some Christians seem to think, however, that in the Incarnation God becomes a man and so that affirms the inherent maleness of God and justifies our exclusive use of masculine titles and imagery. Does your argument here implicitly deny the reality of the Incarnation?

JL: Not at all. It is absolutely true, both historically and theologically, that at some point in history, God entered human experience and was born a man, Jesus of Nazareth. But to conclude from this that, as a whole, God is male, is to be extremely confused on our Trinitarian language. Scripture affirms not that God in total becomes human but that the Word or the Son (who the tradition will come to refer to as the Second Person) becomes truly human. The Father and the Spirit (who the tradition will come to refer to as the First and Third Persons) remain spirit, as you noted in a previous question. Moreover, the orthodox teaching of hypostatic union states clearly that Jesus’ human and divine natures exist in perfect union though remain unconfused and unmixed (indeed, certain authors like Julian of Norwich will refer to the Son as our Mother). So the incarnation in no way compels us to think of God as male. At the same time, we do not have to somehow deny the historical reality of the maleness of Jesus for fear of that reality making God male.

The path forward, then, is to remember the central teaching of the Trinity. It is not that God is male. It is that God is relational in God’s essence.

WA: Your use of the title “Mother” for the Son may sound odd to our modern ears. Despite numerous examples of very maternal, female imagery of God throughout Scripture, many Christians might think it arises from a theology of the Divine Feminine that isn’t rooted in classic Trinitarian theology. How can we walk a path in which we celebrate shared belief in the Trinity and value the Trinitarian formula – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – while affirming that while Jesus Christ experienced humanity in a male body, the Trinity is not inherently or eternally male?

JL: I think you’re right that many Christians have an immediate aversion to feminine language. I doubt whether there is a good reason behind it so much as the cumulative effect of using exclusively male language and thinking of God in exclusively male images. Indeed, it so forms our thinking about God that we cannot even recognize the many feminine images of God in Scripture —the mother hen, the woman who sweeps her floor looking for a coin, to name a couple off the top of my head. (Sometimes these images are wrongly dismissed by people who argue that God is not being “called” a feminine name [as God is called “Father”] but only compared to a feminine image; this argument makes no sense if we remember that all language and titles of God are analogical.) So for these reasons, we must reject the exclusive use of male imagery and language for God. However, for these same reasons, it is also insufficient to simply switch to using exclusively feminine language as I’ve seen some theologians and churches doing. Scripture reveals, and the tradition draws this out, that the transcendent and unique nature of God is neither male nor female but encompasses both male and female.

The path forward, then, is to remember the central teaching of the Trinity. It is not that God is male. It is that God is relational in God’s essence. Thus, God’s one nature is actually constituted by three “relations” or “persons.” This makes God eminently personable and that reality is more clearly expressed in relational titles like “Father” and “Son” than it is in titles like “spirit.” But “Mother,” for example, is also a relational name. And so I believe, along with Julian (and Gregory of Nazianzus and other Orthodox writers) that this title and other feminine titles can be used without sacrificing Trinitarian teaching in any way. Indeed, as I’ve argued elsewhere in print, I think “Mother” more faithfully retains the central Trinitarian realities than does reverting to “Creator,” “Redeemer,” and “Sustainer” often used today.

Of course pragmatically any new introduction of unfamiliar titles and imagery of God should be paired with preparation and teaching, so that congregations understand where they come from. But having said that, the use of titles like “Father” and male pronouns should also be explained better.

WA: You mention titles like Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer – in terms of how we speak about God, a popular means of representing the Trinitarian formula without relying on gendered titles. However, it seems that this formula reduces the persons of the Trinity from Scriptural ways in which they relate – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – to function, and what humanity experiences them doing. Is affirming personhood of “God in three persons, blessed Trinity” more essential than reconfiguring gender-specific language for the persons of the Trinity, even if that language had its origin in patriarchal societies?

JL: I believe in altering our language, attempts that guard against the misguided conclusion that God is literally male are admirable and needed. Nevertheless, I would answer yes to your question about this recent attempt. The formula “Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer” is simply an insufficient Trinitarian formula as it removes any inherent relational connection among the three persons that is the basis in traditional Trinitarian theology for maintaining the Oneness of the Three. Effectively, this formula implies a worship of three gods. Or, alternatively, the formula could be taken in a modalist sense, which means that the one God at one time creates, at another time redeems, and at still another time sustains. But here again, there is no eternal relation of persons. So, both conceptions are not fully Trinitarian. As I mentioned before, it is for this reason that I am much more comfortable with “Mother” language of the Divine because it maintains the essentially relational character of the Triune God. And while the tradition creatively engages such feminine language, it uniformly rejects such modalist or tri-theistic formulas.

Perhaps the most important principle is creativity with the wealth of images in Scripture. Encourage yourself to think of God using different images. 

WA: I’ve heard some theologians and pastors refer to the Holy Spirit as the “she” within the Trinity. What are your thoughts about this approach?

