CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

The Mackinac Bridge links the Lower and Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Before the bridge was completed in 1957, only ferries went across the Straits of Mackinac.  The Mackinac Bridge Walk began that first year with 250 participants.  It happens now on Labor Day, with the Governor of Michigan and 50,000 other walkers and runners.  I took the picture above, under the bridge approach looking north.

Here’s the bridge walk itself, looking south:

My wife and I finished the five-mile walk in an hour and 40 minutes.  Two lanes are given to walkers, and on the other two traffic continues to flow.  We went up Saturday with a group from church and stayed at Camp Kinawind.  We did sightseeing on Sunday.  After a 5:30 a.m. breakfast on Monday, we got on the camp bus for the trip to the bridge where the driver dropped us off on the north side.  We were walking on the bridge by 8:30.  We caught up with our bus on the south side later in the morning.  The whole experience was a pilgrimage.  “Blessed are those who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” (Ps 84.5)

Here is a picture of the Straits of Mackinac and the bridge we crossed.

I enjoyed a bowl of clam chowder for lunch yesterday at Red Lobster.  The Methodist Meal, a group of senior adults, meets there the first Thursday of the month.  We used to gather at church for a potluck, but now we meet at a restaurant.  The cheese biscuits and the conversation were plentiful.

On the theme of conversation, Pastor Mack notes his discomfort with small talk.

I’m reminded at how little patience I have for “small talk”.  There are times, of course, when we all have to fill a void in a conversation with something akin to cotton candy – weather, sports, gossip, etc. – but perhaps this is symptomatic of something more sinister.  That is, despite all our lip-service to being “real” nowadays, there is very little interest in or discussion of the truly real.  God, the good life, truth, beauty – these things are left out of what passes for conversation.

We all could do better in talking with one another about God, truth, beauty, or what makes for a good life.  Mack’s words sound like something John Wesley might have said — he didn’t approve of wasted time or wasted words.  But I still think there is a place for small talk, and our Methodist Meal features a large helping of it.  Small talk is safe talk.  It doesn’t involve risk.  It brings people together in friendship and affection, particularly if shared over a bowl of soup or a sandwich.

When Katherine Anne Porter was a little girl, her mother sent her out to the backyard and had her talk to a peach tree for 30 minutes at a time.  Her task was to keep the flow of words coming, never too light or too deep.  Her mother thought this would be a useful skill in later life.  If only I had undergone this training too.  I am an introvert.  I will never have great social skills, but I have come to appreciate the art of small talk, or safe talk, and I have worked to improve.  I do best at it among seniors.

The best comment yesterday was one I overheard:  She said to me, “I know you’re supposed to teach your children to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom.  But I just tell them, ‘Don’t pee on your hands.’” Wish I had caught the context for this one!  It’s a good insight, one you’re not likely to hear at a theology seminar.

“I kept steady to meetings, spent First-days after noon chiefly in reading the Scriptures and other good books, and was early convinced in my mind that true religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverence God the Creator and learn to exercise true justice and goodness, not only towards all men but also towards the brute creatures; that as the mind was moved on an inward principle to love God as an invisible, incomprehensible being, on the same principle it was moved to love him in all his manifestations in the visible world; that as by his breath the flame of life was kindled in the animal and sensitive creatures, to say we love God as unseen and at the same time exercise cruelty towards the least creature moving by his life, or by life derived from him, was a contradiction in itself.

John Woolman (1720-1772)

Here a flutist rehearses Ashokan Farewell before a wedding at Hidden Lake Gardens on Saturday. My wife performed the ceremony and enlisted me as the sound technician.  I pushed a button, twice.  I also enjoyed Ashokan Farewell twice.  The beauty of the place and the music offset the faint smell of manure in the air — there is a reason these gardens look so beautiful.

A gifted musician draws my attention.  They give themselves to an instrument for years of practice, and on a particular day they devote their talent to a single piece of music.  The beauty of music rises from selectivity as much as skill.  A musician plays one instrument, not many, and from many potential pieces chooses one.

