“Creed” by Steve Turner

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is okay
as long as you don’t hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is okay.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything is getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there’s something in
horoscopes, UFOs and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man
just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher
although we think His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same–
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it’s compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What’s selected is average.
What’s average is normal.
What’s normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It’s only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.

“Chance” (a post-script)

If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear

State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites Go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.

Priestesses in the Church? Yes, Mr. Lewis, and bishops too!

This essay entitled “Priestesses in the Church?” by C.S. Lewis really floored me when I first read it a few years ago, so much that, of the essays in God in the Docks, perhaps it was the most memorable. It is particularly relevant today. Libby Lane was ordained today as the first female bishop of the Church of England. I imagine that Lewis would be quite disappointed, although perhaps not surprised, that the ordination of priestesses which he called in his day “unlikely to be seriously considered by the authorities” has not only been considered, but effected, and not only for priestesses, but now for bishops. This trend toward the ordination of women is pervasive in may denominations including the United Methodist, Episcopal, and (even prior to this date) greater Anglican traditions. In fact it is even encouraged among the Brethren in Christ, a brethren or holiness denomination based in Pennsylvania of which my wife’s family are committed members.

Googling the essay produces a very sad assortment of blog rebuttals of the essay which do not understand Lewis’ points and really make fools of themselves blabbering on at straw men. Therefore, although you should really just read the essay itself, I will try to do him some brief justice here. Lewis’ argument could be syllogized this way:

Major Premise: A key role of a priest is to represent God to man.
Minor Premise: God has revealed himself to mankind as masculine.
Conclusion: Therefore, a priest must represent God masculinely.
Second Major Premise: a person’s gender is part of their spirituality, it is a “living and semitive figure which God has painted on the canvas of our nature”.
Second Minor Premise: Men are masculine.
Conclusion: Therefore, a man must represent God to mankind.

I find that the only point that one can bail on this train of logic is at the very beginning–one must deny the mystical, representative nature of the sacerdotal office. Protestant denominations that do so, incidentally may have more of an excuse to allow women as “pastors” but this represents a deficiency in their whole Christian system. The fact that they may allow women to fulfill their version of the priestly office reveals that they have no priestly office at all. And I would submit that churches whose leaders merely educate and administrate and visit the sick are missing something of what Christianity truly is. But that is another issue. For churches who acknowledge the mystical role of the priest in the sacramental economy, and who hold the view that the Bible’s consistently masculine imagery for God was not an oversight on his part (R.I.P., TNIV translators), the ordination of female priests and bishops is a perversion of Christianity in the name of that great insidious god of our times, common sense.

Authority issues (Freedom is not independence)

In church this week, Jeff Noble compared King Solomon to King Jesus. When Solomon became king he had to consolidate his empire by eliminating several people who posed threats to his power. For example, his brother Adonaijah, who had already tried to take the throne, without David’s consent. Jesus, in the same way, will consolidate his kingdom. In the apocalypse he will come as a warrior with a flaming sword, surrounded by his angel army. On that day “every knee shall bow,” and those who in life rejected his kingship will then be rejected from his kingdom. As Jeff said, “He will tolerate no challenge to his authority.” There’s no doubt about it: You don’t have to look very far in the Bible to perceive that God asserts unequivocal, unflinching, absolute authority over creation.

Jeff also said that we in the modern West have authority issues. Ever since the Boston Tea Party, Americans have been throwing off yokes with a cry of, “Freedom!” You can see it in our political parties, our approaches to sex, sexual orientation, medical decisions, guns, property (“get offa my land!”), money, lifestyle, music, fashion, you name it. Take it from Miley Cyrus in her hit We Can’t Stop:

It’s our party we can do what we want to
It’s our house we can love who we want to
It’s our song we can sing we if we want to
It’s my mouth I can say what I want to

Independence and equality is deeply rooted into the American value system. And for good reason, I’ll say. It has developed out of oppression and inequality. The Boston Tea Party, from King George III. The French Revolution, from the strangling of the poor. Civil rights, from racism and slavery. We are right to champion freedom and equality and resist undue assertions of authority.

However, this same skepticism of authority has gradually doubled back on God. When we postmodernists bump up against this absolutely authoritative King God, some of us recoil in revulsion (“How dare this God demand to be worshiped? How selfish!”)(cf. Oprah). Some of us just don’t connect with that part of God. We obey him out of obligation and fear and performance-based acceptance. But whether we are the prodigal or the older brother in the story of the prodigal son, whether we run away from God’s authority or try lock-step conformity, something is missing. The Bible calls us to embrace and love God’s authority (cf. Basically all of Psalm 119).

How do we do that? How do we love and embrace God’s authority?

I believe the answer is in part that God’s grace enlightens our hearts to depend on God’s strong hand like a son does his father, and find it more freeing than independence.

Freedom and independence aren’t always the same. Independence means not needing other things. Take marriage for example. If my wife and I are living in a dysfunctional cycle where I come home and do my own thing, don’t talk to her, don’t pay attention to her, and she does the same thing, keeping to her room, ignoring and avoiding me, are we independent? In a sense our relationship is more independent than it should be. We don’t rely on each other to do anything. However, is that relationship free? I don’t think so. Pins and needles. Awkwardness. Unaddressed hurt. That relationship is a ball and chain, and the more independent you become, the heavier the weight secretly gets. That’s because freedom isn’t just being in charge of yourself, cut loose, independent: Freedom is being properly dependent. For the slave, it means getting out of there, but for marriage, it means coming together and learning how to communicate needs and meet each others needs in love.

As marital freedom comes through right dependence in marriage, so ultimate freedom comes through right dependence on God. God made us for relationship with him, so freedom means learning our roles in relationship to him. For example, my money is not my domain, it is God’s gift, and I am a steward. When I learn that role, I can loosen my death grip on the wad of cash and be generous. And as I do it, trusting in God to provide what I need instead of myself, I learn that he is much better suited to the task, and I can breath easy, and finally be free. While assertion of authority by a man against another man is often oppression, when God asserts his authority, it is like the strong hands of a father as he reaches over his frustrated child, trying to unscrew a cap, and says, “Here, let me.”

We are left to decide whether we will yank our bottle away from the Father and say, “No, it’s mine!” or yield willingly to his strong hands and learn how much love resides within his power. The issue of how we handle God’s assertion of authority is in the end a question of whether we know and believe that he loves us. In any sphere in which we know the love of God, by faith, by his precious and very great promises, we will not WANT to do it on our own. We will embrace his authority as a child does that of a good father whom he knows loves him back. We will find freedom in dependence.