A Critic Finds The Right Position

In his book, The Vision and The Vow, Pete Greig tells of how a distinguished art critic was studying an exquisite painting by the Italian Renaissance master Filippino Lippi. He stood in London’s National Gallery gazing at the fifteenth-century depiction of Mary holding the infant Jesus on her lap, with saints Dominic and Jerome kneeling nearby. But the painting troubled him. There could be no doubting Lippi’s skill, his use of colour or composition. But the proportions of the picture seemed slightly wrong. The hills in the background seemed exaggerated, as if they might topple out of the frame at any minute onto the gallery’s polished floor. The two kneeling saints looked awkward and uncomfortable.

Art critic Robert Cumming was not the first to criticise Lippi’s work for its poor perspective, but he may well be the last to do so, because at that moment he had a revelation. It suddenly occurred to him that the problem might be his. The painting he was analysing with clinical objectivity was not just another piece of religious art hanging in a gallery alongside other comparative works. It had never been intended to come anywhere near a gallery. Lippi’s painting had been commissioned to hang in a place of prayer.

Self-consciously, the dignified critic dropped to his knees in the public gallery before the painting. He suddenly saw what generations of art critics had missed. From his new vantage point, Robert Cumming found himself gazing up at a perfectly proportioned piece. The foreground had moved naturally to the background, while the saints seemed settled – their awkwardness, like the painting itself, having turned to grace. Mary now looked intently and kindly directly at him as he knelt at her feet between saints Dominic and Jerome.

It was not the perspective of the painting that had been wrong all these years, it was the perspective of the people looking at it. Robert Cumming, on bended knee, found a beauty that Robert Cumming the proud art critic could not. The painting only came alive to those on their knees in prayer. The right perspective is the position of worship.

Source: Nicky & Pippa Gumbel - As quoted in Bible App, commentary for 29 July 2016

Packer @ 90

Packer recognized that the deep division that had separated Protestants and Catholics since the time of the Reformation had changed in a significant way. The most important fault line today, he argued, was between “conservationists,” who honor the Christ of the Bible and of the historic creeds and confessions, on the one hand, and the theological liberals and radicals who do not, on the other. In this new situation, Packer argued that ECT has a vital role to play:

“ECT … must be viewed as fuel for a fire that is already alight. The grassroots coalition at which the document aims is already growing. It can be argued that, so far from running ahead of God, as some fear, ECT is playing catch-up to the Holy Spirit.”

Source: Timothy George - "Packer at Ninety", First Things, October 2016, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/10/packer-at-ninety

Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan

Paul's description of the restored Corinthian congregation as "chaste", "holy", and "pure" (agnous) evokes her preparation for a renewed relationship with Israel's God modeled on Isaiah's description of Judah's renewed relationship with YHWH after the Exile (2 Cor 7:11; see also 11:2). Ultimately, the Corinthian congregation's marital purity signifies their reconciliation with God and presages the abundance of grace to which that relationship will give birth.

Source: Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan - "Comfort, O Comfort, Corinth: Grief and Comfort in 2 Corinthians 7:5-13a", Harvard Theological Review, 104:4 (2011), p. 443-444

Identificational Repentance in Germany in 1945

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

I See A People ...

I see it happening, this great new gathering of the people of God. I see an obedient, disciplined, freely gathered people who know in our day the life and powers of the kingdom of God.

I see a people of cross and crown, of courageous action and sacrificial love.

I see a people who are combining evangelism with social action, the transcendent Lordship of Jesus with the suffering servant Messiah.

I see a people who are buoyed up by the vision of Christ's everlasting rule, not only imminent on the horizon, but already bursting forth in our midst.

I see a people ... I see a people ... even though it feels as if I am peering through a glass darkly.

Source: Richard Foster - Streams of Living Water, p. 274

After the Fire

A fire engulfed Sts. Mary & James Church in Guthrie, Ky., on February 10, 2015.
...
The Catholic community would have been “homeless,” but when the church burned down, the congregation was able to lean on longstanding relationships of goodwill with other churches—which Father Frank Ruff, and other Glenmarians before him, helped nurture.

“(Protestant) ministers and Amish people came running during the fire,” explained Anita, a Catholic parishioner. “Before the roof collapsed, everyone from town rescued everything ... It was a sight to see a Baptist minister carrying out a statue of the Blessed Mother.”