JL: Honestly, I don’t like it very much. For one thing, it seems to render the feminine aspect of God as secondary: masculine images still outnumber feminine images 2-1, so it seems to me there is not much to gain by this approach. But more problematically, this approach assumes that the persons of the Trinity are literally gendered. So it could be thought that Father and Son are literal male members of the Trinity, and Spirit—by virtue of not having a masculine title—is the female member of the Trinity. As we have discussed, all persons of the Trinity are fully God and together they are one God.

WA: If in God’s infinite transcendence as Creator, the nature of God encompasses male and female, then this impacts our understanding of what it means to be human, yes?

JL: So many implications. First and foremost is the question of the image of God as reflected in humanity. Genesis 1:27 clearly states that male and female are together created in the image of God. Because of the Adam and Eve story of Genesis 2, however, this primary anthropological teaching is often missed; some assume that only the man is created in the image of God, which of course undergirds all sorts of problematic teachings related to hierarchies in marriage and ministry. But male and female together created in the image of God makes sense if we think about God in the ways we have been discussing. It means that they are equal and that they need each other to fully reflect the image of God. This truth, it seems to me, grounds an egalitarian view of marriage and the full participation of women in ministry. Another implication is that humans are inherently communal creatures. This does not mean, of course, that everyone needs to be married; it does mean that everyone needs to be in human community to realize fully who they were created to be. We can’t be good disciples and be solitary.

WA: Pragmatically, I’m reminded of a time I read a description of someone’s expectation that God’s voice would sound like Morgan Freeman or Sean Connery. Both made me smile, yet I was startled by my internal response: what if God’s voice sounded like Cate Blanchett’s character, Galadriel? This funny, simple thought reminded me of the importance of how we conceive of God when we pray. What are some important principles that should shape our imagination when we pray or talk to God?

JL: This is such an important question and really gets at the heart of what is at stake in this question. It is clear that if we reduce our images to masculine ones, then we will likely fall into the trap of thinking of God as male. Perhaps the most important principle is creativity with the wealth of images in Scripture. Encourage yourself to think of God using different images. At one point, imagine God as the Father of the prodigal son running to embrace you. At another time, imagine God as the mother hen who enfolds you in her wings.

The great monastic theologian, Dionysius the Areopagite, encouraged his readers to focus their imaginations on comparisons of God to inanimate objects precisely because there is less danger mistakenly thinking that God is literally a rock, for example, than there in thinking God is literally a Father. Ultimately, every Christian must explore images that resonate. But in general, Scripture and tradition allow for more freedom and creativity here then people often allow themselves.

WA: When it comes to drawing from Scripture and tradition, do you think people of faith can affirm the value of believing that God – out of the Divine nature of holy love – really reveals the very real, actual nature of God? That our language isn’t just a Rorschach test in which we make God everything we think God should look like? At the same time, is there space to acknowledge that sometimes we think about God or speak about God in ways that are incomplete or less rich than they might be?

JL: Great questions that have been wrestled with for centuries. I agree there is a danger here, which is why I think we are wise in our creative imaginings to remain within the range of images provided by Scripture and developed by tradition. Thankfully, there is more than enough there to occupy our imagination in prayer and worship; we have just scratched the surface in our engagement with these treasures.

In answering your broader question about the tension between knowing the revealed God vs the mystery of God, I follow the Western tradition as represented by Thomas Aquinas, as opposed to the Eastern tradition as represented by Dionysius or, more recently, theologians like Vladimir Lossky. The Eastern tradition has generally said that God in God’s essence is unknowable, so the only way we can really speak of God is to say what God is not. This is the so-called “negative” approach or apophatic theology. From it we have derived such important concepts as God’s eternality (God is not limited by time boundaries), God’s simplicity (God does not have parts), and God’s immutability (God is not changeable). I understand the impetus behind this apophatic tradition and see its value, though I move away from it precisely because of your point that God has revealed Godself to us.

The Western tradition has generally been more positive in its approach, so-called cataphatic theology. It affirms that we can speak of God positively, such that when we say God is good or God is love or God is Father, we mean something like what we know of as “good” or as “love” or as a good “father.” Personally, this way helps me connect better with God through prayer and thought. It seems consistent with the Incarnate movement of God to bring Godself to our level.

Yet as we mentioned in our discussion of analogical language, even this way of doing theology insists that we cannot fully know the essence of God: God is infinitely more loving and more good than even our highest human notions. So while we can know God truly and authentically through God’s revelation to us in Christ and as recorded by Holy Scripture, we can never know God fully and comprehensively. Incidentally, this means that eternal life will be spent growing deeper and deeper into the knowledge of God’s essence. I don’t know about you, but that sounds a lot more compelling then singing “Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord” over and over for eternity!

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Discussing Theological Education on the Wesley Seminary Podcast

Recently I had the joy of chatting with Dr. Aaron Perry on the Wesley Seminary Podcast he hosts; our conversation ranged from theological education to vocation to Wesleyan Accent and global Methodism to leadership and gender. He is a regular contributor to Wesleyan Accent, providing a hearty voice from the academy, and teaches at Wesley Seminary where he is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Leadership.

The Wesley Seminary Podcast, “seeks to provide relevant content to those in ministry while addressing questions of faith with intention and thought. Centered around audience interaction and listener feedback, the podcast provides an outlet for questions…and also serves to minister to those who need encouragement within their ministerial journeys.”

