The Week That Changed The World (Part 1)
by Paul Luther Maier*
I think Christians should be aware that our faith is based on real events that happened in Real Time in history. We can celebrate our faith. Competitive religions are based on events that supposedly happened at a given time in history, but didn't really – or they were misinterpreted.
For example, one looks in vain for one single artifact that supports the Book of Mormon, or a single line in a book somewhere that would support the visions claimed by Joseph Smith. These people have no historical credentials whatever for what they profess; whereas we have thousands of artifacts to support the biblical writers. The authentic credentials for the Christian faith are exponentially stronger than for any other world religious system.
Good News
Christians don't often realize our luxury of having the only religious faith on this planet that is based on solid historical credentials (aside from our parent Judaism). I don't think we celebrate this sufficiently, or use it in our witness – especially with all the competition Christianity has today.
As we near the millennial milestone, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that statistically considered, Christianity is the most successful single phenomenon on this planet. There is no other religion, no other teaching, no other nation, no other philosophical school, no other enterprise that claims the loyalty of one billion, 900 million people across the world – in this generation alone. This is something we ought to celebrate.
What a magnificent fulfillment of the prophetic missionary command of Jesus in Matthew 28 about conquering the world in his name!
Competitive Pressures
Now for the bad news: the faith is under greater competitive pressure than ever. That should be especially evident here in multi-cultural Southern California.
More attention than ever is being paid to the life of Jesus and the birth of Christianity; but probably never before has the faith come under heavier scholarly scrutiny and negative critique than today. To be sure, we have our defenders of the faith. But we also have our sensation-mongers – scholars who are trying to get a hearing by overemphasizing and criticizing out of all proportion to what the sources would suggest. We have one put-down after another being published on the life of Jesus.
It began about 30 years ago with Hugh Shonefield's Passover Plot. Then followed Jesus as a mushroom cultist, in a book by John Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. Then came Morton Smith's book on Jesus as a master magician in The Secret Gospel, doing his miracles by magic. Several books came out with Jesus as "the happy husband." Whom did he marry? Mary Magdalene, of course, who always seems to get paired up with Jesus for some reason.
Vicious, sensationalist versions of the life of Jesus are published with no historical basis whatever. One of the latest of these non-books is Barbara Thiering's Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In it Jesus married Mary Magdalene, they got divorced, Jesus married somebody else, they had children, and supposedly there are people with Jesus' genes still walking around France today.
As if that were not enough, in 1986, a group was formed called "The Jesus Seminar." At their semi-annual meetings they have the audacity – with little black, gray, pink and red plastic balls dropped into a container – to vote whether Jesus could have said or done each of the things reported in the gospels – absolutely throwing historical methodology out of the window in the process of coming across with their own fantasies.
They have voted down almost every one of Jesus' major sayings. With the Sermon on the Mount, they allow Jesus one statementù"Blessed are the poor." In the Lord's Prayer they allow him the words "Our Father," and nothing else. Going on to his deeds, they deny that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and certainly not born of a virgin. Just in time for Easter last year they voted that, of course, Jesus could not have risen from the deadù that, in fact, his body was probably eaten by dogs.
That's the era we're living in, and these are the people who get all the sensationalizing publicity. That's the bad news.
What Really Happened?
Can we determine a way to ferret out what actually happened 2000 years ago? Can we go back to that first century and to the other centuries of biblical history, and once for all, lay to rest what did or did not happen?
There are ways of doing this. There are indeed marvelous extra-biblical resources which are very serviceable in checking up on the biblical record. So often as Christians, we assume that every bit of information about the people, places, and events that gave rise to our faith are locked inside the Bible; and it is the case of an all-or-nothing response. Either you believe the biblical record or you do not.
This is wrong. We have remarkable outside sources. I almost like to call them "God's backup systems," or better, "God's collateral revelation," traces in non-biblical sources which are extremely important in trying to weigh the credentials of the biblical record.
To enier into the ancient world, I use what I call a three-lane ongoing highway. The first lane is called geography, the second archeology, and the third history, i.e., the historical documents which have come down to the present day. These are all non-biblical avenues which, each in its own way, lead back to the biblical world.
