What I Wish God Would Do (and why what I wish doesn't matter)

16 December 2018

This morning’s sermon at Trinity featured Luke 3, John the Baptist’s preaching on the axe at the root of the trees, and branches being thrown into the fire. Our Rector noted that John was mistaken about what Jesus would do; we can tell because in Luke 7, John sends a delegation to ask, Are you the Messiah, or should we look for another?

The point was made that if I think God’s will looks a lot like mine, I may have a problem. (If on the other hand my will has been conformed to look like his, there may be less of one.)

But this made me think of what I would like God to do in our world. I wish for an end to various kinds of corruption and injustice in our country and the world, and for perpetrators to be brought to justice. What came to me was this: When Jesus walked this world, many of his countrymen wished similar things. But Jesus didn’t throw off the yoke of the Roman oppressors, and most likely he won’t do anything sudden, violent or miraculous to current perpetrators of injustice and oppression either.

So what does Jesus want? What is he doing, and what does he want me to do? I know some of the things he wants me to do: love the Lord my God with all my heart and soul, love my neighbor as myself (Mark 12, Luke 10). “Come to me,” he says (Matthew 11), “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” so he can give me rest.

Of course we should pray for those in government to make just and wise decisions (1 Timothy 2), we should work for justice (Amos 5, Micah 6) and care for the poor, but it’s really important for me to remember the idea of serving the God who is Love and that we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth…” It’s not that I have an idea and want God to bring my idea of kingdom to earth.

May the Lord help us to see what’s his will and his kingdom, and not be blinded by our own idea of what Paradise should be

Prepare the way?

I’m not a singer and certainly not much of a musician, but whenever I hear the opening words of Isaiah 40, my mind’s ear hears a tenor intoning, “Comfort ye my people,” and some strings, then “saith your God. Saith your God!” Then more strings, etc.

That was from yesterday’s passage on Pray-as-you-go. Then came the, ah, is it recitative?—“A voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Followed by “Every valley...and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. And all flesh shall see it together.”

Then it struck me: this isn’t talking about geography or geology. John the Baptizer said under questioning that he was the voice crying in the wilderness. Or maybe crying out to the wilderness.

And it occurred to me, the words of John also apply to me—that I’m invited (or summoned?) to prepare the way for the Lord in the wilderness of my soul. To make a highway for our God in the desert of my heart. “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill made low—the crooked straight, and the rough places (a) plain,” as Isaiah (and the libretto) say.

What shall I do to participate in this? How do I prepare the way of the Lord, flatten the mountains, etc.?

Before reading the rest of the chapter (where the answer likely lies), I took a guess. Or a few. Today, if I hear his voice, I should remember not to harden my heart (Ps 95; Heb 3). Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks all the time, don’t put out the Spirit’s fire or despise prophecies; avoid all kinds of evil (1 Th 5). Love God and my neighbor (Mk 12).

OK, back to Isaiah 40, which talks about God’s holiness and power and faithfulness. These attributes are important to remember. “To whom will you compare me, or who is my equal?” it says. So his wisdom, too.

And it commends those who “wait upon” the Lord—trust him, and live our lives with reference to him.

So nothing breathtakingly new there; basically I should welcome the Lord into my heart and mind, and remember to think true thoughts about him. And base my life on him, doing what he says. Pretty basic, which is not to say easy.

What should the church think about nontraditional sexuality?

(title updated 2017-12-10)

Some years ago, when I was recruiting the next cohort of elders to be on our church’s board, I spoke with a sister I’ll call “Dorcas,” whom I thought eminently qualified. She declined, citing Tim Keller’s teaching that women are forbidden from the office of elder. I was quite surprised at Dorcas’s demurral, but wondered whether my ideas were more enlightened than hers, or just less pure.

Though I hate to disagree with Dr. Keller, I nevertheless undertook my own study of the issue, consulting other writers as well as the Scriptures. You can see the results here on my blog.

Fast forward to about a year ago, when my younger daughter Sheri asked me to consider a study regarding the Bible’s teaching about homosexuality. Was the traditional interpretation in fact correct, and is the 21st-century Church drifting away from the truth? Alternately, have we been wrong all this time, as we were about slavery for example, and are we due for a change?

Before going into my study and its results, I’ll summarize my understanding of the issue when I started out. A few points, in no particular order:

• In the beginning, God created humans male and female, as the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 19.
• The Law (the first 5 books of what Christians today call the “Old Testament”) forbids various kinds of sexual activity; I blogged about one such prohibition back in 2007, when the One Year Bible’s daily reading included Leviticus 18.
• Although Jesus affirmed some parts of the Law (Matthew 5:17ff), he revised other parts (Mark 7:5–7, 17–23). Hence it’s debatable whether the Old Testament’s gender-related prohibitions were confirmed vs. revised by Jesus. From my limited understanding it appeared to me that Jesus didn’t revise or amend any of those gender-related prohibitions.
• The above notwithstanding, Jesus never directly addressed gender identity nor sexual activity (or attraction) between persons of the same gender.
• It bears repeating here that Jesus did directly address sexual sins such as adultery, which he defined very broadly (Matthew 5:28); anger; covetousness; failure to care for the hungry, the alien, the prisoner, the sick. These sins are practiced very widely, even within the church—to our collective shame.
• I remember a conversation I had at that time with a fellow elder on my church’s board. Based on my understanding of the Scriptures, I asserted that God would never punish sexual activity by eternity in hell. My fellow elder’s reply was something like: “I’m more concerned with how we treat them here on earth.”

  I’m glad that we were in agreement regarding ultimate destiny, but his comment influenced me in the intervening years in the way I think about the Christian life. Jesus did speak of the world to come, but he spoke a lot more about life here and now.

Also, around that time, I read

• Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality by Jack Rogers;
• Wesley Hill’s Washed and Waiting; and, some time later,
• Justin Lee’s Torn.

The Rogers book I found wholly unconvincing at the time. I’m unsure what I’d think of it today.

Hill and Lee are gay men who have struggled with their orientation for many years. These brothers of mine desire to follow and obey and worship and serve God. They did not ask for their same-sex attraction; indeed, they sought to change their orientation. One passage in Washed and Waiting particularly touched me when I read it in 2011. Hill attended a wedding reception and got bulldozed into dancing with a young woman he knew slightly in college.