This was recorded before the world went on lockdown; a few mid-quarantine postscripts are included below. Click the play button to listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/user-743479271/120-rev-elizabeth-glass-turner-the-importance-of-theological-education

Wesley Seminary is affiliated with Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana. Founded in 2009, it offers a variety of Master’s degrees as well as a Doctorate of Ministry degree, highlighting online accessibility.

Wesleyan Accent is unique: our site is a hub featuring voices from a variety of Wesleyan Methodist denominations, in a time when institutional silos tend to run deep. United Methodists might be surprised to learn that 85% of Wesleyan clergymembers don’t have a Master’s degree, while Wesleyans might be surprised to learn that ordained United Methodist elders don’t have to wonder if a particular congregation will provide health insurance and pension.

Theological education in North America is prone to the same pressures undergraduate institutions or liberal arts programs endure; debates about accessibility vs residential programs, in-person classroom discussions vs online engagement, bang for education “consumer” buck vs holistic development, and job preparedness vs academic rigor will surely re-emerge in the eagerly awaited post-quarantine world. Perhaps these straining values will be thrown into sharper relief as false dichotomies; likely, future debates will resound with fresh insights gained from the massive shift to remote working and learning.

Whether or not we can collectively master our moment (a deliberate higher education pun), surely our current circumstances force our attention to certain realities:

  • Modern online technology can no longer be considered an optional add-on; the internet should be approached as an essential utility.
  • Congregations, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions that are nimble and had already integrated into online existence well have had fewer hiccups adjusting to remote living.
  • There are deep inequities in accessing the internet and owning the technological tools to utilize it, from rural areas to urban areas.
  • Economic stability is fragile; many congregations and academic institutions will be affected for years to come, and some potential students weighing student loans now consider theological education from a new economic footing.
  • Theology matters; pastors and chaplains with robust appreciation for theology are well-positioned to engage with the massive wave of deep questioning on the nature of suffering; death and dying; the value of the body; missiological contextualization and the Sacraments; uncertainty and addiction, substance abuse, and trauma; Divine sovereignty and human free will; and more. Theological education isn’t a luxury; it’s essential.
  • Some things that pastors and academics thought the church (broadly speaking) in North America does well, were in fact things that organizations did well as long as circumstances were ideal; some things that pastors and academics questioned about the church in North America have proven stronger or more resilient than expected. So it goes with crisis: revelation ensues.
  • Leaning into the global nature of the broad Church is always a strength: it helps highlight our blind spots and provides insight we simply don’t have. Early in the pandemic, an American pastor asked for leadership advice from a pastor from the Congo, who had led church members through significant upheaval, including public health crisis. He gave excellent advice. North Americans don’t know everything; and we need to know that.

Are you a layperson, pastor, or professor? What dynamics of church life are you grappling with? If you’ve been to seminary, what’s been one of the most valuable elements of your theological education during the past few weeks? If you grew up outside the U.S., wherever you live now, what are your observations about theological education, infrastructure, church life, quarantine, and leadership?

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Living with Gracious Conviction

How do you express your convictions with deep respect, appreciation, and even grief? This is a question many are wrestling with currently. An acquaintance for whom I hold deep respect named this struggle quite clearly on social media recently. He addressed it with humility, genuinely hoping to find a way of communicating with both conviction and graciousness. Living with gracious conviction isn’t just something to be pursued by leaders in one denomination, either, as denominational Hospice care is called in for the UMC. How might Christians not only speak with gracious conviction but also live with gracious conviction? How might people uncertain of their faith but desperate for respectful dialogue speak and live with gracious conviction?

Embodying Service

In a time when words are thrown around a dime a dozen online – when we’re so inundated with words communicated through modern technology that emojis were developed to communicate nonverbal intent – speaking and living with gracious conviction means getting our hands dirty.

It is not only acceptable, for Christians it is biblical to be prodigal – generous and extravagant with our service toward others. Our service can never solely be toward people who affirm our religion or our theological convictions. Occasionally, no matter what theological camp one finds herself in, there is the fear that showing service, care, or love to someone with whom you disagree is somehow a token of your agreement with all their opinions. This is patently, incontrovertibly wrong. To love your neighbor as yourself, to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2) means to promote the welfare and well-being of people who may think you’re wrong, misguided, ignorant, blinded – or laughable. No theological camp is immune. Progressive liberal activists and conservative traditionalists alike easily justify withholding a towel and basin on the basis of principle.

Embodied service doesn’t require the perpetuation of one organization – an organization attempting to hold together so many different theological threads that it is straining and ripping at the seams. Embodied service simply means showing up for people with whom we profoundly disagree, because we value their lives. Organizational pragmatism may indicate the advisability of existing as separate worshiping bodies, where demonstrably and repeatedly over decades profound disagreement emerges on who exactly we’re worshiping.

Belonging to the same organization has never been a prerequisite for serving someone, though. Belonging to the same denomination or tradition isn’t a requirement. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. For those in the Wesleyan Methodist branch of the family tree of the faith, we’re familiar with John Wesley’s thinking on the “means of grace,” which include not only works of piety, but works of mercy.