Geography
First, the geography lane. Let's drop a bombshell here: there really was and is a place called the Holy Land. Bombshell? Yes, because our faith has a solid stage. Most world religious systems don't. They may claim to have one, a place where all the gods and goddesses go gamboling about – Mt. Olympus for the pagan Greeks orthe Himalayas, for example. But none of them is so geographically attuned as is the Judeo-Christian tradition.
God's people are very place-oriented in the Old and New Testaments; they interact with their Lord at very real locations. Much of the Bible is geography. Think Old Testament: Abrahamùmoving up from Ur to Haran, then to the Holy Land, down to Egypt, back and forth. The children of Israel going down to Egypt, and back out with all the way stations on the Exodus Trail. Joshua, conquering the land for the Chosen People, and all the tribes and cities that intersect with them.
On into the New Testament, with Jesus going from place to place. Or St. Paulùhis missionary journeys, going all the way to Rome. His passport was filled three or four times! Probably 80 percent of these sites, have been identified, and many of
them have even become archeological digs. What a luxury to know that the drama of salvation involves players that were on a very solid stage. As Christians we assume that all world religions have an equally solid geographical foundation. They do not.
There is one place I love to visit in particular in the Old City of Jerusalem, the remains of a tower which was there in Jesus' day, the Tower of Phasael. Herod the Great constructed it out of enormous "Herodian" blocks of stone. When Titus destroyed the city, he left one structure standing, the Tower of Phasael, at the northern end of Herod's Palace, where Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate. He wanted subsequent ages to know how difficult it was to conquer Jerusalem.
I look at those great stones with a question, "Tell me what you saw on that day called 'Good Friday'. You were there at this trial that changed history. You saw it all." So far they haven't answered me! But they are a demonstration of the tangible, the material, the inaugural proof in terms of the stage on which Christianity played out its beginnings. These Herodian stones witnessed the very trial of Jesus of Nazareth!
Archeology
The second lane of the highway to the ancient past is archeology. Here we have the chance to observe the stage not only on the surface, but also in depth. Scientific archeology is a young discipline not more than 120 years old. But look at what has been discovered already to increase our knowledge of the biblical world.
The discoveries are fascinating – like the epigraphical evidence that there certainly was a Pontius Pilate. This had been doubted by German higher critics in the last century. But in 1961 a stone was discovered at Caesarea inscribed with the name of "Pontius Pilatus, Prefect of Judaea" in two-inch Latin lettering.
Another recent find should have been displayed in sixty point type in newspapers across the world: the discovery of the actual bones of a biblical personality. If this had happened in the 1930s or '40s, there would not have been a newspaper in the Western world that would not have given it front page headlines.
Real Bible Bones
In November 1990 a bulldozer was working away in a forest south of the temple area in Jerusalem, digging for a water park. The dozer started to sink; it had punctured the roof of a burial cavern. Inside were 12 ossuariesùbone chests used as a space-saving way to bury people in the first century AD.
They put the bodies in asepulchre, let them rot away for a few years, and then gathered the bones that were left, and reburied them in what was called the "second burial system". Jesus would have been part of that. He was in the "first burial phase", and except for Easter, his bones would have gone into an ossuary.
The workers pulled one of the 12 ossuaries out of a niche. They found it to be richly carved with magnificent facing along the border, befitting a VIP. And who was that VIP? On the other side of this bone-chestwas found scratched in two places the name in Aramaic: Josef bar Caiapha, i.e., Joseph Caiaphasùthe High Priest who indicted Jesus before Pontius Pilate. We are talking about one of the main actors in the Passion Story. With the confirming epigraphic material on Pontius Pilate, we have two of the main personalities involved at Jesus' trialùeven the bones of one who was involved.
Before you people pass on, there will be new, dramatic archeological discoveries, which, if the ratio holds, will 8 of 10 times support and endorse the biblical record. I've given you only one or two highlights of what's been discovered.
This means you people either know more or can know more about how Christianity got started than any of the greatest names in Church history – more than Martin Luther. He didn't have archeology, or microfiche, e-mail, or whatever else, to keep in touch with the latest communications in biblical research. We know more on how Christianity got started than Thomas Aquinas or even St. Augustine.
It's a paradox: the further removed we are from the first century, the better fix we're getting on what happened there. Our children and grandchildren will have better information yet. Our data base is growing all the time.
History's Documents
The third avenue back into the ancient world would be the evidence from the historical documents that have come down to us.