Like a musician, a Quaker practices selectivity.  They envision a “cosmic tenderness” that infuses all created things.  Out of this universal reality, a particular concern will rise in a Friend’s mind — a specific way they are to make Divine Love real in daily life.

The state of having a concern has a foreground and a background.  In the foreground is the special task, uniquely illuminated, toward which we feel a special yearning or care… In the background is the second level, or layer, of universal concern for all the multitude of good things that need doing.  Toward them all we feel kindly, but we are dismissed from active service in most of them.  (Thomas Kelly)

In other words, do not try to do all things.  Devote your time to your concern, the way you need to activate love in the world.  Look with favor on the concerns of others, but if you do not feel an “inbreathing” that tells you to join them, you need not; and if they try to press their concern on you, you are free to say no.  God has not asked you to play that song.

Yesterday our church staff met at a lovely home for a day of planning.  We talked through the calendar for the coming year and discussed events and programs to populate it.  Folks kicked off sandals at the door and went barefoot through the meeting.  Some sipped coffee in tall clear mugs. We love our church and want it to thrive.  A thread of nervousness ran through the meeting because we worry about the future, as many churches do.  It’s human nature to worry about things even as you plan for them.

All the while we talked, this red flower, whose name I do not know, sat outside on the back porch, silent in the sunlight.  The flower blooms without effort on its part.  Its nature is to bloom.  I want my church to bloom with one-tenth the beauty of this red flower.  The thing about a bloom, though, is that you are helpless to make it happen.  You plant, water and tend, but the bloom is extra.  It’s like grace — unearned and undeserved.

Each year at this time two women set up shop in our church for hearing and vision tests.  Moms (usually) show up with one or two small children in tow, who then go through brief tests to check on how well their ears and eyes are working.  I’ve never asked where the two women are from — the health department probably.  They put up these green signs to let parents know where to go since most are unfamiliar with our building.  I have often set up chairs in the hallways for them to sit on while they wait.  They whole process takes only a few minutes.

The Quaker faith centers on our interior capacity for hearing and vision.  Friends covet the ancient experience of people in the Bible:  “The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.”  (Gen 15:1)

The one corner-stone of belief upon which the Society of Friends is built is the conviction that God does indeed communicate with each one of the spirits he has made, in a direct and living inbreathing of some measure of the breath of his own life; that he never leaves himself without a witness in the heart as well as in the surroundings of man; and that in order clearly to hear the divine voice thus speaking to us we need to be still; to be alone with him in the secret place of his presence; that all flesh should keep silence before him.

Caroline Stephen

Quakers listen for a speaking voice deep in their hearts, and they watch for a leading, an opening.  Historian Rufus Jones says business meetings in the Society of Friends that require only 20 minutes of actual agenda items may take an hour or two because Quakers spend long stretches of time in attentive silence, waiting for God’s direction to make itself clear. I have been in a lot of church meetings but never any that featured silence and silent watchfulness.  In our meetings, we ask for divine guidance at the beginning and spend the rest of the time listening to ourselves talk.

I benefit from listening to others.  In meetings the wisdom people will share out of their life experiences is always instructive to me.  Only, there is an interior voice, an inner light, that I fear we attend to too little in our churches.  The question I am asking today is how we can cultivate the inner ability to hear and see.  The Quakers say silence is the place to start.

“It is, indeed, not easy to define the precise kind or amount of luxury which is incompatible with Christian simplicity; or rather it must of necessity vary.  But the principle is, I think, clear.  In life, as in art, whatever does not help, hinders.  All that is superfluous to the main object of life must be cleared away, if that object is to be fully attained.  In all kinds of effort, whether moral, or intellectual, or physical, the essential condition of vigour is a severe pruning away of redundance.”

