Reformed Evangelical Synod of America

Archive for October, 2009

Born in Syria, Ignatius converted to Christianity and eventually became the bishop of Antioch. In the year 107, Emperor Trajan visited Antioch and forced the Christians there to choose between death and apostasy. Ignatius would not deny Christ and thus was condemned to be put to death in Rome. During his journey to Rome, he wrote several letters to the various Christian Churches, exhorting them to faithfulness in Christ and teaching them the truths of the faith. Ignatius was martyred by lions in the Circus Maximus.

COLLECT
Almighty God, we praise your name for your bishop and martyr, Ignatius of Antioch, who offered himself as grain to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts that he might present to you the pure bread of sacrifice. Accept, we pray, the willing tribute of our lives and give us a share in the pure and spotless offering of your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

St. George's Dragon "Tamed" Embroidered Dragon with Cross

The story of St. George alternatively slaying or taming a dragon dates back centuries. While it is considered a legend in many ways, there is a strong historical foundation that explains the “dragon” in it’s original context and also explains well the nature of St. George’s conquering love. The historical St. George was a Roman soldier and a martyr for the cause of Christ.

Either version of the story relates to the Church’s classic struggle of spiritual combat against the powers of darkness. In Eastern Orthodoxy icons of St. George in battle with the dragon have been used to inspire the faithful in their own private war with sin and lawlessness for generations. At the present day, St. George’s Day celebrations in the UK recall the legend and allow participants to “act it out”

As Americans devoted to newness at any cost, we often fail to recognize the power of Classical Christian Symbols and understandings of history to inspire people in the present however. Many relics of the past, to be sure, must be reinterpreted in light of scripture because as Reformed and Evangelical Christians we do not consider St. George our patron in terms of things eternal. Like St. George, we have the Risen Christ alone as our heavenly patron and intercessor! But as the embedded You Tube video shows, modern people can be engaged through the historic symbolism of the Church when we are engaged by it ourselves.

Here you can see the band “Toto” singing their song “St. George and the Dragon”. It would indeed be cheesy to create a “Got Dragons Lately?” bumper sticker, though Christian attempts at relevance have not failed to stoop to that depth. This should be a reminder that if we live our lives in light of the Christian view of life and history, such living faith can’t help but grasp the imaginations of people who have their own dragons to slay yet today.

Enjoy the music. But look beyond it to our Lord whose own Conquering Love inspired “St. George the Martyr” in his original battle with the “Dragon”!

The Apostles commissioned seven men in the congregation at Jerusalem to supervise the church’s ministry to the needs of its widows and other poor; among them was Philip.

Philip preached the Gospel to the Samaritans, a group who had split off from the Jewish people about six centuries earlier, had intermarried with other peoples, and were considered outsiders by most Jews. They received the Christian message with eagerness, and soon Peter and John came to Samaria to bless the new converts.

After this, Philip was sent by God to walk along the road from Jerusalem southwest to Gaza, where he met a eunuch of the Queen of Ethiopia, returning home after worshipping in Jerusalem. The man was reading from Isaiah 53, and Philip told him about Jesus, and persuaded him that the words were a prophecy of the saving work of Jesus. The man was baptized, and went on his way rejoicing, while Philip went north to Caesarea, the major seaport of Israel, and its secular capital.

When Paul was going up to Jerusalem for the last time, he paused at Caesarea and spent several days with Philip. After this, tradition describes him as settling at Tralles in Asia Minor, where he became the bishop of that church. Nevertheless, he remains most widely known as ‘Philip the Deacon’.

COLLECT
Almighty and everlasting God, we thank you for your servant Philip, whom you called to preach the Gospel to the peoples of Samaria and Ethiopia. Raise up in this and every land heralds and evangelists of your kingdom, that your Church may make known the immeasurable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

READINGS
Isaiah 53: 1-6
Psalm 67
Acts 8: 1-25 or Acts 8: 26-40 or Acts 21: 1-14
Mark 10: 42-45

From Delusion To Discipleship

18th Lord’s Day after Trinity, Proper 25b

Numbers 12:1-15
Psalm 31
James 3:1-18
Mark 9:30-37

The call was unexpected. It was from an area code I did not recognize. I answered it to find a dear friend and mentor had suffered a massive heart attack and was not expected to survive. Later in the day, we learned that sometime today (10/11/2009) they will decide if he is brain dead and let his body die. When death greets us… will we be deluded or be a disciple?

Today, we read the second incident in Mark’s Gospel where Jesus predicts His death and resurrection. We have three incidents in Mark’s record of Jesus training His disciples and each time  – they just don’t get it!  Each time they are puzzled – even unbelieving – about what Jesus says. First Peter basically says “Jesus, you’re nuts!” This time they don’t want to risk a reprimand, but you can see what they’re doing – they’re arguing about who is going to be the top dog when Jesus’ kingdom comes. They seem to still expect Jesus to ascend quickly to an earthly throne and use the powers He has displayed in healing people and casting out demons to bring Israel’s enemies immediately to hell!

So when Jesus rebukes Peter for likely saying something just like that, now the disciples don’t say a word. Mark tells us that when Jesus talks about His death and resurrection, the disciples don’t understand what’s going on and are afraid. Those jobs they had lined up in their own minds as “Messiah’s Assistants”  suddenly seem jeopardized. After all, they figured that when Jesus whooped up, they were going to be exalted leaders like Daniel in Babylon or Joseph in Egypt. They figured they’d finally gotten in on something good and here’s Jesus messing up those dreams!

