It's All the Same?

Recently, I saw a commercial for a local car dealership that was attempting to be very P.C.  So P.C. in fact, that they had not only a Caucasian male saying, "Merry Christmas," a Jewish male saying, "Happy Hanukkah," and a Black woman saying, "Happy Kwanzaa," BUT they also had almost every nationality represented spouting out in their various languages a form of "Happy Holidays."

Touching?  Sure.

What actually bothered me though was that at the end, the owners of the dealership stood there and said something of the sort: "Whatever it is, it's all the same.  Happy Holidays."

It is?

I am not trying to saw that Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and whatever holiday that is out there right now is not wonderful - no.  They are wonderful, and celebrating them because of who you are, what you believe in, and even because of your tradition and lineage is a great thing.

What I want to ask is this: Is Christmas actually the same as the rest of the holidays?

My very P.I. answer is this:  NO!!!!!!!!!

Christmas is NOT the same.  The Incarnation of God is NOT the same as a celebration of lights that preserved a nation.  The very fact that God came to earth is NOT the same as a celebration of a people group.  Not that these holidays are not wonderful, but they are NOT the same as Christmas!

Because Christmas, the real Christ-Mass, is a celebration of the very fact that Jesus came.  It is remembering the night that angels bent down to earth to sing praises and choruses of Hallelujah because God became flesh.  It is NOT a celebration of mankind - it is a celebration of the God who became Man.  It is NOT about human goodness, but about the fact that finally there was a Human who was Good.  It is NOT about stockings filled with coal, but about the One True Gift that is for Everyone, those with coal and those with sugarplums.

So, while I am sure the sentiment was well-intended by this car dealership (mostly so they would get more sales this December from one and all), I am going to have to say no, NO - it is NOT all the same.

Merry Christmas!

Checking Up

So, it's raining outside.  It must be April.  As most of you know, "I'm only happy when it rains," so, April is one of my favorite months of the year.  This and October, well and of course December (my birthday month).  The rest of the months, I could really take them or leave them.

As we are entering into month four of the year, I have decided to assess the challenging situation that I have put myself in for the year.  How are my new year's goals/resolutions going?  You know, those ones that I made public to one and all here.

Well, I have to be honest.  They aren't going half as badly as I thought they would be!  I am pretty much on target for 3 out of 4.  I have been reading extensively, and will definitely have 25 books done by the end of the year, although currently I am in the problem of reading a ginormous book, and I refuse to stop reading it to pick up something slightly more easy and breezy to accomplish this goal.  So, I may not reach that goal after all.

I have been cooking on a regular basis, and really have been enjoying it.  Recently we even picked up a panini press cast iron pan, and that has opened up a whole new world of cooking to me!  Grill cheese taste so much better pressed like a panini!

And even though the incredible temptation of Starbuck's new mini Red Velvet Whoopie Pie has been upon me ever since it was introduced this year, I have not had sweets (except on my husband's birthday and when we were out of the country in February).  Surprisingly, this has not been as hard as I thought it would be.  But the summer months and my addiction for ice cream in the hot, sticky nights has yet to come.

That leaves me with the one that I am failing miserably at.  Writing daily.  Who knew it would be so hard?  Well, I did know, but I thought I was bigger than that.  Apparently not.  I have been writing, just typically not what I wanted to be working on.  I've had a lot of opportunities this year to teach, speak and preach, so I have been writing a lot of lessons and sermons, but still my book has only a page.  One page.  I'm pretty pathetic.  Oh well, I think it is time to reassess this goal and shoot to start writing once a week.

That's always the good thing about quarter year check-ups.  You can always admit defeat and try to amend your goal.  So, that is my encouragement for you today.  If you came up with goals for the year, check up on yourself and how you are doing.  And if something was dropped, then maybe it is time to try it but in a different light.  And if not, there is always next year!

Reflections.

I've been traveling for a few days, so this blog entry has been festering in my head for a while now.  Each year we compile a list of things to accomplish or do and set out trying to make our life quality a little better according to standards set by the Food Network Channel, the Biggest Loser, Forbes, Time, and other major entities in our world.  Not that this is a horribly bad thing.  I have lived most of my life by setting goals and accomplishing them.  I even knew of some girls that went to my alma mater for the set goal of finding a husband (one of whom turned out to be one of my best friends).