Source: Frank Lesko - "After the Fire", Posted 3 Jan 2017 on Glenmary Home Missioners, http://www.glenmary.org/after-the-fire/

A Rare Public Reconciliation for a Lynching

The words echoed through LaGrange's Warren Temple United Methodist Church Thursday night, where more than 200 people crammed into pews and folding chairs to remember Callaway.

It was a rare public reconciliation for a lynching, attended by black and white people, police, civilians and clergy, sitting and standing side by side. Programs ran out as attendance exceeded expectations, forcing people into an overflow room in a building next door.

Source: Emanuella Grinberg, CNN - "'Justice failed Austin Callaway': Town attempts to atone for 1940 lynching", Emanuella Grinberg, CNN, 28 Jan 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/us/lagrange-georgia-callaway-1940-lynching/index.html

"Equally Touched by the Same Unexpected Grace"

But it was with the dramatic outbreak of [the charismatic] movement in the Roman Catholic Church in early 1967 that its unprecedented range became unmistakable. Never before since the division that rent Western Christendom in the sixteenth century had Protestants and Catholics been brought into the same movement of revival and renewal. This was not like getting Catholics and Protestants to have a common service for peace or some other cause of mutual concern. Both were being equally touched by the same unexpected grace. Peopel from both sides were being so grasped by teh Spirit of God that they were all able to worship God together in a way that neither could before.

Source: Fr. Peter Hocken - One Lord One Spirit One Body, pp.38

The Future Of Protestantism

The living God has reached into the post-Reformation Church and has begun tearing apart the sagging fences that have mapped our territories and discarding the badges that have named us. This is happening to the entire Church, and for that reason we should not be talking about the future of Protestantism but about the Church of the future. If we focus on the future of our particular enterprise, we perpetuate the tribalism we should renounce. If we rebuild what God is destroying, are we not transgressors?

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

Hamilton

There are moments that the words don't reach
There's a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable

They are standing in the garden
Alexander by Eliza's side
She takes his hand
It's quiet uptown

Forgiveness, can you imagine?
Forgiveness, can you imagine?

If you see him in the street
Walking by her side, talking by her side, have pity
They are going through the unimaginable

- Lin-manuel Miranda, “It’s Quiet Uptown”, from the musical Hamilton, listen to the whole song at https://youtu.be/vjEoOeXId1k

Fr. Symonds

“It was during this time that the then-Bishop (Cahal) Daly, now Cardinal Daly, introduced me to a diocesan priest, Father Martin McGill, saying ‘You two should have something in common,’ because of our joint interest in ecumenism. Martin and I immediately clicked – we shared a common vision – and after the synod we continued to meet and pray for peace and reconciliation,” he said.

“I became convinced that God was calling me to work in Northern Ireland, but it took two years to convince everyone else – they say that the test of a true vocation is opposition and patience,” added Father Symonds.

In 1999, Father Symonds moved to Belfast and joined the Columbanus Community of Reconciliation, where three Protestants and three Catholics lived together in an interchurch community.

Source: Fr. Paul Symonds - As quoted by the Catholic Review in "English priest receives awards for work in Northern Ireland", 5 Jan 2008, http://www.catholicreview.org/article/faith/vocations/english-priest-receives-award-for-work-in-northern-ireland

Pope Leo XIII Prays In Rome ... The Spirit Falls In Topeka

On January 1, 1901, Pope Leo XIII prayed to the Holy Spirit. He sang the Veni Creator Spiritus by the Holy Spirit window in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. That same day, in Topeka, Kansas, at the Bethel College and Bible School, the Holy Spirit came upon a group of Protestants who had been praying to receive the Holy Spirit as the early Church did in Acts chapter two. Agnes Ozman prayed in tongues, and people began to welcome the Holy Spirit to work in them as in the early Church with healings, miracles, deliverance, and power to effectively evangelize and help people convert to Jesus Christ. This beginning of the charismatic renewal highlights its ecumenical nature that continues to be experienced over 100 years later. The commonly shared experience of being filled with passion and love for God has been a major way that the charismatic renewal helps bring Catholics and Protestants together to build relationships and learn to recognize many common areas of Christian living.

Source: Catholic Diocese of Arlington - "Our History" page, http://www.arlingtonrenewal.org/about.html

The Constitution of the Paulist Order

Ecumenism is a permanent element in the total life and work of the Paulists. Every member should be responsive to the unifying action of the Holy Spirit in other Christians and in their Christian churches, and wherever possible, they should pray and work with them in the one mission of Christ.