A couple of days later I explained to my friend Chris over breakfast what had happened. We danced, I said. I was with this beautiful girl. I was holding her hand and touching her back. Her dress was thin and showed every curve on her body, I said. I could feel her sweating through the dress, and, inches from her face, I could see every exquisite feature she had. “And, Chris,” I said, “I felt nothing. No attraction. No awakening or arousal of any kind. No sexual desire whatsoever.”

Chris nodded. He knows my situation backward and forward and wasn't fazed by what I was telling him.

“The worst of it,” I continued, “is that while I wasn’t attracted to this stunningly beautiful person who was my dance partner, I couldn’t stop looking at the guy dancing several feet away from me. I did notice him. I noticed his body, his moves. Chris,” I said, “I was attracted to this guy. All I could see and desire was another guy across the room while I’m dancing with this girl. This is so frustrating. This is what it means to be gay, and I would give anything to change it!” (133)

Poignant and painful, these paragraphs gave me a little bit of a picture of what it’s like to have only same-sex attraction. As I paged through the book, searching for this passage, I confirmed my impression that Hill’s view is the traditional one.

I read Lee’s book a year or two later, shortly after it came out late in 2012. As Hill gave me an idea what it’s like to have same-sex attraction, Torn gave me a picture of what it’s like to be in the Church as a gay man. As one might expect, it’s a mixed bag. Lee has some prescriptions for us all, whether or not we take the traditional view on same-sex attraction. I think these steps would be very helpful, and I hope this little essay is a baby step forward.

One thing from Lee’s book that shocked and saddened me was his discovery that so-called “reparative therapy” has never actually worked—as far as his investigation was able to find. He quizzed people about successful case studies, but none seemed to exist. In other words, the whole thing was wishful thinking at first and a fraud later on. Whether you believe Lee, or some of the claims in Exodus International’s wikipedia article, the organization no longer exists.

When Sheri prodded me to undertake my current study, she pointed me at video lectures by Gushee (I’ve lost/forgotten the links), which the lovely Carol watched with me. These presentations discussed the experience of LGBT folks in the church; I’m sorry to say that overall we have not welcomed them and we have not loved them the way Jesus would have us to do—independent of whether certain kinds of sexual attraction and activity are (or aren’t) considered OK by God. In hindsight, it was appropriate that my current study began with the more important question, viz., how are we doing on that new command Jesus gave his disciples? “A new command I give you,” Jesus said: “That you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34–35).

That said, the question “What does God think about certain behaviors?” is still important, and to that end I’ll mention a few resources that I encountered this past year:

• Brownson’s book Bible, Gender, Sexuality
• Loader’s 2008 essay, What does the Bible say on Homosexuality?
• Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church (Preston Sprinkle, ed.), which folks have recommended to me; I’ve read only this review of it.

Brownson argues persuasively that neither the traditional interpretation (basically what I thought in 2013) nor revisionist interpretations (I think of Rogers, but it’s been several years since I actually read him so I’m not sure) are correct. He ends up pretty much saying what Loader says, but his argument is more comprehensive (it’s a book to Loader’s short essay). I’ll jot down a few things that I remember from it.

• When we protestants read the Bible, we make all kinds of judgments about what we must follow vs. what we need not follow today, following various kinds of logic. So for example, we discard the prohibitions against bacon and shrimp not only because they’re delicious, but also because Jesus declared all foods clean. The Apostle Paul also wrote a lot about this in Romans and Colossians.
• These arguments are not just about Old vs. New Testament commands, either; Jesus commended foot-washing. The Apostle Paul forbade braided hair and golden jewelry. He also commanded that men lift their hands when praying.
• To determine whether a particular biblical precept or prohibition is normative for today, then, we engage the text with some kind of logic or another. These we hope are coherent and consistent, and are not based solely on what feels good vs. icky to us.
• When we examine the prohibitions against sexual activity between two people of the same gender, we must try to understand how to interpret them. Are those commands like the Old Testament prohibitions of bacon and shrimp? Or the commands prohibiting sexual intercourse during a woman’s menstrual period?

  Alternately, are they like the New Testament commands to greet one another with a holy kiss, or to abstain from braids and jewelry? Or are they in the same vein as “Do not lie to one another”?

• Romans 1 seems to condemn same-sex sexual activity, but if that’s the common-sense interpretation of Romans 1:25–32, what’s the meaning of “you who pass judgment do the same things” (2:1)? The same things: what same things?

  Brownson explains it better than I ever could, but his point is that in order to explain the flow of the argument in 1:25 onward, the explanation must also say what 2:1–4 means. The rhetorical style seems to be that in 1:27–32, Paul takes the part of certain moralists of the day. Then in 2:1 he takes a sharp turn and shows why his readers must not just nod in smug agreement with the previous several sentences.

The short version is, Brownson convinced me, and Loader’s essay is a terrific shorter summary of part of Brownson’s argument.

But more important than a list of what specific sexual behaviors are permissible between which specific partners—about which reasonable, diligent, devoted disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ disagree—is the question of how we treat our neighbors (the subject of second greatest command, which is like the first, Jesus said in Matthew 22:38–39) and how we treat one another (John 13).

And that, as a former manager used to say, is all I know.

Come to me… Is this the gospel?

Please see rev2

We have sinned, and the world suffers

Today's “This American Life” portrayed life at a transit center in Kenya shortly after Donald T signed his travel ban but before it was put on hold. “George” was leading what Ira Glass referred to as “the worst town hall meeting ever” because each person would stand up, say something horrible, and George would have to acknowledge that it is a bitter pill but the boss changed in the US, and the boss decided this, and that's “final for me, final for IOM (the refugee agency), final for you. We cannot do anything about it,” George says.

What kind of horrible things? One man had been in the refugee camp for 26 years, and within the past few weeks finally got his approval to come to the United States. He bought clothes on credit (how much credit? Over a month’s pay for the most highly-paid person in camp!) and now how can he repay the shopkeeper? This man’s travel permission will expire well before the initial 120-day period, and he would have to reapply, putting his dream on hold for perhaps years. Another man declined offers to settle in Canada and Germany(?) because he was set on coming to the United States. Full citizenship was on offer from Canada, I think. How he must rue his faith in us!

I listened to George as he addressed these refugees. He told the debtor that he would have to talk to the shopkeeper and explain what happened, and tell him that he would work to repay him. “That is something explainable to anyone,” he said. I thought about how terrible it must be for him to have to deal with the tremendous disappointment, and I have to say he's got my respect. I thought, “Here's a Real Man, so unlike the adolescent in our White House. We are so impoverished here in America,” and I just started weeping. How did we do this to ourselves? Not just to ourselves, but to the world? And I remembered this:

I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

“Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame--the men of Judah and people of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. O Lord, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because we have sinned against you. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you ….

from Daniel 9:4–11

We are a nation racked by violence and injustice; we have racism and sexism and ageism and lookism; we have not embraced the alien and the orphan and the widow and the poor as we should. And so God says to us, as he did to the Laodiceans:

You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

Revelation 3:17

Lord have mercy on us, and not on us only, but also on the world that you love better than we do.