Caroline Stephen (1834-1909)

I feel ambivalent about the Ground Zero Mosque, as many Americans do.  My head tells me mosque planners should be able to build on their own land without interference.  But my heart wishes they would build elsewhere, as even some Muslims have suggested.  Mosque supporters assume the facts are all on their side, but the issue is more about emotions and memories.  I once visited the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.  It is a beautiful building, designed by Christian architects, I was told.  Afterward I asked our Jewish guide how Jews felt about Islamic holy sites on Temple Mount.  He gave me a look as if to say, “I can’t begin to answer that.”  Ground Zero isn’t Temple Mount, but in a small way I sympathize with his unspoken wish that they would have built somewhere else.

“Grace is a spiritual inward thing, an holy Seed, sown by God, springing up in the heart.  People have got a notion of grace, but know not the thing.  Do not thou matter the notion, but feel the thing; and know thy heart more and more ploughed up by the Lord, that his Seed’s grace may grow up in thee more and more, and thou mayest daily feel thy heart as a garden, more and more enclosed, watered, dressed, and delighted in by him.”

Isaac Pennington (1616-1679)

Gordon Atkinson offers guidance to believers on what to do with doubt.  His best advice is to continue on with your religious practices even in times of doubting.  It’s like when a man asked the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins how to have more faith, and Hopkins told him, “Give alms.”  Actions nurture beliefs, or undermine them.  Gordon also warns against being too proud of your doubts, bragging about them and trying to create doubts in others.

I have seen two opposite errors with doubt.  One group elevates doubt to the level of a sacrament.  Skepticism is a bright silver badge on their lapel.  The other side tries to stamp out any doubt in the life of the believer, but this is simply unrealistic.  If we are human, we are going to go through times of doubt and struggle in life.  It is inevitable.

There is a well-worn passage in the Bible that says,

“You must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed about by the wind.  Those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord; they are double-minded and unstable in all they do.” (James 1:6-8 TNIV)

Taken alone, this text condemns doubt in any form and makes it an obstacle to faith.  But when you put this admonition from James in the context of the rest of scripture, a more complex picture emerges.  Look at the book of Psalms, for example.  On one page of the Psalms there might be joyous expressions of trust and praise, and on the next page admissions of doubt, despair and desolation.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (22:1)  These are words Jesus Himself uttered from the cross as He was dying.  So for us in our times of pain and confusion, we doubt that God is still present with us.

The key for us in those times is to take those doubts to God and lay them at His feet, as Jesus Himself models for us.  He doesn’t simply cry out that God has forsaken Him, He phrases the plea in the form of a question that He addresses to God.  In other words, even in His most extreme moment, He refuses to give up His lifelong habit of praying.  Which is exactly what Gordon Atkinson suggests.  When in doubt, keep up your practice of prayer.

Doubt is like fire.  It is useful to us in small, controlled doses, like when it helps us cook a meal.  Walking through times of doubt can actually strengthen faith.  But be careful the fire doesn’t grow out of control because it may threaten to burn the house down.  How to keep it under control?  Perhaps one method is to channel doubt into our prayers rather than let it drive us away from God.

Here is an article about the 750,000 Americans who live off the power grid. They power their homes with home grown solar, wind or geothermal energy instead of public utilities.  Their numbers are growing by ten percent a year.  The up-front investments pay for themselves in a decade or so with an absence of utility bills.  When the power goes out for everyone else, the lights are still on in these homes.  They see themselves as pioneers in a cleaner energy future.  Suddenly it’s cool again to be a rugged individualist.

I am reading Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings.  Six authors are represented, from the 17th through the 20th centuries.  The largest selections go to George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, and the early American Quaker John Woolman.  It’s striking how the early Quakers went “off the grid” spiritually.  They looked toward an Inner Light rather than institutional religion.  They found power in themselves, not in formal church structures.  They had their excesses, and they suffered terrible persecutions.  Quakers called people to the inwardness of faith:

“So I called all people to the true teacher, out of the hirelings such as teach for fleece and make a prey upon the people, for the Lord was come to teach his people by his spirit… The day of the Lord was come, and Christ was come to teach his people himself and how they might find their teacher within, when they were in their labours and in their beds.

“Therefore be still a while from thy own thoughts, searching, seeking, desires and imaginations, and be stayed on the principle of God in thee, to stay thy mind upon God, up to God; and thou wilt find strength from him and find him to be a present help in time of trouble, in need, and to be a God at hand.