Documents of history have survived across the centuries through manuscript transmission by recopying. The first century AD was remarkably supplied with non-biblical materialsùboth the Greek and the Roman worldùas well as with documents in the rabbinic tradition. By using them, we get a clearer picture of that age.
Never get cornered by a common challenge to the Christian faith: "If Jesus was so important, how come not even his name shows up in any non-Christian materials in the first century after he died?" This protest is loaded with the wrong premise. Christ's name does show up outside biblical or Christian materials in fascinating places. It appears in the writings of the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, as well as in the Jewish rabbinic traditions where "Jesus the Nazarene" is found in the arrest notice of Jesus.
We also have the works of Flavius Josephus, who is far and away the treasure trove of additional biblical-type information that has survived the centuries. HebeginsatCreationand continues all the way down to his own day in the war against Rome, the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD and even Masada, in 73 AD.
To be sure, his early stuff is not that of an eye-witness. He was not presentatthe Creation! Hewasborn in Jerusalem four years after the crucifixion. So he had a box seat for the events of the later New Testament era, and he used rabbinic tradition to add to the Old Testament record.
When we come to the intertestamental era and the Maccabees, Josephus' information improves, and is best for the New Testamentera. Wehave,forexample, about 800 times as much information about Herod the Great in Josephus, as in Matthew's Gospel. We have 10-15 times as much information on Pontius Piiate, as in the Gospel recordùtremendously important information. I don't understand why New Testament scholars don't use Josephus more. He is a virtual eyewitness of what took place in the first century.
Josephus in the Church
The Church has used Josephus, but only sparingly, to fit! in the biblical record. In Josephus, two crucial paragraphs correlate with the biblical record about John the Baptist and Salome. Her name in not in the New Testament. "Daughter of Herodias" is all the gospels say. Thank Josephus for her name and where this happened, at Herod's fortress Machaerus, diagonally across the Dead Sea from Masada.
Or, who was the first bishop of the Christian Church? It was James the Just (Acts 15), half-brother to Jesus. The New Testament doesn't tell us how he died. Josephus does. In 62 AD James was stoned to death by the Sanhedrin, in the absence of the Roman Governor Albinus, who hadn't arrived in Judea yet. Facts about Annas, Caiaphas – the details on the high-priestly clan in Jerusalem and why nobody liked them very much (except our current New Testament revisionist scholars) – all surface in Josephus.
With all this going for that Jewish historian, why isn't he read today? Your grandparents read him. In their libraries they would have the Holy Bible and standing next to it, the works of Josephus.
Two reasons may explain this. First, Josephus wrote too much, the equivalent of 12 books of Jewish history. In our hurried age who wants to wade through 12 books?
The other reason he isn't used today is that the most popular English translation, by William Whiston, is in King James-type English. Whiston, Isaac Newton's successor at Cambridge, knew his Greek. Butwho wants to read that sort of prose today? Consequently, I myself have done a new translation, a condensation of Josephus entitled, Josephusùthe Essential Works (Kregel, 1994).
(In the next issue of FOCL-POINT Dr. Maier concludes his account of the witness which extra-biblical documents like the rabbinic tradition and Flavius Josephus, a contemporary of the New Testament era, give us for our better understanding of the events of Holy Week and the certainty of their occurrence.)
*Paul Maier is Professorof Ancient History, Western Michigan University, and author of Josephus, the Essential Works. /Among his other books are, Pontius Pilate, Flames of Rome, In the Fullness of Time, and the religious fiction best-seller, A Skeleton in God's Closet. HisBasel University Ph.D. degree under Karl Barth and Oscar Cullman was granted with that university's first summa cum laude bestowed upon an American student. This popular article is excerpted from his first lecture given at the 1996 LUTHER ANDTHE BIBLE CONFERENCE at Lutheran Bible Institute in California.
Forward To The Basics (Part 2)
by Dr. Walter Sundberg*
To sustain his theme, Dr. Sundbergadvancedthreeofsixtheses inParti (see the last issue of FOCL-POINT.) The third, "We must preach the burden of Christ crucified," means, Sundberg said, to agree with Martin Luther in the first of his 95 theseswhich sparked the Reformation, that the entirety of the Christian life is lived in "repentance." Sundberg continues by offering the Lutheran liturgical activity around the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as an example.