So maybe you notice someone you’ve been arguing with on social media has a sick family member: send them flowers or a restaurant gift card. Maybe you’ve lost your graciousness in an exchange with a colleague: apologize without self-justification. Shovel their sidewalk; mow their lawn. Maybe you long for someone to know that no matter how deeply you differ, you’re trying to really see them, hear them, and treat them with dignity. Donate in their honor to a non-profit they might value.

In times when words are cheap, show up with actions to demonstrate the posture of your heart. It’s interesting that actions shape attitudes as well. Getting down on your knees to pick up the coins accidentally dropped by someone who thinks you’re deeply wrong? You and they both need to feel your willingness to do it, whether or not they ever express gratitude or reciprocation.

The image we have to guide us is Jesus at the Last Supper – Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. These feet included the feet of Judas, who would walk out of the room with feet cleaned by God and would walk to betray God whose hands were wet with dirty water. Jesus knew and knelt anyway. We can’t do less.

Verbalizing Gratitude

Living with gracious conviction can also be expressed by finding something for which you can say thank you. Find something, however small, that you appreciate, and say it. To live and speak with gracious conviction is to step aside from intense irritation, anger, hurt, or frustration long enough to find anything you can say “thank you” to.

This doesn’t come from an odd need to debase yourself. It doesn’t come from a place of neediness for affirmation. Rather, verbalizing gratitude simply reinforces the essential humanity of another person. It reminds both you and them of your acknowledgment that they have something to contribute to the world. If we are quick to write off people due to their opinions, are we making it easier to write off their innate value? Jesus was willing to meet at night in private with Nicodemus, a man who belonged to a group publicly opposed to Jesus during the day.

Obviously, very, very few people in human history have been completely, thoroughly given over to all-consuming evil. If most people are a complex mixture of motives, wounds, gifts, personal histories, self-sabotaging habits, prevenient grace, corrosive self-centeredness, and will – yet all the while made in the image of God, however fractured – then thanking them is a simple, genuine way to communicate gratitude for their existence. It also leaves the door open, because you never know when someone may change their mind, and giving them a path and doorway to do so is vital. Finding something for which you can thank a person will acknowledge that they may have some kind of insight you do not (even if it’s a coffee recommendation) and that you are in the position to receive that insight. It takes discipline to think and communicate in ways that constantly remind us, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, of the glory other beings are capable of bearing.

There is always something you can thank someone for. There is always something you can appreciate. It may have to be only, “I like your shirt.” It may have to be, “thank you for engaging in a difficult conversation,” or “I appreciate the time you took to respond,” or “thank you for sharing your perspective; it’s a privilege to hear your story, I don’t take it lightly.”

If there’s genuine opportunity, you can even verbalize something you’ve learned from them, gained from them, or notice about them. “You are really passionate about what you believe, and I respect that,” or “I know we’re operating from different convictions, but I’ve noticed you’re really gifted at ________, and I hope you have ways of utilizing those talents,” or, “a while back you mentioned ___________ and while I know we have different perspectives on other topics, I want you to know how much I appreciated it when you said __________.”

One time Jesus healed ten men isolated and marginalized by disease; they were so eager to go get medical clearance and find their loved ones that they ran off. Only one came back to thank Jesus – and the one that returned to thank Jesus was a Samaritan – a “foreigner” whose social marginalization wouldn’t end with the healing of a disease. Sometimes we forget how rarely people hear the words “thank you.” Can you think of a time someone thanked you and it made a world of difference?

For Christians, one of the distinctive practices of our faith is sharing Communion – the Eucharist – the “Great Thanksgiving.” To receive Communion is to remember we are recipients of grace. To thank others is to remember we are all recipients of grace, none more worthy than another.

Responding to the Real Thing and the Real Person

Living and speaking with gracious conviction means giving others the gift of seeking to understand their position as they would describe it. You don’t have to agree with it or their conclusions or actions; but you can’t reject a caricature of their position and then pronounce your rejection of the caricature.

Christians are called to seek Truth. In this sense, we are committed to responding to the real. This means we work to seek out and find the real. So while we may hold differing beliefs, convictions, or theological perspectives, a commitment to the Truth means a commitment to discovering what someone actually believes. You’re not repeating someone’s opinion of what someone else believes. You’re not reporting on hearsay of what a group believes. You’re actually researching for yourself to the best of your ability. It is work.

The difficulty of course is that humans are so good at saying one thing and doing another, and that humans are so good at seeing themselves in optimal light and others with skepticism. No one is perfectly self-aware, and whole groups of people may profess one value but fail to embody it consistently.

However, we’re speaking here of explicitly stated declarations of belief, and not just the ability to live those beliefs consistently. We may insist that a Christian denomination ought to have some meaningful measure of shared theology about who Jesus is without making a caricature of one individual hateful progressive activist intolerant of those with whom they disagree. We may insist that a Christian denomination ought to value and act on initiatives to dismantle systemic racism, poverty, and injustice, without making a caricature of one individual hateful traditionalist conservative intolerant of those with whom they disagree.