As we set the goals for the New Year, we often spend time reflecting on the previous year - and usually it brings lots of regrets, tears, and heavy sighs at what we did not accomplish within the year (or even forgot to do).

Last year, I really don't think that I set any particular resolution/goal for the year, and when I sat back and reflected on the year, it kind of made me have a bit of a "Debbie Downer" moment.  I did a lot of things last year, but because I didn't actually set out to accomplish any of those things, there was no sense of swelling pride - the good kind, not the kind that comes before the fall.

So, this year, I may have gone over board a bit - but we will see.  I have set out four new resolutions, with a possibility of adding a fifth (but I really doubt that that one will happen).  What you may ask are these goals?  Well, I'm glad you asked.  There is something to publicly stating your goals that helps with the whole accountability thing.  It adds a bit of pressure also, so that maybe you will actually accomplish one of two of them, and possibly even all of them.

1. Write daily.  This does not mean that you will be seeing a daily blog entry from myself (please, never let it be).  I just need to write more.  And there are journals and a Macbook Pro waiting my musings, my thoughts, my reflections, and possibly something more substantial.

2. Read at least 25 books.  Now, I know, this goal seems to be a little low.  I'm pretty sure that with all the re-reading I did last year, I read over 25 books.  And I know, D.A. Carson read 100+ books a year, plus writes his own, teaches, and manages to be an all-around stud.  But, I am NOT D.A. Carson, as much as I would like to be.  So, at least 25 books this year it is.  I have already started my list of what to read, and it is well over 25, so if you recommend a book to me this year, it will probably be a year before I get to it.  Sorry.

3. Cook at least 4 times a week.  I LOVE to cook.  I LOVE watching Food Network and browsing Williams & Sonoma, but my major problem is that I have a insanely busy lifestyle.  So, most nights stopping at the store or grabbing take-out has been my habit.  Well, it's time to break it.  At least 4 times a week.

4. No sweets this year, except for on our birthdays.  This one was tacked on by my wonderful husband.  I think he did it because he knows that I have a tendency for a sweet tooth, so this doesn't help his diet either.  I did this once when I was a teenager, so I think that this one is definitely do-able.  Here's hoping to a mild summer so I won't want to snack on ice cream in the heat!!

Well, there they are.  You may ask why there isn't anything in there about God, prayer, reading the Word, etc, etc, etc.  My simple answer to that - my relationship with God is not a goal.  The second it is, it is no longer a relationship - it has become a checklist.

Happy New Year, one and all!

Elect Complacency?

It's probably no huge secret that if it would not look utterly ridiculous, I would probably tattoo "Just Read Calvin's Institutes" somewhere visibly on my body for all to see.  But since I love my husband, and I really don't want to outright offend some people, I will not be doing that any time soon.  This past week I have been in two discussions that involved the acronym T.U.L.I.P. and wouldn't you know it, in both conversations the opposing converser brought up the idea formatted below:

1. You are elect to be saved by God.
2. If you are truly elect, you will persevere throughout said elect life until the end.
3. Why then evangelize, and why go to church?

Now, there are vast holes in that logical formula, but go with it for a moment.  I am continually baffled that non-Calvinists will think that Calvinists believe that evangelism, missions, preaching of the Gospel is not necessary because if someone is elect by God to be saved, well then clearly God will save them.  Maybe its the term "elect" that immediately puts in to mind a small, collective group - but I am telling you, that as a Calvinist, I hope and pray that God's elect is the majority, not the minority.  A Calvinist does not believe in a small god; a Calvinist does not believe that God's works are minor; a Calvinist does not sit back and wait for God to take care of that small portion known as "the elect."  We read the same Bible that you do.  I sit back, in tears, marveling over Paul's words in Ephesians 3:14-21:

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen!!"  (emphasis mine)

I feel a little like Shylock saying this, but if we read it, are we not moved?  Is the Holy Spirit not at work within us?  Is the power of the Almighty, Amazing, Wonderful God of the Universe not at work WITHIN us?  No one comes to the Father except through Christ.  How are they to believe if they have not heard? How are they to hear without someone preaching?  How are they to preach unless they are sent?  Why would a Calvinist ever deny this?

Just because we believe that the elect are chosen by God to be saved at His appointed time, does not mean that God magically reaches down from the Heavenly throne and stamps their forehead with a tattoo that says, "Elected!" and that's it, they are saved.  No!  They are saved because they heard the Gospel, repented and believed.  This happens because God ordained it from the beginning of time by His gracious and good will.