In 1525 pastor Nicholas Housman set about wriiing new liturgies in German- He sent the package to Luther, who wrote back, "I've made one addition: 'An Exhortation to Communicants.' It's meant to come after the sermon, before people come up to receive the Holy Supper."
A Proclamation of His Death, Suffered for Our Sins
This commemoration requires a firm faith to make the heart and conscience of everyone who wants to partake of this supper, sure and certain that Christ has suffered death for ail his sins. But whoever doubts, and does not in some manner feel such faith should know that this supper is of no avail to him but will rather be to his hurt and he should stay away from it. Since we cannot see such faith, and it is known only to God, we leave it to the conscience of him who comes and admit him who requests and desires it.
"But those who cling to open sins such as greed, hatred, anger, envy, profiteering, unchastity and the like, and are not minded to renounce them, shall herewith be barred from the supper and be warned faithfully not to come, lest they incur judgment and damnation for their own souls, as St. Paul says.
"If, however, someone has fallen because of weakness and proves by his acts that he earnestly desires to better himself, this grace and communion, the body and blood of Christ, shall not be denied to him. In this fashion, each must judge himself and look out for himself, for God is not mocked, nor will He give that which is holy unto dogs or cast pearls before swine. Amen."
Luther's "Entire Life of Repentance" is something we have forgotten in the Church. It's one of the basics, it can be recovered.
The Office of the Keys
Here may be one way. One function of ministry is to exercise the so-called "Power of the Keys"-ù-the power to bind and the power to loose sins. In the now-retired Service Book and Hymnal (the "red book"), the two keys were operative in "The Orderfor Public Confession." They have been stricken from our present "green book."
After the public admission of guilt and sin, The Order read: "Almighty God, our Heavenly Father hath had mercy upon us and for the sake of the sufferings and death and resurrection of His dear son, Jesus Christ our Lord, forgiveth us all our sins. As a minister of the church of Christ, and by His authority, I therefore declare unto you whodo truly repent and believe in Him the entire forgiveness of all your sins. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen, "On the other hand, by the same authority I declare to the impenitent and unbelieving, that so long as they continue in their impenitence, God hath not forgiven their sins and will assuredly visit their iniquities upon them, if they turn not from their evil ways and come to true repentance and faith in Christ, ere the day of grace be ended."
I think returning to something as simple asthiswouldservethe cause of making us honest about our faith, calling us to reflection and repentance before God's holy throne.
Thesis Four:
Hold to the unchanging truth that the Scriptures are inspired by God.
The Bible itself tells us, "All scripture is inspired" (2 Timothy 3:16). How do we hold on to this truth? I think we ought to read the Bible every day. That would show our allegiance to this principle.
We ought to read the Bible with an attitude. How? Imagine returning from the midnight Christmas service. It's 2:30 a.m. and you're trying to put togetherthe Barbie Boca Raton Beach House. The most important thing in your life in those wee hours is what? The instruction manual! Youhangon every word. You are a beggar. That manual has the truth, the truth you need: "Connect A to B."
That's how we should read the Bible. Read it as the beggars that we are. Who here is an expert on life; who knows how it all fits together? Where do we turn for the truth, the instructions?
We have trouble in the Church today. Many in the Church believe they know more than the Scriptures. So the Scriptures can be ignored, or used to support some truth that they adhere to on other grounds.
I don't understand why we do this. If you or I or any pastor holds to a spiritual truth on grounds other than Scripture, we ought to get into another line of work. For it is our privilege to direct to the instruction manual.
Thesis Five:
Attend to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in your life
One of the most inspiring figures in the history of American Lutheranism was the patriarch Henry Melchior Muhienberg. He came from Germany in 1742 to help organize the ragtag outfitthatwas Lutheranism in America. Few church buildings, a huge wilderness, and extended geography put an end quickly to any idea there would be a parish system. People lived hither and yon.
With no central organization, someone would often say, "Hey, I'm a preacher." They'd hire him. He could be a scalawag; they did not know.