“And your growth in the Seed is in the silence where you may find a feeding of the bread of life… and there is innocence and simplicity of heart and spirit is lived in and the life is fed on.  ~ George Fox

Some of the great heroes and heroines of the Bible lived off the grid spiritually:  Abraham, Sarah, John the Baptist.  In a similar way, there are a lot of people today who live by faith off the grid, apart from religious institutions, and their numbers are growing.  They may be looking for fresh wineskins to put their new wine in.

To learn how to live off the power grid, go here.  To learn how to live off the grid spiritually, do what George Fox did:  go for a long solitary walk and wait for God.

Our church sponsored a team in the Relay for Life cancer walk.  My wife and I walked in the opening Parade of Teams on Friday evening, and then again this morning at 3:30 and 6:30.  Our team was one of 80 entered, each keeping a walker on the track during the entire 24 hour event.  A walker above makes her way through an archway of balloons before 7 AM.  Our team sat through the night around a raised iron fire pit with cut-out stars and moons on it.  We watched one woman walk briskly through all the night hours, a glowing baton in her hand.  There is something quasi religious about an all-night vigil in search of healing, like the crowds that followed after Jesus hoping to touch the hem of his robe.  The event raised over $145,000 for cancer research.  Many of us registered for the CPS-3 cancer study too.  We had to fill out a medical questionnaire and give four vials of blood.  It’s odd to see someone in gloves handling your own blood; it goes from your body to a tube with a number on it.  They ran out of supplies and had to turn people away who wanted to join the study.

This is a review of Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, Revised and Expanded Edition, by Jack Rogers.  (WJK Press, 2009)

Summary

Jack Rogers begins by telling his story.  He once opposed homosexuality but later changed his mind to accept and affirm it.  Then he moves on to a historical review, looking at ways Christians have used the Bible to defend slavery and subjugate women.  They interpreted the Bible in a literal way rather than through the “lens of the life and ministry of Jesus.”  Opponents of homosexuality are doing the same today, he says.  He continues his historical survey with the change in the 20th century, as mainstream Protestant theology adopted Neo-orthodoxy and its Christ-centered approach to the Bible.

He summarizes seven principles for interpreting the Bible:  1) remember Christ is the center; 2) focus on the plain text of scripture; 3) depend on guidance of the Spirit; 4) follow the rule of faith and 5) the rule of love; 6) study the historical and cultural context; and 7) put the text within the whole story of the Bible.  He reviews the main texts from the Bible used to oppose homosexual relations; none of them properly interpreted, he believes, condemn loving same-sex relations among gays and lesbians today.  He recounts personal stories of gays and gay couples he has known, highlighting their loving, faithful lives in a society hostile to them.  He notes that psychology no longer considers homosexuality a disorder.  He gives specific directives for changing the constitution of the Presbyterian Church USA.  In the last chapter he offers a sampling of queer theology, ending with the Ethiopian eunuch, who in this school of thought is a gay Christian.

Reaction

I am sympathetic to this book’s aim but not its approach.  The book argues too much from historical analogies.  It draws a moral equivalent, for example, between any current day opponent of homosexuality and 19th century slave holders and race bigots.  But this comparison is too polemical and will only alienate the people Rogers needs to persuade.  Also, the book’s interpretation of key Bible texts on homosexuality is not convincing.  It’s best, I think, simply to admit that on the rare occasions when biblical writers mention same-sex relations, they portray it as a sin.  The question is what to do with this and what is the larger purpose of the Bible.

A better approach, and one Rogers gives fragments of through the book, is to focus on Jesus and to root acceptance of gays and lesbians in gospel hospitality.  It was surprising that a book with Jesus as the first word in the title said so little about him.  The book needs a chapter at the beginning on Jesus in the Gospels, how he welcomed anyone who had faith in him, who turned their life over to God and began to perform good works. Rogers believes in the hospitality of Jesus, but it’s a minor theme in this book.  Making it the main theme would be a more positive approach than drawing analogies to historical injustices.