Ah, and here is where all the wonderful "what if" questions come up.  "What if that person was elect and  at that time they were supposed to hear, and they didn't.  What then?"  Please see blog post here.  Nonsense is still nonsense even when we talk it about God.  This is the great and wonderful thing of missions and evangelism that the church of God gets to be a part of.  Is there no better time in the life of a follower of Christ than to pray with someone as they believe in Jesus as their Savior?  Is there no better time that is more precious and more wonderful than that?  Think about it on a vastly huge, cosmological level for a second.  God ordained for that moment to happen not only in the life of the vessel chosen for glory, but in your own life as a harvester of the Word that was sown.  You are given the opportunity to see God's greatest action of all, salvation, happen!  PRAISE GOD!  IS THERE ANYTHING THAT IS BETTER THAN THAT?

So, I would like to correct the assumption that is out there that Calvinist's don't do missions, don't see the need for church, don't evangelize to people.  Instead, let's think of it this way:

1. You are elect to be saved by God.

2. If you are truly elect, you will persevere throughout said elect life until the end.

3. If you are elect, someone will have come into your life to tell you about your Savior Jesus Christ, and you will grow in the grace and knowledge of your Savior both personally and corporately as you worship God here on this earth and in eternity.  

Worn Out?

This past weekend, I spent over 24 hours with teenagers at a massive convention designed to fire these teens up for the Lord, give them an opportunity to set their life right before the Lord, and also express their talents and gifts in competition.  My husband and I both volunteer with our youth group because for us, our own youth groups were vital parts of our Christian walk.  I spent the majority of my senior year with a group of "Jesus Freaks" (because THAT was when that song FIRST came out!) and a few older people who tried to pour as much of their lives into ours, help us in our walk and challenge us to be more like Christ.

This weekend reminded me how AMAZING those people are who served for my time in high school, because let me tell you, I feel very, Very, VERY old after this weekend.

You might be saying, "Wait, Steph, I know how old you are.  You are not THAT old.  Get over it."  All true, all true.  But, I have got to say, there was more than one time this weekend where I couldn't sit in the big group session, because my head could not take the LOUDNESS OF THE MUSIC that was coming from those speakers!

What is wrong with me?  I used to be so cool and hip, but man, I had this horrible feeling of being tired, feeling old, and just wanting a really long, good nap.

That was until...  Until I took a look at our teens who were at this convention - arms raised in full surrender, praising God; some weeping with joy, some weeping because God was dealing with them in a mighty way; some even being challenged about their future, their calling, and whether God was saying to them, "I want you for ministry to my church!"

This humbled and reminded me of my senior year, when I was just a young, punk teenage girl who thought that she could get away with ANYTHING, because she was a student leader in her own youth group.  It humbled me, because it was a few adult leaders at that youth group that took me and all of my problems under their own wings and helped me to see God's will for my life.  They challenged me, affirmed me, and prayed for me - some even praying for me still years later.

The words "Thank You," are not even close to enough.  The only words that one day will be told these people are "Well done, good and faithful servant."  And I know that they will hear those words, because this weekend challenged me to be more like them, once again, because they are still consistently being like Christ.

Ministry is hard and tough.  It requires time of extreme headaches and backaches.  Sometimes, like in the case of Paul, it requires snake bites, shipwrecks, beatings, and being left for dead.  Know that the refreshment is in the reward of seeing people - young people, old people, middle-aged people confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, watch them change their life around, and see them live lives that are completely and totally for God.  This refreshes my soul more than anything else.  It humbles me that I have been brought to this point in my journey where I get to see the harvest and the seed grow.  All glory and praise to God, our Father, our Savior and our Sealer of Salvation!

So this is life...

What can I say? Blogging is not a priority in my life. Is that a sin to say on the world of blogger.com? Am I going to be found out by the "secret policia" of blogger world? No one is knocking down my door right now, so I think that all is well in the land of delusions and conspiracy theories.

Part of the reason for my lack of flowing diatribes and far less scathing thoughts is that I have changed direction in my life, stopping a degree that was quite wonderful but not in God's plan at the moment. So, the requirement of reading 12,000 pages is no longer hanging over my head and I have been focused on other ministerial areas that don't necessarily include reading 12,000 pages on Calvin, Lewis, or the like. A shame, I know, a crying shame.