Muhlenberg Takes Hold
Muhlenberg tried to get control of this problem, traveling by horseback yearafteryear in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, NewJersey. He kept a daily journal, a classic in colonial literature. He knew that every day of his life was under the power of the Holy Spirit. So one entry from February 1748, tells how Muhienberg was lost, trying to find the worship service he was supposed to preside at the next day. I quote:
"First I rode two miles in the wrong direction and had to work my way laboriously back again. Several times I fell suddenly with the poor horse through the snow and soft ice into the swamp and had to work my way out again with God's help. The horse became weary and reluctant lo go through the unbeaten tracks of deep snow, so I was obliged to walk ahead on foot and make a track for the horse. I would have been glad to sit down in sheer weariness, but it was so bitterly cold and I was perspiring so profusely I did not dare to rest and risk the sleep of death.
"I once more summoned up my remaining energies in the name of the Lord and finally reached my lodging safely that same night. Had I remained on the road my enemies would probably have jeered and said that I had died drunk since I had no witnesses with me.
"I was unusually encouraged on this trip to the congregations because I perceived a number of beneficent stories of the Spirit of God. Sometimes one would rather stay home when the bad roads and weather set in, but since one's coming must usually be announced several weeks in advance and people must gather from considerable distances, the sectarian people profit by it if one fails to come. They say to our people, 'That's the way your parsons are. They promise much but keep little.'"
Muhlenberg kept his promises. He showed up despite all sorts of hardships, encouraged by the beneficent stirring of the Holy Spirit.
Open to the Spirit
Are we open to the Spirit's work? Very often we do things without reference to God the Holy Spirit. We do them in the church too, practically, coldly.
One of the gifts that God gives us is the gift of spirituality, the ability to be related to Him. We need to practice our spiritual life so that we are open to God's stirring. One of the dangers besetting the card-carrying members of a mainline church, is that people do not share the faith at home in the family. We cannot let go of this family faith-sharing.
Thesis Six: Remember who's boss
Who's boss? The Lord Jesus Christ alone! A couple of years ago two ELCA synods held a youth convention. Among the speakers was a Native American who told of his faith in the great spirit. He did not believe in Jesus Christ; he was not a Christian and wanted nothing to do with the Christian faith. It was fine that he wanted to pursue his native roots in spiritual faith. But why bring this to a convention of Christian young people?
What were we trying to teach them? We believe what Christ says, don't we, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes unto the Father but by me?" We uphold the name of Christ before whom every knee shall bow, not because it makes us great, but because Christ is great. He died for us.
So why do we do things like this in the church? Why emphasize and promote diversity as a total tolerance of faith and pluralism in belief? I don't understand. People are naturally tolerant, but we must hold to the center: Christ alone.
Three sociologists, Johnson, Luddins, and Hoagie, published a study last year called Vanishing Boundaries, concerning the decline of the Episcopal Church in Canada and the Presbyterian Church in America. Both are badly losing membership. They decided the basic problem is that the church is filled with what they called "lay liberals," that is, people who believe there are many paths to God and each path is fine.
This, said the sociologists, was the problem. The church was losing the faith that salvation is through Christ alone. When we lose that faith the church dies. REMEMBER WHO IS BOSS!
*SUNDBERG teaches at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, and is co-editor of The Rose, a journal of personal faith, and of the recent volume on the historical critical method in biblical study, The Bible in Modern Culture.
This is an edited version of his 1995 FOCL Reformation Rally lecture.
PRO-testors.
When Reformation leaders at the 1526 Diet of Spires expressed their concerns, they were henceforth called pro-testants. It is still the most general name for non-Roman Catholics. They were pro-testors over against what they observed in the Church.
But they were far more. They were pro-testati-ants, that is, they were "for" (pro ) "testimony" or "witness" (testatio) as the Latin has it. They were not "protesting-against", as we commonly use the term. They were "testifying" forù namely, for the supremacy of the Word of God in the Church. Precisely so, FOCL perceives its mission: to "testify-for" the truths which the Lutheran faith has bannered before the world for nearly half a millennium. Hence, Prof. Sundberg's FOCL Reformation Rally lecture, "FORWARD TO THE BASICS" in this issue, well describes the mission and program to which the Fellowship of Confessional Lutherans is committed.