How is Jesus Christ the Savior? How does he save?

This time of the year, many of us sing or speak of the birth of Jesus Christ the savior. O Holy Night begins with these lines:

O holy night,
    the stars are brightly shining.
It is the night
    of the dear Savior’s birth.

One verse of Silent Night has a verse which ends: “Christ the Savior is born; / Christ the Savior is born. ”

Even a television show, A Charlie Brown Christmas, broadcast annually for the past half-century, includes an excerpt from Luke’s gospel:

⁸And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. ¹⁰And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. ¹¹For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:8–11 (King James version)

So what do we mean when we speak or sing of Christ the Savio(u)r?

Thirty or even twenty years ago I probably would have spouted some evangelical jargon about what happens after you die, the summary being that because of Jesus, your eternal soul’s prospects can be good rather than bad.

Today I think I’d begin instead by talking about life here and now, because that’s what Jesus spoke mostly about. The short version would be that by following him, I can live a fruitful, meaningful life and become a good (well, better anyway) person. After explaining a bit more about that, if by then you don’t think I’m a total whack job, I might mention the hope that I can be with him in the world to come.

I might begin like this. You can read a lot these days about paths to success. Recent articles on Linkedin and in print media describe ways to appear more competent or intelligent. The power of such suggestions comes from the nagging doubts we have: Am I really okay? If I do these things that make other people think I’m competent and intelligent, maybe that will quell my own fears.

Such doubts also energize advertisements: maybe I can feel better about myself if I have these gadgets or clothes or this car, or if I live in this neighborhood. And maybe I can overcome my doubts about parenting if my kids get these grades or go to these schools.

These doubts, these insecurities, can poison my life and my relationships. Maybe I’ll pressure my kids to go to absurd lengths in pursuit of some name-brand school; maybe I’ll try to enhance my self-esteem by taking on a mortgage I can’t afford, or spend so much on cars or clothes or gadgets that my family faces constant financial stress.

About those kids: maybe they’ll rebel against the pressure; maybe they’ll crack; maybe they’ll buy into my anxieties and make them their own. So that when they’re at that name-brand school—or even if they aren’t—they’ll contantly wonder, “Am I okay, really? Am I good enough?” That way my destructive legacy can live on—not a happy prospect.

What I’ve described is a kind of life that we need saving from, and by “we” I mean people like you and me. So how can that happen? How can you and I escape the pressure brought about by our doubts and insecurities?

The promise of salvation in Jesus Christ begins, for me at least, with the knowledge that I’m forgiven. Consider that famous verse from John’s gospel, “God loved the world so much that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). I’ll write more about eternal life in a bit; let’s consider the word “perish.”

When I think about “perish,” the image that comes to mind is an overripe banana. Now that’s perishable! In a way, all of us are perishable in the way that a banana is; one day, you and I and everyone we know will get to room temperature, and unless our bodies are burned or something, they will all rot.

There’s a picture, then, of a useless life: we live, we accumulate possessions, we become room temperature, and our bodies are burned or buried. That’s “perish.”

About “believe”: What does it mean to believe in God’s Son? What must we believe when we “believe in” him? Among many things said of Jesus in the gospels, the claim that he takes away sins is pretty important. In John 1:29, John the Baptist refers to Jesus as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” I’ve written about this elsewhere (also here) but the short version is that unless we believe his promise enough to act on it, then it won’t have much of an effect on our lives.

In other words, it’s not magical in the sense that if I say some special phrase, the gods are compelled to do something; it’s more like if I’m hanging off a cliff by my fingernails and someone dangles a rope in front of me, the rope won’t do me any good unless I believe in it enough to grab it. The promise of forgiveness in Jesus doesn’t do me any good if I’m trying to find redemption through buying a bigger house or more toys, or by pressuring my kids to get better grades to get into a better school, or by looking smarter or more competent. I’ve got to accept forgiveness and stop my frantic pursuit of the false promise of so-called “success,” or I’ll continue to poison my life and relationships…

OK, now about eternal life. I don’t quite understand what form our immortal souls take, or what the world to come is about, but the New Testament authors make quite a big deal about it—almost as big a deal as modern evangelicals do!

All kidding aside, though, something I think of is the promise from 2 Peter 1, which talks about adding knowledge and other virtues to our faith; in verse 8 he writes “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will render you neither useless nor unfruitful…” Let me invert that and say that we can be fruitful and useful with the qualities he mentions: faith, knowledge, goodness, brotherly kindness and so on. The point I want to make, though, aside from those qualities, is the goal of all that, viz., to have a fruitful, useful life.

If my life is fruitful and useful, then the effects will remain after I’ve left this earth. Which may not be eternal life exactly, but would, I hope, be better than having a life whose effects all perish with my corpse.

And that in the end is what I want to be saved from: a life that ends when the undertaker’s bill is paid off. And that’s what Jesus saves me from: by assuring me that my sins are forgiven, he makes it possible for me to become something useful, rather than the alternative of poisoning everything in a wrong-headed attempt to escape my demons.

Saved by… obedience?

For years I've heard (and sometimes said) that salvation comes “by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.” So I was a little surprised to read in Hebrews 5 that Jesus “became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” (emphasis added)

What's this about obedience? Does that contradict "by grace alone"? Maybe not.

Suppose you're in the middle of the ocean, after a plane crash or something, and can't see any land. A boat comes along, offering to save you. Sounds like grace to me! But when someone says, “Grab this rope,” you gotta obey and grab it.

If you instead say, “Wait, obedience? I thought this was by grace alone,” then you won't be saved. Silly, I know. But earlier in the letter, we read that faith and obedience come to the same thing.

[T]o whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

Hebrews 3:18–19 NIV (1984)

So no, we aren't saved by obedience; it really is by grace alone through faith alone. But if I'm unwilling to obey, that's not a disconnected random bit of information; it speaks to my lack of faith. And without faith … hey, without faith it's impossible to please God! Without faith, grace doesn't do me much good.

So it's not a paradox or a contradiction after all.