But this time, just like the last time, and just like the next time ( Mk 10:32-45), Jesus takes their confusion and tells them that they must move from their delusion to discipleship.

In a 12 Step Group you’ll say the “Serenity Prayer” that asks God to “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” That’s a prayer for people who can’t tell fantasy from reality because their sins and delusions have warped their ability to know what’s real.

Jesus’ disciples – just like us – are deluded about what’s going to happen because they have their lives already mapped out in their own heads. They are following Jesus but in their minds they are using Jesus because they have it all mapped out about what Jesus is going to do for them!

That’s why they’re fighting. They have competing ideas about which one of them Jesus is going to make the head man!

But it doesn’t work that way!

Jesus doesn’t call us because He’s putting Himself at our disposal! That’s a delusion! Instead He calls us to find our lives by following Him as He gives Himself. That’s discipleship!

As our Lord takes the disciples aside on this march to Jerusalem and to His death to tell them about God’s plan, these men cannot forget for one moment about what’s “in it for them” about being with Jesus!

As they are in their dream world expecting quick riches and power to come their way for their brief fling with following Jesus, Jesus again in Mark 9 tells them about His coming death instead. Before Jesus can be the “Son of Man” in victory in Dan 7, He must be the prophetic “Son of Man” portrayed in Ezekiel’s ministry who speaks to Israel’s sin and rebellion, who wanders and teaches like an exile to people who are still in exile though they think they are free (Ez 12:3). He’s speaking prophetic truth to people who are inventing their own prophecies and living in delusion (Ez 13:2). Jesus confronts those who erect idols in their hearts and teach their lies instead of God’s Word (Ez 14:3). Jesus will tell them what it means to be connected to God’s vine (John 15/Ezek 15). He speaks in parables and riddles (Ezek 17). He lets Jerusalem know their abominations (Ez 16) and groaned with anguish over their sin (Ezek 21/Luke 13:34). Jesus will be this “Son of Man” and He will be killed in God’s plan and in God’s plan rise to life!

Die? Rise? The prophet Daniel talked in terms of many rising (Dan 12) on the Last Day. But one man rise? It was confusing. Jesus was sounding increasingly like the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53…but surely the time of suffering was past and the time of victory is at hand!
Jesus says “No”! Wake up! Stop serving yourselves, stop thinking your brief flings of obedience and devotion suffice. When you can realize that Jesus does not exist to prop up your delusion and you exist to find your life in Him, you can escape your delusion and learn to delight in discipleship!

The salvation that Jesus gives us in this world and the next is a salvation that sets us free from ourselves! The first time Jesus brought up this topic last week in our studies, Jesus told them He would set them free if they would turn from themselves and turn to Him, if they would stop grasping for the elusive promises of this life and trust Him for joy in following Him where He was going!

Now we learn the second crucial lesson about what it means to escape our delusion and become His disciples… It is the principle and practice of servant leadership.

Here’s the principle: To people like us who need to get over the delusion that Jesus exists to serve us and our agenda, we need to learn this lesson from Him – If you want to be the first among God’s people, be the servant of God’s people!

*Everybody wants to be known as a hero, but nobody wants to get shot at.

*Everybody wants to be known as a “Reformer” but nobody wants to get up to their neck in the manure that comes when you work with people.

*Everybody wants to be the one everybody looks up to, but nobody wants to do the work required of being a person people can rely on.

To people who wonder why God isn’t using them, why Jesus isn’t blessing them, why people aren’t taking them seriously in their Christian profession – Jesus says (and I say it in the most reverent way possible) “For Christ’s sake DO SOMETHING and get off your rear end!” Stop playing your mind games and cultivating your day dreams and DO SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE IN CHRIST’S NAME!

My friend Edwin Elliott said that when they ordain leaders in their church, they give them a broom. The last time I talked to him he was taking out the trash at the church.  Get out of your head and get into the world to do something for someone else in Jesus’ name.

Here’s the practice: So how does this work out in practice? We want it to mean that we are called to do something glamorous and well paid. If we are pastors we want it to mean that we are called to minister to stadiums full of adoring crowds. If we are church leaders we may want to consider our church “the best in town”.  We may find ourselves wanting to be noticed by people – to have our picture in the paper every week – to win a Nobel Prize for doing nothing.

But Jesus took a child and a set the child in their midst.  In that day, children were considered, weak, inferior, and a liability – the way pro abortionists talk about them when arguing for abortion as a way to cut the cost of the schools and the cost of government.

Jesus promised that if we welcomed weak, inferior, insignificant people and served them, THEN we would know what it means to serve as disciples and break free from our delusions and become disciples!

Here’s the promise: It’s hard to follow Jesus at times. We so desperately want – at times – to BE ANYWHERE ELSE but where God has put us. We so desperately want to be doing ANYTHING BUT the menial task God seems to have assigned us.

But Jesus has a promise for us in our misery.  He promises that when we serve and welcome the insignificant in His Name – in union with Jesus, empowered by Jesus, driven by the love of Jesus, trusting in Jesus to use us in our insignificance, when our following becomes the oneness with Jesus of repentance faith and eating His flesh and drinking His blood described in John 6 – then in that service Jesus will find their union with Christ and the Father deepened.