SAVE THE CHRISTIANS:
According to John Hanford, aide to Sen. Richard Lugar, "On a worldwide basis, Christians are the most persecuted major religion in terms of punishment for practicing religious activities – public worship, evangelism, charity." Today in Sudan, believers are killed, driven off, or sold into slavery to buyers from other Islamic countries. Charles Colson asks, "Why aren't we vigorously protesting this reign of terror? I picked up a newspaper to read that evangelical leaders from 1,000 churches had met that same week to raise a million dollars to protect endangered species. I was stunned. Of course, we are called to be stewards of God's creation. But is it right to protect owls and snail darters, while ignoring our Christian brothers and sisters?"
He added an example from the National & International Religion Report: "The Saudi Arabian government recently demanded that the U.S. embassy stop holding religious services for American citizens. It also wanted the embassy to close its nightclubs, since drinking and dancing are against Muslim beliefs. Faced with two demands, U.S. officials compromised: if they could keep the nightclubs open, they would close the worship services. In the words of Tim Hunter, former foreign service officer, our government decided that 'the needs of American alcoholics were more important than the needs of American Christians.' It's time to use our pulpits and publications to rise up in moral outrage against this genocide." (from Jubilee, Spring 1996)
Need a stewardship thought? Try this: "Businessman Maxy Jarman, head of the international conglomerate Genesco, [was] a friend of many evangelistic causes. He gave to many Christian ministries, but then suffered economic reverses. Someone confronted him, asking if he ever regretted giving away so much money now that he no longer had his fortune. He answered that he had only lost the part that he had kept, but what he had given away for God, he still had." – Jews for Jesus Newsletter.
The Numbers Game
– More than the entire black population of the U.S.
– More than the population of 22 U.S. States
– More than the combined white and black population, both slave and free, at the start of the Civil War.
– It's the number of unborn babies killed on the altar of abortion in this country since the Supreme Court said it's a "right."
– And More Numbers: Social Security Fixers who discovered there are only 3.3 workers to support each beneficiary today, and Baby Boomers who will find only 2 workers to support each beneficiary in 2025 AD – down from a ratio of 16 workers to I beneficiary in 1950ùshould look for the many millions of these lamented absentee contributors to the Social Security Trust Fund in the obituaries of the nation.
Seeing: "It comes down to a matter of seeing. Some see a woman – we see a mother. Some see a fetus – we see a child. Some see a parasite – we see a baby. Some see a problem – we see a gift. Some see a choice – we see a chance." – Dr. Jean Garton.
The 6% Club: Pastor Tom Parrish says, "When we began the Great Commission Network, we called ourselves the 6%club because research pointed out that in any organization or group, it takes only 6% to move the other 94%ùif they are clear on their goals, committed for the long haul and willing to sacrifice to reach their goals." Surely a word of encouragement
for FOCL-POINT readers who want to help return the ELCA to its biblical foundations.
How Times Change! Engineered by the young Turks in Synod assemblies fifty years ago, most of the "RESOLVED THATs" were prefaced with, "We view with alarm that..." Today resolutions and speakers instead start regularly with "We are outraged that...." Violence-prone attitudes catch on in church too.
Three Big Lies: At a recent seminar of Accuracy in Media, film critic Michael Medved named the "three big lies" film makers use to justify their sleazy products.
#1: Movies do not affect behavior.
If messages from TV or movie screen don't influence people, Medved said, "someone should start refunding the billions of dollars manufacturers pay to TV networks for advertising."
#2: Movies only reflect society as it is.
Forty percent of TV murders are committed by white male businessmen; in reality, such killings are so rare the FBI does not even categorize them in its crime reports. The Population Council counted 30,000 TV references to sexual intercourse in a single yearù13 to I outside marriage, glamorizing this behavior, even though a 1994 University of Chicago survey found that married persons have more sex, and are more satisfied, than single persons.
#3: We've got to make a profit.
But attacks on religion and sleaze and violence do not sell. Four major movies in 1995 featured a "crazed Christian serial killer" including one who bludgeons a victim to death with a crucifix. Melved called Mirrors the "most anti-Catholic movie ever made," featuring five priests who have been brutalized by church doctrines, and who are shown in scenes featuring explicit homosexual acts. The movie flopped. Figures contradict Hollywood's lie that "sleaze sells. NONE OF THE TOP SIX BOX OFFICE DRAWS IN 1995 HAD AN 'R' RATING."