I appreciated his seven principles for interpreting scripture and the stories he told of friendships with gays and lesbians over the years.  One paragraph where he recounted a teaching relationship with a gay student at Fuller Seminary was sad and illuminating.  Rogers needed more stories like this in the book.  I also valued the occasional nod to other writers like Lewis Smedes.  I think this book will appeal mainly to those already with Rogers on this issue, especially members of the Presbyterian Church USA.  Rogers is a former moderator of the PCUSA General Assembly.

We spent a week at three-colored Crystal Lake in northern Michigan where we stayed at a conference center of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  The first days we enjoyed alone time at a cottage on the lake available for pastors and their families, and later we moved to the cabins for a three day mini-camp with young children.  So the week was part work, part retreat.

During the retreat part, I read The Four Gospels: Contemporary English Version.  I sat on the lakeside and read the story of Jesus as told from four perspectives.  This paperback edition is about the length of a novel, and the CEV makes it easy to read.  Since the story ends with Jesus and his disciples walking along a beach, it was fitting to read it at a lake.  I noted a few themes while reading:

• Gospel values appear again and again in the story:  mercy, humility, poverty, integrity, purity and simplicity.  Jesus commends these qualities.
• Jesus healed A LOT of people.  Some are individual healings, and many are references to masses of people healed.  It struck me how many lives were changed — hundreds or thousands — as Jesus released people from their illnesses.
• The Gospels presume a spiritual realm beyond our senses.  The story doesn’t make sense apart from this.  Jesus is constantly doing spiritual battle in this spiritual realm.
• The story focuses on his death, but it isn’t explained much, apart from cryptic comments.  You need the letters of the New Testament to explore the theological meaning of Jesus’ death.
• Institutional religion looks bad in the Jesus story.  He respects religion itself, but he criticizes its leaders and spends most of his time outside its walls.
• Jesus only requires two things:  he wants you to put your faith in him, and he wants you to live a life of love.  Faith and Love.  It’s simple.  We make it more complicated.

My wife and I are already talking about going up to the cottage again next year for a full week, as well as being counselors at the mini-camp again, but perhaps at different times during the summer.  Whenever we go, I’ll take my copy of The Four Gospels again.  It’s a good refresher course on gospel values.

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet… Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
(1 Tim 2.11-12; 1 Cor 14.34-35 TNIV)

These are the ‘silencing’ passages in the New Testament.  These texts prevent women from preaching and holding leadership positions today in conservative Protestant churches.  There are large evangelical churches in my community that do not allow women to preach or hold leadership positions because of these texts and a belief in the inerrancy and absolute authority of the Bible.

Scot McKnight wants to change this.  He wants conservative Protestant churches — and all churches — to embrace the gifts God gives to women as well as men.  He wants women to preach and exercise leadership alongside men.  He devotes the last section (chapters 10-15) of his book The Blue Parakeet to this theme.  He surveys the story of the Bible and finds women exercising leadership in many ways:  Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Mary, Junia and Phoebe.  He lifts up a text that Peter quotes on the Day of Pentecost:

In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2.17-18 TNIV)

God empowers men and women to lead the church and accomplish His purposes.

McKnight interprets the silencing passages in their cultural context.  Paul was not banning women from leadership or preaching for all time; his words were addressed to disruptive, uneducated women spreading false teaching and creating disorder in the church.  Paul wanted them to be silent so that they could learn the orthodox faith, which they could then teach to others.  In this way, Paul was not contradicting what he says elsewhere in his writings, notably his belief that in Christ there is no male and female (Gal 3.28).  Cultural studies of the ancient Mediterranean world identify a movement scholars call the “New Roman Woman,” a kind of hyper-feminism of the time.  Paul, McKnight says, was worried that women affiliated with this movement would undermine the church and hinder its mission.  The silencing passages grow out of this concern; they were never meant to be normative for all time.