Source: Paulist Constitution, C5, as quoted in the Paulist Prayer Book, pp 332-333

Fr. Michael Hurley on Ireland

But could Presbyterians tithe their Sundays to the Church of Ireland, i.e. go to the Church with the Anglicans rather than with their fellow-Presbyterians some five times a year? Could a member of the Church of Ireland reciprocate this ecumenical gesture or do likewise with the Methodists, worshipping with them on the occasional Sunday and also transferring the tithe of their support for the Church Missionary Society to the Methodist Missionary Society? Could Roman Catholics transfer a tithe of their support for Trócaire to Christian Aid? And sometimes buy and read the Church of Ireland Gazette instead of the Irish Catholic or Catholic Herald? Could Roman Catholic ordinands tithe their theological studies to another Church? In other words, could they study and live with Anglican, Orthodox or Presbyterian ordinands for a part of their course?

Source: Fr Michael Hurley - Christian Unity: An Ecumenical Second Spring? (Dublin: Veritas), p. 83-84, as quoted by Gladys Ganiel in her blog post "Fr Michael Hurley on Ecumenical Tithing", 5 November 2011, http://www.gladysganiel.com/irish-catholic-church/fr-michael-hurley-on-ecumenical-tithing/

Declaration on the Way

“Dear sisters and brothers, let us pause to honor this historic moment,” said ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton addressing the assembly following the vote. “Though we have not yet arrived, we have claimed that we are, in fact, on the way to unity. After 500 years of division and 50 years of dialogue, this action must be understood in the context of other significant agreements we have reached, most notably the ‘Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification’ in 1999.”

“This ‘Declaration on the Way’ helps us to realize more fully our unity in Christ with our Catholic partners, but it also serves to embolden our commitment to unity with all Christians,” said Eaton.

Source: Episcopal Café - Press release from the ELCA (http://www.elca.org/News‐and‐Events/7848), ELCA approves historic agreement with Roman Catholic Church (http://www.episcopalcafe.com/elca­approves­ historic­agreement­with­roman­catholic­church/)

Don't Set Foot In ...

It's hard to measure how stunning this is to someone-like me-who grew up in the reactionary American Catholic Church of the 1950s and early 1960s. You were taught not even to set foot in a Protestant church on the pain of mortal sin. Hell, it was even considered weird to enter other Catholic churches outside your own parish, let alone those funky Eastern Orthodox churches where they used pita bread for Communion. I was not allowed to join the best Boy Scout troop in my town because it was sponsored by the local Congregational church.

Source: Charles P. Pierce - Esquire, "Pope Francis Just Did What the Church Should Have Done Decades Ago", November 1, 2016, https://www.yahoo.com/news/pope-francis-just-did-church-153416395.html

Luther's 1st Thesis

Next Monday we pick up the thread again in Augsburg, where Luther was first summoned to give account to Cardinal Cajetan. We visit St Anne’s Church where Luther stayed, and where more recently, in 1999, the dialogue between the Vatican and the Lutheran Church produced the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ).

This declaration revealed a major change of heart on behalf of the Catholic Church. On the basis of this declaration, Pope Benedict XIV, who–as Cardinal Ratzinger–was personally involved in the dialogue with the Lutherans, declared in St Peter’s Square in 2006 that Luther had been right about the doctrine of justification.

Which interestingly brings us back to Luther’s first thesis: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he intended the entire life of believers to be repentance.”

At stake for Luther was the meaning of repentance. Did the Latin phrase Poenitentiam agite mean ‘to do penance’ as an external penitential action, or ‘to repent’ as an inner heart change? Repentance, he concluded, meant a change of heart, a lifestyle of heart-change.

This insight, prompted by reading Erasmus’ Latin translation newly published in 1516, triggered a 500-year argument which at last has been resolved through both sides adopting a change-of-heart attitude.

Other significant differences still remain, involving the ordination of women and the sacraments. But if we would all take our cue from Luther’s first thesis, adopting a lifestyle of heart-change, this commemoration year could be one of great mutual discovery.

Source: Jeff Fountain - "The Thunderclap from Wittenberg", Weekly Word eNewsletter, 3 July 2017

"Among a People of Unclean Lips"

"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

Source: Bible - Isaiah 6: 5-7