But, since I enjoy writing, and some have told me that they like this blog, I thought to myself, "Self, you can write on whatever you want, you make the rules, so just continue writing." Thus, the change in format, a bit. I will still try to maintain a focus on church history settings, but I am also leaving myself the freedom to write on Bible passages, ministry thoughts, great sermon illustrations that I experience in life, or just simple rants (such as this one). If I lose some of you, I am terribly sorry (well, not really), I'm doing this for my own sanity. So, I'm not sorry about losing you. Sorry. : )

Alright, until my next blog. Have a wonderful day, and it's good to be back!

You May Ask Yourself, Where is That Large Automobile?

I am going to disclaim this blog that this will fall under the very recent times of Church History, as in the past few weeks, months and a years. But, I feel that this is appropriate, since it is something that I have been thinking through lately.

There is a particular Pastor, who lives in Texas, who has a perma-grin on his face and rather puffy hair, that has published a few books and made a tidy profit in this world that we call Religious Publishing. A couple of weeks ago, his latest book has come out about how to find wealth, health and a good life in these rough, poor economic times. I will say this, I have not read this book, nor any of his other writings. I saw a televised interview about this particular book, and I gathered from that interview and the book-flap what this book is about. So, please, take what I have to say with a grain of salt in that I am NOT the expert in this particular time of Church History; but also know that I do understand the basic gist of what he and others like him are saying.

Now, my question is should we expect that our time as Christians be filled with any sort of wealth, health, prosperity and/or general riches that accumulate in the world? If these books and their titles reflected that the best life that you can have starts now because Jesus is saving you from this world, the sin, the corruption, and the worldly riches, I might blog about something else. However, there is a misconception here that once you become a Christian, you can have some sort of better, worldly life. God is going to "bless" you with wealth, with a healthy body, with a basic desire to do better and better in this world.

Here is a list of just a few biblical passages of why I do not think that becoming a Christian means that we will have a better earthly life from the world's perspective:

John 15:18-25
Acts 7:54-60
Acts 14:19-23
2 Timothy 3:12
1 John 2:15-17

When we become a Christian, should we prepare ourselves to be blessed with earthly riches, wealth, healthy lives? Is that the peace and joy that God promises to us? I really don't think so. There is one story in history that I believe will shed some light on what a Christian should do to prepare. I once read this book by Noel Piper called Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God. If you enjoy John Piper, then I assure you that you will LOVE Noel. This book is wonderfully beautiful in its storytelling, extremely humbling in its honesty by the author, and really a treasure as we discover more about faithful women throughout Church History.

One story from this book, which can also be found in several other books as well, is about Esther Ahn Kim. This Korean Christian woman spent six years in a Japanese prison during WWII. The amazing thing is that when she became a Christian, she did not start preparing for an abundance of wealth and health to come her way, but she began to prepare to become a martyr. Her mother and herself moved into tighter quarters to begin to prepare their bodies for the cramped space of the prison cells. They ate old, discarded food so that their bodies would become accustomed to eating the garbage that the prisoners were fed. They spent their time and energy memorizing whole portions of Scripture, great hymns of the faith, and other wonderful truths about their Savior.

So, when Esther Ahn Kim was imprisoned, she was prepared for this life. Her teeth fell out during this time. The guards thought it was fun to torture the prisoners by giving them old, mushy apples that were quite disgusting for a normal human to eat. But since she had prepared her stomach for this food, and since her teeth were already out - a mushy, old apple that had been discarded in the trash was all she could have eaten anyway! If the guards had really wanted to torture her, they should have given her fresh, hard fruit, but they didn't know! During her nights, she would often recite the Bible and sing hymns aloud to the other prisoners and the guards. While other prisoners were being driven mad by their own minds not knowing enough, she was able to express fully her faith and grow in this faith in the midst of persecution. I won't tell you all the rest, because I think that this whole story is really a wonderful thing to discover on one's own.

Here is my point though - we as American Christians will have a lot to answer for on the final day. We live in a place where religion can be freely expressed and conversed about, where one will not be arrested for expressing their beliefs. Sure, people will laugh, argue, and even slander you; but I really doubt one is going to be beaten for saying that they believe in Jesus. And if they are beaten, then maybe we should be thankful for the news coverage that story will get, because it will shed a light on Christianity that is not filled with sayings of hypocrisy.