To live with gracious conviction is to be ruthlessly committed to the Truth, which requires us to represent others’ convictions as fairly as possible – so that they would be able to recognize the description as an accurate representation of themselves. In this sense, it’s simple honesty. We are trying to be truthful and fair in our representation of others (even though it’s not nearly as satisfying as sharing a meme mocking them; unless it’s a meme mocking the Patriots, we can all agree those are universally acceptable, right?).

By responding to the real beliefs and professed values rather than mischaracterizations, we extend dignity to those with whom we differ. And to thoughtlessly, carelessly mischaracterize an opponent is to lie and steal – you are lying about their beliefs or motives and you are stealing their reputation. What may have been a profound but respectful disagreement becomes a hurtful, toxic stew of mischief that feeds off the half-formed perspectives of those new to the conflict and bewildered by the exaggerated portraits they’re presented. When we research and read and listen and track down primary sources and ignore clickbait commentary, it’s easier to respond both to beliefs and to the people who hold them.

Recently a friend commented, “it’s easy to hate something you get to define.” He meant that it’s easy to decide something is A, and since you hate A, you hate the something. The question is whether something is A or whether you quickly decided it is – and then dismissed it. To live with gracious conviction is to be willing to learn what something is before you decide to define it and reject it.

Laughing at Yourself

Some of the people in my life who most closely embodied the word “saint” are people who never took themselves too seriously even when other people took them very seriously indeed. There was a childlikeness to them, independent of age. By all means, take Christ seriously – though Chesterton reminded us all of how surprised we’ll be by God’s mirth – but in your earnestness, be able to laugh at yourself easily. Your silly, inconsistent, hobbit-like self.

I can make a cheap shot at the Patriots that will garner a strong response of approval or howls of indignation – but the truth is, I rarely watch American NFL football, my loyalty to the Colts is casually based on growing up in Indiana, and I have no idea whether other teams cheat as well and the Patriots just got caught at it. I can smile while looking at my silly bias, when I haven’t watched football in over a year and the last time I really cared about the Colts was before Manning headed West.

We’ve got to be able to laugh at ourselves.

In a culture in which we all take ourselves quite seriously, perhaps one sign of holiness is holding our own dignity and reputation lightly while seeking to deal fairly with others’. Burnt out pastors and leaders in particular struggle to be able to laugh at themselves; a sign you’re on the path to rest and restoration is when you can have fun again without worrying what’s being neglected while you do. Living with gracious conviction doesn’t mean the responsibility is all on your shoulders. It’s not irresponsible to a cause to stop and smile; it’s essential.

If you believe that in his full God-ness Jesus was also full human, then remember: we have a Savior who laughed until he cried. Probably at James and John, who seem likely to have been the Fred and George Weasley of the disciples.

Show up and serve (your enemies), say thank you (to your opponents), respond to the real thing (not the caricature), laugh at yourself (instead of others). These habits will help form a posture of communicating – of living – with gracious conviction. Most of them rely on humility in action; they show and shape perspective at the same time. They are habits learned as we follow Jesus around as his apprentices. They don’t always come easily; as we learn, we still fall short. But this is the Jesus way. We can’t do less – and by God’s grace, it will become easier.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ What Is A Wesleyan Theology of Sanctification?

What comes to mind when you think of the word “sanctification”?

If you’re online trying to find a local mechanic to align your tires and somehow ended here, let’s back up.

Lots of people are atheists or agnostics or follow any number of religions. Christians are theists – we believe in God. In particular, whether we’re Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, or another tradition, Christians believe that God in God’s nature is Trinity: three persons, one God. Historic language for this is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, not because two/thirds of God is male, but because to approach God is to discover the tightly knit interconnectedness of how three persons relate in one unity. I promise this connects to the question, “what is the Wesleyan theology of sanctification?” Also, your tires might need rotated or balanced, too.

Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Coptic and other Christians also believe in the Incarnation: the second person of the Trinity, like the Gospel of John tells us, became flesh. The Word became flesh, and dwelled among us, or as Eugene Peterson poetically painted, the Word “moved into the neighborhood.”

Why the “Word became flesh” through the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ is where you begin to find some different emphases among Christian traditions. For centuries, some Eastern Orthodox believers have been universalists, believing eventually everyone will have full union with God in the afterlife. Western Christianity (St. Augustine from Africa, the eventual Roman Catholic Church, and many Protestants) has always placed focus on humanity’s tendency to self-destruct. Curved inward with disordered love of self over God and neighbor, humans have repeatedly chosen to reject God’s love in favor of self-will. (Sometimes this is referred to as “original sin” or as “sin” in general.) Humans continually fall short of the profound goodness and love of God; Jesus moved into the neighborhood, so to speak, to redeem the situation, to show us what God looks like with skin on, and to bring new life and hope to people in need of both. The Word became flesh to bridge the gap between the Creator and the creation.

Yes, you say, having finally found the right tire place on Google maps, but what of the Holy Spirit? What about “Wesleyan” and what do you mean by sanctification? These are great questions to ask in or out of a mechanic’s shop, and the longer you wait while your car is being worked on, the more you’ll need the Holy Spirit and sanctification. Or, put another away, the longer you wait, the more opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work sanctification of your soul after you’ve flipped through an old People and watched the clock practically go backwards.