Update: the next morning

I opened my reading plan in the "Bible" app, where I read this:

... But the Hebrew word for 'faith' - emunah - is less about KNOWING, and more about DOING.

'Emunah' literally means "to take firm action", so to have faith is to act.

How about that! The Old Testament writers weren't confused at all about this the way we modern evangelicals sometimes are. Guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Thoughts on the 3rd lap

It struck me on my third trip around the jogging track how similar the first parts of these verses are:

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling…		(Hebrews 3:1)
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved…		(Colossians 3:12)

Ignoring the context for a bit, I find it wondrous to think of myself as holy, chosen by God. How did this ever happen to me, of all people? Or you? Yet we are told this over and over in the Scriptures: Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you….” Paul says that God “chose us… before the foundation of the earth that we should be holy” and “He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ.” There are many, many more like this. The word “holy” means, basically, to be set apart for some purpose. We’re chosen, in other words, for a purpose.

I’ve heard this many times in sermons as well, but it still takes my breath away, because I know that I’m weak and easily distracted, my mind cluttered with carnal thoughts. I often see myself as a child, tossed back and forth by the waves, blown here and there, wishing I were more grown up. So these passages remind me that God has indeed set me aside for a purpose. Besides being deeply loved, I “share in the heavenly calling,” so I’m not rudderless. God has called me heavenward; he is working in me to fulfill his purpose as I seek him. Good news!

In both passages, this astounding good news of our identity as beloved holy brothers (male and female) is mentioned in passing, an “as-you-already-know”; the authors are about to tell us something even more important. What could that be? And is there any overlap in what follows?

Well, there’s not a lot. Hebrews chapter 2 ends with the encouragement that our brother Jesus knows our sufferings and temptations and can help us; then in chapter 3 we’re told, “therefore,” to consider Jesus, to fix our thoughts on him, and how he’s greater than Moses, worthy of greater honor. The author loves to tell us how great Jesus is: greater than the angels, greater than the priests of the old sacrificial system, and so on.

In Colossians, this reminder of our identity stands in the midst of a list of exhortations to live a holy life (3:5–17). In this letter, Paul seems fond of giving us lists of five: put to death sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed (3:5); to put aside anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech (3:8). And then:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Colossians 3:12–13

There’s more after that, but what I wanted to notice from these passages is that the implications of our identity (as holy, chosen, beloved, called) involve our attitudes and actions (Colossians 3) and also how we focus our thoughts (Hebrews 3). Turning that around, when I remember I’m holy, chosen, beloved, called, then I’m better equipped in my efforts to fix my thoughts on Jesus and to live a holy life.

In other words, it’s not just the good news itself, but also the remembering of this good news, that enables me to become a good man.

Fred Rogers the Subversive

This morning I heard yet another reason to thank God for inventing a Fred Rogers.

François Clemmons was featured on Story Corps this morning with his friend Karl Lindholm. Clemmons, “the first African American actor to have a recurring role on a children’s television series,” talked about how he met Mr. Rogers, and related a scene he played with him:

It was a hot day, and there was a kiddie wading pool, and Rogers was resting his feet in the water. He invited “Officer Clemmons” to join him and rest his feet for a bit. Clemmons accepted, removing his shoes and placing his feet into the cool water in the kiddie pool.

If I have this right, the camera very deliberately showed the contrasting pairs of feet in the water. After a while, as they stepped out of the pool, Rogers helped dry Clemmons’s feet.

Wow! That must have been visual dynamite at the time, probably in the early years of Mister Rogers’s Neighborhood, which began in 1968.

Clemmons also mentioned a time when Rogers was saying his usual, "You make every day special just by being you" while looking right at him. He asked if Rogers had been talking to him.

“I've been talking to you every day, François; today you heard me.”

I could never have worked on that show; I'd be crying all the time from the intensity of love and beauty in a time of racial suspicion and hatred; a time of much hostility and ugliness—a time much like ours.

“Let us make…”

Couldn’t sleep the other night, or maybe it was early in the morning, and I recounted (silently, because the lovely Carol was still asleep) the creation story. As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s not a chronology, but the wording and sequencing give us important clues about the author’s purpose.

When I got to the creation of humanity, it hit me that the language changed:

³And God said, “Let there be light,”

⁶And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters …”

⁹And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered …”

¹¹Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation …”

¹⁴And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky …”

²⁰And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”

²⁴And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures …”

²⁶Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, …

From Genesis 1

Seven times God commands something into existence, or commands the land or water to produce or teem with something. But in the eighth instance of this formula we get “Let us make mankind in our image…”

What does it mean? What is the writer (traditionally, Moses) trying to tell us here? If we read the rest of the paragraph, that might give us a clue.

²⁶Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

²⁸God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Genesis 1:26-28

The first thing that stands out is God himself taking responsibility for creating humanity, vs. telling the water to teem with living creatures (1:20) or the land to produce living creatures (1:24). Though in both those situations God is the one doing the creating, the sea and land seem almost to be intermediaries; they receive the commands to produce animate life.

When God creates mankind, however, no intermediary is mentioned; God simply says, “Let us make mankind…”—indeed, no command precedes the creation of humanity. After he creates humans, he gives us a few commands:

1. Be fruitful and multiply
2. Fill the earth
3. And subdue it
4. Rule over sea, air and land creatures

Commands 1 and 2 are shared with other creatures (the sea creatures at least); commands 3 and 4 are unique to us.

I suppose the point of this is to tell us that the creation of humanity was a special event. Though we are obviously created beings, God gave us a unique role, with unique responsibilities, and we have a unique relationship with him. It’s not just that we were created in his image; we are regents, ruling with his authority.

Wait—maybe that’s what “image” and “likeness” (verse 26) mean: besides being personal, rational, volitional, emotional beings (as Larry Crabb, Jr. says) we are also to be like him as we rule for him. Which is actually special enough.

Matthew Explains Himself

No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. from Matthew 11:27

We are going through Matthew in our marvelous Sunday morning group. Last week, our teacher asked, How does Jesus (“the Son” in the passage above) decide who will get to know the Father?

Immediately John 14:23 came to mind, where Jesus says, If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. But another answer, probably a better one, is close at hand. Rather than going to another gospel, we can look around, right where we are. Here's a bit more of the context:

²⁵At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ²⁶Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

²⁷“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

²⁸“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:27-30

To whom does the Son reveal the Father? Those who come to him and take his (easy) yoke upon them! Now that's not a mathematical proof, but look at verse 25: things (such as "who is the Father?") have been revealed to little children (i.e., those who follow Jesus—that is, those who came to Jesus) but were hidden from the "wise and learned" who did not.