Should we expect wealth? Should we expect health? Should we expect God to give us great riches of this world? I sure hope not. We should expect persecution. We should expect to be disliked. We should expect to one day face our Lord and Savior and to have Him say, "You answered the call, I sent you; well done, good and faithful servant."

One Step Closer to Knowing

By the end of tonight, I will have had a total of 3 classes in the past two weeks, as opposed to my normal 4 every week (8 every two weeks). Last week was "Reading Week" for Gordon-Conwell, but since I still have a class down at Boston College through the BTI, Ethics in an Ecumenical Perspective was still on! This week, two of my teachers had cancelled class for the week, so suffice to say I have had lots of time to read from the stacks of books that are required, work on my photography skills, and knock out a paper for my Calvin class (of which I promise to share my thoughts on tomorrow, but am not fully ready to blog about today).

For today, I have a rather "humorous" observation from my most eye-opening class of the semester - Ethics in an Ecumenical Perspective. It has not been the reading that I have found particularly eye-opening. I mean, for the most part I have understood that Catholics and Protestants think differently, approach ethics differently, and therefore, our writing on the subject will differ. What has been most eye-opening to me has been my interactions with my fellow classmates. The woman that I sit next to in the class, let's call her Kerri, happens to be a practicing Universalist (they come in all shapes and sizes at these "Jesuit" schools!). For the most part, she has identified whole-heartedly with those Ethicians that have proclaimed an Ethic of Love, Free-Spirited Will, and Good for Humanity type stuff. For those of you who are lost - just think Utopian Society based on Love and Respect for Humankind (without the hippy-dippy free love of it all).

For this class, we have a rather daunting 25-30 page paper that is due by the end of the course, and since we are quickly approaching November, most of the students' thoughts have turned to this paper along with their topics of conversation. So, Kerri asked me what I would be doing my paper on. I told her that I would be exploring this movement in the Evangelical world called the Emerging/Emergent Movement/Church (I am not going to particularize here on the differences, if any), their theological ethic, and how this has affected the Gospel of Jesus. She was intrigued and asked a little more about this, so I let her know that this movement was very missional focused, and related a lot to what Stanley Hauerwas (a moral theologian that we had read about three weeks prior) had written about in his book Resident Aliens. She asked what I meant by them being missional focused, so I told her that they had gone above any approach prior in Evangelicalism on how to affect and care for the poor, needy, diseased, etc. Their focus was to be like Jesus - the "pure Jesus" that came with a message of healing, etc.

I want to disclaim right here and now that I am still in the early stages of my study on this paper, so there will be more unfolding on this topic, but this is what I understand about this movement so far.

After I told her this, she got really excited about the movement, and asked what exactly I was against with it. Simply put, the Emerging Movement is doing great things in the way of affecting the world, the poor, and those that Jesus would have gone to first; however, there is an EXTREME disconnect between what they are doing, and what they are presenting as the Gospel. Long gone are the days of unrighteousness, sin, and repentance. The Gospel has become something else - a Secret Message, something that the Church has gotten wrong for centuries, and something that today is too offensive to be a part of any longer.

The funny thing is that by the end of our conversation, I gave her the name of some Emerging writers and their books, hoping that this would be a step in the right direction, leading her to a saving faith with Jesus. Maybe there can be something good that comes from this after all? Who knows except God above.

an Eye-Opening Experience...

This past week, we were assigned to panel groups in the Ethics in an Ecumenical Perspective class and had to come ready to discuss one of the assigned topics:
Stem Cell Research
Homosexual Marriage/Homosexual Rights
Illegal Immigration/Border Control/Economic Refugees

You were also assigned a role to play in your particular panel. One was a Catholic, one a Baptist, one a United Church of Christ (Universalist), and one a Lutheran. The Lord was highly favoring me and gave me the Lutheran role in the less than hot topic border control/illegal immigration. So, what's a former Lutheran to do when she needs to sound like a Lutheran? Why, call up her old, Lutheran-to-the-core dad and talk about border control! Come panel time, I was a full-fledged Lutheran ready to cry out about the right and left hand of God (I think I got an A that day for participation, thanks dad).