The Holy Spirit pours out the power of God in a variety of ways that always reveal Christ, point to Christ, and empower believers with the love and power of Christ. Christians may point to the Holy Spirit inspiring the formation of scriptural texts or the Holy Spirit being active in varying practices of ordination (the setting aside of specially called, trained, anointed ministers). Some believers affirm the Holy Spirit’s activity in the Eucharist or Mystery or Holy Communion, transforming simple bread and wine or juice literally (if you’re Catholic) or mystically into a grace-filled experience of the body of Christ. Within these various traditions also lies a very real, often impostered, frequently misunderstood reality. The Holy Spirit continues today to surprise us in tire stores or churches or huts around the world with supernatural phenomena inexplicable solely through reductionist materialist scientific inquiry – healing, signs, strange things we can’t comprehend but that always, only reveal Christ and point to Christ and the invisible reality that is as real as a chipped coffee mug next to a stale-smelling Keurig machine. To greater and lesser degrees, and through a variety of means, believers also affirm that the Holy Spirit works to transform our outer behavior and our inner lives and loves so that we aren’t stuck in the same self-destruct patterns forever.

And this is where we intersect the original question: what is a Wesleyan theology of sanctification? Sorry, we’re out of time, we’ll have to look at that later.

Kidding! Kind of. There’s a lot to say and we’ve already condensed 2,000 years of church history and Trinitarian theology in ways that will have pastors, priests, and especially academics clearing their throats and raising their eyebrows and wanting to clarify or redefine everything I just said.

Wesleyan Methodists, or Wesleyans, or Methodists, are a group of Protestant Christians with a particular set of theological emphases from English brothers John and Charles Wesley, who lived in the 1700’s. “Wesleyan” derives from their name, obviously, and “Methodist” began as an insult because of their persnickety adherence to, yes, methods. While I say Wesleyan Methodism sprang up because of two brothers, if you read a basic biography you’ll soon see we wouldn’t have it today without their remarkable mom, Susanna.

Though John and Charles started what would become this movement, the seeds of Methodism grew while they were at Oxford University. Though they had sisters, women weren’t allowed admission at Oxford at the time, so while the mechanic comes over to tell you that instead of alignment, you need four new tires, you can sit and muse about how the movement might have looked had the Wesley sisters been allowed to attend Oxford.

The Wesley kids primarily were raised by their mom, but their father was a clergyman in the Church of England, which matters but we won’t get into why right now. The main point is that the Church of England at the time was nothing to write home about; and the brothers’ zeal for spiritual growth and formation was in stark contrast to the snoozing pulpits of polite civic religion of their day. Thus they were given the snarky brand of being overexcited “Methodists.”

The notion of sanctification doesn’t belong to one Christian tradition; it doesn’t belong solely to Wesleyan Methodists. You can find it in different terminology scattered across church history, through various traditions, and around the globe. But the Wesleyan Methodists were really organized about focusing on it, pursuing it, and living it individually and in community. The impact on real daily lives was astonishing. Child labor was confronted, illiteracy tackled. John Wesley’s most popular writing during his lifetime wasn’t his pile of sermons, it was his little practical, common-sense pamphlet on health, 250 years before Web MD. There were many very tangible outcomes to something that could sound abstract or removed from real life – sanctification and holiness. But for the Wesleys, sanctification was never about traveling to a remote cave to get away from the mundane or insidious. It was about real life, today, given all the less than ideal circumstances that come our way.

“Sanctus” means holy; sanctification simply refers to being made holy. We struggle though with how to define holy: you might say sacred or set apart or pristine or consecrated. Christians call God “holy,” but what do we really mean by that? Pure? Transcendent? Other-than? Monty Python delightfully skewered the weight and the difficulty of applying the word in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in a comedic scene about divine commands on how to use the “holy hand grenade.” Obviously, you can agree to call any object holy or sacred but that doesn’t make it so even if you treat it like it is. You may ask your mechanic if she’s using the ancient holy wrench on your car to be charged this much for new tires, and she may say, “yes, this here is my holy wrench,” waving it around while both of you know there’s nothing holy about this grimy dented wrench or her impulse to whack you with it or your impulse to be rude and impatient.

Holiness must be derived from something holy in and of itself. Where God breaks in, there is holiness. We don’t strain and strive to become our version of holy – John Wesley tried that, it didn’t go well. Painting a hammer gold and calling it holy doesn’t make it holy.

But as we follow Jesus, we open space to pursue and receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit, to be transformed so that, while you are still fully you, you are also more like Jesus in your thinking, will, desires, and choices.

Different traditions within Christianity describe a couple of odd phrases: imputed and imparted righteousness. To impute righteousness is to ascribe or assign righteousness to something that doesn’t have it inherently (rather like the “holy hand grenade”). It’s a position you occupy whether or not you bear the reality within yourself. Say a country with a monarchy has a revolution and they want to install a new king or queen. With a great deal of ceremony and ritual, they name someone as monarch who may have no royal family heritage. (That’s how monarchies began. “He is king now.” “But five seconds ago – ” “HE IS KING NOW.” “Long live the king!”) Everyone agrees to that position while knowing that one person’s DNA is not inherently set apart as “royal.” You are assigning a reality onto something.