No it doesn’t mean that if you help someone in Jesus’ Name then suddenly that person becomes Jesus or is a Christian somehow because you helped them. But as we move out of our deluded self interest into the discipleship Jesus calls us too, we will know what it means to live as one with Jesus and the Father and the blessing of their nearness and what it means to rejoice in being the Father’s child.

Jesus promises that as we move out of our delusion into discipleship we shall find the joy of knowing Him and thereby enjoy all the blessings of the Father’s adoption (Gal 4:4-7) and come to  experience in and through our serving the nearness of the life of heaven (John 17:3).

If death should come and greet you today – and you should leave this world for your eternal reward – will you be found to be deluded, someone who played games with their life and played around with knowing Jesus, or will you be found to be a disciple who for the joy of Jesus’ promised nearness, had learned to be the one who lead by serving?

Audio version of this sermon preached at St. Andrews’ Church

What Should Faithful Lutherans in the ELCA Do?

by Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; gagnon@pts.edu

Sept. 30, 2009

I give my permission for this article to be circulated widely in print, email, and on the web.—RG

With a process that gives new meaning to the expression “stacked deck,” the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August 2009 voted to allow for the blessing of homosexual unions and the rostering of pastors in homosexual relationships. I salute the efforts of the renewal group Lutheran CORE, which courageously fought against the homosexualist agenda at the assembly (I had the great privilege of addressing them). Just this past weekend they had a meeting attended by 1200 persons that began the process of defining a new vision and structure for those who recognize the ELCA’s hard-left departure from normative Christian faith and practice.

How should faithful Lutherans—that is, Lutherans who affirm the male-female requirement for sexual unions so important to Jesus and the scriptural witness to him—deal with these new heretical and immoral actions? In particular, do the recent actions of the Churchwide Assembly justify beginning a trajectory that will lead eventually to disaffiliation with the denominational structure known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America? Let me suggest a syllogism that goes something like this:

A       MAJOR PREMISE

A denomination renders itself illegitimate when, through enactment, it willfully ordains persons actively involved in adultery, incest, polyamory, or like acts, and blesses sexual unions constituted by such behavior.

B       MINOR PREMISE

Adult-committed homosexual practice is, according to Scripture, at least as bad as—and probably worse than—adult-consensual adultery and adult-committed incest and polyamory.

C       CONCLUSION

A denomination renders itself illegitimate when, through enactment, it willfully ordains homosexually active persons and blesses homosexual unions.

Simply put, would you stay in perpetuity in a denomination that officially sanctioned adult-consensual incest, adultery, and polyamory (i.e. concurrent multiple-partner unions) and even set up as leaders of the church persons who engaged unrepentantly in such immorality? If the answer is “no,” consider this: Scripture treats homosexual practice of any sort as at least as bad as, and probably worse than, these offenses. And the ELCA hierarchy has now endorsed adult-committed homosexual practice.

Few will contest the major premise (A) that a denomination ceases to be a faithful representation of the body of Christ to the world once it endorses adultery or consensual, adult-committed incest or polyamory. Perhaps a few would argue for the continuing legitimacy of a church that both blessed such unions and rostered leaders unrepentantly involved in such unions. Yet such advocates would be a tiny minority that could be identified and isolated as extremists.

The main point of contention will be over the minor premise (B); namely, over whether adult-committed homosexual practice is at least as bad as (and probably worse than) consensual adultery and adult-committed incest or polyamory. Yet the point can be easily demonstrated by three considerations. As I note in an online piece entitled “How Bad Is Homosexual Practice according to Scripture and Does Scripture’s Indictment Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?” (http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/HomosexHowBadIsIt.pdf):

1. Homosexual practice, committed or otherwise, is the violation that most clearly and radically offends against God’s intentional creation of humans as “male and female” (Gen 1:27) and definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24). According to the story in Genesis 2, the differentiation into man and woman is the sole differentiation produced by the removal of a “rib” or (in my view a better rendering) “side” from the originally undifferentiated human. It is precisely because out of one flesh came two sexes (a story line that makes a transcendent point about the exclusivity of male-female complementarity) that the two sexes, and only the two sexes, can (re-)unite into one flesh (2:24). Since Jesus gave priority to these two texts from the creation stories in Genesis when he defined normative and prescriptive sexual ethics for his disciples, they have to be given special attention by us. Paul also clearly has the creation texts in the background of his indictments of homosexual practice in Rom 1:24-27 and 1 Cor 6:9.