The beginning of the eye-opening experience was the other students in the class. Now, most of these students, going to Boston College and doing master work in Theology or Ethics or something of the sort are Jesuit. In fact, I think there are myself and one other woman in the class who are NOT Catholic or Jesuit. So, one man, who had been assigned Baptist and given the topic of homosexual marriage, merely quoted Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them," and used that as his opening statement. I laughed at this one A LOT, because this dear Catholic pretty much nailed the Baptist mentality on the head, and had a spot on southern accent while doing it.

During a break in the class, I was talking to one of the students - let's call him Harry for the sake of discretion. Now, Harry is a Jesuit, but also is a free-wheeling philosophical thinker. So, he would describe himself as a pantheistic polytheist. He told me this in week 2, we are now in week 6. I have been trying to wrap my head around this one for 4 weeks now, but it got further explained to me this week when he was talking about a paper he had to write for Christology. He said that he describes the incarnation as Christ being incarnated from all of the gods. Let's say this together, folks..... "WHAT???" A little later, when he found out that I still held the view of God's Providence and Predestination together, he called it "quaint." NO LIE, QUAINT!!!! When he asked for an explanation on this, I let him know that this is my hermeneutical view of Romans 9, and that I fully and firmly believe that God will be glorified through all of this mess that we call a world. I also shared with him something I had learned last week from my reading in Calvin's Institutes that God is restraining the devil from going completely off the deep end. So, while we see things as completely horrible and evil (like Hurricane Katrina, Hitler, Genocide in Africa, Apartheid, you name it), this is not the worst the devil can do. God is restraining absolute chaos, absolute evil, because He is working on reconciliation, He is giving the Church a chance to reach out and help. Now this is a completely separate topic that I have yet to fully think through, so I need to digress back to the point. My friend, Harry, once I mentioned "the devil roaming around like a lion," stopped me there and asked if I really believed in a person which is the devil or Satan. I sat there and said, "Well, yes. I do. I read my Bible and take it for what it says."

Now, this may sound like a Sunday School answer, folks, but what I was trying to tap into with Harry was that for me, as a Protestant Evangelical, I fully believe that the Bible has authority over my life as the revealed Word of God. I also read it in the literal sense, not some analogical/allegorical/morality myth mess. I really did not see the problem with John Calvin or William Perkins, who I had also read earlier that week The Art of Prophesying (fantastic book!), when they were saying that God has given us authority through His Word. We, as the Church, hold no authority over the Scriptures. And while I understood that these two men were speaking out against the Catholic Church in particular on this one, I did not really believe that any Catholic would really say that he has some sort of authority over what the Bible says. But, there is my friend, Harry, who has the freedom to become a pantheistic polytheist and conforming that to Christianity. Who also finds that my literal interpretation of the Word of God is quaint, and who when I said that my view of God is that "my God is far bigger than myself," said in response, "My God is Myself." I do realize that Harry is as far left as we are going to get in the liberal realm of Catholicism, but this was eye opening for me.

Some final thoughts. What is your authority? Do you truly live under an authority? If it is Scripture, are you attempting to explain away some passage in Scripture in order to no longer be under its authority? Have you really wrestled with that passage of Scripture, or do you just find it offensive and stick to your logical reasoning on the subject instead? Maybe it is time to wrestle?

Discovering a Little More About Myself

The assignment for Ethics in an Ecumenical Perspective this week was to read the book by James Gustafson, "Protestant and Roman Catholic Ethics," then come prepared to discuss the Mrs. Bergmeier case from the perspective of a Protestant and Roman Catholic theologian. I ended up picking Paul Ramsay as my Protestant and J. Giles Milhaven as my R.C. Now, sparing you a lot of the details that could be wonderfully fascinating to some and like a butter knife boring into the skull for others, I will try to cut to the basic chase.

The Mrs. Bergmeier case is about a German wife and mother, during the time of WWII. She was out scavenging for food one afternoon, away from her children, when a group of Soviet army men came along, grabbed her and put her in a camp in Russia. Her husband and children had no idea what had happened to her. They basically became lost without her, to the brink of starvation. In the camp, Mrs. Bergmeier heard about her family's attempt to find her from a friendly commander. Another soldier, who was more congenial told her the two options that she had in order to be able to leave the camp. She could become violently ill, at that point they would ship her off to another camp where medical attention could be provided, or she could become pregnant, and they would ship her back to Germany and let her go.