The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom

That was last week; this week's passage included a verse about secrets: The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. (from Matthew 13:11, NIV)

What are the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, and how did Jesus’ listeners get this knowledge? Again my mind went quickly to John (in 8:32 Jesus says, "Then you will know the truth") but why go there when there's plenty right here?

²[H]e got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. ³Then he told them many things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. … ⁹He who has ears, let him hear."

¹⁰The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?"

¹¹He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. ¹²Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.

from Matthew 13:2–12

What am I saying here? As our teacher pointed out this week, Jesus was in a boat, and a crowd stood on the shore. As he spoke, his words landed on various kinds of people in the crowd, just as the farmer's seeds landed on various kinds of soil in the parable.

After Jesus’s closing line, He who has ears, let him hear, many in the crowd said, "Great sermon, Rabbi," and went home with no idea of what Jesus had just said. But some came to him—Matthew calls them "disciples" (i.e., followers)—and said, basically, "Huh?"

It is exactly to these people that Jesus says, "You've got the knowledge of kingdom secrets." The secrets actually come to one big secret, an open one: it's Jesus. To paraphrase Archilochus: the wise and learned know many things; Jesus’s disciples know one big thing.

A Praying Life

The younger ex-teen got this book, A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller (NavPress, 2009). My first comment: Wow!

Chapter 1 is titled “What good does it do?”—something we've asked in the quiet (or noise) of our hearts, but the author recounts a time when he said to his then-teenager, “Let’s pray” (about a missing contact lens). In response she

… burst into tears. “What good does it do? I’ve prayed for Kim to speak, and she isn’t speaking”

Kim struggles with autism and developmental delay. …[S]he is also mute.

page 15

Indeed. What good does prayer do? Doesn't God already know what we need before we ask?

The author does address that question, and many others. I'll tell you about this other part from chapter 4, “Learn to talk to your father”—related to Matthew 7:11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Kim got her first speech computer when she was five years old. … We explained the keys to her and waited. She leaned over and pressed the key with little McDonald’s golden arches on it. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and we’d just eaten lunch. We dropped everything, leapt into the car with Kim raced off to McDonald’s, and got Kim a hamburger and a soda. We were thrilled.

page 58

What a lovely picture of our heavenly father's delight in giving good gifts to his children!

Another thing that's impressed me so far: when Jesus says we need to become like little children, we also need to pray like little children. Quiz: How do little children ask for things?

Well, messy might be a good word. They ask distractedly, repeatedly, annoyingly; they ask with abandon, without pretense or consideration. I used to hang around with a guy who said his default method of praying involved listing a dozen or two things he wanted from God. And he talked about that as though it were a bad thing.

But really, if that's on our minds, that's what we should talk about. I'll chew on that one for a while.

A more catholic science?

First Things is a Catholic magazine—that's Catholic with a capital C.

But many of us forget that small-c "catholic" means "universal" or "inclusive," which is why protestants like me still proclaim, "We believe… in the holy catholic church." I was reminded of this today, Resurrection Day, while reading this article from the April issue:

Most often the story is told like this: There is some feature of the world that science is at a loss to explain. Christians rush to claim that this feature can only be explained by God. Science later produces probable non-theistic hypotheses, and the Christians must beat a hasty retreat.

God and the Gaps by Ross McCullough

A lot of religions have done this, right? The sun rises because Apollo drives his chariot across the sky starting at dawn.

McCullough correctly points out that just because the Apollonian explanation is offered, that doesn't shut down all discussion; the chariot explanation is just one hypothesis, after all.

But what I wanted to mention today is that the empty tomb, or rather The Empty Tomb, is a phenomenon that materialists are so far unable to explain. That first Easter morning was filled with despair and resignation. When the body of Jesus was not in the tomb where it was laid, this resignation became wild hope and utter confusion. Panic and utter confusion also came to the guards (Matthew 28:4, 28:11-15).

How did this happen? Modern science, with its anti-religious materialistic prejudice, refuses to consider the possibility that God intervened in his world in this case. McCullough again:

Why exclude a class of possible answers? Why be atheistic as a matter of method? Why not, instead, choose a more catholic science, admitting a broader array of hypotheses, excluding conclusions based not on predetermined criteria but on what best fits the data?

Why not indeed? Today, Christians all over the world proclaim our answer: Jesus Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Driving unconsciously

Started about two weeks back…

I like to think of myself as a courteous driver; when freeway traffic is stopped and someone wants to merge on, I usually let them in. Sometimes, though, if we've been taking turns (one car from the freeway, one from the onramp, one from the freeway, etc.) and suddenly two cars try to merge in front of me, I don't feel like letting the second one in.

Similarly, when getting onto the freeway, I take my turn, though sometimes, if someone already on the freeway doesn't want to let me take my turn, I feel peeved and try to push my way in.

At this point I have to step back and ask myself, what's the big deal if I let one more car in ahead of me, or if I get onto the freeway one car later? What if the person who won't let me in is from out of town, and they're following a friend (who's just about out of sight)? What if the person nosing in front of me has just received word that a loved one is in the emergency room? Couldn't I show them a little grace? Like Jesus said, shouldn't I treat them as I want to be treated? That could be me next time! And sometimes, I actually do.

But not always. Yesterday I was in a traffic-jam situation, bumper-to-bumper, and a luxury convertible passed me on the right and tried to merge in. I wasn't inclined to give him a break, though I wasn't thinking much about it. I just knew I felt my space was being invaded (what did I mean, "my space," anyway? I don't own the road).

He jammed his way in, and having won that argument, flipped me off. I felt like lobbing a paintball at him.

But then I thought, what exactly did happen there, anyway? Did he in fact pass me on the right and cut me off? Did I deserve his wrath?

I had to think about it; I suppose I've done many unkind things on the road—consciously or unconsciously—and so I had to say to the Lord, "Help me not to be deserving of wrath." And as I write this, a passage from 1 Peter 2 comes to mind:

[W]hat credit is there, if when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps.

1 Peter 2:20-21, NASB (approximately)

Who is my brother?

Why is this question important? I mean, do we really need to know who is a brother (or sister) in Christ, vs. who isn’t? In other words, can’t we just treat everyone the same?