1. Every text that treats the issue of homosexual practice in Scripture treats it as a high offense abhorrent to God. That this is so is evident from (a) the triad of stories about extreme depravity, Ham, Sodom, and Gibeah (which incidentally are no more limited in their implications to coercive acts of same-sex acts than is an indicting story about coercive sex with one’s parent limited in its implications only to coercive acts of adult incest), to (b) the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic legal and narrative materials that rail against the homoerotic associations of theqedeshim as an “abomination” or “abhorrent practice” (men who in a cultic context served as the passive receptive sexual partners for other men), to (c) the Levitical prohibitions (where the term “abomination” or “abhorrent practice” is specifically attached to man-male intercourse), to (d) texts in Ezekiel that refer to man-male intercourse by the metonym “abomination” or “abhorrent act,” to (e) Paul’s singling out of homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27 (compare 1 Cor 6:9) as a specially reprehensible instance, along with idolatry, of humans suppressing the truth accessible in the material creation set in motion by the Creator, labeling it sexual “uncleanness,” “dishonorable” or “degrading,” “contrary to nature,” and an “indecent” or “shameful” act. These views are also amply confirmed in texts from both early Judaism and early Christianity after the New Testament period, where only bestiality appears to rank as a greater sexual offense, at least among “consensual” acts. There is, to be sure, some disagreement in early Judaism over whether sex with one’s parent is worse, comparable, or less severe, though most texts suggest a slightly lesser degree of severity. Yet while Scripture makes some exceptions, particularly in ancient Israel, for some forms of incest (though never for man-mother, man-child, man-sibling) and for sexual unions involving more than two partners (though a monogamy standard was always imposed on women), it makes absolutely no exceptions for same-sex intercourse. Indeed, every single text in Scripture that discusses sex, whether narrative, law, proverb, poetry, moral exhortation, or metaphor, presupposes a male-female prerequisite. There are no exceptions anywhere in Scripture.

1. The male-female prerequisite is the foundation or prior analogue for defining other critical sexual norms. Jesus himself clearly predicated his view of marital monogamy and indissolubility on the foundation of Gen 1:27 and 2:24, texts that have only one thing in common: the fact that an acceptable sexual bond before God entails as its first prerequisite (after the assumption of an intra-human bond) a man and a woman (Mark 10:6-9; Matt 19:4-6). Jesus argued that the “twoness” of the sexes ordained by God at creation was the foundation for limiting the number of persons in a sexual bond to two, whether concurrently (as in polygamy) or serially (as in repetitive divorce and remarriage). The foundation can hardly be less significant than the regulation predicated on it; indeed, it must be the reverse. Moreover, the dissolution of an otherwise natural union is not more severe than the active entrance into an inherently unnatural union (active entrance into an incestuous bond would be a parallel case in point). The principle by which same-sex intercourse is rejected is also the principle by which incest, even of an adult and consensual sort, is rejected. Incest is wrong because, as Lev 18:6 states, it involves sexual intercourse with “the flesh of one’s own flesh.” In other words, it involves the attempted merger with someone who is already too much of a formal or structural same on a familial level. The degree of formal or structural sameness is felt even more keenly in the case of homosexual practice, only now on the level of sex or gender, because sex or gender is a more integral component of sexual relations, and more foundationally defines it, than is and does the degree of blood relatedness. So the prohibition of incest can be, and probably was, analogically derived from the more foundational prohibition of same-sex intercourse. Certainly, as noted above, there was more accommodation to some forms of incest in the Old Testament than ever there was to homosexual practice. Adultery becomes an applicable offense only when the sexual bond that the offender is cheating on is a valid sexual bond. It would be absurd to charge a man in an incestuous union or in a pedophilic union with adultery for having sexual relations with a person outside that pair-bond. One can’t cheat against a union that was immoral from the beginning.

For further study: Additional brief arguments are put forward in my online article, “What the Evidence Really Says about Scripture and Homosexual Practice: Five Issues” (http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexScripReallySays.doc.pdf), especially p. 7 under “5. Significance” and p. 1 under “1. Jesus.” For more on the analogy with incest and polyamory see my “Why Homosexual Behavior Is More like Consensual Incest and Polyamory than Race or Gender” (7 pgs.; http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexIncestPolyAnalogy.pdf).  For a more extensive analysis of Scripture texts, see my The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001; 500 pgs.); my 55-page contribution in Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress, 2003); and, with some updating, my 120-page “Why the Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?” in Reformed Review 59 (2005): 19-130, esp. pp. 46-100 (online: http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf; table of contents athttp://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoReformedReviewTableCont.pdf).

The Exploitation-Promiscuity and Orientation Arguments

Claims have been made by ELCA “homosexualists” that Scripture’s indictment of homosexual practice is an indictment only of promiscuous or exploitative forms of homosexual practice and not an absolute indictment of homosexual practice per se. This argument is akin to asserting that Scripture’s indictment of incest or the New Testament’s implicit indictment of polygamy extends only to promiscuous or exploitative forms of these relationships and not to adult-committed forms. The exploitation-promiscuity claim shows ignorance of the historical record. Both the conception and reality of adult-committed homosexual relationships existed in the ancient world. Moreover, we have texts where Greco-Roman moralists and Church Fathers acknowledge the presence of love and commitment in homosexual unions and yet still reject the unions as unnatural and immoral. Finally, Paul gives numerous indications that his indictment of homosexual practice is absolute, including his echoing of creation texts, his nature argument, his indictment of lesbianism, his stress on the mutuality of affections, his derivation of the term “men-lying-with-males” (arsenokoitai) from the absolute prohibitions in Leviticus, and the historical context of early Judaism’s absolute opposition.