Thinking through her dire situation and the situation of her dying family, she asked the guard to impregnate her. He did, and she was able to go home. The family accepted her back into their lives, even after she told them the circumstances of her return. The baby was born and they pored more love into that child than ever, because for them, that child was the savior for the restoration of the family.

Now, the question is - was she right or wrong? Briefly, again, Paul Ramsay, our Protestant theologian/ethician would say that Mrs. Bergmeier was wrong to do this. He would be very sympathetic to her case, but Ramsay has a deontological approach to Christian ethics - meaning that one has a duty, so very much like using "one ought to" phrases. Not only is he deontological in his approach, but he holds that mankind has held certain promises to each other entering into a covenant relationship with one another. So, while he sympathizes with the situation, Mrs. Bergmeier needed to uphold her marriage vows, not commit adultery and not break the covenant-partnership - this was her chief duty.

Our R.C. theologian/ethician, J. Giles Milhaven, has a much different approach to Christian ethics. The key for him is LOVE. So, love knows no a priori law, it sees only the ones loved and what experience shows is happening to them. He is very empirical and wants to look at all of the evidence in order to determine the good. For him, Mrs. Bergmeier would be justified in doing this act because her love for her family and the discovery of the hurt and near fatal conditions for them would justify her doing this sin; she is responsible to love them first and take care of them.

Now, before I get completely long winded, during this whole process, I have discovered a little more about my approach to ethics and in particular, this Mrs. Bergmeier case. I will say this about myself - I think that I am a heartless bastard. I am really not your typical weepy woman (don't get me wrong, stick Sleepless in Seattle on the tube and buckets of tears will be falling in a minute). But, I read this case and felt almost anger at it. Why didn't she trust in the sovereignty of God to pull her out of that situation? She was presented with two options (only really one that would get her home), but she forgot the all important third option - anything is possible with God, who is fully in control of the situation and will work out all things for the good of those who believe in Him. Now, I am not entirely sure that Mrs. Bergmeier held this view of God, she might not have been reformed and gone through Calvin's Institutes, so I will cut her slack if ignorance is in play. But, I think that if this situation was forced upon me (and Lord, I pray that the day never does come), that I would look for the third option - the trust that my sovereign Lord will assure me home, either back to my earthly family or home to Him in glory.

An Ecumenical Approach...

This year I was going to start taking Latin at GCTS (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary), where I attempting to achieve an MA in Church History. However, do to some budget cut-backs and such, this course had to be dropped this year. This would not be a problem, typically, but I found this out on Tuesday morning, classes picking up this Friday.

So, I was pretty frantic in my search of something to do next. I needed to take a course on ethics at some point in this 2 year journey, so I looked into this wonderful thing called the BTI (Boston Theological Institute), which GCTS is a part of. The gist of the BTI is that 9 schools are participants in this institute, any student of these 9 schools can take courses at any of these institutions during their time and have it count as credit for their program. So, I found an interesting ethics course at Boston College's School of Theology and Ministry entitled "Ethics in an Ecumenical Perspective."

Now, I have somewhat of a mutt formation when it comes to my Christian heritage. I am formerly Lutheran, Emergent, and Non-Denominational, and now I am a part of an Assemblies of God church. This whole conglomeration of Denominational backgrounds for the Jesuit priest who is teaching my class is labeled "Protestant." For him, and the majority of the class, striving to look at ethics through an ecumenical perspective is reading through and attempting to understand how Protestants approach moral ethics. This can be done by reading Karl Barth, Diedrich Bonhoeffer, James Gustafson and other random Protestant moral theologians. At the same time, I am coming to the class to discover how it is that Catholics and Jesuits understand or approach moral ethics, so this can be done by reading Josef Fuchs, Germain Grisez, etc, etc.

I am very excited about this class, firstly because I have never really thought like a Catholic and this will take a lot of brain power on my part to be able to do well in this class. But, the thing that I loved most so far, is that this Jesuit priest/professor/doctor of moral theology and extremely sharp, intelligent man has quite a sense of humor. To lighten the class about halfway through he pulled up his desktop wallpaper and showed us two pictures of statues from a Jesuit Church in Rome. In one of the pictures you can see an angel towering over a Jesuit man, holding out his hand to him. The Jesuit man is being pulled downward by a Protestant woman whose breast seems to have fallen out of her robe. However, the Jesuits who view this can find courage in this statue because the man has his gaze firmly fixed on the angel - this serves as a reminder that they must keep firm and never waiver to the Protestant prostitutes (or just women) that would tempt to lead them astray.