Well, Jesus does say to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44-47), and we can certainly honor and respect everyone we meet, but the New Testament writers warn us about false prophets (2 Peter 2:1; Jesus calls them “wolves in sheep’s clothing”—Matthew 7:15), antichrists (1 John 2:18), people trying to lead us astray (1 John 2:26), purveyors of a different gospel (Galatians 1:8), wolves who distort the truth (Acts 20:29), etc. And Jesus himself told us that if a brother doesn’t listen after being reproved, to “treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” (Matthew 18).

But wait; aren’t we all God’s children? Well—no, we aren’t; John writes that Jesus gave the power (or the right) to become children of God to those who welcome him, who believe in him (John 1:12). This would be meaningless if everyone were already God’s child. Jesus also said to some religious leaders in his day, “You are children of your father the devil” (John 8:44), and Paul writes about being adopted (Romans 8). Although every human being is created in God’s image, we are not all his children in the way Jesus or John or Paul thinks, until something happens.

What is that something? Well, the Bible doesn’t tell us in a scientific or systematic way; it’s not like the DSM or the Motor Vehicle Code. The biblical writers use a number of different terms: John 1:12 talks about receiving or welcoming Jesus, which is related somehow to believing in his name; those who do that can become children of God. Similarly John 3:14-15 talks about believing in Jesus, who would be lifted up the way the snake was lifted up in the desert; those who believe receive eternal life. The Apostle Paul talks about a righteousness from God, which comes through faith in Christ to all who believe (Romans 3:21-22) [mouse here for more].

So not everyone is God’s child; is it enough if someone says he believes in Christ? Well, what does he believe about Christ? When the Apostles talk about believing in Christ, they mean believing what they say about him—for example that he was a real person who died for our sins and rose from the dead. In his gospel and his first letter, John begins by talking about Jesus and the fact that he (John) personally saw him: “The word became flesh and dwelt among us... and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14); “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched...” (1 John 1:1). John is also specific in his instructions about testing the spirits:

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God… (1 John 4:1-2)

I take the phrase “has come in the flesh” as shorthand for “has come in the flesh, dwelt among us, taught us about God, died for our sins, and was raised from the dead”—as Paul says in the first few lines of 1 Corinthians 15.

At least this is how I read the New Testament writers. I don’t think someone has to believe in the historicity of Jonah or Hosea to be a brother in Christ; they don’t have to agree with me on the rite of baptism, they needn’t share my views on sexuality, politics, fiscal or monetary policy, or women’s ordination to be a brother in Christ. They could be a communist or a racist or a libertarian, they might have bad table manners, they might pick their nose or scratch their armpits in public, they might smoke tobacco or marijuana; if they believe Christ died for their sins, if they welcome him into their lives, then they’re a brother (or sister) in Christ. We may choose our friends; we don’t choose our family members.

On the other hand, if someone doesn’t believe Jesus was a real person, or they think Jesus didn’t really suffer and die for our sins, or they don’t believe Jesus really rose from the dead, then they’re not a brother in Christ, though they may be a very nice person. Someone who thinks Jesus Christ was a kind of ideal concept, or who thinks the resurrection was some ahistorical tale, may be a great humanitarian, but they’re not in the family of God. They might go to the same church, they might dress nicely and speak politely and have the “right” views on a lot of social issues, but they’re neighbors or friends, not part of God’s family.

---

Update November 2021
9+ years on, do I still believe that last paragraph? I’m not sure. It sounds so exclusionary, but then the Scriptures don’t seem to have changed much since then. Among all the things the gospel is or isn’t about, it’s abundantly clear that it is about Jesus.

“Our God is mighty to save”… me?

As the band rehearsed for the 9:30 service, I reflected on that line from the chorus:

Savior
He can move the mountains
Our God is Mighty to save
He is Mighty to save

Mighty to Save by Michael W. Smith
[click for full lyrics]

Evangelicals used to talk a lot about escaping judgment (see for example John 5:24). We didn’t make up that concept, but it doesn’t communicate much to the modern materialist. In other words, if someone thinks that the present life is all there is, hell isn’t scary; the same applies to someone who doesn’t think himself a major villain—he might say to himself, “I’m no Hitler or Milošević—hey, I’m not even Bernie Madoff—so I guess I’ll do okay.”

and I wondered, if I weren’t already a believer in Jesus, what would I make out of these lines? I mean, let’s be realistic: as an upper middle class American male—in other words, as a man of privilege—what kind of salvation do I (or men like me) need? A not-very-helpful answer is mentioned in the box at right.

But as I asked the myself the question, the words of the Apostle Peter came to mind: “you were redeemed from the futile way of life inherited from your forefathers” (from 1 Peter 1). Peter also wrote about being “useless or unfruitful” (2 Peter 1) and how we can avoid that. Paul’s words also came to mind: “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, spending our days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one another” (from Titus 3). From these passages we might have the beginnings of an answer for the post-modern man who thinks he has everything.

Because even the healthy, successful American man isn’t as good a person as his dog thinks he is; his family and his colleagues and his subordinates have seen his selfishness, his mistakes, his blind spots. And if he’s honest with himself, he also knows self-doubt. Has his life made a difference, really? Will this world be better because he was in it? What does his life mean beyond the accumulation of experiences, possessions and accomplishments?

Paul’s words are echoed in step 1 of AA-esque twelve-step programs: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol— that our lives had become unmanageable.” (link) That is, we are not masters of ourselves; we cannot control our tongues (try going 24 hours, or even two waking hours, without complaining). We need to be saved from our blind spots, our envy, greed, pride, and so on; we need to be saved lest our lives be wasted in our selfishness and futile slavery to our urges.

And Jesus came to save us from a meaningless life; he offers us salvation, not only an escape from the judgment of Hell, but also the opportunity to join with him to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth—beginning with our own hearts. This is what he meant when he taught us to pray, “Father in heaven… your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6). And when he says, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8), he doesn't just mean that one might suffer eternal judgment after this life is over; he also means that one may gain an abundance of accomplishments, experiences, possessions—one may be a man of privilege—yet still not be comfortable in his own skin in this futile and meaningless life.

But this need not be anyone’s fate, because Jesus is mighty to save. And when we sing that Jesus conquered the grave, we don’t just mean we have a chance to live forever after we die; we also mean that Jesus overcame the tragedy of death. That is, when our time on earth is up, we can leave knowing that our lives are not useless or unfruitful, that we did not entirely waste them in futile pursuits, that in the end God was pleased with who we have become.

Forever
Author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave

Mighty to Save by Michael W. Smith
[click for full lyrics]

I wish I were this guy, sorta

Which guy do I mean? The best-selling author? The Nobel laureate?