To impart righteousness is to give righteousness; imparted righteousness is given and received in a meaningful way so that you are not just assigning a position or title or state of being. Righteousness is actually grown into; it is lived out. Say a kid starts taking vocal lessons and is fairly mediocre. But as they internalize their training and mimic the habits and disciplines of their teacher, their skills genuinely change and improve. Someone who begins as a novice singer transforms into a skilled vocalist. In that scenario, a teacher is imparting skill, passion, discipline, advice, correction, and affirmation.

Imagine then if the teacher could reach into their own throat and share a portion of the clarity of their tone, their perfect pitch, their love of music, and infuse their student with those qualities. That is imparted righteousness. It’s a transcendent music teacher not only demonstrating but sharing their own qualities with the student, as the student also exercises their will to show up for lessons, practice at home, and hone a love of singing.

And that – in part, please don’t email nasty remarks about how I’ve butchered a beautiful tradition – is what a Wesleyan theology of sanctification is: it is the belief, practice, discipline, and lifestyle of showing up to voice lessons with a desire to sing like our Divine Virtuoso, and our Cosmic Music Teacher sharing a portion of their own tone, pitch, technique, power, and passion back with us, so that whether or not we occasionally croak, crack, or drop a word, our intent is complete harmony with the Master Vocalist: the aim of perfect love.

More can be said about the nuts and bolts of this pursuit: the value of practicing this together in Wesley’s discipleship bands; the tangible way this works out in pursuit of justice where there is discordant exploitation, poverty, and abuse; the means of grace as a kind of practicing the scales and showing up for lessons; Scripture as a pitch pipe that reveals and tunes.

Your tires are finally ready, by the way. And where ugly attitudes or impatience or self-centeredness threaten to lead you off-key, leaning into the voice of Jesus Christ happens when, with humility, you can see your tired mechanic, make eye contact, smile, love her, and ask her how you can pray for her today. That is the Jesus way; that is what we mean by holy.

Photo by Valentin Salja on Unsplash

Justus Hunter ~ Noise Without Word: Worship in a World of Static

“Shape without form, shade without color, 

Paralyzed force; gesture without motion.” – T.S. Eliot

Noise without Word. 

After Solomon died, his Kingdom was split in two – the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. 

Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, reigned over Judah. He lived in Jerusalem, where Solomon built the temple of the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 

In the North, Jeroboam reigned over Israel. The Kings of Israel were masters of noise. 

Noise-making, then and now, has benefits. You see, Jeroboam was worried. As long as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the God of Israel, then Jeroboam’s people would travel to Jerusalem, Rehoboam’s home. Year after year they would trek to the Temple to offer sacrifices. Year after year they would trek to Rehoboam’s home. So Jeroboam was worried. 

Now the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not like other gods. You couldn’t just build a temple anywhere for the God of Israel. This God spoke. And this God told the Israelites to build one temple, in one city. This God required one worship.  

Other gods were just the opposite; the more the merrier! A King could build temple after temple, holy site after holy site, install priest after priest for these other gods.  And though these other gods did not speak, they made a lot of noise. 

So Jeroboam gave them noise. Lots of noise. Like the Israelites before him, he fashioned his own god rather than wait for the God of Moses. Like the Israelites at Sinai, Jeroboam cast a golden calf. But not just one. He cast two, and placed them on the Northern and Southern edges of his kingdom, in Dan and Bethel. He built them Temples. He gave them priests.  

And he said to the people, “you have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”  

Just like that, Jeroboam changed their history. He exchanged the God of Exodus for cheap imitations. And unsurprisingly, the people forgot their history. They forgot the story of true Exodus; they lost the God who sets free. They exchanged truth for imitation, form for shape, color for shade, Word for noise. 

In changing their history, Jeroboam changed their worship. The gods who stole their history gave them spectacles. And so the people exchanged true worship for spectacle. They went about with spectacle in their eyes, and noise in their ears. 

So they silenced the God of David. Jeroboam built sacred sites in all the high places across Israel. He installed priests to offer sacrifices to his gods. And so, all across Israel, from Dan to Bethel, noise filled the air. No one could hear the Word of the Lord, the God of David. All was imitation, mimicry, spectacle, and noise. 

This was the way of Jeroboam. 

After Jeroboam, all the Kings of Israel followed his way. Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, all of them “walked in the way of Jeroboam and in the sins that he caused Israel to commit, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols.” More Kings made more gods. More priests made more spectacles. More prophets made more noise. And the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was drowned out. No one could hear the Word of the Lord. 

Of all the Kings of Israel, Ahab was the noisiest. Like the others, he “walked in the sins of Jeroboam.” Ahab and his wife Jezebel built a temple to Baal in the heart of the land, in Samaria. They raised poles to Asherah throughout Israel. And so they filled the land with noise. 

Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the Kings of Israel before him. 

The gods of Ahab and Jezebel were happy. The God of Israel was drowned out. Noise. But no one could hear the Word of the Lord. Noise without Word. 

And then, the Word of the Lord came to Elijah. The Word of the Lord declares a drought. On Mount Carmel, the Word of the Lord silences the prophets of Baal. Baal’s worship is a spectacle; but like all spectacles, it can deliver no fire. And so the Word of the Lord comes and rains fire, and then fires rain. 