This is a good example of how McKnight uses his own method of reading the Bible and rethinking what it teaches, an approach that intertwines story, listening and discernment.  He pays attention to the larger narrative of the Bible to put in context two difficult passages and chart a way forward on a particular issue.

This is my last post on The Blue Parakeet.  This book has given me much food to chew on.  The topic he highlights at the end, women in leadership, is less of an issue in the churches I serve, but the principles he lays out are helpful in dealing with other questions.

_____

ADDED:  I came across this article in which a woman wrestles with these very issues McKnight addresses in this last section of the book.

Ecclesiastes is on my mind. Life feels discouraging lately, in church and in society. The economy is in a hard place.  Long time business owners are closing their doors.  Unused factory buildings have weeds growing in the parking lot.  Houses along the street where I walk Jazz are empty.  At church we are working harder than ever, but we seem to be falling farther behind.

In the midst of all this, Ecclesiastes has a special power and relevance. Solomon observed all that is done “under the sun” and found it full of vanity. All of life ultimately is vain and precarious.  In spite of the great store we put on it, it will disappoint us. The business or the organization that is thriving today may falter and disappear before long.  It is best not to put your final trust in these temporal things.

This is not to say there aren’t joys in life.  There are simple things to be savored each day.  “Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.” (11.7)  We should enjoy the pleasures of work, nature and family life, the book reminds us.  There is an inherent goodness to created things, even as we sense their fleetingness.

A few years ago I read a book on the history of Adrian, Michigan, where I live.  Often the author mentioned a certain business or group that met in a particular place, and I would picture the location now in my mind, and usually either the building no longer exists or it is being used today for a totally different thing.  All things pass away, as Ecclesiastes says.

Long ago when I knew a little Hebrew, I took an exegesis class on Ecclesiastes.  We sat in a classroom and took turns translating verses aloud.  One day, early on in the class, my turn came to translate 2:17, “So I hated life, because what is done under the sun is grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.”  I remember right after I said this sentence aloud, the whole class burst out laughing.  I was going through a hard time in life, and I must have said these words with great feeling!  Ecclesiastes is good medicine for people who are weary and sick at heart.

But the pessimism and realism of Ecclesiastes needs to be tempered with the Christian hope of eternal life.  Ecclesiastes says death is the end for all no matter who they are or how powerful they are. Which is true, as far as it goes.  To the Christian, though, death is not the end. The resurrection of Jesus has brought to light the life and immortality of the gospel (2 Tim. 1.10).

So Ecclesiastes helps me put this life in perspective. It is impossible for this earthly life to satisfy. Only Christ can satisfy, and only his spiritual kingdom is an eternal home. This Old Testament book reminds me of a simple truth: this world was never meant to fulfill our deepest longings.  Our ultimate joy is only found in eternal life with God.

J drew this tree on the sidewalk in front of the church last night at our All Church Picnic, an event we typically have during the summer.  It was unclear whether the picnic would happen with a big wind storm at 4 PM, knocking out power to many in the city.  But by 5:30, all was clear.  The church provided hot dogs and drinks; folks were asked to bring a dish to share.  There was plenty of food to be had.  We ran out of hot dog buns and one point, and someone had to make a Bun Run, but that was the only glitch.

The kids enjoyed water games on the lawn, and the adults stood in clumps or talked around tables.  There was also a table of former members of the Baptist church who have migrated over to ours after theirs sadly closed earlier in the spring.  I’m glad we can provide them with a spiritual home.  It must be hard to have to leave a church that’s been a part of your life for so long.  We say the church isn’t a building, but we do get attached to our own bricks and mortar, don’t we?

There were samples of sidewalk chalk artistry on display.  The tree above reminded me of the words of Psalm 1.  The righteous person “is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.” I’m not sure whether the things on the branches above are leaves or fruit.  I don’t know what the big white dot is on the trunk — maybe a knot hole, or an eye.  The tree is watching us with its one eye.  Maybe it’s like a whale, with another eye on the opposite side.

Or better, it is the tree of life spoken of in the Bible:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. (Prov 13.12)

Chapters 9 and 10 of The Blue Parakeet make up the section on discernment.  We have attended to scripture and adopted it.  Now it is time to act.  The acting requires discernment.