Nope, the guy I'm thinking of is basically just me with one change. An old friend talked about getting up in the morning and wanting one thing more than anything else: a word from the Lord. Another friend talks about how he'll skip brushing his teeth before he'll skip reading the Bible in the morning.

I am not like those guys. Sure, when I do open the Bible I usually find something that makes me really glad I did. But to me it's kinda like eating a healthy diet—like having oatmeal for breakfast 5-6 days a week. I know it's good for me, I know I should, I usually do (at this stage in my life anyway), but it's not the thing I'm simply dying to do each morning—or necessarily any other time of the day. That's right, I can go a whole day without wanting a word from the Lord.

The guy I want to be is a guy who wants, more than anything else, to hear or read something from God every day, every hour—and to desire his will with a pure intention.

Ever have one of those days...

... when you can hardly believe how good you've got it? The last few have been like that for me, so even though I'm supposed to be balancing the checkbook, I want to take no more than 15 minutes and tell you about it.

I'm on the "nominating committee" at our church, which among other things means we consider who will become the "incoming class" of elders this September. The congregation recommended several dozen folks (nearly 60) and our job is to meet with and pray about and discuss and try to discern who the Lord wants to appoint: eight of them, to be installed this September. We've been meeting for about an hour a few times a month, and given the long weekend, I thought to invite them over for dinner.

So even before that, I have to say that is tremendously nourishing and encouraging and uplifting and very sweet to spend time with these mature, committed, energetic folks, focused on this very important task.

OK, so I thought about dinner, and it occurred to me that it might be nice to roast some lamb. I have a Weber® kettle barbecue, which actually smokes small cuts of meat quite well. The local market had apple chips, which as it turns out give a terrific flavor. "But," I said to myself, "not everybody likes lamb" -- especially something like a roast leg of lamb, which is practically baaa-ing when it comes to the table; I mean it is really lamb-y.

So I thought, fine, I'll take a leg of lamb and roast/smoke half of it, and make stew out of the rest. Our son-in-law gave us a gift card (long story) for Safeway, and they had boneless lamb legs. Yes!

But even the lamb stew might be too lamb-y for some folks, I thought, and having in mind the recent news story which said your chances of dying in a 15? year period were 20? per cent higher if you ate a lot of red meat, I also got a salmon fillet. I decided to smoke half of it and grill the other half after marinating it in "soy vey" sauce.

What occurred to me part way through this whole thing is, I guess I'm part "Japanese mother" -- as some story goes, the mother shows her affection for her children by what she packs for them in their lunch-boxes. In a similar way, I guess it was my fond affection for these dear brothers and sisters that expressed itself in these four dishes (only three of which involved the Weber).

The other thing of course was the abundant blessings I've received, not only the gift card but the time and resources to prepare something like this; one of my friends said "We're going to eat like kings" and indeed we did: not just the stuff I prepared (and some very kind words were said about my cooking) but also things others brought: cole slaw made from a family recipe, an exotic "cheesy-potato casserole" from the wilds of Ohio, a rice salad... and a home-made lemon cake, made with Duncan's assistance. Duncan Hines that is.

But how many people throughout history have been able to eat like this? How many people today have friends they're involved with, working on a task that's bigger than all of them and has nothing to do with making money? How many people are as fortunate as I am?

And as I sometimes say, there are few pleasures in this life greater than preparing food for dear friends and enjoying it with them.

Tuesday

My employer allows us to take days off to do volunteer work, and that's what I did for most of Tuesday. This wasn't building a house or feeding the poor—not directly, anyway. There's some programming work that needs doing for a nonprofit organization; they do medical education around the world. Anyway, I've been taking a day or two a month for the past few months and slowly progressing this work. They are patient because I'm doing it for free.

How many companies give employees a paid day off to do volunteer work? How many of us get to do things they love to do, to help accomplish something really important?

During the day, I took some time off to interview someone who may be an elder starting this fall. Another committee member and I heard about his faith journey, his desire to serve the Lord, the things God has been doing in his life and the way God has been using him. Wow -- how often do we get to hear stories like this?

That was rhetorical, but the answer for me is: three times this week! I had another one that evening, and I have one scheduled for this coming Saturday.

I've spoken with both my daughters this week and my wife a couple of times today (they're all in other states at the moment); I have health enough to ride my bike to and from the train station; our friends are willing to take the dog for a bit so the poor creature won't be bored to tears, alone at home…

I could go on and on, but it's already been half an hour and I need to get to work.

It has been one of those weeks... how could anyone be so fortunate as I am? I sure don't know—not that I'm complaining! Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

[A glimmer of] Understanding the PCUSA

Updated 2013-04-07 because shuckandjive.org's domain registration expired; links have been adjusted to point to http://shuckandjive.blogspot.com

I'm a member of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, which is currently affiliated with the PCUSA, a denomination in some turmoil. Here is an issue that I found vexing; thanks to my friend Simon, to an article by R.R. Reno reminding me about Jonathan Haidt's work on liberals and conservatives, and to a book by Jack Rogers, I now have a glimmer of understanding.

What issue, you ask? Sorry, I got ahead of myself. The issue was ordination of women in the church. To you this issue may be a slam-dunk, but I had to spend some hours studying the Scriptures and considering my own motives and prejudices. Part of my study involved reading a lecture attributed to Tim Keller [online here or here] where I read this rather surprising extract:

Some 15 years ago, we would have entered the Presbyterian Church USA to minister, but we were told that our view of women-in-ministry precluded us from serving there. Though we would have worked beside people with different views, those on the other side of the fence would not work with us.

Women and Ministry [link]
Redeemer Presbyterian Church
By Tim and Kathy Keller 11/89

Jack Rogers reports this has been the case for some time:

In its 1974 decision, the Permanent Judicial Commission in the Kenyon case cited the Confession of 1967. The PJC decision stated that the equality of women and men is an essential of Presbyterian theological beliefs…

Jack Rogers, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, p. 48

I found it vexing and incomprehensible that on one hand the PCUSA would consider Tim Keller unfit for ministry, and on the other hand has no problem with someone like John Shuck who believes

that "God" functions as a symbol. The concept of "God" is a product of myth-making and "God" is no longer credible as a personal, supernatural being. For me, "God" functions as a shorthand for the Universe and sometimes for qualities and aspirations I wish to pursue or to emulate.

http://shuckandjive.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-presbyterians-believe-except-me.html

Unlike the Apostles Peter and Paul, unlike the author of Hebrews, Shuck doesn't believe Christ died for our sins:

The passion accounts in the gospels that we hear in church and that we watch on film and that preachers relish in recounting from the pulpits are fictions. Stories. These events didn’t happen. The theological explanation is based upon pure imagination.

http://shuckandjive.blogspot.com/2011/04/empire-strikes-back-sermon.html

He notes in this posting that he has been elected by Holston Presbytery to serve as a voting commissioner to the PCUSA’s 2012 General Assembly.

