George Erasmus on "Common Memory"

George Erasmus, a wise aboriginal leader from the Dene Nation says, “Where common memory is lacking, where people do not share in the same past, there can be no real community. Where community is to be formed, common memory must be created.”

This quote gets to the heart of our nation’s problem with race. As a country, we do not share a common memory. White Americans remember a history of discovery, expansion, exceptionalism and opportunity. And people of color, starting with (but not limited to) Natives and African Americans have the lived history of stolen lands, broken treaties, slavery, Jim Crow laws, ethnic cleansing, boarding schools, internments camps, exclusionary immigration laws, segregation, mass incarceration and racial profiling. There is no common memory, and I think pretty much everyone can agree that the sense of community in this country is markedly low.

Source: George Erasmus - (aboriginal leader from the Dene Nation) Quoted by Mark Charles in a blog entry "A Native Perspective on Memorial Day", 2017 June 1, https://wirelesshogan.com/2017/06/01/a-native-perspective-on-memorial-day/

The Alpha Course, Part 2

"…in the mid-1990s another development of major ecumenical significance arose from Evangelical and charismatic roots. The Alpha course, developed especially by Rev. Nicky Gumbel at Holy Trinity Brompton, London, began to be promoted beyond its parish of origin. The Alpha course quickly reached a wide range of local congregations, Anglican and older free church, as well as new charismatic churches, first in Britain and quickly elsewhere. Although Alpha was slow to win acceptance among Catholics in its first phase of expansion from 1994, Gumbel has devoted intensifying efforts to reach the Catholic world in the last fifteen years. The result is that in 2013, the Alpha course is growing fastest among Catholics with an amazingly strong following among Latin Americans. The Catholic welcome has intensified since Pope Benedict XVI's call for a New Evangelization, with Alpha being welcomed by several Vatican officials and many bishops.... Nicky Gumbel was received enthusiastically at the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in June 2012."

Source: Fr. Peter Hocken - Pentecost and Parousia, Peter Hocken - p. 68

The Alpha Course, Part 1

While no magisterial statement has been forthcoming, Catholic officials have expressed themselves positively: Nicky Gumbel, an Anglican curate at Holy Trinity, Brompton who functions as a chief spokesman for Alpha, was presented on the strength of his Alpha involvement to the Pope in February 2004, an audience made possible by another senior churchman who is a firm advocate for Alpha – Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal Household. (See Alpha News 2004) In France, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon, recorded remarks on the Alpha introductory video, saying, “For the French church, Alpha is a great opportunity for our time. It is a wonderful gift that we have received from England.” (Ibid) Additionally, Scotland’s Cardinal Keith O’Brien wrote in a brochure for an Alpha conference in Glascow, “I see the Alpha course as an initial and very important tool for … the ‘rechristianization of Scotland.’” (Ibid) In Austria, Salzburg’s Archbishop Dr. Alois Kothgasser observed about Alpha, “I rejoice that this course now also is increasingly spreading within the Catholic Church in Austria and that through it people find a living faith in Jesus Christ.” (Alpha für Katholiken 2003, p. 1) („Ich freue mich, dass dieser Kurs nun auch in der Katholischen Kirche in Österreich immer mehr Verbreitung findet and dass durch ihn Menschen zu einem lebendigen Glauben an Jesus Christus finden.“)

Source: Paul Miller - Footnote 45 of "Evangelicals Cooperatively Evangelising & Discipling with Catholics in Faithfulness to Evangelical Distinctives", by Paul Miller

"Do not call anything impure that God has made clean"

Then a voice from heaven told me, ‘Peter, get up! Kill and eat.’ (8) I said, ‘Lord, I will not! I am a Jew! I have never eaten anything in my life that was impure and unclean according to our food laws.’ (9) The voice from heaven spoke a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ (10) This happened three times, and then the sheet was taken back into heaven.

Source: Peter - As quoted by Luke in Acts 12:8-10 (IEB)

Singing, Dancing, Sculpting

Perhaps, I thought, these good Protestant people could worship like angels, but I could not. Then I realized that they couldn't either. Their ears were using crutches but not their eyes. They used beautiful hymns, for which I would gladly exchange the new, flat, unmusical, wimpy "liturgical responses" no one sings in our masses—their audible imagery is their crutch. I think that in Heaven, Protestants will teach Catholics to sing and Catholics will teach Protestants to dance and sculpt.

Source: Peter Kreeft - Hauled aboard the Ark, http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/hauled-aboard.htm
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/hauled-aboard.htm

Martin Luther

In the 16th century, the founder of the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther said: "The Hebrew language is the best language of all … If I were younger I would want to learn this language, because no one can really understand the Scriptures without it. For although the New Testament is written in Greek, it is full of hebraisms and Hebrew expressions. It has therefore been aptly said that the Hebrews drink from the spring, the Greeks from the stream that flows from it, and the Latins from a downstream puddle."