As even Louis Crompton, a homosexual historian and author of a massive and influential historical-cultural study of homosexuality, has written:

According to [one] interpretation, Paul’s words were not directed at “bona fide” homosexuals in committed relationships. But such a reading, however well-intentioned, seems strained and unhistorical. Nowhere does Paul or any other Jewish writer of this period imply the least acceptance of same-sex relations under any circumstance. The idea that homosexuals might be redeemed by mutual devotion would have been wholly foreign to Paul or any other Jew or early Christian. (Homosexuality and Civilization [Harvard University Press, 2003], p. 114)

Note the similar comments by the lesbian New Testament scholar Bernadette Brooten, who has written the most important book on lesbianism in antiquity and its relation to Rom 1:26, who criticized both John Boswell and Robin Scroggs for their use of an exploitation argument:

Boswell . . . argued that . . . “The early Christian church does not appear to have opposed homosexual behavior per se.” The sources on female homoeroticism that I present in this book run absolutely counter to [this conclusion]…. The ancient sources, which rarely speak of sexual relations between women and girls, undermine Robin Scroggs’s theory that Paul opposed homosexuality as pederasty. (Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996], 11, 361)

In addition, the claim that the ancients knew nothing akin to our concept of homosexual “orientation” and had no conception of congenital influences on homosexual development is also false. Such theories did exist in the Greco-Roman world. Some are close to modern theories, others more distant, but all presuppose the critical point that at least some homosexual behavior is traceable to influences beyond a person’s control. Also erroneous is the claim that knowledge of homosexual orientation would have made a significant difference to Paul’s indictment of homosexual practice. Let’s remember that Paul defined sin in Romans 7 as an innate impulse passed on by an ancestor, running through the members of the human body, and never entirely within human control.

As classicist Thomas K. Hubbard notes in his magisterial sourcebook of texts relating to homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world:

Homosexuality in this era [viz., of the early imperial age of Rome] may have ceased to be merely another practice of personal pleasure and began to be viewed as an essential and central category of personal identity, exclusive of and antithetical to heterosexual orientation. (Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook, 386)

Classicist and church historian William Schoedel in a significant article on “Same-Sex Eros: Paul and the Greco-Roman Tradition” (an article that, incidentally, favors ecclesiastical acceptance of homosexual unions) states that “some support” exists in Philo for thinking that Paul might be speaking in Rom 1:26-27 “only of same-sex acts performed by those who are by nature heterosexual.” But he then dismisses the suggestion:

But such a phenomenon does not excuse some other form of same-sex eros in the mind of a person like Philo. Moreover, we would expect Paul to make that form of the argument more explicit if he intended it. . . . Paul’s wholesale attack on Greco-Roman culture makes better sense if, like Josephus and Philo, he lumps all forms of same-sex eros together as a mark of Gentile decadence. (Homosexuality, Science, and the “Plain Sense” of Scripture, pp. 67-68)

Schoedel also acknowledges that a “conception of a psychological disorder socially engendered or reinforced and genetically transmitted may be presupposed” for Philo (p. 56).

Similarly, Martti Nissinen, who has written the best book on the Bible and homosexuality from a homosexualist perspective and whose work I heavily critique in The Bible and Homosexual Practice, acknowledges in one of his more candid moments:

Paul does not mention tribades or kinaidoi, that is, female and male persons who were habitually involved in homoerotic relationships, but if he knew about them (and there is every reason to believe that he did), it is difficult to think that, because of their apparent ‘orientation,’ he would not have included them in Romans 1:24-27. . . . For him, there is no individual inversion or inclination that would make this conduct less culpable. . . . Presumably nothing would have made Paul approve homoerotic behavior. (Homoeroticism in the Biblical World [Fortress, 1998], 109-12)

The ecclesiast who claims that the authors of Scripture would not have opposed a committed homosexual union entered into by homosexually-oriented persons simply doesn’t know the historical evidence well; or, if knowing it, has deliberately sought to hide the historical evidence to others in the church. Our so-called “new knowledge” about homosexuality is not so new after all.

For further study: For a brief presentation of evidence against the use of exploitation and orientation arguments see again my “What the EvidenceReally Says,” especially “3. Rom 1:24-27 and the Erroneous ‘Exploitation Argument’” on pp. 3-4; my “How Bad Is Homosexual Practice according to Scripture and Does Scripture’s Indictment Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?,” especially pp. 6-8; and my “Why the Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?,” especially pp. 62-83. For a look at the Greco-Roman evidence for committed homosexual relationships and the conception thereof see my “A Book Not to Be Embraced: A Critical Review Essay on Stacy Johnson’s A Time to Embrace” [Part 1: the Scottish Journal of Theology article] (Mar. 2008; 16 pgs.; online: http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexStacyJohnsonSJT2.pdf), especially pp. 5-8; and for a more detailed look at orientation theory in antiquity see my article “Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex Intercourse as Intrinsically Sinful?” in Christian Sexuality: Normative and Pastoral Principles (ed. R. E. Saltzman; Minneapolis: Kirk House, 2003), 106-55, especially pp. 141-46.

Since it is the case that Scripture treats homosexual practice per se as at least as bad as, and probably worse than, adult-committed forms of incest and polyamory and adult-consensual forms of adultery, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly by its recent decisions has forced the faithful, against their will, to give sober and painful reconsideration of long-term affiliation with the ELCA.