A Response to the Bishops' Sexuality Letter
Focl-Point readers will appreciate this response to the ELCA bishops letter which they directed to the homosexual community and "to the whole Church." (See The Lutheran, Apr 1996). It comes from the senior pastor of the largest ELCA church in California, and was addressed to the ELCA presiding bishop, H. George Anderson. Pertinent contents follow:
Your letter points out that at the 1995 Assembly, its declaration [on sexuality ] was extended to express "strong opposition to all forms of verbal and physical harassment or assault of persons because of their sexual orientation." Such a statement seems easy to support as an expression of faithful Christian behavior.
There is a problem as to who determines what constitutes verbal abuse, however. An obvious answer would be that those who are being persecuted have the right to inform us of those things we may be doing that are abusive. But let me explain my reason for raising the question.
Last February 2-4 in the Graduate Theological Union at the Pacific School of Religion, in Berkeley, the sixth annual "National Lesbian/Gay/Trans gendered Seminarians Conference" was held. It is attended by future pastors from across the country. This year's theme was, "Thy Queerdom Come – Theology and Our Prophetic Voices."
What was most intriguing to me was one of the workshops entitled "Textual Harassment and the Bible." Is it then, according to the bishops' letter, our understanding of faithful ministry that we give any group with a particular agenda or morality the right to set aside whatever portion of God's Word they decide is a form of verbal harassment, simply because they disagree with the biblical text and have chosen a life style in opposition to it? Is it the position of our Church that such a Word from God should be avoided in our conversation with those people because it may be deemed offensive by them?
The most important portion of the Assembly's admonition is that we find a way "to practice and teach biblical and confessional guidance" when speaking about this issue.
Law and Gospel
It seems to me that our understanding of LawandGospel insists that the Word of God will be offensive to ljs. when it points out our sinfulness and faithlessness. At the same time, this Word of God will show us a path towards reconciliation. The Word of God clearly proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ, His grace, His forgiveness and His assurance..
We are called to respond to that Good News by repenting and believing. At the very heart of Jesus' proclamation were these words from Mark 1:15: "The Kingdom of God is at hand! Repentand believe." Once we have heard the Word and believed it, we are called to repent. God gives us the strength and ability to turn away from our sinfuiness, and to learn from Him how we are to live faithfully as His servants.
You cite Matthew 11: 28 as Jesus' call for those who are weary and heavy laden. Such an invitation is appropriate, but as those who do not wish to indulge in "proof-text ing," we must keep in mind thecontext. In verse 29 Jesus continues with these words, "TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU, AND LEARN FROM ME." In verses 20-24 Jesus speaks a harsh word of reproach to the people who had heard the Good News, seen His miracles, and refused to repent. He said in verse 22, "It shall be more tolerable forTyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than you." Is this not the context in which your quoted verse 28 finds its rightful place? These words too, are faithful and true!
Foundations for Ministry
Your letter prompts the question of the foundation upon which we are to build both our ministry and our theology in the ELCA. Are they based on a gospel we manufacture, in which all people, regardless of belief, understanding or lifestyle, are welcome to consider themselves Christian and faithful, simply because we have opened our arms to embrace them? Do we consider them a part of the Body of Christ even if they believe the Word of God is a form of verbal harassment? Or believe that the Word of God can no longer be the norm forour life and faith? If that be true, how can we still consider ourselves faithful to "biblical teaching" and to the "confessional guidance" which insists the Word of God is the norm for our ELCA faith and life?
There is also great wisdom in God's Word forthose who seek "reconciliation." Let them considerthe words of Matthew, chapter 18:15, and following. We are to call sin "sin;" to discuss it personally; and if there is repentance, we are to offer forgiveness and be reconciled.
If there is no acknowledgment of the sin, however, we are to involve other witnesses, and finally the Church. If there is still a refusal to listen, even to the Church, then Jesus says in Matthew 18:17: "Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector" that is, an outsider. I realize these are words that some may assert are a form of harassment; but I believe they are the wisdom of God for our benefit.
I do repent of any hurtful actions toward others, and I pray for the forgiveness of others if I have made them the object of anger or hate. I will continue to pray for the well-being of all God's people. But I pray even more fervently for the leadership of this Church, that it find adequate ways to fulfill the first part of the Church's admonition to find ways to practice and teach biblical and confessional guidance in this and in all other matters. Then we can speak the truth in love. I invite your prayerful response and guidance concerning this issue.
Pastor John Bradosky, Hunttngton Beach, CA.