As we listen to God speak to us in our world through God’s ancient Word, we discern — through God’s Spirit and in the context of our community of faith — a pattern of how to live in our world.

He notes how we are already practicing discernment whether we realize it or not.  We don’t obey all the precepts in the Sermon On the Mount, or at least most of us don’t.  We no longer see circumcision as an everlasting ordinance for believers, as Genesis says it is.  A key part of the purpose of his book is to cause us to look at the discerning (picking, choosing, interpreting) we are already engaged in and give an account of it.

He doesn’t offer a method of discernment.  It is too messy to be methodical, and it will lead to a diversity of views.  This is the nature of the thing.  “Certainty and unanimity in discernment are not the world in which we live.”  He notes how our discerning does change over time because of theological developments, scientific discoveries or cultural shifts; these are part of the environment in which we make our discernment.

A key concept is embodied in the little word with.  We listen with other people.  We listen with tradition at the table.  We listen with humility.  We listen with an awareness that God is speaking to us now.  Once we have heard a word, we act on it in faith.

As an example, in the next five chapters he will explore an issue:  women in church ministry.

Chapter 6 of The Blue Parakeet begins the section on listening.  McKnight contrasts two approaches to the Bible:  seeing the Bible as an authority and seeing the Bible as fostering a relationship.  “God is a person, the Bible is paper,” he notes.  To view the Bible primarily as an authority leads to submission, but understanding it as a vehicle to create a relationship does not.

I wondered if there are people who do not accept his dichotomy, who see the Bible in authoritative and relational terms.

He also emphasizes the conversational nature of the Bible itself, with different authors in the Bible in conversation with one another.  But ultimately God is the Bible’s author or artist, and the Bible is His communication with us.  McKnight also touches on the conversation believers have had through the ages about the Bible’s conversation.  This is tradition.  Tradition is a partner who sits at the table with us as we enter into the conversation ourselves.

In chapter 7, he links loving and listening.  “Our relationship to the God of the Bible is to listen to God so that we can love him more deeply and love others more completely.”  He identifies three parts to genuine listening:  attention, absorption and action.  We have not truly listened if we have only paid attention without also absorbing what we have heard and acting on it.

In chapter 8, he notes a principle from Augustine, that the whole purpose of the Bible is to make us more loving, a theme from the last chapter.  The Bible’s mission is to make us people who love God and love others.

He uses a classical text on the nature of scripture to explain where all this goes:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God’s people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.  (2 Timothy 3:14-17 TNIV)

He notes not only the scripture in Timothy’s life but also the ones who taught him the faith, “those from whom you have learned it.”  McKnight links them to having wise mentors in our lives and in a broader sense with the wisdom of the ages embodied in the great tradition.

He emphasizes the “so that” in the last phrase.  Everything leads here.  All that we learn in the Bible is to equip us for good works.  Good works are “concrete responses to needs we see in our neighbors.”  At the end I was wondering about these good works.  All Christians agree we should do good works, but they often disagree fiercely on the shape of those good works in the larger society.  What is needed is discernment, and I see that is the topic of the next section.

He uses an illustration of a water slide.  The slide is the gospel.  One side of the slide is the Bible, and the other side is tradition (wise mentors).  The water on the slide is the Holy Spirit, carrying us down to the deep waters of the world in the pool below.

(Image by Brandt Luke Zorn)

This is a video of people being arrested for handing out copies of the Gospel of John (in English and Arabic) outside an Arab festival in Dearborn, Michigan, which has a large Muslim population.  I looked at the group’s website.  One of their leaders is a former Muslim who is now an evangelical Christian.  They engage in evangelistic outreach to Muslims.  By posting the video, I am not necessarily approving everything about them.  The video indicates they acted in a peaceable way.  It concerns me that the Dearborn police seem more intent to protect the sensibilities of Muslims than to uphold the First Amendment.  There should be freedom to pass out the Gospel of John on a public street in Michigan.