Scripture does not offer any refuge for those who claim that their “bound conscience” requires them to support committed homosexual unions. The argument about unity in Rom 14:1-15:13 applies only to what the Stoics calledadiaphora, matters of indifference such as diet and calendar, not matters of significance involving sexual immorality (contrast Paul’s remarks in 13:12-14; 6:19-22 with 1:24; 8:12-14; 11:21-22; 1 Cor 6:9-20; 2 Cor 12:21; Gal 5:19-21; 1 Thess 4:2-8; Eph 4:17-19; 5:3-6; 1 Tim 1:9-11). When Paul encountered some at Corinth who prided themselves in their ability to “tolerate” a case of adult-consensual incest (1 Cor 5), he didn’t say, “respect the bound consciences” of those who think adult-consensual incest is acceptable. He didn’t put church unity over church purity; rather he defined church unity christologically rather than sociologically. Unity around immorality wasn’t worth a warm bucket of spit. Only the unity centered around the will of Christ is worth anything. So Paul insisted “in the name of the Lord Jesus” that they put the offender outside the community for the sake of the offender (who needed a wake-up call lest he be excluded from God’s kingdom), for the sake of the church (lest members get the mistaken notion that sexually impure behavior does not incur God’s judgment), and for the sake of God (who redeemed the community with the precious blood of the Jesus, the new Passover lamb, and who can still “take us out”).

The ELCA has gone beyond the Corinthian community. It has allowed for sexual immorality that Paul (and Jesus) would have regarded as even more extreme than the specific case of incest at Corinth. Furthermore, it has not only tolerated such immorality but also allowed for its blessing and the rostering as active leaders of the church the very persons engaging in the immorality. Moreover, unlike Corinth, this outcome is not just a recent development but part of an orchestrated effort for promoting homosexual behavior over the past decade. The faithful in the ELCA have been more than patient.

At some point—perhaps not immediately but surely down the line—those who remain in the ELCA run the risk of becoming enabling accomplices to a regime that has betrayed the illustrious heritage of the Lutheran communion, to say nothing of the worldwide church, Scripture, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. No doubt there is pain ahead, but also the joy that comes from dying to self and living for God. May God grant them wisdom and courage in their future decisions, which only they can make.

© 2009 Robert A. J. Gagnon Used by permission.

Like many “Bible Believing Evangelicals” I was baptized into a church that could not answer my questions, try as they might. They instilled in me a love for Holy Scripture, a passion for mission, and a complete confidence in the saving power of Jesus Christ the Lord, God the Son and the Holy Trinity for which I will ever be grateful. Today they continue to challenge me by their passion for Christ and the resources they devote to that mission though I can no longer walk in that Christian “Way” and remain true to my own deeply held convictions.

From that starting point till today, I have relied upon many guides. One of the first intellectual guides was J.I. Packer, the Anglican Puritan Scholar. Anglican? Puritan? Calvinist? That shocked me. I’d grown up in a church that look sideways at people vaguely like him and considered them as poor deluded souls who really didn’t believe the Bible like we did.

Unfortunately, the people who believed the Bible like we did seemed to rely on this “half-heathen” Anglican to articulate what “we” believed about the Bible. (Now, nobody actually came out and called Dr. Packer a “half heathen” of any variety, but we were always quite sure that people like him – and now like me – were really half heathens, except when we needed them to do some of our dirty apologetic work that is!)  We let him do the heavy lifting at least at first  until he’d schooled us well in that craft.

But after those lessons were over, it was to men like Packer we looked to many issues and, thereby, a whole new world was opened  beyond the confines of our Sunday School quarterlies… a strange world with a link to a Christian past we did not understand and a love for things that did not go together in our minds… loving  the Bible, pointing people to Jesus Christ, PRAYER BOOKS? Could I have misread that Packer actually used one of those things?  Learning that such a book contained those dreaded man-made creeds at one time would have made me nearly apoplectic. We eschewed creeds you see, much preferring confessions! (Please don’t ask me why, I don’t know now!). But for a lad whose first lisping words could have been “No Creed But  Christ!” I found myself strangely drawn to the world J.I. Packer represented.

In the exotic rain forest that is my theological mind these days, Dr. Packer is not quite so exotic as I found him at first I must admit. I likely would and do disagree with this dear saint at points or say things in a different way. We delight to read different things I suspect. I do not pretend I shall ever share  his brilliance. I have only gotten to shake his hand one time in this world though I have often used the joke he told to promote infant baptism that day when I heard him speaking at a Texas “Bible” church (sans Anglican “dog collar”!) If the opportunity arises again, I shall certainly take  it would he give me some time to pick his brain!

But whatever progress in the truth I have made, J.I. Packer’s work – by God’s grace and for His glory – was instrumental in instigating and promoting that growth. For that I say “Thank you Jesus” and “Thank’s to  you too, Dr. Packer”.

Affirming the Apostles’ Creed by J.I. Packer is available in paperback by Crossway Books. Until Reformation Day, October 31st, it’s also available in a Free Kindle Edition! I don’t have a Kindle, but I have downloaded the free Kindle app on my iphone and took advantage of this offer!

For most people the word “Free” is enough to prompt a download, but in case you’re wondering what the book is about, here’s it’s publisher’s description:

The Apostles’ Creed, the oldest and most beautifully succinct summary of Christian beliefs, is also a deeply personal profession of faith. Noted theologian J. I. Packer examines the meaning and implications of each phrase of this great creed, providing insightful material for personal and group study and devotional use.

For those today embarking on the path I started nearly 30 years ago, this work on the Apostle’s Creed by Dr. J.I. Packer will be a fine doorway to the “strange new world” of the historic church. Enjoy the journey!