On Mount Carmel, Elijah mocks Baal’s spectacle. Elijah’s words called down signs and wonders from the sky. Consuming fire rains down. Elijah’s words condemn Baal’s noisemakers. The Word is proclaimed. And the Wordless noise is silenced by the Lord’s Word. 

Or so it seemed. 

(The next day) Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not (silence you) by this time tomorrow.” 

The noise returns. The noisy gods declare vengeance. They are not satisfied with silencing the Word through noise, or stealing Israel’s history through mimicry. Now they must parody the Law of the Lord. And so, Jezebel vows to execute the law of noise. Noise without Word enacts law without Justice. 

Elijah despairs. The day after the consuming fire on Carmel, he flees for his life. He wanders out into the wilderness, out of the kingdom of the gods of noise, and collapses under a bush. He begs the Lord to take his life. He flees the land of noise, mimicry, and parody. He flees the law without Justice, and begs for mercy from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Better to die at the Word of the Lord than at the decree of the gods of noise. So he cries out: 

Enough! Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors. 

But the Lord withholds mercy. The Lord will not take his life away. The Lord will not let Elijah abandon his gifts, though they afflict him; though he is no better off with these gifts than his ancestors were with theirs. The Lord will not take back Elijah’s gift of life. He is harassed by the gift of life. And he is afflicted with the gift of prophecy. 

God will not take his life. Instead, God restores it. Angels bring him food. 

And Elijah got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Sinai, the mount of God. 

Elijah feasts on food from heaven, like the manna in the wilderness. And like the manna, which sustained Israel forty years, Elijah’s food sustains him forty days. 

Forty days, fasting. Forty days, trudging through wilderness. Forty days, back through the years to the site where God created Israel. Forty days, back to Mount Sinai, where God afflicted Elijah’s ancestors with gifts of Word, Worship, and Law.

Elijah retraces the journey of his ancestors. He remembers the Exodus, Moses, the encounter in the wilderness. Elijah returns. He finds a cave and collapses with exhaustion. 

Then the Word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 

For forty days, he has staggered to the edge of his life. For forty days, he has fasted to his innermost thoughts. For forty days, he has remembered his story. And there, where the Word of the Lord meets him, he pleads his case. 

I was zealous, and yet… 

And yet, your people have forsaken your covenant. They exchanged your Law for parody – a law without justice.  

And yet, your people have thrown down your altars. They exchanged your Worship for spectacle – a worship without fire. 

And yet, your people have killed your prophets. They exchanged your Word for noise. 

“Shape without form, shade without color, 

Paralyzed force; gesture without motion.” 

Noise without Word. 

Ours is an age of noise. We exchange our history for comforting lies of other gods. We exchange our worship for spectacles. We exchange true justice for parodies, imitations, mimicry. We fill our lives with noise. We silence the Word of the Lord. 

Sometimes we expect God to cut through the noise. We look for the consuming fire of Mt. Carmel. If only God would upset our slumber with force – the rushing wind, the unsteady earth, the raining fire.  

The Word said to Elijah, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard the silence, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.” 

Much later in this story, the Word of the Lord came again.  

The Word became flesh, and made His dwelling among us.

The Word ascended another mountain. And the Word gave another sign, feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fish. The Word descended the mountain heights, and worked another wonder, walking on water and calming the depths. 

And then, he delivered a teaching. And that teaching mystified the people. People living among parody and imitation and mimicry. People with eyes full of spectacle and ears full of noise. 

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. 

Eat my flesh. It is an odd teaching. It is an unsuspected teaching. It is a difficult teaching. And so, many left the Word who came down from heaven and returned to the noise.

So The Word, the bread that came down from heaven, turned to his disciples, and asked them a question: 

“Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” 

“Shape without form, shade without color, 

Paralyzed force; gesture without motion.” 

Noise without Word. 

Ours is an age of noise. We exchange our history for comforting lies of other gods. We exchange our worship for spectacles. We exchange true justice for parodies, imitations, mimicry. We fill our lives with noise. We silence the Word of the Lord. 

But the Word comes nevertheless, not in an earthquake or fire or rushing wind, but in this man, Jesus the Christ. And he offers himself to us; eat from me, drink from me. 

How odd. No spectacle of noisy gods. Just this peculiar sign, this unexpected wonder. 

“Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 

And he turns to his disciples, and he asks: “Do you also wish to go away?” 

And we, with eyes full of spectacle and ears full of noise, despairing for our lives, afflicted with our gifts and our calls, like Elijah in the wilderness, respond: 

“Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” 

Note from the Editor: We appreciate the opportunity to revisit this reflection, which originally appeared on Wesleyan Accent in 2017.

Aaron Duvall ~ Good God: The Problem of Morality

Why do we sense that some things are intuitively unjust, unfair, or even inhuman? What drives our common appeal to an unspoken or implicit set of “rules” for living? What insights can we find in the New Testament to shine light on this general sense in humanity that some things are right and others are wrong? This weekend’s sermon is from Rev. Aaron Duvall, who explores the basis of our moral impulses. It begins at minute marker 1:00.