How can Tim Keller be unfit for ministry, and John Shuck be elected by his presbytery as a commissioner for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) general assembly? That was something I found incomprehensible and vexing. But after some helpful input, I now find it only vexing.

A few weeks ago, my friend Simon and his wife joined me for dinner. It was a time of sweet fellowship, getting to know each other a little more and discussing some of these questions. I'll say here that Simon and I don't necessarily fully agree on all issues. Anyway I asked him if he had any insight into the above question: how can the question of "who can be nominated as an Elder?" be essential in a Christian denomination, whereas belief that Jesus Christ died for our sins isn't essential? Simon proposed the following possible position of the denomination:

There's a place for every family member at the table. If you don't believe exactly as we do on some issue (even some very important ones), you can still have a place at the table. But one thing you mustn't do here is oppress your sister.

Side note: What's there not to fully agree with here? Only this: Membership in God's family isn't inherited, or automatic for everyone who, say, goes to a certain church or a certain seminary; to be in God's family someone must welcome Jesus into their life, and believe in him (John 1:12) in order to become a child of God. Put differently, we need to be adopted (Romans 8, Ephesians 1) into the family, or as Jesus said, "born again" (John 3). He also said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 7:21). These are not proof-texts; Jesus also says that the path leading to life is narrow, and few find it; he talks a lot about those who are on the inside vs on the outside; if a brother refuses to repent even when confronted by the congregation, we should treat him as an unbeliever; he warns us to be aware of wolves in sheep's clothing. Not everyone who claims to be a brother or sister truly is one; I don't see how we can escape our responsibility to at least try to discern whether someone has been adopted and truly is a family member, vs being a wolf in sheep's clothing.

I may not have the exact wording, but need I say I was impressed with this answer? This is at least a coherent position. I don't fully agree with it (more at right), but it is at least comprehensible to me.

Another piece of the puzzle may have to do with being more "contractural" or liberal vs being more "beehive"-oriented or conservative (the quoted terms are from Haidt's 2007 article on misunderstanding religion. Haidt has done some interesting research on ethical perceptions:

In my dissertation and my other early studies, I told people short stories in which a person does something disgusting or disrespectful that was perfectly harmless (for example, a family cooks and eats its dog, after the dog was killed by a car). I was trying to pit the emotion of disgust against reasoning about harm and individual rights.

I found that disgust won in nearly all groups I studied (in Brazil, India, and the United States), except for groups of politically liberal college students, particularly Americans, who overrode their disgust and said that people have a right to do whatever they want, as long as they don't hurt anyone else.
…

Haidt, 2007 [link]

A little later in the article, Haidt lists four principles summarizing a new synthesis in moral psychology. I'm particularly interested in this one:

4) Morality is about more than harm and fairness. In moral psychology and moral philosophy, morality is almost always about how people treat each other. …

OK, so there are two psychological systems, one about fairness/justice, and one about care and protection of the vulnerable. …

But if you try to apply this two-foundation morality to the rest of the world, you either fail or you become Procrustes. Most traditional societies care about a lot more than harm/care and fairness/justice. Why do so many societies care deeply and morally about menstruation, food taboos, sexuality, and respect for elders and the Gods? … If you want to describe human morality, rather than the morality of educated Western academics, you've got to include the [Emile] Durkheimian view that morality is in large part about binding people together.

From a review of the anthropological and evolutionary literatures, Craig Joseph (at Northwestern University) and I concluded that there were three best candidates for being additional psychological foundations of morality, beyond harm/care and fairness/justice. These three we label as ingroup/loyalty (which may have evolved from the long history of cross-group or sub-group competition, related to what Joe Henrich calls "coalitional psychology"); authority/respect (which may have evolved from the long history of primate hierarchy, modified by cultural limitations on power and bullying, as documented by Christopher Boehm), and purity/sanctity, which may be a much more recent system, growing out of the uniquely human emotion of disgust, which seems to give people feelings that some ways of living and acting are higher, more noble, and less carnal than others.

Haidt, op. cit. (emphasis added)

Haidt has written another book, The Righteous Mind, which R.R. Reno read and discussed in the aforementioned article from First Things; apparently Haidt's list now consists of care, freedom, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity; liberals care about the first three only and may actively reject the others. Reno quotes Haidt on this: When I speak to liberal audiences about the three 'binding foundations'—Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity—I find that many in the audience don't just fail to resonate; they actively reject these concerns as immoral.

So here's my current whack at what's going on, why Shuck is accepted by the PCUSA but Keller is rejected. First, there has been a shift in the denomination away from an admittedly flawed understanding of how to interpret the Bible. I'm assuming that Rogers has not caricatured some past mental models, but certainly trying to read Genesis 1 as a chronology, or saying creation happened in 4010 BC, or that women mustn't wear braids in church (and how about that gold jewelry?) is a problem. Perhaps the baby has been thrown out with the bath-water, but it's easy to see how this can happen. This may explain why the PCUSA has no theological essentials. (Seriously. There is not a single tenet you must believe—I mean about God or Jesus Christ—in order to be ordained in the PCUSA. I'll happily be proven wrong on this, but I don't think that's happening.)

Second, contracturalists (or "liberals") have risen to power in the denomination. (Note that this is separate and distinct from being theologically liberal.) This is how care, freedom and fairness have become the essentials.

Do I care about care, freedom, and fairness? Yes I do, but who gets to define all these terms? For example, is it fair that someone who believes in Jesus is part of God's family, whereas a much nicer person isn't—even if that person is more polite and patient, gives more to charity—because they don't believe in Jesus?

Would I refuse to attend or support Redeemer Presbyterian Church because they don't ordain women as elders? I would say it's an issue for me but I don't know if it would be a controlling issue. (I disagree with Dr. Keller's views on women in the church, but it's not essential for salvation or fellowship that we agree on that issue.) I think I'd be more concerned if the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ were not preached -- based on my understanding of the Bible, I think this is essential for salvation.

At this point I still disagree with the PCUSA, and I disagree less with them since reading (most of) Rogers's book. But at least the position is comprehensible.