Do you have a question about the Reformed Evangelical Synod of America? Join the club!

It’s not an official club, but it does have it’s own web page – a “Frequently Asked Questions” page!

As more questions come, more answers will be forthcoming.

As always, your prayers are solicited! Thank you for remembering us in prayer.

The Reformed Evangelical Synod of America is developing Guidelines for Catechesis to guide congregations in the implementation of regular catechesis of both those preparing for baptism and those baptized in infancy.

Your thoughts on the task of catechesis in the Post Modern West are welcome as comments.  Your experience catechizing those preparing for baptism, catechizing youth, and engaging in the ongoing catechesis of entire congregations is welcome.

Let us know your experience and findings.

Let us know the catechism(s) you have used.

Your discussion of how to address issues such as the breakdown of the family in the church, the glorification of “youth culture”, pervasive biblical illiteracy, and other impediments facing the catechist today are welcome.

Father Robert Lyons offers a prayer of benediction over Deacon Greg Elsbernd as he becomes a professed religious solitary within the Reformed Evangelical Synod of America.

Gregory Jude Elsbernd, a deacon of the Reformed Evangelical Synod of America, began his first year as a vowed religious solitary with the taking of vows at the Divine Service on Sunday, October 4th. Father Robert Lyons offered a homily on the day’s readings, in which the meaning of the profession was elaborated upon in light of the universal call to holiness. After taking his vows, Brother Elsbernd was invested with a simple black crucifix, a symbol of his profession. While he remains attached to the RESA Mission in Johnson County (Indiana) as his parish of record, he will now take up residence at Saint Francis of Assisi Hermitage in Cincinnati, Ohio. Later this fall, the Hermitage plans to begin construction on a chapel which will serve as a house of  worship and a hub of outreach ministry.

Please keep Brother Elsbernd in your prayers as he embarks on this new stage in his journey of faith.

The Reformed Evangelical Synod of America recognizes the validity of special callings called “Christian Sodalities”. We understand Christian Sodalities in this light expressed in Chapter 34 of our Articles of Religion:

Throughout the history of the Church, men and women, married and unmarried, clergy and lay alike have formed religious, fraternal, and missionary organizations or sodalities to commit themselves to God for special service and to carry out the labors of specific Christian vocations in the church and world. No pride or superiority should be attached to such service and these organizations retain their legitimacy so long as they serve to carry out the mission of Christ in accordance with Holy Scripture, without seeking to supplant, but rather support, the public ministry of Christ’s Church and operating in coordination with the Church’s lawful spiritual authority.

Deacon Greg, by God’s grace, is establishing a mission house and base for preaching the Gospel. He will be evangelizing and gathering God’s holy people for worship while exercising a diaconal ministry of service in Christ’s Name. Thank you for your prayers on his behalf. +Chuck

For the 17th Lord’s Day after Trinity (Proper 24b) the readings are:

Isaiah 50:4-10
Psalm 116:1-9
1 Peter 4:12-19
Mark 8:27-38

In our Gospel reading today, we’re confronted with the very real danger that we may claim to follow Jesus Christ, but in reality be His adversary, His Satan. Why? Because despite our profession of faith – it’s quite possible that, like the Apostle Peter, our plans for our life, our understanding of our mission is at odds with what Jesus is about. I’m not talking about demon possession, but I am talking about wasting our lives by living them without regard to Jesus’ priorities. Have you ever thought about confronting “The Satan in Me?”

But I’m getting ahead of myself. As Jesus is marching towards Jerusalem He first stops to clarify for His disciples just who He is and what His mission is about! Some say He’s doing this in Casesarea Phillipi because that Herod is less of a danger to Him than the Herod (Antipas) who ruled over Jerusalem. Perhaps so. That makes sense – John 6:15 reminds us that people would gladly have made him just the kind of King the Romans would put to death instantly.

Whatever else was going on behind the scenes, Caesarea Phillipi was a hot bed of idolatry and also Emperor worship. There in one of the most pagan places that could be near the Holy Land, where the ugliness of paganism was so apparent, where the power of darkness was unquestioned, Jesus asks “who do people say that I am?”

Whatever their answer, it would stand in direct contrast to the statement made by the region itself: that Caesar is Lord. So who is Jesus?

The first answers they gave – who the people said Jesus might be were predictable and safe: “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say You are one of the other prophets.”

These answers required no commitment on the part of those giving them. They are piously repeating what they’ve heard  but not sticking their own necks out.

So Jesus asks them emphatically – so who do YOU say that I am?

This answer will change the course of their lives. They have seen Him heal and do the works only the Messiah can do. The backdrop behind them is a city dedicated to Caesar as Lord.  Their answer could get them killed by the Romans. Their answer could make them hated by their own people even more than they despised those hayseed Galileans anyway.  The way they answer might also mean that, in addition to the cost they’d paid to follow Jesus already, there might be more they had to do.

So it was a costly answer they were being asked to make.

In the early church, Christians could be spared a painful death if they would only tell their Roman Captors that “Caesar is Lord”. But saying “Jesus is Lord” could get them tortured, killed or killed by being thrown to wild animals.

