The Crossroads of Christianity and Culture

Decades ago a psychiatrist pointed out to our group that the word "but" actually serves to nullify everything that came before.  Unfortunately in the world of political advocacy, "yes, but" has become a commonplace. Those following the news will have seen this story of four recent terrorist attacks against Israelis, and pretty specifically Israeli Jews.  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/world/middleeast/hadera-israel-terror-attack.html .  Reading these reports I'm both outraged, frightened for my relatives (by marriage) in Israel, worried because IS is now targeting Israelis, and yes, tempted to engage in a little "yes, butism." You know why. Isn't it tempting to bring up all the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians (well documented) and indeed every other moral failing of Israel's behavior toward the Palestinians one can think of?  Tempting, but absurd and immoral. There is no justification, no moral reason, for the random killing of ...

I teach in a Doctor of Liberal Studies program. In it there are 6 core seminars designed to form the basis of a truly interdisciplinary study of what it means to be human. Because the questions, what does it mean to be human, is the core question of the liberal arts. Roughly put these are subjects of our core courses: The human as creator of and created by culture. The human as both knower of and part of the natural world. The human as the maker of history and made by history. The human understanding itself as transcending the body, as psyche, soul. The human as creative and creator. The human as a possessor of natural rights in relation to all other humans.  The whole that transcends these parts is appropriately called the human spirit, although I won't assert my colleagues would all agree. The term human spirit is justified because it is transcendent. It does not die when individual humans die, or individual societies die, or even whole civilizations are swept away. It is thus al...

My old theology teacher maintained that to have a dialogue there needed to be a common question both parties wanted to answer. But of course this isn't enough. There needs to be a common language. And most importantly,  an understanding of what authorizes the validity of any theological assertion made in the dialogue.  The latter is the problem in United Methodist discourse. We aren't clear on what authorizes our theological assertions.  The Articles of Religion are less than helpful. They specify that the scripture contains all that is necessary to salvation, but don't explain how scripture authorizes theological discourse. They give us the most important normative theological conclusions, but don't specify the process by which a theologian moves from scripture to those conclusions. Discussions of "high" and "low" views of scripture are a repetition of vacuous terms with only polemical value. The problem remains.  An appeal to the so-called Quadrila...

Presently falls across the United Methodist theological spectrum.  Years ago in conversation with a conservative Anglo-Catholic friend of nearly a lifetime I explained something of our curriculum at Perkins. He just shook his head. "The first thing a priest must learn is to say the mass, the second is to care for his members spiritual formation and pastoral needs, the third is to be a  catechist . Beyond this seminary should be a time to care for his own spiritual formation through the sacraments of the church. He can learn everything else later." A catechist? At Perkins in the late 1970's the goal was to learn how to "think theologically." Pastors were trained to be the lead theologians of congregations in the midst of social and cultural change. The root assumption was that we must understand what the creeds meant, not just what they said. Our textbook was taken intentionally from a theological tradition other than that of our teachers, so that we understood t...

  Polity will never give you unity. The current United Methodist polity is in crisis, the result of a failure to adopt to emerging global realities. The General Conference is once again delayed, congregations are departing, and denominational finances continue to fall. Most importantly ,in the very practical matters of institutional maintenance we face unprecedented hurtles.   http://www.umglobal.org/2022/03/what-now-episcopal-elections.html Methodism was born on the cusp of the creation of the current international order. As it grew beyond England and the United States its polities reflected that order, with an organization based on both emerging national boundaries and the essentially colonial nature of the new order. The structures of the American Methodist Church were fundamentally colonial, with ecclesial colonies (Mission Annual Conferences within larger Mission Central Conferences) managed by American bishops, run by American missionaries, and reporting to the Gene...

Convalescing after a major operation one wishes for some clarifying craziness, and it came today (March 8,2022) in a RNS article.  https://religionnews.com/2022/03/07/vigano-vatican-critics-blames-deep-state-for-ukraine-war-citing-covid-19-measures/ The key takeaway from the article is this quote, “The United States of America and the European States must not marginalize Russia but build an alliance with it, not only to restart trade for the prosperity of all, but in lieu of the reconstruction of a Christian Civilization, which will be the only one able to save the world from the transhuman and medical-technical globalist monster,” Wow! Reconstruction of a Christian Civilization. The old empire revived. Pope and Patriarch shaking hands. Forgetting of course that most Christians live in the Global South. Which is where, over in Protestantville, begins the other dream of Christian empire.  It would be fair to say that in Christian evangelical circles, and in the UMC much more wi...