The second picture was a statue where an angel was standing tall wielding a sword down upon two men. You can clearly see the faces of the two men, so the professor asked the class who these two men were. Well, immediately someone answered, "Calvin and Luther." And what was the reply of my esteemed professor? "Yes!" Of course it is those two brigands of the Reformation! And in the corner of the statue is a small angel, an angelite or cherub if you will, tearing up the pages of Luther and Calvin's books. My professor jokingly said that this was the Jesuit Church of Ecumenicalism. Funny.

So, to end this blog entry, I have found some of Luther and Calvin's more appropriate quotes about the Pope and the Bishops that assure me that this particular approach to ecumenicalism is on both sides. Enjoy!

“I feel much freer now that I am certain the pope is the Antichrist” - Luther

"Formerly laymen used to administer the sacraments as often as priests do now. Yet the superstitious of our day regard it as a great offence if a layman touch the bare chalice, or even the cover of it. Nor is a nun, though a consecrated virgin, allowed to wash the altar cloth or the sacred linen. O my God! this shows how far the sacrosanct sanctity of this sacrament has gone! I expect the time will come when the laity will not be allowed to even touch the altar -- except with money in their hand." - Luther

"We know well that under the Pope there is a bastard sort of Christianity." - Calvin

"As for the name of the Bishop of Rome, that is a foolish question to dwell upon. We bestow too much honour upon those horned cattle in calling them bishops, for the name is too honorable for them. Neither does the title of Pope any better suit the brigand who has usurped God’s seat." - Calvin

Some Rules...

To begin with, I am not very tech-y. My husband, bless his soul, has his Master of Science in Computer Network Securities and understands more about computers and all that you can do with these "amazing" tools more than I will ever know or believe possible. I am a book person. As much as I try to be environmentally conscience, I am afraid that my biggest carbon footprint will be from the fact that I LOVE to buy books, with paper and ink and that smell of a tree falling in the forest. I have often remarked to my beloved husband that one day when we own a home, in that said home, I will require a library. I think that he has a vision of maybe 4 or 5 bookshelves, but I know that it will be much more like the library from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, if I have my way.

So, the idea of writing a blog that is forever out in the world wide web scares me. First, because anything can be posted in this world. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to open up a gmail account and begin to post his thoughts on blogger.com, the village idiot can do this. Maybe this is why I enjoy books so much. It takes a lot for someone to be published. A lot of work on their part, a lot of proofreading, editing and money. I do hope to be a part of that published world one day, but in order to achieve this success, I am entering into the practice world of blogs.

Secondly, this world scares me because I am a prideful, yet insanely weak person. I do have lofty goals and ideas, but I am all too aware that I may be reaching far higher than God intends. But, I cannot live in fear of someone reading my thoughts any longer. I need to practice the art of scholasticism and venture out into this world.

So, the goal of this blog is for me to write out my thoughts, reflections, and general devotionals on what I am reading in regard to the Church history world. Some clarification - Church history does not mean the study of architecture in regard to buildings with steeples. Lately, when strangers in the MA area ask what I am studying and I have told them Church history, they begin to talk about their favorite church building in this small town around the corner or the magnificent opus by Ken Follett or other random things concerning BUILDINGS. No, this is not what I will be studying and spending money on. Church history is the study of Christianity through the ages - beginning shortly after the apostles/disciples ventured out in the Macedonian world up until just yesterday (literally, the yesterday that you have read this blog entry). It is filled with amazing men and women, their struggles, their ideas, their particular philosophy, their very lives. So, lately I have been reading Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections, and one day, probably soon, I will blog something to the effect of how his thoughts on these affections have affected me.

OK, this is getting long. So, I will end it with this rule. I am coming to the table as a born-again Christian believer, follower of Jesus, somewhere in the balanced world between the far left and the far right (both in political and denominational respects). This is not, I repeat, not a forum to discuss the credibility on the existence of God. I am not open for discussion on this blog about this. If you want to talk to me in person or via other venues about this, that is more than acceptable, but please not here. I simply ask that you discuss the theologian or ideas that are presented. Thanks.