What do you say if you’re trapped in Nazi Germany and you’re a stone’s throw from the headquarters of the Secret Police and you’re walking with an “enemy of the state” who asks you if what you believe about what they’re doing?

What do you say? Jesus asked them and Jesus looks us in the eye and asks us – “Who do YOU say that I am?” And the question remains – are you willing to risk your life on the answer?

When the silence broke, Peter opened his mouth and spoke up: “You are the Messiah!”

That answer changes everything.

In that very place where the Roman Emperor was worshipped Peter says that this Jesus who’s standing there with them is the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, the one that all the Jewish nation had been looking forward to – the One who would bring all God’s promises to a climax!

You knew that was the right answer because Jesus told them not to tell anyone – it wasn’t God’s Time.

Now he begins to explain to them what He  meant when he said there’d be a time for fasting when the bridegroom had been taken from them (Mk. 2:19-20).

He explained to them that as the “Son of Man”, he must first become a prophetic parable like Ezekiel who was called the “Son of Man”, he must become the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 if he is to fulfill God’s call. But he must be a prophetic riddle and become the sacrifice who dies to take away the sins of God’s people before he can be the “Son of Man” of Daniel 7:13-14  and receive dominion over the nations and rule as God’s appointed King (Psalm 2; 1 Cor 15:25-28).

For Peter, it was too much to believe that in order for the Messiah to reign triumphantly he must first suffer terribly and then die redemptively.  Rise victoriously? Who’d ever heard of that?

So Peter decided to talk some sense into Jesus. What Jesus had just said wasn’t part of Peter’s agenda for the Messiah.

Think of it.

If the Real Live Messiah gets killed…what’s going to happen to his sidekicks? It can’t be good. Remember Bonnie and Clyde we’d say. Remember Ahab and Jezebel Peter might have said. The sidekicks always died too.

So Peter gives Jesus a piece of his mind only to have Jesus set him straight. Peter’s ideas are so out of touch with God’s plans, that if Peter insists on having his way, Peter will be an adversary, a “Satan”. And like Satan, Peter’s words invite Jesus to succumb to the temptations He has already defeated once (Mt 4:8-10).

You can understand Peter’s situation. We too are a people who are bent on a mission. Whether we have a “mission statement” or not, we are all people on a mission – either one bent on serving ourselves or one bent on serving Jesus Christ.

Peter’s mission became evident. Unfortunately, his mission for his life – fame, riches, and glory perhaps – were diametrically opposed to Jesus’ mission.

That’s what makes Peter’s blunder so horrendous. Like the demons who could confess Israel’s creed or Shema all day (Deut 6:4; James 2:19), Peter offers the correct confession but he is in danger, unless he repents, of putting himself at odds with the true Mission of Jesus.

How do your (our) confession and mission stack up? The most dangerous thing for orthodox believers is to congratulate ourselves on our good confession only to deceive ourselves when it comes to grasping the implications of what Jesus came to do for our own lives.

So that Peter would no longer be confused about the costliness of following Jesus the Messiah, and so we might not be, Jesus makes know the requirements of being a disciple. Jesus tells us how to align our MISSION with our CONFESSION.

Jesus offers us the Way, along with a Warning:

In a world where people follow others for what they can get, like scavengers, or hyenas tracking a herd to see what will drop away for them to pick up, some follow Jesus for what they can gain.

Jesus says – If anyone wants to be my follower, it’s time to recognize that life as you knew it – a life that you lived for yourself and for your own pleasure is over.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it like this: “When Jesus calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

To begin to follow we must want to follow Jesus more than we wish to follow our own hopes and dreams. We must die is to turn from our selfish ways – that means stop telling Jesus what He’s going to do! (That didn’t work for Peter. It’s never worked for me. It’s called submission to God’s plan and providence. It hurts!)

The extent to which we must follow Jesus means that, like Him, we must carry our cross.  For St. Paul in Galatians 6:14, carrying the cross had come to mean that his life had no meaning for himself or the world as he used to know it apart from what each day meant for the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We don’t want to go there – someone might call us fanatical! It might mean that our interest in Jesus Christ took the fun out of the things we used to love. People might – gasp – think we were trying to be fundamentalist fuddy-duddies! They might think we weren’t cool!

Our worst fear these days is that someone might think we’re not “relevant”! But Jesus fear is that we’ll be so relevant we’ll go to Hell. So he offers this warning.

Following Jesus IS  about no longer hanging on to our lives lived on our terms. Following Jesus means we stop trying to hold on to people, places, things and even relationships that keep us from serving Christ the Lord.   And it means that even the good things in our lives that begin to approach the status of “Lord” in our lives have to be put back in their proper place.

That’s because of Jesus’ love for us – you see, He tells us – if we are ashamed of Him now, and our lives are continually shaped and our actions governed by the fear that someone will call us a “Jesus Freak”… then when the Son of Man does return as the full inheritor of all the nations, He will be ashamed of us and we will be as doomed as those who shake their fist in His face this day.

That’s why we must ever fear the presence of the “Satan in Me.” The Satan in Me will delight in telling Jesus what to do while never listening to what Jesus requires US to do. The Satan in Me will offer a good confession of faith while doing whatever he pleases… and whatever mocks what Jesus really wants us to do.

The Satan in Me will confess that Jesus is the Messiah, and then seek his own life instead of losing his life for Jesus Christ.

How are you dealing with the Satan in You?