Source: Martin Luther - As quoted in A Prayer to Our Father, by Nehemia Gordon & Keith Johnson, pp 83-84

"you can't understand your future unless you understand your past"

Robin Young: Does it ever get painful?

Jerome Grant: For me, I haven't taken the time to go through the building fully. It's difficult for me. … I take it time by time. The first time that I really went through the history gallery downstairs, was actually three weeks ago, where I've fully seen a lot of stuff that's really heartbreaking, very difficult to digest.

Robin Young: If you don't mind, like what?

Jerome Grant: I"ve seen some of the slave ship pictures, the railroads, I mean, everything from shackles, the whole nine, it's difficult, you know, it's difficult to live in a world where we are deemed to be free Americans, and then to see that that it was very troubling for a lot of us to ...

Robin Young: How recently!

Jerome Grant: Oh yeah, so it's very difficult. But at the end of the day, you can't understand your future unless you understand your past, and I'm working on it.

Source: Jerome Grant - "African-American Museum Chef Showcases 'Edible Exhibit'", Here & Now, KBUR, 6 Feb 2017, http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/02/06/jerome-grant-museum-african-american-history

Lamenting

Second, I believe we need to lament our sad state. We may not have a clue how we can mend the wounds between us. That tells us how desperate things are. It acknowledges that we need an intervention from on high. Lamenting takes us into a place where we realize our desperate need for God, and that to go on in the way we have is increasingly intolerable.

Source: Robert C Trube - rtrube54, "The Scandal of the Church in America: Part Two", Bob on Books, 14 Feb 2017, https://bobonbooks.com/2017/02/14/the-scandal-of-the-church-in-america-part-two/

How Is a Ministry Discredited?

(3) We put no obstacle in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. (4) Rather, as God’s servants we commend ourselves in every way—in great endurance, in troubles, hardships and distresses; (5) in beatings, imprisonments, and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger (days without food); (6) in purity, understanding, patience, and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; (7) in truthful speech and in God’s power; with weapons of righteousness in both hands; (8) through honor and dishonor, praise and slander; genuine but treated as impostors; (9) well-known yet regarded as unknown; dying and yet we live on; beaten yet not killed; (10) sorrowful yet always rejoicing; poor yet making many rich; having nothing yet we possess everything.

Source: The Apostle Paul - 2 Corinthians 6:3-10 (IEB)

Foxhole Ecumenism

In the U.S. we have seen a foxhole ecumenism develop during the culture wars. Evangelical Protestants—historically the most anti-Catholic sector of the American Church—meet vibrantly faithful Catholics on the pro-life picket line, while Catholics realize that their best allies for upholding the definition of marriage happen to be Evangelicals. Old boundaries become permeable as theological differences get swallowed up in co-belligerency.

What happens at the picket line happens in seminaries and pastors’ studies. These days Protestant pastors read papal encyclicals for edification, and Western Christians discover unexpected wealth in the works of Orthodox liturgists. From the Catholic side, Vatican II, for all its excesses and false moves, has made the Catholic Church sound more Protestant because it has become more attuned to common biblical and patristic sources. Swimming the Tiber has become a popular Evangelical sport, partly because of the manifest attractions of Catholicism, partly because the Catholic Church is more hospitable to Evangelical concerns than anyone could have imagined in 1870 or 1950.

Source: Peter Leithart - First Things, "The Future of Protestantism: The Churches Must Die to be Raised Anew", August 2014, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/08/the-future-of-protestantism

A Good Time To Call the Nations To Repent

We have been praying, reading and seeking to hear from God over the past two months. It has been a valuable time for me personally. From our studying Joel and Habbakuk together at home I have been struck by some of the remarkable parallels between their situations and ours. I think that there is also a response that God expects from us in our current situation that parallels what he expected from the recipients of those messages: corporate repentance. I’ve asked our community to consider what they need to repent of in their personal lives, but also to identify the sins of our communities and nations. As the body of Christ incarnated in cultures around the world we identify with those places, interceding on their behalf. We don’t shift blame or justify the sins of the world around us. We should be a people willing to repent, confessing the sinfulness around us as genuine members of those communities. We model repentance and trust in Jesus for the communities around us. And we commit to not participate in that corruption, but to stand against it in all of the ways that we are able. The kinds of corporate sins that have stood out to me in our context include nationalism/racism, materialism, abuse and trafficking of women, and lack of care for the environment. Of course there are other sins and other contexts and other ways of conceiving corporate sinfulness.

The message of corporate repentance is as valid for all of our neighbors as it is for the church. I think this is a good time to find ways to call the nations to repent.

Source: Ryan K. - Posted on FB, 3 May 2020

Evangelicals & Catholics ... Together???

"Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium" (ECT) is the title of a programmatic statement composed by eight Protestants (leader, Charles Colson) and seven Roman Catholics (leader, Richard John Neuhaus) and endorsed by 12 more Protestants and 13 more Roman Catholics. It appeared in the journal "First Things" in May of this year and, shortened, in the Spring edition of "Touchstone."

Source: J.I. Packer - Christianity Today, "Why I Signed It. Part 1.", 12 Dec 1994, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1994/december12/4te34a.html?start=4

"Lord, I Hate Buttermilk!"

One Sunday morning in a small Texas church, the new pastor called on one of the older deacons to lead the closing prayer. The deacon came up on the podium, stood by the pastor, bowed his head and said, "Lord, I hate buttermilk!"

The pastor opened one eye and wondered just where this was going...

The deacon continued, "Lord, I hate lard!"

Now, the pastor was totally perplexed...

The deacon continued, "Lord, and I ain't too crazy about plain flour neither, but after you mix em all together and bake em in a hot oven, I just love biscuits!"

Source: Anonymous - Adopted from a joke posted by Steve McFarland on Facebook, 4 Mar 2020

Professors Who Teach Other Traditions Accurately

What kind of churches do we at Theopolis dream of? Churches like these:
....
Seminaries where theologians are encouraged to follow Scripture wherever it leads, even if we have to admit that our opponents were right all along. Seminaries that pass on the tradition of the whole Church, rather than flatter tribal instincts. Professors who teach other traditions accurately.

Source: Peter Leithart - Theopolis Institute blog, "Reformational Catholicism, A Wish List", 20 October 2016, https://theopolisinstitute.com/reformational-catholicism-a-wish-list/

"These non-Jews have received the Holy Spirit just as we Jews have"

(44) While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit came upon everyone who heard his message. (45) The circumcised Jewish believers who had come with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on non-Jews, (46) for they heard them speaking in tongues (spiritual languages) and praising God. Then Peter said, (47) “These non-Jews have received the Holy Spirit just as we Jews have; surely no one can stop them from being baptized in water.” (48) So Peter told the Jews to baptize them in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for several days.

Source: Luke - Acts 11:44-48 (IEB)

Fr. Peter Hocken Died (June 10, 2017)

Fr. Peter Hocken died. Fearless giant and a pioneer among the Catholic Charismatics who walked with all Christians and Messianic Jews while making the desire of Jesus in John 17 to make us one reality of his every day.

This is very sad news for all of us who are into building ecumenical pathways but we hope his intercession will accelerate our work now.

Source: MajorChange - Posted on FB on 10 June 2017

German Lutheran Identificational Repentance

Another example of mainline denominational corporate confession comes from the German Lutheran Church. At the end of World War II, in October 1945, the newly formed United Evangelical Lutheran Church, under the influence of one of its leaders, the prominent anti-Nazi theologian and pastor, Rev. Dr. Martin Niemöller, who had resisted the Nazis alongside the famous Christian martyr, Rev. Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, issued the Stuttgart Confession of Guilt (Stuttgarter Schulderklärung). In the Stuttgart Confession, the German Lutheran church identified with and confessed the corporate guilt of the German people for the widespread suffering perpetrated by the former Nazi government with words like the following:

With great pain we say: Through us unending suffering has been brought upon many nations and countries. . . . Now a new beginning should be made in our churches.

Apparently the Lutheran denominational leadership felt such identificational repentance was in keeping with their theological understanding of Christian confession. This kind of corporate confession of national guilt has been articulated and discussed over the past decades by German theologians like Dr. Martin Honecker and Dr. Gerhard Besier, as well as by German New Testament scholars like Dr. Bertold Klappert of the University of Göttingen.

Source: Dr. Gary S. Greig - The Biblical Foundations of Identificational Repentance as One Prayer Pattern Useful to Advance God's Kingdom and Evangelism, April 2001

Catholic Priest & Presbyterian Minister Working Together

Fr Magill, one of a family of three whose parents are deceased, has always worked in Belfast and as a parish priest first in St Oliver Plunket from 2003 to 2013 – where he immediately inaugurated the annual St Oliver Plunkett lecture – and now in Sacred Heart where he has made a demonstrable contribution to wider civic society.

Last year with Presbyterian minister Rev Steve Stockman he co-founded the 4 Corners Festival which “promotes unity and reconciliation” against the background of the legacy of the Troubles and the challenges of today. It is deliberately scheduled around the time of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity so the 2015 events begin at the end of next month.

“This time our theme is generosity and imagination and we will be asking what generosity actually looks like.”

Source: Martin O'Brien - "A Quiet Peacemaker", The Irish Catholic, 11 Dec 2014, http://www.irishcatholic.ie/article/quiet-peacemaker